viewpoints >> Send letters to: letters@thejewishnews.com msay 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 ;--. .......-- -•--mt---.. .-t---.,.......,-. ■ --1 --- 7' — —Vi"'"Nr.-1.13-, . . '..- . -.--r -"." —. -.-- -...^Ir' ' ,7--1-•- " ---- ' - --,,A14 - - -." • -Tr•tr- --' •• •' -4-- ■, —, -.111.-0--.1 , .--- i- — - e---, --'-.).-+ -- -'-', 4--•1-•,-4-. -r---- •---'1. - - '- ' -'-,,..---.-",-4 -... ■ ■, ---i-e 0 .._ .. ,...._.. .. .• .1_, , __. • . . , _... __.},. -- tl . 11, „ \ \ • 11, 4 1 :1 A,\‘ ' .. -. II r/ /, f / r i ille .: 7, Antionigmaso " 411111W4JI M. PO ' , i ' ' .ii.i ii ',.• 11 L - . • 't J! *:).- -- 4 4111e1„, 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. *