Over the last 20 years, since the signing of the Oslo
Accords, we have witnessed in the United States a constant and steady
war of attrition against Israel's moral right to exist. An
atmosphere of moral relativism has been widely adopted, so much so that many
Americans cannot distinguish the difference between an openly
and unabashedly Islamist terrorist organization and a free democratic
state with Western values of liberalism and democracy and respect for
human rights and the rule of law.
The most recent and flagrant example of this is the Obama
administration's willingness to work with a Fatah-Hamas unity
government. In fact, before the ink was even dry, State Department
spokeswoman Jen Psaki announced that the U.S. was willing to work
with the new Palestinian government. Using the
familiar tactic of the State Department linguistic shuffle, she called
the merger between Fatah and the virulently anti-Semitic organization of
Hamas merely a "technocratic government." She then added that the U.S.
was still going ahead with plans to give the Palestinians another $500
million in U.S. taxpayers' money.
This is a clear violation of U.S. law. Both the 2006
Anti-Terrorism Act and the 2012 Appropriations Act clearly prohibit
funding "to Hamas or any entity effectively
controlled by Hamas, any power-sharing government of
which Hamas is a member."
However, President Barack Obama and his apparatchiks in
the State Department have become spin doctors and apologists for what we
all know is an openly terrorist organization, hell-bent on the destruction of Israel.
It saddens me to see the U.S. government engage in all
sorts of linguistic contortions in efforts to
obfuscate and cover up what most of us know, and what we can assume
they too
know, deep down: that Hamas is little more than a radical Islamist
organization whose aim is clearly to destroy the Jewish state and Jews
throughout the world.
This erosion of morality has been a gradual process that had
its beginning 20 years ago when then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak
Rabin and then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House
Lawn. Today, the U.S. is simply borrowing a page from an old playbook.
Prior to Sept. 13, 1993, Arafat was known as the grand-daddy of international terrorism.
He and his Fatah organization had invented airplane hijackings,
bombings, kidnappings, and other types of attacks, including the 1972
murders of 11 of Israel's Olympic athletes in Munich, the 1973 murder of
U.S. Ambassador to Sudan Cleo Noel, the 1985 hijacking of the Achille
Lauro cruise ship (resulting in the murder of wheelchair-bound Leon
Klinghoffer), and the 1974 massacre of 26 people (21 of them
schoolchildren) in Maalot.
The Palestinian National Covenant, which, contrary to popular opinion, has never been annulled, calls for the complete eradication of Israel. On April 24, 1996, the Palestinian National Council voted to set up a committee to consider revoking the covenant. As a result of this hollow vote, the international community, which has always been eager to whitewash the Palestinian Authority, telegraphed to the world that the charter had been annulled. In reality, the committee was never appointed and never convened a single meeting.
Immediately after that vote, Arafat's spokesman Marwan Karnafani
left the room and said, "It is not an amendment. It is not an amendment.
It is a license to set up a new resolution; to start a new charter."
In fact Article 8 of the charter says: "The
conflicts among the Palestinian national forces are secondary, and
should be ended for the sake of the basic conflict that exists between
the forces of Zionism and of imperialism on the one hand, and the
Palestinian Arab people on the other."
The Palestinian Authority is
therefore merely following its own credo when it unites with Hamas or
any other Palestinian resistance group.
Nearly
every day, there is some clear and transparent indication of the
Palestinian Authority's true intentions, meticulously documented by
Palestinian Media Watch. Not a day goes by without the Palestinian Authority's television station inciting its people to hate and kill Jews, naming squares and
sports games after suicide bombers, or calling to replace all the land that we recognize as Israel with "Palestine."
To the outside world, however, the Palestinian Authority at least donned some sort of camouflage to disguise their lethal goals, flimsy as it was. They became masters in the art of double speak,
talking to Western diplomats in the gentle, seductive language of
peace, even as these diplomats sat within the PA's official headquarters
in Ramallah, directly under the map
of Israel, re-designated as "Palestine." Hamas, on the other hand, does
not even bother making that feeble attempt to cover up its deadly
objectives.
For
a while, the international community was determined to make the PA into
the "good cop" in contrast with Hamas' "bad cop." Now, with their
unity, this is no longer relevant, but the State Department and the European Union are determined to continue on with the charade.
