Author: Hugh Fitzgerald

A report on the illuminating and yet predictable recent encounter between Mahmoud Abbas and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in Ramallah is here

 While Israel has had several Christian Arabs serving on its high court, until now it has not had a permanent Muslim justice. Now it does: Judge Khaled Kabub was appointed to the high court in mid-February.

Nancy Pelosi has many faults, but a failure to support Israel is not one of them. In Congress, the Speaker of the House has always been a strong supporter of the Jewish state. She inherited her strong sympathies from her father, Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., who was first a Congressman from Maryland and later the Mayor of Baltimore, and who played an unsung role in supporting a campaign to force Franklin Delano Roosevelt to help Jewish refugees, and in urging American recognition of the state of Israel.

Nasser Abu Hmeid is a Palestinian now behind bars for having murdered seven Israelis. While imprisoned, he developed lung cancer. The PA claims that the Israelis were deliberately employing “medical neglect” in his case and others. A report on this libel is here.

It looks as though the world is preoccupied more with the Palestinians than with any other unfortunate ethnic group in the world, or indeed than with all of them combined. But that is only an illusion. The world isn’t really interested in them. The Palestinians only interest the world when an accusatory finger can be pointed at Israel. The most oppressed group of Palestinians in the world – close to half a million people, according to UNRWA – is the one living in Lebanon.

No good deed…..

, the United Nations General Assembly passed “by consensus” – meaning no vote was taken – a resolution calling on the world’s states, and on the tech giants of the Internet, to work to combat Holocaust denial.

That it has come to this – that the world has needed a U.N. Resolution condemning Holocaust denial and committing states to combat its expression – is deeply depressing. But this denial, which both results from, and further encourages, antisemitism, is found unacceptably often on social media, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and all the other insensate carriers of antisemitic messages that fail to remove such material in a timely – i.e., nearly instantaneous – fashion.

Most Palestinians in Lebanon do not have Lebanese citizenship, and therefore do not have Lebanese identity cards, which would entitle them to government services, such as health and education. They must rely on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) for basic services, such as health care and education that the Lebanese state denies them. Nor are they are granted access to the other social services the Lebanese government provides.

As has now been clearly established by Israel, several Palestinian NGOs are working hand in glove with terrorist groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the PFLP (Popular Front For the Liberation of Palestine). Among them is DCI-P, the Palestinian branch of the NGO Defense For Children, which Israel has linked to the PFLP. DCI-P has been found to minimize, distort, or hide reports of Palestinian youth violence, and has shown little interest in how Palestinian children are recruited and exploited by the terror groups.

Were they genuinely motivated by a concern for Palestinian children, DCI-P would advocate and campaign against the endemic incitement against Jews and Israelis to which these children are exposed.

Iran’s capacity for self-delusion is a wonder to behold. It has now concluded that Israel is fearful of the Islamic Republic’s ability to create an “Axis of Resistance” that will surround the Jewish state and, with help from Arabs within Israel and the territories, manage to destroy it. A report on Iran’s rich fantasy life is here.

Nothing is going right for the Islamic Republic. Hackers promoting the liberation of Ahwaz – the southern province right on the Gulf, where Iran’s Arab minority live, and most of the country’s oil is produced – have hacked into, and disrupted for the third time, Iran’s Mahan Airlines. In Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, for several weeks this November many thousands of farmers, joined by thousands of others who share their rage…..

The Iranians have an impressive capacity to block out reality, about both their own weaknesses and about the Jewish state’s strengths. The latest report on Iran’s rich fantasy life is here.

Translation: Axis of evil.

It’s true that in any future conflict with Egypt, if one were ever to erupt, the IDF will have to contend with a massive army equipped with modern, sophisticated weapons. At the current juncture, however, the clear and present dangers to Israel are from the north, not the south.”

There are still Israelis who worry about a possible military threat to the Jewish state from Egypt, and continue to insist that returning the entire Sinai was a mistake. They point to the spectacular improvements in Egypt’s army, and wonder If the pro-Israel policies of the Egyptian government will survive the rule of General El-Sissi.

