THE MOUSE THAT ROARED

Palestinians threaten America!

When the incoming Trump Administration spoke about the possibility of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem the Palestinians began making threats.

Hamas, the Islamic terror regime that controls the Gaza Strip, threatened a new upsurge of violence and terrorism by saying that the move would ”open a new chapter of conflict” and “add fuel to the fire.”

Nasser al-Kidwa, a close relation to the deceased Yasser Arafat and a member of Fatah, threatened to downgrade Palestinian Authority ties with the United States.

Mahmoud Abbas said that his leadership would declare that the US is no longer a broker in the Middle East peace process and turn to the United Nations, as if they haven’t already done this.

Palestinian Authority diplomat Saeb Erekat said that the Palestine Liberation Organization, an entity that considers all of Israel as an illegitimate country occupying ‘Palestine,’ would revoke its 1993 decision to recognize the State of Israel.

This is an empty threat. They have never accepted the State of Israel. The PLO Charter still contains Article 2 stating that “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit.” The British Mandate stated that all of Palestine was to be the National Home of the Jewish People.

It is the so-called Palestinian entity that is the fraud here, not the Jewish state.

They are throwing out vacuous statements of “infringements of international law” and “historic legitimate rights” when there aren’t any.

Palestinian leaders like Erekat have a history of saying one thing to the foreign media and something completely different to their own people.

Threatening violence, Article 9 of the PLO Charter says that “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine.”

“Two-state” solution advocates  should note that this Article would remain the core belief of radical Palestinians should Israel be forced to withdraw from territory and these “Two-State diplomats now insist that the essential heart of the Jewish People be included in this so-called solution.  What is commonly defined as “1967 lines” behind which Israel must relinquish includes the eastern parts of Jerusalem and the Old City which contains most of the most important shrines of Judaic heritage.

Erekat said that all agreements signed with Israel would be dead should the United States move its embassy to Jerusalem. Palestinian signatures are apparently meaningless. When Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn in 1993 he agreed to renounce violence. Seven years later he ordered major terror attacks against Israel. 

This terrorism, known as the Second Intifada, went on for two years peaking with the Passover Massacre at Netanya’s Park Hotel when a Palestinian suicide bomber murdered Jews who had gathered to celebrate the Jewish festival of deliverance.

Palestinian signatures and promises are temporary appeasements, convenient pauses until a more favorable opportunity to eradicate Israel.

Proving this point, Erekat threatened that the entity he represents would consider all agreements signed with Israel null and void and that Israel would be responsible for paying all the salaries of the Arabs in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem. In other words, he threatened to disband the Palestinian Authority.

This opens up the possibility of applying alternative and better solutions for Israel and for the local Arabs than the two-state failure.

Erekat also warned that he would ask the UN General Assembly to suspend Israel’s membership if the United States moves its embassy. Erekat may have forgotten that the PLO is a non-member observer at the UN and cannot ask the UN to do anything.  

The United Nations has proven by it incessant anti-Israel voting that it is at war against the Jewish state. Yet Israel continues to thrive and develop. It is the Palestinians that threaten and shrivel and, take note; the Arab world is fed up of them.

Erekat threatened to disband the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinians should know that this is an opportunity for Israel and the United States to initiate a move away from the failed two-state paradigm.

There are a number of feasible alternative solutions some of which require the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority and replacing it with something better for the Arab population of the area. The PA has been a corrupt, undemocratic, violent governing body while the people under its divided authoritarian rule continue to suffer.

Israel, since its inception, has known Arab wars and terror. Israel is strong. Israel will not fold under new threats.

If the Palestinian cannot stop roaring and get back to the negotiation table with a sense of pragmatism that has been so lacking for decades, the time has come for bold new initiatives that would allow Israel to withdraw from the diplomatic cul-de-sac in which it finds itself today.

For this it needs the support of the United States.

The United States should set a marker by moving its embassy to Jerusalem because there is justice in it and it is the right and moral thing to do.

