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Harriet Sherwood’s latest dispatch, “Palestinians to present state bid to UN General Assembly“, wasn’t especially problematic.
Sure, it parroted the tired, worn-out Palestinian narrative that the absence of negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians was the result of “[Israel's] refusal to extend a temporary freeze on settlement expansion” – ignoring the fact that such a building freeze had never, until 2009, stood as an impediment to direct talks between the two parties – but, all in all, Sherwood’s report wasn’t egregiously biased by Guardian standards.
However, at the end of her piece Sherwood provides readers with a short history, titled, “Road to Statehood”, with some remarkable historical omissions – a timeline suggesting that all relevant history pertaining to the conflict ceased in 1993.
Here’s her brief history:
First, note the difference in terms Sherwood employs when alternately characterizing Jordanian, Egyptian, and Israeli control of territory in the region. Israel “occupied” territory after the Six Day War, whereas Jordan and Egypt merely “governed” the West Bank and Gaza.
Also, as it’s quite peculiar, not to mention highly misleading, to provide an account which abruptly ends in 1993, here’s a brief historical account of the subsequent years – events which would seem rather significant in the overall context of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
2000-2001: After intense U.S. brokered negotiations, Palestinian President Yasser Arafat rejected an offer of statehood, by Israeli PM Ehud Barak, which included 100% of Gaza and would have given them a contiguous state which included 97% of the West Bank, as well as a Palestinian Capital in East Jerusalem.
2000-2004: After talks break down, Palestinians launched a deadly intifada which resulted in the deaths of over 1100 Israelis, and injuries to thousands more.
2005: Israel completes withdrawal from Gaza. The following year, Palestinians in Gaza elect Hamas, a terrorist group which rejects negotiations and is committed to Israel’s destruction.
2008: Israeli PM Olmert proposes an offer of statehood to the Palestinians confirmed to have been even more generous than Barak’s in 2000 – an offer which PA President Mahmoud Abbas rejected.
Finally, here’s the map reflecting what specifically Abbas rejected in 2008:
It seems like quite a few historically significant events have indeed occurred since 1993 – information about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict which Harriet Sherwood, for some reason, decided not to report.
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- Harriet Sherwood’s talent for avoiding use of term “terrorist” when characterizing Palestinians who’ve murdered Israeli civilians (cifwatch.com)
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H/T David T
No, it’s not surprising that the openly pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic UK group, MEMO (Middle East Monitor) interviewed political cartoonist Carlos Latuff.
Latuff is one of the most prolific anti-Israel activists, who, in his work, frequently and explicitly compares Israel to Nazi Germany, portrays Israelis as taking pleasure in the death of Palestinian babies, and draws without inhibition on anti-Semitic stereotypes.
Latuff is also, evidently, deemed perfectly respectable by the Guardian, as they posted a cartoon of his during the Palestine Papers series (in the context of Guardian editorials suggesting that Abbas sold-out on the “rights” of Palestinian Refugees) depicting PA President Mahmoud Abbas as a gun wielding, sinister looking Orthodox Jew - thus legitimizing the odious notion that Jews and/or Israelis represent the nadir of moral betrayal.
However, the following exchange between the MEMO interviewer, Dr. Hanan Chehata, and Latuff is worth noting, as its well beyond caricature.
CLICK TO ENLARGE
So, for Latuff, what he’s engaging in when publishing his cartoons is mere respectful criticism, which is acceptable, and which is far different than “attacks”, which are off-limits.
So, by virtue of this no doubt well-developed moral calculus, which ethically distinguishes between respectful political critiques and hateful attacks, Latuff’s following depiction, entitled “Baby Killer Zombies“, would naturally fall in the former category.
Respectful criticism of Israel
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I was invited, along with a group of journalists, to take a test run on Jerusalem’s Light Rail Project, which was preceded by a presentation by officials from the Jerusalem Transportation Authority responsible for its implementation.
While, as most Israelis know, the project is well behind schedule and over budget (another indication that Jerusalem is a normal municipality with all the requisite bureaucratic and administrative red tape and inefficiencies), when the first phase of the Light Rail is completed (maybe by late August), as well as subsequent phases which are to expand service to additional parts of the city, it will likely solve many of Jerusalem’s traffic issues, and offer a much more efficient way to travel around the city.
Dubbed the ‘Red Line’, it will initially have 23 stations and is planned to run from Pisgat Ze’ev in the northeast, south along Road 1 (intercity) to Jaffa Road (Rehov Yaffo). From there, it is planned to run along Jaffa Road westward to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station, and continue to the southwest, crossing the Chords Bridge along Herzl Boulevard to the Beit HaKerem neighborhood, and finishing just beyond Mount Herzl next to Bayit VeGan.
As you can see by the map below, it the first line will run through the East part of the city, and serve Arab neighborhoods, such as Shu’afat, and the Project planners noted that they consulted with, and gained the approval of, resident associations there – many of which will benefit by the increased ease of access to the center of town, and a rise in property values – which, according to Rail planners, has already occurred.
As media events in Israel go, this was, for most journalists covering the story, quite non-controversial, and the smooth, quiet ride we took on the modern rail car, on a small section of the route which runs through the center from Yaffo to the road along the Arab section of the Old City, was a quite pleasant experience.
However, during the Q&A session after the presentation, both by transportation officials, and then later, in our group’s meeting with Jerusalem’s Mayor, Nir Barkat, two American journalists – one from National Public Radio (NPR) and the other from the New York Times – noted Mahmoud Abbas’s opposition to the project (Abbas actually tried to initiate a boycott of the European companies involved with its construction) and asked whether the fact that the route runs though the East part of the city (serving Arab neighborhoods) was an impediment to peace.
