European Union Tortures Greek Fellow Europeans - What Can Israel Expect from the EU?

In January 2012 the EuroZone, the countries sharing the single currency, the euro, demanded extreme austerity from Greece. One of the provisions of the set of demands on Greece was to reduce medical benefits for the Greek population [veda qui].

We can now see the effect of these draconian demands. The French daily Le Figaro reported one and a half years ago, July 2015, on the gloomy picture. That is when Greece accepted a further set of harsh austerity demands by the EuroGroup which runs the EuroZone. I have no doubt that the situation now is worse than in 2015. Le Figaro writes:

Elevators out of service, tired greenish linoleum, a corridor burdened with patients abandoned on rolling beds. Over-aged medical material and medications that are running out. Austerity. At the Evangelismos Hospital in Athens, "We know what it is." . . .   

We hear them speaking harshly to each other . . .  "Go in front of me? Do you take yourself for a German?" exclaims an irritated fifty-year old  waiting his turn at the window where medicines are given out. "We're all worn out," another patient makes an excuse. "We mustn't complain," sighs Denise, an epileptic, 40 years old who subsists with her daughter  thanks to a disability pension of 300 euros per month. "We still have free medications." . . . . "I try to survive as best I can," chief cardiologist Dr Ilias Zarkos confides.  "At the  age of fifty-five I earn 1320 euros per month, as against 1600 euros four years ago. . . . In the past five years, we have all had our salaries reduced, and 20% of the staff went on retirement without being replaced. . . . Who would want to work under these conditions? Greece is now naked." "Every year the subsidies and equipment provided to the hospital are reduced by 15%," Dr Sioras continues. [Le Figaro, 15 Juillet 2015]

That is the state of Greek hospitals as of July 2015. That is the result of years of EU austerity treatment for the original debt crisis, whereas Greek debt as of July 2015 and as of now too, is worse, is higher than in 2010 when the debt crisis first came to light. Sometimes the remedy is worse than the disease.

If the Greeks were perhaps an exotic tribe in Africa or on the island of Borneo or some decidedly Third World country, would the EU be so callous to their suffering? Would the hospitals have to make do with short supplies and out of date equipment and supplies and reduced staff? Wouldn't Europe's supposed charitable and humanitarian instincts take over and wouldn't the cries for help be answered? Where is the solidarity for fellow Europeans, whereas solidarity is supposed to be a fundamental principle of the EU? Indeed, solidarity may be located in the same place as another EU principle, transparency, another EU value which is honored as much in the breach as the observance.

Besides, when the Palestinian Authority, a new form of the old PLO, is short of funds, somehow the EU finds the money. But the same generosity does not show up for the Greeks, for their fellow Europeans who are suffering. Nor does the supposed EU principle of transparency come into effect when it comes to funding a whole array of anti-Israel NGOs .....

The EuroGroup policy toward their fellow European Greeks is harsh and callous, and unproductive. What is their attitude toward Israel? Do they any longer recognize the Jewish right to live throughout the Land of Israel (Palestine in their parlance) west of the Jordan,  as the international community had decided in 1922 in the Mandate for Palestine issued to the UK for the purpose of erecting the Jewish National Home?  Today old commitments are forgotten. In fact, prominent EU member states voted at the UN Security Council for a resolution calling it a crime for Israelis to live east of the Green Line, the 1949 armistice line, even in Jerusalem, a city that has had a Jewish majority since 1853, if not before, whereas all Jews were ethnically cleansed from parts of Jerusalem --including the Old City's Jewish Quarter-- that were under Arab control after the 1947-1949 Israeli War of Independence. So the EU states represented in the UN SC favored apartheid against Jews by proclaiming that Jewish residence east of the Green Line, in Jerusalem too, was illegal according to international law, no less. That is what UN SC resolution 2334 has to say. Those EU states want to return Jews to their traditional status in Europe in the Middle Ages where often Jews were forced to live in ghettoes. Indeed, this demonstrates the cyclical nature of history. Out of the ghetto, now back to the ghetto.

Israel can hope for nothing decent at the upcoming French-sponsored "peace conference" in Paris. Bear in mind that the words, working-for-peace, can really mean working for war. There are strong grounds for assuming that the Paris war conference due to start on January 15 is meant to produce a resolution that will be taken to the UN Security Council before Donald Trump is inaugurated as US president on 20 January 2017 in order to prevent him from interfering in the gang up on Israel which Trump has already defined as "unfair". The Paris-to-New York time schedule is tight but possible. As the example of Euro treatment of Greece demonstrates, the EU and its member states can be not only stingy but harsh and cruel. Can Israel expect better from the EU after nearly 2000 years of discrimination and oppression of Jews and often of persecution?
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For more on the Eurozone's treatment of Greece, as well as the contrast between favoritism for the PLO/PA contrasted with stinginess with Greece, see here & here .

A quote from Il Sole-24 Ore (30 January 2012) on proposed reductions of medical coverage for Greeks:

Sul fronte previdenziale, la Troika fa notare che il 50% dei medicinali rimborsati dal sistema sanitario pubblico è generico, con prezzi bassi (e che vi è quindi spazio per ridurre l'esborso di denaro pubblico). [Il Sole-24 Ore, 30 Gennaio 2012  qui] 

New York Times Lies about Pope Calling Mahmud Abbas "an Angel of Peace"

The New York Times lies once again. And lies to the detriment of Jews. The NYT is softly sliding into the status of an open enemy of the Jews.  The Pope did not call PA/PLO leader Mahmud Abbas "an angel of peace." Rather, he expressed the wish that Abbas would become one by reaching an agreement with Israel. The NYTimes was not the only media outlet to lie about what the pope said when he met Abbas [Abu Mazen] at the Vatican. The AFP & AP, Agence France Presse and Associated Press, and many others did it too. But let us use the NYT as representative:

Mr. Abbas’s meeting with the pope ended with an exchange of gifts. Presenting Mr. Abbas with a medallion, the pope said it depicted an angel of peace “destroying the bad spirit of war.” It was an appropriate gift, the pope added, since “you are an angel of peace.” [New York Times, May 16, 2015]

However, according to the Vatican Insider site of the respected daily La Stampa, the pope actually said: you could be an angel of peace: lei possa essere un angelo della pace». He had already called both Peres and Abbas "uomo di pace" [man of peace] when he met them separately in Israel last year [he met abbas in Bethlehem]. However some media outlets would rather hear "you are an angel of peace."

Just to reinforce the point, here are how some other Italian news sites covered the same event:
Here is Il Giornale. It has:  Papa Francesco ha visto questa mattina il presidente dell'Autorità palestinese, Mahmud Abbas, che ha accolto con un abbraccio e un auspicio, chiedendogli di essere "un angelo della pace".
That is, the pope met Abbas, "asking him to be 'an angel of peace'"

This report for a women's website quotes the pope saying: Ho pensato a lei: che lei possa essere un angelo della pace». I thought of you, that you could be an angel of peace."

La Stampa's Vatican Insider site also quotes from the Vatican's official statement about the pope's meeting with Abbas. The pope was definitely talking about negotiations and not about unilateral steps, whereas lately Abbas has been taking a unilateral approach in violation of prior agreements with Israel, including the Oslo Accords. The statement says that both the pope and Abbas were:

"expressing the wish that direct negotiations between the parties might resume. in order to find a just and lasting solution to the conflict."