It should acknowledge to the Palestinians and to a world in denial that without the Jews Jerusalem would not have been built thousands of years ago and it is their eternal capital.

The Palestinians Arabs should be told that their stubborn refusal to accept this fact will never bring peace or a state

The United States should move its embassy to Jerusalem and tell the Palestinians that any violent rejection of it would be interpreted as an act of war against the United States.

One more point. The Trump Administration is filtering citizens of countries that promote terror to prevent potential terrorists from entering into the United States. The Palestinians have been at the forefront of inciting and inflicting terrorism for decades. One of them murdered the US Attorney-General Robert Kennedy in 1968. 

Yasser Arafat ordered the murder the kidnapping and murder of the US Ambassador and his deputy in Khartoum, Sudan, in 1973. Arafat also ordered the kidnapping, torture and execution of William Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut in 1984. Other Americans have been killed by Palestinian terrorists. 

In 2016, a New York appeal court threw out a $655 million judgement brought by American victims of Palestinian terror not because the Palestinian Authority was innocent. On the contrary, the case was dismissed because the judges claimed an American court has no jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority or Fatah. 

In other words, the Palestinians can get away with the murder of Americans if they are targeted in Jerusalem or elsewhere in Israel.

To now have these people threaten America and Israel is disgraceful and must not be rewarded by meekness. The United States should assert its right to work out of Jerusalem where the Israeli Government is based and it should warn the Palestinians that it would incur the wrath of the United States if it fails to advance peace or practice further violence.

Furthermore, Brexit and the phenomenon of a Trump ascendancy herald the start of a new World Order.  We saw signs of change when Britain, who had voted for the iniquitous UNSC Resolution 2234 that attempted to rob Israel of the vital Jewish heart of Jerusalem, reverse itself under the looming presence of a Trump presidency by defending Israel and refusing to sign the anti-Israel statement at the Paris Conference. This was followed by the UK vetoing an attempted endorsement by the EU Foreign Ministers.

The Palestinian Authority has opened a campaign to embarrass the British Government over the Balfour Declaration which celebrates this year a century of forging the way to the re-establishment of the National Home of the Jewish People with Jerusalem as its capital.

As both the United States and Britain have taken a stand and acknowledged that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and an integral part of the Jewish People they have little choice in honesty and justice but to move their embassies to Jerusalem.

And the Palestinian be damned if they refuse to accept it.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of the new book  ‘1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel.’ https://www.createspace.com/6830537

Words can kill!

The words and frightening rhetoric heard since Trump's ascent to power is deeply troubling.

The hateful terminology and threats on the streets of America resemble the atmosphere that was generated on the streets of Israel in the days leading to the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister, Yizchak Rabin.

When I hear inciting remarks from Madonna that she thought about blowing up the White House, or from known senators that Trump is illegitimate, or signs that compare Trump to Hitler I recall exactly these scenes prior to the madman Yigal Alon taking the law, and a gun, into their own hands.

The result of this poisonous environment resulted in the murder of our Prime Minister. Be warned!

The organised and poisonous campaign of anarchy and hate will lead to yet another black act of violence and bloodshed that will shame America unless it gets dialed back soon. Let calm and sanity remove hysteria and bias.

A final reminder. We commemorate Holocaust Day this Friday.

The Holocaust did not start at Auschwitz. It began with words. Hateful words. Words that delegitimate. Words that kill!

Listen and be warned!

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.

1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel

This epic book covers the sweep of events a hundred years ago that led to the advancement after 2000 years of the promise of a National Jewish Home in Palestine.

The background is the wartime conflict in Gallipoli and General Allenby's Holy Land campaign.

The extraordinary exploits of Palestinian Jews and Christian Zionists are featured in true tales that reveal the human frailties and strengths of heroes.

In 2017, commemorations will take place globally marking the centenary of the Balfour Declaration and Allenby's Liberation of Jerusalem. These achievements are celebrated on the cover and in detail in the book's 320 pages.

