"Not one Israeli statesman today intends to apologize for the Nakba – not for the ethnic cleansing, nor for the exiling. But Abbas had no choice but to apologize for his Holocaust remark"
The fact that the Holocaust was much more horrific than the Nakba doesn’t legitimize denial of the other’s disaster, which is never-ending.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has walked back on comments he made that accused Israeli rabbis of calling for the poisoning of Palestinian water wells. He apologized for offending Jewish people around the world with a classic anti-Semitic trope During a speech he made Thursday at the European Parliament in Brussels, Abbas said: “Only a week ago, a number of rabbis in Israel announced, and made a clear announcement, demanding that their government poison the water to kill the Palestinians. Isn't that clear incitement to commit mass killings against the Palestinian people?”
"If people were offended by my statement, especially people of the Jewish faith, I apologize to them. I would like to assure everyone that it was not my intention to do so, and to reiterate my full respect for the Jewish faith, as well as other monotheistic faiths.
[Abbas'] remarks are not just a reflection of his personal opinion but rather the Palestinian belief system. They constitute the basis of the false Palestinian narrative that holds there is no such thing as the Jewish people. The Jews are merely a religious group and as a result, they have no right to a nation state. In a statement following the outcry over his remarks, Abbas apologized not to the Jewish people but "members of the Jewish religion." The Jews have no historical connection to Palestine and there is therefore no basis for their demand for a return to Palestine. As the descendants of the Canaanites, the Palestinians are the only indigenous people here. The Jews are intolerable beings, which is why the Europeans created Zionism in a bid to both rid themselves of the Jews and defend against the strengthening of the Arab nations and Islam.
MAY 3, 2018
The Palestinian Authority cut salaries for its staff in Gaza by 20 percent on Thursday and failed to make up for skipping the previous month’s pay, leaving civil servants in the impoverished territory fuming
"The story of [Jesus'] birth represents so much. As black Christians the rejection is particularly familiar."
briefed by @GrassrootsJlem on Israeli land confiscation, settlements and other discriminatory policies towards Palestinian Jerusalemites
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Monday that Jews in Europe were exposed to pogroms not because of their religion, but because of their social role and financial matters.
Speaking during the National Palestinian Council in Ramallah, Abbas attributed the claim to Jewish scholars and said that factually, "such pogroms did not take place in Arab nations, which had Jewish communities."
The speech Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas delivered on 30 April contained unacceptable remarks concerning the origins of the Holocaust and Israel's legitimacy. Such rhetoric will only play into the hands of those who do not want a two-state solution, which President Abbas has repeatedly advocated.
as you know, for us in Jordan is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This is, we believe, the main cause of instability in the region, and its resolution is the key to achieving the lasting and comprehensive peace that we want.
In a country with a hot climate, minimal rainfall and a shortage of indigenous wine grapes, setting up a vineyard in Israel doesn’t necessarily scream “success story”. Psagot Winery, however, has overcome all these challenges to rejuvenate the ancient tradition of Israeli wine making, thereby making it a true competitor against its Mediterranean rivals.
...Psagot Winery’s founder Yaakov Berg was keen to reawaken the ancient status that Israel once held...hard work eventually paid off, with a growing customer base worldwide. This year, moreover, Psagot Winery was included in the World Finance Fine Wine Report 2018 and received the award for Best Wine Producer in Israel, 2018.
... 65 percent of Psagot’s wine is exported. Now an established international player, Psagot Winery is focusing on its long-term plans of expanding its portfolio to include white wine and sparkling wine.
Neither in Arab nor Jewish minds did Israel's pre-1967 boundaries ever represent a border between land to which the Jewish people have legitimate claims and land to which they have no such claims. No one intended those lines to divide a zone in which Jewish settlement was legal from one in which it is illegal. In fact, the 1949 Armistice Agreement between Israel and Transjordan (now Jordan) states that the boundary lines "are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto." (At the Arab parties' insistence, each of the other three 1949 Armistice agreements contained a similar provision.)
This is why Arab-led efforts in the United Nations and elsewhere to characterize the settlements as illegal encroachments on Arab land have implications that reach far beyond the settlements as such.
