United States Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and Palestinian Authority President has recently been battling in the media with exchanges of accusations and insult. The exchanges began with Ambassador David Friedman expressing dissatisfaction and sorrow over the fact that nobody from the leadership of the Palestinian Authority had spoken forth to condemn the series of deadly terror attacks that took the lives of three Israelis over the weekend. As a simple review, please allow us to review the events from this past weekend. On Friday March 16, 2018, an Arab terrorist rammed his vehicle into four soldiers and killed two Israeli soldiers in northern Samaria, and injured two more. The terrorist was caught and was injured and hospitalized while also facing interrogation. Our murdered soldiers were Captain Ziv Deus, 21, from the Azor Regional Council, and Sergeant Netanal Kahalani, 20, from the town of Eliakim. A third Israeli was murdered in the Old City part of Jerusalem when he was repeatedly stabbed. The victim was identified as 32-year-old Adiel Kolman, a father of four from the town of Kochav Hashahar. The terrorist fled the scene but was identified as 28-year-old Abed al-Rahman Bani Fa’adal, a resident of the Palestinian Authority-controlled town of Aqraba, near Shechem [Nabulus] and was found to have entered Israel with a valid entry permit.
These permits are provided to Palestinian Arabs so they are able to enter Israel and work. In this case the permit was reportedly a temporary entry permit, intended to allow Abed al-Rahman Bani Fa’adal to find work. It is more likely that the entry permit was applied for in order to carry out the attack and the terrorist lied in order to receive the permit. As long as you have no record of terror activity you are issued these permits. Fa’adal reportedly received several entry permits in the past. Abed al-Rahman Bani Fa’adal was faced at the scene of the attack and an officer who shot and killed him. Below is a picture of the knife used to murder Adiel Kolman, the father of four from the town of Kochav Hashahar. The reason behind Ambassador David Friedman’s distress likely stems from that in the past, at the very least Mahmoud Abbas would make some statement condemning acts of terror and express (false) sympathy for the immediate family of those slain. It is realized that Abbas will continue to grant pension style funding to the terrorist in prison or the family of those slain terrorists commensurate with the number of Israelis murdered with other bonuses for special considerations. The lack of even the pretend sympathy is a further sign that all civility between the United States and the Palestinian Authority are gone and the United States will not be considered as equal to the Israelis living beyond the Green Line. These Israelis reside in Area C on lands that are legally intended for Israel to possess. The sliding scale which Yasser Arafat perfected and Mahmoud Abbas has continued has convinced the world that Israel is encroaching on lands which belonged to a nation called Palestine which was a victim in the Six Day War. The problem is there was no nation of Palestine nor has there ever been such a nation. The lands between the Green Line and the Jordan River were occupied Israeli lands by right of the San Remo Convention and numerous treaties since including Article 80 of the United Nations Charter. The occupying power was Jordan who when signing their peace treaty with Israel forfeited any claims to these lands which means there is no actual legal controversy, these lands all belong to Israel unless she recognizes another owner to whom she gifts lands such as was the case with Gaza which was turned over to the Palestinian Authority who subsequently lost it in a coup to Hamas. The rest is, as they say, history.
Knife Used to Murder Adiel Kolman the Father of Four
Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas responded on Monday to Ambassador David Friedman’s comments on the lack of condemnation of the weekend terror attacks. In very informal and unacceptable language, Mahmoud Abbas referred to Ambassador Friedman as a “son of a dog, settler.” This is referencing of Jews as the offspring of apes, or sometimes simply monkeys, and pigs. In Islam additionally dogs are considered an unclean animal which they are advised to avoid contact with. Thus calling Friedman the offspring of a dog, he avoided using the usual denotation for somebody who is Jewish using Dog instead of Ape or Pig. Abbas was still insulting the American Ambassador and went further to call him a settler and his family to be settlers in his Ramallah speech where Abbas said, “The United States legitimizes settlements. That’s what American officials do, and at their head, in Tel Aviv, is David Friedman. He said, ‘They’re building on their own land.’ The son of a dog, they’re building on their own land? He himself is a settler, and his entire family are settlers.” This name calling and using an unclean animal could easily make them a legitimate target for a terror attack in the minds of Palestinians. Some terrorist may go so far as to decide that he will strike this “dog settler” and rid Abbas of this thing which is obviously unclean and residing on stolen lands. The American Ambassador’s apartment is in West Jerusalem, not in East Jerusalem, which does not matter to Mahmoud Abbas as he considers Tel Aviv residents to be Jews living on occupied Palestinian Lands. Mahmoud Abbas and the majority, if not all, of the Palestinian Authority, the PLO and Fatah Party leadership view all of Israel as rightfully theirs. This is what they mean when they refer to the seventy years of occupation as Mahmoud Abbas consistently states at the United Nations without even a peep of opposition. The video below is from the official Palestinian Authority television broadcast station from March 11, 2016, just over two year ago. In this video near the forty-second mark is where Abbas refers to what he called their occupation for 67 or 68 years which takes us back to 1948 when Israel was established. When Abbas states he wants to go back to before there were lines, he desires a return to Ottoman Rule where the Muslims ruled all of the lands from Turkey. Jerusalem was home to a majority Jewish population and Jews were permitted to reside anywhere in Jerusalem. Abbas has even denoted that he desires to return to May 13, 1948, one day before Israel declared her independent existence and when six Arab armies supported by a number of militias all attacked Israel and when she lost Gaza to Egypt and Judea and Samaria to Jordan. But Abbas simply desires to erase Israel from any lands and existence.
