Palestinians: Arab Leaders Talking to Israel Are 'Traitors, Jews' - Khaled Abu Toameh

​
by Khaled Abu Toameh

The Palestinian leadership would like to continue holding the entire Arab world hostage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

• Why is it permissible for Egypt's Abdel Fattah Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah to have diplomatic relations with Israel, and not permissible for the leader of Sudan to sit with the Israeli prime minister?
• Several key Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, seem to be fed up with the ongoing Palestinian rejection of every proposed Palestinian-Israeli peace plan. The Palestinians have never even proposed a counter-offer.
• The Palestinians' threats and condemnations... seem primarily aimed at deterring Arabs from even considering the possibility of making peace with Israel. The former stand-off was working brilliantly for the Palestinians; why stop?
• The Palestinian leadership would like to continue holding the entire Arab world hostage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What the Palestinian leaders clearly do not want is for Arab leaders to act in the interests of their own people.
• Arab heads of state now have the opportunity to decide whether they will permit Palestinian leaders to continue their time-tested strategy of terrorizing everyone into submission, or -- unlike the Palestinian leaders -- to seek the best for their own people.

If Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas is so strongly opposed to Arabs talking to Israelis or making peace with Israel, why does he continue to talk with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan -- the only two Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel? Pictured: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Jordan's King Abdullah on January 16, 2014 in Amman, Jordan. (Photo by Kobi Gideon/GPO/Getty Images)

After rejecting and strongly condemning US President Donald Trump's plan for Mideast peace, the Palestinian leadership has now found the time to threaten Arabs not to make peace with Israel. In addition, Palestinian leaders have also stepped up their attacks against the US and are inciting Arabs against the Americans and Arab leaders who maintain close ties with the Trump administration.

The vicious Palestinian attacks on the US increased after Trump announced last week his "Peace to Prosperity" plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Shortly after the announcement, Palestinians took to the streets of Ramallah and other West Bank and Gaza Strip cities to burn photos of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as US and Israeli flags. The protests erupted shortly after Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas delivered a speech in Ramallah in which he rejected the Trump plan, dubbing it a "conspiracy" and "slap of the century."

The Palestinians' attacks on the US and Israel came as a surprise to no one. Palestinian officials have a long history of inciting their people against both countries. Sometimes it even seems as if these officials are competing with each other as to who can use the harshest rhetoric against them.

The vitriolic rhetoric against the US and Israel plays into the hands of Iran's proxies in the region, particularly Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) -- the two Gaza-based groups that reject Israel's very right to exist and continue to engage in anti-Israel terrorism as a means to "liberate all Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river."

When Abbas tells his people that he will cut all ties with the US, he is actually endorsing the anti-US policies of Iran, Hamas and PIJ. In the eyes of these three parties, the Trump plan is a new "American aggression" and "conspiracy" against the Palestinian people and their rights. In the past week, for instance, he has repeatedly condemned the plan, also known as the "Deal of the Century," as a "conspiracy" designed to eliminate the Palestinian issue. In Arabic, when Abbas talks about the US and the Trump plan, he sounds exactly like Hamas and PIJ.

Next week, Abbas is planning to urge the United Nations Security Council to reject the Trump peace plan on the pretext that it "contradicts international laws and legitimacy."

His drive against the Trump plan also coincides with a campaign waged by his PA and other Palestinians against Arabs allegedly engaged in normalization with Israel.

The latest victim of this anti-normalization campaign is Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Chairman of the Sovereignty Council of Sudan, who recently met in Uganda with Netanyahu. As a result of the campaign of incitement, the Sudanese leader is now being depicted on various social media platforms as a "Zionist agent," "traitor" and "pig."

One post featuring him wearing a Jewish skullcap with the Star of David in the background, sarcastically refers to the Sudanese leader as Abdel Fattah Menahem -- implying that he is not an Arab, but a Jew -- if being a Jew is something terrible.

Burhan had not signed a peace treaty with Israel. He had not announced that his country was establishing diplomatic relations with Israel. He had not even announced that Sudan had decided to recognize Israel's right to exist. All he did was to meet with Netanyahu. For Abbas and the PA leadership, the mere meeting was enough to wage a smear campaign against the head of an Arab state.

This is the same Abbas whose predecessor as PA president, Yasser Arafat, in 1993 signed the Oslo Accord with Israel, marking the beginning of a "peace process" that also saw the PLO officially recognize Israel.

Why is it permissible for the Palestinians to engage in a "peace process" and recognize Israel and not permissible for an Arab leader to sit with an Israeli official?

If Abbas is so strongly opposed to Arabs talking to Israelis or making peace with Israel, why does he continue to talk with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan -- the only two Arab countries that have peace treaties with Israel? Why is it permissible for Egypt's Abdel Fattah Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah to have diplomatic relations with Israel, and not permissible for the leader of Sudan to sit with the Israeli prime minister?

Would Abbas and the Palestinians dare to unleash a campaign of incitement against Sisi and King Abdullah because of Egypt's and Jordan's peace treaties with Israel? Of course not: Abbas might well be afraid that Egypt and Jordan would retaliate by punishing the Palestinians living there or banning Palestinian leaders from visiting Cairo and Amman.

The Palestinian attacks on the Sudanese leader seem to reflect Abbas's and Palestinians' fears of being abandoned by their Arab brothers. These fears are not unjustified. Several key Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, seem to be fed up with the ongoing Palestinian rejection of every proposed peace plan with Israel. The Palestinians have never even proposed a counter-offer.