Indeed, anti-Israel NGOs have gone even further than Abbas – with the Swedish NGO Diakonia characterizing the Light Rail Project as a “Violation of Humanitarian International Law.”
What they were parroting, of course, was the specious argument that any Jewish presence in “East” Jerusalem was illegal, the myth of “historically Arab” East Jerusalem, and the belief that only the only possible way peace could be achieved would be to divide the city – with Israel retaining the West part, and the Palestinian State including the East.
As we noted earlier, polls indicate that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians living in East Jerusalem DO NOT want to divide the city as part of a peace agreement.
More broadly, while listening the NYT and NPR correspondents question Mayor Barkat on the political implications of the Light Rail Project, I began wondering what the reaction would be if the Arab neighborhoods were excluded from the Rail’s route. Is there any question that the narrative would have been one of racism and discrimination against Jerusalem’s Arabs?
Further, would it be preferable if the city were to delay addressing such major municipal problems until a peace agreement is one day achieved?
I’d challenge reporters (such as Harriet Sherwood and the Americans I encountered on the Light Rail tour) who insist on inserting politics into every aspect of life in Jerusalem to move beyond their comfortable ideological boundaries, and challenge their preconceived conclusions, by talking to average Arab, Jewish, and Christian residents of this incredibly diverse, vibrant, and largely successful city – as I suspect they’d learn that (despite the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict) the daily concerns of Jerusalemites are not much different than those who live in New York or London.
A familiar narrative of the mainstream media about Palestinians who voted for Hamas in 2006 was that their decision to vote for the Palestinian Branch of the Muslim Brotherhood was not based on ideology, nor did it represent an embrace of the terrorist group’s anti-Semitic charter but, rather, was merely a rejection of the corrupt Fatah, and motivated by a simple desire, as all people in the world have, to improve their quality of lives.
Interestingly, the assumption of the universality of Western progressive values (which Richard Landes refers to as cognitive egocentrism) by such journalists is often strangely absent when reporting on, and imputing values to, Israelis.
As Jonathan Spyer noted, those who are obsessively critical of Israel see the country not as it is, but often as “a [mythical] place of uninterrupted darkness and horror, in which every human interaction is ugly, crude, racist, brutal.”
As a resident of the city, I can attest to the fact that the mythical Jerusalem which the Guardian, NYT, and NPR often conjure has almost no resemblance to the real, complex, layered and unimaginably dynamic reality of everyday life here.
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In less than a week we have seen two Guardian editorials published hailing the recent Hamas-Fatah reconciliation as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Clearly, this represents the monochrome Guardian view of this development; a view which has no room for anything other than an almost religious acceptance of the merger and does not even attempt to discuss alternative views or potential pitfalls.
On April 29th as initial news of the Hamas-Fatah pact emerged, a nameless editor insisted that “tectonic plates start to shift“. The really interesting aspect of this editorial was the extent to which it aimed to justify the Guardian’s own positions on the subject of the Middle East. We were told that the Hamas-Fatah agreement is a result of the ‘Arab Spring’ which the Guardian has been extremely busy promoting over these last few months.
Firstly, it was claimed that the publication of the ‘Palestine Papers’ – of course courtesy of the Guardian itself along with its leak-buddy Al Jazeera – had been instrumental in weakening the Palestinian Authority to such an extent that it had no choice but to do a deal with Hamas. The second factor cited was the fall of Mubarak in Egypt and the third, Abbas’ disappointment with the US over its recent veto of a proposed UN motion.
Some of this may be true; certainly the deliberate misrepresentation of the ‘Palestine Papers’ by the Guardian and Al Jazeera as a ‘sell out’ of the ‘Palestinian cause’ on the part of the PA did plenty of damage (almost certainly pre-planned, deliberate and co-ordinated) to the ability of Mahmoud Abbas to negotiate and compromise, and even called the continued existence of the PA into question.
That, of course, suited Hamas and the other factions which reject negotiations very well indeed and a further clue to just how close the Guardian sails to Muslim Brotherhood ideology can be seen in the statement that “a future environment composed of free Egyptians, Jordanians and even possibly Syrians could well fashion Israel’s borders”.
As any informed observer of the regional events is aware, the Muslim Brotherhood appears to be set to make considerable headway in the elections to be held in Egypt in September. If that turns out to be the case, Egyptians will regrettably still be far from free. In Jordan the main opposition to the government is also instigated by the Muslim Brotherhood and that movement is also active in the uprisings in Syria.
In other words, when the Guardian editor says ‘free’, he does not use that word in the context in which the majority of readers would understand it. For him, ‘free’ means ruled according to sexist, homophobic and racist Islamist principles which just happen to align with the political ideologies to which he subscribes.
In the second editorial of May 5th, we see the (same?) editor trying to persuade us that the Hamas-Fatah agreement has the “capacity to change the scenery” in the Middle East. Predictably, the editorial blames Israel alone for the failure of peace negotiations, totally ignoring the Palestinian refusal to come to the negotiating table despite a plethora of confidence-building measures, concessions and a 10 month building freeze. Equally predictably, the editorial tries to raise the false flag of “territory” and “settlements” as the “core” issues of the conflict, blithely dismissing the subject of Palestinian rejection of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
Continuing down the standard Guardian route whereby Palestinians can do no wrong (unless they try to negotiate with Israel), this editorial then goes on to invert the facts completely by pretending that Abbas was never offered a realistic treaty.
“Had Mahmoud Abbas been given a serious and imminent possibility of signing an agreement that established a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, with its capital in Jerusalem, and one in which the Palestinian right of return had not been erased unilaterally from the reckoning, Mr Netanyahu might have had a case when he accused his counterpart of walking away from peace.”