The reader will meet characters including Richard Meinertzhagen, the Christian Zionist James Bond, Zeev Jabotinsky whose persistence led to the introduction of a Jewish force within the British army, Colonel John Patterson who relived the spirit of the Bible as he led a Jewish force into battle to help liberate the Holy Land from the Ottoman Turks, and the heroine, Sarah Aaaronsohn, who led a Jewish spy ring in a dangerous mission to provide vital intelligence to the British under the noses of the Turkish enemy. 

This book recounts her painful fate and leaves us with an enigma of Sarah and Lawrence of Arabia who is portrayed in a manner rarely revealed.

Although recounting events a century ago the book has resounding resonance today as we witness the diplomatic and terror attacks on the Israel we love and support.

Here are the link to the book;

https://www.createspace.com/6830537

Kindle version;

https://kdp.amazon.com/bookshelf?ref_=kdp_PM_TN_bs

TWO-STATERS IN A MONTY PYTHON SKETCH

It is depressing to hear supposedly informed and influential global figures continue to tout a failed two-state theory as the only way to solve the Palestinian problem.

It has been promoted, pushed and practised by the finest diplomats since 1967.  For fifty years they have been flogging this dead bird and selling it to the public as if one day it will become a wondrous peacock.

When will they admit that this birds corpse, to paraphrase a Monty Python sketch, is deceased?

When discussing the two-state issue with stubborn diplomats I get the depressing feeling that I have become a character taking in a famous Monty Python sketch. You know the one. It’s the one with a customer, brilliantly portrayed by John Cleese, who takes an obviously dead parrot back to a pet shop in which the owner, played by Michael Palin, stubbornly denies that the bird he had recently sold to Cleese is dead. 

The major flaw of the two-state remedy is not only is it a solution going nowhere. It is the stubborn refusal of an impotent diplomatic world to admit this obvious fact. Like Palin, they desperately cling to it as the only bird in the menagerie.

And so I often find myself in that diplomatic pet shop whenever I point out that this two-state parrot is dead. The diplomats I talk to always give me the Palin response that it isn’t dead. It’s just resting. They tell me that the two-state solution, when it wakes up, will have beautiful plumage to which I am forced to remind them, “Forget about the plumage. It’s stone dead!”

How many times have we heard the international diplomatic community tell us that the two-state solution is dormant? It’s no good demanding that they show us that it isn’t dead.  As in the sketch we know that waving a handful of birdseed at the dead parrot or banging on the cage door will not wake it up.

We know it is dead. They insist it is only stunned. They insist that the total lack of movement from this dead parrot derives only from Israel not giving it enough sustenance or oxygen and if we just did that the bird will quickly revive and begin to impress us with its natural beauty.

It is at this stage we point out that the only reason the two-state corpse has not dropped on the cage floor is because its feet have been nailed to the perch by the two-state promoters insistently determined to show us that it is still alive.

We have reached the point where we must forcefully point out to the global pet shop owners that this parrot really is dead, that it has finally gone to meet its maker, it is deceased, it has passed on, it no longer exists, it’s pushing up the daisies, it has run down the curtain and joined the invisible choir, it is bereft of life, it is no more, it has ceased to be, it has kicked the bucket and shuffled off its mortal coil. It is history.

And when you are pausing for breath do not be deceived when the pet shop owner tells you that he has an equally good two-state peacock in his storeroom to sell you.

It will take another fifty years of staring at this parrot before you realize, once again, that this tropical bird will not fly either.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies.  He is the author of ‘BDS for IDIOTS’ and the new best-seller ‘1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel.’  https://www.createspace.com/6830537

The Final Solution to the Jewish Problem in Palestine

The Wansee Conference took place outside Berlin on January 20 just 75 years ago.

It took the Germans less than ninety minutes to decide on the Final Solution of the Jewish People.

Just an hour and a half to implement the plan to make Europe 'Judenrein' - without Jews.

