Israel is Not an “Occupier”

Video Of The Week -The banning of Hezbollah - https://tinyurl.com/ybpvxw3h

 By Alan Baker. For more information go to - https://tinyurl.com/ybonuehw

International law defines “occupation” as one power occupying the lands of a foreign sovereign. In Israel’s case, Israel is not occupying any foreign sovereign’s land; Israel entered the area known as the West Bank in 1967 and took over the authority to administer the land from Jordan, which was never considered to be a sovereign in the area.

In actual fact, Israel and the Jewish people have got claims to the area that go far back into history. Anybody who reads the Bible can appreciate the fact that there is a very solid historic legal basis to the claim of Israel with respect to the territories and therefore Israel considers the territories not to be occupied, not to be Palestinian, but as in dispute.

We appreciate that the Palestinians also have claims with respect to the territory. Israel considers that its claims are far better based and better documented than any other claims, but Israel is committed to conduct negotiations with the Palestinians in order to find a permanent settlement to the issue.

The Jordanians, who occupied the territory after the 1948 war, annexed it, but this annexation was never really recognized or acknowledged by the international community. At a later stage the king of Jordan voluntarily gave up any Jordanian sovereignty or claim to the territories to the Palestinian people. So the Jordanians came and went, and the issue remains an issue between the Israelis and the Palestinians.

“Palestinian Territories” is Not a Legal Term

The international community’s constant referral to the “Palestinian territories” is a complete fallacy and has absolutely no legal or political basis. There has never been a Palestinian state, as such, and therefore the territories never belonged to any Palestinian entity. There’s no international agreement, there’s no contract, there’s no treaty, and there’s no binding international resolution that determines that the territories belong to the Palestinians.

In actual fact, even the Palestinians themselves, in the Oslo agreement that they signed with Israel, acknowledge the fact that the ultimate permanent status of the territory is to be determined by negotiations. Therefore, even the Palestinians accept the fact that this is not Palestinian territory, its disputed territory whose status is yet to be settled.

If the local population owns land, then the administrative power isn’t allowed to take the land or use it. But if the land is not private, the administering power can use the land and enjoy the fruits of the land until sovereignty has been finally determined. So Israel justifiably can use land which is not private land, which is public land, for establishing settlements as long as these settlements don’t take away the private rights of the local population. Therefore, in our opinion, the settlements are not illegitimate.

The Settlements are Not Illegitimate

There’s one other point. The issue of settlements is a negotiating issue. The Palestinians have agreed with the Israelis that the issue of settlements is one of the issues on the permanent status negotiating table. Therefore, anybody who comes along and claims that Israel’s settlements are illegitimate – whether it’s the EU, whether it’s individual governments, whether it is the secretary of state of the United States, who said so specifically, or the spokesman of the State Department – they’re prejudging a negotiating issue, which is clearly incompatible with any negotiating principle.

These are issues that have to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinians. Therefore, nobody can claim that the settlements are illegitimate or that they’re illegal, as such. They have to be negotiated between the parties.

There’s No Such Thing as 1967 Borders

There’s no such thing as 1967 borders. A border is a line between two sovereign entities. In 1967, there was a ceasefire line that had existed since the 1948-1949 war between the Arab states and Israel and after Israel declared its independence. The Jordanians insisted on inserting in the Armistice Agreement of 1949 a provision which says that the armistice demarcation line is not the final border. Final borders can only be determined in peace negotiations between the parties. So “1967 borders” is a non-existent term and anybody using this term – again, including the U.S. administration and the EU – are simply being misled.

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The speech in which Abbas dug his own grave

Video Of The Week - Mahmoud Abbas curses the US President - https://tinyurl.com/yccopx6o

While wishing the ’POTUS' (President Of The US) "house be destroyed" in traditional Arab fashion, Abbas may have destroyed his own house, the Palestinian Arab one built of cards.

ARUTZ SHEVA by Dr. Mordechai Kedar, 15/01/18

For the full article go to: https://tinyurl.com/yc43kygf

Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of  the Palestine Liberation Organization, has delivered a speech triggered by his rage at the  President of the United States  Donald Trump, going so far as to  hurl the most bitter curse in the Arabic language at the POTUS:  "May your house be destroyed."

