According to Ynet:

UNESCO resolution passes calling to reject Israeli sovereignty over all Jerusalem. Despite the Foreign Ministry’s best attempts to thwart a UNESCO proposal to revoke Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem, the resolution passed—on Israel’s Independence Day—with the support of seven Arab states; PM Netanyahu calls decision ‘absurd,’ while Pres. Rivlin calls to transfer all embassies to Jerusalem.

B”sd

Dear Family & Friends,

Tonight a very full moon shines above me, directly through my roof window. What a feeling of blessing.

After story #2, I pulled the historic speech made by MK Isaac Herzog’s father, Chaim Herzog, when he was Israel’s Ambassador to the UN – Nov. 10, 1975 (the anniversary of Krisallnacht: Nov. 10, 1938) after the vote in the UN that Zionism is Racism. My point in printing this iconic piece is what a good writer, Zionist & defender of the Jewish people & the Jewish State of Israel the father Herzog was & how his son falls very far from his tree.

BTW, that day & event changed my own life. I got mad at that Zionism is Racism bigotry & started MEIR, Mid East Information Resource, a Jewish Speakers’ Bureau to fight Arab Propaganda. I took everything I knew about being an Environmental Activist & devoted the skills I had learned into defending Israel & the Jewish people. From that vile Z=R resolution, came everything good I do today. I invented “Media Monitoring” in 1976.

Manny, z”L, & I worked ‘doing ‘Hasbara’ [now called ‘Public Diplomacy] for Israel from 1973 &1975 until today. I made my final Aliyah August 2012 after 127 trips to Israel. It took me a long, long, long time to finally get here but, WoW is it worth it!! The moon is shining; the spring/summer foliage is fluffy & silky; the scent of flowers drifts into my open window & smells like wine; most important, the people here are wonderful & interesting.

My heartfelt advice to any Jewish young people who feel that pull to live here or just to be here in the Jewish State – but are afraid they can’t make a living is to come now, when they’re young, make the same efforts you’d make in your birth country & achieve the happy, productive life you were meant to live – earlier. Don’t wait!

All the very best, Gail/Geula/Savta/Savta Raba x 3!!/Mom

1C.Continuing 700 years of building Jerusalem

1E.“Stop trying to intimidate us on annexation”

1.’We must establish our hold on Jerusalem’

2.‘Israel is a beacon of hope’

3.Zionism Is Not Racism: A Speech 40 Years Ago By Chaim Herzog, Z”L

4.Trump’s tragic mistake by Caroline B. Glick5.Lauder : “US President convinced Abbas to make concessions”

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel says Israel needs to protect its status as a Jewish state for the Jewish people.By Hezki Baruch, Arutz Sheva May 8, 2017 08:23am Share

Uri Ariel

Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel (Jewish Home) spoke aboutthe Nationality Law,which on Sunday was approved by the Ministerial Committee on Legislation.

The Nationality Law anchors the fact that the State of Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people and states that Hebrew is the official language of the state, while the Arabic language is granted “special status”.

The city of Jerusalem is affirmed the capital of the State of Israel.^

“This is a law proposed by MK Avi Dichter (Likud), and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked (Jewish Home) agreed to submit a government-backed proposal of the law within 60 days of its approval by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation,” Ariel explained.

“Dichter’s Nationality Law is a basic law and I think it is very appropriate. Tourism Minister Yariv Levin (Likud) passed the law today with me in the Ministerial Committee, and I am very grateful to him for that… It’s true that we will need to coordinate on the law with the various ministries, and I hope the Nationality Law will pass during the Knesset’s summer session.”

Regarding criticism from Israel’s left, Ariel said, “I hear their screams, and I understand how right we are. We need to return Israel to its status as a sovereign Jewish country, and we need to protect Israel’s status as a Jewish state for the Jewish nation.”

Ariel also said Deputy Attorney General Avi Licht had tried toprevent the Ministerial Committee from voting on the law, claiming that a basic law such as the Nationality Law cannot pass if it is privately endorsed.

“The Nationality Law is crucial to ensuring the State of Israel retains its character as a Jewish State,” Ariel said. “Political sources are trying to prevent the approval of the Nationality Law. They will not succeed. As the public’s chosen government, we will continue to push the law forward until it passes and becomes law.”

Regarding the recentpassing of Rabbi Benny Elon, Ariel said, “Rabbi Benny Elon was my teacher and rabbi. I learned many things from him, both in politics and in determination. Rabbi Elon was a minister who left the government twice – and this is also an important lesson for us.”

“Rabbi Elon worked to strengthen Israel’s sovereignty in Jerusalem, as well as in Judea and Samaria. I thank him from the bottom of my heart for his diligence and understanding of the importance of Jerusalem’s Shimon Hatzadik neighborhood.

“May his memory be blessed.”

1B.Jewish Home MK: Everyone wants to live in Israel

MK Bezalel Smotrich says every Jew wants to live in Israel, ‘we’re all part of the amazing Israeli story.’ Arutz Sheva Staff, May 10, 2015 08:13am Share

Bezalel Smotrich – Yonatan Sindel / Flash 90

In a video clip, MK Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) refutes the claim that “no one wants to live here in Israel.”

“Can someone please turn on the light in here?” Smotrich asked. “Everyone wants to live in Israel.”

“My best friends immigrated to Israel a long time ago. They came home to Israel from Morroco, from Russia, from Algeria. They came from France, from Berlin, from the US. With them came tens of hundreds of thousands of immigrants, from both my generation & previous generations.

“More & more young people see Israel as their home. They can’t think of a better place to live.

“Those who did not yet immigrate, are thinking about immigrating. Even if they haven’t physically come yet, they’re here with us in spirit. Their minds are in Israel; they’re connected to Israel as if it were an earthly paradise.

“Look on Facebook. Housing costs are sky-high. Everyone wants to buy an apartment here. Even those who aren’t yet immigrating, are buying apartments in Israel. They spend weeks or months here, every year.

“They dream of exit, & the ‘start-up nation,’ they invest in Mobileye & other Israeli success stories.

“The rich people abroad send their children to learn here. They’re not suckers. They want the best education possible.

“And if they’re here anyways, they can stay another few years. Dad will pay their rent.

“Israeli youth, from all sectors of society, invest everything they have into leading Israel’s economy, academia, and in other areas. They never even thought of getting a foreign passport. Their parents escaped Europe and North Africa. Will the children go back there?

“It’s so good to live in Israel. We’re a small country, with room for absolutely everyone. Leftists, rightists, Ashkenazic, Sephardic, religious, haredi, secular – we’re all part of the amazing Israeli story.

“The best of our nation are willing to sacrifice so much for their country, and to receive lots of love in return.

“People believe in Israel.

“They believe in our beautiful land, in the amazing and moral society which we’ve built here. They believe in our economy and in our hi-tech, in our health system and in our educational system, in democracy and in civil and human rights.

“They believe, and they know that we’ll last for a long, long time.

“So who will stay here in the end? ….. All of us, together.

“And until Israel turns into a complete paradise of peace and love, we will continue working determinedly to ensure that everyone who loves the State of Israel and wants Israel to do well, will feel at home here, in our good land.”

1C.Continuing 700 years of building JerusalemBy Yoni Kempinski, Arutz Sheva Arutz Sheva and Ateret Cohanim present a special project focusing on the renewal of Jewish presence in all of Jerusalem. May 8, 2015 00:34am Share

https://youtu.be/dmMrNBtlNfg click on this link for an inspiring 4 min. & YouTube on building the reunification of Jerusalem today!

In preparation for the 50th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, Arutz Sheva, together with Ateret Cohanim, are presenting a special project that will focus on the renewal of Jewish presence in eastern Jerusalem, the Old City and the village of Shiloah (bordering the Kidron Valley outside the Old City walls).

