* Column in tomorrow’s New York Times: “Haaretz is an Israeli newspaper. Admired by many foreigners and few Israelis, loathed by many, mostly Israelis. Read by few, denounced by many.”

 

“HAARETZ AND THE COUNTRY’S FAR LEFT IS EVOLVING FROM A POLITICAL POSITION INTO A MENTAL STATE”

[Note by Tom Gross]

I attach a piece which will appear in tomorrow’s print edition of the New York Times (on May 12, on Page A15.)

The writer, who I know and is a longtime subscriber to this email list, worked at the Israeli left-wing daily Haaretz for more than a decade. He was its head of news for many years and also served as Haaretz’s features editor and U.S. correspondent. He is now a “Contributing op-ed writer” for the New York Times.

What he says is in this piece will not be news to readers of these Middle East dispatches, but what is remarkable is that the New York Times – a paper which has a commercial agreement with Haaretz and is distributed free to Haaretz readers in Israel, and whose own columnists such as Roger Cohen and Tom Friedman have often bestowed lavish praise on Haaretz – should agree to print this.

(As I have pointed out before, some Haaretz editorials so please anti-Semites that they have been reproduced approvingly on neo-Nazi websites in Europe.)

 

Rosner writes:

“The result of this increasingly provocative discourse [by Haaretz] is often pathetic, at times comical and occasionally worrying…

Haaretz irks the majority of Israelis by giving voice to preposterous descriptions of what Israel is or does (“fascism,” “apartheid”)… Its quality newspaper of coherent dissent, necessary in a pluralistic society, has become a platform for juvenile contrarianism. Its left-wing opposition, to which Haaretz gives voice, has become synonymous with needless antagonism; public debate has been made blunter and less constructive; the public is angrier and less tolerant of dissent.

“Tempting as it is, the story of the people vs. Haaretz is not a story of a country whose public is no longer willing to tolerate debate. It is a story about a group within Israel that is losing its ability to communicate with the rest of society and have any chance of influencing its future. It is a story about a group within Israel that finds its relief in provoking the rest of us until we snap…

“Haaretz still employs good journalists, and on some of the issues these writers make strong cases, supported by evidence. But all in all, reading Haaretz in the last couple of decades is increasingly an exercise in anticipating a nearing demise.”

Western UN and NGO delegates being treated to Saudi generosity at Riyadh’s luxurious Four Seasons Hotel last week, while Saudi human rights activists are held and tortured in nearby prisons

This is another in a series of “Video dispatches”.

 

CONTENTS

1. Are you afraid of flying?
2. Bernie Sanders slams BDS and the UN treatment of Israel, on Al Jazeera
3. Traditional Yiddish song a hit on Mongolian national TV
4. Footage show hunger strike leader Barghouti secretly eating in his cell
5. Boko Haram releases some of its kidnapped schoolgirls
6. UN and NGOs celebrate in Saudi Arabia ignoring Raif Badawi and other political prisoners

 

[Notes below by Tom Gross]

ARE YOU AFRAID OF FLYING?

This new one-minute by Jordanian Airways makes an important point.

 

BERNIE SANDERS SLAMS BDS AND THE UN TREATMENT OF ISRAEL, ON AL JAZEERA

In a significant and perhaps surprising rebuke to the so-called progressive movement in the U.S. (of which he is a leading star) Senator Bernie Sanders gave an interview last Wednesday to Al Jazeera television, in which he defended Israel’s right to exist, criticized the United Nations for singling out Israel from among all the world’s countries, and criticized the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

Sanders, who was narrowly defeated in last year’s Democratic presidential primaries by Hillary Clinton, remains an important figure on the American left.

In a separate interview last year on MSNBC, Sanders said that anti-Semitism was a factor behind the BDS movement.

I asked @SenSanders about Palestine, the BDS movement targeting Israel, and whether he supports a one state solution pic.twitter.com/xOQmxMelFp

— Dena Takruri (@Dena) 3 May 2017

Among previous dispatches on Bernie Sanders:

How Bernie Sanders’ socialist ideas were developed on the kibbutz (February 11, 2016)

Among previous dispatches with items concerning BDS:

* BDS activists put severed pig’s head in Kosher section (& Iran hangs rape victim) (October 26, 2014)

* Film, pop and TV stars dismiss Israel boycott calls (& Saudi journalist: attack Iran, open Israeli Embassy in Riyadh) (June 17, 2015)

* So why did Stephen Hawking think it was ok to visit Iran and China? (May 9, 2013)

 

TRADITIONAL YIDDISH SONG A HIT ON MONGOLIAN NATIONAL TV

Now something more fun…

Last week, Amalia Rubin, an American Jew who works as an English teacher in the Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar, received a robust round of applause when she sung Moishe Nadir’s 1927 Yiddish classic, “The Rebbe Elimelech,” live on one of Mongolian TVs most popular programs, the Mongolian equivalent of American Idol.