Apart from the fact that Mahmoud Abbas was offered precisely such an agreement in 2008 by Ehud Olmert, as the whole world – despite the Guardian’s efforts – knows, what is really hilarious about this statement is that not only was it just a few weeks ago that the Guardian was chiding Abbas and his team for negotiating that very agreement, but the Hamas-Fatah merger which the Guardian is now so earnestly promoting will, by Hamas’ own declaration, put the lid on any chance of further negotiations taking place.
Both of these editorials are so off the wall in that they basically parrot Hamas propaganda (just without the signature medieval-style rhetoric) that one cannot but suspect that they were penned by Seumas Milne, or at least by someone who has spent far too much time with him in an Islington wine-bar over a bottle of organic Chardonnay.
And if one wonders how a once respected liberal newspaper reached such bizarre depths, it may be worth taking into account that in addition to the Guardian’s long history of providing a platform for various Hamas members and sympathisers, members of its staff have also met with them annually at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha for at least the past three consecutive years.
At this year’s conference in mid-March a session was held entitled “Palestinian National Strategy in the New Middle East” with the speakers CiF contributors Karma Nablusi and Osama Hamdan of Hamas, Mustafa Barghouti, Mahdi Abdul Hadi and Robert Malley who, interestingly, takes up many of the same themes as employed in these two Guardian editorials in his recent commentary on Palestinian unity.
Live blogging of the discussion gives an idea of the prevailing mood within the rejectionist camp which preceded and possibly contributed to the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation.
(All typos in the original)
Karma Nablusi: In every palestinian gathering, under occupation, in the homeland the same question is being asked… “Is this not our moment too?” but how do we get over teh internal divisions and the repression which has kept us divided and unable to unify?
Karma Nablusi: Make no mistake, the one thing we need is all our sectors at this moment. No one can lead but the people themselves.
Osamah Hamdan: The PLO regime has failed, the revolutions which have taken place in the region, we need to be positively careful since they have not succeeded yet but are on the right track. We have to wait for these people to reach their demands.
Osamah Hamdan: We have to go directly to our project which is the ending of the occupation , the liberation of the Palestinian land and then the Palestinian people can decide how to govern themselves.
Osamah Hamdan: The Palestine Papers are over now, we should move over to a new sqaure and talk about National Unity for the Palestinian people, wherever they are.
Osamah Hamdan: We want an initiative coming from Palestinian Will… we have started a discussion with the various Palestinian factions to bring a national consensus of leadership which will be accountable to the Palestinian people., it’s called the Palestinian National Project and is about Liberation and Return.
Osamah Hamdan: The Palestinian people who launched the intifadah in 2000 is capable now to develop its tool and political identity to achieve the goals of this project.
Mahdi Abdulhadi: We were at the centre of it with the Intifadah, and now we are at the centre of this movement. We need ot move up to the level of revolution or regress and move back. The Palestinian issue is nothing new, there are too many divisions internally.
Mustafa Barghouti: The Youth of Palestine want Freedom.We need 4 things 1) Resistance – we need all forms of resistance, particularly the popular palestinian resistance. We need to stop buying Israeli products. Third Intifada is what we need. The Arab revolutions have highlighted the strength of popular revolution
Mustafa Barghouti: 2) we need to awaken Popular Arab Revolution and co-operation to work with the Palestinian people to stop buying Israeli Products and boycotting Israeli products.
Mustafa Barghouti: 3) We need to heed the call to end Palestinian Division and Arab Division. This means regaining the role of the people. We have more than 5 million people in the diaspora, we have to bring them back to the womb of the country. We need a unified national strategy through an election. Al the parties have to review their positions, some political leaders must now open the doors to change for the Palestinian people. We don’t need patchwork, we need real change.
Rob Malley: Culture, – A movement that is divided, cannot prevail. Fatah is based on negotiation, Hamas is based on Fighting and right now Fatah is not negotiating and Hamas is not fighting!
Rob Malley: Those who have risen up in the revolutions were united. This is something that needs to be taken into account by the Palestinians.
Azam Tamimi: WE have to have a revolution against the Palestinian Authority as we have seen in Tunisia and Egypt. The PA was imposed on the Palestinians and they didn’t want one!
Participant: I believe the door is open and we don’t need any more discussion, we need to topple PA and really push the liberation. We also need to fight the settlers. They need to withdraw from the South of Gaza and of Lebanon.
Mustafa Barghouti: Nobody is negotiating at the moment so consequently there is nothing left except we built a national struggle which is organised and destroy the occupation
Ehab Bessaiso: We cannot when talking about the problem of resistance, we need one unifying base for resistance but we need to define what resistance is… We have apolitical demands. If we all agree that resistance is the right way with the option of dismantling the PA then we should not have an elitist conversation and get on with it.
It is more than apparent that the Hamas-Fatah merger needs to be looked at not only from the point of view of the Fatah weaknesses which undoubtedly contributed to its creation, as these two editorials do, but also from the aspect of the Hamas (and other rejectionist groups) strategy behind it. On that subject the Guardian is less keen to elaborate, but what is chillingly clear is that the way the Guardian is championing is directly opposed to negotiation, compromise and peace.
A guest post by AKUS
If there is one American who could justifiably be considered to be as obsessed with Israel as the Guardian’s editorial group, it is former US President Jimmy Carter. Like a mosquito bite he can never quite reach to scratch, and like the Guardian, the issue keeps him coming back, and back, and back, each time it seems from a position more removed from any comprehension of the reality in which Israel has to operate.
His latest effort, which I would not be surprised to see appear on CiF where it is virtually guaranteed a flood of anti-Israel cheerleading, appeared in the Washington Post for Wednesday, May 4th headlined on the web: Support the Palestinian unity government while in the print edition the rosy headline reads: “A Partnership that could bring Mideast peace”. I venture to suggest that if he were not so firmly in the Hamas camp, Arabs would deride the article as yet another marvelous example of “orientalism”, where Carter unconsciously makes it clear that the Palestinians, hapless victims of circumstances beyond their control, cannot accomplish anything without the help of what he refers to as “the United States and the international community” (which rather puts the US outside the “international community”, I suppose).