“Ateret Cohanim is probably the most important, non-profit organization vis-à-vis the future of Jerusalem,” said Daniel Luria, Ateret Cohanim Executive Director and Spokesperson.

“There are some people who say that we’re even the paratroopers of the ‘seventh day war’. In six glorious days, Hashem opened up those gates of Jerusalem, and we the Jewish people, were reunited after Jerusalem was liberated, but there was a lot of work still to be done, especially in and around the Old City. So for 39 years, Ateret Cohanim has been effectively strengthening Jewish

roots in the heart of Jerusalem. Redeeming, reclaiming old Jewish property, adding Jewish life, and as a result of that work today, there are 1,000 Jewish residents living in the Old Jewish Quarter. There is a Jewish neighborhood on the Mount of Olives, there are Jewish families who have returned to the old Yemenite village. It’s the revival of Jewish life. It’s the unfolding redemption process of the Zionist dream being realized in our time.”

Mati Dan, Ateret Cohanim Chairman and Founder, said, “This is a 700-year-old enterprise. The Ramban (Nachmanides) arrived in Jerusalem in ’67. Not 1967, but 1267. He came here, and since then there was a continuity of Jewish presence until 1948, when the Old City of Jerusalem fell [to the Jordanians].”

“There are many missions, but one of the main ones is to tell the story of Jerusalem not only from 1967, but until 1967, to give the background about the continuous Jewish residence here of people who remained strong despite all the difficulties,” he continued.

“We are the beginning of the process. There’s a lot of work still to be done,” said Luria. V “Yes, there have been some tremendous successes, but we need the Jewish world. You’re going to see some of the successes, some of the projects inside the Old City, in the Yemenite village, the Mount of Olives, where your input is vital. Basically, we want you to be paratroopers with us, coming through those gates of Jerusalem and helping, together, to build a united Jerusalem.”

For more details about Ateret Cohanim’s activities and to join the “Building Jerusalem together” project,click here. OR here: https://youtu.be/dmMrNBtlNfg

This 4 minute YouTube clip by Rabbi Shalom Gold is so beautiful, moving & inspirational. He is just 82 years young. He remembers Israel’s Birth when he was 8 years old & the 6 Days War when he was a yeshiva bochur. He loves all of Israel & all Israelis. He’s so proud of us all & what HaShem helped us accomplish.

1E.“Stop trying to intimidate us on annexation”by Hezki Baruch, Arutz Sheva Land of Israel Lobby hits back at Liberman who claims Trump administration warned Israel against annexation. Mar. 6, 2017

MK Bezalel Smotrich

The Land of Israel Lobby ripped Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman on Monday, blasting a warning against annexation the minister issued Monday morning.

Liberman claimed that the Trump administration had issued a “direct message” to Israel, threatening to cut off ties should the Jewish state extend sovereignty over parts of Judea & Samaria.

“Anyone who wants to apply Israeli sovereignty to Judea & Samaria needs to understand that such a step will bring immediate repercussions from the new US government.”

“We received a direct – not indirect – message: ‘Apply sovereignty and you will be cutting ties with the new government.’ The coalition must explain, once & for all, that we will not apply sovereignty. Anyone who wants a crisis & who has 20 billion NIS to spare is welcome to apply sovereignty.”

Critics, however, were quick to respond, decrying Liberman’s comments as “scare-mongering” & “intimidation”.

“You need to stop this scare-mongering campaign against sovereignty,” said Land of Israel Lobby members Bezalel Smotrich (Jewish Home) & Yoav Kish (Likud).

“One cannot be an ‘occupier’ in their own land, so what we’re talking about isn’t ‘annexation’, but extension of sovereignty in our land. We will continue in the footsteps of the Zionist leaders who extended sovereignty over parts of our land in 1948, 1967 & 1981,” said the MKs, referencing the establishment of the State of Israel, the annexation of eastern Jerusalem after the Six Day War & application of Israeli law to the Golan Heights in 1981.

“Now the time has come for the next step: We will promote a law extending sovereignty over Ma’aleh Adumim& it will receive majority support both in the Ministerial Committee for Legislation & in the Knesset plenum.”

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely (Likud) also castigated Liberman over what she called his attempts at “intimidation”.

“Minister Liberman is attempting to create a reality that does not exist yet in Washington. The political dialogue with the Americans hasn’t started yet. The current administration hasn’t put together any strategic plan for the region yet. The American government is open to considering new policies & all of the options are still on the table.”

1.’We must establish our hold on Jerusalem’

Construction, Housing Minister pledges to do all in his power to strengthen Jerusalem and surrounding towns, ‘Explain justice of our path’ By Mordechai Sones,08/05/17

Minister Yoav Galant, today by Sasson Tiram

Housing and Construction Minister Maj. Gen. (res.) Yoav Galant addressed the opening of the “Touching the Moment” exhibition at the Davidson Center in Jerusalem this afternoon (Monday), to strengthen the city’s status.

“Jerusalem for the Jewish people is not ‘another place.’ The entire world looks to Jerusalem because the deepest and most fundamental values ??of justice and morality for all the nations of the world were formed here in Jerusalem,” Galant said.

“We must establish our hold on Jerusalem, from Ma’aleh Adumim in the east to Giv’at Ze’ev in the west, from Atarot in the north to the Bethlehem area and Rachel’s Tomb, to the outskirts of Efrat and Gush Etzion. It has historical, strategic, and moral importance.”

Galant said, “Anything that can possibly be done relating to my area of ??responsibility and influence will be done with an aim to strengthen Jerusalem, whether we are talking about the Western Wall elevator we are working to strengthen, the establishment of the Tiferet Israel synagogue, various commemoration projects, discovering antiquities and their connection to our heritage and history.

“It is important to explain to the world the rightness of our way, especially these days when there are Holocaust deniers and those who deny the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, Jerusalem, and everything in it. Both Christians and Muslims know in their hearts that this historic place is the cradle of Judaism and monotheism. Our strength is rooted in the justice of our way, we must instill this insight into anyone who tries to undermine this reminder,” the Minister concluded.

2.‘Israel is a beacon of hope’

PM refers in Knesset memorial to state visionary Herzl & constitution. Opposition chairman harshly criticizes remarks. By Mordechai Sones, Arutz Sheva May 8, 2017 re

Beacon of hope – iStock

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu discussed the idea of a constitution this evening (Monday) in a speech in memory of the Visionary of the State, Binyamin Ze’ev Herzl.

“A constitution will establish the status of Israel as a Jewish state, and there is no contradiction between Israel being a democracy and the state of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said.

He also referred to Israel’s standing in the world and said that “Israel is a beacon of enlightenment and hope”.

Netanyahu described how Herzl succeeded beyond all expectations. Not only did his vision of a Jewish state take shape, but a hundred years after the convening of the First Zionist Congress in Basel, the Jewish state is a modern state with extraordinary achievements and the strongest army in the Middle East, which is capable of protecting our state against any threat, he related.

[Gail Sez: Beware! MK Herzog’s words will probably aggravate you…if you believe as I do. I only wonder: What would his esteemed father, former President of Israel Chaim Herzog have said?] [Found it! See my letter above^]

Opposition Chairman MK Yitzchak Herzog spoke of Herzl’s vision of a Jewish state that would be a haven for the Jewish people. “Even today, the Jews do not have a safer place than their homeland: Anti-Semitism has not stopped, it exists and thrives and raises its head. Sometimes it takes on a pure form of Jew-hatred and sometimes it disguises itself as Israel-hatred – but the hatred is the same hatred. The wickedness is the same. BDS sprouted in precisely the same hothouse, of antisemitism, incitement, misunderstanding the true story of our country, and not knowing the historical facts or silencing them.”