This is the call we have been hearing for many years from the Hamas and the Fatah side

of the Palestinian political divide. A desire to kill Jews. A commitment to a Judenfrei Palestine

– a Jew free Palestine.

In answer to a journalist's question about whether any Jew within Palestinian borders would have to leave Saeb Erekat said, "Absolutely!"

That is a policy of ethnic cleansing.

It is one shared by Mahmoud Abbas who only recently was advised to change the word 'Jew' to 'Israeli.' He is now quoted as saying, "In a final resolution we would not see the presence of a single Israeli on our land."

Hamas, off course, is not so timid. Article 7 of their infamous charter blatantly calls for the killing

of Jews and the destruction of the Jewish State.

Again, the ethnic cleansing of Jews.

These Palestinian anti-Semites are following in the footsteps of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who rushed to Hitler, post Wansee, to formulate the Final Solution to the

Jewish Problem in Palestine.

It is only a forceful Israeli defence and security policy that has prevented the wholesale massacre
of Jews.

Which brings me to John Kerry. Either deliberately or through blind stupidity obliquely supported

the Palestinian Nazi policy in his recent Israel-blaming ramble by saying, "Does anyone here

really believe that the settlers will agree to submit to Palestinian law in Palestine?"

The American Secretary of State gave the thumbs up to Palestinian 'Judenrein' law (Nuremberg law)

that it would be acceptable for a Palestinian state to copy Nazi policy and be Jew-free.

Is this the type of state that the world and Kerry is trying so hard to establish?  Perhaps he is incapable

of making the comparison.

Can you imagine what would have been said had Israel declared that the Jewish State must be

cleared of Muslims? Would that be acceptable?

It would be a human rights crime and subject to international sanctions and condemnation, but when

the US Secretary of State can find no wrong, even helps promote, the Palestinian Arab call for the

ethnic cleansing of Jews it becomes even worse.

It becomes an international human rights crime that not only goes unpunished but one that he and the world are determined to press for such an eventuality, punishing the Jewish State if we dare to stand in its way.

Are they all so blind?

For shame!

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.' He has just released his new

book '1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel.'

A Two-State Solution – Built on Nothing More than Hope.

I used to be a two-stater - until it blew up in my face with a spate of Palestinian terror bombings here in Netanya. This was after we signed a "peace" agreement with Arafat, the first Islamic arch-terrorist.

Two-staters! I have two simple questions.

Can you assure us we are not going to suffer the same bad experience we had after we invited Arafat to come out of hiding in Tunis?  All this for the false peace you promised us.

Can you promise us that we will not have the same multi-terror threats we have experienced after we dragged eight thousand Israelis out of Gaza? All the dead and injured after you insisted this was a step toward peace.

I no longer believe in a two-state solution for one very strong reason.

After lengthy research and talks with people in our national intelligence I have been led to understand that neither side of the Palestinian political divide intends to allow Israel to exist as a Jewish State even if they sign a 'temporary' agreement.

They will follow the Arafat example of signing something today only to tear it up at some future time of convenience.

This is, after all, and ideology and a tactic imposed on them by Mohammad as Arafat admitted in a Johannesburg mosque after he signed the Oslo Peace Accords on the White House lawn in September 1993.

In May 1994, he told an adoring congregation that, “This agreement I am not considering it more than the agreement which had been signed between our prophet Mohammad and Koreish, and you remember that the Caliph Omar had refused this agreement and considered it a despicable truce…In the same way Mohammad had accepted it, we are now accepting this peace effort.”

Arafat, the new Mohammad, returned to terror once he had established his base in his Muqata headquarters in Ramallah.

He promised us “Peace of the brave!”

He gave us peace of the grave.

This was all pre-planned, just as they are doing today. In November of 1994 he exposed Palestinian duplicity further by saying, “Since we cannot defeat Israel in war we do it in stages. We take any and every territory we can of Palestine and establish sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”

Arafat ended with this prophetic warning that sounds frightening familiar to us;

“The speedy retreat of Israel from the occupied areas is only the first stage in the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem. Only a state like that can continue the struggle to remove the enemy from all Palestinian lands.”

