Annexation is not a Deal-Breaker

by Anna Epshtein

A former Deputy National Security Advisor during Trump’s first presidency promised that the President-elect will change policies towards Iran, the Palestinians and normalization with Arab states.

“Oslo failed. We need a paradigm shift,” said Victoria Coates, former Deputy National Security Advisor during Trump’s first presidency. “This rigid formula of the two-state solution in the last thirty years has got us nowhere,” Coates insisted. The Oslo Accords of 1993, she said, were “well-intentioned, but didn’t work.”

“Trump said after October 1 that Israel should hit Iran’s nuclear and energy sites. This is not something he used to say previously, and I don’t think he said it lightly.” Israel retaliated for Iran’s October 1 missile barrage with airstrikes on the Islamic Republic’s air defenses, missile production facilities and a nuclear research site.

Asked about possible normalization between Israel and moderate Arab countries, Coates said she believed the Abraham Accords still have the potential to be expanded.

“I would leave the details for negotiations, but it is clear to me that the veto that the Palestinians have held since essentially 1973 over the foreign policy decisions, particularly of our Gulf partners and allies that veto no longer holds,” Coates said.

She added that Israeli sovereignty over parts of Judea and Samaria would not necessarily deter Saudi Arabia from normalizing ties. “I don’t see it as a deal-breaker for Saudi Arabia if it is not a deal-breaker for Washington. I would rather pay attention to what the Saudis do than to what they say.”

The Abraham accords, signed in September 2021, normalized relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain; with Sudan in October 2021. Morocco joined the accords in December.

Food for Thought: by Steven Shamrak

Not long ago, members of the UN General Assembly, 157 of them, voted again for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict. The international anti-Semites are ‘uncomfortable’ with the existence of the Jewish state, and are determine to create another Islamic terrorist state on the Jewish land. Occupation of the independent state of Tibet by China is long forgotten. The question of independence of Kashmir does not exist anymore. Nobody cares about the self-determination of Kurdish people, up to 45 million of them world-wide. The members of the ‘Ugly Nazi’ are only preoccupied with the independence of the fake people of the never existing country or kingdom on the Jewish land. There are 57 Muslim countries, including 22 Arab states. They could welcome and provide a secure prosperous future for their ‘Palestinian brothers and sisters’. Why don’t they?

 

Mad Dog Barking

Hadash, an Israeli party made up of Arabs and Communists, in a publication in Arabic, accused Israel and the United States of toppling the regime of Bashar al-Assad. A member of the party, wrote: “The US and the global Zionist movement have a new-old agenda that they have been working with all their might to achieve and they create terror organizations that operate via proxy like ISIS, that operate under Islamist slogans.” (Of course, conflict between Shia and Sunni branches of Islam, and Iran’s failed support for Hezbollah has nothing to do with it.)

UNRWA Run Schools were Infested by Hamas members

Some two dozen teachers, counsellors, administrators at UNRWA schools in Gaza are members of Hamas or other terror groups. The documents viewed by The New York Times identify 24 employees at 24 different UNRWA schools – the majority of them principals or deputy-principals – who are registered members of Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The United Nations agency responsible for aid to Palestinians – and which administered some 288 schools in the enclave before the war – has fostered radicalism, and been used by terror groups in their efforts against Israel. (And knowingly financed members of the terrorist organizations.)

Israeli Destroyed Deadly Arsenals in Syria

Israeli Air Force fighter jets on Sunday struck dozens of targets across Syria, taking out weaponry that Israel feared could fall into the hands of hostile forces. The weapons hit by the warplanes included advanced missile storage sites, air defense systems, weapon production facilities, sand a chemical weapons site. The Israel Defense Forces seized control of a buffer zone between the Israel-Syria border in the Golan Heights, in what it described as a temporary defensive measure.

There is NO ‘West Bank’

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced legislation that would require all official US documents and materials to use the historically accurate term “Judea and Samaria” instead of the “West Bank.” The bill would require the use of historically accurate terminology and align US policy language with the geographical and cultural significance of the region. “The Jewish people’s legal and historic rights to Judea and Samaria go back thousands of years. The US should stop using the politically charged term ‘West Bank’ to refer to the biblical heartland of Israel,” said Senator Cotton.

Hamas ‘Neutralizing’ Hostages

Hamas issues instructions to ‘neutralize’ hostages if Israel attempts a rescue operation. Israel rescued four hostages from Gaza’s Nuseirat camp on June 9, 2024. Hamas said it had information that Israel intended to carry out a hostage rescue operation similar to one conducted in Gaza’s Nuseirat camp in June. (Amnesty International does not condemn Hamas for taking and killing hostages. The Red Cross has never visited Israeli hostages in Gaza!)

Still No Migration from Gaza War Zone

Egyptian Foreign Minister Badr Abdelatty and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken engaged in discussions on the escalating crisis in Syria and ongoing efforts to broker a ceasefire in Gaza. Neither official had anything to say about opening the gates of Gaza so the locals, hungry and frightened, could seek a better life in a different country. Last January, a proposal to promote the voluntary emigration of Arabs from the Gaza Strip as part of a post-war strategy was shelved, following strong opposition from the Biden administration. (There are some 9 million Syrian displaced by war. Some 5.5 million of them are refugees in neighbouring countries. Only fake Palestinians must stay and die in a war-ravaged Gaza.)