Rubin also sings in both Mongolian and Tibetan and she is popular the Tibetan Diaspora for being one of the few westerners to promotes traditional Tibetan songs long repressed by China.

In another surprise, in March Mexico also held a Yiddish-language American idol-type competition.

***

Among related “video dispatches” please see: A Jewish tune with a universal appeal

 

FOOTAGE SHOW HUNGER STRIKE LEADER BARGHOUTI SECRETLY EATING IN HIS CELL

This is a follow-up to another recent dispatch concerning convicted Palestinian terrorist Marwan Barghouti (The “activist” who organized a restaurant attack and the murder of girls at a bat mitzvah), who the New York Times refers to an “activist”. Barghouti was invited to print what turned out to be multiple lies in his Times op-ed last month, in another example of what is being referred to as “New York Times fake news”.

Barghouti, one of the leaders of the current hunger strike, is serving multiple life sentences for murder.

The Israel Prison Service has released footage of him eating in his cell on May 5. Video below. He was also caught eating on April 27.

The footage shows him removing cookies from a hiding place in his bathroom, before eating them.

Israel’s Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan commented: “As we’ve said all along, the terrorists’ hunger strike isn’t about their prison conditions, which are good by international standards, but only about Barghouti’s desire to bolster his status in preparation for the day after Abu Mazen [Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas]. Barghouti is cynically exploiting the terrorists for a hunger strike for which they are paying, while he himself can’t restrain his own appetites.”

Among other Palestinian security prisoners on hunger strike, now in its 20th day, is Abbas al-Sayed, who planned the terror attack on a Jewish Passover Seder at the Park Hotel in Netanya in 2002 that killed 31 elderly people, including two Auschwitz survivors.

 

BOKO HARAM RELEASES SOME OF ITS KIDNAPPED SCHOOLGIRLS

Between 60 and 82 (reports vary) of the 276 schoolgirls kidnapped by the ISIS-affiliated Boko Haram Islamist militia just over three years ago in the Nigerian village of Chibok have been released. They were swapped as part of an exchange for five Boko Haram leaders being held by the Nigerian government.

Over the past eight years, Boko Haram has burned mainly Christian villages, killed tens of thousands of people and kidnapped thousands of others in the name of radical Islam, both in Nigeria and in neighboring West African countries. Millions of people have fled for their lives as a result.

Boko Haram has previously posted in a statement that it has sold other kidnapped girls aged 8 and 9 in the market and “given their hands in marriage because they are our slaves.”

“We would marry them out at the age of 9,” boasted the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, in a statement.

Until last weekend’s release, only 22 of the Chibok girls have reportedly been found, escaped or been released. Some of the released girls said others from among the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls have died in childbirth or in military raids.

Pregnant young women, a woman with a baby on her back and even children as young as 7 or 8 have been used as suicide bombers by the group.

Last year I interviewed one of the girls who was the first to escape shortly after her kidnapping. Video here:

 

UN AND NGOs CELEBRATE IN SAUDI ARABIA, IGNORING RAIF BADAWI AND OTHER POLITICAL PRISONERS

The UN global forum for non-governmental organizations held a lavish gathering at the Four Seasons Hotel in Riyadh last week, which, according to UNESCO, was attended by more than 400 NGOs and 2,100 delegates from over 70 countries. The Saudis paid for the conference, the title of which was “Youth and their Social Impact.”

In the meantime, young liberal Saudi human rights activists, held in harsh conditions in solidarity confinement for demanding the most basic freedoms, were ignored.

Most prominent among them is Raif Badawi, the exiled wife of whom I interviewed at the Geneva Human Rights Summit last year.

Among those speaking at last week’s forum in Riyadh were Irina Bokova, the head of the UN agency for education, science, and culture (UNESCO), and Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, I would respectfully invite them instead to speak on behalf of the Canadian-based Raif Badawi Foundation.

Saudi Arabia itself, of course, prohibits truly independent NGOs.

The independent NGO “UN Watch” called upon UNESCO chief Irina Bokova “to apologize to the family of Raif Badawi and other Saudi political prisoners.”