Perhaps this willful blindness is the result of the
constant and steady erosion of our moral integrity and intellectual
courage that began the day that Arafat and Rabin shook hands on the
White House lawn. I am afraid it also signifies something
deeper. It signifies the profound failure of imagination of many in
leadership roles around the world, as well as the fact that the peace
process for many has become like a religion, and has ossified in many people's minds. For some, it is to be preserved at all costs,
irrespective of the nefarious behavior and maximalist and deadly intentions of one of the parties.
Sarah Stern is the founder and president of EMET, the Endowment
for Middle East Truth, a pro-Israel and pro-American think tank and
policy shop in Washington.
Obama’s Outrageous Decision to Fund Hamas-Aligned Palestinian Regime
June 8, 2014 | Morton A. Klein
Last
week, Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah/Palestinian Authority (PA) formed a unity
government with the Nazi-like Hamas terror organization. Hamas, a U.S.-
and EU-recognized terrorist group, calls in its Charter
for the global murder of Jews (Article 7) and the destruction of Israel
(Article 15), while its leaders have called for demise of the U.S. and
the murder of Americans.
Despite this, within two days, the Obama Administration said that it would continue to financially aid the PA. The European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) have followed suit. And this despite the fact that Hamas has foreshadowed expanding its operations from Gaza into the West Bank, while its terror force, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, remains an independent actor.
Consider: the Oslo agreements require the outlawing and dismantling of terrorist groups, the arrest and extradition of terrorists and the banning of such groups from elections. Yet, when the PA partners with Hamas, genocidally-inclined terrorists with a record of scores suicide bombings, over 10,000 rocket assaults from Gaza and the murder of over a thousand Israelis to its account, neither condemnation nor penalty follows from the U.S., the EU, the UN.
Conversely, when Israel merely announces a housing project in a Jewish neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem, not in contravention of any signed agreement and, moreover, within an area bound to be retained by Israel in any conceivable peace, world-wide condemnation follows — as when after one such announcement in March 2010, Vice-President Joseph Biden “condemned” it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton termed it an “insult” and senior aide David Axelrod called it a “destructive … affront” which “undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region.”
In short, Jewish houses in Jerusalem, no. PA/Hamas partnership, yes. No condemnation, no insult, no offense taken at the undermining of fragile peace efforts — and no penalties imposed.
Putting aside completely this disregard of a close ally’s vital interests. From a purely American point of view, President Obama should have been outraged. Here is Hamas, whose leaders have declared that the “USA will be conquered,” condemned as an “atrocity” and “oppression” the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and publicly intoned “Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies… Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.”
This indifference of the accession of Hamas to the PA is consistent with Obama’s policy toward Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Libya, in which, through engagement and acquiescence, we have seen the strengthening of viciously anti-American forces.
It will be said that the new terrorist Fatah/Hamas PA regime is merely a caretaker government of apolitical technocrats prior to holding new Palestinian elections. Yet, terrorist movements are proscribed by the terms of the Oslo agreements. Moreover, the PA has never abided by its signed Oslo agreements and, for twenty years, no-one, least of all President Obama, has held them to account.
Only last month, Abbas told Obama, that he will neither accept Israel as a Jewish state, nor conclude a comprehensive peace that encompasses an end of claims. This assertion prompted no criticism or condemnation — much less action — in Washington.
By cementing its April reconciliation agreement and forming a unity government with Hamas, Abbas’ Fatah/PA has shown conclusively that it is not only not a peace partner, but an avowed enemy of Jews and the Jewish state.
Abbas has not fulfilled its commitments under the Oslo agreements to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that helps fuel the conflict. He has said openly that there are no real “political differences” between Fatah and Hamas. Top PA official Saeb Erekat has declared that Hamas “is not and never was a terror group.” Even without the Fatah/Hamas deal, talks with the Fatah/PA were devoid of purpose.
It proved to be a tragic farce for Israel to negotiate with terrorist leader Yasser Arafat. Ditto when Israel negotiated with Mahmoud Abbas, who turned down in 2008 an offer of Palestinian statehood throughout virtually the entire territory he was publicly demanding, including all of the West Bank, half of Jerusalem and the uprooting of 150,000 Jews. Can it be any more likely now?
Peace remains remote until and unless the PA genuinely reforms and cleanses itself of terrorism and extremism, fights and jails terrorists and terminates the culture of hatred and rejection that helps fuel the conflict.