In this regard, the pope is friendlier to Israel than the French who want a UN-imposed settlement.

"si è parlato del processo di pace con Israele, esprimendo l’auspicio che si possano riprendere i negoziati diretti tra le Parti per trovare una soluzione giusta e duratura al conflitto. A tale scopo si è ribadito l’augurio che, con il sostegno della Comunità internazionale, Israeliani e Palestinesi prendano con determinazione decisioni coraggiose a favore della pace. Infine, con riferimento ai conflitti che affliggono il Medio Oriente, nel riaffermare l’importanza di combattere il terrorismo, è stata sottolineata la necessità del dialogo interreligioso»" [Vatican Insider of La Stampa]

So keep in mind that mainstream publications in the United States and other Western countries cannot be trusted when they report about Israel. They cannot even quote the pope correctly and honestly.

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here is an English language version of the Vatican Insider site reporting on this event at the Vatican.
Tom Gross placed this story among his Mideast Dispatches [here].

Here is a report in Spanish [aqui]:
En el intercambio de regalos el Papa le entregó a Abbas, un medallón del ángel de la paz, y le dijo: “El ángel de la paz destruye el espíritu maligno de la guerra”. Y añadió: “He pensado en su persona para que sea un ángel de la paz”. El Santo Padre le regaló también la exhortación apostólica Evangelii Gaudium en idioma inglés."
The encyclical Evangelii Gaudium is said to be sympathetic to Jews.

Three passages from Evangelii Gaudium are found on this blog post in English, as well as discussion of what the pope said and its grammatical fine points [here]

Vatican Radio in Italian reported the story of the Pope Francis-Mahmud Abbas meeting, which is tantamount to an official statement. No mention of "an angel of peace" [qui].
Vatican Radio in German has "Be an angel of peace" [OR May you be an angel of peace] --  "Sei ein Friedensengel“ sagte Papst Franziskus laut italienischen Nachrichtenagenturen [hier]
Walter Russell Mead on papal diplomacy and papal canonization of two Arabic-speaking saints [here]

5-19-2015 Brian of London and the Israellycool blog have done good work on exposing the media lie [here]

Abu `Ayn (also Abu Ein) Died of a Heart Attack, not his first

Abu `Ayn died of a heart attack according to autopsy results.  This translation was supplied by IMRA,  Independent Media Review Analysis.

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Preliminary Autopsy Report on Ziad Abu Ein

Preliminary Autopsy Report on Ziad Abu Ein (Communicated by the Health Ministry Spokesperson) The autopsy was carried out at the [PA] forensics institute in Abu Dis. Participating in the autopsy were Dr. Chen Kugel and Dr. Maya Furman from the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, as well as representatives from  the Palestinian forensics institute and doctors from Jordan. The death of Ziad Abu Ein was caused by a blockage of the coronary artery (one of the arteries that supplies blood to the heart) due to hemorrhaging  underneath a layer of atherosclerotic plaque. The bleeding could have been  caused by stress. Indications of light hemorrhaging and localized pressure were found in his neck. The deceased suffered from ischemic heart disease; blood vessels in his heart were found to be over 80% blocked by plaque. Old scars indicating that  he suffered from previous myocardial infarctions were also found. The poor condition of the deceased's heart caused him to be more sensitive to stress. It is necessary to wait for the medical treatment report before determining more incisive explanations on this matter. Indications of CPR were found. These preliminary findings will require verification after the results of the investigation and lab results are received.

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=65702


Here is  a report below from ynetnews on the same autopsy report:

Israeli coroner report: Abu Ein died of heart attack

Itay Gal     Israel News [ynetnews]

The official Israeli pathology report on PA Minister Ziad Abu Ein's death contradicted Palestinian claims that he was killed by IDF actions, saying he died from a stress-induced heart attack. 
The report said the death was caused by blockage in the coronary artery, and there were signs of light internal bleeding and localized pressure on the neck.

According to the report, the deceased suffered from heart disease, and there was evidence that plaque buildup were clogging more than 80% of his blood vessels, as well as signs that he had suffered heart attacks in the past.
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Despite the evidence, Mahmud Abbas will continue his incitement of violence against Israel and Israelis, by claiming that Israel killed Abu `Ayn. And that this was not merely a killing but a "barbaric" killing. Likewise, several weeks ago Abbas claimed that Jews "contaminated" a Muslim holy place by going up on the Temple Mount, a Jewish holy place for 3000 years since King Solomon built the first Temple.

The New York Times Once Again Shamelessly Displays Its Partisanship & Contempt for Facts

No doubt that the New York Times lies or omits vital information on all sorts of matters and issues. But when Israel is concerned, the NYT can be relied upon  to both be partisan and to falsify almost always. This carries over of course to Arab affairs. The officials and operatives of the PLO, known to be bloodthirsty enemies of Israel, need to be protected from their own records of mass murder and Big Lies.
Therefore, Rashid Khalidi, now an American professor, must have his reputation protected and his personal record sanitized. He is a scion of the al-Khalidi family, long prominent in the Jerusalem area with some of its sons taken into the imperial service by the Ottoman Empire and given high imperial rank. His relative Walid Khalidi worked with British political agents to make propaganda for the Palestinian Arab cause --also a British cause-- in the UK and the USA.  Rashid is American-born, yet served the PLO as one of its leading PR agents, that is, leading liars, for several years in Beirut. Now that Rashid is a prof at the Ivy League Columbia University, it might embarrass not only him but Columbia and his friend B Hussein Obama if it became common knowledge that he was a leading PLO liar in Beirut when the PLO and its member groups made no attempt to conceal their terrorist bloodthirst.
 So the NYT must cover up for its pet "moderate" Arab terrorist mouthpiece. Here is the essence of Prof Martin Kramer's devastating refutation of  the lies about Khalidi in and by the NYT:
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. . .  I do care how the New York Times reported one aspect of the story this morning: “Critics have accused the professor of having had ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization, which he has denied.” The reference here is to the activities of Khalidi when he resided in Beirut in the 1970s and up until Israel’s 1982 invasion. In those days, the PLO ran an exterritorial gangland, and was neck-deep in terrorism planned by Arafat and his mob.
Note this phrase: “Critics have accused…” Today’s article thus repeats a trope that appeared back in 2008, when the Times ran a piece on Khalidi prompted by his past association with Barack Obama:

He taught at universities in Lebanon until the mid-’80s, and some critics accuse him of having been a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization. Mr. Khalidi has denied working for the group, and says he was consulted as an expert by reporters seeking to understand it.

