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Palestinians Brazenly Link Paris Terror To Israel
W
hile condemning the ISIS-
up the staggering P.A., it inexplicably sees
inspired terrorist attacks in
Israel, the only democracy in the embat-
France, Palestinian leader
tled Middle East, atop the terrorist world.
Mahmoud Abbas audaciously attached
Another Fatah post stated the terror
part of the blame on Israel's "daily aggres-
in Paris, which killed at least 129 and
sions" toward the Palestinian people. The
injured more than 350, was no different
assertion: Israeli "terror" against ordinary
than Israel "destroying houses" and "kill-
Palestinians has fueled violent
ing our children" in Nablus, a large
attacks elsewhere.
West Bank city. "Terror is terror and
Abbas is president of
we condemn all terror; pronounced
the Palestinian Authority
the post.
(P.A.) and head of Fatah, the
Underscoring its Jew-hating logic,
Palestinian nationalist move-
Fatah's supposed indictment of ter-
ment. Through WAFA, the
rorism and its branding of Israel
official P.A. news agency,
as a terror-monger came amid two
Abbas stressed "the need for
months of Palestinian stabbing,
the international community
Robert Sk lar shooting and car-ramming terrorist
to take a stand and confront
Contributin
attacks against Israeli civilians and
such terrorist attacks:' accord- Editor
soldiers, killing at least 11.
ing to Israel-based Palestinian
Pointing up just how far P.A. lead-
Media Watch (PMW). No
ership will go to delegitimize Israel,
mention was made that Israel has been
PMW also shared the Palestinian canard
forced to defend its citizens and borders
that the Jewish state is culpable not only in
from unrelenting Palestinian terror.
the Nov. 13 assault on Paris, but also in a
In the same statement, Abbas cited this
double suicide bombing that killed at least
Nov. 14 Facebook post by Fatah defaming
41 in Beirut a day earlier. P.A. security
Israel: "We know that restoring peace and
services spokesman Adnan Damiri outra-
stability in the Middle East is the first step
geously suggested those attacks could be
to dry the sources of terrorism through-
traced to who stood to benefit by terror-
out the world. It is time to end the brutal
izing "two beautiful and advanced cities"
Israeli occupation, which breeds violence
that were "supportive" of the Palestinian
in the entire world:'
cause. The sharply implicit answer: Israel.
Even as Fatah works with Israel on
Joining the drumbeat tying Israel to the
security and economic incentives to prop
calamity in Paris, the official P.A. daily
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Amid France's colors, Israeli statesman Shimon Peres exhorted at a Nov. 14 solidar-
ity rally in Tel Aviv's Rabin Square: "Tonight we are all French. We stand shoulder to
shoulder in the war against the barbaric terror that threatens the peace of the whole
world. Your war is our war. Your values are our values. They are the values of the entire
enlightened world!'
newspaper, Al Hayat Al Jadida, compared
Israel to ISIS. A Nov. 15 cartoon, reported
by PMW, illustrated an Israeli decapitating
the Al Aqsa Mosque on Jerusalem's Temple
Mount alongside an ISIS terrorist behead-
ing a hostage — simultaneously with the
same sword. The message: Israel and ISIS
are one.
At a time when U.S. Secretary of State
John Kerry hopes to see peace talks
rekindled in the wake of Israel reimagin-
ing the possibility of a directly negotiated
two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, President Abbas and his Fatah
government are doing all they can to
drive an immovable wedge between
Jerusalem and Ramallah — the Jewish and
Palestinian capitals. *
editorial
'Balfour Promise' Under Historical Assault
I
n a revisionist view of history,
Palestinian leadership traces the root
of Israeli-Palestinian upheaval to the
Balfour Declaration, a 1917 British docu-
ment favoring a national home for the
Jewish people in historic Palestine.
The bizarre perspective underscores
how far the Palestinian Authority, which
governs the West Bank's Palestinian-
controlled areas, and its largest political
faction, Fatah, will go to discredit Israel's
right to exist.
On Nov. 2, the 98th anniversary of
the Balfour Declaration, the official P.A.
daily newspaper proclaimed:
"The ominous promise — in which
one who does not have ownership gave
the land of Palestine to one who does
not have the right — was given by the
British government of that time, and it
worsened the tragedy of the Palestinian
8 November 19.2015
JN
people from day to day:'
The newspaper, Al Hayat Al Jadida,
argued the emerging Zionist move-
ment used a letter from British Foreign
Secretary Arthur Balfour to Baron
Rothschild as a pretext for establishing
"the Zionist entity:' according to Israel-
based Palestinian Media Watch.
The "entity" — Israel — came, Al
Hayat Al Jadida maintained, "through
the placement and expansion of settle-
ments, which turned into large cities
after 1948 as a result of the takeover of
large territories of Palestinian lands and
expropriation of them from their legal
owners:'
The Zionists supposedly relied on
"using all inhuman means, such as mas-
sacre, uprooting and expulsion against
the Palestinian people'
That fantasy obscures Jewish accep-
tance and Arab rejection of the 1947
U.N. Partition Plan for Palestine. Most
of the Arabs who left or fled follow-
ing Israeli statehood in 1948 did so at
the urging of their leaders as five Arab
nations staged to invade the fledgling
Jewish state. Since ancient times, historic
Palestine has had a Jewish presence.
Ultimately, Al Hayat Al Jadida con-
cluded, the Balfour Declaration led to
Israeli "terror operations" that "dragged
the region into the disasters of war and
instability:'
Conveniently overlooked were the
many Israeli-Arab wars since 1948 and
the underlying Israeli-Palestinian con-
flict — a situational manifestation of
Arab reviling of Zionism. Israel's control
of the Palestinian territories and its
predilection with settlement expansion
have accentuated Palestinian resentment,
but it's the Palestinians who abandoned
direct bilateral peace talks.
Just last week while with U.S.
President Barack Obama, Israeli Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recom-
mitted to a "vision of peace of two
states for two peoples — a demilitarized
Palestinian state that recognizes the
Jewish state:'
Returning to the negotiating table with
an open frame of mind is the only way
back for the Palestinian people — on the
verge of economic ruin because of their
leaders' political intransigence toward
the Jewish people.
Fatah's Nov. 1 posting on its official
Facebook page, asserting "the Balfour
Promise" was "given by those with no
ownership to those with no right:' is no
way to inspire renewed talks toward a
peaceful coexistence. *