The donor nations that have in the past been so generous in funding the Palestinian Authority have this year finally had enough, and have massively cut down the aid provided to 10% of what had previously been pledged. A report on this welcome development is here.

After Ben & Jerry’s decided to end sales of its product in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Gilad Erdan, sent a letter to the governors of the 35 states that have anti-BDS laws on their books, urging them to now apply them, which would mean divesting from Ben & Jerry’s parent company, the conglomerate Unilever. And that is what has been happening.

So deep is their inculcated hatred of the Jews that none of the Arab students the author spoke to were willing to condemn the terrorist bombing of a bus, even though they knew some of the wounded; for them the suicide bombing was a legitimate blow struck at the Zionist enemy, in this case the “enemy” being civilian men, women, and children.

Legend attacked the Jewish state ….. again.

Keenly aware of Arab misperceptions of Israel, the American Jewish Committee has been releasing a series of Arabic-language videos about, among other topics, the history of the Jews, the Jewish connection to Jerusalem, Jews in Muslim lands. Now it has released an animated short about Israel’s Arab citizens, their role in Israeli society, and the rights afforded both them, and all of Israel’s citizens.

Old fashioned Jew hatred — packaged and sold by celeb know nothing racists in order to retain ‘cool’ factor.

Germany has just now signed an agreement with the P.A.’s Prime Minister, Mohammed Shtayyeh, according to which Berlin has pledged that $117 million will be provided to the rulers of the P.A. sitting in Ramallah, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, as “investment” in unspecified “vital projects” (presumably, infrastrucure projects fo bring such necessities as water and…

Israel leads the world in the recycling of water; fully 90% of its waste water ends up being recycled. It leads the world in drip irrigation techniques, so essential for farmers in water-poor lands. It leads the world, too, in innovative methods of desalination that provide more than half of the country’s domestic water. And now Israel’s culture of innovation has brought forth a way to rid the world’s 60 million lakes of the blue-green algae that has been turning them into dead zones, where no life is possible. With the Israeli company BlueGreen’s technology, those millions of lakes threatened by blue-green algae can once again be made safe for fish, for wildlife, and for humans, while the algae can be safely, and cheaply, eradicated.

We are left with the recognition that the supposed Arab attachment to the land of “Palestine” is hollow; the Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Arabs who participate in arson, and the many others who cheer them on, taking satisfaction in such destruction, do not “love” the Land of Palestine. They are willing to contemplate the destruction of that land through arson, just as long as it deprives the hated Zionists of their farmlands and forests.

Not only the Muslims in Gaza, but those in Israel and the West Bank have been rejoicing at the sight of Israeli land being set on fire by incendiary balloons.

Islamic Jew hatred is a central tent of Islam. The jihad against the Jews is an Islamic imperative.

The United States, Guatemala, and Kosovo have all have moved their embassies to Israel.

Jewish demography has been impacted by the Israeli state of mind, which is heavy on optimism, faith, patriotism, attachment to roots, collective responsibility and the centrality of children. Israeli Jews have a frontier mentality, in the face of Jewish history and contemporary existential threats in the stormy, violently intolerant, unpredictable and anti-“infidel” Middle East.

Though the Biden Administration has been pledging large sums of money to the PA, despite the PA’s continuation of its “Pay-For-Slay” plan – giving large subsidies to terrorists and their families, both to reward past, and to incentivize future, terrorists – Israel at least is not going to contribute to that farce. The Bidenites may think they can get away with ignoring the Taylor Force Act, passed by Congress in 2018, which forbids any American aid from going to the PA as long as it continues with the “Pay-For-Slay” program, but Israel remains true to both the spirit and the letter of Taylor Force.

Not so fast….

The Palestinian Authority elections were called not because Palestinian Authority President-for-Life Mahmoud Abbas had suddenly become a believer in democracy, but because he wanted to put on a show for the Americans, with what he thought would be a reasonable facsimile of democracy, hoping thereby to turn on the spigot of aid that Trump had turned off. But when it became clear he would lose both the presidential and the parliamentary elections, he cancelled the elections.