Again, it’s the “critics” who “accuse him.”
Well, I’m a critic, but we critics didn’t just imagine Khalidi’s PLO affiliation. We were alerted to it by a parade of highly regarded journalists, including two from the New York Times. So here are the “critics” who first leveled the “accusation” (still more sourcing here):
• Joe Alex Morris Jr., reporting from Beirut for the Los Angeles Times on September 5, 1976, quoted Khalidi and described him as “a PLO spokesman.”
• James M. Markham, reporting from Beirut in the New York Times on February 19, 1978, quoted Khalidi and described him as “an American-educated Palestinian who teaches political science at the American University of Beirut and also works for the P.L.O.”
• A Pacifica Radio documentary, reporting in 1979 from Beirut, interviewed Khalidi “at the headquarters of the PLO in Beirut,” and described him as “an official spokesperson for the Palestinian news service Wafa,” “PLO spokesperson,” “official spokesperson for the PLO,” and “the leading spokesperson for the PLO news agency, Wafa.”
• Thomas Friedman, reporting from Beirut in the New York Times on June 9, 1982, quoted Khalidi and described him as “a director of the Palestinian press agency, Wafa.”
• Doyle McManus, reporting on rumored American-PLO contacts in the Los Angeles Times on February 20, 1984, quoted Khalidi and described him as “a former PLO official.”
• James Rainey, reporting on Khalidi’s connection to Obama for the Los Angeles Times on October 30, 2008, described him as “a renowned scholar on the Palestinians who in the 1970s had acted as a spokesman for Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization.” (As I noted at the time, the Los Angeles Times thus honorably stood by the 1976 reportage of its legendary, long-dead Beirut correspondent, Joe Alex Morris Jr.)
• Thomas W. Lippman, for thirty years a diplomatic, national security, and Middle East correspondent for the Washington Post, in a letter published in that paper on November 1, 2008, wrote that “Khalidi was indeed ‘a PLO spokesman.’ In the early years of the Lebanese civil war, Mr. Khalidi was the Beirut-based spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization, and his office was a stop on the daily rounds of journalists covering that conflict. As we used to say in the pre-electronic newspaper business: Check the clips.”
None of these people were or are “critics” of Rashid Khalidi, and two of them were reporting for the New York Times itself. So why does the Times repeatedly inform us that it is only Khalidi’s “critics” who have “accused” him, when in fact a raft of esteemed journalists who interviewed him in Beirut identified him as a PLO spokesman, as a fact? This is not another he-said she-said (or Jew-says Arab-says) question. As Thomas Lippman said: Check the clips.
This is another opportunity to urge the New York Times to get off its derriere and get to the bottom of the Khalidi story. It is unthinkable that a Brooklyn-born, Yale-educated U.S. citizen operated in PLO headquarters in Beirut in the late 1970s, and wasn’t known to the personnel of the U.S. embassy and the CIA station. That was over thirty years ago, so some documents must have been declassified. Can we get some investigative reporting here? Instead all we’ve ever read about Khalidi in the Times is the puff piece.
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For full article by Martin Kramer, go here.

Why Do the Arabs Oppose Recognizing a Jewish State?

Prime Minister Netanyahu suggested to US  secretary of state John Kerry that the framework he was drawing up for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority include Palestinian Arab recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Kerry did intend to include this Israeli proposal but since has backed away from it in view of Arab opposition, first of all from Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah and Palestinian Authority. Just today, the Arab League voted its support for Abbas' position.

One of the justifications for this opposition that apologists for the PA/PLO present is that by Israel being a Jewish state, the civil rights of Arab citizens of Israel would be adversely affected. However, all states belonging to the Arab League define themselves as Arab states. All Arab League member states but Lebanon define themselves constitutionally as Islamic states in one way or another. This does not stop them from opposing Israel being defined as a Jewish national state. The arguments against Israel as a Jewish state could logically be applied to Arab and Islamic states, and with more justification, since we have the benefit of hindsight to know just how non-Arabs and non-Muslims have been treated in Arab states.

The explanation for the Arab position lies, I believe, in the traditional Arab-Muslim view of Jews as an inferior dhimmi people, a millet [see below] devoid of national rights, and only entitled to live if they pay a yearly head tax on dhimmis called the jizya. The dhimma system applied to all non-Muslims who were subjects of the Islamic state, with individual exceptions. Within this system, the Jews were at the bottom of the barrel, at least in the Fertile Crescent  countries, including the Levant, where the Jews' status was inferior to that of their fellow dhimmis, the Christians.

Whereas the Quran and medieval Arab historiography, such as the writings of Ibn Khaldun, recognize the Jews as a nation or people, the entrenched Islamic view of Jews as an evil, inferior contemptible millet is now dominant. Moreover, in fact, in practice, that was the actual status of Jews in the Arab-Muslim countries for centuries. Even today in the 21st century Muslims believe that Jews do not deserve the dignity of having a national state of their own, the Quran and the old Arab historians notwithstanding.

This contemptuous view of Jews is clearly stated by the PLO in its charter. Article 20, already denies that the Jews are a people, claiming that they are merely a "religious" group. Jewish tradition holds that the Jews are both a people and a  religious group. Here is the relevant text of Art. 20:

"The claim of historical or religious ties between Jews and Palestine does not tally with historical realities nor with the constituents of statehood in their true sense. Judaism in its character as a religion is not a nationality with an independent existence. Likewise the Jews are not one people with an independent identity. They are rather citizens of the states to which they belong."

Note the contempt for Jews which oozes from this text. The history of Israelite/Jewish kingdoms in the country, as well as of the Roman province of Judea, is denied. The setting of much of the Hebrew Bible lies in the Land Of Israel which the PLO denies in a way reminiscent of Holocaust denial. Further, Jews do not have "the constituents of statehood in their true sense." Just by the way, the Nazis and other German Judeophobes claimed that the Jews were not capable of being a "state-forming nation." [see Francis R  Nicosia, The Third Reich and the Palestine Question (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press 1985)].

For texts of the PLO charter and the  Hamas charter, see here.
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Addition: in ancient Greek Jews were sometimes referred to as Ethnous Ioudaion, Jewish nation.
millet -- Turkish word referring to a recognized, organized religio-ethnic community within the Ottoman Empire [from the Arabic word milla or millatun, meaning originally people or nation but in Turkish usage referring specifically to the legally inferior communities of dhimmis (zimmis in Turkish), who were in turn the non-Muslim subjects of the Islamic states]. The millet was charged with keeping order among its members and often charged with collecting the jizya tax from them, and the millet enjoyed a certain religious autonomy and authority over its members, provided that Islamic restrictions on dhimmis were not violated. The traditional millets were the Armenians, Ermeni millet, like the Jews a religio-ethnic community, the Jews, a millet within the Ottoman Empire and also including Samaritans defined as Jews in Muslim tradition; as well as Greek Orthodox Christians, who were called I believe Rumi millet. The Greek Orthodox millet included Arabic-speaking Christians as well as other Eastern Orthodox Christians, such as Vlakhs [the old name for Rumanians], Bulgars, Serbs, etc. In the 19th century up to 1914, eleven millets were added to the original three, with the new millets representing ethnic subdivisions of the Greek Orthodox.There were no doubt nuances of the law in effect in different places.

Cash Short EU Gives Greece Ultimatum, While Donating Liberally to the PLO/PA

REVISED, LINKs ADDED 2-20&3-19&20-2012

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

On February 7, this year, the EU announced a grant of funds to the Palestinian Authority, as reported by the PLO/PA's press agency, WAFA:

The European Union and Sweden Tuesday contributed €24.7 million to the payment of the January salaries and pensions of around 84,300 Palestinian civil servants and pensioners in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, according to an EU press release.

The European Commission made €22.5 million contribution and Sweden made €2.2 million. [here]

The next day Luxembourg, an EU member state, announced a donation of 15 million euros to the UNRWA, also for the benefit of Palestinian Arabs:

". . . in order to bring aid to the Palestinian people. . . The UNRWA which carries out remarkable and still indispensable work on behalf of 5 million [sic!] Palestinian refugees, is Luxembourg's principal partner in matters of aid to the Palestinian people,"

quoth the Luxembourg development minister.

