01/03 Links Pt1: Hamas's Fatah and the No-State Solution; The PLO’s zero-sum game ~ EoZ

From Ian:

This is important for Israel to understand because the clock is ticking. Obama’s onslaught has made clear that the Democratic Party no longer supports Israel. Like the PLO, Obama and his advisers view the PLO’s conflict with Israel as a zero-sum game and they have cast their lots with the terrorists against the Jewish state.
It is to be expected that under the leadership of former president Obama and Ellison the Democrats will expand the openness of their hostility to Israel.
Under these circumstance, Israel has but two years – until the mid-term congressional elections when the Democrats may be empowered in Congress – to decide what it wants to do with Judea and Samaria.
Last week the government signaled that its first step will be to apply Israeli law to Ma’ale Adumim. A bill to this effect is expected to be brought before the government shortly after Obama leaves office.
While a good first move, our leaders must recognize that it needs to be quickly followed up by additional administrative changes. The goal of those additional steps is to dismantle the military government which administers Area C – 60% of Judea and Samaria – by 2019 and transfer full administrative responsibility for the area, which includes Israel’s border with Jordan and all the Israeli communities of Judea and Samaria, to the government.
The time has come for the government to move ahead boldly. In their post-Obama, post-2334 state, the Israeli Left and its American Jewish supporters are in no position to stop the government from doing what needs to be done. But, if the government fails to act now, when the Democrats return in two or four years, the opportunity now upon us may be lost forever as the PLO comes back to win its zerosum game against Israel.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hamas's Fatah and the No-State Solution

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas declared that 2017 will be the "year of international recognition of the State of Palestine."
The melee in Gaza exposes as the lie that it is Abbas's repeated claim of a unified Fatah able to lead the Palestinians towards statehood. Incredibly, Abbas seeks global recognition of a Palestinian state at a time when the flames in his own backyard are set to engulf him and his questionable regime.
More bad news from the poll: if presidential elections were to be held today, Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the terrorist group Hamas, would beat Abbas by 49% to 45%.
Palestinians are now openly talking about two different Fatah factions. After Abbas's decision to strip the legislators of their parliamentary immunity, six Fatah PLC members participated in a Hamas-sponsored meeting of the PLC in the Gaza Strip. This was the first time since 2007 that such a move had been made.
Fatah leaders in the Gaza Strip, unlike their colleagues in the West Bank, are de facto recognizing the Hamas rule over the Gaza Strip. This is wonderful news for Hamas, whose leader, Ismail Haniyeh is likely to defeat Abbas in a presidential election.
The Fatah gunmen who marched in the Gaza Strip courtesy of Hamas are not supporters of Abbas. Instead, they represent the "other face" of Fatah -- the one that does not believe in any peace process with Israel and shares Hamas's ambition of destroying Israel.

JCPA: What does the December 23, 2016 UN Security Council Resolution contribute to the peace process?

The UN Security Council resolution tries to establish whether the settlements are legal or not. Its major reference point is the 1949 4th Geneva Convention, adopted in the aftermath of the Second World War when the Axis powers, particularly the German army, were seizing territories, throwing out the populations that lived there, and bringing in German citizens to live in those areas. But is Israel forcibly throwing the Arab population out of the West Bank? No.
Where the principles of the 4th Geneva Convention are very much relevant and where are they not being applied is in Syria where the army of President Assad and its Iranian and Russian allies are engaged in mass expulsions of the Sunni Arab population. They are also bringing in Shiite population to settle in Syria from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, altering the demographic balance inside Syria. So the UN is ignoring the real violators of the 4th Geneva Convention who are changing the demographic makeup of the Syrian state to serve the interests of expansionist Iran.

PMW: PA cartoon: Israel murders Santa Claus

Exploiting the Christmas spirit, the official Palestinian Authority daily used Santa Claus to promote the PA's libel that Israel "executes" innocent Palestinians, under the pretext that they tried to carry out terror attacks.
The cartoon above shows an Israeli soldier standing above a bleeding Santa Claus who was just shot at a security checkpoint. The soldier says: "He tried to carry out a stabbing operation."
A mosque and church are seen among the buildings in the background. [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 28, 2016]
Another cartoon in the official PA daily showed Santa Claus being accosted by two Israeli soldiers with Stars of David on their helmets. Santa is held at gunpoint while the second soldier is holding a knife, presumably about to plant it next to Santa to fabricate a stabbing attack by Santa in order to create a pretext to murder him. [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 26, 2016]
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that PA and Fatah leaders have reiterated this libel numerous times, even about terror attacks that were documented by security cameras.
After many Palestinian terrorists were killed while carrying out stabbing attacks during the terror wave in 2015-2016, the PA started to claim that Israel planted the knives next to the "innocent" Palestinian "victims."

