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Hamas and the PA: Exchanging One Genocidal Antisemitic Leadership for Another
The mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, meets with Adolf Hitler in 1941. Photo: German Federal Archives via Wikimedia Commons.
Who will govern Gaza after the present war? It is not clear that Israel has formulated its vision for a post-Hamas Gaza, but Israel has determined that that future will not include another genocidally antisemitic regime.
In unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza in 2005, Israel had not fully anticipated the Hamas takeover in 2007. Similarly, Hamas’ charter — where the Islamist group states that its goal is to kill all Jews worldwide, and declares this objective to be a religious obligation — did not lead Israel to anticipate the onslaught of October 7. Nor did it prevent the recurrent Hamas rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians, which triggered four wars in 15 years.
On the contrary, loathe to reoccupy Gaza in response to earlier attacks, Israeli governments had convinced themselves that Hamas could be managed with sharp but limited military responses in wartime, and various incentives between wars.
A similar willful blindness, likewise driven by reluctance to resume its pre-1993 rule even temporarily over the Palestinian population of Judea and Samaria, has shaped Israeli policy towards the Palestinian Authority (PA).
On the very night of the White House ceremony initiating the Oslo peace process and creating the PA, Yasser Arafat, in a Jordanian broadcast, assured his constituency that his goal remained Israel’s annihilation.
When Arafat subsequently took control of much of Judea and Samaria and Gaza, he and the PA used their media, mosques, and schools to promote the objective of Israel’s destruction and the establishment of an Arab state cleansed of Jews.
Despite all this evidence, Israel closed its eyes to the incitement, and to Arafat’s role in the increased terror attacks that followed his entry into the territories. It was only after Arafat launched his terror war in 2000, a war that — together with the losses to terror earlier in the Oslo years — claimed a number of lives comparable to those lost on October 7, that Israel finally rethought its embrace of Arafat as a “peace partner.”
Arafat’s associate and successor, Mahmoud Abbas, has continued the PA’s incitement to genocide.
Abbas and the PA have also promoted Israel’s demise via their “pay to slay” policy that offers financial incentives to those who murder Israelis and to their families. Elements of the PA have also praised Hamas’s October 7 massacre, and some have bragged about PA involvement in that day’s events.
Handing control of a post-Hamas Gaza to the PA would simply be exchanging one genocidal antisemitic leadership in Gaza for another. Yet such a regime is exactly what President Biden seemed to be advocating in a recent Washington Post op-ed. And Secretary of State Blinken has repeatedly declared that he envisions Gaza being handed over to the PA. Even some Israeli leaders are advocating this; most notably Yair Lapid, head of the Yesh Atid party and Israel’s prime minister for six months in 2022.
Unfortunately, there has never been a Palestinian leadership whose political program was not built around genocidal antisemitism. This has been true since the beginning of a Palestinian Arab political movement in the early part of the last century.
The early leader of the movement, Haj Amin al-Husseini, instigated murderous attacks on the Jewish community in Mandatory Palestine in 1929 and again in 1936-39. He spent a considerable amount of World War II in Berlin as Hitler’s guest, and broadcast from Berlin to the Arab world urging support for the Nazis and the murder of all Jews in Arab lands. He also worked with the Nazis on plans for the extermination of Mandate Jews after the anticipated German conquest of the region.
Later, al-Husseini was the leading Palestinian Arab figure in the wake of passage of the United Nations partition plan that called for division of the Mandate into Jewish and Arab states, a plan immediately rejected by the Arab side. In the ensuing war, al-Husseini’s objective and that of his followers and allies was still the annihilation of the Jewish community.
Arafat and Abbas’s Fatah organization, long the dominant force in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), was founded by members of al-Husseini’s Arab Higher Committee and has embraced the same goal of annihilating the Jews.
Ahmed Shukeiry was head of the PLO in the lead-up to the 1967 war. As Arab forces, at the initiation of Egypt, were preparing for what they believed would be Israel’s destruction, Shukeiry declared of the aftermath of the coming hostilities, “Those [Jews] who survive will remain in Palestine. I estimate that none of them will survive.”