A significant point about this aid was made by UNRWA's commissioner-general, Filippo Grandi:

In these times of political and economic uncertainty, both in this region [the ME] and worldwide, Luxembourg's increasing commitment in favor of our work is welcome. [original below]

Le Luxembourg donne 15 millions d'euros à l'UNRWA pour "porter assistance au peuple palestinien" Le Luxembourg a annoncé mercredi qu'il faisait un don de 15 millions d'euros à l'Office de secours et de travaux des Nations Unies pour les "réfugiés de Palestine" au Proche-Orient (UNRWA). L'accord a été signé par la ministre luxembourgeoise du Développement Marie-Josée Jacobs et le commissaire général de l'UNRWA, Filippo Grandi. "En ces temps d'incertitude politique et économique tant dans cette région que globalement, l'engagement croissant du Luxembourg en faveur de notre travail est le bienvenu", a déclaré Grandi. "L'UNRWA, qui poursuit son travail remarquable et encore indispensable au service de 5 millions de Palestiniens réfugiés, est le principal partenaire du Luxembourg lorsqu'il s'agit deporter assistance au peuple palestinien", a affirmé la ministre Jacobs. [Guysen News, 2-8-2012]

These are times of political and economic uncertainty indeed. Greece, a fellow member of the EU, is on the verge of bankruptcy, partly of its own doing and partly due to very mistaken policies of the EU [led by Germany] since 2010 and of the International Monetary Fund [since Christine Lagarde took over] to force a severe austerity program on Greece as a supposed remedy for its economic ills, while not providing Greece with a facility for borrowing funds at reasonable rates of interest, particularly without implementing the eurobonds idea, and thereby ensuring that Greece would not be able to pay off its ever increasing sovereign debt. That is, without growth and without a way to borrow at reasonable rates Greece could neither grow economically nor pay its debts. Failure of the "rescue plan" was foreseen by some economists back in 2010.

Nevertheless, all the while, economic experts from the EU, the European Central Bank and the IMF [since Lagarde's takeover] have been making all sorts of demands on Greece. Among them Greece must cut the minimum wage by 22% [according to Natalie Savaricas, France24], cut 150,000 public sector jobs by 2015 [in a country of ca. 9 million pop.], accept a commissioner from abroad for the tax administration, and reduce public health service reimbursements for purchases of medicine, etc. Germany moreover, wanted an outside commissioner to veto Greek government policies, which the EU Commission has not yet agreed to.

Meanwhile, the PA is faring much differently.

The European Commission's contribution comes from the €155 million package of financial assistance to the recurrent expenditures of the Palestinian Authority committed for 2012, said the release.

The European Commission agreed to a request by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to frontload €116.2 million of this package in the first five months of 2012 in order to help the Palestinian Authority meet its urgent financial needs.

The €2.2 million contribution by the Swedish Government is part of its continuous support to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people.

Most of the European Union's assistance to the Palestinian Authority is channeled through PEGASE, the financial mechanism launched in 2008 to support the PA Reform and Development Plan (2008-2010) and the subsequent PA Palestinian National Plan (2011-2013).

Since February 2008, €1.23 billion have been disbursed through the PEGASE Direct Financial Support programs. [here]

No mention here of austerity. No demands to reduce expenditures, let's say, on the PA's print & broadcast media which regularly spread genocidal hatred of Jews. No talk of a special commissioner to oversee tax collection. No demand by Germany for a commissioner with power to veto Palestinian Authority policies. If there is accountability to the EU for funds spent or if there is EU supervision of fund disbursement, then why are there Nazi-like propaganda and genocide incitement in Palestinian Authority institutions: TV, radio, official PA newspapers, schools, mosques, etc.?? Yet, the Greeks are held to standards and demands are made of them. But no ultimatums for Arabs. It doesn't bother anybody at the EU that many if not most of the PA's civil servants are superfluous and indeed some of them are involved in creating and spreading hate propaganda against Jews or in terrorism now or in the past. Yet Greece is to fire 150,000 civil servants.

Furthermore, after the Greek parliament followed the government in accepting the demands of the EU, ECB, and IMF, new obstacles were raised to Greece getting the needed and promised funds. And one of those holding up the funds was very conspicuously Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the Euro Zone, the EuroGroup, who also just so happens to be prime minister of Luxembourg, which was so happy to be helpful and accommodating with the Palestinian Authority by supplying additional funds to UNRWA.

Indeed, helping the PA/PLO seems to be a paramount, supreme policy of the EU. It may also be EU policy to make propaganda against Israel, considering the many millions in subsidies by the EU and member states to Arab and pro-Arab/pro-PLO/anti-Israel NGOs that carry out propaganda and agitate against Israel. We don't hear of reductions in funds for the PA and the pro-PA NGOs despite the Euro debt crisis.

Meanwhile, Greece is treated differently. Moreover, it is not the only EU country in financial trouble. Ireland and Portugal too have received EU bail out funds, while Spain and Italy are under watch for fear of financial collapse, while Belgium, France and even Germany are seen as not entirely healthy financially, as under potential threat. The EU & its member states need money. Lots of it. But there is room for funding for the Palestinian Authority --cheerfully and helpfully with few or no questions asked.

So what explains the differential treatment of the Palestinian Authority and of Greece by the EU? The PA produces little, its economy is mainly based on donations from the EU, USA, wealthy Arab states and Japan. Much of its employed work force works for the PA administration and "security" services. Its corruption is notorious. It spreads hatred and incites war and genocide through its press, TV, radio, schools, and govt-supervised mosques. Meanwhile, Catherine Ashton, the EU foreign affairs commissioner, is eager to see a PLO/PA state created, whether or not it makes peace with Israel. Why are the PA and Greece treated differently?

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Bernard-Henri Levy BHL on the Greek debt crisis.
Executive of the German firm Bosch wants Greece out of the EU [or only out of the eurozone?]
Paul Krugman thinks the EU failed to solve the crisis, partly due to their arrogance.
Charles Wyplosz points out six mistakes of Germany's finance minister.
Sarkozy & Merkel make demands on Greece [here--see video]

Qui links are in Italian, Ici links in French:
Wolfgang Schaeuble, German finance minister, speaks out against Athens [qui]
Jacques Attali on the Eurocrisis & Germany's role [ici]
The Troika's demands on Greece as of 30 January 2012 [qui]
Athens accepts cuts [qui]
Krugman's solution, print money, among other things [qui]
Economist Charles Wyplosz criticizes German dictates to the EU & Greece [qui]
The EU wants guarantees from Greece[qui]
Economist Jose Antonio Ocampo finds fault with Schaeuble and German policy [qui]
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3-19-2012 Catherine Ashton, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, displays --in her shallow & pedestrian manner-- her warm sympathies for the Arab cause and for the notion of an Arab state in the Land of Israel, while drawing an absurd parallel between youth in Gaza and the Jewish victims of the massacre today in Toulouse, France.
The EU & Catherine Ashton unblock another 35 million euros for the palestinian authority in an agreement with PA prime minister Salem Fayyad.
3-20-2012 Jonathan Tobin comments on Catherine Ashton's fatuous comparison of children deliberately murdered in Toulouse & Norway [by Breivik last year] with Belgian children killed in a bus accident and with Gazan children who may have died as a byproduct of wars and battles started by the Islamists in Gaza in their endeavors to murder Israeli civilians, including children.
Jonathan Neumann sees Ashton's fatuousness as allowing us a peek at the EU's real anti-Israel agenda and proving once again that the EU cannot be an "honest broker" between Jews and Arabs.
Elliott Abrams points out that despite Ashton's claim to have been misunderstood, "her remarks quite obviously drew a parallel." She did not explicitly deny --in her response to criticism-- that she sees a parallel between the accidental deaths of the Belgian children, unquestionably tragic, with the deliberate murder of Jewish children in Toulouse and Arab children in Gaza who are often used as human shields. For Abrams, this failure to explicitly deny a parallel confirms that she indeed wanted to draw a parallel, however false it may have been. She may be too stupid to understand this.
Walter Z Laqueur demonstrates the foolish illusions of the admirers of the EU and the "Arab Spring."