Echoing the growing Palestinian sense of frustration and disillusionment with their Arab brothers, several senior Palestinian leaders took turns this week assailing the Sudanese leader for his brief encounter with Netanyahu.

As far as the Palestinians are concerned, Burhan is easy prey because Sudan is not a neighboring country (as are Egypt and Jordan) and only a small number of Palestinians live there.

PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat was the first to come out against the Burhan-Netanyahu meeting in Uganda.

Erekat described the meeting as a "stab in the back of the Palestinian people and a blatant departure from the [2002] Arab Peace Initiative, at a time when the administration of President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is trying to liquidate the Palestinian issue and annex Jerusalem."

The PA's Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Hussein, warned of the "growing phenomenon of normalization with the Israeli occupation and its dangerous effects on the Palestinian issue." The Palestinians, he said, "are following with great pain and anxiety this bitter, disgraceful and rejected phenomenon."

Another senior PLO official, Ahmed Majdalani, incited the Sudanese people against their leader by urging them to "take the necessary measures to confront" his policies.

Other Palestinian officials went as far as demanding that Burhan "apologize" for his meeting with Netanyahu.

The Palestinians' threats and condemnations of Burhan seem primarily aimed at deterring Arabs from even considering the possibility of making peace with Israel. The former stand-off was working brilliantly for the Palestinians; why stop?

The Palestinian leadership would like to continue holding the entire Arab world hostage to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What the Palestinian leaders clearly do not want is for Arab leaders to act in the interests of their own people.

Arab heads of state now have the opportunity to decide whether they will permit Palestinian leaders to continue their time-tested strategy of terrorizing everyone into submission, or -- unlike the Palestinian leaders -- to seek the best for their own people.

• Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on Twitter

Khaled Abu Toameh, an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem, is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15547/palestinians-arab-leaders-israel

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Peter Beinart Joins a Communist Paper That Praised Rape and Murder of Jews - Daniel Greenfield

​
by Daniel Greenfield

91 years of defending Islamic violence against Jews comes full circle.

On a bloody Sabbath in 1929, a Muslim mob massacred the Jewish community of Hebron.

The mob used knives, axes, and stones to kill men, women, and children. Many of the women were raped before being murdered. The Islamist atrocities committed against them defy comprehension.

Pierre van Paassen, the Canadian journalist, described seeing, "severed sexual organs and the cut-off women's breasts". A more recent summary notes, “Photographs from the time show a girl struck on the head by a sword with her brain spilling out, a woman with bandaged hands, people with their eyes gouged out, a man whose hand had been savagely amputated, and other grisly sights.”

Who, outside the perpetrators, could endorse and support such crimes? The Communist Party.

The Morgen Freiheit, the Communist Party's Yiddish newspaper in New York, headlined its article, “The Arab Uprising is Spreading - Zionist Fascists Have Provoked the Arab Uprising.”

"It is not innocent blood," the Communist paper insisted, of the murdered religious students, and families, "It is the blood of people who went to war against another people on alien land."

A resolution praised the massacre of Jews as a "revolutionary uprising of the Arab masses in Palestine."

The Freiheit even held a rally in support of the mass murder, rapes and mutilations by its Muslim allies.

Jewish communities in New York and Chicago reacted by burning copies of the Communist rag, and setting fire to the newsstands that sold it. Many Jewish newspaper sellers announced a boycott of the Freiheit. No one would advertise in the paper and buying it became a badge of shame. Anyone with the least bit of decency resigned. The remaining staff were expelled, reviled, and even beaten in the streets.

Like other Communist papers, the Morgen Freiheit endorsed the Hitler-Stalin pact. In response, Jewish workers assaulted Communists who tried to defend their alliance with the Nazis, calling them, “Communazis”, and taunting them with chants of, “Heil Hitler.” Even Freiheit staffers who had defended the massacre of Jews in Hebron began to drop out of the Communist paper.

80 years after the Hitler-Stalin pact, Bernie Sanders wrote an editorial, “How to Fight Antisemitism” for the Freiheit’s latest incarnation, Jewish Currents. The magazine had not run in Yiddish for a long time. And, officially, it was no longer Communist. Instead, you could see articles like, “In Defense of Marxism”, “Raya Dunayevskaya and Marxist Humanism”, and “Why I'm (Still) a Marxist”. It was perfect for Bernie.

Like his Stalinist predecessors, Bernie stuck to the party line, and pretended that there was no such thing as leftist or Islamist anti-Semitism. He didn’t mention his position on the Hitler-Stalin pact.

The former Communist magazine had gotten a major relaunch last year under Jacob Plitman, a former deputy director of the anti-Israel group J Street U, to try and appeal to millennials who hate Israel. That meant fewer historical pieces about old Communists and Marxists, and more current hatred of Israel.

The reboot was funded by the Puffin Foundation run by the Rosensteins who also work with The Nation.

Now  Jewish Currents is going back to its roots by bringing in Peter Beinart, who had called the murder of Jews by Islamic terrorists, “violent resistance”.

Terrorism, he had argued, was a “response to Israel’s denial of basic Palestinian rights.” And he suggested that, “the Israeli government is reaping what it has sowed."

Beinart is certainly reaping what he sowed as his career tumbles down into the media sewer.