This imprecation does not merely relate to someone's present home, but to all the members of his family being thrown into the street to lead lives of destitution, humiliation and shame. Only someone familiar with Middle Eastern culture understands the real significance of this curse.

The question that naturally rises is what happened that brought Abbas to the point where he is willing to burn his bridges with the US President and deliver a speech whose import is the severing of relations with the country which serves as chief funder of UNRWA, also pushing the US president towards a negative stand on the "Palestinian Issue."

"Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine," is an idea created after the Six Day War and further developed after the Oslo Accords were signed in September 1993. Arafat turned it into a mantra, while official Israel – Shmon Peres, Yossi Beilin, Alon Liel and their cohorts – did nothing to stop him. They told us that the expression is meant for a Palestinian Arab audience, i.e. for "internal use" only. "Millions of shahids are on the march to Jerusalem!!" Arafat shouted day and night, but they told us to ignore it, that these were empty words, merely a pipe dream.

The world perpetuated the "Palestinian refugee problem" despite the fact that not one refugee remains of all the others who existed in the 1940s. Even Germany, which absorbed and rehabilitated the Sudetenland residents expelled from Czechoslovakia, did not demand that the Arab world do the same and absorb the "Palestinian refugees," whose problem was created as a result of the Arab armies' invasion of Israel one day after the Jewish State declared its independence.

The world did not recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital and allowed Jerusalem to turn into another major bargaining chip in the "Peace talks" whose only purpose – at least according to t he Arab side – was to weaken and shrink the State of Israel and bring it to a state of collapse that would make the Jews lose hope and leave the region for the countries they had lived in before they came to rebuild their ancient homeland.

Trump and the House of Cards

Enter Donald Trump, a businessman who deals with construction – not houses built of cards, but the kind meant to last for generations.  He understood that the Palestinian structure is made of cards, left standing only because of the world's going along with European leadership, American liberal circles, the Arab states and a few Israelis suffering from burn-out. Trump understood that the Palestinian ideological structure is full of holes and decided to pull two foundational cards out of the ephemeral structure: the Jerusalem card and the refugee card.

From the minute Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital the Palestinians – both Hamas and the PLO – began engaging in frenzied activities, disturbances on the ground and political maneuvering in international corridors. They understood that Jerusalem as Israel's capital is an insurance policy of sorts for the Jewish statee.  To the Jews, Jerusalem is real, backed up by history and  the Jewish religion, while it is nothing but "fake news" for the  Arab and Muslim world.

And then Trump pulled the refugee card from the house of cards by announcing that he would cease to fund, support and perpetuate it. That act is a thousand times worse than recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital, because the refugee issue has been capitalized on for seventy years, with billions of dollars poured into it, all going to waste. UNRWA operates a massive system of wage-earners, schools and aid services running on American money, whose cessation is sure to limit the organizations' ability to breathe life into the "refugee problem" .

Abbas cannot let that happen for several reasons: First, he himself is a refugee born in Safed in 1935 and his own legitimacy as a Palestinian leader is based on that fact. Second, the refugees have become addicted to living on foreign aid and taking it away will force them to work like everyone else. Third, every refugee whose funding has ceased will decide to solve his problem independently: Some will emigrate to other countries, others will be absorbed in their current locations, and the refugee problem will disappear after all those decades spent keeping it alive with massive amounts of European and American money.

Abbas understands that his house of cards, lacking Jerusalem and refugees, is about to collapse and disappear and with it all the plans to destroy Israel. The feeling that he has lost his compass is what made him lose his temper and abandon the  discretion that has always characterized his behavior, leading him to return to the depths of Arabic culture with an imprecation aimed at Trump –"May your house be destroyed."

He used the worst of Arab curses, expressing the wish that Trump's home be destroyed, his family thrown out into the street and that he and they live in poverty and shame, turning into homeless objects of pity to passersby. There is no more fitting expression for Abbas' despair and disappointment as he witnesses the collapse of the Palestinian Arab house of cards once Trump removed its Jerusalem and refugee foundations.