PMW: Fatah: “To be a real Palestinian you must be a self-sacrificing fighter”

Abbas’ Fatah wished “the real Palestinians” a “good year” in a post on Facebook, parading some of the movement’s role models, among them several “Martyrs,” all of whom were either murderers or heads of murderous terror organizations.
The largest picture among the role models on Fatah’s image above is terrorist murderer Dalal Mughrabi who led the killing of 37 Israelis in a bus hijacking in 1978. Additional pictures (left to right) are PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, terrorist Omar Al-Qassem, Yasser Arafat, Islamic Jihad founder Fathi Shaqaqi, Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin, and Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Abu Ali Mustafa.
Fatah described what it means to be “a real Palestinian,” and predicted that “a people whose leaders are Martyrs” - as the leaders singled out in the photos, except Abbas - “will undoubtedly triumph with Allah’s help”:
Text on image: “Fatah embraces its people and praises the Martyrs.
To be a real Palestinian, you must be a self-sacrificing fighter (Fida’i), know much and reveal little, search for the security in the heart of the danger, get used to having no time to cry over endings but rather to always have new beginnings.
Long life to you and long live the anniversary of the Launch [of Fatah] (Intilaqa), and may it be a good year.
A people whose leaders are Martyrs will undoubtedly triumph with Allah’s help...”
[Official Fatah Facebook page, Dec. 27, 2016]

MK Glick vs UNRWA

MK Yehuda Glick(Likud) reports that UNRWA textbooks demonize and delegitimize Israel repeatedly, fomenting Palestinians hatred of Israel instead of working to give refugees a future and hope.

Qanta Ahmed: Donald Trump’s Eisenhower moment on Islamism

As President-elect Donald Trump’s Cabinet takes shape, critics charge that his administration would be the most anti-Muslim and anti-Iranian. Meanwhile, in Europe, Islamist terrorism continues to escalate: the assassination of Russia’s ambassador by a Turkish man who pledged allegiance to jihad in Arabic during the killing in Ankara, Turkey; a deadly attack at a Berlin Christmas market and the shootings targeting a Muslim prayer center in Zurich.
This is Islamism at work — the indiscriminate targeting of civilians to paralyze secular liberal democracies. As an observant Muslim woman who repudiates Islamism, I believe the Trump administration, rather than being anti-Muslim, will come to be seen as defender of Muslims, and Trump, the Dwight D. Eisenhower of our era.
Many Americans fear the escalation of Muslim xenophobia under a Trump administration, warning of a new McCarthyism against those who practice Islam. Yet in the Middle East, many Muslims see Trump as a sign of U.S. engagement in a Muslim world jaded by an Obama administration remarkable for its disengagement. For Muslims who are sustaining huge losses at the hands Islamist terrorists, Trump’s aggressive anti-radical Islam stance is long overdue.
The Obama administration’s philosophy was dubbed by critics as “willful blindness.” Recall an America unmoved by Iran’s aborted Velvet revolution in 2009, America’s impotent bystander status during the Arab Spring, America’s hasty engagement (and embarrassed disengagement) with Mohammed Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. These examples reveal a profound inability by the United States to distinguish Islam from Islamism.