Arab officials and scholars who argue that the West Bank and Gaza are "Arab territories" never do so by arguing that pre-1967 Israel is legitimately Jewish territory. To make that argument, they would have to hang more moral and legal significance on the 1949 Armistice Lines than could possibly be supported. The argument made to delegitimate Jewish settlements - that the territories are "Arab land" - is not made to distinguish land that is "Arab" from land that is "Jewish." On the contrary, it is designed to prove that Jews have no right to settle "Arab territory" that came under Israeli control in 1967 just as Jews had no right to settle "Arab territory" that came under Israeli control in 1948-49, at the Jewish state's inception.
Those who think the key to peace lies in Israel's delivering more land and power to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority oppose settlements. Others, however, think a sovereign PLO-led ministate on the West Bank and Gaza Strip is likelier to produce violence and war than peace and security. This latter view aligns with the official analysis that for decades prevailed in the governments of the United States (both Republican and Democrat) and Israel (both Labor and Likud). Those who, despite the Oslo Accords, retain this view - and are concerned that such a ministate would threaten Israel and Jordan, serve as a base for terrorism and generally destabilize the region - see high value in the settlements.
THERE is yet another important issue in the negotiations: national rights. In debates over national-security policy, it is always useful to remind oneself of what one is aiming to secure. For a country like the United States or Israel, national security is far more than simply the physical survival of the citizenry. America is more than a land and a people: it is a society based on a constitution; it is an idea. Israel too is an idea. It is the fulfillment of the Zionist dream, the embodiment of the internationally recognized national rights of the Jewish people. When contemplating a proposed concession by Israel, it is not enough to ask whether that concession would endanger the state's physical security. It is altogether proper for Israelis to ask themselves also whether the concession involves an undue relinquishment of national rights.^
We are excited to let you all know about our new collection.
Ahed Tamimi, the 17 year old child is currently serving an 8 month sentence in Palestine...$5 from ever piece from this collection will go to the legal center, Adalah, in Palestine. Adalah (“Justice” in Arabic) is an independent human rights organization and legal center. Adalah’s mission is to promote human rights for the Arab Minority in Palestine.
to promote human rights for the Arab Minority in Palestine
Ayman Oudeh, member of Israel's Knesset, writes that "Seventy years ago, the world changed" for his family ("Israel Celebrates Its Independence, We Mourn Our Loss", April 18). Nowhere in that article can one learn why that happened.
Could it have been caused when the Arabs of Mandate Palestine, following their violent terror campaign against any Jewish national revival in their historic national homeland since 1920, rejected the UN-proposed partition plan of November 29, 1947 which the Zionists accepted? And then, on the morrow of that UN vote, initiated a war to eradicate the Jewish community? A war they lost? A war in which they inflicted heavy casualties and loss of Jewish communities and the ethnic cleansing of parts of the Mandate territory?
To the Editor:
Thomas L. Friedman writes that if Yasir Arafat had "ever adopted the nonviolence of Gandhi," he would have had his Palestinian state -- "Israel's reckless settlements notwithstanding" ("Footprints in the Sand," column, Nov. 7). Mr. Friedman places the cart before the horse.
Yasir Arafat adopted the path of terror and violence years before any Jewish community had been built in the disputed territories, indeed, years before those territories came under Israeli administration in 1967.
Yisrael Medad Shiloh, West Bank, Nov. 8, 2004
Yisrael Medad, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the body that represents settlers, urged Mr. Olmert to focus initially on social issues, rather than push an evacuation plan that is certain to face resistance and create division among Israelis.
"We should say to Olmert: hold off for two years, fix up the economic and social problems, and then let's see where we are," said Mr. Medad, who lives in Shiloh, a settlement that is also beyond the separation barrier. "If you start to move against the communities here, you will get demonstrations and protests."