Mahmud Abbas' Comrades Set Up Oriana Fallaci to Be Blown Apart -- Give Them a State!!

The Euro Thugs are collaborating with the fake "moderates" led by Mahmud Abbas to upgrade the PLO/PA's status against Israel.

France and Spain, along with the European Union's high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, Catherine Ashton, are in advanced stages of negotiations with the Palestinian Authority over a "package deal" that will enable the 27 member states of the EU to vote at the United Nations General Assembly in favor of upgrading the PA to the status of a non-permanent member of the UN.

The Europeans are also trying to gain the United States' agreement to abstain from the vote and continue its financial aid to the Palestinians, in return for a promise by PA President Mahmoud Abbas not to take Israel to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Three senior European diplomats involved in the negotiations told Haaretz that the PA president had informed the EU of his decision not to turn to the UN Security Council on September 20 and request that Palestine be accepted as a full member of the organization.

Abbas, who realizes that the United States will exercise its veto power at the Security Council, has decided to turn to the UN General Assembly, whose resolutions are less binding, in order to seek the support of the European Union member states in the vote.

Abbas is expected to meet in Cairo today with Ashton, who is in charge of the EU's foreign policy, and with the foreign ministers of the Arab League Monitoring Committee. During both meetings the diplomatic deal being worked out will be discussed. [HaArets, 9-12-2011]

But who does Mahmud Abbas represent? He was one of the top leaders of Fatah for years under arafat's overall leadership. And what is Fatah? What do they represent? Do they represent hope for a better world perhaps? Or hope for barbarism perhaps? The late Oriana Fallaci, the noted Italian journalist, had good reason to hate and despise Fatah:

. . . come stroll with me along the Street of Contempt that Muslims harbor for women. A contempt that I experienced even in circumstances when it would have been justified to expect at least a little humanity. In 1973, I experienced it in a unit of Palestinian fedayin who were being hosted at that time in Jordan by King Hussein. The only civilized, simpatico leader that I met in the Islamic world of today, aside from Ali Bhutto. (. . .)
And here is the story of my experience with the Palestinian fedayin. One night the secret base of that unit was struck by a violent aerial raid by the Israelis. When the first bombs fell, everybody started to run towards the solid refuge offered by a cave across a field, and I did the same. But in front of the entrance the commander stopped me. He grunted that to allow a woman to be elbow to elbow with his men would be an obscenity, an insult to Allah. He then ordered two deputy commanders to install me somewhere else. And guess where those evildoers locked me up? In an isolated shack, a wooden shed used to store explosives. I only realized this when I lit a match in order to understand where I was. The flame illuminated dozens of boxes with the inscription: "Explosives-Dynamite-Explosives." But the worst was not even in this detail. It was in the fact that they had not locked me up there out of stupidity or haste or by mistake. They locked me up there on purpose. In order to enjoy themselves. Almost that the chance of seeing me blown into the air because of the explosion of a bomb was the funniest thing in the world. In fact, after the raid, they all split their sides laughing, scornfully laughing with pleasure: "We never had such fun. We never had such a good time." [Oriana Fallaci, La Rabbia e l'Orgoglio (Milano 2004), pp 111-112; English title: The Rage and the Pride; in הזעם והגאווה, the Hebrew edition, pp 87-88]

But doesn't the EU know what the Fatah really stands for? That the Fatah has not changed its stripes since they obtained a mini-state in Judea-Samaria in 1974? I'm sure that the EU does know all of these things. But their hatred for Jews leads them to pretend that Fatah is ready to live at peace with Israel. It is not only the Fatah/PLO/PA that has not changed, the major EU states, UK, France, Germany have not changed their basic hatred for Jews since Hitler was forced to abandon Auschwitz.

Moreover, the EU support for Fatah [= PLO/PA] tells us that the EU does not honor agreements with Israel. Just as European states did not honor the rights of their own Jewish citizens before and during the Holocaust --when Hitler told them that Jews have no rights that Europe is bound to honor-- the EU spits on international law that supports Israel's rights, allies with Israel's bloodthirsty Arab enemies, and does not care that Arabs honor the accords that they made with Israel, such as the Oslo accords, the Israel-Egypt treaty, etc. The Arabs are tools for satisfying the genocidal urges towards Jews of leading EU member states.

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Previous links on the PLO/PA UDI on Emet m'Tsiyon [here & here]
Raison Garder has issued an important statement [in French] on the PLO/PA UDI. Here is the title:

UNE DECLARATION DE GUERRE TRAVESTIE

EN DEMANDE DE RECONNAISSANCE

Nous sommes à la veille d’une intense campagne de propagande qui vise à pousser les opinions et les gouvernements européens à soutenir la demande unilatérale de reconnaissance d’un Etat de Palestine à l’O.N.U.

Nous sommes inquiets devant la décision à venir de la France et de l’Union Européenne.

This statement correctly identifies the PLO/PA UDI as a declaration of war disguised as a request for recognition.

Spain drove the Jews out of Spain, now Spain's socialist govt wants to drive the people of Israel out of the Land of Israel

UPDATING 8-22-2011 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools

More than 500 years ago, Spain didn't want the Jews in their country. Now it turns out that the Socialist govt of Spain doesn't want the Jews in their own country, in the Jews' country. That is, in Israel.

Guysen reports the statement of the Spanish foreign minister, one Trinidad Jiménez.

Ms Trinidad Jiménez, foreign minister of Spain,

expressed the wish that the meeting of European Union foreign affairs ministers, scheduled for next week, will move ahead the recognition of a Palestinian state. In an interview with the newspaper El Pais, she stated: "There is a feeling that now is the moment to do something, to give the Palestinians the hope that a state can become reality. We must give them a signal, for if we don't do so, that might generate great frustration among the Palestinians."