In 2012, Beinart had partnered with the Daily Beast to launch Open Zion, an anti-Israel blog. It closed a year later after failing to find an audience for its hate. Beinart moved on to Haaretz, a red rag whose racist publisher urged “international pressure” to end, “Israeli apartheid”, whose world news editor boasted that he is an anti-Zionist, and whose former editor had urged Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to “rape” Israel. "It had always been my wet dream to see this happen," the leftist told her.

Is there anywhere lower Beinart could go?

After Haaretz, he appeared at The Forward, the Morgen Freitheit’s old rival, which runs headlines like, "3 Jewish Moguls Among Eight Who Own as Much as Half the Human Race” and "Why We Should Applaud The Politician Who Said Jews Control The Weather."

There, he accused Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel of being “blind to the harm Jews cause.”

Last year, The Forward dumped its editor and cut 40% of its staff. Instead of taking the advice of Haman’s wife, Beinart doubled down and joined its old even more anti-Semitic Commie rival.

"I think a tremendous need for a kind of American progressive Jewish publication," Beinart babbled,  explaining that he wanted to "confront what I see as the kind of moral corruption of the American Jewish establishment and its complicity in various ways with some of the things that Trump is doing and the direction that Netanyahu is taking Israel.”

The only moral corruption is 91 years of Communists, Marxists, and Lefties justifying the murder of Jews.

The Hebron massacre had been urged on by the Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, later popularly known as Hitler’s Mufti for his meetings with the Nazi leader and alliance with the Third Reich. The Mufti, an ally of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, paved the way for the Muslim Brotherhood’s arms in Israel, which include Hamas.

The Syrian Islamist terror leader, Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, a Mufti ally, whose Black Hand group carried out attacks against Jews in Israel, became the model for Hamas, its Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Beinart spent the last decade promoting ties to Hamas. In 2009, he had hailed, “Hamas” as “U.S. Diplomacy's Final Frontier”. In 2011, he had insisted, “A shift in US and Israeli policy towards Hamas is long overdue.” Last year, he compared Israel’s blockade of Hamas to Hiroshima and the Soviet gulags.

There is a sense of history coming full circle as Jewish Currents, the magazine twice renamed and spun off from the Morgen Freiheit, returns to its folly, as King Solomon wrote, a dog returns to its vomit.

The Morgen Freiheit had been the Communist rival to The Forward, a socialist paper, but one that nonetheless opposed the Islamist massacres of Jews in 1929 and the Hitler-Stalin pact. In those days, any leftist with a shred of conscience or decency had left the Freiheit and the Communist Party for more moderate publications and organizations. Some even became patriots and conservatives.

Beinart has traveled the opposite road. Back in his New Republic days, he wrote after September 11, “The left has proved remarkably creative over the years at blaming virtually any Middle Eastern malfeasance...on the Jewish State.” Then he became the hack he was describing to advance his career.

After decades of blaming everything on the Jewish State, the Crisis of Beinartism has arrived.

Once upon a time, Beinart was touted by the elderly anti-Israel donors and their organizations as the young voice of a new generation. But the voice of a new generation is pushing fifty. And scrambling in the political basement to revamp an ancient Communist magazine as the voice of a new generation.

Beinartism has taken him on the opposite route of the Jewish intellectuals who left the Communist Party for the New Republic. Instead, Beinart left the New Republic for the reds.

What’s next for the leading anti-Israel pundit in America? Al Jazeera? Jacobin? Pravda? 
And yet Beinart isn’t entirely wrong about a moral crisis in the Jewish community. When the Communist newspaper that was his current platform’s predecessor defended the Islamic murder of Jews, it was boycotted, its leading figures were driven out of Jewish organizations, and its offices were besieged.

91 years later, Beinart knows that he’ll be invited to speak at conferences, organizations, and events. Nearly a century ago, Jewish workers who were just scraping by put their few pennies on the line to take a stand against the Freiheit. Now, Jewish Currents will be circulated by the Jewish establishment groups.

After the Hitler-Stalin pact, Peretz Markish, a leftist Jewish poet in the Soviet Union, met up with an old friend of his. The latter showed Peretz an editorial written by Moyshe Nadir, once a leading figure in the Morgen Freiheit, who had declared that he was leaving the Communist paper after the Hitler-Stalin Pact.

"Moyshe Nadir has revealed that he raised a snake around his neck," Markish replied. "Only he nourished this snake around his neck? Only he alone? And maybe all of us weaned the snake? And a time may come when this full-grown snake will choke all of us.... Yes, if it keeps going like it's been going, the time will come that the snake wrapped around our necks will choke us."

A few years later, he joined the Communist Party. Four years later, he received the Stalin Prize. A decade after that original conversation, he was arrested and charged with being a Jewish nationalist.

In 1952, he was secretly executed.

Two decades later, Esther Markish, his widow, wrote a courageous open letter, imploring for international pressure on the Soviet Union to allow her to leave for Israel, "Help us, our writers, the conscience of our people, help us to return to the soil of our holy homeland."

There are two sides. The side of the snake, of Beinart, of the Morgen Freiheit and Jewish Currents, and the side of those who will be choked by the snake, in Hebron, Moscow, or New York City.

When we pay dues to an organization or a synagogue that invites Beinart, when we subscribe to a magazine that publishes him, then we, like that long-dead poet, are feeding the snake.