Abbas also does not have the Arab world standing behind him. Quite the contrary, the  Iranian issue has pushed many Arab states closer to Israel and since the Arab nations are mired in a plethora of their own internal problems, the Palestinian problem is now seen by them as nothing more than a nuisance. Abbas' speech this week, one in which he dug his own grave, symbolized the collapse, death and burial of the "Palestinian issue" and this is the time to find an out-of-the-box solution for it – on the lines of the "Emriate Solution,"  the only socio-political model that works successfully in the Middle East.

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TIME TO IMPOSE SANCTIONS ON THE PALESTINIAN TERROR AUTHORITY

Video of the week - Kaled Abu Toameh tells the truth  https://tinyurl.com/y8f5m6gv

 This video is much longer than we would normally publish. We feel, however, it has so much information about the Arab thinking in the conflict with Israel that we’re sure it will hold your interest.

J.Post 13-1-2018 by Michael Freund - https://tinyurl.com/yas5yro8

A Palestinian gunman near Nablus (Shechem) unleashed a hail of 21 bullets at an Israeli car on Tuesday – an atrocity that should prompt a thorough reassessment of how Jerusalem and Washington view the hostile entity known as the Palestinian Authority.

With the pull of a trigger, the terrorist murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach, 35, turning his wife into a widow and his six small children – all under the age of 10 – into orphans, denying them the love of a father and destroying their innocence and childhood.

Rabbi Shevach was a mohel (trained to perform circumcisions) who in his spare time served as a volunteer medic. He committed no crime nor did he pose a threat to anyone. Shevach was a resident of Havat Gilad who was simply making his way home that night to be with his family, like men and women everywhere.

His wife will surely be haunted by his final words, uttered when he called to say he had just been shot.

And his children will grow up with a void in their lives that can never be filled.

From beginning to end the incident highlights the lethal role played by the Palestinian leadership in Ramallah. It underscores the need to impose punitive sanctions forthwith on the blood-stained regime of Mahmoud Abbas.

It is time to stop coddling Abbas and start treating the institution he heads in a manner befitting its promotion and encouragement of terrorist violence.

For months, as Palestinian Media Watch has documented, the PA and its official bodies have brazenly incited Palestinians to attack Israelis, hailing those who have done so as heroes and deliberately trying to heighten tensions on the ground.

With its constant stream of venom aimed at young and old alike, Palestinian television, radio and newspapers have become platforms for advocating violence, barbarism and brutality.

Using everything from music to visual imagery to the written word, the propagandists in Mr. Abbas’s employ continue to produce an ongoing symphony of savagery that has created an environment rife with hate.

Even more telling is what Rabbi Shevach’s murderer chose to do after he completed his dastardly act: He fled by car to PA-controlled Nablus, knowing full well he could find safe refuge there without fear of prosecution.

NOT ONLY does the PA foster attacks, it provides sanctuary to those who carry them out as well.

As if that weren’t enough, terrorists are rewarded by the PA for spilling the blood of innocent Israelis, as recently revealed in startling new statistics.

At a Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting on Tuesday, the Defense Ministry disclosed that the PA paid out well over half a billion dollars to Palestinian terrorists and their families over the past two years. In 2016, it shelled out $320m., while in 2017 the figure rose to $347m.

Even more astonishing is that the PA relies on foreign aid from Europe and elsewhere, as well as on taxes and customs revenues transferred to it by Israel, for its financial survival.

After cashing the checks, the PA takes its money and doles out enormous sums to terrorists and their families, thereby signaling the priority it places on providing financial incentives for Palestinians to reach for the gun.

This moral madness must be brought to an end.

Instead of indulging Abbas and those around him, serious measures must be taken without delay to punish the PA and penalize its penchant for terror.

We need to start by calling things by their true names and label the Abbas regime “the Palestinian Terrorist Authority.”

A would-be government that goads people to violence, provides terrorists with shelter and immunity and then bestows financial gifts to them cannot and must not be considered a legitimate governing body or a possible partner for peace.

Next, it is essential that the law proposed by Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman – which would deduct the amount the PA pays to terrorists from the taxes transferred to it by Israel – be enacted as soon as possible.

Washington should also cut off aid to the Palestinians for their obstructionism and refusal to negotiate, as President Trump threatened to do earlier this month.