 

* You can also find other items that are not in these dispatches if you “like” this page on Facebook www.facebook.com/TomGrossMedia

Hamas prepares to execute political opponents on the streets of Gaza last month

 

CONTENTS

1. Not so moderate
2. Hamas new policy document: Destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea”
3. Hamas’ document has nothing new, says Fatah (WAFA news agency, Ramallah)
4. Letter to The New York Times by the ADL director concerning Hamas
5. “The international community should judge Hamas by its actions on the ground”
6. Hamas depicts Abbas as sellout in meeting with Trump
7. Hamas, as part of its struggle with Fatah, threatens to spark war with Israel (Asharq Al Awsat, Saudi Arabia)
8. Full text of Hamas’ new document: “In the Name of Allah Most Gracious Most Merciful” (Al Resalah, Gaza city)

 

NOT SO MODERATE

[Note by Tom Gross]

This a follow-up to my dispatch from March 12, 2017: Saudi media claim: “Hamas moves closer to approving 1967 borders”

A few weeks later, some mainstream international media also began to report this possibility.

Then, this week Hamas released its new document. At the end of this dispatch, I attach the document in its entirety as published on the official English-language version of Hamas’ website.

Some gullible western journalists have reported Hamas as having moderated its stance, when it has not.

Hamas’s founding charter, which calls on Muslims to kill all Jews, is by Hamas’ own admission still active and was not replaced by Hamas’ new document, (which some sources even say was drafted with the help of western PR experts specifically with the aim of fooling the media).

Chief among them was the BBC. The BBC’s most influential program, “Today” said: “Hamas has adopted a more moderate position ... its hostility to Israel is not the result of anti-Semitism.”

Britain’s Sky News wrongly said Hamas “has dropped calls for the country’s destruction”.

The Wall Street Journal heading misleadingly says:

Hamas Drops Call for Israel’s Destruction

https://www.wsj.com/articles/hamas-to-revise-anti-israel-stance-in-its-charter-official-says-1493649310

Britain’s Financial Times uses an identical heading:

Hamas drops call for destruction of Israel

https://www.ft.com/content/26e36354-2ea4-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a

(The pieces themselves in The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times were more balanced, but many people only read headlines.)

Amira Hass, the most far left Israel-critical correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz (she chooses to live in Ramallah, and before that in Gaza) writes in Haaretz: “In terms of its rejection of a Jewish existence in this land, the [new] document is no less hard-line than Hamas’ 1988 charter.”

(Tom Gross adds: None of this means that Hamas might not eventually moderate its stance if the West maintains demands on it that it does, but so far it has not.)

 

HAMAS NEW POLICY DOCUMENT: DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL “FROM THE RIVER TO THE SEA”

I would like to draw attention to a key paragraph from Hamas’ new document (as published on its own website). Some media have taken the second part of this paragraph out of context. (The full document is at the end of this dispatch.)

20. Hamas believes that no part of the land of Palestine shall be compromised or conceded, irrespective of the causes, the circumstances and the pressures and no matter how long the occupation lasts. Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967, with the return of the refugees and the displaced to their homes from which they were expelled, to be a formula of national consensus.”

 

HAMAS’ POLITICAL DOCUMENT HAS NOTHING NEW, SAYS FATAH

Here is the reaction by Hamas’s political rivals Fatah, which controls the Palestinian Authority and much of the West Bank. (WAFA is a Fatah-controlled news agency, which often runs unreliable news, although the text below is a straight news report.)

Hamas’ political document has nothing new, says Fatah
WAFA
May 2, 2017

http://english.wafa.ps/page.aspx?id=ULMm2Da81221649267aULMm2D

RAMALLAH, May 2, 2017 (WAFA) – The political document Hamas announced on Monday from the Qatari capital, Doha, has nothing new, Fatah said in a statement on Tuesday.

It said that Hamas announcement that it accepts a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders is contrary to its behavior on the ground that is leading to separate the Gaza Strip or its acceptance of a state with provisional borders.

“Being a realist politically is a good thing if it is within the frame of unity and national consensus and if the policies are in harmony with international resolutions and not ambiguous and inconsistent,” it said.

“By taking this position, is Hamas really seeking national unity or is it just presenting its credentials,” wondered Fatah, adding that “nothing signals that Hamas is actually moving toward national unity.”

 

LETTER TO THE NEW YORK TIMES BY THE ADL DIRECTOR CONCERNING HAMAS

(Jonathan Greenblatt worked for President Obama in the White House before succeeding Abe Foxman as head of the Anti-Defamation League. He is a lifelong Democrat. – Tom Gross)

Hamas and Israel
May 3, 2017
Letter to The New York Times

To the Editor:

Re “Hamas Tempers Extreme Stances in Bid for Power” (front page, May 2):

The story of a new Hamas statement of principles, with all the fuss and anticipation, is much ado about nothing. On the core of Hamas’s attitudes and policies toward Israel, nothing has changed.