Once upon a time, Jews were outraged when the murder of their people was excused and defended. Today they continue attending synagogues, paying dues, and funding the establishment that invites the defenders of their murderers to appear on panels, speak at podiums, and sell their books.

That is the true moral corruption of the American Jewish establishment. And it is unforgivable.


Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/peter-beinart-joins-communist-paper-praised-rape-daniel-greenfield/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Trump Plan to end Jewish-Arab conflict sees PLO implode - David Singer

​
by David Singer

The PLO considers Israel's existence one of its historic compromises - except it hasn't compromised an inch.

PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas’s dismissive response to President Trump’s peace plan spells the end of the road for the PLO as Israel’s Arab partner to negotiate an end to the 100 years unresolved conflict between Jews and Arabs. 

The PLO will maintain its long-standing rejectionist policy of not recognising Israel as the Jewish State after Abbas panned the Trump plan in the following denigrating and unequivocal terms:
"They told me Trump wants to send me the deal of the century to read, I said I would not," Abbas told the meeting of Arab League foreign ministers. 

"Trump asked that I speak to him over the phone, so I said 'no', and that he wants to send me a letter, so I refused to receive it."

Holding up a map that shows the gradual geographic reduction of Palestine through four stages from pre-1948 to Trump's Middle East plan, Abbas said: "I challenge any of you, if you can even see us on the map. If you ask a child in first grade to draw Trump's map he will never know how to."
"This is a disgrace," he added.

Abbas also said that he will cut security ties with both Israel and the US: "We've informed the Israeli side ... that there will be no relations at all with them and the United States, including security ties," he said.” 

Abbas has lost the plot.

The map Abbas held up (click link) - was totally false and misleading – even its title is a total lie - but it also comprises only 23% - not 100% of Historic Palestine, which, of course, had nothing to do with the Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" today, but was named by the Romans half a millenium before the Arabs came to the area.

Abbas’s map excluded Transjordan – 77% of the land in the League of Nations 1922 Mandate for Palestine. Transjordan was closed to Jews who had been allotted it as part of the land on which to reconstitute the Jewish National Home there under article 25 of the Mandate - thus reserving this 77% of Palestine for the Arab residents of Palestine.

Transjordan remained part of the Mandate until it was granted independence by Great Britain in 1946. 

A textbook containing a similar map was trashed by Publisher Mc Graw Hill in 2016.

The following map, from Myths and Facts by Eli Hertz (see detailed explanation by clicking link) accurately records these historical facts:



Jordan and Israel are the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – currently exercising sovereignty in 95% of former Palestine. Sovereignty in the remaining 5% - Judea and Samaria ('West Bank') and Gaza - remains undetermined.

The PLO refusal to negotiate with Israel on the Trump plan - will have the following results:

• No second Arab state - in addition to Jordan - will be created in former Palestine 
• US$50 billion in development aid will not be required to build and develop that new State
• Gaza and the 'West Bank' will remain politically divided

Jordan should now replace the PLO in negotiations with Israel on Trump’s plan because: 

• Jordan was the last sovereign Arab state to occupy the 'West Bank' between 1948 and 1967 when the PLO expressly rejected any claim to sovereignty.
• Jordan conferred Jordanian citizenship on the Arab residents of the West Bank between 1950 and 1988
• The 1994 Jordan-Israel Peace Treaty will ensure good-faith – not confrontational -negotiations

The areas designated for A Future State of Palestine in the Trump Plan (pictured below) now become possible areas for transfer to Jordanian sovereignty in negotiations with Israel.



Successful Israel-Jordan negotiations would be a real game changer - holding out great prospects that the long-running Jewish-Arab conflict could finally be achieved. 

Failure by Jordan to negotiate with Israel could see Israel extend its sovereignty to all of Area C in the 'West Bank'. 

President Trump needs to phone King Abdullah of Jordan and persuade him to embrace Trump’s “deal of the century”. The PLO has blown its chance to do so.


David Singer is an Australian lawyer who is active in Zionist community organizations in that country. He founded the "Jordan is Palestine" Committee in 1979.

Source: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/25158

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Trump’s Heroic Truth - Caroline Glick

​
by Caroline Glick

And Israel’s historic opportunity.

In Israel’s early years, every time the U.S. ambassador traveled to Jerusalem to meet with government leaders, he would have his chauffeur stop his car at the entrance to the city, and replace its diplomatic license plates with regular civilian plates. The State Department refused to recognize that Jerusalem was part of Israel. The license plates were for Israel. And so, in a show of contempt and rejection of Israel’s right to its capital city, he removed his diplomatic plates before entering Jerusalem, and put them back on when he left.

President Harry Truman was the first world leader to recognize the State of Israel, just moments after David Ben-Gurion declared its independence on May 14, 1948. But his recognition was skin deep. Truman, like all of his successors until Donald Trump, recognized Israel’s existence but didn’t recognize the Jewishness of Israel. He saw Israel as a refuge for Holocaust survivors and other Jews fleeing persecution, but he didn’t accept that the nation of Israel in 1948 was the nation of Israel from the Bible. He didn’t accept that the Jewish refugees in European DP camps were the descendants of the prophets or that the forefathers of the kibbutzniks in the Jezreel Valley were the priests at the Temple in Jerusalem.

Israel, as far as he was concerned, was a new state, a poor state of Jewish refugees. And he treated it accordingly.