Israel won’t Co-operate with UNRWA

Israeli Amb. to the UN calls the UN a ‘circus’ ahead of General Assembly session on ‘the question of Palestine,’ and accuses the UN of encouraging rejectionism and providing platforms for hatred and violence. “Every year, we meet here and we hear the same debates villainizing Israel and not talking about the main issues because the Assembly refuses to confront the truth,” he said. “77 years ago, the UN proposed a Partition Plan. We said yes, the Arab world said no. They rejected coexistence and instead declared war on the newborn Jewish State.”  “‘They’ shouldn’t have allowed UNRWA to be infiltrated by Hamas. Today, when they care about their reputation, I tell them it’s too little, it’s too late. We will not cooperate with UNRWA,” Danon declared.

“All Hell to Pay” – Release the Hostages

The US President-elect Donald Trump warned Hamas of massive repercussions if hostages in Gaza are not released by the time he takes office in January. “If the hostages are not released prior to January 20, 2025, the date that I proudly assume Office as President of the United States, there will be ALL HELL TO PAY in the Middle East. Those responsible will be hit harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied history of the United States of America. RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!”

No Agreement on Joint Gaza Rule

Negotiations in Cairo between representatives of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) failed to produce an agreement on the administration of Gaza after the ongoing war with Israel. The tensions between the two terror groups derailed the progress. Senior PA official Jibril Rajoub publicly rejected the proposed committee in remarks made in Ramallah. “What committee is this? It is wrong to even discuss this issue,” he said.  “We want one government, one security apparatus, and one unified policy.” (Hamas and the PA have a common goal – killing of Jews and the destruction of Israel, but they hate each other even more.)

Quotes of the Week:

“The burning of the Adass Israel synagogue in Melbourne (Australia) is an abhorrent act of antisemitism. Unfortunately, it is impossible to separate this reprehensible act from the extreme anti-Israeli position of the Labor government in Australia, including the scandalous decision to support the UN resolution calling on Israel ‘to bring an end to its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as rapidly as possible,’ and preventing a former Israeli minister from entering the country. Anti-Israel sentiment is anti-Semitism.” – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – For over a year, the Australian government has deliberately allowed weekly pro-Hamas demonstrations in Melbourne and Sydney, disregarding the disruption and inconvenience they created to businesses and commuters. This is anti-Semitism!

Who were the 1948 Arab Refugees?

by Yoram Ettinger

Contrary to conventional “wisdom,” most Arabs in British Mandate Palestine – and most of the 320,000 1948 Arab refugees – were migrant workers and descendants of the 1831-1947 Muslim immigrants from Egypt, the Sudan, Lebanon, Syria, as well as from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, North Africa, Bosnia, India, Afghanistan, etc. Britain enticed Arab immigration and blocked Jewish immigration.

Thus, between 1880 and 1919, Haifa’s Arab population surged from 6,000 to 80,000, mostly due to migrant workers.  The eruption of WW2 accelerated the demand for Arab manpower by the British Mandate’s military and its civilian authorities.

Moreover, Arab migrant workers were imported by the Ottoman Empire, and then by the British Mandate, to work in major civilian and military infrastructure projects. Legal and illegal Arab migrants were, also, attracted by economic growth, which was generated by the Jewish community, beginning in 1882.

According to a 1937 report by the British Peel Commission (featured in the ground-breaking book, Palestine Betrayed, by Prof. Efraim Karsh), “during 1922 through 1931, the increase of Arab population in the mixed-towns of Haifa, Jaffa and Jerusalem was 86%, 62% and 37% respectively, while in purely Arab towns such as Shchem/Nablus and Hebron the increase of Arabs was only 7%; and a decrease of 2 percent in Gaza.”

Irrespective of occasional Arab emigration from  British Mandate Palestine – due to intra-Arab terrorism, which has been an endemic feature in the Middle East – the substantial wave of Arab immigration from 1831-1947 triggered dramatic growth of the Arab populations in Jaffa (17 times), Haifa (12 times) and Ramla (5 times).

This unusual Arab/Muslim demographic diversity is evidenced by popular Israeli Arab family names, which are a derivative of their countries of origin: al-Masri (Egypt), al-Obeidi (the Sudan), al-Lubnani (Lebanon), Halabi (Syria), al-Mughrabi (Morocco), al-Djazair (Algeria), al-Yamani (Yemen), al-Afgahni (Afghanistan), al-Hindi (India), al-Hijazi (Saudi Arabia), al-Baghdadi (Iraq), Bushnak (Bosnia), Khamis (Bahrain), Turki (Turkey), etc…

Thus, contrary to the myth of the 1948 Arab refugees – aiming to delegitimize Israel – Arabs have not been in the Land of Israel from time immemorial; no Palestinian people was ever robbed of its land; there is no basis for an Arab “claim of return;” and most of the 320,000 Arab refugees – who were created by the 1948 Arab invasion of Israel and their own collaboration with the invasion – were recent immigrants and foreign workers (from neighbouring Arab countries) in the Land of Israel. (Immediately after the United Nation decided to make their refugee status permanent and to pay them for participation in anti-Israel international bigotry, creating and using UNRWA, their numbers were promptly inflated and almost doubled! doubled!) Israel was a wasteland under Arab rule. Jews made the land rich again.)

 

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