For Hamas, there is only one legitimate authority in the Holy Land. Israel, according to this document, has no rights, no history, no connection and no future.

Hamas’s mention of a sovereign state based on the pre-1967 lines would be meaningful if it were accompanied by recognition of Israel and its legitimacy. Instead, Hamas notes that it “rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.”

And Hamas still justifies violence, meaning terrorism against the people of Israel.
Hamas remains a purveyor of terrorism, rejectionism and anti-Semitism, before and after this document.

JONATHAN A. GREENBLATT
NEW YORK

The writer is chief executive and national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

 

“THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY SHOULD JUDGE HAMAS BY ITS ACTIONS ON THE GROUND”

Hamas’s moderate rhetoric belies militant activities
By Matthew Levitt and Maxine Rich
PolicyWatch, Washington Institute
May 1, 2017

A softer tone in the Gaza group’s upcoming statement will mean nothing without parallel changes in its behavior.

On May 1, Hamas will release the first update to its founding 1988 charter at a press conference in Qatar. While the original charter explicitly ties Hamas to the Muslim Brotherhood, identifies the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as militant jihad, and calls for the creation of an Islamist state, the upcoming statement – which does not supersede the previous charter, despite the new language – is expected to adopt a softer, seemingly more moderate tone. But rhetoric aside, Hamas’s recent actions offer a clear indication of the group’s continued hardline militancy.

BACKGROUND: THE HAMAS CHARTER

From its inception, Hamas has been explicitly dedicated to Israel’s destruction and the establishment of an Islamist Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine. Its core ideology is manifest in its 1988 charter – first published in Chicago by one of its front organizations, the Islamic Association of Palestine – which rejects any permanent peace with Israel on religious, nationalist, and ideological grounds. It therefore flows logically, according to the charter, that “there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors.”

The 1988 charter calls for the creation of an Islamist state, rather than a secular one, and includes unmistakably anti-Semitic language targeting Jews, not Israel. Perhaps more problematic for Hamas today, the 1988 charter expressly describes the group as “one of the wings of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Hamas, however, is trying to transform itself. Its pending political statement, leaked to the press in April, sparked renewed interest in a Hamas “makeover.” The document distances Hamas from the Muslim Brotherhood, and may include some acknowledgment of the 1967 armistice lines for the Six Day War as the basis for a deal with Israel. The Hamas charter, for its part, was a one-man job, written by Sheikh Abdul Fattah Dukhan as the group was just forming itself. Ever since, officials have engaged in periodic discussions about updating the charter and softening its sharper edges.

Hamas’s so-called moderation is aimed at widening its international appeal at a time when the group faces multiple challenges, including a dismal economic situation in Gaza – most recently underscored by the energy crisis in Gaza – and strained relations with Egypt, which is at war with Hamas’s parent organization, the Muslim Brotherhood. And despite being hailed as a sign of moderation, the document still includes less friendly sections, including a rededication to armed resistance to liberate all of Palestine, “from the Jordan River eastward to the Mediterranean Sea in the west.” Even as Hamas is trying to change its tune, its recent militant activity speaks volumes about the group’s true intentions.

HAMAS PREPARATIONS FOR WAR

Since 2014, when dozens of its tunnels, bases, and missiles were destroyed in its most recent clash with Israel, Hamas has worked to rebuild its wartime infrastructure, including drilling tunnels within the Gaza Strip and into both Egypt and Israel. In 2016, Hamas announced the deaths of twenty-two members of its military wing; most died in tunnel collapses. So far this year, several Hamas members have likewise been killed in tunnel collapses or accidents. In March, Hamas unexpectedly called upon two thousand reservists to participate in a drill meant to simulate a major conflict with Israel, including a ground invasion. The exercise, which included artillery, combat intelligence, and combat engineering elements, is the terrorist organization’s largest this year. Relatedly, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) recently defused two bombs buried near the Gaza-Israel border. Hamas’s international preparations for war were also brought to light in February when a Hamas operative, who had been living in Turkish Cyprus, was arrested on his return to the West Bank. He admitted to joining Hamas while abroad and training at a military camp in Syria.

Hamas’s preparations are not limited to an on-the-ground struggle. In March, it was revealed that Hamas had produced several dozen advanced missiles similar to those maintained by Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group and political party. The Israel Security Agency, or Shin Bet, warned late last year that Hamas’s missile arsenal now equals it strength prior to the 2014 conflict, during which the group shot more than a thousand rockets toward Israel.