Eugene Kontorovich: Five ways the Trump administration can negate the anti-Israel U.N. Security Council resolution

The U.S. decision to allow a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements to pass was met with bipartisan condemnation, including from leading players in efforts to achieve a two-state solution, such as Democrats Dennis Ross and George Mitchell.
Of course, the goal of the Obama administration was to box in President-elect Donald Trump’s foreign policy. The most direct way to reject the Security Council Resolution 2334 is to reject the opinions it expresses and act against its recommendations. Trump will likely seek to reverse the measure, not only because of substantial policy disagreements, but to reject the notion that a president can bind his successors more tightly through U.N. action than through statutes or executive orders.
Trump cannot directly reverse the resolution, but he and Congress can take action to negate its ideas, and to create a different reality from the one Resolution 2334 seeks to promote. Here are some ideas — most of which require no legislative action.
1) The U.S. must clearly declare that Israeli settlements do not violate international law. The Security Council resolution says that Jewish settlements in east Jerusalem are illegal and that the Israeli government must prevent them. But the council is neither a legislature nor a court. It cannot create international law. But while Resolution 2334 is not binding, it does contribute to the formation of international legal opinion, which is why the United States must clearly articulate a contrary (and correct) view.
2) The United States should move the embassy not merely to Jerusalem, but to the location of the current Consular Section in the Arnona neighborhood. This is a few hundred meters over the imaginary line across which the United Nations says Jews may not go. Moving the embassy there would be the most tangible rejection of the resolution’s “1967 lines” policy. It would also fulfill the Republican Party platform of moving the embassy to “indivisible” Jerusalem, and be in accordance with the 1995 Jerusalem Embassy Act, which calls for moving the embassy to a “unified” Jerusalem, i.e., including those parts which were reunified in 1967.
3) The United States must clarify that all its treaties or laws applicable to Israel apply fully to all areas under Israel’s civil jurisdiction. Congress already took this approach in the United States-Israel Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act, as well as several recent anti-boycott laws. It must now be generalized, through legislation, presidential proclamations, and new codicils to existing treaties with Israel. For example, Trump could immediately rescind Treasury regulations that require Israel goods from the West Bank to be labeled “Made in West Bank,” and instead direct that they be labeled “Made in Israel,” in line with their underlying customs treatment.
4) Congress should rapidly reintroduce and pass several anti-boycott bills from the outgoing session. In addition, to respond to Resolution 2334’s encouragement of E.U. boycotts aimed at the settlements — but which would inherently spill over to all of Israel — a small amendment must be made to the the anti-boycott provisions of the Export Administration Act, explicitly stating that it applies to boycotts of territories under Israeli jurisdiction.
5) At the United Nations, defunding is one option — but vetoing Security Council resolutions not clearly necessary to the U.S. national interest is another. Strictly applied, this practice would grind the council to a halt, as most of its resolutions merely wag fingers at ongoing conflicts.

NGO Monitor: From Distinction to Boycotts: NGO Language in UN Security Council Resolution 2334

On December 23 2016, UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2334 with a vote of 14 for, 0 against, and 1 abstention (United States). Among other important issues, this resolution adopts the language used by multiple European-funded NGOs promoting anti-Israel campaigns, in the form of incremental strategies leading to full boycotts (BDS). Resolution 2334 repeats their calls on countries (and the EU) “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”
The evolution of this strategy from the NGO campaigns through the EU and now the UNSC was marked by a series of milestones:
May 2012: 22 prominent “humanitarian” NGOs published “Trading Away Peace: How Europe Helps Sustain Illegal Israeli Settlements.” This report advocates a strategy to advance BDS incrementally, first through the “distinction” between settlements across the 1949 armistice lines, and pre-1967 Israel.

What is Obama's End Game on Israel?

The White House clearly colluded in the resolution’s language and the timing (right before the Christmas holiday weekend, the most ideal news-dump timeslot of the year in U.S. media markets). Although previous administrations occasionally abstained on Security Council votes against Israel, these were nearly all in response to specific actions, such as its annexation of the Golan Heights and 1981 air attack on the Iraqi nuclear reactor. This resolution happened because Obama wanted it as part of a larger purpose.
The only conceivable ends toward which orchestration of this resolution would constitute the most rational means is the reinvigoration of the worldwide anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, at the very moment when international preoccupation with jihadist terror and pushback regarding its rampant anti-Semitism were beginning to limit its growth.
With Israelis and Palestinians largely out of the headlines since the collapse of Syria, the rise of ISIS, and Islamist terror assault on Europe, Obama single-handedly brought about what The New York Times casually called the “return of the Palestinian cause to the world stage.” And what university administrator is now going to crack down on student groups calling for a Judenrein Jerusalem when President Obama himself has done just that?
After spending most of his political life disavowing his far-leftist ideological and political roots, has Obama revealed himself to be the radical Third Worldist progressive his critics always suspected he was? Perhaps, but his willingness to shatter this carefully constructed public façade while still in office — and likely weaken the Democratic Party in the process — purely to take action against a nation of only 8 million people on the other side of the globe suggests there is something even more malevolent at work here.