Truman’s anti-historical view of the Jewish state produced a two-faced American policy towards Israel. On the one hand, the American officials spoke warmly of the Jewish homeland. On the other hand, they treated Israel like a beggar that should be thankful for scraps and loose change.

This patronizing American approach changed after the 1967 Six-Day War. President Lyndon Johnson realized that a nation capable of triumphing over four enemy armies in six days and tripling its size is a nation worthy of respect and better treatment. Johnson upgraded Israel militarily and supported it diplomatically in the aftermath of the war.

But America’s ambivalence towards Zionism—the liberation movement of the ancient Jewish people—persevered. The U.S.’s adamant refusal to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and Washington’s opposition to all Jewish settlements in Judea, Samaria and Gaza attested to this fact.

For America to recognize the legitimacy of Israel’s control and Israel’s sovereign rights to these areas, America’s leaders would need to recognize the simple fact that Israel is not a refuge for a persecuted, pitiable people, but the homeland of the eternal nation of Israel. And all U.S. presidents until Trump preferred to deny this truth. As a matter of U.S. policy, they transferred the Jewish nation’s historical rights to the Palestinians, who have no national history.

But then, three years ago, Trump entered the White House. On Tuesday, Trump said that Israel is a light to the nations, that the land of Israel is the promised land, and the historic homeland of the Jewish people. He said that Jerusalem cannot be liberated because it’s already been liberated. He said that no one will be removed from their home for peace. Among other things, he conditioned Palestinians statehood on full Palestinian recognition of the Jewish people’s rights to their historic homeland in the land of Israel.

Ahead of Trump’s announcement, Barack Obama’s ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro delivered a not particularly veiled threat to Israelis who might be tempted to accept Trump’s framework for peace. Shapiro stunned the diplomatic world when he refused to leave Israel at the end of his term and instead took a position at a left-leaning Israeli think tank. He has used his position to criticize President Trump’s Middle East policies.

In an interview with Army Radio on Sunday, Shapiro said, “I think Israeli citizens should take into account that in less than a year there could be a new, Democratic administration—if not in a year then in five years. Trump won’t be president forever. It is important to know that any Democratic candidate will oppose this plan and that no Democratic president will be bound by it.”

Shapiro continued, “If Trump is encouraging Israel to take unilateral steps such as annexing the Jordan Valley and the settlement blocs, that guarantees there will be a clash with a Democratic administration in less than a year. I don’t think this is a positive thing for the relations between the countries and I advise against immediate actions that future administrations will oppose.”

In other words, Shapiro said, if Israel supports Trump’s plan, which supports Israel in ways that no previous president ever did—least of all Shapiro’s boss Obama—the Democrats will punish Israel for doing so. If Israel wants good relations with a Democratic administration in the future, it will need to agree to not secure its interests, not now, and not ever.

It is not at all clear that Blue and White leader Benny Gantz understands the gravity of the moment. Shapiro essentially reinforced the point that Trump is providing Israel with a chance to secure its interests that it isn’t likely to receive again. The fact that Gantz thought it was appropriate to attack Netanyahu from Washington on Monday indicated that he places his personal ambitions above the good of the country.

So too, it is far from clear that the leaders of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria understand the significance of Trump’s actions. On Tuesday, Trump recognized the truth at the foundation of Zionism and made that truth the foundation of America’s policy regarding the Palestinian conflict with Israel.

Trump is a true friend of the Jewish people. He didn’t offer us a perfect plan, but he offered us a plan that we can live with. That alone sets it apart from all the American plans that preceded it. It would be a sin for us not to support it. Netanyahu pledged to apply Israeli law to the Jordan Valley and the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria on Sunday. Every Jew in Israel and worldwide should expect that he and his ministers fulfill this pledge, and every Jew in Israel and worldwide should feel thankful to Trump for his friendship and for his courage to embrace the truth.

Caroline Glick

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/02/trumps-heroic-truth-caroline-glick/

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

The Netherlands: The Geert Wilders Show Trial Continues - Soeren Kern

​
by Soeren Kern

Wilders case appears to have been pre-cooked in the cabinet itself.... [Prime Minister] Rutte himself was involved.... The lying and spinning must stop somewhere

• The emails indicate that Prime Minister Mark Rutte himself was involved in the decision to prosecute Wilders.
• "Minister Van der Steur has deliberately withheld those documents, as is apparent from these documents. Moreover, it appears that another Justice Minister, Minister Opstelten, lied..." — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020
• "Mr. Presiding Judge, the Minister of Justice interfered in detail with my conviction. The documents even state that the Ministry of Justice instructed the public prosecutor — you will find the word 'instruct' in the documents...." -- Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020
• "And every day that this trial continues and you do not punish the conspiring prosecution, and the Ministry of Justice for their lies and haggling with the principles of an independent, fair and balanced trial, by declaring them inadmissible, every day this trial continues is a black day in the history of Dutch justice." — Geert Wilders, February 5, 2020
• "In the Wilders case, we certainly do not have to rely on the judge to agree with Wilders and to reach the conclusion that there has been a political trial, which is therefore not legally valid.... Wilders case appears to have been pre-cooked in the cabinet itself.... [Prime Minister] Rutte himself was involved.... The lying and spinning must stop somewhere.... This rule of law, in which judges and prosecutors receive instructions by the politicians on how to act, is rotten from within." – Joost Niemöller, Dutch Journalist, Ongehoordnederland.nl, February 5, 2020

Newly released documents show that senior members of the Dutch government — including the former prime minister and justice minister — applied political pressure on public prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom for "hate speech." Pictured: Wilders (left) sits next to current Prime Minister Mark Rutte at a meeting of political party leaders at the Dutch House of Representatives on March 16, 2017 in The Hague. (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)

Newly released documents show that senior members of the Dutch government — including the prime minister and two former justice ministers — applied political pressure on public prosecutors to indict Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV), for hate speech for comments he made about Islam and Moroccan immigrants.