He attacked the idea of a constitution and said that “no momentary political capital or the smell of elections in the air justify violating what was promised in the Declaration of Independence and does not justify incitement against a minority living among us. No fleeting electoral consideration of some special-interest group justifies a series of legislative initiatives that degrade the Declaration of Independence, the vision of the Prophets, or the dream of Herzl.

“The Zionist debate today is not about the very existence of the State of Israel, which is a fait accompli, but about the image of the State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state with a deep foundation of social justice & individual liberty for generations to come.”

He also spoke about the political issue. “Like then, so today, the decision to divide the land sits at the door of the Zionist movement. Like then, so today, it is not simple & it divides the people, the contemporary Zionist movement. A dilemma between what was promised to our forefathers in the Book of Books & what can be achieved in political reality,” he said.

“When there are people sitting in this Knesset, members of Zionist parties, shamelessly talking about a bi-national state that discriminates between its citizens, a state in terms of borders without morals and without a guide, while in the Knesset there sit pseudo-Zionists who hold absolute claims that the entire land is ours without compromise and without borders – a position that characterized the Arab side and is perceived as messianic nationalism – then in 2017 the moral basis on which the state’s Visionary founded it will erode the justification for our country’s existence,” Herzog concluded.

[This is the paragraph with which I have very big disagreements – to the root of my soul! How dare he accuse Israel’s stalwart Zionists as without morals & without a guide…calling them “pseudo”. His words^ threaten to erode the justification for our country’s existence…Just like the BDSers & Silence Breakers & Women in Black who smear our IDF.]

3.ZIONISM IS NOT RACISM: A SPEECH 40 YEARS AGO BY CHAIM HERZOG

Full text of Chaim Herzog’s historic speech to the UN – Nov. 9, 1975. Anniversary of Kristallnacht.

Then-Ambassador Chaim Herzog speaking to the UN in 1975. (photo:Herzog Family Foundation) On Wed, a special event at the UN will mark 40 years since the historic speech by Israel’s then president, Chaim Herzog, in which he repudiated UN General Assembly Resolution 3379 – the ‘Zionism is Racism’ resolution – and symbolically tore it up before the assembly. The event will take place at the invitation of Yad Chaim Herzog & the Israeli mission at the UN together with members of the Herzog family, UN Sec.-Gen. Ban Ki-moon & other guests. Below is full text of the speech.