Secretary Kerry’s Suspension of Disbelief

The term “suspension of disbelief” refers to the intentional subordination of critical thinking, documented fact and common sense to one’s zeal and wishful-thinking; one sacrifices realism at the altar of oversimplification and short-term gratification and convenience. US Secretary of State John Kerry’s Dec. 28 speech is guilty of just that, being totally inconsistent with Middle East reality, but consistent with the secretary’s 31-year foreign policy track record.
While serving as a senator, Kerry was a frequent-flyer to Damascus, where he allowed his own idyllic vision of the globe and his hosts’ duplicitous rhetoric to cloud reality. He has contended that Hafez and Bashar al-Assad – two of the world’s most ferocious, cold-blooded dictators — were constructive leaders, having referred to Bashar, who terrorizes his own people and facilitated the infiltration into Iraq of Islamic terrorists whose aim was to murder Americans, as a generous reformer and a man of his word. In March 2011, Kerry stated: “My judgment is that Syria will move, Syria will change as it embraces a legitimate relationship with the US and the West.” Indeed, Syria has changed, but contrary to Kerry’s optimistic assessment, the change was the murder of 400,000 and the creation of 10 million refugees.
In his 1997 book, The New War (available on Amazon for $0.01), Kerry demonstrated his inclination to dismiss the writing on the wall when it was in conflict with his wishful thinking: “Terrorist organizations with specific political agendas may be encouraged and emboldened by Yasser Arafat’s transformation from outlaw to statesman.”
In 2012, Kerry contended that the Arab Street was transitioning toward democracy, calling it “the most important geo-strategic shift since the fall of the Berlin Wall.” He referred to the Arab Tsunami as an Arab Spring and described the regime changes in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen as youth-driven, Facebook revolutions. Kerry also supported regime-change in Libya, which has transformed that country into a leading global platform of Islamic terrorism.

Yisrael Medad: John Kerry’s True Intentions for Jerusalem

Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent speech on Israel contained a potentially dangerous element that has alluded the attention of many, including the speech’s detractors.
Kerry’s vision of peace seems fairly straightforward. Jerusalem will be “the internationally recognized capital of the two states,” and “freedom of access to the holy sites consistent with the established status quo” will be assured.
Kerry said that this phrasing repeated previous declarations about the city’s future. But by adding the words “internationally recognized,” Kerry has tried to seriously damage Israel.
American Jewish Congress president Jack Rosen was right when he said that Security Council Resolution 2334 “systematically removes Israel’s sovereignty over east Jerusalem, which contains both Judaism’s and Christianity’s holy sites”.
But Kerry was intimating something else, and it is in this section:
Jerusalem is the most sensitive issue for both sides, and the solution will have to meet the needs not only of the parties, but of all three monotheistic faiths…the holy sites that are sacred to billions of people around the world must be protected and remain accessible and the established status quo maintained.
By saying that the solution for Jerusalem “needs not only of the parties, but of all three monotheistic faiths,” Kerry set the stage for the resurrection of the infamous “Special International Regime.” This idea was first outlined in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181, Part 1; it would place Jerusalem “under a special international regime [that] shall be administered by the United Nations.”
So what would happen if Kerry’s vision came to pass?

First they passed UN Resolution 2334 – then they danced

The problem is simpler than you think. Kerry, Obama and the nations are in a uproar because the Jewish people can no longer be routed into cattle cars for shipment to Auschwitz -- but have the daring to have their own country. The Jews have a home. That's what irks them...and that's the entire business in a nutshell.
The worst part of it, for me, was that they were having fun. This, Resolution 2334, was not simply an act to deprive Israel of its sovereignty. It was a party.
A good time was had by all, all 15 members of the Security Council who raised arms to forever be known as dirty rotten scoundrels.
I include Samantha Power. Right. She didn’t vote. She abstained. Same thing. Was she among the revelers? I don’t know.
But if your eyes were quick, you saw what happened immediately after the deed was done. The delegates jumped to their feet doing a jig.
The frivolity could not be missed. There was applause. There was handshaking. There was backslapping – hi-fives all around. Whoopee – we did it, they cheered.
A good day for the world.