The documents, which the government turned over to the Amsterdam-based newspaper De Volkskrant in compliance with a Freedom of Information request, appear to confirm long-standing allegations by Wilders that the government's decade-long legal war against him is far from a principled pursuit of justice, and instead politically motivated and aimed at silencing his criticism of multiculturalism and mass migration from the Muslim world.

On February 3, De Volkskrant reported that the government documents — numbering nearly 500 pages — show that as early as 2008, then-Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin was "intensively involved" in the decision to prosecute Wilders.

According to De Volkskrant, the Public Prosecution Service (Openbaar Ministerie, OM) found nothing illegal about Wilders statements, but Hirsch Ballin pressed the OM on three separate occasions to change its assessment.

In June 2008, the OM dismissed more than 40 criminal complaints against Wilders on the grounds that his statements were made "in the context of political debate" and therefore "not of a punishable nature."

In January 2009, the Amsterdam Appeals Court, the second-highest legal authority in the Netherlands, overturned the OM's decision and ruled that Wilders could be tried for inciting hatred. Wilders said that it was a "black day for myself and for freedom of speech."

The first trial against Wilders began on October 4, 2010. He was accused of insulting religious and ethnic groups and inciting hatred and discrimination for describing Islam as fascist and comparing the Koran to Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf. Wilders argued that his statements were directed at Islam as an ideology and not at individual Muslim believers.

The trial collapsed on October 22, 2010, after it emerged that Tom Schalken, one of the judges in the case, had tried to sway a potential witness.

The retrial began on February 6, 2011 with three new judges. Wilders said that his trial was about preserving freedom of expression in the West.

On June 23, 2011, Wilders was acquitted of all charges. Judge Marcel van Oosten ruled that the statements by Wilders, while "gross and denigrating," did not meet the standard of hate speech and as such were "acceptable within the context of public debate."

Despite the acquittal, the government's harassment of Wilders continued. Internal government emails recently published by RTL Nieuws show that Hirsch Ballin's successor, Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten, repeatedly pressured the OM to bring a new case against Wilders. Opstelten, his aides and the prosecutor repeatedly consulted with each other before the decision to prosecute Wilders a second time was made in the fall of 2014. The OM has always denied that it was subject to outside political interference; the emails show that the OM denials were untruthful. An email sent by the lead prosecutor, Wouter Bos, on October 8, 2014, warned: "This must not leak!"

Other government emails show that the decision to bring a new case against Wilders was discussed as early as March 2014 in the Council of Ministers, the executive council of Dutch government, formed by all the ministers, including the prime minister. The emails indicate that Prime Minister Mark Rutte himself was involved in the decision to prosecute Wilders.

On March 18, 2016, Wilders went on trial again for allegedly inciting hatred against Moroccan immigrants. Prosecutors said that in March 2014, Wilders, while campaigning in The Hague, asked a crowd of supporters if they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. The crowd said fewer. Wilders responded: "We'll take care of that."

Prosecution spokeswoman Ilse de Heer said that Wilders "targeted a specific race, which is considered a crime." Wilders countered that his comments referred to Moroccan criminals, not to Moroccans in general, and that, in any event, Moroccans are not a race.

On December 9, 2016, Wilders was found guilty of inciting discrimination. The court, however, imposed no form of punishment; it said that the verdict was a sufficient penalty. The Public Prosecutor demanded a fine of €5,000 ($5,500). Both Wilders and the Prosecutor appealed.

Since then, Wilders has been entangled in a protracted legal process that shows no signs of ending anytime soon. In an appeal hearing on February 5, 2020, Wilders voiced his anger over the political nature of the case against him:

"Presiding Judge, members of the court: The shamelessness of the Public Prosecution Office knows no boundaries. In a report we received yesterday and heard about today, they claim — one-and-a-half days after they received the documents from the Ministry of Justice — that nothing is wrong, that nothing has been found that indicates political influence.
"Rarely have I seen attorney generals who are so damaging to the rule of law, who don't care about a fair trial. They are blinded by their hatred for me and the PVV. These kinds of people, like those two attorney generals, ensure that the trust of ordinary people, the common man and woman in the Netherlands, in the public prosecutor and the judiciary has fallen to a low point.
"The Public Prosecutor says that there is nothing wrong. Shame on you, attorney generals. What we all know now is enough to immediately end this political process, this charade....
"We already knew, Mr. Presiding Judge and members of the court, that officials from the Ministry of Justice, under the responsibility of former Justice Minister Ivo Opstelten, had adjusted press releases from the public prosecutor. That it was Minister Opstelten himself who wanted two press releases. That his officials had made a legal analysis of this case. And shared this with the public prosecutor.
"We already knew that they had helped the public prosecutor refute the defenses of the defense. That, for example, the phrase, 'we will arrange that' was brought to the attention of the public prosecutor by the Ministry of Justice. That they wanted to see the requisites in advance to provide comments.
"And now there are 475 pieces again. And indeed, we have not been able to read all of them, I mean, we could hardly read any of the pieces. But if I only look at what the media writes about it, such as Volkskrant or RTL journalist Pieter Klein, then only more shocking things have come to the surface.
"It even appears now that it [the case] has been discussed in the Council of Ministers, Mr. Presiding Judge. In the Council of Ministers. How much more political does it get?
"The documents show that a senior official of the Ministry of General Affairs of Prime Minister Rutte informed a senior official of Ministry of Justice of Minister Opstelten that the Prime Minister expects the Minister of Justice to be able to say something meaningful during the Council of Ministers of March 21, 2014 about whether the prosecution of Wilders is promising.
"How promising it is! Promising: according to the dictionary, I looked it up, that also means likely, successful. It has a positive connotation. The Council of Ministers, Mr. Presiding Judge. This concerns an opposition leader in the House of Representatives. That is shameful, but that is, unfortunately, not unique, because we also know from the documents that we received yesterday that it was — in relation to the Wilders 1 trial, but I still want to have mentioned it, to indicate what they are capable of — that it was then Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin who requested legal advice three times because he did not like the earlier advice that it was impossible to prosecute Wilders. He repeated his requests for advice until he received the advice he wanted.
"Back to this trial. Apart from the fact that it was discussed in the Council of Ministers — words cannot express, it does not become much more political and corrupt — former [Justice] Minister Van der Steur, the documents show, deliberately and personally stopped the publication, on the basis of the Dutch Freedom of Information Act (WOB), of an official message about my persecution. Minister Van der Steur stopped that.
"According to the documents, the decision on the WOB request was delayed until after the decision of the Court of First Instance. Until after my conviction. Imagine that. Mafia practices. Pure political influence of the worst kind. A minister who deliberately withholds relevant and possibly exculpatory documents until after the conviction. Words really cannot express...
"If we had received those documents earlier and also all the other documents requested on that basis, and now also obtained with the permission of your court, then perhaps it might not have come to a conviction at all...then the court might not have decided on a conviction in the first instance.
"Minister Van der Steur has deliberately withheld those documents, as is apparent from these documents. Moreover, it appears that another Justice Minister, Minister Opstelten, lied when he said during his interrogation by the commissioner, that outside the Council of Ministers — you can find it literally in the reports — he never spoke about this matter with other ministers.
"The documents that we received yesterday show that he did indeed talk to other ministers about this outside the Council of Ministers, namely with Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk.
"Mr. Presiding Judge, the Minister of Justice interfered in detail with my conviction. The documents even state that the Ministry of Justice instructed the public prosecutor — you will find the word 'instruct' in the documents — when and at what time they had to call me on October 9, 2014, to say that I was a suspect. For a phone call to me, saying that I was a suspect, the Public Prosecutor's Office was instructed by the Ministry of Justice when and at what time and on what day that had to happen.
"My case has been dealt with in detail. And this whole trial, just like the Wilders 1 trial, is permeated with political influence. From phone calls, up to the Council of Ministers, and to ministers who withheld or delayed documents, an opposition leader from the national parliament has been prosecuted for ten years that way.
"Politics have always been involved, from civil servants to ministers and the Council of Ministers. Every day that this trial continues and you do not punish the conspiring prosecution, and the Ministry of Justice for their lies and haggling with the principles of an independent, fair and balanced trial, by declaring them inadmissible, every day this trial continues is a black day in the history of Dutch justice.
"This trial will have to stop today. I have said it many times. To be honest, I find it incomprehensible that this has not been decided long ago by declaring the prosecution inadmissible. If in the unfortunate event, even after today, you want to continue with this trial again, then indeed, and you have just said that, Mr. Presiding Judge, we need ample time to read all those documents and possibly based on those documents, also call new witnesses, like Minister Van der Steur. Like the prime minister. Like all the people involved.
"It is clear from these documents that they are more involved than we already knew. And see the minutes, the records, of the Council of Ministers as well. It appears to have been discussed. It has been said by the General Affairs official against the Justice official: '[Prime Minister Mark] Rutte wants to say something about the chances of this trial, Ivo [Opstelten].' And Ivo went to the Council of Ministers on March 21. This has always been denied. Denied during the interrogations. Now it appears to have just happened. I want to see those documents from the Council of Ministers. I want to talk to people about it. It is not just about someone who steals a roll of licorice. It is about the opposition leader in the Dutch parliament whose persecution has been influenced up to the Council of Ministers.
"I want to hear the truth. I want to hear more than the truth about the political influence in this trial so that this trial is taken off the table as quickly as possible."

Veteran Dutch journalist Joost Niemöller wrote:

"On February 3, just before another hearing in the endless criminal case against Wilders, a bulk of internal documents were dropped by Justice Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus which relate to the official and political involvement in this trial. These documents were intended for the House of Representatives and are now public.
"If the Chamber takes its task seriously, it must investigate the political nature of this lawsuit. That is emphatically not an investigation into the trial itself — after all, we have a separation of powers here — but an investigation into the political role behind the continuation of this trial....
"In the Wilders case, we certainly do not have to rely on the judge to agree with Wilders and to reach the conclusion that there has been a political trial, which is therefore not legally valid.... After the internal documents released, the issue has become even more flammable.
"The Wilders case appears to have been pre-cooked in the cabinet itself.... [Prime Minister] Rutte himself was involved.... The lying and spinning must stop somewhere.
"The anger of Wilders in court was only too understandable, and all too justified. It is the anger of more and more Dutch people. Even in the mainstream media it is now recognized that this political pre-cooking goes beyond all limits.
"This is the umpteenth example in which democracy is excluded by the judiciary, because the judiciary and the OM have become an extension of politics.
"This point is increasingly emphasized by, among others, Forum for Democracy leader Thierry Baudet, whose hypocritical opponents accuse him of rejecting the rule of law.
"This rule of law, in which judges and prosecutors receive instructions by the politicians on how to act, is rotten from within."