In Carter’s view, the Palestinians, even with the help of the Egyptians, cannot succeed nor stop them from attacking Israel without the world’s benign help:
If the United States and the international community support this effort, they can help Palestinian democracy and establish the basis for a unified Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza that can make a secure peace with Israel. If they remain aloof or undermine the agreement, the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory may deteriorate with a new round of violence against Israel. Support for the interim government is critical, and the United States needs to take the lead.
Is there any other group aspiring to national identity which he would claim can only achieve its goals if America provides a helping hand? Of course, the helping hand has been aided by a boot in the backside to Israel, cheerfully provided by Mr. Cameron of the UK, who incredibly has demanded that Israel engage in discussions with the Palestinians rather than demanding that the Palestinians actually appear at the negotiating table. Carter arrogantly forgets that it is the Palestinians who will have to establish their democracy and the results of the previous effort are far from promising. Furthermore, if they cannot come together, it is interesting that he sees the alternative as “a new round of violence against Israel”? Are those the choices the Palestinians have?
Next, Carter makes the absolutely fallacious leap that “This accord should be viewed as a Palestinian contribution to the “Arab awakening,” as well as a deep wish to heal internal divisions.” Neither is true.
Far from being a “contribution to the Arab awakening”, the best one could say is that the accord is a consequence of the changes in Egypt that have brought the Muslim Brotherhood to within grasping distance of the reins of government there and the diametrically opposite turn of events in Syria. The accord has been driven by Hamas’ realization that it may well be losing its base in Damascus because they foolishly backed the Muslim Brotherhood against Assad (the classic Palestinian mistake of seeing the world as they wish it were, rather than as it is, that has been going on for over a hundred years). With a key connection to its Iranian sponsors potentially gone, Hamas feels the need to shore up its position with its neighbor Egypt, where the Brotherhood has been demanding the abrogation of the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. As for “healing internal divisions”, there has been adequate coverage of the various responses by both sides to cast doubt on the ability of the accord between Hamas and Fatah to survive for long.
But it is towards the end of his article that Carter particularly displays the naiveté and bias that so permeates his views of the conflict as he lays out his vision for a rosy future.
He first makes the incredible assumption that “a unity government of technocrats — i.e., neither Fatah nor Hamas” will be appointed. If not members of Fatah and Hamas – who? That question goes unanswered. Then he assumes that Hamas will abide by an agreement that “Security will be overseen by a committee set up by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and Egypt will assist.” Readers are now expected to believe that Hamas, which has spent the better part of a decade killing Fatah at every turn, will suddenly agree to cast their fate in with a security apparatus heeded by arch-enemy till yesterday Abu Mazen. How will Egypt assist this? Does he really think that Israel will allow Egyptian forces into Gaza in violation of the Sadat-Begin agreement and into the West Bank?
Carter then jumps to the conclusion that “Abu Mazen will be able to negotiate on behalf of all Palestinians.” This completely ignores the fact that Abu Mazen has refused to negotiate with Israel at all since Netanyahu’s government was formed. There is no reason at all to expect that he will in the future, especially since Britain’s Prime Minister has virtually assured Abu Mazen that if he does NOT negotiate with Israel, Britain will blame Israel and support the Palestinian attempt to get approval for a unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN in September.
Moreover, Carter seems to be assuming that if there are elections, Abu Mazen will emerge the leader. But what if it is Haniyah who has sworn never to negotiate with Israel? How will Israel have to react on the West Bank if Hamas’ rockets and mortars start raining down on Israel from there? What will Carter’s response be when Israel declares war on a new Palestinian state or state-to-be that attacks it daily with rockets and mortars?
Carter is not quite done praising the accord. Realizing that many might point out that Hamas has refused to negotiate with Israel, has refused to accept the idea of a two-state solution, and refuses to even accept the continued existence of the State of Israel, Carter plays his trump card:
In my talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, he said Hamas would accept a two-state agreement that is approved in a Palestinian referendum. Such an agreement could provide mutual recognition — Israel would recognize an independent Palestinian state and Palestine would recognize Israel. In other words, an agreement will include Hamas’s recognition of Israel.
There are three problems with this declaration by Carter. Netanyahu has already agreed to recognize a peaceful Palestinian state that recognizes Israel as the Jewish Homeland, while all the Palestinian leaders have refused to make the reciprocal statement. Then there is not a sign of such a statement made in public by Khaled Meshal. Lastly, Carter overlooks the fact that he is only a former President who has no standing whatsoever in the conflict. Whatever Carter thinks Meshal told him has no bearing on the actual intentions of Hamas. We are too familiar with the old trick of saying one thing in English for Western consumption and another in Arabic for the home audience to take this statement at face value. The statement is so absolutely typical of the naïve Westerner that one does not know whether to laugh or cry. But I am pretty sure that Meshal had a good laugh when he read it.
Perhaps Carter does vaguely understand this, after all, when he notes that:
Suspicions of Hamas stem from its charter, which calls for Israel’s destruction. I find the charter repugnant.
Indeed. But like our friends at the Guardian might do, he hastens to point out the bright side:
Yet it is worth remembering that Israel negotiated the Oslo Accords with the Palestine Liberation Organization while its charter had similar provisions. It took five more years before the PLO Charter was altered.
The old “just because they say it does not imply that they really mean it” trick. And, yes, we really needed to be reminded of the wonderful outcomes associated with the disastrous Oslo agreements – the intifadas, suicide bombings, rockets, murders of whole families in their sleep, and so forth.