Why Israeli settlements are not a violation of international law

There is simply no legitimate comparison between Israeli citizens’ vote, through their wallet and their feet, and the millions of Germans and others who were actively required by their own government to move from their country into newly occupied zones elsewhere.
This position is shared by various international law scholars such as Professor Eugene Rostow (former Under Secretary of State, former dean of Yale Law School, and author of Security Council Resolution 242) who wrote:
[T]he Convention prohibits many of the inhumane practices of the Nazis and the Soviet Union during and before the Second World War – the mass transfer of people into and out of occupied territories for purposes of extermination, slave labor or colonization, for example….The Jewish settlers in the West Bank are most emphatically volunteers. They have not been “deported” or “transferred” to the area by the Government of Israel, and their movement involves none of the atrocious purposes or harmful effects on the existing population it is the goal of the Geneva Convention to prevent.” American Journal of International Law, Vol. 84, 1990, p. 719.
And Professor Julius Stone, one of the 20th century’s leading international law experts, who wrote:
Irony would…be pushed to the absurdity of claiming that Article 49(6), designed to prevent repetition of Nazi-type genocidal policies of rendering Nazi metropolitan territories judenrein, has now come to mean that…the West Bank…must be made judenrein and must be so maintained, if necessary by the use of force by the government of Israel against its own inhabitants. Common sense as well as correct historical and functional context excludes so tyrannical a reading of Article 49(6).” “Israel and Palestine, Assault on the Law of Nations” discourse 2, pg. 179-181.
But, let us play devil’s advocate, and assume the Israeli government’s allowance of its citizens to live and build within its borders is a violation of article 49. Then, are the settlements illegal under international law?
The answer is still no, here is why:
Any question of legal validity under international law should be resolved by the fact the Palestinian-Authority, under Yasser Arafat, signed the Oslo Accords with Israel. This was an internationally recognized agreement to divide jurisdiction of the territory between Israel and the newly created Palestinian Authority. Under this agreement, Israelis have full jurisdiction to live and build on the designated 60% of the territory. Therefore, any building in this territory is completely legitimate under international law through the Oslo Agreement.
So there you have it, in all the possible stages of the legal argument:
Israel can’t be an occupier because it likely has superior title to the territory in the first place. Even if it had no title to the territory, the Fourth Geneva Convention can’t apply here. And even if it could apply here, Israel would be a legal occupier rather than an illegal one, since Israel hasn’t violated the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention (making the settlements legal rather than illegal). Lastly, even if Israel’s settlements were a violation of article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Oslo Accords have given both Israel and the Palestinian Authority the right to live and build in their allotted jurisdictions.

History Repeats Itself, From Begin to Netanyahu

Clearly the nations of the world don’t respect Israeli democracy or leadership, and Netanyahu was right to summon the American ambassador for an explanation. Similarly, in 1981, Prime Minister Begin summoned the US ambassador to his home, and read him the following statement:
Now you once again declare that you are punishing Israel. What kind of expression is this – “punishing Israel”? Are we a vassal state of yours? Are we a banana republic? Are we youths of fourteen who, if they don’t behave properly, are slapped across the fingers? Let me tell you who this government is composed of. It is composed of people whose lives were spent in resistance, in fighting and in suffering. You will not frighten us with “punishments.” He who threatens us will find us deaf to his threats. We are only prepared to listen to rational arguments. You have no right to “punish” Israel – and I protest at the very use of this term.
You want to make Israel a hostage of the memorandum of understanding. I regard your announcement suspending the consultations on the memorandum as the abrogation (by you) of the memorandum. No “sword of Damocles” is going to hang over our head. So we duly take note of the fact that you have abrogated the memorandum of understanding. The people of Israel has lived 3,700 years without a memorandum of understanding with America – and it will continue to live for another 3,700.
Prime Minister Begin said it best, and its worth repeating when he told the United States Israel was no “vassal state” or a “banana republic.”
Netanyahu’s words today echo Begin’s then – history repeats itself.