Mr. President,

It is symbolic that this debate, which may well prove to be a turning point in the fortunes of the United Nations and a decisive factor in the possible continued existence of this organization, should take place on November 10. Tonight, 37 years ago, has gone down in history as Kristallnacht, the Night of the Crystals. This was the night in 1938 when Hitler’s Nazi storm-troopers launched a coordinated attack on the Jewish community in Germany, burned the synagogues in all its cities and made bonfires in the streets of the holy books and the scrolls of the holy law and Bible. It was the night when Jewish homes were attacked and heads of families taken away, many of them never to return. It was the night when the windows of all Jewish businesses and stores were smashed, covering the streets in the cities of Germany with a film of broken glass which dissolved into the millions of crystals which gave that night its name. It was the night which led eventually to the crematoria and the gas chambers, Auschwitz, Birkenau, Dachau, Buchenwald, Theresienstadt and others. It was the night which led to the most terrifying holocaust in the history of man.
It is indeed befitting Mr. President, that this debate, conceived in the desire to deflect the Middle East from its moves toward peace and born of a deep pervading feeling of anti-Semitism, should take place on the anniversary of this day. It is indeed befitting, Mr. President, that the United Nations, which began its life as an anti-Nazi alliance, should 30 years later find itself on its way to becoming the world center of anti-Semitism. Hitler would have felt at home on a number of occasions during the past year, listening to the proceedings in this forum, and above all to the proceedings during the debate on Zionism.
It is sobering to consider to what level this body has been dragged down if we are obliged today to contemplate an attack on Zionism. For this attack constitutes not only an anti-Israeli attack of the foulest type, but also an assault in the United Nations on Judaism – one of the oldest established religions in the world, a religion which has given the world the human values of the Bible, and from which two other great religions, Christianity & Islam, sprang. Is it not tragic to consider that we here at this meeting in the year 1975 are contemplating what is a scurrilous attack on a great, established religion which has given to the world the Bible with its Ten Commandments, the great prophets of old, Moses, Isaiah, Amos; the great thinkers of history, Maimonides, Spinoza, Marx, Einstein; many of the masters of the arts & as high a percentage of the Nobel Prize-winners in the world, in sciences, in the arts & in the humanities as has been achieved by any people on earth?
The resolution against Zionism was originally one condemning racism and colonialism, a subject on which we could have achieved consensus, a consensus which is of great importance to all of us & to our African colleagues in particular. However, instead of permitting this to happen, a group of countries, drunk with the feeling of power inherent in the automatic majority & without regard to the importance of achieving a consensus on this issue, railroaded the UN in a contemptuous maneuver by use of the automatic majority to bracketing Zionism with the subject under discussion.
I do not come to this rostrum to defend the moral and historical values of the Jewish people. They do not need to be defended. They speak for themselves.
They have given to mankind much of what is great and eternal. They have done for the spirit of man more than can readily be appreciated by a forum such as this one.
I come here to denounce the two great evils which menace society in general and a society of nations in particular. These two evils are hatred and ignorance.
These two evils are the motivating force behind proponents of this resolution & their supporters.
These two evils characterize those who would drag this world organization, the ideals of which were first conceived by the prophets of Israel, to the depths to which it has been dragged today.
The key to understanding Zionism is in its name.
The easternmost of the two hills of ancient Jerusalem during the tenth century BCE was called Zion. In fact, the name Zion, referring to Jerusalem, appears 152 times in the Old Testament. The name is overwhelmingly a poetic and prophetic designation.
The religious and emotional qualities of the name arise from the importance of Jerusalem as the royal city and the city of the Temple. “Mount Zion” is the place where God dwells. Jerusalem, or Zion, is a place where the Lord is King, and where He has installed His king, David.
King David made Jerusalem the capital of Israel almost 3,000 years ago, and Jerusalem has remained the capital ever since. During the centuries the term “Zion” grew and expanded to mean the whole of Israel. The Israelites in exile could not forget Zion.
The Hebrew Psalmist sat by the waters of Babylon and swore: “If I forget three, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.” This oath has been repeated for thousands of years by Jews throughout the world. It is an oath which was made over 700 years before the advent of Christianity and over 1,200 years before the advent of Islam, and Zion came to mean the Jewish homeland, symbolic of Judaism, of Jewish national aspirations.
While praying to his God every Jew, wherever he is in the world, faces toward Jerusalem. For over 2,000 years of exile these prayers have expressed the yearning of the Jewish people to return to their ancient homeland, Israel. In fact, a continuous Jewish presence, in larger or smaller numbers, has been maintained in the country over the centuries.
Zionism is the name of the national movement of the Jewish people and is the modern expression of the ancient Jewish heritage. The Zionist ideal, as set out in the Bible, has been, and is, an integral part of the Jewish religion.
Zionism is to the Jewish people what the liberation movements of Africa and Asia have been to their own people.
Zionism is one of the most dynamic and vibrant national movements in human history. Historically it is based on a unique and unbroken connection, extending some 4,000 years, between the People of the Book and the Land of the Bible.
In modern times, in the late nineteenth century, spurred by the twin forces of anti-Semitic persecution and of nationalism, the Jewish people organized the Zionist movement in order to transform their dream into reality. Zionism as a political movement was the revolt of an oppressed nation against the depredation and wicked discrimination and oppression of the countries in which anti-Semitism flourished. It is no coincidence that the co-sponsors and supporters of this resolution include countries who are guilty of the horrible crimes of anti-Semitism and discrimination to this very day.
Support for the aim of Zionism was written into the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine and was again endorsed by the United Nations in 1947, when the General Assembly voted by overwhelming majority for the restoration of Jewish independence in our ancient land.
The re-establishment of Jewish independence in Israel, after centuries of struggle to overcome foreign conquest and exile, is a vindication of the fundamental concepts of the equality of nations and of self-determination. To question the Jewish people’s right to national existence and freedom is not only to deny to the Jewish people the right accorded to every other people on this globe, but it is also to deny the central precepts of the United Nations.
As a former foreign minister of Israel, Abba Eban, has written: “Zionism is nothing more – but also nothing less – than the Jewish people’s sense of origin and destination in the land linked eternally with its name.”
It is also the instrument whereby the Jewish nation seeks an authentic fulfillment of itself. And the drama is enacted in 20 states comprising a hundred million people in four-and-a-half million square miles, with vast resources. The issue therefore is not whether the world will come to terms with Arab nationalism. The question is at what point Arab nationalism, with its prodigious glut of advantage, wealth and opportunity, will come to terms with the modest but equal rights of another Middle Eastern nation to pursue its life in security and peace.
The vicious diatribes on Zionism voiced here by Arab delegates may give this Assembly the wrong impression that while the rest of the world supported the Jewish national liberation movement the Arab world was always hostile to Zionism. This is not the case. Arab leaders, cognizant of the rights of the Jewish people, fully endorsed the virtues of Zionism.
Sherif Hussein, the leader of the Arab world during World War I, welcomed the return of the Jews to Palestine. His son, Emir Feisal, who represented the Arab world in the Paris Peace Conference, had this to say about Zionism:“We Arabs, especially the educated among us, look with deepest sympathy on the Zionist movement….
“We will wish the Jews a hearty welcome home….”
“We are working together for a reformed and revised Near East, and our two movements complement one another. The movement is national and not imperialistic. There is room in Syria for us both. Indeed, I think that neither can be a success without the other.”
It is perhaps pertinent at this point to recall that when the question of Palestine was being debated in the United Nations in 1947, the Soviet Union strongly supported the Jewish independence struggle. It is particularly relevant to recall some of Andrei Gromyko’s remarks: “As we know, the aspirations of a considerable part of the Jewish people are linked with the problem of Palestine and of its future administration. This fact scarcely requires proof…. During the last war, the Jewish people underwent exceptional sorrow and suffering. Without any exaggeration, this sorrow and suffering are indescribable. It is difficult to express them in dry statistics on the Jewish victims of the fascist aggressors. The Jews in the territories where the Hitlerites held sway were subjected to almost complete physical annihilation. The total number of Jews who perished at the hands of the Nazi executioners is estimated at approximately six million….”
“The United Nations cannot and must not regard this situation with indifference, since this would be incompatible with the high principles proclaimed in its Charter, which provides for the defense of human rights, irrespective of race, religion or sex….
“The fact that no Western European state has been able to ensure the defense of the elementary rights of the Jewish people and to safeguard it against the violence of the fascist executioners explains the aspirations of the Jews to establish their own state. It would be unjust not to take this into consideration and to deny the right of the Jewish people to realize this aspiration.”
How sad it is to see here a group of nations, many of whom have but recently freed themselves of colonial rule, deriding one of the most noble liberation movements of this century, a movement which not only gave an example of encouragement and determination to the peoples struggling for independence but also actively aided many of them either during the period of preparation for their independence or immediately thereafter.
Here you have a movement which is the embodiment of a unique pioneering spirit, of the dignity of labor & of enduring human values, a movement which has presented to the world an example of social equality & open democracy being associated in this resolution with abhorrent political concepts.
We in Israel have endeavored to create a society which strives to implement the highest ideals of society – political, social and cultural – for all the inhabitants of Israel, irrespective of religious belief, race or sex.
Show me another pluralistic society in this world in which despite all the difficult problems, Jew and Arab live together with such a degree of harmony, in which the dignity and rights of man are observed before the law, in which no death sentence is applied, in which freedom of speech, of movement, of thought, of expression are guaranteed, in which even movements which are opposed to our national aims are represented in our parliament.
The Arab delegates talk of racism. What has happened to the 800,000 Jews who lived for over 2,000 years in the Arab lands, who formed some of the most ancient communities long before the advent of Islam. Where are they now? The Jews were once one of the important communities in the countries of the Middle East, the leaders of thought, of commerce, of medical science.
Where are they in Arab society today? You dare talk of racism when I can point with pride to the Arab ministers who have served in my government; to the Arab deputy speaker of my parliament; to Arab officers and men serving of their own volition in our border and police defense forces, frequently commanding Jewish troops; to the hundreds of thousands of Arabs from all over the Middle East crowding the cities of Israel every year; to the peaceful coexistence which has developed; to the fact that Arabic is an official language in Israel on a par with Hebrew; to the fact that it is as natural for an Arab to serve in public office in Israel as it is incongruous to think of a Jew serving in any public office in an Arab country, indeed being admitted to many of them. Is that racism? It is not! That, Mr. President, is Zionism.
Zionism is our attempt to build a society, imperfect though it may be, in which the visions of the prophets of Israel will be realized. I know that we have problems. I know that many disagree with our government’s policies. Many in Israel too disagree from time to time with the government’s policies … and are free to do so because Zionism has created the first and only real democratic state in a part of the world that never really knew democracy and freedom of speech.
This malicious resolution, designed to divert us from its true purpose, is part of a dangerous anti-Semitic idiom which is being insinuated into every public debate by those who have sworn to block the current move toward accommodation and ultimately toward peace in the Middle East. This, together with similar moves, is designed to sabotage the efforts of the Geneva Conference for peace in the Middle East and to deflect those who are moving along the road toward peace from their purpose.
But they will not succeed, for I can but reiterate my government’s policy to make every move in the direction toward peace, based on compromise.
We are seeing here today but another manifestation of the bitter anti-Semitic, anti-Jewish hatred which animates Arab society. Who would have believed that in this year, 1975, the malicious falsehoods of the “elders of Zion” would be distributed officially by Arab governments? Who would have believed that we would today contemplate an Arab society which teaches the vilest anti-Jewish hate in the kindergartens?… We are being attacked by a society which is motivated by the most extreme form of racism known in the world today. This is the racism which was expressed so succinctly in the words of the leader of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, in his opening address at a symposium in Tripoli, Libya: “There will be no presence in the region other than the Arab presence….” In other words, in the Middle East from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf only one presence is allowed, and that is Arab presence. No other people, regardless of how deep are its roots in the region, is to be permitted to enjoy its right to self-determination.”
Look at the tragic fate of the Kurds of Iraq. Look what happened to the black population in southern Sudan. Look at the dire peril in which an entire community of Christians finds itself in Lebanon.
Look at the avowed policy of the PLO, which calls in its Palestine Covenant of 1964 for the destruction of the State of Israel, which denies any form of compromise on the Palestine issue and which, in the words of its representative only the other day in this building, considers Tel Aviv to be occupied territory. Look at all this, and you see before you the root cause of the twin evils of this world at work, the blind hatred of the Arab proponents of this resolution, and the abysmal ignorance and wickedness of those who support them.
The issue before this Assembly is neither Israel nor Zionism. The issue is the fate of this organization.
Conceived in the spirit of the prophets of Israel, born out of an anti-Nazi alliance after the tragedy of World War II, it has degenerated into a forum which was this last week described by [Paul Johnson] one of the leading writers in a foremost organ of social and liberal thought in the West as “rapidly becoming one of the most corrupt and corrupting creations in the whole history of human institutions … almost without exception those in the majority came from states notable for racist oppression of every conceivable hue.”

