Palestinians: Is It Really About 'Annexation'?

Video Of The Week -Through Palestinian Eyes https://tinyurl.com/yappsfyo

by Khaled Abu Toameh

June 25, 2020

The picture Palestinian Authority officials are painting is that the Israeli annexation of any part of the West Bank is the one and only obstacle to regional peace, security and stability. According to these officials, the Israeli plan would deprive the Palestinians of their right to establish an independent and sovereign state on the pre-1967 armistice lines.

A large group of Palestinian Islamic scholars and clerics, however, evidently disagree with the Palestinian Authority's claim.

On June 21, the Association of Palestine Scholars held a meeting in the Gaza Strip to discuss the Israeli plan. The meeting was attended by several Islamic religious judges representing the Supreme Council of Sharia Judiciary, senior officials of the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Waqf and Religious Affairs, academics from several Islamic colleges and universities, as well as jurists who issue rulings on Islamic law (sharia).

In a statement issued after the meeting, the Islamic religious personalities, referring to Israel as the "usurping entity," condemned as "dangerous" the Israeli plan to extend sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.

Their statement quickly makes clear that what is really bothering the Islamic scholars and clerics is not the possibility that Israel might impose its sovereignty on Jewish settlements and the Jordan Valley.

They are not really worried about the possibility that Israel might annex 10% or 20% or 30% of the West Bank. There is something that worries them much more than any part of the West Bank, and that is the very existence of Israel. The Islamic scholars and clerics believe that Israel has no right to sovereignty over Tel Aviv, Haifa, Nazareth, Tiberias, Jerusalem or and any other part of Israel.

The Islamic leaders even contradict their own statement by pretending to be worried only about the ostensible loss of West Bank land to Israel.

On the one hand, they say that "one of the most dangerous things that this [Israeli] enemy intends to do is to annex a part of the Palestinian lands to its usurping entity." They are pretending, in other words, that they are worried only about the "annexation" of parts of the West Bank.

On the other hand, The Islamic leaders emphasize that "Palestine, all of Palestine, from the [Mediterranean] sea to the [Jordan] river, is a Palestinian Arab Islamic land for which the Jews and Zionists have no right." They go on to explain that "this fact won't be changed by any measures taken by the [Israeli] enemy."

It is clear from the statement that whether the "annexation" plan is implemented or not, many Muslims would still reject the State of Israel because, in their view, it continues to "usurp" Palestinian Arab Islamic land stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River. It is dead wrong to assume that if Israel abandons its plan, most Muslims would give up their desire to destroy Israel and replace it with an extremist Iran-style Islamic state.

To back up their argument even further that the main problem is not the West Bank, the scholars and clerics said that "recognizing the state of this usurping entity is a religious, legal, humanitarian and historical crime that must be immediately corrected by cancelling the abhorrent Oslo Accords."

So, the problem is not really the "annexation" plan that they want to see cancelled, but the Oslo Accords signed in 1993 and 1995 between Israel and the PLO. These accords marked the beginning of the so-called Israeli-Palestinian peace process after the PLO purportedly recognized Israel's right to exist in peace and security.

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Israel, the best place to live

Video Of The Week; - Trump Admin Slashes $200M in Palestinian Aid  https://tinyurl.com/y787mz49

From Israpundit, by Barry Shaw. https://tinyurl.com/yc4vold2

We have built our border fences and, where necessary, border walls, despite the outpouring of condemnation, and we are, statistically proven, safer because of it.

Israel is affected by the way Western politicians fail to fully comprehend the machinations of the Middle East. The Western politicians and their diplomats are overly obsessed with doing business with dictators for the good of their national economies. It is far more important that their conglomerates and corporations are neatly intertwined with the ruling elite. It would be unseemly to be seen to be curious about the rumblings of discontent. That may disturb commercial relationships, and potential future lucrative non-governmental careers in the Arab and Islamic world. After all, good commercial ties with such regimes are ultimately good for the people.

Right? Wrong. Just look at Iran as a prime example of how wrong that platitude is.