The Obama Administration should have immediately terminated relations with the PA or, better, told Abbas it would do so at the first hint of the formation of such a regime. Instead, American taxpayers will be funding a regime that includes those who seek the murder of Americans and Jews everywhere.
Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dr. Daniel Mandel is Director of the ZOA’s Center for Middle East Policy and author of H.V. Evatt & the Establishment of Israel (London, 2004).
Despite this, within two days, the Obama Administration said that it would continue to financially aid the PA. The European Union (EU) and the United Nations (UN) have followed suit. And this despite the fact that Hamas has foreshadowed expanding its operations from Gaza into the West Bank, while its terror force, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, remains an independent actor.
Consider: the Oslo agreements require the outlawing and dismantling of terrorist groups, the arrest and extradition of terrorists and the banning of such groups from elections. Yet, when the PA partners with Hamas, genocidally-inclined terrorists with a record of scores suicide bombings, over 10,000 rocket assaults from Gaza and the murder of over a thousand Israelis to its account, neither condemnation nor penalty follows from the U.S., the EU, the UN.
Conversely, when Israel merely announces a housing project in a Jewish neighborhood of eastern Jerusalem, not in contravention of any signed agreement and, moreover, within an area bound to be retained by Israel in any conceivable peace, world-wide condemnation follows — as when after one such announcement in March 2010, Vice-President Joseph Biden “condemned” it, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton termed it an “insult” and senior aide David Axelrod called it a “destructive … affront” which “undermined this very fragile effort to bring peace to that region.”
In short, Jewish houses in Jerusalem, no. PA/Hamas partnership, yes. No condemnation, no insult, no offense taken at the undermining of fragile peace efforts — and no penalties imposed.
Putting aside completely this disregard of a close ally’s vital interests. From a purely American point of view, President Obama should have been outraged. Here is Hamas, whose leaders have declared that the “USA will be conquered,” condemned as an “atrocity” and “oppression” the killing of Osama Bin Laden, and publicly intoned “Allah, take hold of the Americans and their allies… Allah, count them and kill them to the last one and don’t leave even one.”
This indifference of the accession of Hamas to the PA is consistent with Obama’s policy toward Turkey, Egypt, Iran and Libya, in which, through engagement and acquiescence, we have seen the strengthening of viciously anti-American forces.
It will be said that the new terrorist Fatah/Hamas PA regime is merely a caretaker government of apolitical technocrats prior to holding new Palestinian elections. Yet, terrorist movements are proscribed by the terms of the Oslo agreements. Moreover, the PA has never abided by its signed Oslo agreements and, for twenty years, no-one, least of all President Obama, has held them to account.
Only last month, Abbas told Obama, that he will neither accept Israel as a Jewish state, nor conclude a comprehensive peace that encompasses an end of claims. This assertion prompted no criticism or condemnation — much less action — in Washington.
By cementing its April reconciliation agreement and forming a unity government with Hamas, Abbas’ Fatah/PA has shown conclusively that it is not only not a peace partner, but an avowed enemy of Jews and the Jewish state.
Abbas has not fulfilled its commitments under the Oslo agreements to arrest terrorists, outlaw terrorist groups and end the incitement to hatred and murder in the PA-controlled media, mosques, schools and youth camps that helps fuel the conflict. He has said openly that there are no real “political differences” between Fatah and Hamas. Top PA official Saeb Erekat has declared that Hamas “is not and never was a terror group.” Even without the Fatah/Hamas deal, talks with the Fatah/PA were devoid of purpose.
It proved to be a tragic farce for Israel to negotiate with terrorist leader Yasser Arafat. Ditto when Israel negotiated with Mahmoud Abbas, who turned down in 2008 an offer of Palestinian statehood throughout virtually the entire territory he was publicly demanding, including all of the West Bank, half of Jerusalem and the uprooting of 150,000 Jews. Can it be any more likely now?
Peace remains remote until and unless the PA genuinely reforms and cleanses itself of terrorism and extremism, fights and jails terrorists and terminates the culture of hatred and rejection that helps fuel the conflict.
The Obama Administration should have immediately terminated relations with the PA or, better, told Abbas it would do so at the first hint of the formation of such a regime. Instead, American taxpayers will be funding a regime that includes those who seek the murder of Americans and Jews everywhere.
Morton A. Klein is National President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Dr. Daniel Mandel is Director of the ZOA’s Center for Middle East Policy and author of H.V. Evatt & the Establishment of Israel (London, 2004).
Thanks NG
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