In the end, I come back to the beginning – my distaste for this meddler’s hubris. Carter cannot accept that it is the Palestinians who have to determine where their future lies and how it can be achieved, not the US, or the Quartet, or Israel, with Carter carefully guiding them along the path like an elderly shepherd as he oversees yet another disastrous election. It is irrelevant what the US or Israel thinks. If the Palestinians really want a united Gazan-West Bank identity, they will have to figure out how to achieve it themselves and create a meaningful identity. I actually doubt the Hamas and Fatah do want this unity even if the man in the street does, but in any event, if they do, nothing Carter, the US, the “international community” or Israel can do can prevent it. And if they do not really want unity, and the Bin Laden-praising murderous theocrats in Gaza cannot get along with the somewhat less ideological and murderous group on the West Bank, nothing that outsiders can do will change that.
This is cross posted by Pesach Benson at the blog of Honest Reporting, Backspin.
Fatah and Hamas representatives reached a deal for national reconciliation. Many people are saying that the unity deal means Israel has a legitimate partner to negotiate peace.
Take the following quiz and see how well-informed you are about Hamas and Fatah coming together.
1) After Fatah and Hamas announced their unity deal, their first joint public meeting in Gaza was held in:
a. a neutral conference hall
b. a Fatah office
c. a Hamas office
d. a Palestinian Islamic Jihad office
Answer: Palestinian Islamic Jihad. It – along with other groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — signed on to the deal. Of all the smaller factions, the PIJ’s especially galling: It once described Daniel Wultz as “the ideal target” because he was a Jewish American teenager injured in a PIJ suicide bombing. Wultz eventually died of his injuries and was eulogized in Congress.
These are the Palestinians we should praise for reconciling?
2) Fatah and its militia, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade:
a. say they want peace
b. say they want violence
c. offer separate messages to English and Arab audiences
Answer: Offer separate messages. No surprise there. Yasser Arafat frequently talked peace in English and talked jihad in Arabic, elevating doublespeak to an art form.
3) Which movement’s charter specifically identifies itself as a Palestinian “wing” of the Egyptian-based Muslim Brotherhood, itself a designated terror organization?
a. Fatah
b. Hamas
c. Palestine Forum
d. PFLP
Answer: Hamas. Come to think of it, the PLO charter may need tweeking too, depending on who you ask.
4) Which Mideast statesman’s doctoral thesis denying the Holocaust is widely taught in public schools today?
a. Bashar Assad
b. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
c. Mahmoud Abbas
d. Tayyip Recep Erdogan
Answer: Mahmoud Abbas. Just three days ago, David Bedein said:
. . . with the sanction of both the Palestinian school system, and the head of the Palestinian Authority himself, a new generation of Palestinian pupils learn that the mass murder of Jews in World War II was carried out by Jews.
5) According to recent polls, who continues to give Osama Bin Laden the highest popularity ratings?
a. Pakistanis
b. Indonesians
c. Palestinians
d. Algerians
Answer: Palestinians. Indeed, 34 percent of Palestinians polled said they had confidence in Bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs. Muslims in no other country were as supportive.
Which leaves one question hanging.
Who is Israel supposed to make peace with?
Harriet Sherwood is back online to give us the benefit of her “wisdom” on the terror attack in Jerusalem.
The article is a mixture of statements of the obvious – I give you,
“… Its impact will be felt far beyond the people injured in the blast and those who witnessed the explosion….”
Well, yes…
As well as (curiously enough, given that it’s Harriet writing), a glimmer of understanding of why the IDF was engaged in acting against Hamas-linked terrorists in Gaza.
She even acknowledges that Hamas was responsible for the firing of the 50 or so mortar shells into Israel (although she couches it in somewhat equivocal terms).
She goes on to refer to the pressure on Hamas to do something for the armed struggle in order to satisfy the Palestinian people, (and here, totally unwittingly, she alludes to the fantasy ideology which has driven much of Hamas’ mad and fruitless acting out, which I have discussed in-depth elsewhere on CiF Watch).
So far so mediocre and hardly her usual offensive self, but let us not forget that she writes for the Guardian and sure enough later in the article out it comes:
“…. It is far too early to say what Wednesday’s bus blast heralds. But, at the very least, it is bound to reinforce Netanyahu’s belief that Israel has “no partner for peace”, a phrase that brings bitter laughter from observers who say Israel shows little sign of wanting to make peace…. “
Pardon me?
Is Harriet seriously trying to argue that Netanyahu is WRONG to believe that Israel has no partner for peace in the PA? Dear Harriet, permit me to offer a little lesson in reality testing since you and your colleagues at the Guardian seem, (how shall I say?) somewhat deficient in this area:
You yourself admitted that there was a terrorist act in Jerusalem (OK you didn’t actually call it a “terrorist” act, unlike William Hague, the British Foreign Minister who condemned it in those terms, but you compared it to the terror attacks during the second intifada)
You then, quite correctly, named Hamas as the main culprits in the shelling of southern Israel. So far so good but hang on in, because this is where it may get difficult for you to understand:
True, Abbas condemned the massacre at Itamar, but on the day after that massacre he dedicated a town square to the memory of a suicide murderer!
Is this the action of a man who (a) tells the truth or (b) says only what he thinks his audience want to hear, and on the strength of that (c) can be trusted to mean what he says and (d) is therefore a reliable partner for peace? The man is a proven liar.
In light of the foregoing, how on earth can the Israeli government possibly believe that the PA means to make a lasting peace with Israel? How can Abbas be trusted as a partner for peace, whether in quotes or not, or whether it evokes “bitter laughter” or not from observers? It seems more and more likely that the bombers in the latest atrocity came from the West Bank, and if so they were very probably cranked up by his public adulation of terrorism!
Now, stay with me Harriet, because there’s more which underlines the nonsensical nature of what lies beneath your statement above:
Let’s go back to the Jerusalem bombing and more particularly to the Palestinian reaction to it.