On June 24, 2002, then President George W. Bush, having come to more fully understand Arafat’s role in the ongoing terror war he had launched two years earlier — including the PA’s collusion with Hamas and Iran — declared that a change in Palestinian governance to a democratic leadership untainted by terror was a necessary precondition to peace. But is such a change even possible? Would there be support among Palestinians for a leadership that genuinely sought peace with Israel?
Such support was likely more feasible before Oslo. From 1967 to 1993, there had evolved a burgeoning Palestinian middle class in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza. Many of its members, having been exposed to Israel’s democracy over those years, talked of wanting the same type of governance for themselves. But the vast majority of Palestinians today have not known anything but PA rule in Judea and Samaria, and PA — and then Hamas rule — in Gaza. For their entire lives they have been exposed to schooling and sermons and media broadcasts that have indoctrinated them about the necessity of devoting their lives to Israel’s annihilation. Opinion polls in the Palestinian territories have shown overwhelming support for that agenda.
Even Palestinians who, unhappy with life under the PA or Hamas, have emigrated from the territories, continue in large part to support the Palestinian leadership’s genocidal goal. One can see it in the pro-Hamas demonstrations that have filled American and European cities since October 7, and in Palestinian participation in the displays of antisemitism that have scarred American and European academia. One can see it even in the halls of Congress.
To ignore this reality, to suggest that eliminating Hamas’ control of Gaza and then handing the territory to the PA would be a step towards peace, is delusional and lethally dishonest. To not insist on a successor regime that represents a radical break with the Palestinian past and genuinely eschews genocidal antisemitism is simply to court unending repetitions of the crimes of October 7.
Kenneth Levin is a psychiatrist and historian and author of The Oslo Syndrome: Delusions of a People Under Siege.
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US Senators Urge Secretary of Homeland Security to Secure Northern Border From Gaza Refugees
US Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) speaking at a press conference about the United States restricting weapons for Israel, at the US Capitol, Washington, DC. Photo: Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Six US senators sent a letter to US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas this week requesting that he increase security measures along the northern border in response to Canada accepting an influx of refugees from Gaza, the Palestinian enclave ruled by the terrorist group Hamas.
The six Republican lawmakers — Sens. Marco Rubio (FL), Ted Cruz (TX), Joni Ernst (IA), Tom Cotton (AK), Mike Braun (IN), and Josh Hawley (MO) — said they were “deeply concerned” that refugees from Gaza could sneak into the United States. The senators warned that allowing unvetted Palestinian refugees to cross the border poses a serious national security threat.
“On May 27, 2024, the Government of Canada announced its intent to increase the number of Gazans who will be allowed into their country under temporary special measures,” the senators wrote. “We are deeply concerned and request heightened scrutiny by the US Department of Homeland Security should any of them attempt to enter the United States at ports of entry as well as between ports of entry.”
After arriving in Canada, the Palestinian refugees will be given a “Refugee Travel Document,” which serves as a valid form of identification, the letter claimed, adding that US Citizenship and Immigration Services recognizes these documents as a valid substitute for a passport. The senators warned that “individuals with ties to terrorist groups” could potentially enter into the United States.
The letter argued that the US should maintain “common-sense terrorist screening and vetting” for any individual attempting to enter its borders from a foreign country. The lawmakers lamented that the Biden administration’s “”ax border enforcement” has rendered the country vulnerable to potential terrorist attacks. From April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024, the US Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Field Operations intercepted over 233 suspected terrorists at the northern border, according to the letter.
“[T]he possibility of terrorists crossing the US-Canada border is deeply concerning given the deep penetration of Gazan society by Hamas,” the senators wrote. “It would be irresponsible for the US to not take necessary heightened precautions when foreigners attempt to enter the United States.”
On Oct. 7, Hamas launched the ongoing war in Gaza with its Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre of 1,200 people across southern Israel. The Palestinian terrorist group also kidnapped over 250 hostages.
In response, Israel launched defensive military operations in Gaza with the aim of freeing the hostages and permanently dislodging Hamas from the neighboring enclave.
The vast majority of Palestinians in Gaza, as well as the West Bank, still support Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel that started the ongoing war, and they would prefer a “day after” scenario in which Hamas remains in control of Gaza rather than the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the West Bank, or other Arab countries, according to recent Palestinian polling. The same polling found that, when asked about support for Palestinian political parties and movements, a plurality chose Hamas.