HAMAS SMUGGLING

In Gaza, Hamas continues to smuggle weapons, money, and equipment in preparation for violent attacks and the next conflict with Israel, which foiled 1,226 smuggling attempts at the Gaza border in 2016. Most recently, two Gazan sisters were caught attempting to enter Israel laden with explosives. One of the sisters had a visa into Israel to receive cancer treatment, and tried to smuggle explosive materials hidden inside medical supply tubes. Shin Bet’s initial investigation indicates that the supplies were sent by Hamas for use in terrorist attacks in Israel. Earlier this month, Israeli authorities seized thirty diving suits, allegedly bound for Hamas’s burgeoning naval militant branch, hidden within a shipment of imported sports clothes. A Gaza fisherman was also recently arrested for smuggling equipment to Hamas.

In the West Bank, another illicit shipment was intercepted last year, filled with materials for hundreds of mortars and rockets, and electric engines used for digging tunnels. And Hamas continues to take advantage of international humanitarian workers. In March, the coordinator of the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency’s Gaza branch, Muhammad Murtaja, was arrested on charges of aiding the terrorist organization. To improve the accuracy of Hamas rocket attacks, the man claimed he was supposed to bring a disk-on-key to Hamas, containing “improved and elaborately detailed maps of various sites in Israel.” He also helped dig a tunnel, became an expert in explosive devices, and witnessed cash transfers from the Turkish organization to Hamas officials.

HAMAS IN THE WEST BANK

Hamas continues to build its infrastructure in the West Bank and Israel. In 2016 alone, 114 local Hamas cells were apprehended in the West Bank, versus 70 in 2015. One cell, broken up near Hebron in February, had been receiving instructions online from Hamas for shooting, kidnapping, and explosives attacks. Several of the targets were within Israel proper, including a bus station, a train station, and a synagogue. Another attempted kidnapping plot was foiled in December, resulting in the seizure of large quantities of ammunition, two AK-47s, three pistols, and a shotgun from the West Bank cell. That same month, a Hamas operative was arrested when authorities uncovered his plans for attacks in and around Jerusalem, including bombing a bus.

Hamas invests heavily in its base outside Gaza. A major money-transfer route was thus detected in February, through which Hamas sent thousands of dollars via debit cards smuggled to its operatives in the West Bank. Hamas is also aggressively developing its West Bank arsenal. In February, the IDF closed a West Bank bookstore used by Hamas to produce incendiary propaganda and manufacture explosives, and a gun manufacturing facility was busted late last year near Hebron, a notorious Hamas stronghold.

HAMAS IN SINAI

Despite its supposed rapprochement with Egypt, Hamas continues to work closely with Islamists in the Sinai Peninsula. In March, Israel issued an explicit warning to Hamas about these activities: “Hamas leaders: Your efforts to hide your cooperation with Islamic State’s smuggling from Sinai, through lies and manipulation in attempts to broadcast ‘business as usual’ with Egypt, are not hidden from our view.” Indeed, Hamas benefits financially from its relationship with the Islamic State in Sinai, through which it is able to smuggle weapons into Gaza. In fact, Hamas recently increased its tax on goods smuggled into Gaza by IS Sinai fighters. Hamas, in turn, allows IS Sinai to run a media channel from the Gaza Strip, through which the Sinai jihadist group has claimed responsibility for attacks in Egypt. And Hamas has treated wounded IS fighters in the hospitals it runs in Gaza. According to recent reports, some weapons used by IS in attacks against Egyptian forces came from Gaza into Sinai – a reverse directional flow and one that has Egyptian authorities particularly concerned.

CONCLUSION

As Hamas leader Khaled Mashal insisted last month, “We were and we still are in an open war with [the] criminal enemy [Israel].” Hamas may engage in politics, “but it insists on the choice of jihad and resistance...[This choice] is Hamas’s greater and first strategy...This is Hamas. Hamas is not changing its skin.” Indeed, nowhere are the group’s true intentions more clear than in its recent election of Yahya Sinwar, a convicted murderer and militant hardliner, as its new leader in Gaza. Just last month, Sinwar swore that Hamas will continue to fight Israel and would “not surrender even a morsel” of land. A change in Hamas rhetoric will mean nothing without a parallel change in Hamas behavior.

The international community should judge Hamas not by any moderation in the group’s rhetoric but by its actions on the ground. So long as the latter remain militant and extreme, the relative moderation of the former means not much at all.