Espagne : il est temps de donner l'espoir d'un pays aux Palestiniens
La ministre espagnole des Affaires étrangères Trinidad Jimenez a fait le voeu que la réunion des ministres des Affaires étrangères de l'Union européenne, prévue la semaine prochaine fera progresser la reconnaissance d'un Etat palestinien. Dans une interview au journal El Païs, elle a affirmé : ''Il y a le sentiment que c'est le moment maintenant de faire quelque chose, de donner aux Palestiniens l'espoir qu'un Etat puisse devenir réalité. Nous devons leur donner un signal, car si nous ne le faisons pas, cela pourrait générer une grande frustration chez les Palestiniens''.
[Guysen News 8-21-2011]

So the EU and PLO/PA [here called "palestinians"] don't have to honor signed agreements with Israel. The EU doesn't have to respect its own "Quartet" guidelines for a settlement. The Jews don't deserve hope. The Jews don't deserve respect for their lives --note that this statement comes after murderous onslaughts by Arab/Muslim terrorists on Israel. International law regarding the conditions for determining that a state exists and that it deserves to be recognized as such are of no importance as the 21st century descendants of those who drove Jews out of Spain in 1492 repeat their ancestors' cruelty, this time not against Jews in Spain but against Jews in their own historic homeland. But the poor "palestinians", a people unknown to history, first appearing in the 1960s as a psychological warfare/cognitive warfare concept, have rights that the Jews, descended from ancient Israel, do not have. Maybe next week Madame Trinidad will tell us that the Jews ought to be punished for crucifying Jesus.
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8-21-2011 German Press Agency [Deutsche Presse Agentur - DPA] also reports on the Spanish FM's statement, although mistakenly identifying her as a male. A person of any gender that you can imagine can be deadly and dangerous in the office of foreign minister.
8-22-2011 UPDATING -- The Spanish ambassador to Israel was summoned to the Israeli foreign ministry today for an explanation of Madame Jiménez's simplistic concern over not causing "frustration" to those Arabs now fashionably identified as "palestinians." The ambassador is said to have explained that his minister was not understood [Israel Radio in French & in El Pais in Spanish].
The original interview in El Pais & a report in Spanish of the Spanish FM's silly or disingenuous remarks about "hope" for Arabs, not for Jews [aqui & in El Pais aqui]. This is a way for the Eurohypocrites to encourage the Arabs to make war on Israel and slaughter our civilians. The British are veteran practitioners of these warmongering tricks and it seems that Spanish diplomats have learned them too.

Israel complains to Spain over FM's comment on a Palestinian state [Israel Radio web site]

"The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has voiced its objection to comments made by Spain's foreign minister that Madrid has decided to recognize a Palestinian state in ...The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has voiced its objection to comments made by Spain's foreign minister that Madrid has decided to recognize a Palestinian state in order to allow the Palestinian people to realize their dream.
"The Spanish ambassador to Israel was summoned to the Foreign Ministry, where he was told by Deputy Director General for European Affairs, Naor Gilon, that the comments by the foreign minister were disappointing and surprising.
"The Spanish ambassador is said to have replied that the comments, in a Spanish newspaper interview, were not understood correctly, and that Spain has not yet decided how to vote when the United Naitons is expected to vote on a Palestinian state.
"The ambassador to Israel said that Spain would support such a resolution if it also stressed the need to return to the negotiating table and to ensure that Israel's security would be preserved in any agreement ."

Note Spain's disingenuous hypocrisy. Instead of telling the PLO/PA to negotiate for a state with Israel, it tells Israel and that the PLO/PA should negotiate after it is no longer necessary for them to negotiate in order to obtain a state. Recall that today's Socialist Spanish govt follows the same pro-Arab policy as Spain's fascist govt under Francisco Franco.

Mahmoud Abbas, Salim Fayyad, & PLO Plan an Apartheid Judenrein State - Shmuel Trigano

UPDATING 11-1&5-2010

The peace in "peace process" refers
to peace of mind for antisemites.

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

The PLO charter already made clear in its two versions, of 1964 and 1968, that the state envisioned by the PLO would be an Arab state in which Jews would not have a place, or if allowed to live in it, would be legally inferior to Arab Muslims. Thus, the envisioned "State of Palestine" would enforce the old Muslim principle of inferiority of rights of non-Muslims in the Islamic domain. Jews would be especially cast in an inferior status with few rights or circumscribed rights, if they were allowed rights at all. Shmuel Trigano makes an analysis of official PLO and Palestinian Authority documents. Shall we call the plan for a future Palestine state --not unlike the present semi-state, the Palestinian Authority, which enforces apartheid and/or exclusion on Jews-- an apartheid state??

SHMUEL TRIGANO: THE OPEN RACISM OF THE FUTURE STATE OF PALESTINE

By • Shmuel Trigano, Paris University

Published in: Original Submission to SPME Faculty Forum

October 17, 2010

During a meeting with the Egyptian press in Cairo at the beginning of August, Mahmud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority, and the man on whom the United States and Europe have placed all of their hopes for peace, revealed what was at the back of his mind with regard to the Jews and the nature of the regime he plans to set up in the future State of Palestine. The official demands of the Palestinians for a settlement are known: Israel’s agreement in advance to withdraw to the borders of 1967, a freeze of construction in the territories including Jerusalem, the division of this city, including the Old City, which must become part of the Palestinian Authority, the solution of the problem of the “refugees” in conformance with Arab demands and Resolution 194 of the General Assembly of the U.N.).

When considering the possibility that a third force, such as NATO, could be given the responsibility of overseeing the implementation of the planned agreement, Mahmud Abbas imposed a condition: that there should not be a single Jewish soldier and any Israeli. “I am ready to accept a third party which supervises the implementation of the agreement, NATO forces for example, but I will not accept the presence of Jews in these forces or a [single] Israeli on the Land of Palestine.”

Is such a demand tainted with antisemitism? It should not come as a shock, if we remember that Mahmud Abbas defended his doctoral thesis which was based on Holocaust denial at a school for political indoctrination in the Soviet Union.

Some may see a polemical and ideological expression in the term “racist,” but Mahmud Abbas’ demand with regard to NATO leaves no doubt in this respect. What does it really mean when he demands that the European states, members of NATO, exclude their Jewish citizens from the ranks of their forces? Can one imagine such a situation and the juridical mechanisms that these states would have to activate in order to separate the Jews from their citizens? As it happens, Mahmud Abbas does not help them by defining the criteria of who is a Jew: religious law, ethnic origins, the father, the mother, the grandfather? It is all the more remarkable that Saudi Arabia, during the Gulf War in 1990-1992, permitted American Jewish soldiers to serve with the American forces on its territory, a land which, according to the Koran, is sacred and should not shelter any non-Moslem. In all of these cases, it is not a question of Israelis, but of Jews, and one knows that the Arabs, in their immense majority do not make a distinction. “Yahoud” [Jew], in this region, designates without hesitation “The Israeli.” What Abbas says about Jews, he says about Israelis, as we have seen, and he demands that the Europeans, so attentive to his wishes, that they accept his conditions.

The refusal to recognize Israel, the Jewish State

There is a perfect coherence between this demand toward the West and the refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish State, which on many occasions Abbas or Saeb Erekat, his “minister” of foreign affairs, have articulated. The two positions with regard to NATO and refusal to recognize the Jewish State, as such, share of the same anti-Semitism. The thinking behind this refusal, currently repeated as a leitmotiv, has not been sufficiently analyzed. We can immediately dismiss the most current explanation that a state does not have to recognize the “religion” of another State. This is a stalling tactic, which PLO used numerous times in the past, especially in the Palestinian Charter, as we shall see below. To be specific, “Jew” here means a “nation”, not a “religion”. It is with that intention that the UN Resolution (181, II), of November 1947, uses 23 the expression “Jewish State” twenty three times, when it advocates the creation of “two states in Palestine, a Jewish one and an Arab one” (see especially article 3).

In order to understand what this refusal means and why it is not motivated by nationalistic but racist intentions, we shall have to consider it in the context of collateral evidence.

If one examines its link to the demand for the return of the “refugees” of 1948, the picture is clear. Under the weight of five million refugees Israel would automatically become a country with an Arab and Islamic majority, a binational state where the Jews would be a minority, while Palestine would become uniquely Arab. Not one Jew, not even under the flag of NATO or the UN, would be able to be in Palestine, but five million Arabs would join the million Israeli Arabs already residing in the State of Israel and openly rebel against the notion of a Jewish (national) state.