Needless to say, American Ambassador Friedman did not take the slight from Abbas well. As a matter of fact, he made it the central theme of his opening remarks to the Sixth Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism (see video below). Ambassador Friedman stated to the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, “Three Jews were killed in cold blood by the Palestinian terrorists, and the reaction from the Palestinian Authority was deafening. No condemnation whatsoever. I pointed that out, without further adjectives, without further commentary. Abu Mazen (Abbas) chose to respond. … His response was to refer to me as the ‘son of a dog.’ Anti-Semitism or political discourse? Not for me to judge. I’ll leave that all up to you.” One can easily assume how the attendees at the Sixth Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism would react to this dangerous game and name-calling.
Meanwhile, Israeli leaders have let their feelings be aired, with Education Minister Naftali Bennett (Jewish Home) saying, “David, after just one year in office, we can already see that you’re going to go down in Israel’s history as a true friend of the State of Israel.” Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu responded, “Abu Mazen’s remarks about US Ambassador David Friedman say everything. This is the first time in decades that the US government is no longer spoiling the Palestinian leaders, and he’s telling them: enough. Apparently the shock of hearing the truth made them lose their senses.” Our additional words will be quotes from Giulio Meotti where in his article 14 New Israeli Orphans in One Month where he states “In just one month in Israel, the same scene took place three times in three different locations: Har Bracha, Havat Gilad and Kochav Hachachar.”
1) Hundreds of people crowded in a cemetery, sometimes an improvised one.
2) The victims, all young Israelis, civilians, fathers, husbands.
3) Killed by Palestinian Arab terrorists just because they were Jews.
4) Families in agony.
5) Young wives and mothers in mourning, small communities devastated by the violent death shattering the sense of security.
6) No condemnation by Palestinian “peace partners”.
7) Faint, inaudible voices from Europe.
8) Horrendous newspaper titles.
“Western ears and eyes are full of images of Palestinian Arab youths, often impostors like Ahed Tamimi, the darling of the “popular Intifada”, but never of these 14 Israeli orphans. Double orphans. Their fathers killed twice. First by the terrorists. Then by Western indifference.”
Giulio Meotti struck the vital chord in this saga, the reactions in the Western World and the reason they are so jaded. They are shown scenes of people starving or standing before a half destroyed building weeping for their loss. Every one of these stories tells of Palestinian troubles and hardships. You will see a Palestinian mother whose son, a terrorist, was killed while perpetrating a terror attack aboard a Jerusalem bus in October of 2015 and said she hoped her other sons would follow in his footsteps, and, with knife in hand, announced her intention to carry out her own attack against Israelis. The next video is from July 22, 2009, and depicts a mother before and after her son commits an act of terrorism seeking to be killed by Israeli troops. One might ask what gain is there in being killed by IDF troops or police while you are in an act of terror murdering innocents who are usually not armed. The reason is obvious, it brings honor to your family and guarantees them a far better wage for their son dead than he could make while living. Many of the terrorists when captured claim that there are no decent jobs even with the Palestinian Authority government and the stipend granted the family of a martyr is far greater than even a good job would pay in their society. They give their lives so their family can have a better life. If they commit a sufficiently violent crime killing many Israelis leading to their house, their family’s house, being demolished, the Palestinian authority builds them a new house. So it could be two benefits, a new house and a high stipend salary earned each month by their now dead son. She also states her wish to have one-hundred sons to sacrifice to Allah. What religion do you know where you sacrifice your children to your deity? Think about this religion existing in our modern world where sacrificing your children to your deity, to your god. And this idea of sacrificing children to Allah is not new and exists throughout much of Islamic culture and lands. An entire webpage is dedicated to such exuberance from parents of martyrs, for any wishing to see more. We do not even wish to think about this any further; it sickens us.
The terror war in Israel is unfortunately continuing at a higher than acceptable pace. Hamas is still taking all the cement and bracing lumber to make their tunnels into Israel and Israel continues to destroy them as they are detected. Hamas has invested anywhere from two to five million Euros on each tunnel and Israel destroys a tunnel almost every week and two on a good week. That is a lot of time and effort and steals from the people in Gaza who also need these supplies to rebuild their homes and lives. Below is a picture of one of the discovered tunnels which was subsequently destroyed.
Hamas Tunnel Discovered in Israel by the IDF
Hamas could build apartment buildings and it is estimated that the cost and supplies utilized in building one tunnel which Israel finds and destroys could have built three schools or five clinics or almost two hospitals. These estimates do not include the entire network of underground bunkers and interconnecting tunnel structures which are underneath Gaza City, Rafah, and Khan Yunis as well as the refugee camp. Why there is a refugee camp in Gaza is beyond our understanding, as there is little if any difference between the people in the camp and those outside the camp except those inside the camp eat even if they have no job, those outside the camp do not have that privilege. These UNRWA camps have found a means of destroying any possibility for civility between them and those outside their camps throughout the Arab world. Much of this has to do with the refugees selling off items, which UNRWA replaces freely, making a tidy profit off their fellow Arabs. Additionally, the refugees receive a stipend so as to provide them some dignity despite not having steady jobs as these camps often are closed holding the refugees within as in the past when they were permitted free movement a fairly large number fled to start life over and live a normal life. Still, others have adopted the life of living off the largess gifted them by UNRWA and are in their third or fourth generation exploiting the charity of the world. President Trump decided the United States was not going to further invest in this wasteful system and ended United States UNRWA aid monies. We should end on that one good sliver of hope.
Beyond the Cusp
Beyond the Cusp 