Israeli writer, Amotz Asa-El, gave the Libyan example of the stupefaction of Western leaders as evidenced by total failures in grasping the nature of the Middle East beast in a recent article. The screw up by Western leaders has led to disastrous social and economic results for many European countries. Asa-El reminds us that in 2009 European leaders sold more than 344 million Euro of arms to Qaddafi and then, just a few years later, applauded his downfall to rebels. They were celebrated by Britain’s Cameron and France’s Sarkozy who looked on Mustafa Abdul Jalil, the head of the Libyan National Transition Council as a liberator by claiming that “this will be a Libyan-led and Libyan-owned process with broad support.”

Cameron said he was in close contact with Jalil. A few weeks later, Jalil declared that new Libyan law would be based on Sharia.

These European leaders were blissfully unaware that the liberation they were celebrating was the start of Europe’s disintegration under the weight of the human tsunami as Libya opened the floodgates to millions of North Africans and Arabs, mainly Muslim, some Islamic.

As an Israeli I had no empathy for the mad dictator Qaddafi. However, they should have listened to him when he warned them, as NATO bombed his country, that, “Now you people in NATO, listen to me. You are bombing the walls that stopped African immigration” into Europe.

They didn’t listen. They didn’t comprehend what he was trying to tell them. Instead, they breached the wall, toppled Qaddafi, opened the way for an Islamic Sharia governance in Libya that has no respect for Europe and its values, and who have swamped Europe with millions of migrants who have no understanding or concern for Western values. Some came to exploit the opportunities. Others have come to exploit the system.

Part of the Western diplomatic shortcomings was that they were fine dealing with dictators and their corrupt henchmen, particularly those who sat on oil wells and dirty contracts with European and American conglomerates and corporations. For here was the potential for future lucrative careers after they shuffed off their governmental roles and entered private life with interesting and well placed people.

While in their overseas governmental positions their main task was schmoozing the decision makers, those who could sign hefty contracts. The concerns of the population were none of their concern. Sympathizing with the down-trodden got in the way of carrying out what they had been promoted to achieve, the trade that kept wheels of power, and private palms, well-greased.

And when these Middle Eastern potentates added a condition to support them in their condemnation of Israel in international forums it was easy to give the nod.

They misread the tea leaves as millions took to Arab streets. They watched, expressing sympathy for the rioters only when the toppling of their favored dictator looked certain. They called it “the Arab Spring,” though those close to the action, like Israeli national security and intelligence experts, warned it was closer to becoming a stormy Islamic Winter than an Arab Spring.

Events in the Middle East and North Africa proved the cynical Israel realists were closer to the truth than blundering Western politicians and their totally unprepared national security heads. Just look at the Obama-praised Muslim Brotherhood Morsi who usurped power from Mubarak, or Libya and the murder of Ambassador Stephens and his security team as the president, the NSA, CIA chiefs and Secretary of State Clinton waffled, blaming it on an amateur video, and did nothing to rescue the trapped but fighting crew at the US compound in Benghazi.

Look at the failure of Obama red lines in Syria, the mocking of ISIS as a “JV team,” the sucking up to the Islamic Republic of Iran at any costs to get the awful nuclear deal done, and the all too slow realization that parts of Europe have become cultural and social nightmares for the indigenous population.

As Israel watches the unraveling of Europe, hears the fears of local Jews, witnesses the insanity of American Democrats demanding open borders, sanctuary cities that protect criminal illegal migrants and endanger their lawful citizens, it seems that the outside world has gone mad.

We have built our border fences and, where necessary, border walls, despite the outpouring of condemnation, and we are, statistically proven, safer because of it.

We now allow into our country the people we want in our country, those with a commitment to the betterment of our land. Those that come because they want to belong here as part of our people.

We live in a dangerous neck of the woods constantly on our guard against deadly enemies far and near. That’s why we have the best fighting force in the world, out of sheer necessity.

And yet Israelis are among the happiest and confident people in the world.

This feeling is only emphasized when we see the political and social chaos that is affecting Europe, Britain, and America.

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