The Palestinian Authority is building a racist regime based on the principle of establishing an apartheid between a Palestine untainted by Jewish blood and a mixed State of Israel where the Jews would become a minority. In its refusal to recognize a Jewish state, there is, in fact, more then a rejection and denial of Jewish history and identity. One may well understand that this improper and exorbitant demand serves a politically correct fig leaf for its fundamental refusal to recognize the State of Israel. On this point, the PLO abandoned its bluff of a “Secular and Democratic Palestine,” which it had promoted in the decade between 1980 and 1990, except that the Palestinians now demand that this formula be imposed on Israel, as they would like it to be, [1] while Palestine proper would be purely Arab.

State-sanctioned Racism and Segregation

Palestine proper would be, indeed, Arab and Islamic. That is written explicitly in the draft constitution of the planned state: “This constitution is based on the will of Palestinian-Arab people,” (Article 1), “the Palestinian people are a part of the Arab and Islamic nation,” (Article 2), “sovereignty belongs to the Palestinian Arab people,” (Article 10), “the legal character of the Arab-Palestinian people will be embodied by the state,” (Article 13). “Islam will be the official religion of the state,” (Article 6).

We can verify this last principle (the Islamic quality of the state) in the light of the use of rhetorical obfuscation (Article 6) to which the drafters of this constitution resort when they give the appearance of making space for non-Moslems: “Islam will be the official religion of the state. The monotheistic religions will be respected.”

Who are these odd “monotheists” (and what about the Hindus, the Confucians, the Behais, etc., forbidden to live in Palestine?) if not a politically correct version of the old dhimmi status imposed on non-Moslems by the Koranic law? In practice, this article would apply only to Christians, because there should be no more Jews in the State of Palestine …

This strange “monotheistic” statute permits us to understand by deduction the Palestinian Authority’s vision of the state of Israel (that is to say of Jewish Israelis). In Palestine, the Jews theoretically would not be citizens, because they are neither “Arabs” (the key to Palestinian nationality according to articles 10 and 13), nor “Moslems,” (key to the Palestinian national law according to article 6). Although they would be “respected,” they would fall outside of national sovereignty, the exclusive privilege of the Arabs (Article 10), who could be Christians or Moslems, indeed, but with a restriction. Since the law would conform to Islamic law, Christian Arabs could only be second class citizens, subjected to the status which Koranic law imposes on them, a status which excludes them from the general law which applies to the Moslems, a status granted however as a privilege. As they are not subjected to the rules of (Islamic) national law with regard to their personal status, they will be permitted to act autonomously within the framework of their law and religious tribunals.

This was already the case before the colonial era, before Islam lost all power over non-Moslems, and this is indeed what the Palestinian constitution provides for in its Article 7: “the principles of Islamic Sharia are the first source of legislation. The legislative power will determine the law of personal status under the authority of the monotheistic religions in conformity with their religions, with due respect to the clauses of the constitution and the preservation of unity, of the stability and progress of the Palestinian [Moslem] people.”

The problem is twofold: Sharia will not only apply to them when their “personal” status is at stake (and this status is segregative: it included, in the pre-colonial era, political submission, submission in behavior and religion, payment of a head tax, the djizya, or a financial tax on the land from which they have been dispossessed, the kharadj, etc) but also in their quality as citizens. It will indeed govern the citizenry as the law of the state (art. 6). Non-Moslems will be subject to its rulings as citizens and not only as believers.

How does the “monotheistic” statute reveal the vision which the Palestinian Authority has with regard to what the State of Israel should be, and which it does not want to recognize as “Jewish”? Would it recognize the “monotheist” character of the Israelis but not the Jewish character of their state? Would not the term, “Jewish,” designate a “monotheist”?

It is the understanding of the status of the dhimmi which could help us to grasp this apparent contradiction which contains a nasty trick for those who do not understand the categories of Moslem culture. The status of the dhimmi, one must know, is not personal but applies to collectivities, to the “nations” (millet from the times of the Turks) politically subjected to Islamic power since the “Conquest.”

It is necessary to explain the theological basis of the collective condition of the dhimmi. According to the Koranic vision, there were different “umma” [peoples] in history, each one rising to the call of a prophet (Moses, Jesus, etc.), until the advent of the final “umma,” which rose to the call of Islam. The basis of an umma is thus a ‘religion.”

In this sense, the Palestinian leaders cannot recognize the right of a Jewish state (and in fact any state which would not be Islamic), which would entail the self-determination and sovereignty of a collectivity whose only possible status under Islam is that of dhimmi. This would be an affront to the Islamic umma. A Jewish state thus constitutes essentially a scandal. The two terms, “State,” and “Jewish” therefore constitute, as theological-political matter, an impossible alloy. The Jews cannot have a state. They are not a people of political standing, because there can only be The Umma. They [the Jews] can neither be free nor sovereign.

An unclear “nationalism”

This classical Islamic perspective was much more evident in the sixties and seventies when the PLO did not resort to double talk to such a sophisticated degree, even if it already made use of western concepts (religion and state) to express Islamic notions. What does one read indeed in the PLO Charter in its first version (1964)? “The Balfour Declaration, the Mandate for Palestine, and everything which derives from them are declared null and void. The claims of the Jews to historical and religious links with Palestine are incompatible the historical facts and the true conception of what a nation consists. Judaism, being a religion, does not constitute an independent nationality. For the same matter, the Jews do not constitute a unique nation with its own identity. They are citizens of the states to which they belong” (Article 20).

This is already a strange remark for a culture which confuses the political and the religious… It does not prevent the PLO, in the same text, from insisting on the exclusive Arab character of Palestine: “Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people. It is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people is a part of the Arab nation (Article 1.)” […] “Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine constitute two complementary goals” (article 13) “The people of Palestine play the role of the vanguard in the realization of this sacred objective.” Here, the term, Arab nation, really designates the Umma.

We discover in this remark the extent to which the strictly Palestinian “national” framework is recent (the second version of the charter was published in 1968). “The Palestinian people believe in Arab unity. In order for it to contribute to the realization of this objective, it is necessary however, at this stage of the struggle to safeguard the Palestinian identity and develop its consciousness of this identity,” (Article 12) because (Article 1): “Palestine is the home of the Arab Palestinian people. It is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people is an integral part of the Arab nation.” Actually, despite the “nationalistic” formulation of this clause, the term, Arab nation, defines other words the Islamic Umma. Palestine belongs to the Umma (which cannot renounce a part of Islamic land).

It is noteworthy that in their constitutional documents, the Moslem Brotherhood write the same thing about Jews/Israelis, although in a more extreme manner in the case of the Hamas. Let the reader judge. With regard to the dhimmis, the Hamas charter declares that “the Islamic Resistance Movement … is guided by Islamic tolerance when it deals with the faithful of other religions. It does not oppose them except when they are hostile. Under the banner of Islam, the faithful of the three religions, Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, can coexist peacefully. But this peace is not possible except under the banner of Islam.” With regard to the nature of the Palestinian country, the Hamas takes the view that: “The Movement of Islamic Resistance believes that Palestine is an Islamic Wakf [Religious patrimony] consecrated for [the future] generations of Moslems until the Last Judgment. Not a single parcel of this can be divested or abandoned to others […] (Article 11).