US lawmakers are split along party lines as to whether the United States should accept refugees from Gaza. Republicans are largely opposed to importing refugees from Gaza, arguing that individuals from the war-torn enclave present “a national security risk” to the United States.” In May, Ernst and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) sent US President Joe Biden a letter, urging him not to accept any refugees from Gaza.
In June, however, a group of 70 Democratic lawmakers sent Mayorkas a letter, requesting he create “pathways” for more refugees of the Israel-Hamas war to resettle in America.
The post US Senators Urge Secretary of Homeland Security to Secure Northern Border From Gaza Refugees first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Video of Masked Man Vowing ‘Rivers of Blood’ at Paris Olympics Over Israel Support Appears to Be Fake, of Russia Origin
Screenshot of a widely circulated video published on social media showing a masked man vowing that “rivers of blood will flow” at the 2024 Paris Olympics due to France’s support for Israel. According to reports, the video appears to be fake and of Russian origin.
A widely circulated video published on social media this week showing a masked man vowing that “rivers of blood will flow” at the 2024 Paris Olympics due to France’s support for Israel appears to be fake and of Russian origin, according to reports.
The video — published on Tuesday on social media networks including X/Twitter and Telegram — featured a keffiyeh-clad man with his face covered, delivering an Arabic-language address threatening France with violence due to the country’s alleged support for Israel amid its ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza.
Addressing “the people of France” and “French President [Emmanuel] Macron,” the masked individual said, “You supported the Zionist regime in its criminal war against the people of Palestine. You provided Zionists with weapons; you helped murder our brothers and sisters, our children.”
“You invited the Zionists to the Olympic games. You will pay for what you have done!” continued the man, who wore a shirt adorned with a Palestinian flag. “Rivers of blood will flow through the streets of Paris. This day is approaching, God willing. Allah is the greatest.”
The video, published on X/Twitter by the account @endzionism24 and retweeted by Palestinian activist Ihab Hassan, ended with the speaker holding a prop severed head complete with fake blood up for the camera.
He is not a Palestinian:
A video clip has surfaced showing an individual wearing a keffiyeh and a Palestinian flag badge, threatening France with a “river of blood” at the Olympic Games.
It is glaringly obvious to any Arabic speaker that this person is not Arab; his dialect… pic.twitter.com/rwWGkkbiAi
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) July 23, 2024
Hassan and other social media users immediately noted that the man speaking was clearly not a native Arabic speaker, citing his reasonably fluent but awkward and occasionally incorrect pronunciation.
Many social media users aware of the mispronunciations seemed to blame Israel for the video, implying the clip was a false flag meant to fearmonger and demonize Palestinians and Muslims. They did not address the fact that Israel has access to hundreds of thousands of native Palestinian Arabic speakers who would sound far more convincing than the man in the video.
On Wednesday, French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said that “French secret services and their partners have not been able to authenticate the veracity of this video.”
According to researchers at Microsoft, however, the video appears to be part of a Russian-linked disinformation campaign meant to disrupt the Olympics, which began with the opening ceremony on Friday.
The researchers from Microsoft’s Threat Analysis Center told NBC News that the clip appears to have come from a Russian disinformation group known as Storm-1516, an outgrowth of Russia’s Internet Research Agency.
The latest clip was linked to a similar disinformation video falsely alleging that Ukraine had sent arms to Hamas — a claim for which there is no evidence. According to the researchers, the more recent video appears to be part of a Russian scare campaign meant to disrupt the Olympics.
The video came just days before France’s rail infrastructure was hit on Friday, ahead of the start of the Olympics, with widespread acts of vandalism including arson attacks, paralyzing travel to Paris from the rest of France and Europe just hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympics. French authorities described the acts as “criminal” and “malicious.”
Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said that the sabotage of France’s high-speed rail network was directed by Iran, which Western intelligence agencies have for years labeled as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism.
“The sabotage of railway infrastructure across France ahead of the Olympics was planned and executed under the influence of Iran’s axis of evil and radical Islam,” Katz wrote on X/Twitter. “As I warned my French counterpart [Stéphane Séjourné] this week, based on information held by Israel, Iranians are planning terrorist attacks against the Israeli delegation and all Olympic participants. Increased preventive measures must be taken to thwart their plot. The free world must stop Iran now — before it’s too late.”
