A Palestinian anti-Semitic
blood libel about Israel and water.
A double crime was committed
when Mahmoud Abbas, the Chairman of the Palestinian Authority, an interim
self-governing body that undemocraticaly controls the Arabs in sections of
Judea & Samaria, spoke before the European Parliament on June 23.
In his speech he spouted a
Jew-hating blood libel as medieval in its words as those that led to the
massacre and isolation of European Jews in the 14th Century.
Having begun his speech by
condemning incitement to violence, he inexplicably 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.”
Here
was the Palestinian Arab leader in the European Union capital accusing Jews of
poisoning wells, and here the second crime was committed. The European law-makers received his
poisonous words with a standing ovation!
Shame
on them!
When
Abbas refused to meet Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, who had extended an
invitation to meet as both leaders were in Brussels, his refusal was met with
silence rather than an encouragement to meet by Federica Mogherini, the
European Union’s acting foreign minister.
So
much for the European push for peace that targets Israel but ignores a constant
Palestinian non-compliance.
Anti-Semitic
slanders are not something new to Mahmoud Abbas. As a younger man he won his
degree in Moscow based on a thesis that the Zionists were in cahoots with
Hitler and the Nazis. An oblique addendum to Abbas’s 1982 doctorate, which he
repeated as recently as 2013, were recent claims by British Labour Party rogue,
Ken Livingstone, that “Hitler supported Zionism” in 1932 before going “mad
and killing six million Jews.”
When
Mahmoud Abbas was exposed, days later, unusually by the New York Times, for
inserting lies about non-existent rabbis calling on the Israeli government to
poison wells, he recanted but, by then, the damage had been done. Or, more accurately,
he had already achieved what he intended in Brussels, namely to score more points
against Israel in the international arena.
NYT’s
journalist Diana Hadid wrote that the false accusation quoted by Abbas was fed
through the PLO website and taken up in Turkey and across the Gulf Arab states.
This
is the man who, in September 2015, described Jews on the Temple Mount as “filth.”
“They
have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to,
and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem.”
In
other words, keep Jerusalem Jew-free.
But
what did he mean by “we will not allow them” and “we will do
everything in our power to protect Jerusalem.”?
He
went on, "We bless
every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and
pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every Martyr (Shahid) will
reach Paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah."
Jew hatred incitement is followed by call to action, to
terror, to blood-letting.
And Abbas continued his project in front of rapturous but
ignorant European leaders in Brussels with his blood libel of Jews poisoning
wells.
Here
are the facts.
Every
year, the European Union buries the Palestinians with over a billion euros,
even as the European economy goes into austerity. Instead of their money going
into much needed infrastructure like water development and management, they
allow it to be used for propaganda and wild accusations such as Israel
poisoning Palestinian wells.
European
governments eagerly receive false reports from well-funded NGOs slandering
Israel on a whole host of issues and then use these reports as gospel truths
about Israeli infringements. These reports made their way into United Nations
chambers in which Israel is condemned in never ending anti-Israel resolutions
to which the gentile Europeans abstain in the voting to hide their shame.
Not
that anti-Israel Israeli NGOs are clear of guilt. Many also are funded by
European governments to lie and to incite protests and violence.
A
hidden camera video, taken by a member of the Ad Can organization, exposed
Yehuda Shaul, the leader of the discredited Breaking the Silence group, telling
a group of avid anti-Israel haters the lie that in the ancient Jewish town of
Susiya the Arab villagers had just returned “because a few years ago the
settlers basically poisoned all the water systems of the village.”
The
Gulf News article dealing with the Palestinian
Authority poisoned wells issue claimed that Breaking the Silence had made
the accusation, a claim the anti-Israel Israeli group told the Ha’Aretz
newspaper they denied.
Another
water libel came from Roy Yellin, the public relations director of B’tselem, an
anti-Israeli Israel NGO well-funded by the Europeans who tweeted that “while
Palestinians suffer from severe water shortage, settlements swimming pools are
full.”
As
with all anti-Israel allegations, the perpetrators deliberately tilt facts to
favor their propaganda by eliminating nasty truths that spoil their emotional imagery.
In Yellin’s case, he failed to disclose the fact that Arabs were happily
splashing around in the Palestinian water parks that have been constructed
throughout Judea & Samaria. Not to mention the amply supplied swimming
pools in many of the private Palestinian villas.
Perhaps
somebody should have informed the misguided European parliamentarians that the
Palestinian leader that appeared before them has continually rejected Israeli
efforts to uphold the signed 1995 water agreement between Israel and the PLO in
which both sides would act to improve the water infrastructure in Judea &
Samaria.
Wipe
these uncomfortable facts off the agenda. Better that Abbas is allowed to
continue his vile propaganda, wrapped in anti-Semitic verbiage that is warmly
welcomed in Brussels.
Better
emotional imagery of victimhood catering to European money than the harsh
truths of a corrupt and hateful Palestinian leadership leading the Europeans
blindfolded to the bank.
Barry
Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for
Strategic Studies.
He
is the author of ‘Fighting Hamas, BDS and Anti-Semitism’ and the new
book ‘BDS for IDIOTS.’