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Mr. Abbas Goes to Moscow and Ankara
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas during their meeting in Sochi, Russia November 23, 2021. Sputnik/Evgeny Biyatov/Kremlin via REUTERS
JNS.org – Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the Palestinian Authority, has clung to power for so long that an entire generation of Palestinians and Israelis have grown up not knowing any other leader in that role. First elected in 2005, he was to serve a four-year term ending in 2009. Abbas, however, wasn’t prepared to leave, and so he extended his term by another year. Fifteen years later, he’s still there—and still encouraging the perception that when he does finally vacate the office, he’ll be going out feet first.
As his indefinite term as president has dragged on, the 88-year-old has become increasingly irrelevant in terms of the situation on the ground, both diplomatically and militarily. Israel has taken a “better the devil you know” approach to him, reasoning that a gerontocratic PLO leader with dictatorial tendencies is a more sensible option than retaking those parts of the West Bank under P.A. control or allowing the emergence of a more radical leader. The outside world, particularly the European Union, has thought in similar terms, continuing to bankroll the notoriously corrupt P.A.—in the E.U.’s case, with nearly $1.5 billion over the last three years—and treating it as a state-in-the-making.
Yet from his perch in Ramallah, Abbas has failed to deliver security guarantees for Israelis. He’s failed to deliver any kind of prosperity to Palestinians in the West Bank, where more than 30% of the workforce is unemployed. He’s failed to achieve any kind of unity with Hamas, his bitter Islamist rival, or rein in the desire of Hamas and allied groups to inflict monstrous atrocities upon Israelis, as illustrated by the Oct. 7 pogrom in southern Israel. Most significantly of all, Abbas is hated by the vast majority of Palestinians. According to the latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which is based in Ramallah, 85% of respondents are dissatisfied with his performance, and 90% want him gone.
Paying heed to public opinion is not something that Abbas has ever done, and he’s hardly going to start now. Desperate to prove that Hamas isn’t calling all the shots, he continues to travel the world, presenting himself as the legitimate, elected leader of Palestine, rather than a petty tyrant who has remained in the post despite the objections to him doing so voiced from all sides. On some of those foreign visits, Abbas has demonstrated better than any of his critics why he should retire from politics. On a trip to Germany two years ago, he launched into an extraordinary tirade when asked by a journalist whether he had an apology for the families of the Israeli Olympic athletes murdered by Palestinian terrorists in Munich 50 years previously, accusing the Israelis of having carried out “50 holocausts.” Such comparisons are particularly unpalatable in Germany, and this one left Abbas’s host, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, crimson-faced at their joint press conference.
During the last week, Abbas has been on the road again but this time visiting countries where crudely antisemitic Holocaust analogies don’t attract opprobrium. His first stop was in Moscow, a city he knows well because that was where he wrote his doctoral thesis holding the Zionist movement—and not the Nazis—responsible for the Holocaust of 6 million Jews. As he met with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, just as Ukraine’s military launched a courageous and much-welcome counter-offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, Abbas declared that the Palestinians have taken the Russian side “without the slightest doubt.” Russia was “one of the dearest friends of the Palestinian people,” Abbas said, adding: “We believe in you, we trust you, we feel your support.” For his part, Putin reacted warmly, telling his Palestinian guest that “we are doing everything to support Palestine and the Palestinian people” and underlining, without any sense of irony, given Russia’s numerous war crimes against the Ukrainian population, that Moscow is concerned above all with “civilian losses.”
After glad-handing the Russian president, Abbas made his way to the Turkish capital of Ankara. That visit was a little more complicated, insofar as his arrival there came off the back of a spat with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. A previous invitation to address the Turkish parliament was turned down by Abbas, who cited Ankara’s alignment with Hamas as the reason, leading Erdoğan to claim angrily that the P.A. leader “owes us an apology.” Having smoothed over their differences, Abbas delivered a speech to the Turkish parliament on Aug. 15 to a chamber in which all those present draped themselves in white scarves specially designed for the occasion, bearing the Palestinian and Turkish flags.
At a private meeting before the speech, the two leaders issued full-throated condemnations of “the massacres committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories,” a theme much in evidence in Abbas’s remarks to the Turkish parliamentarians. The centerpiece of the speech was his pledge to visit Gaza personally, encouraging Muslim leaders to travel there alongside him. “I have decided to go to Gaza with all my brothers in Palestine,” Abbas said to applause. “I will go even if the price is my life. My life, our lives, are not more valuable than the life of any child who died in Gaza.”
All very noble, though Abbas didn’t name a date for his journey. Moreover, he would have been acutely aware that several Parliament members were brandishing portraits of his rival, Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader assassinated in Tehran on July 31. In many ways, the speech was Abbas’s attempt to remind politicians in a country that has embraced Hamas and its genocidal agenda that the P.A. can be sufficiently radical, too.
It’s tempting to dismiss all this talk as just that; hot air that Abbas has no intention of following up on. But doing so ignores the fact that once the war is over, governance of Gaza is a key issue for negotiators. If Hamas isn’t going to be permitted to rule and Israel is opposed to reinstating direct rule, then who will run the territory? For many Israelis, the suggestion that the P.A. should do so (on the grounds that as bad as it is, it isn’t Hamas) isn’t very persuasive. Neither are the alternatives to Abbas—like the Fatah terrorist Marwan Barghouti, who is currently serving a life sentence in an Israeli jail—overly appealing. In his jaunts to Moscow and Ankara then, Abbas has merely reinforced the very message he hoped to undermine; namely, that there are no credible, trustworthy leaders on the Palestinian side. That is a headache for everybody concerned, but above all, for the Israelis.