For today’s Palestinian leadership the Oslo Accords signed by Arafat is a “despicable truce” which was abrogated with the passing on UN Security Council Resolution 2334. Mahmoud Abbas became the modern-day Caliph Omar.

Is this the enemy we should be ceding further territory, our land, to, including Jerusalem?  Do we really trust them that much?

The current Palestinian manoeuvres follow precisely in the footsteps of Arafat.

The sad truth is that a two-state dream will not become a reality because neither side of the Palestinian political divide wants it to happen except as a temporary truce before the next stage to Israel’s ultimate defeat.

So why should we play their game?

Another sad reality is that two-state planners do not care what a Palestine will end up being. They don’t care if it will be undemocratic, corrupt, or a radical Islamic regime. It just has to be.

They may care, but it is shunted into the dark unexplored recesses of their diplomatic minds because bringing it out into the open can only expose the awkward truth that such a state would add chaos and violence and not end well for peace or regional stability. Just look at the violent domestic political and ideological divisions within Palestinian society today.

Is that really what they want to impose on Israel by making it legal and binding as they tried to do with their horrendous Security Council resolution?

It’s really nothing more than hope.

Two-staters cling to the hope that their efforts will lead to an end of conflict. They assure us that this is the only way that Israel can live in peace (No it won’t) and they really do have our best interests at heart. No they don't.  No diplomat I have met has ever assured me of the certainty of future peace after any agreement is signed with an adversary that continues to educate and incite their people that we have no right to exist.

The two-state process is based on us making physical concessions and withdrawals in return for a promise or a hope that they will behave like normal peaceful people. 

In other words, we weaken ourselves in the hope that it will bring peace.

The two-state solution is built on nothing more solid than hope.

Not good enough. We know for certain that they won't settle down and live in peace with us.

The Palestinians are imposing violence and terrorism on us even as they are conducting a political war against us in pursuit of their ultimate goal. They haven't moved one centimeter towards recognition and peace in fifty years while we have made withdrawal after withdrawal, concession after concession.

They refuse to accept the notion of a Jewish State anywhere in the region. They won't even tolerate a Jew living in their future state.  And yet two-staters tell us we should make further concessions that will jeopardize our future in the hope that a Palestine will be more peaceful than Gaza or Southern Lebanon. 

We keep hearing the mantra that the only way for the Jews to live in a Jewish and democratic state is to make more land concessions as there is no viable alternative to a two-state solution.

Yes there are.

Almost all the alternatives I have heard do indeed leave Israel as a majority Jewish state.

Most offer both Jews and Arabs a better and more secure life than they enjoy now.

Some, out of sheer necessity, dismantle an undemocratic and autocratic Palestinian Authority that has been unwilling to make peace but opens the way to make Arab lives more prosperous and free. 

One, based on the core belief that Arabs have a far stronger loyalty to family and clan than to an imposed leadership, creates self-governing independent city-states (i.e. Monaco) that can coordinate into an emirates-type federation. 

One proposes parts of the West Bank confederated to Jordan with the Gaza Strip confederated to Egypt and with Israel retaining Area C as sovereign territory.

Another offers a generous humanitarian solution to Arabs unwilling to live and prosper in an Israeli liberal democracy.

It is time that the world was allowed to hear viable alternatives before coming to the wrong conclusion that there aren’t any.

It should be vitally important to bring the voices of alternative solutions to public and diplomatic awareness.

Some of these formulas may be accepted. Some may not, but the only other alternative left to us it seems to me is to chase after a two-state fantasy for another fifty years – and that is no alternative at all.

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly while hoping for a different outcome.

Give the alternatives the air to breathe – and there are alternatives.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of the new book ‘1917. From Palestine to the Land of Israel’ available from Amazon and CreateSpace.