PLO Charter: an antecedent of this old-new racism

The Palestinian Charter of the PLO is more explicit with regard to the racist motives beneath such an apparent nationalistic statement and it finds expression with regard to all the Jews outside the state of Israel. It states in its Article 23, “The need of security and of peace, as well as that of justice and law, require of all the states that they consider Zionism as an illegitimate movement, that they declare its existence illegal, that they forbid its activities, so that the friendly relations between peoples can be preserved, and that the loyalty of citizens to their respective countries may be preserved.” What does this canned expression “loyalty of citizens toward their respective countries,” describe other than the Jews of the whole world (essentially of the Western countries), not Israelis, whom the Charter singles out for suspicion and the vindictiveness of their respective states, and implies that they are not faithful and could stand up for Israel against the interest of their respective states: that they are in fact Israelis, that is to say, more crudely, “The Jews.” They are depicted precisely with the classic traits of antisemitism: the Jewish conspiracy.

Article 22 of the Charter thus traces the borders in this “anti-Zionist” antisemitism: “Zionism is a political movement bound organically to an international imperialism and hostile to all action for the liberation and every progressive movement in the world. The Zionist by his nature is racist and fanatical, aggressive, expansionist, colonial in his objectives, and fascist in his methods. Israel is the instrument of the Zionist movement and the geographical base of world imperialism, strategically placed in the midst of the Arab homeland to combat the hopes for liberation, unity and progress of the Arab nation. Israel is a constant source of threats to the peace of the Middle East and in the whole world. Because the liberation of Palestine will destroy Zionism and the imperialist presence and will contribute to the establishment of the peace in the Middle East, the Palestinian people demands the aid of all the progressive forces [which are] oriented toward peace, and enjoins them, without distinguishing between their affiliation and creed, to offer their aid and support to the Palestinian people in its struggle for the liberation of its homeland.” Zionism” here is another word for the classical “Jewish Conspiracy.”

International and Israeli Passivity:

There has been no European or American reaction to condemn Abbas’ odious remarks in Egypt. Could it be that the world knows very well what to expect from the “moderate” Palestinians? But if this is the real reason for this astounding silence, why should one believe in the Palestinian desire for peace and the myth of Abbas’ moderation? No reaction of protest emanated from the European and American Jewish institutions, to disturb the summer’s torpor. No reaction was forthcoming from the Israeli government. Where are the idealistic souls of the European JStreet, JCall, to castigate this “moral mistake” and this openly bellicose declaration? This silence gives an idea of the indulgence of the public with regard to the Palestinian and Arab-Islamic demands and their lack of interest with regard to the impasse into which they want to throw Israel and the whole Jewish world.

---

[1] As post Zionists define it “A state of all its citizens”…

Shmuel Trigano is Professor at Paris University (Sociology of Politics), among his recent publications in English is, The Democratic Ideal and the Shoah. The Unthought in Political Modernity, SUNY Press, 2009 [link to site of SPME]

Trigano demonstrates what should have been common knowledge long ago, that the PLO and its outgrowth, the Palestinian Authority, are really pan-Arabist entities, masquerading to the West as representatives of a "separate, distinct, palestinian people." The PLO charter demonstrates that there is no such people. The PLO's representation in the Organization of the Islamic Conference demonstrates that it does not believe in human rights.
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UPDATING 11-1-2010
Lee Smith has also noted PA/PLO plans for a Judenrein, apartheid state where Jews are forbidden to live and those now living in areas claimed by the PLO/PA will be forcibly transferred or "ethnically cleansed" from their homes. Smith points to this interview in particular.
Shmuel Trigano writes on the process of expulsion of the native Jews from Arab lands which he dates from 1920 to 1970. It was in this period that liberal freedoms and equality introduced in some Arab lands began to be eroded in law and the Jews' status declined before the rise of the State of Israel in 1948.
Yaron Harel writes that the Jews of Syria began leaving after the Damascus Affair of 1840 [in which French diplomacy had encouraged persecution of local Jews]. Harel's book is In Ships of Fire to the West: Changes among Syrian Jewry in the Period of Ottoman Reforms, 1840-1880 [בספינות של אש למערב] (Jerusalem: Merkaz Shazar 2003).
Books by Michael Lasker and Bat Yeor may also be helpful in studying this general subject, as well as Mordechai Nisan, Minorities in the Middle East (London: McFarland 1991). Bat Yeor takes up the general history of the non-Muslim subject peoples in the Islamic state going back to early Islam. They were oppressed as dhimmis. Nisan takes up non-Arab Muslim peoples & non-Muslim subject peoples and minorities.
Elliott A Green takes up the oppression of Jews in Arab lands generally and in Jerusalem in particular [& here].

What Jewish Leaders Should Tell President Obama

Prez Obama is supposed to meet American Jewish leaders today. Here are some of the things that they should tell him:

1-- His anti-settlement policy is anti-Jewish racism.

2-- The State Department and UK Foreign Office opening to Hamas is tantamount to favoring Nazis since Hamas has clearly Nazi purposes. The Hamas Charter in general and Article 7 in particular call for genocide against the Jews, based on medieval Muslim teachings.

3-- His policy of denying Jewish rights to live in Judea-Samaria endangers the rights of American Jews to live wherever in the United States the Judeophobes, like obama and gang, don't want them to. [On this point, Professor Alan Dershowitz is simply a fool].

4-- There has never been a "Palestinian people" in all history. Those Arabs themselves did not see themselves as a distinct people nor did they or other Arabs perceive a distinct country called "palestine."

5-- The Arabs as Muslims oppressed, persecuted, and economically exploited Jews [and other non-Muslims] for 1400 years in the status of dhimmis.

6-- Arab nationalists, particularly the leading palestinian Arab politician and Muslim religious leader, Haj Amin el-Husseini [husayni], Mufti of Jerusalem, collaborated with the Nazis in general and in the Holocaust in particular.

7-- American universities disgrace themselves day after day with pro-Nazi liars on their faculties, slandering the Jews. Hence, it is difficult for younger Americans to form fact-based, well informed opinions about Arab and Israeli matters. One of the big liars is Obama's friend, Rashid al-Khalidi, who worked as a PLO propagandist.

8-- The PLO and its leading faction, Fatah, do not want peace with Israel. Only the peace of the grave for Israel. Consider the broadcasts full of anti-Jewish lies and war incitement on palestinian authority TV, radio, newspapers, schools, mosques, etc. They teach hate not peace or coexistence, aided and abetted by European Union funds and money from the USA too.

9-- Jonathan Pollard is unjustly kept in jail in that his sentence for espionage was much longer that given to others sentenced for espionage around the same time as he. His sentence is practically a life sentence whereas an Egyptian sentenced around the same time got only a few years. Likewise, Christopher Boyce and the Walker family. Pollard's extra-harsh sentence violates the "cruel and unusual punishments" clause of the US Bill of Rights [Amendment 8] of the US constitution. Obama is supposed to know the Constitution as a law professor. Pollard's sentence represents anti-Jewish discrimination, Judeophobia, in the American body politic.

10-- To think that the US or other outside powers can force peace on a conflict like the Arab-Israeli one, or that they really want peace, is ridiculous. If the US, UK, EU really wanted peace, they could start by reducing the huge funds that they give to the palestinian authority and Hamas in Gaza.