A “Judenrein” Jerusalem? New Zealand’s shame

The Judenrein policy of the 30’s and 40’s was the precursor to genocide. Today the intention of the parties with whom Israel is supposed to negotiate is once again genocide. One need only read the Hamas charter and watch the habitual incitement to murder on government run Palestinian TV.
And yet the international community, co-lead by New Zealand on this occasion, chides Israel and declares her an illegal occupier in her ancestral homeland.
In 2015 a survey of world antisemitism was published. The most antisemitic nation in Asia was Malaysia and Senegal the worst in sub-Saharan Africa. The very poor human rights record of Venezuela is well known. These are nations with whom New Zealand chose to stand in demanding the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jewish heartland.
This is a time of great shame for New Zealand. To have promoted and facilitated the new Judenrein is a disgrace.
On behalf of those New Zealand citizens still in possession of their moral faculties I apologize to the people of Israel.
*My use of Judenrein is simply to highlight the similarities between the events of the 30’s and 40’s and the intentions of Fatah and Hamas: the removal of Jews from a region and the murder of Jews.

Bennett on Fox News: 'UN ridiculous body fighting free world'

Naftali Bennett defended the calls to cut UN support in the wake of the anti-Israel Security Council resolution, stating that the UN is a "ridiculous body fighting the free world rather than fighting terrorism." Bennett said that the UN's "warped" view of reality caused it to focus obsessively on Israel rather than on other countries like Iran and Venezuela which are "huge abusers of human rights."
Bennett responded to claims that Israel is violating international law by building settlements and is working to prevent a two-state solution by stating that "There is already a Palestinian state in Gaza and it turned into a terror state firing rockets on Tel Aviv. There is no room for another terror state in the heart of Israel. Israel is not violating international law by building in its own territory. It was granted to us by the League of Nations in 1920 and the Bible also gives Israel full rights over the entire land of Israel."

Look At The New Members Of The UN Human Rights Council. What A Joke.

Would Congress and president Trump have the stomach to finally leave the United Nations? Here's just one more reason to leave that cesspool: as Hillel Neuer of UN Watch noted bitterly, look at the list of the some of the new members of the UN Human Rights Council:
Yup. Bangladesh, Burundi, China, Cuba, Iraq, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and Venezuela now sit on the council that is supposed to be “an inter-governmental body within the United Nations system responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe and for addressing situations of human rights violations and make recommendations on them.”
As the UN states of the UNHRC, “The membership shall be based on equitable geographical distribution, and seats shall be distributed as follows among regional groups: Group of African States (13), Group of Asia-Pacific States (13), Group of Eastern European States (6), Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (8), Group of Western European and other States (7).
Founded in 2006, by 2015, Israel had been condemned in 62 resolutions by the UNHRC, more than the rest of the world combined. That shouldn’t have been surprising, since the council voted on June 30, 2006 to make a review of alleged human rights abuses by Israel a permanent feature of every council session. Israel has never been a member of the UNHRC.

Pro-settler group: UN offices in Jerusalem were built illegally

The pro-settler Regavim movement has petitioned the Jerusalem Municipality to investigate alleged construction violations at U.N. office buildings, Israel Hayom learned Tuesday.
According to the organization's complaint, the violations were found at the U.N. offices in the Armon Hanatziv neighborhood and at an UNRWA office near Ammunition Hill. Sources from Regavim said illegal additional construction spanning thousands of square feet was built without permits. Information obtained by the group, including aerial photographs taken by drones, even shows an illegally built gas station.
Regavim attorneys Avi Segal and Yael Cinnamon requested that the Jerusalem Municipality take legal action against the unapproved buildings and to "return the situation to its previous state." Letters were also sent to inform Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Jerusalem Affairs and Heritage Minister Zeev Elkin and Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat of the matter.

‘Illegal Settlements’ as Blood Libel: What Comes Next?