He goes on to explain the phenomenon of this debate: “Israel is a social democracy, the nearest approach to a free socialist state in the world; its people and government have a profound respect for human life, so passionate indeed that, despite every conceivable provocation, they have refused for a quarter of a century to execute a single captured terrorist. They also have an ancient but vigorous culture, and a flourishing technology. The combination of national qualities they have assembled in their brief existence as a state is a perpetual and embittering reproach to most of the new countries whose representatives swagger about the UN building. So Israel is envied and hated; and efforts are made to destroy her. The extermination of the Israelis has long been the prime objective of the Terrorist International; they calculate that if they can break Israel, then all the rest of civilisation is vulnerable to their assaults….
“The melancholy truth, I fear, is that the candles of civilisation are burning low. The world is increasingly governed not so much by capitalism, or communism, or social democracy, or even tribal barbarism, as by a false lexicon of political cliches, accumulated over half a century and now assuming a kind of degenerate sacerdotal authority…. We all know what they are….”
Over the centuries it has fallen to the lot of my people to be the testing agent of human decency, the touchstone of civilization, the crucible in which enduring human values are to be tested.

A nation’s level of humanity could invariably be judged by its behavior toward its Jewish population. Persecution and oppression have often enough begun with the Jews, but it has never ended with them. The anti-Jewish pogroms in Czarist Russia were but the tip of the iceberg which revealed the inherent rottenness of a regime that was soon to disappear in the storm of revolution. The anti-Semitic excesses of the Nazis merely foreshadowed the catastrophe which was to befall mankind in Europe….
On the issue before us, the world has divided itself into good and bad, decent and evil, human and debased. We, the Jewish people, will recall in history our gratitude to those nations who stood up and were counted and who refused to support this wicked proposition. I know that this episode will have strengthened the forces of freedom and decency in this world and will have fortified the free world in their resolve to strengthen the ideals they so cherish.
I know that this episode will have strengthened Zionism as it has weakened the United Nations.
As I stand on this rostrum, the long and proud history of my people unravels itself before my inward eye. I see the oppressors of our people over the ages as they pass one another in evil procession into oblivion. I stand here before you as the representative of a strong and flourishing people which has survived them all and which will survive this shameful exhibition and the proponents of this resolution.
The great moments of Jewish history come to mind as I face you, once again outnumbered and the would-be victim of hate, ignorance and evil. I look back on those great moments. I recall the greatness of a nation which I have the honor to represent in this forum. I am mindful at this moment of the Jewish people throughout the world wherever they may be, be it in freedom or in slavery, whose prayers and thoughts are with me at this moment.
I stand here not as a supplicant. Vote as your moral conscience dictates to you. For the issue is neither Israel nor Zionism. The issue is the continued existence of this organization, which has been dragged to its lowest point of discredit by a coalition of despots and racists.
The vote of each delegation will record in history its country’s stand on anti-Semitic racism and anti-Judaism. You yourselves bear the responsibility for your stand before history, for as such will you be viewed in history. We, the Jewish people, will not forget.
For us, the Jewish people, this is but a passing episode in a rich and event-filled history. We put our trust in our Providence, in our faith and beliefs, in our time-hallowed tradition, in our striving for social advance & human values in our people wherever they may be. For us, the Jewish people, this resolution based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance, is devoid of any moral or legal value.

Mahmoud Abbas & President Donald Trump

4.Trump’s tragic mistakeby Caroline B. GlickJPost.com 05/05/2017

By all accounts, US President Donald Trump is a friend of the Jewish state.

It is due to Trump’s heartfelt support for Israel and the US-Israel alliance that his meeting Wednesday with PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas at the White House is most discouraging.

By meeting with Abbas, and committing himself to working toward achieving a peace deal between Abbas and his PLO and Israel, Trump undermines Israel.

He also undermines himself and his nation.

Israel is the most immediate casualty of Trump’s decision to embrace Abbas and the PLO, because the PLO is Israel’s enemy.

Abbas is an antisemite. His doctoral dissertation, which he later published as a book, is a Holocaust denying screed.

Abbas engages in antisemitic incitement on a daily basis, both directly and indirectly. It was Abbas who called for his people to kill Jews claiming that we pollute Judaism’s most sacred site, the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, with our “filthy feet.” The Palestinian media and school system which he controls with an iron fist both regularly portray Jews as evil monsters, deserving of physical annihilation.

Abbas’s PLO and his Palestinian Authority engage as a general practice in glorifying terrorist murderers. As has been widely reported in recent weeks, his PA and PLO also incentivize and underwrite terrorism to the tune of $300 million a year, which is paid, in accordance with PA law, to convicted terrorists sitting in Israeli prisons and their families.

And that’s just the money we know about.

In welcoming Abbas to the White House, Trump chose to ignore all of this in the interest of fostering a peace deal between Israel and the PLO.

There are three problems with this goal. First, the peace process between Israel and the PLO is predicated on the notion that the US must pressure Israel to make massive concessions to the PLO. So simply by engaging in a negotiating process with the PLO, Trump has adopted an antagonistic position toward Israel.

The second problem is that Abbas himself has proven, repeatedly, that he will never support a peace deal with Israel. Abbas opposed Israel’s peace offer at Camp David in 2000. He rejected then-prime minister Ehud Olmert’s peace offer in 2008. He rejected then-president Barack Obama’s peace offer in 2013. Since then, Abbas made no sign of moderating his position.

The third problem with Trump’s decision to engage in peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is that any hypothetical deal a hypothetical Palestinian leader would accept, would endanger Israel’s very existence. So in the unlikely event that he reaches “the deal,” his achievement will imperil Israel, rather than protect it.

Again, Israel isn’t the only party harmed by Trump’s decision to embrace the Palestinian dictator whose legal term of office ended eight years ago.

Trump himself is harmed by his move.

Trump moves is self-destructive for two reasons. First, he is setting himself up for failure. By positioning himself in the middle of a diplomatic initiative that will fail, he is guaranteeing that he will fail.

Trump’s move also endangers the support of one of his key constituencies. Evangelical Christians in the US voted overwhelmingly for Trump in both the Republican primaries and in the general election. They rallied to his side due to Trump’s pledge to appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court, and to support Israel. By initiating a diplomatic process that pits his administration against Israel, Trump places that support in jeopardy.

Then there is the US itself.

Trump’s engagement with the PLO harms US core interests in two ways. First there is the issue of coalition building.

Consider for a moment the other anti-American autocrat Trump reached out to this week.

Trump’s recent invitation for Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to visit him in Washington has been roundly criticized by Washington’s foreign policy elite. Last year Duterte stunned Washington when he launched an expletive-filled denunciation of Obama and announced he is ditching the Philippines’ longstanding alliance with the US in favor of an alliance with China.

Obama did nothing to convince Duterte to change course. While understandable from Obama’s perspective, the fact is that the US needs to restore its alliance with Manila to secure its interests in the Far East.

The most acute threat the US now faces is North Korea’s threat to launch a nuclear attack against America. Due to the passivity and hapless diplomacy of Trump’s predecessors, Pyongyang may well have the means to carry out its threats.

To protect itself and its interests against North Korea, the US must build up and strengthen a coalition on allies in the Far East. The Philippines, with its strategic location and naval bases, is a key component of any US coalition against North Korea.

In the longer term, the US has a vital interest in restoring its alliance with the Philippines to contend with the rapidly rising strategic threat China poses to its interests.

Hence, despite the fact that Duterte is a potty-mouthed strongman and bigoted authoritarian, US interests require Trump to embrace him.

This then returns us to Abbas.