There is no reason for the Jewish state or American taxpayers to send money to the PA at the same time it is funneling funds to terrorists.

There has been plenty of talk over the years about such steps, but now is the time for the US and Israel to translate that talk into action.

Abbas must understand that he can no longer act with impunity while he almost literally laughs all the way to the bank.

The Palestinians will have no one but themselves to blame for the economic fallout that will follow a cutoff of funds.

The PA had a choice to make between terror and peace. Its preference is quite clear. Our resolve must be no less decisive.

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The Christian haven of Israel

Video of the week - Christians in Israel versus Middle East -  https://tinyurl.com/y85woyej

 The times of Israel, by Elias Zarina 29-12-2017

For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/y974qamp

The period between Christmas and New Year’s is a time of reflection, and as thousands of Christians make their way to the Holy Land, they should be fully aware of our true situation. As a Middle Eastern Christian, I would like to inform you that, while Muslim leaders have tried to convince the West that Christians are doing well, quite the opposite is true. Furthermore, having been born and raised in the Christian Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, I am certain that Israel is the only country in the region where Christians are thriving.

This might come as a surprise, due to a recent letter by Church leaders condemning US President Donald Trump’s declaration on Jerusalem. Again, the truth is much more complicated. Christians in the Middle East, including in eastern Jerusalem and the West Bank, are under enormous pressure from Muslim leaders. In recent years, the Christian community across the region has suffered from the rise of Jihadi extremists.

Take, for instance, the hundreds of thousands of displaced Christians from Syria and Iraq. Or the slaughter of Copts in Egypt. The same is also true in the West Bank. Just recently, a Palestinian terrorist embarked on a vehicular ramming attack in the Christian town of Beit Jala, wounding 18 people and demolishing 41 vehicles. I heard first-hand that the assailant’s declared goal was “to cleanse the infidels.” The Palestinian Authority (PA), who has the man in custody, released a false statement disregarding these charges and downplayed the incident, saying he was “disturbed.” This is just one more example of how the PA is disguising the danger that its Christian residents face from the rise of Islamic ideology in its midst.

It is then unsurprising that across the Holy Land, the birthplace of Jesus Christ, so many of his followers are escaping to the West. They are on the run from life-threatening danger imposed by radical Islamists. And close to home, many Christians are leaving the PA, despite what its leaders are saying. They exploit the local Christian minority for their own political goals. They speak as if Christians are treated with equality and respect, but this is only a mirage. The Christian exodus from Palestinian cities, including Bethlehem, is evidence of their maltreatment and their feelings of insecurity.

However, I am happy to report that there is one place in the Middle East where Christians are truly thriving — Israel. The Christian community in Israel continues to grow in numbers. Christians in Israel enjoy economic prosperity, independent educational systems that produce some of the country’s most successful schools, a great health system, and full civil rights. It is for this reason that a growing number of Christians choose to enlist in the Israel Defense Force, study, and live here.

We, the Israeli-Christian minority in Israel, are proud of the way our country treats and respects our faith and culture. I know this to be true, because together with my colleagues, both Christian and Jewish, we have the privilege of assisting dozens of my community members to integrate into the general Israeli society. By providing scholarships and mentoring, we alleviate this process for many young Christians. However, none of this work is possible without the desire of these young men and women to do so. So, I say to all the pilgrims, I hope you will see on your visit that, while Christians across the region are looking outward for a better future, here in Israel they are looking inward.

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FACING A TAMIMI GOVERNMENT

Video of the week - Ahed Tamimi Hits and Kicks Israeli Soldiers - https://tinyurl.com/ybuzl76a

J. Post - By Caroline Glick 28-12-2017

This week, the Tamimi clan from Nabi Saleh beset Israel once again. Ahed Tamimi, the family’s teenaged golden girl, and her mother, Nariman, once again posted videos of themselves slapping and cursing hapless IDF soldiers.

The photogenic Ahed has been doing this number since she was a little girl.

There are two components of the Palestinian war to annihilate Israel: terrorism and propaganda. The two are integrally linked. The ties are nowhere more apparent than in the actions of the Tamimi family.