What comes next? 2017 marks the centenary of Great Britain’s Balfour Declaration, which looked with favor on and committed His Majesty’s government to the re-establishment of the Jewish national home. Based on this commitment, the League of Nations granted London a portion of the pre-World War I Ottoman Empire as the Palestine Mandate.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, a “moderate” in the madhouse scheme of things, plans a campaign this year at the United Nations to overturn the Balfour Declaration. That is, to criminals the existence of Israel itself.
The Security Council now has a foot on board, having certified Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria (Jordan’s “West Bank”) and eastern Jerusalem (which was “ethnically cleansed” of Jews in 1948) as “flagrant violations” of international law. And in October, the United Nations Educational, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) erased three millennia of Jewish history by declaring the Jews’ Temple Mount to be a Muslim-only shrine.
But as with the blood libel, the whole world is wrong and Israel is correct. Winston Churchill acknowledged that “the Jews are in Palestine as of a right; not on sufferance.” One year after Israel’s stunning triumph in 1967, Eric Hoffer wrote: “Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms. But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace. Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. … The Jews are alone in this world. If Israel survives it will be solely because of Jewish efforts. And Jewish resources.”
The same is true of the new blood libel. As usual, we’re on our own.

Islamic guards try to boot guide for saying ‘Temple Mount’ on Temple Mount

The American students were gathered around Barkay just to the northeast of the Al-Aqsa mosque as he was explaining some of the history of the contested holy site, inevitably using the words “Temple Mount” now and again, when he was abruptly interrupted by a man in a black zip-up jacket.
The man was one of two Waqf guards who had been hovering near to the group. A patch on his arm was emblazoned with the gold Dome of the Rock and the words “Guard of Alaqsa Mosque.” A burst of Arabic punctuated with English got his message across: Don’t use the term Temple Mount, the guard barked at Barkay.
The two Waqf guards stayed a couple of meters behind the cluster of students. Barkay, who was seated on a low wall, continued to speak, addressing the history of the site during the Byzantine period, the centuries preceding the Islamic conquest of the region.
In passing, he once again referred to the site as the Temple Mount; its Arabic name is Haram al-Sharif, the Noble Sanctuary. Incensed, the guards interrupted once more, ordered 72-year-old Barkay to stand, and marched him over to a cluster of Israel Police officers who were standing beneath a clutch of pines.
The Waqf guards protested Barkay’s use of Temple Mount, the term routinely used by Jews and Christians to refer to the area — a platform built by Herod in the first century BCE to house a refurbished Jewish Temple. The Waqf guards made clear they wanted the police to eject Barkay from the site.

Huckabee: UN resolution an act of hate

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee slammed UN Security Council Resolution 2334 as an act of hate and contempt against the State of Israel and criticized Secretary of State John Kerry's speech against construction in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria during a visit to the Knesset Tuesday.
The Knesset visit was arranged by MK Miki Zohar (Likud).
"I'm going to recommend a policy for Israel. It is the role of a sovereign state to decide for itself," Huckabee said in the Knesset. "John Kerry's speech was without precedent in history. He argues that Israel can be Jewish or democratic, but not both. How did he come to that [conclusion]? He took the faith and the religion out of the equation of what Israel is."
"Be happy about your history. Be proud. [Your] history tells you where you came from and where you are going. The UN Resolution was an act of hatred and contempt. Very rarely are Syria, North Korea, Russia, etc. condemned. Israel is condemned far more. There are more condemnations in the UN when Israel builds houses than when Iran builds a nuclear reactor," Huckabee said.

In Palestinian eyes, all Israel is one settlement

The recent United Nations Security Council resolution declaring all Israeli building activity over the 1949 armistice line to be illegal has given Israelis a bitter feeling of betrayal by the US administration. This resolution denying Israeli/Jewish claims to land taken in 1967 includes the Jewish Quarter of the Old City as well as the Western Wall which stands at the foot of the mount where the two Jewish temples once stood.
From the language of Resolution 2334, one might conclude that the Palestinians think like those who voted and regard everything on the other side of the armistice line (“the 1967 borders”) as being “kosher” Israel. But do the Palestinian really believe that? In March 2002, my son and I were both wounded in a suicide bombing on King George Street in west Jerusalem. The location of the bombing is well within 1948 Israeli borders and well over a mile from the no-man’s land that once separated Israel and Jordan outside of the Old City. Yet, weeks after operations and hospitalizations, I had the opportunity to read headlines from the day after the bombing. The Al-Aksa Brigades, a division of Fatah, the main group running the Palestinian Authority, took responsibility for the bombing. Interestingly, it described the suicide bombing, by a PA policeman, as having taken place in “occupied Jerusalem.”
Now this language raises a problem. Either the organizers of the attack, including a senior PA intelligence officer, were not the greatest students in their geography classes or they really see all of Israel – and not just the “territories” – as Palestinian land in need of redemption from Israeli hands. History would suggest the latter.