In contrast to Duterte, no US interest is served by embracing Abbas.

The US’s chief challenge in the Middle East today is to form a coalition of states and actors that can help it stem Iran’s rise as a nuclear-armed, terrorism-sponsoring regional power. The members of such a coalition are clear.

Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE stand united today in their opposition to Iran, its nuclear program, its support for Sunni and Shi’ite jihadists and terrorist groups, and its moves to establish an empire of vassals that spans westward through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, southward to Yemen and eastward through Afghanistan.

The members of Iran’s coalition include its Lebanese foreign legion Hezbollah, the Assad regime, the Shi’ite militias in Iraq, Hamas, other Sunni terrorist groups aligned with the Muslim Brotherhood and Yemen’s Houthis.

By embracing the PLO, rather than build and strengthen the anti-Iranian alliance of Israel and the anti-Iranian, anti-Muslim-Brotherhood Arab states, Trump is tearing that alliance apart. In its place he is cobbling together an anti-Israel alliance comprised of Iran’s allies in Qatar & to a degree in Turkey, the PLO & at least passively, Hamas. This anti-Israel alliance is supported, grudgingly, by the Saudis, Egyptians & others who cannot afford to be seen abandoning the Palestinians.

In other words, by embracing the PLO, Trump is strengthening Iran and its supporters at the expense of Israel, the US-aligned Sunni states and the US itself.

Moreover, by embracing the PLO Trump is directly undermining the US’s goal of defeating terrorism in two key ways.

First, Trump’s move undermines congressional efforts to block further US funding of Palestinian terrorism. Today, the Taylor Force Act, which enjoys massive support in both houses of Congress, is making its way through Congress. The act will block US funding of the PA due to its payments to terrorists and their families.

On Wednesday Trump pledged to keep those funds flowing. This pits him against the Republican-controlled Congress. Congressional sources relate that the Taylor Force Act is just the first move toward holding the PLO accountable for “its monstrous behavior.”

To embrace Abbas, Trump will either have to veto the Taylor Force Act and other congressional initiatives or insist on receiving a presidential waiver for implementing them. Such waivers, like the presidential waiver to block the transfer of the US Embassy to Jerusalem, will ensure that US taxpayers will continue to incentivize Palestinian terrorism against Israel.

The second way Trump’s decision to embrace the PLO harms the US’s efforts to fight terrorism became clear this week with Hamas’s new PR document. Hamas’s new policy document departs not one iota from the Muslim Brotherhood group’s devotion to the goal of destroying Israel.

In adopting its new document, which calls for Israel to withdraw, first and foremost, from Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem, Hamas has adopted the PLO’s wildly successful strategy of engaging in a dual campaign against Israel, waging terrorist war against Israel on the one hand while winning the support of the West on the other.

Hamas’s document is a restatement of the PLO’s 1974 phased plan for destroying Israel.

The PLO’s plan – which it continues to implement today – involves accepting limited territorial gains from Israel. The territory that Israel cedes in each phase will not become a Palestinian state. Rather it will serve as a launching ground for a new war against Israel.

Under the phased plan, the PLO adopted the ruse that it is interested in territorial compromise with Israel, in order to advance its actual goal of destroying Israel piece by piece.

Trump’s decision to become the fourth US president to welcome a PLO chief to the White House, and his apparent decision to continue funding the terrorist group are new evidence of the wild success of the PLO’s strategy.

Just as the Hamas document neither contradicts nor abrogates its genocidal pledge to eradicate Israel boldly asserted in its covenant, so the PLO’s phased plan and its subsequent embrace of the “peace process” neither contradicted nor superseded its founding charter that calls for Israel’s destruction.

PLO leaders simply stopped discussing their founding documents in their dealings with gullible Westerners keen to win peace prizes.

In a similar fashion, the Western media received the news of Hamas’s PR stunt with respect and interest. Given the reception, Hamas has every reason to expect that in due time, its transparent ruse will open the doors of the chanceries of Europe and beyond to its terror masters.

In other words, by embracing Abbas and the PLO on Wednesday, Trump empowered Hamas. He signaled to Hamas – and to every other terrorist group in the Middle East – that to receive international support, including from his administration, all you need to do is say that you are willing to follow the PLO’s dual strategy of engaging simultaneously in terrorism and political warfare and subterfuge.

There is no upside to Trump’s move. It will not bring peace. It harms prospects for peace by empowering Abbas and his terrorist henchmen.

It will not strengthen Israel. It places Israel on a collision course with the Trump White House and undermines its regional posture.

It will not help the US to build a coalition to defeat Iran and its vassals. It subverts the coalition that already exists by embarrassing the Sunnis into siding with terrorists against Israel.

It does not advance the US war on terror. It empowers terrorists to kill Israelis and others by using US tax revenues to fund the PA, providing a blueprint for other terrorists to wage political war against the West and Israel.

It harms Trump by alienating a key constituency & undermining his relations with Congress.

It is hard to see how Trump, now committed to this dangerous folly, can walk away from it. But to diminish the damage, a way must be found, quickly.

Originally published in The Jerusalem Post.

It’s only fair to share…

5.Lauder : “US President convinced Abbas to make concessions”

T. Belman.You will remember that a month ago Greenblatt spent 5 days talking with Abbas, Abdullh, Israel and others. It is clear that intense pressure was applied to Abbas and that he agreed to make concessions. His warm welcome at the White House was due to his willingness to make concessions. This is why Trump has shown optimism at the prospects. No doubt pressure was also applied bt Arab rulers who say that they want to follow the lead of the PA. It is because of this progress that a ME conference is being set up.

Behind the scenes at the conference, WJC president Ron Lauder briefed ministers Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked & Ofir Akunis. BY GIL HOFFMAN, JPOSTMAY 7, 2017 23:

President Donald Trump has succeeded in persuading Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas to make the kind of concessions that will enable the diplomatic process to move forward, World Jewish Congress President Ron Lauder told Israeli politicians at The Jerusalem Post Annual Conference in New York.

Lauder is the Jewish leader closest to Trump: their families have been friends for decades; he has free access to the president; and he has advised him on how to advance diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East. He also has built up ties with Arab leaders for decades and was Netanyahu’s unofficial envoy to Syria in the latter’s first term as prime minister.
Behind the scenes at the conference, Lauder briefed ministers Naftali Bennett, Ayelet Shaked and Ofir Akunis, as well as opposition leader Isaac Herzog on his impressions from talking to Trump about how to solve the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

“Trump is very optimistic that he can renew the peace process,” one of the politicians told The Jerusalem Post after speaking to Lauder.“Lauder understands from Trump that he believes Abbas can be convinced by him and Arab leaders to come back to the table and make concessions.”

Bennett, Shaked and Akunis, in their speeches at the conference, emphasized their opposition to a Palestinian state and continually denigrated the Palestinian Authority and Abbas.

Ahead of his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority later this month, Trump will make his first foreign stop as president in Saudi Arabia. The visit is intended to show that Trump respects the Muslim world and to seek Saudi help in advancing a regional approach to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump hosted Abbas at the White House last week and has met recently with the leaders of Egypt and Jordan. The politicians who spoke with Lauder said Trump was counting on the Arab leaders to add to his own pressure on Abbas to concede.

Herzog revealed at the conference that he had offered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a parliamentary safety net for concessions in a peace process led by Trump.

Interviewed on stage by Post Editor-in-Chief Yaakov Katz, Herzog praised Trump while questioning Netanyahu’s goals on the Palestinian issue.

“So far, Trump’s peace efforts have been impeccable,” Herzog said. “We know what Trump wants. What Netanyahu wants, no one knows. I have grave doubts about Bibi’s intentions.