 

HAMAS DEPICTS ABBAS AS SELLOUT IN MEETING WITH TRUMP

Hamas depicts Abbas as sellout in meeting with Trump
By Elhanan Miller
Haaretz
May 4, 2017

A poignant caricature published by Hamas daily al-Resalah on Wednesday depicted U.S. President Donald Trump as the Statue of Liberty. At its feet, a miserable looking Mahmoud Abbas kneels, begging in his underwear.

Palestinian press coverage of Trump’s meeting with President Abbas on Wednesday reflected the deep political divide between Fatah and Hamas. The two factions forged a unity government three years ago, but never settled their ideological differences.

“After meeting Trump, Abbas will either succumb or be besieged,” read the headline of an opinion article by al-Resalah columnist Muhammad Ballour.

“PA President Mahmoud Abbas deserves a medal of bravery if he surprises all observers of the Palestinian-Israeli scene by displaying a modicum of steadfastness on Palestinian principles, in the face of dollar king and dear friend of Israel, U.S. President Donald Trump,” wrote Ballour on the paper’s website.

“The Trump-Abbas meeting raises the level of danger to the Palestinian cause to code orange, since in all likelihood Trump will try to impose diktats on Abbas reflecting Israeli aspirations,” he added.

A less sarcastic article in the same newspaper noted that Trump completely avoided using the term “Palestinian state” during his 15-minute press conference with Abbas.

Yasser Zaatreh, a Gaza-based journalist and political pundit with over a quarter of a million followers on twitter, live-tweeted the event.

“Trump is astonished by what he calls ‘the level of coordination between Israeli and Palestinian leaders,’” he commented with frustration. “It is indeed astonishing. Unprecedented cooperation in the history of national liberation movements!”

Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for Hamas, attacked Abbas’ very legitimacy to travel to the White House. “No one authorized Mahmoud Abbas to represent the Palestinian people and all the positions that he has made don’t obligate anyone,” he tweeted. “We reject Abbas’ statement that all final-status issues are solvable because these are national rights for all Palestinians.”

Meanwhile, mainstream West Bank media, largely affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, was gentler with Abbas. The online headline of Jerusalem-based daily al-Quds read: “Trump: I welcome President Abbas in the White House as peacemaker.” Trump personally welcomed Abbas upon exiting his car at the White House, the reporter noted.

Munir al-Jaghoub, a Fatah spokesman, used Twitter to highlight the image of Trump speaking on the backdrop of the Palestinian flag.

In an op-ed published in al-Quds, columnist Talal Salman called on his readers to lower their expectations from the meeting.

“It makes no sense to demand of the American president, whoever he may be, to identify with the Palestinian cause … more than the Arab kings and presidents do. During their last summit, they did not dare repeat previous decisions … in order not to provoke the Israelis,” wrote Salman.

Looking to the future, the editor-in-chief of popular Bethlehem news site Ma’an, Nasser Lahham, warned Trump against moving the American embassy to Jerusalem ahead of his expected trip to Israel later this month.

“If he does so, the honeymoon between Trump and the Arabs – moreover, between Trump and the Muslims – will quickly end. The liberal doves in the Palestinian arena will not be able to cool the hotheads. One spark after another will ignite under the domes of mosques and the bells of churches, until the entire field will be ablaze,” wrote Lahham.

Rajab Abu-Sariya, a columnist writing for official PA daily al-Ayyam, reassured his readers, however, that Abbas was traveling to convince Trump of Palestinian moderation in future talks.

“President Abbas will – in our view – express the utmost political flexibility in convincing President Trump of the Palestinian seriousness in reaching a historic compromise. This compromise coincides with Israel’s interest, but not with the interest of its extreme right,” wrote Abu-Sariya.

The international Arab press focused its coverage on the optimism expressed by Trump toward the prospect of a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.

London-based daily al-Hayat led its article with Trump’s promise to grant Abbas “an Arab umbrella” for peace negotiations. Its reporter quoted experts as expecting “a cautious and slow pace of direct or indirect negotiations led by Washington.”

Lebanese pro-Hezbollah channel al-Mayadeen quoted a statement by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine arguing that the meeting between the two leaders was nothing but “another attempt to sell illusions, another link in the chain of pressure attempting to bypass Palestinian national rights.”

 

HAMAS, AS PART OF ITS STRUGGLE WITH FATAH, THREATENS TO SPARK WAR WITH ISRAEL

Meanwhile the war of words continues between Fatah and Hamas.