Katz was referring to a letter he sent on Thursday to Séjourné raising alarm bells about what he described as a plan by Iran to attack Israel’s Olympic delegation.
Darmanin and French National Police both announced previously that they are taking increased security measures to ensure the safety of Israel’s Olympic delegation while they are in Paris amid mounting threats. These measures include providing them with round the clock security from French police. The Israeli delegation will also receive additional security details from Israel’s Shin Bet security agency during the Olympics.
The post Video of Masked Man Vowing ‘Rivers of Blood’ at Paris Olympics Over Israel Support Appears to Be Fake, of Russia Origin first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Top St. Louis Newspaper Endorses US Rep. Cori Bush’s Opponent, Argues Incumbent’s Israel Stance Is ‘Disqualifying’
US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) raises her fist as US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) addresses a pro-Hamas demonstration in Washington, DC. Photo: Reuters/Allison Bailey
The editorial board of The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the largest daily newspaper in Missouri, has endorsed the opponent of US Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), pointing to the incumbent congresswoman’s lack of legislative accomplishments and stance on the Israel-Hamas war.
The Post-Dispatch argued that Bush’s position on Israel and the Gaza war should be “disqualifying” for any elected representative. The outlet took umbrage with Bush for equating a close democratic ally of the US with a genocidal terrorist organization.
“Israel’s conduct of the war has been far from perfect, but it remains a democracy fighting for survival against an evil terrorist organization. Bush’s tendency to equate both sides — and even to side with the terrorists, as when she cast one of just two House votes against a resolution to bar Hamas members from the US — should in itself be disqualifying for re-election,” the editorial board wrote.
Bush has established herself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel in the US Congress. Only nine days after Hamas’ Oct. 7 slaughter of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel, Bush called for an “immediate ceasefire” between Israel and the Palestinian terrorist group. As the war dragged on, Bush’s rhetoric toward Israel sharpened, with the congresswoman accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” in Gaza and “apartheid” in the West Bank. Bush has also accused Israel of inflicting a “famine” in Gaza without providing evidence.
Bush seems more interested in pandering to the far-left fringes of the progressive movement than serving her constituents, the Post-Dispatch argued. Bush’s membership in “The Squad” — a clique of far-left progressive, anti-establishment lawmakers in the House of Representatives — has rendered her completely incapable of “accomplishing anything” in the halls of Congress, according to the newspaper.
The editorial board urged its readers to vote for Wesley Bell, pointing to his moderated approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as an example of his pragmatism and moral clarity.
“On Israel, Bell offers an appropriately measured stance, acknowledging the need to protect Gazan civilians and work toward a two-state solution, while supporting America’s closest ally in the Middle East,” the outlet wrote.
In contrast to Bush, Bell has expressed more sympathy to Israel’s military operations in Gaza, emphatically rejecting the notion that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute “genocide” or “ethnic cleansing.”
Moreover, Bell has strengthened his ties with the Jewish community over the course of his campaign. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the foremost pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, donated a reported $5 million to Bell’s campaign through its United Democracy Project super PAC. A group of 30 St. Louis-area rabbis penned a letter endorsing Bell, accusing Bush of a “lack of decency, disregard for history, and for intentionally fueling antisemitism and hatred.” Bell also brought about an official “director of Jewish outreach” to increase turnout among the Jewish community.
A poll commissioned by McLaughlin & Associates and sponsored by the CCA Action Fund, a pro-Bell super PAC, showed Bell with a commanding 56 percent to 33 percent lead over Bush.
Supporters of Israel see the primary race as a prime opportunity to oust another opponent of the Jewish state from the halls of Congress. Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), a progressive lawmaker, lost his primary race to a pro-Israel challenger on June 25. Over the course of his reelection campaign, Bowman accused Israel of committing “genocide” and enacting “apartheid” against Palestinians. Bowman’s comments incensed Jewish constituents in the leafy suburbs of Westchester County, New York.
Furthermore, observers are looking to the race as a potential indicator of the Democratic electorate’s position on Israel. Opinions of the Jewish state among Democrats have soured in the months following Oct. 7, calling into question whether anti-Israel views are still a liability with American liberals.
The post Top St. Louis Newspaper Endorses US Rep. Cori Bush’s Opponent, Argues Incumbent’s Israel Stance Is ‘Disqualifying’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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