The Biden Administration seems to believe that the best way to oppose the terror group Hamas is to support its arch-rival, the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas may be a despot, a President-For-Life now entering the sixteenth year of his four-year term; he may have his goons threaten and intimidate his critics, but at least he isn’t launching rockets into Israel.

The latest item from the annals of Palestinian atrocity can be found here.

Was the targeted assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist any more “reckless” than the American killing of the head of Iran’s Quds Force, Qassem Soleimani, at the beginning of 2020? Or was this killing any more “reckless” than the killing of Osama bin Laden by Seal Team Six, in 2011, when Brennan was high up in the CIA (he became the Director in 2013)?

John Brennan mentions that these young Palestinians grow up suffering “discrimination.” What does he have in mind? There is not a single Israeli in Gaza, so Israeli “discrimination” against Palestinians in Gaza is not possible. In the West Bank, 90% of the Arabs live in Areas A and B. In Area A, the PA has complete control of daily life. In Area B, the PA has complete control of all aspects of the Arab inhabitants lives except for security. It is only in Area C, where Israelis retain control, that fewer than 10% of the West Bank Arabs live. What kind of “discrimination” does Brennan think they must endure in Area C? Are they denied schooling, medical care, the right to practice their (Muslim) religion, the right to employment? No. They can’t vote in Israeli elections, granted – but why should they? They are not Israeli citizens.

Former CIA director John Brennan has long been delivering himself of his most unsympathetic view of Israel and of Jews.

Unsurprisingly, as well as being a scold and scourge of those terrible Israelis, and a sympathizer with those inoffensive Palestinians, former CIA director John Brennan has also long been a defender of Islam. In 2010, Brennan said, taking up the theme of the false – because “extremist” – Muslims, and the true ones: “Nor do we describe our enemy as ‘Jihadists’ or ‘Islamists,’ because Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community, and there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women, and children.”

A commentary by Nadav Shragai on the Muslim demand that Jews be barred from the Temple Mount altogether is here. …We need to hope that no one in any of the Zionist political parties, defense establishment, or Israel Police is even remotely entertaining this impertinent demand. The ability to visit the Temple Mount is all…

The vile Jewish Voice for Peace is an anti-Israel pro-Palestinian group of far-left Jews that has become ever more absurd in the charges it flings at the Jewish state.

Islamic supremacism unleashed.

Israel also transferred 5,000 vaccine doses meant to inoculate Palestinian health workers. Some of those vaccines were promptly claimed for themselves by PA leaders and their extended families, a scandalous misappropriation over which Israel had no control. Israel has always made clear that if the Palestinians requested help, Israel would respond favorably.

Mahmoud Abbas is the PA’s President-for-Life, now entering the 16th year of his four-year term. He has decided to hold parliamentary and presidential elections this summer, in order to impress the Biden Administration with his suddenly-discovered democratic credentials. But there are problems, and Nadav Argaman, the Shin Bet head, went to visit the rais in Ramallah to discuss a worrisome possibility.

Hard hit by COVID-19, Lebanon is in dire need of oxygen machines for more than 1,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients on respirators. The Israelis are hoping to help.
The gift of the Jews …….

The EU and the US have failed to criticize the Turkish political establishment for allowing such a development or criticized the rise of Nazi-like ideologies in Turkey

The Biden Administration is eager to again turn on the spigot of American aid to terrorists.

Morocco is one of the four Arab states that have agreed to normalize relations with Israel.

As one more sign of how far the Arabs have come in forging closer ties with Israel and leaving the Palestinians to fend for themselves, talks are now underway between the Jewish state and the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia about a possible defense pact.

The Biden administration will reportedly push for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines.

Can someone please get him copies of both the Mandate for Palestine and U.N. Resolution 242, in triplicate, for him, for National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and for President Biden? Clearly, in Washington, it’s time to burn the midnight oil.