Six weeks after Israel signed the Oslo Accords with the PLO on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993, Chaim Mizrahi from Beit El went to buy eggs from a farmer in Ramallah, as he had every week for years.

Two of Ahed’s cousins, Said and Nizar Tamimi, were there. They stabbed Mizrahi, stuffed him in the trunk of his car and burned him alive.

In August 2001, Ahed’s aunt Ahlam Tamimi masterminded the massacre at a Sbarro pizzeria in Jerusalem. She chose Sbarro because it was popular among families with young children. She brought the suicide bomber to the restaurant and he blew himself up, killing 15 people, among them seven children, and wounded 130.

Today all three of the Tamimi murderers are out of jail. The Obama administration forced Israel to release Said along with several hundred other terrorists to prove it was committed to peace in 2013.

Ahlam and Nizar were released in 2011 as part of Israel’s 1,000-terrorists-for-one-hostage-soldier Gilad Schalit deal.

Ahlam and Nizar were deported to Jordan and they got married soon after. The two wed in a fancy ceremony that was posted online. Ahed, Bassem and Nariman feature prominently in the wedding.

The video shows Nariman and Ahed standing on a stage with Ahlam as Ahed gazes worshipfully at her baby-killing aunt.

Shortly after she set up shop in Amman, Ahlam began hosting a TV show on Hamas’s terror channel.

She is also celebrated by the Jordanian regime.

As Arnold Roth, whose daughter Malki was among the seven children murdered at Sbarro, reported on his website, Jordanian Prince Ali’s wife, former CNN reporter Princess Rym Ali raised donations from the governments of Europe, Australia and Canada to establish a journalism school in Amman. On every page of the Jordanian Media Institute’s website, Ahlam Tamimi is presented as a “Success Model.”

Three of Ahlam’s victims were US citizens. King Abdullah has rejected repeated US requests to extradite her for trial.

Back in Nabi Saleh, Nariman and Bassem and their kids man the barricades against Israel, for their sponsors.

In 2012, Bassam was convicted of inciting a riot against IDF soldiers. An observer from the EU was present throughout his trial.

Then-EU foreign affairs commissioner Catherine Ashton touted Bassem as a “human rights defender.”

Bassem and Nariman are “volunteers” in B’Tselem’s “camera project.”

B’Tselem, an anti-Israel political warfare group funded by the EU, EU member governments, the State Department and far-left American groups, distributes video cameras to Palestinians and trains them to use them. It then posts their films online to advance its one-sided propaganda offensive against Israel.

In 2015, a consortium of anti-Israel groups including Amnesty International, Code Pink and Jewish Voices for Peace brought Bassem Tamimi to the US on a speaking tour.

In one particularly hair-raising episode, reported by Legal Insurrection at the time, Tamimi addressed an audience of third-graders in Ithaca, New York.

He urged the children to support terrorism against Israel and to join the war against the Jewish state.

Videos of Ahed were a prominent component of his presentation.

The Turkish government is also a big supporter of the Tamimi brood. After a past video of Ahed hitting and cursing Israeli forces was posted online, she and her parents were brought to Ankara to receive recognition from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In a very real sense, the Tamimi family is at the nexus of a global war against Israel.

The Tamimis have connections with nearly every government and group involved in that war. The Israeli and American Left, the EU, Jordan and Turkey and of course Hamas and the PLO all support them.

The IDF arrested Ahed and Nariman three days after they posted their latest assault film online. On Wednesday, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas called Bassem Tamimi to congratulate him on his daughter’s performance and to inquire about her welfare.

This then brings us to Abbas, the moderate Palestinian man of peace.

Since he succeeded Yasser Arafat as head of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority in 2004, Abbas has been touted as a moderate man of peace by everybody who is anybody – including by successive Israeli governments. This appraisal was never been based on discernible reality. Abbas refused generous offers of peace and Palestinian statehood both from then-prime minister Ehud Olmert in 2008 and from then-president Barack Obama in 2014. He has refused to negotiate with Israel for the past nine years. And he has continuously sponsored, rewarded, funded, incited and ordered terrorist attacks against Israel. In addition has led the international political war against Israel on every available stage worldwide for decades.

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