Here for example, is a Saudi news report from this week (in response to Palestinian President Abbas’ latest threat against the population of Gaza; he says he will cut off Gaza’s electricity, but the Palestinian Authority will continue to pay millions of dollars to terrorists and their families):

***

Hamas Threatens to Drag Gaza into Confrontation as a Response to Abbas’ Stringent Measures

By Kifah Ziboun
Asharq Al Awsat
May 2, 2017

http://english.aawsat.com/kifah-ziboun/news-middle-east/hamas-threatens-drag-gaza-confrontation-response-abbas-stringent-measures

Ramallah – Hamas hinted at a new war with Israel if Palestinian National Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s actions against the Gaza Strip continue, demanding indirectly from Israel not to respond to Abbas’s positions.

Hamas senior spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said that the Israeli occupation would pay the price of encouraging President Mahmoud Abbas to economically strangle the Gaza Strip.

“Occupation forces needs to reassess its accounts before it is too late, and the Hamas movement is more than able to turn tables for everyone,” he added.

Zuhri’s statement confirms Hamas’ intention spark a war with Israel should Tel Aviv adheres to Abbas’s calls against Gaza, specifically cutting off the power supply to Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

Senior Hamas figures, including political bureau member Khalil al-Hayya, had warned that Gaza Strip was a time bomb that would detonate if Abbas continued to pressure it.

Abbas launched a series of measures last month which systematically targeted Hamas in Gaza, in an attempt to force the Islamist movement to hand over the territory.

At first, he enforced a 30 percent pay cut for public office employees in the Strip and ordered the suspension of tax exemptions on purchases such as fuel. He subsequently informed Israel of his decision to stop paying for the electricity supplied by Israel to Gaza which fulfilled about one third of the sector’s needs.

Israel monthly collects tax revenues from the Abbas’ administration in exchange for supplying Gaza with electricity, but Palestinian authorities accuse the Hamas of cashing in on power bills without transferring any of the collected funds to the Palestinian government in Ramallah.

Hamas hopes that Israel will not respond to Abbas’s request and continue to supply electricity to Gaza, either by forcibly acquiring funds from the Palestinian Authority (PA), accumulating them, or mobilizing international support.

Israeli official said on April 27, the Palestinian Authority informed Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories that it was immediately cutting off funding for Gaza’s power supply.

Not only will it no longer buy diesel fuel to operate the Gaza Strip’s one and only power station – the PA stopped doing so several weeks ago – it will stop footing the monthly bill for the power supplied by the Israel Electric Corporation to Gaza.

 

[Note by Tom Gross]

Elie Wiesel (1928-2016) died last year, as I noted here

For decades before he won the Nobel peace prize, and before U.S. Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama recognized him as one of the spokesmen of the Holocaust, and of conscience in general, and celebrities such as Oprah Winfrey recommended his books to her mass audience, Elie Wiesel was a little-known journalist writing in Yiddish at the Forverts in New York.

He had joined the Forverts as a staff writer in 1956. Now for the first time, Wiesel’s Yiddish-language column marking the Israel’s shocking victory against all the odds in the 1967 Six Day War, and the reunification of Jerusalem, has been translated into English and published in The Forward, the English-language successor to the Yiddish-language daily Forverts.

This was a giddy time, coming only two decades after the Holocaust when Israel was threatened with destruction by massed invading Arab armies. Instead it ended up restoring Jewish sovereignty over the holiest sites in Judaism, which had previously been under Turkish, British and Jordanian control.

As a matter of historical interest, Wiesel’s article is below. (The translation from Yiddish to English is by Chana Pollack.)

 

“ABSURD” AND “ANTI-SEMITIC” FAKE HISTORY RESOLUTION

The Forward publishes this at a time when the international community, including this week UNESCO, attempts to re-write thousands of years of world history and pretend that Jews and Judaism weren’t at the heart of Jerusalem’s history in a way that no other people, religion or culture have been.

For decades almost every country in the world apart from the United States has failed to back Israel at the UN. Yesterday, under robust lobbying from Israel and from the Trump administration, a record ten countries (of those who had the vote at UNESCO) sided with Israel. They are: The United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Greece, Paraguay, Ukraine, and Togo.

Perhaps more important, India, soon to be the world’s most populous country, refused to vote against Israel as it usually does, and abstained. 22 other countries abstained and several other countries absented themselves. Sweden was the only European country to vote with the world’s dictatorships to ensure the “fake history” resolution was passed.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the UNESCO vote denying any Jewish historical connection to Jerusalem as “absurd” and “anti-Semitic”. The Israeli foreign ministry also said it would reprimand the Swedish ambassador to Tel Aviv after the government of Sweden played a borderline anti-Semitic role in whipping up anti-Jewish sentiment at UNESCO.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely declared that UNESCO is “continuing to falsify history.” The resolution, she said, “only harms the relevance of the organization that is supposed to protect heritage and culture yet again and again abuses its position when it comes to Israel. Israel doesn’t need approval from political bodies for its historical and undisputed connection to our eternal capital Jerusalem, a 3,000-year-old connection that speaks from every stone in the city.”