Wilders' trial will continue on March 23. Four additional hearings are scheduled for April. It remains unclear when his trial will end.

• Follow Soeren Kern on Twitter and Facebook

Soeren Kern is a Senior Fellow at the New York-based Gatestone Institute.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15553/geert-wilders-show-trial

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Newt Gingrich on Iowa: 'Media is totally misreporting' results after 'rigged process' - Talia Kaplan

​
by Talia Kaplan

“Sanders got the most votes in the first round. He got the most votes in the second round. The only reason Buttigieg is getting all this press is that the Iowa process is rigged.”

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said on “Fox & Friends” on Thursday that media is "totally misreporting Iowa” and that Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., won the state's caucuses.

“Sanders got the most votes in the first round. He got the most votes in the second round. The only reason [former South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete] Buttigieg is getting all this press is that the Iowa process is rigged.”

He then said, “the fact is, Sanders came in first in [the] popular vote in both the first and second ballot and it tells you how desperate they [Democrats] are to stop him, that we’ve been through this week of Sanders not being recognized.

“He is the frontrunner for the Democratic Party right now,” Gingrich continued.

It has been widely reported that Buttigieg held a slight lead over the Vermont senator in the Iowa caucuses as more results trickled in on Wednesday.

The caucuses were held Monday, but technical problems caused an unprecedented delay in reporting the results. No candidate has been declared the winner yet, and results are still coming in.

As of Wednesday night, Buttigieg led the race with 26.2 percent of delegates over the 26.1 percent in favor of Sanders, according to numbers released by the Iowa Democratic Party.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren trailed with 18.2 percent and former Vice President Joe Biden was hovering in fourth with 15.8 percent, with 92 percent with 97 percent of the precincts reporting.

Iowa doesn't choose its winner by popular vote, but uses delegates instead.

Video

“What’s funny is in the morning coverage, Bernie is ahead in the first vote, he’s then ahead in the second vote, and then he’s three behind in the delegate allocation,” Gingrich noted on Thursday, adding that the media isn’t acknowledging those numbers. 

“They don’t want to talk about the fact that if you really look at it, Bernie won Iowa and Buttigieg did not win Iowa, period.”

The results could give Buttigieg and Sanders momentum heading into New Hampshire, where the next primary contest is set to be held next week. The two candidates have been separated by 40 years and ideology.

Gingrich then brought up the 2020 Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis. on Thursday saying, "I’m beginning to think that they are going to have a brokered convention and that Milwaukee is going to be the most interesting Democratic convention since 1968.” 

Fox News’ Louis Casiano contributed to this report.


Talia Kaplan

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/newt-gingrich-iowa-results-bernie-won-iowa

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter

Devin Nunes: This is the most important thing Trump has done - Charles Creitz

​
by Charles Creitz

"The media in this town has been corrupt. It took somebody like Trump to bring them out of their shell so now they will just openly go out and tweet about it late at night..."

House Intelligence Committee ranking member Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said the impeachment fight revealed that one of President Trump's top accomplishments has been exposing the left-wing or anti-Trump bent in much of the Beltway media.

Nunes said Thursday on "The Ingraham Angle" that the press in Washington, D.C., has always been unsavory, but their repeated expressions of outrage at every White House development has made their ideology clear.

"The most important thing the president has done -- though all the things he's done are very important -- but he's finally outed the media," he said.

"The media in this town has been corrupt. It took somebody like Trump to bring them out of their shell so now they will just openly go out and tweet about it late at night. They get drunk and send drunk tweets out. They are vicious to him and Republicans."

Nunes added that he would like his Republican colleagues to stop paying the media any attention as they go about the people's work.

"They are assassins, they are working for the other team," he said of the press.

The Tulare lawmaker added that Trump essentially riled up the press by foregoing his prepared remarks in the White House East Room earlier in the day -- when he reacted to the Senate's impeachment acquittal.

In his delivered remarks, Trump called out many of his GOP allies individually and praised them for their teamwork, at times riffing on them in a jocular manner.

He joked about Sen. Charles Grassley's, R-Iowa, apparently gruff voice during hearings, Rep. Jim Jordan's, R-Ohio, workout routine and Rep. John Ratcliffe's, R-Texas, legal expertise.

He also made sharp remarks about his political adversaries, referring to former FBI Director Jim Comey as a "sleazebag," and rebuking Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, for voting to convict him on one of two impeachment articles.

In closing, Nunes added that it is imperative for the Republicans to continue to rally behind the president and take back control of the House of Representatives in November to help in that endeavor.


Charles Creitz

Source: https://www.foxnews.com/media/devin-nunes-this-is-the-most-important-thing-trump-has-done

Follow Middle East and Terrorism on Twitter