So far as I am aware there have been no street celebrations or handing out candy as there was in Ramallah after the Fogel family were murdered, but Elder of Ziyon’s blog tells us the following, which ought to reinforce the belief that Israel actually has no partner for peace and which ought to convince even you:
Elder quotes from the Palestine Times which is a Hamas mouthpiece, but no matter:
…. Despite condemnation by the Fatah leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas and his Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and described that operation as “terrorist”, there was joy in the street despite the pain experienced in the cities of the West Bank.
Upon hearing the news of a bus bombing in Jerusalem, citizens hurried to the coffee shops to follow-up on television news channels and radio stations to track the latest developments.
Abu Mohammed from Nablus, sitting in a café, said: “By God, it’s about time for such operations, which warms our hearts and the hearts of all who [suffer] from the oppression of the occupier recently.” ……
There are those who expressed their joy of such events. Samira from Ramallah: “When I saw the breaking news on one of the satellite TV news and there was an explosion on Jerusalem, the joy made my heart stop.”
A young man recalled happy memories of Tulkarm for operations similar to what happened today…
Others Palestinian citizens went into social networking sites like Facebook and forums on the World Wide Web, to express their joy and the news firsthand….” (emphases added)
So, what do we have, Harriet?
Abbas, a confirmed liar, who condemns barbarism out of one side of his mouth whilst out of the other he praises the perpetrators of such barbarism, and also the ordinary people of the West Bank, whose opinions are, we are meant to believe, representative of the majority and who feel joy and warmth in their hearts when Israeli Jews are killed and injured.
However, you may be able to redeem yourself, Harriet.
To do so you must write an intelligent, thoughtful and analytical article, based on fact and in objective reality about why you think Netanyahu is wrong to believe that Israel has no partner for peace in the West Bank, and supply us with evidence for your conclusions rather than your own half-baked opinions.
Then, who knows, you will be entitled to call yourself journalist. Though, you may subsequently be sacked from the Guardian.
(Alana Goodman, writing a while back in the blog of Commentary Magazine, Contentions, noted the Guardian’s egregious anti-Israel bias on one hand, and what can only be described as a political fetish for Arab dictators on the other. While this dynamic is nothing new for CiF Watch readers, Commentary Magazine is an intellectually serious journal, and we’re always glad when such prestigious and highly respected institutions show themselves keenly aware of how just how extreme the Guardian’s ideologically driven anti-Israel agenda truly is. – AL)
This headline in the Guardian commentary section may have caused some to do a double-take this morning: “Our absurd obsession with Israel is laid bare.” Sadly, it wasn’t the title of a long-overdue introspective editorial by the Guardian staff. But it was something almost as good — an excellent column by Nick Cohen about how the Israel-centric view of the Middle East has been discredited by recent events. And there was really no better place for it to be published than in the Guardian’s exceedingly anti-Israel Comment-is-free section.
The Guardian’s predilection for over-the-top anti-Israel commentary has been well-documented. It’s editorial board has taken views similar to Hamas’s on the peace process, it has published letters applauding terrorism against Israelis, and it recently printed a highly offensive cartoon of President Mahmoud Abbas dressed up like an Orthodox Jew.
A guest post by AKUS
I had to rub my eyes in disbelief and re-read the following in an article about the US veto in the UN.
on Ynet:
Nevertheless, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed that the PA will not boycott the US.
The PA will not boycott America? Initially, I thought the sentence had been written backwards. It appears it was not. The PA seems determined at all costs to alienate the Obama administration, swept up with delusions of grandeur in the euphoria of the events in Cairo and elsewhere.
Apparently, despite this fearful threat from the PA, withdrawn at the last moment, America bravely stood its ground and vetoed the resolution.
If ever a group of people seemed intent on doing as much damage to their own cause as possible, it is the Palestinian Authority. I do not think of the Palestinians as lions, but clearly they are led by donkeys.
A guest post by AKUS
Five rivers converged in Middle Eastern affairs this week – the Jordan, the Hudson, the Nile, the Thames, and the Potomac.
Those who live alongside the Jordan – Israel and the West Bank Arabs – each sought support in the Security Council in the UN alongside the Hudson for their opposing views on the Palestinian Authority’s resolution calling on the Security Council to condemn Israel for continuing to build settlements on the Jordan’s West Bank. Never mind that not a single new settlement has been built, to my knowledge, in something like eighteen to twenty-four months, and that Israel also obeyed the USA’s demand to stop building apartments for nine months in a futile attempt to entice Mohammad Abbas and the disgraced Saeb Erekat back to the negotiating table. The USA vetoed the one-sided resolution – the first veto since George W. Bush’s administration vetoed a resolution in 2006.
The Palestinian Authority scored the remarkable own goal of forcing the friendly Obama administration to distance itself from its demands.
While events along the Nile preoccupied the real world, in the UN’s alternative universe alongside the Hudson the count of Israeli apartments continued. Never mind that scores are reported dead in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain – the issue that concerns the world’s great powers is the building of apartments in East Jerusalem.
Alongside the Thames, the Guardian carried a report, US vetoes UN condemnation of Israeli settlements, that managed, as usual, to combine biased language with misrepresentation of the facts:
The US stood alone among the 15 members of the security council in failing to condemn the resumption of settlement building that has caused a serious rift between the Israeli government and the Palestinian authority and derailed attempts to kick-start the peace process.
The US “failed to condemn” – unlike, for example, Britain, which bravely succeeded in condemning Israel due to its sophisticated concern for Israel’s security:
William Hague said he understood Israeli concern for security, but said that was precisely why Britain had backed the resolution.