US Congress plans targeted legislation against Iran and the UN

As the House of Representatives plans to vote on a resolution this week that will condemn the UN for its targeting of Israel, its leadership has already planned additional measures sure to please the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its allies in Washington.
Over the course of the next hundred days, Republicans hope to punish the UN for its passage of a resolution condemning Israel over its settlement enterprise and Iran over its destabilizing actions in neighboring Middle East nations.
Members of the House and Senate are considering legislation that would cut funding to the UN after its vote. But it is "too early" to draft such legislation, said one senior congressional aide familiar with the deliberations, because leadership is not yet clear on the direction that incoming President Donald Trump will choose to go on the matter.
"Folks seem to want to see how President Trump defines our relationship with the UN before we talk about funding," the aide told The Jerusalem Post.

'Bloodshed will follow if Trump moves US embassy to Jerusalem'

The Palestinians will start a new violent uprising if Donald Trump's incoming White House administration relocates the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a senior Fatah official indicated this week in an interview translated by MEMRI.
"I believe that any American act of stupidity will ignite the Palestinian territories," Fatah Central Committee member Sultan Abu al-Einein told Egypt's Alghad TV on Sunday.
Al-Einein, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, also pointed to Israeli "arrogance" and settlement activity along with the potential US maneuver as provoking Palestinian violence.
"We must prepare for a confrontation with the new US administration, which has clearly and audaciously declared that Israel and its settlements are legitimate and legal," he asserted.
The Palestinian official charged that Washington and Jerusalem "will bear responsibility for the return of the bloodshed in the Palestinian territories."
The Trump team has said that the US president-elect considers moving the embassy a "very big priority."
Throughout his campaign for the presidency, Trump repeatedly said he would move the US Embassy if elected – a political promise past US presidents have frequently made, yet has never been held.

PreOccupiedTerritory: Pharaoh Adviser Insists Opposition To Hebrew Viceroy Merely Anti-Zionist (satire)

An Egyptian official who has argued against the king’s appointment of a Hebrew former slave to a position second only to the Crown denies that his opposition stems from anti-Hebrew prejudice, contending that he is merely against Zionism.
Araphat, Minister of Agricultural Labor, lobbied other advisers to Pharaoh today to rescind or scale back the appointment of Tzaphenath Pa’aneah, formerly known as Joseph, to the post of viceroy. Araphat and several allies at court have objected to the decision, contending that other, more worthy candidates for the position could be found among native Egyptians. Responding to accusations of xenophobia and anti-Hebrew sentiment, the minister claimed that he has nothing personally against Tzaphenath Pa’aneah as a Hebrew – he simply opposes normalization with the Hebrew Entity occupying Canaan, and the elevation of the Hebrew will only serve to cement that occupation by lending a Hebrew legitimacy in the royal court.
“Anyone who accuses me of anti-Hebrew sentiments is trying to stifle criticism of Zionist crimes,” asserted Araphat. “I have Egypt’s best interests at heart, and one of those is not granting legitimacy to a murderous colonialist regime.” He declined to elaborate how Egypt’s own policies in Canaan, Kush, and elsewhere differ from the Zionist ones he opposes, and charged that anyone asking him to do so was attempting to distract from the crimes of the Zionists by diverting attention to other, less important issues.
“Who is this guy, anyway, with no administrative experience beyond Potiphar’s estate and the prison?” added a blogger who goes by the moniker Tikkunolam. “It’s suspicious is what it is. We opponents of the appointment smell something fishy here, and it’s not about the ethnicity of anybody. Just that it’s typical of a Heb- I mean a Zionist – to insinuate himself into a position of power where he can manipulate the system for his own gain, subjugate the masses, control the economy, and put his own people in control. I’m sure we as Egyptians would rather starve than owe our survival to such a race. I’m not being racist!”

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