If he wants peace, he will enjoy political support even from my camp. But if he opts for what Bibi usually wants, he will find us a fierce opposition and we will replace him as soon as possible.”

Herzog said the only way to bring about a change in power in Israel is to form a strong centrist bloc with other centrist movements. He invited former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon to join such a bloc, along with fellow former IDF chiefs Ehud Barak, Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi; rebel Yisrael Beytenu MK Orly Levy-Abecassis; and MKs in Kulanu.

“Together, we can present a clear, centrist vision for Israel,” Herzog said.

Meretz leader Zehava Gal-On said she disagrees with Herzog, calling Ya’alon too right-wing to lead a centrist bloc of parties that would challenge Netanyahu.

Lauder : “US President convinced Abbas to make concessions”

6.The Two-State Kabuki TheaterTrump’s grave mistakes with Abbas. By Bruce Thornton, FPM

Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, and leader of the terrorist PLO and its largest faction, Fatah, came to D.C. for a state visit with President Trump. And so the elaborate, stylized diplomatic farce of legitimizing terrorists dressed up as statesmen continues into its seventh decade. Maybe it’s time to bring down the curtain on this show and move on to a strategy that might actually work. [..]

Trump’s mixed signals and seeming ignorance of the conflict’s historical and religious roots do not bode well for the chances that the president will follow through on finally discarding the long, fruitless attempt to make the illusion of “two states living side-by-side in peace” into a reality.
Yes, Trump cautioned Abbas about rejecting the legitimacy of Israel and inciting terrorist violence by paying the families of murderers and demonizing Jews in grade school curricula. But absent a credible threat to cut off every U.S. dollar to Abbas’ corrupt PA, a terrorist cartel disguised as a government, Trump’s words will be dismissed as empty bluster. Yes, Trump is “giving serious consideration” to moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, as Vice President Mike Pence said, a seeming retreat from Trump’s definitive January statement, “We will move the American embassy.” Yes, all 100 Senators last week signed a letter calling on the UN to end its anti-Israel bias. A few days later, an unimpressed UNESCO passed, on Israel’s Independence Day, a resolution denying Israel’s historically factual link to Jewish religious and cultural sites in the region. No word on any punishment for this obvious insult to the Senate.

The diplomats and State Department group-thinkers always respond to such criticism by speaking of the “complexity” and “nuances” of the problem, the “cycle of violence,” the “unhelpful settlements,” the legitimacy of “Palestinian nationalist aspirations,” and other empty mantras designed to avoid making hard decisions based on reality. That reality is simple: a majority of Arabs do not, nor ever have, recognized the legitimacy of Israel as a state, have no interest in the “two-state solution,” and see terrorist violence as a legitimate and useful tactic for executing the “stages” strategy for the destruction of Israel “from the river to the sea.”

Indeed, the roots of the conflict do not lie with Israel. As a nation built on the territory of its ancient homeland, Israel is more legitimate than the other states in the region created by the mandatory powers after World War I, pursuant to several international treaties and the League of Nations. As for the “Palestinian” people and its thwarted national self-determination, no such nation has ever existed. Sha’i ben-Tekoa’s search through the UN archives didn’t find the Palestinian people mentioned until 1970, three years after Israel reclaimed Judea and Samaria in the Six Day War. “Palestinian national self-determination” has for half a century been a pretext for waging an eliminationist war against Israel and the Jews, one that after three ignominious defeats will not be waged by full-scale war. Listen to Zouhair Muhsin, a member of the Executive Council of the PLO during the 1970s: “There are no differences between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. We are all part of one nation. It is only for political reasons that we carefully underline our Palestinian identity… Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity serves only tactical purposes. The founding of a Palestinian state is a new tool in the continuing battle against Israel.”

And as UNESCO and the Orwellian-titled Human Rights Council serially demonstrate, the corrupt UN has been the instrument and enabler of this historical falsehood, and the instigator of global Jew-hatred. As Jean Kirkpatrick, Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to the UN, once said, “The long march through the UN has produced many benefits for the PLO. It has created a people where there was none; a claim where there was none. Now the PLO is seeking to create a state where there already is one.” Returning our policies in the region to reality require that we exclude the UN.

All this is obvious, both the facts and the decades of impotent diplomacy. So why is Donald Trump repeating some of the same mistakes? Did treating the terrorist thug Yasser Arafat as a statesman, even giving him a Nobel Peace Prize, lead to a “Palestinian” state? He was Bill Clinton’s favorite White House guest, and all Clinton got was a humiliating rejection of an offer that the Palestinian Arabs keep saying is all they want. Israel got a terror campaign killing 1,100 of its citizens, with thousands more wounded. Barak Obama marginalized Israel and made it the scapegoat for Palestinian recalcitrance, and got nothing but Abbas bragging about how he said “no” to Obama twelve times. Even the deal-maker Trump can’t close a deal when there is no “meeting of the minds” on which to base one. The only thing on the Palestinian Arabs’ minds is destroying Israel.

So far Donald Trump has been an enormous improvement compared to his deluded predecessors. But most of it has been talk. Strong action is now needed more than merely repeating the diplomatic theater of White House photo-ops, “summits,” or “agreements”: Madrid (1991), Oslo (1993), the Wye River Memorandum (1998), Camp David (2000), Taba (2001), the Arab Peace Initiative (2002), the Roadmap (2003), the Geneva Accord (2003), Annapolis (2007), and Washington (2010) ––none have changed anything.

Palestinian children are still tutored in virulent Jew-hatred, pre-school tots are still dressed in suicide-bomber gear, Israelis continue to be murdered, Hamas continues to rain down mortars and missiles on them, and Hezb’Allah continues to amass a stockpile of missiles on Israel’s northern border. The only success has been the first Camp David agreement that created the cold peace between Egypt and Israel, at the cost of $2 billion a year in U.S. foreign aid to Cairo.

So forget this stale drama, President Trump. Cut off every dime of the $8 billion we taxpayers send to the UN, $355 million of which goes to the UN Relief Works Agency, the only UN agency focused on one group, the “Palestinians,” and an abettor of incitement and terrorism. Cut off every dime of the $357 million we give to the PA, funds that contribute $55 million for “supplies and training” to PA security forces, a spokesman for whom in 2013 called the 1978 Mother’s Day terrorist attack that killed 37 Israelis, including 12 children, “honorable.” Put an end to taxpayer dollars going to finance corrupt thugs and terrorist killers, and to pay subsidies to their families. Passing the Taylor Force Act, which would eliminate funding to the PA unless it stops paying stipend to families of terrorists, would be a good start, but only a start.

And most important, stop treating the Palestinian Arabs and their self-inflicted misery as the most important global crisis.

Stop using words like “occupied territories” for lands that were last under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, and the disposition of which still awaits a final settlement. If we are going to decry occupation, let’s talk about the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, now in its fifth decade after an invasion accompanied by ethnic cleansing, population transfers from Turkey, and the destruction or vandalizing of 300 churches.

Stop promoting the lie that Arabs who ended up in the historic homeland of Israel because of invasion, colonization & immigration are somehow the indigenous people deserving their own nation.

If we truly believe in national determination, then let’s focus on the Kurds, a people with indisputable ties to their homeland dating back at least 2500 years, a people with a distinct language, history, and culture that make them truly worthy of their own country. Don’t let selective or fabricated history and politicized double-standards set the terms for understanding the conflict.

In short, stop wasting money on people who want to destroy the only vibrant, tolerant, open, democratic country in the region.

Stop abusing history and language. Stop treating aggressors as victims. Stop enabling terrorism. And stop treating corrupt, unelected terrorist thugs like legitimate heads of state. We’ve tried seven decades of lies and empty talk; let’s see how truth and vigorous action work.

How could Marine Le Penhave lost in a landslide?