The “resumption of settlement building” of course refers to the resumption of building some apartments and community facilities in existing suburbs of Jerusalem. The Guardian is of the opinion that “the serious rift” between the Israeli Government and the PA has nothing to do with terrorism, the refusal to negotiate under any circumstances, the impossible demands made by the PA – it is all about apartment building.
The real attempt to “kick-start” the peace process was, of course, Israel’s agreement to test the PA’s seriousness by stopping all building activity for nine months. The Guardian makes no mention of this – it has already been brushed out of the Guardian’s view of Middle East history and the fact – the fact! – that the Palestinian Authority refused to negotiate even when Israel agreed even to suspend building any apartments, not just settlements, has been erased, just as Stalin used to erase faces from photographs and facts from books to create his own history.
The Guardian cited a representative of the PA who wasted no time in using the current term “intransigence” applied to Israel in their talking points, just as the word “disproportionate” is used to describe any Israel response to terrorist attack:
The Palestinian observer at the UN, Riyad Mansour, said the veto was unfortunate. “We fear … that the message sent today may be one that only encourages further Israeli intransigence and impunity,” he said.
Fortunately, where it counts a lot more and reality appears to be in vogue, alongside the Potomac the Washington Post had scathing comments for Abbas and his team and their real intransigence in an editorial – Abbas proves he prefers posturing to a peace process.
PALESTINIAN PRESIDENT Mahmoud Abbas claims to be interested in negotiating a two-state peace settlement with Israel. For two years he has enjoyed the support of a U.S. president more sympathetic to the Palestinian cause than most, if not all, of his predecessors. Yet Mr. Abbas has mostly refused to participate in the direct peace talks that Barack Obama made one of his top foreign policy priorities – and now he has shown himself to be bent on embarrassing and antagonizing the U.S. administration….
The Obama administration has all along insisted that Mr. Abbas is willing and able to make peace with Israel – despite considerable evidence to the contrary. If the U.N. resolution veto has one good effect, perhaps it will be to prompt a reevaluation of a leader who has repeatedly proved both weak and intransigent. (My emphasis).
The Guardian should follow the Washington Post’s lead and take a closer look at who is intransigent. If its pandering has any effect at all, and if it really had the Palestinian’s interests at heart, it would learn to lay the blame where it should rather than encouraging the PA to believe that they are moving forward by embarrassing the first US administration in a decade that has shown any support for them.
This is cross-posted by Hadar Sela and Eli E. Hertz at the site, Myths and Facts.
There is a saying in the medical world that an x-ray is only as good as the doctor reading it. The interpretation of information differs according to pre-existing factors such as knowledge and experience, with mistakes in diagnosis having the potential to be tragic. It is true even when the given information is accurate and unquestionable, but when its reliability is not assured, precise interpretation and analysis become nearly impossible.
In December 2010, the European Union’s Foreign Affairs Council stated that it would recognize a Palestinian Arab state “when appropriate” on the basis of assessments made by the World Bank, that the Palestinian Authority “is well positioned for the establishment of a State at any point in the near future.”
In order to determine whether this assessment is correct, and therefore potentially justified and actionable, it is important to understand exactly how it came about.
The source of this assessment regarding Palestinian readiness for statehood is the September 2010 World Bank report to the Quartet’s Ad Hoc Liaison Committee which apprises on the subject of the Palestinian Authority’s progress in implementing the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan initiated in 2007. It is also known as the “Fayyad Plan” after the Palestinian caretaker Prime Minister by whom it was authored.
The international community, as represented by Quartet Members, the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia, has been monitoring the progress of the three year Fayyad Plan through the reports of its representative on the ground, the World Bank, which runs a “country team” in the region.
Three basic problems emerged from the study of the regularly issued World Bank reports. The first involves methodology – the information upon which the reports are based is gathered mostly from politically biased NGOs working in the region, some of which are actually funded by countries from Quartet members. These include organizations such as B’Tselem, UN OCHA, Peace Now, HaMoked, Amnesty International, Gisha, Yesh Din and IPCRI. The World Bank uses consulting services from Ben-Or Consulting, a company associated with several of the above organizations and with connections to politically motivated groups both in Israel and abroad.
The second basic problem is that the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan is limited largely to reforms which may be termed financial, economic and administrative. Components of civil society within a functioning state such as the rights and protection of women, children and minorities, labour rights and trade unions, freedom of the press or prevention of torture are not within its scope.
Thirdly, in the approach taken towards Palestinian reform by both the Palestinian Authority and the Quartet, the subject of dealing with the ideological and religious causes of continuous Palestinian terror, is clearly absent.
Under such circumstances, the European Union’s haste in declaring itself ready to recognize a Palestinian state contrasts dramatically with its cautious approach to the accession of Turkey to its own ranks. In that case, a country already deemed sufficiently trustworthy to be a veteran member of NATO has been obliged to engage in a 10 to 15 year process of reform and overhaul of all its systems and institutions – economic, financial, judicial, political, civil and social. The process is overseen by the European Union itself and is both strictly performance-based and will have an iron-clad reversibility clause if Turkey fails to live up to its promises.Only when all criteria have been met will the subject of Turkey joining the European Union actually be brought up for vote by the existing members.
Soon after its foundation, the Quartet initiated the Roadmap which was also intended to be a performance-based process leading to Palestinian statehood and an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Unfortunately, even the first clause of the Roadmap has not been fulfilled and yet it now appears that the European Union, relying upon questionable assessments, is ready to abandon its own blueprint for the peace process in favour of a Palestinian Arab state which comes nowhere near the criteria it demands for its own members.
In response to The Jewish Chronicle editorial (“The Guardian’s Shame“, Jan. 27th) blasting the paper’s coverage of the “Palestine Papers”, the Guardian brought a heavy hitter: Their Editor, Middle East editor, Israel correspondent…sorry, their expert on snow (yes, really) to defend the paper’s coverage, in The JC’s Feb. 3 edition.