“We’ve given over territory so our Arab enemies can now hit Haifa,” said Yisrael Medad, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the main group representing settlers. “To put them even closer, where they could literally hit us by spitting over the fence, would be crazy.” [think Gaza and it's Great Return March - YM]
“Unilateral moves will never work,” he added, “because if you don’t have a mechanism in place to maintain security, groups like Hamas and Hezbollah will simply say, ‘We don’t have an agreement with you, and we will do what we like.’ ” [which they have done after the disengagement - YM]
The vote itself was aided by Menachem Begin who was contacted by Eliezer Livneh and requested, in the name of Ben-Gurion to the object of assisting him overcome some of those who were wavering on the upcoming vote to declare statehood. As Begin writes on p. 478 in The Revolt (Futura Edition, 1980) which is the first paragraph in Chapter 30, Dawn, he had been in contact with the Hagana on the matter and notified them that the Irgun was prepared to pronounce statehood even without the official bodies. In the Hebrew edition, p. 504, there is this which doesn't appear in the English (לא בלי סיוענו הישיר) which reads "(not without our direct help)". A slogan had been published in the Herut underground paper, No, 93, April 1948, בדמנו ובנפשנו נקים את מדינתנו or, "With our blood and soul we will establish our state", page 4 that served as Ben-Gurion's 'proof'.
In Martin Sicker's article, "Pangs of the Messiah: The Troubled Birth of the Jewish State", we read: "On May 12, the National Administration voted 4 to 6 in favor of rejecting the truce, thereby effectively confirming the decision to proceed with the proclamation of the Jewish state on May 15. Several days before the vote, Ben-Gurion sent Eliezer Liebenstein [Livneh - YM] to see Begin. Begin later recalled: "He told me that Mr. Ben-Gurion 'appreciated very much' our proclamations demanding the establishment of a Jewish Government;".
According to the lore that would surround 1948, warnings like Marshall’s plunged some leaders of the yishuv into doubt. After all, until now the yishuv had faced only Palestinian Arab militias. If the Zionists declared a state, they would face invasion by Arab states...The most prominent waverer, according to lore, was Shertok himself....
...all in the room knew that if they didn’t declare the state, someone else would. In his book, Sharef noted the sense around the table that “any deferment might provoke internal dissension, which would be likely to impair the yishuv’s combative mood and the morale of its troops.” This “internal dissension” had an unspoken name: Menachem Begin, leader of the Irgun, who had promised to declare a state if the People’s Administration didn’t.
In early May, Begin had published a notice including precisely this warning:
The Hebrew government will be established. There is no maybe—it will rise. If the official leadership establishes a government, we will back it. But if the government gives in to threats, our forces and the majority of the land’s youth will back the free government that will grow from the underground.
Begin thus prepared two alternative messages for broadcast on May 16: the first, professing loyalty to the state if Ben-Gurion declared one; the second, declaring a state himself if Ben-Gurion did not. Everyone in the room knew Begin’s intent. Bechor-Shalom Sheetrit (representing the Sephardim) put it bluntly: “We are alert to the street and we know the mood there. And if we now seem to go soft and retreat from what the street hopes from us, we’ll unleash war in the street.”
German Jewish leader advises against wearing yarmulkes in cities
Warning by Josef Schuster, head of Central Council of Jews in Germany, follows assault by Syrian asylum-seeker on Arab Israeli wearing skullcap in Berlin
The first of April, 1933, will remain an important date in the history of German Jewry – indeed, in the history of the entire Jewish people.. Many Jews suffered a crushing experience on Saturday. Suddenly they were revealed as Jews, not as a matter of inner avowal, not in loyalty to their own community, not in pride in a great past and great achievements, but by the impress of a red placard with a yellow patch...It was intended as dishonor. Jews, take it up, the Shield of David, and wear it with pride!...
Weizmann also assails the temerity and faithlessness of the “assimilated Jew.” With American Jewry clearly in his sights, he blasts these Jews as thinking of themselves as Americans and not Jews. Their religion, he sniffs, is “a poor imitation of Protestantism. It has nothing in it of the austerity, severity and the real tradition of Jewry sanctified by so much martyrdom.” These people will send money, but Palestine is a challenge to them: “It stirs some memories… that they have tried to bury under their American civilization.
"They fasten on the Arab problem which offers them a sort of escape from their Jewish consciousness; they are mostly useless to us, if not harmful.”
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