Why, after the Brits chose Brexit, and Americans chose Trump, did the Dutch fail Wilders, and the French fail Le Pen?

How could a country that has been hit by several major terrorist attacks in recent years, and that has undergone a more profound social transformation owing to Islamic immigration, vote for business as usual?

Wilders, buoyed by the Brexit and Trump victories, said that 2017 would be a “Year of the Populist.” So far, alas, it’s not turning out that way.

Yes, there are positive signs. The Sweden Democrats are on the upswing. And Wildersdidgain seats in the Dutch Parliament.

But if you’ve witnessed the reality of Islamization in cities like Rotterdam and Paris and Stockholm, you may well wonder: what, in heaven’s name, will it take for these people to save their own societies, their own freedoms, for their own children and grandchildren?

I’m not the only one who’s been obsessing for years over this question. I’ve yet to see a totally convincing answer to it.

One way of trying to answer it is to look at countries one by one. For example, the Brits and French feel guilty about their imperial histories, and hence find it difficult to rein in the descendants of subject peoples. The Germans feel guilty about their Nazi past – and the Swedes feel guilty about cozying up to Nazis – and thus feel compelled to lay out the welcome mat for, well, just about anybody. The Dutch, similarly, are intensely aware that during the Nazi occupation they helped ship off a larger percentage of their Jews to the death camps than any other Western European country, and feel a deep need to atone.

Postmodernism, of course, is a factor. According to postmodern thinking, no culture is better than any other – and it’s racist to say otherwise. No, scratch that – other cultures are, in fact,betterthan Western culture. Whites, by definition, are oppressors, imperialists, and colonialists, while “people of color” are victims.

And Muslims are the biggest victims of all.

Not that that makes any sense. Over the centuries since the religion was founded, Muslim armies have gained control over much of north Africa, the Middle East, and large parts of Europe. Islam itself, by definition, is imperialistic. And whenever Islam has conquered non-Islamic territories, it has proven itself to be profoundly oppressive, offering infidels exactly three options: death, subordination, or conversion. But to say these things has becomeverboten.

Living in a Muslim neighborhood of Amsterdam in early 1999, I read up on Islam and realized very quickly what Europe was up against. Two and a half years later, when the terrorist attacks of 9/11 occurred, I assumed pretty much everyone else would get it, too.

But it didn’t work that way. Yes, some people did get it almost instantaneously, in both America and Europe. They caught up on a lot of reading, did a great deal of soul-searching, and underwent a major philosophical metamorphosis.

But even after other horrific attacks occurred – in Madrid, London, and elsewhere – a lot of people refused to accept the plain truth. The plainer the truth got, in fact, the more fiercely they resisted it. And as skilled propagandists began to represent Muslims as the mother of all victim groups, many Westerners were quick to buy into it all.

How, again, to make sense of this?

Yes, the mainstream media have played a role, routinely whitewashing Islam, soft-pedaling the Islamic roots of jihadist terror, and staying silent about the dire reality of everyday Islamization. But no one who actually lives in western Europe has any excuse for ignorance about these matters. The truth is all around them. Even in the remotest places, however dishonest the mainstream media, the truth can be found on the Internet.

But – and this is a fact that some of us are thoroughly incapable of identifying with, and thus almost thoroughly incapable of grasping – some peopledon’t want to know the truth. And if they do know the truth, they want to un-know it.

Orwell understood. He called it doublethink. You can know something and yet can will yourself not to know it. And thereby give free rein to totalitarianism.

For those of us to whom the truth matters, and who wouldn’t be able to live with ourselves if we didn’t face the truth, however difficult, and try to act responsibly on it, it can be hard to conceive that not everything thinks about these things in the same way that we do.

And I’m not talking about people who are just plain obviously rotten through and through. I’m taking about people who, in everyday life, come across as thoroughly good and decent – but who, when push comes to shove, just don’t want to rock the boat. That’s a lot of people. Maybe most. People who are nice so long as it’s easy to be nice. The sort of people who – if they’d been, say, Christians living in the pre-war Netherlands – would’ve been the best of friends to their Jewish neighbors next door; but who, when those neighbors came to them and begged to be hidden from the Gestapo, would’ve refused.

No, come to think of it, you don’t even have to take it to the point where the Gestapo is on your tail. There are kind people who, the minute there’s any hint of trouble – which means, way before the death-camp round-up begins – prefer to lie low. Their highest value isn’t truth or virtue or beauty or even long-term security for them and their families but the ability to buy another day without major trouble.

You’d think they’d be able to look forward at least some distance into the future and dwell on that grim prospect. Able to see their children, their grandchildren, and so forth, living under sharia law. If, indeed, lucky to be living at all.

But I think it needs to be recognized that for some people, seeing that far into the future is just beyond their intellectual grasp. Or beyond what they dare to envision.

Yes, they see Islam taking over. Bit by bit, here and there. Everything in their lives, everything familiar to them, is being transformed, in some cases at a terrifying pace. Perhaps their own lives haven’t been turned upside down – yet. But they know people whohavesuffered greatly because of these changes.

Yet they’re terrified to speak up about it, let alone do anything about it. Viewed through American eyes, it may seem a European thing (although it’s not as uncommon in America, alas, as it used to be).

Part of what I’m saying is that these people don’t have much of a sense of ownership in their own countries, their own communities. They’re used to being ruled over. They’re used to the idea that there are people above them in the hierarchy whose job it is to think about, and take care of, the big things while they – the citizens, the mice – take care of their own little lives.

Over and over again, they’ve been given the message, explicitly or implicitly, that their countriesdon’tbelong to them – the whole thing about democracy to the contrary – and that to assert any sense of ownership in any way would be a manifestation of the worst kind of bigotry.

You might think that, once in the voting booth, these people would be able – and not just able but eager, desperate even – to stand up against the powers above them that have turned their countries upside down and assert their power as citizens. But everything around them has conspired all their lives to render them incapable offeelingthat power – or, perhaps, has rendered them incapable of feeling that they have the moral right to exercise that power in the way that their gut is begging them to.

That still, quiet voice in their heads, which I would describe as a voice of plain reason and common sense, is up against the resounding voices of all the higher-ups shouting in unison – the leading voices of politics, business, the academia, the media, and so on – that they’ve been bred from infancy to respect and take seriously. To, indeed, obey.

In America we’re taught (or, at least, used to be taught) that our leaders work for us; we learn (or used to) that it’s not only our right but our duty as individuals to stand up to those leaders when we think they’re wrong – especially when we think they’re exceeding their powers and infringing on our rights. But Europeans aren’t brought up that way. Not really. Yes, there’s lip service to the idea of freedom. But when it comes right down to it, they’re raised to bow down to the state – to prioritize not themselves, not the individual, but the society, the commonweal, that abstract ideal known as “solidarity.”

So it is that even in a secret ballot, it takes European voters a remarkable amount of nerve to resist the thunderous chorus of voices from above urging them to vote against their own interests; it feels like nothing less than an act of treason to heed the meek little voices in their own heads begging them to do the opposite – to do what’s actually best for themselves and their loved ones. They’ve been psychologically manipulated to the point where they truly believe, on some level, at least in some Orwellian doublethink kind of way, that acting in clear defense of their own existence, their own culture, their own values, and their own posterity, is an act of ugly prejudice.

These, for what it’s worth, are the places my mind has wandered since the vote from France came in. At this point I’ve lived in Europe for just short of twenty years, and have spent every day of that time observing Europeans and trying to understand what makes them tick when it comes to such matters. It helps to be an outsider, even after you’ve been an outsider so long that you’re not really an outsider any more. Frankly, Le Pen’s devastating loss doesn’t really surprise me. But I still can’t say that I get it.