Charlie English – who is apparently a quite prolific writer on winter sports of all kinds – noted with dismay passages from The JC editorial characterizing the Guardian’s commentary as riddled with ”distortions”, “bias”, and representing “breathtaking arrogance”.
English, clearly out of his league covering a topic such as the delegitimization of Israel – an activity that one can engage in during all four seasons – mounted a weak defense, to say the least.
But what did stand out was his final passage, where he actually argued that the “Palestine Papers” represented, in sum, a passionate attempt by the Guardian to, yes, “rescue” the peace process!
Unfortunately we can’t confirm or deny conflicting reports as to whether English maintained a straight face while writing this piece, as his Guardian profile photo makes such a judgment difficult to render with any amount of accuracy.
One of the reasons Elder of Ziyon is held in such high regard in the pro-Israel blogosphere is that he is able to enlighten and entertain with his prose, and (much like our own Israelinurse) possesses a journalist’s instinct – a passion and ability to track down facts, and hold others accountable, those whose ideological agenda often takes precedence over the veracity of a story.
In these posts, on the Guardian’s “Palestine Papers”, Elder uncovers some documents which the Guardian chose not to release in their “expose”.
PA says refugees must be resettled in Arab states
(I found where Al Jazeera put all of the “Palestine Papers” and, in response to the Guardian’s absurd assertion that they have already published everything that is newsworthy, here is exhibit A showing otherwise):
On July 2, 2008, the PA produced a “talking points” memo about how the so-called “refugee” problem would ultimately be solved. Presumably this was meant to be used in negotiations with the US and Israel. But by its nature, it is not an off-the-cuff comment of negotiators floating trial balloons to the other side, but an official (if unpublished) position of the PA.
First of all, the PA makes it very clear that they do not want to be the place that some 7 million “refugees” will move to live:
The viability of the future Palestinian State is closely linked to the evolution of the Palestinian population that will live within the future State’s borders. In this regard, the terms of a settlement of the Palestinian refugee issue and the number of Palestinian refugees who will be offered to resettle or return to the future State of Palestine is a core parameter required to assess the viability of that State.
The resettlement/return of refugee communities touches numerous issues such as housing availabilities, access to water, education and social services, employment opportunities, infrastructure, environment etc. The ability of the Palestinian State to meet refugee needs and ensure an efficient functioning of these services will ultimately determine its viability.
Unlike Israel in 1948, which opened its doors to Jews all over the world even though it was severely restricted in resources and cash, the PA is not going to start an open-door policy. In other words, they don’t seem to care nearly as much about their fellow “Palestinians” living in stateless misery as Israel does about Jews.
While the PA will still insist on the theoretical “right to return,” it recognizes realistically that other Arab states are going to have to offer citizenship:
The Palestinian/Arab peace proposal regarding Palestinian refugees is to find a “just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with UNGA resolution 194”. The goal is to reach amultilateral solution that will be accepted by all parties. For the resolution to be a success, Israel, host States (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon) and third countries will have to offer attractive options to refugees. Therefore, the viability of the Palestinian State also greatly relies on the ability of these stakeholders and the international community to provide with concrete relocation options to Palestinian refugees.
All of this is obvious, but the PA is publicly silent on the issue. Instead of laying the framework to get these Arab countries to gear up for their ultimate naturalization of their Palestinian Arab population, the PA’s public position has been the opposite of what this paper states.
In fact, only a few months earlier, Mahmoud Abbas told The Daily Star of Lebanon:
“We would not accept any settlements that would lead to a demographic change in Lebanon. This is totally unacceptable … We won’t accept a settlement that obliges Lebanon to naturalize even one Palestinian.”
It is impossible to believe that Mahmoud Abbas was not aware of the contents of this talking points memo. Which means that either he was lying to the Lebanese, or he was lying to the Americans.
Either way, it shows that he is a liar.
(See other posts by Elder revealing additional documents which the Guardian chose not to release):
Fake Letter from “Palestinian Businessman” to Obama
Hawkeye
Omar2
WellofSense
Medusa
The Alchemist
Louise
Tosca
Maimon
Telling the Truth
Israelinurse
Adam Levick
Margie in Tel Aviv
Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Free Palestine? What Harriet Sherwood won’t report about absence of democratic rights in PA
August 26, 2011 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: Freedom House, Guardian, Harriet Sherwood, Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinian National Authority, West Bank | by Adam Levick | 3 comments
Freedom House Map (CLICK TO ENLARGE)
H/T Garry
As we approach the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to unilaterally declare statehood, the question you almost never hear asked is, precisely what kind of state will “Palestine” be?
Will it be democratic, respect the rights of minorities, the LGBT community, and the rights of citizens to peacefully dissent and criticize the government?
Well, per Freedom House, the case is pretty clear that the human rights record of “Palestine” is abysmal and currently mirrors the similar dearth of political freedom in the Arab world.
Further, notes Freedom House:
And:
Finally:
This last report certainly puts today’s story in the Jerusalem Post, PA arrests professor who criticized Nablus University, in perspective, and should give those pause who live on the borders of this future Palestinian state.
Recently in Israel, a left-wing columnist for the Jerusalem Post, Larry Derfner, penned an essay in his personal blog (which he’s since removed) explicitly justifying Palestinian terrorist attacks against his fellow citizens. While there has been, of course, much justifiable criticism of Derfner, and his employer is currently looking into the matter, Derfner wasn’t beaten up by a mob for his apostasy nor arrested by Israeli security personnel.
The fact that the PA, who clearly has a lot to learn from their bitter Zionist enemies, doesn’t even meagerly respect the value of free expression and basic democratic norms should provide an entirely new meaning to the chant, “FREE PALESTINE”!
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