“Israel appreciates the countries that stood on the side of truth and didn’t give in to politics that is distorting history,” she added.

Israeli opposition left-wing Labour Party leader Isaac Herzog said in a statement that “the UNESCO resolution against Israel is an anti-Semitic disgrace that distorts history.”

The leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid also said in a statement that “the resolution is unfounded and anti-Semitic.”

“Once again today we saw how a string of representatives in the United Nations, instead of following the truth, surrender to the anti-Semitic campaign that is led by anti-Israel NGOs,” Lapid added.

 

WHAT ELIE WIESEL WROTE ABOUT THE SIX DAY WAR

What Elie Wiesel Wrote About The Six Day War

Published in The Forward, May 1, 2017

(Originally published as a column in Yiddish by former Forverts staff writer Elie Wiesel on June 12, 1967.)

Future generations will probably never believe it. Teachers will have a hard time convincing their students that what sounds legendary actually occurred. The children will naturally swallow each word, but later on, as adults, they’ll nod their heads and smile, remarking that these were fantasies of history.

They won’t believe that this small state, surrounded by hatred, fire and murder, had so quickly managed a miracle. It will be hard to describe how, amid a sea of hatred, a tiny army drove off and humiliated several well-equipped military hordes of who knows how many Arab countries.

How does acclaimed scholar and Talmudic genius Shaul Lieberman put it? In another 2,000 years, people will consider these events the way we think of descriptions of the Maccabees and their victories.

Did I say another 2,000 years? No, make that: in another year, or even tomorrow.

Last Sunday, the Arabs and their allies were boastfully threatening Israel that if she dared to make another move, she’d pay with her existence. And several hours later, our Jewish heroes advanced, and the entire world, holding its breath, followed their every movement.

You’ll recall the radio broadcasts at the beginning of the week that sounded practically Job-like. Every hour, another Arab government declared war against Israel. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia. And then: Morocco, Tunisia, Algiers. In Tunisia, an incited mob led a pogrom in the Jewish Quarter. Other Muslim — or part Muslim — countries rushed to sign up in [Egyptian president Gamal Abdul] Nasser’s “holy war.” Malaysia, Sudan, Mali, Guinea and more.

We bit our lips, cracked our knuckles and could find no comfortable spot for ourselves. Quietly, we asked if the test was too hard this time. Was too much being demanded from the Jewish people and from their land? How could we expect to be redeemed, knowing that the enemy numbered tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of people, against a mere 2 million Jews in Israel?

And then, between Passover and Shavuot, the Hanukkah miracle occurred. It didn’t take long before the supposedly mighty enemy was rendered speechless and lost its nerve. Even the Soviet Ambassador to the UN, Nikolai Fedorenko, suddenly changed his tone. Instead of worrying about whether Nasser would finally curb his appetite for power, world leaders began looking for ways to make amends to Israeli Premier Levi Eshkol.

It was as though a theater director, unfamiliar with his cast, suddenly switched the parts of his actors: those who had stubbornly opposed us now asked for mercy, as their former protectors now distanced themselves from them. Overnight, the mood at the UN Security Council seemed unrecognizable.

We all need to recite the Hallel thanksgiving prayer for being granted the privilege of witnessing these events. The battle has not yet ended, but the enemy has already retreated and won’t easily recover.

It may well be that future generations won’t comprehend how Israel vanquished her enemies. Yes, there are sacrifices, but in the long run nothing gets lost.

And yet the blood that was shed by our young lions, the sacrifices endured, everything will be inscribed. Each widow’s tear, every death rattle of the fallen soldiers – they won’t pass unnoticed by our descendants.

For Jews around the world, these last events are a deep source of pride. Every Jew witnessed and survived this trial together. Rarely, as a people, do we feel such a deep connection to each other, of loyalty to the purest principles driven by our shared history.

Do you remember how thousands of Jewish youth besieged the Israeli Consulates, pleading to be sent as volunteers to Israel? Do you recall the mass demonstrations in the streets? And the countless Jews, including the poorest of the poor, donating their meager savings to the pushkes [charity boxes] of the United Jewish Appeal?

This new Jewish awakening is part of that miracle, a part of the Jewish victory. Those who thought Jews were frightened by huge armies were mistaken, and those who thought you could separate the Jewish state from the Jewish people around the world clearly underestimated us.

http://forward.com/opinion/israel/370557/revealed-after-50-years-what-elie-wiesel-wrote-about-the-six-day-war/

 

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