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Argentina Busts Terror Cell Plotting Attacks on Jewish Community
Illustrative. The aftermath of the bombing of the AMIA building in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1994. Photo: File.
JNS.org – Argentine police have dismantled an “Islamist terrorist organization” planning attacks on the Jewish community in the city of Mendoza, the country’s National Security Ministry announced on Friday.
Seven members of the cell were arrested during raids against their homes that resulted in the seizure of firearms, knives and electronic devices, according to the ministry.
The cell had been disseminating attack plans along with content from terror groups such as Islamic State and the Taliban, added the ministry.
Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said the cell was uncovered after one of the members threatened a Jewish journalist from the local community.
“We are going to get rid of each and every one of these criminals who intend to sow fear in Argentines and they will pay,” Bullrich posted to social media.
7 TERRORISTAS ¡AFUERA!
Planeaban atentados en Mendoza. En 8 allanamientos la PFA desmanteló una peligrosa organización vinculada a un grupo terrorista radical islámico, identificado tras amenazar a un periodista de la comunidad judía. Esta organización usaba las redes para… pic.twitter.com/f0NMhBxwGA
— Patricia Bullrich (@PatoBullrich) August 16, 2024
In January, Argentine police arrested two Syrian and one Lebanese man for plotting to carry out a terrorist attack. The three men, who had arrived separately in the country, were apprehended in Buenos Aires and in the adjacent suburb of Avellaneda.
A 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires blamed on Hezbollah killed 85 people and wounded more than 300 others. Last year, an Argentine federal judge called on Interpol to arrest four Lebanese men believed to be connected to the bombing.
An earlier attack on the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires in 1992 also attributed to Iranian-backed Hezbollah killed 29 people and wounded 242 others.
In July, Argentina designated Hamas an “international terrorist organization” following the Palestinian group’s Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis.
“The Hamas group has been declared by the Argentine state as an international terrorist organization,” President Javier Milei said, citing “an extensive record of terrorist attacks on their behalf.”
Buenos Aires “has an unwavering commitment to recognize terrorists for what they are,” read the statement by Argentina’s President Javier Milei’s office, adding that “it’s the first time that there is a political will to do so. “Argentina must once again align itself with Western civilization,” the statement continued.
In February, Milei made a wartime visit to Israel, signaling a major shift in Argentina’s foreign policy toward the United States and Israel after decades of backing Arab countries.
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Jewish NGOs to Host Sideline Events at Democratic National Convention
US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and her running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz hold a campaign event in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, US, Aug. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt
JNS.org – While presidential nominee Kamala Harris and running mate Tim Walz take hits from both right and left for their stances on Israel, the Democratic National Convention will feature a number of events tied to the American Jewish community.
The convention, which runs Monday through Thursday in Chicago, is expected to highlight divisions within the party on the issues of Israel and antisemitism.
Some analysts suggest as many as 100,000 protesters—many of whom support Hamas and have links to terrorist groups—will descend on the Windy City to disrupt the event in an effort to push Harris towards forcing a ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas, and to threaten to withhold their votes in November’s election if she doesn’t back an arms embargo on Jerusalem.
The so-called Uncommitted movement, which lodged protest votes in droves for no candidate in the Democratic presidential primaries in Palestinian, Arab and Muslim-heavy states such as Michigan and Walz’s domain of Minnesota, garnered 30 delegates, and various media reports state that Democratic insiders are fearful of a show of dissent to Harris’s Israel policies on the convention floor itself.
Harris reportedly told leaders of the Uncommitted movement recently that she was open to discussing with them an arms embargo, though her office and campaign rejected that interpretation.
Walz, meanwhile, is coming under increasing fire for exposed close ties to radical anti-Israel figures, including Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Imam Asad Zaman, also from Minnesota, who praised Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre.
The Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA), which is led by Halie Soifer, Harris’s former national security adviser, will hold a series of events on the DNC sidelines throughout the week. A number of members of Congress are scheduled to participate in panel discussions, including Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides will also participate, as will Wesley Bell, a St. Louis prosecutor who upended anti-Israel Squad member Rep. Cori Bush in this month’s Democratic congressional primary.
The American Jewish Committee, headed by former Rep. Ted Deutch, will also sponsor several events in Chicago. Those include a panel discussion featuring Nides, and another talk by a pair of Biden administration officials.
The Israeli-American Council, which has yet to be approved for a counter-protest permit by the city of Chicago, will host a Hostage Square display on Tuesday in an effort to draw attention to the condition of the remaining captives held in Gaza.
The public display, pieced together by a half-dozen Israeli artists, is being held on a private lot in the shadow of the United Center—the convention’s host arena—and therefore does not require a permit.
In contrast to last month’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which highlighted the party’s relationship with Israel and featured a number of speakers discussing the state of antisemitism, the Democrats have not announced any focus on Israel for Chicago.
Doug Emhoff, Harris’s Jewish husband, is set to keynote on Tuesday. Republican nominee Donald Trump recently denigrated Emhoff’s Jewishness, calling him a “crappy Jew,” while critiquing American Jews who vote Democratic.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has issued a “Praise Israel” challenge, saying it would donate 1,800 trees to the Jewish state in honor of anyone who would address the Democratic convention from the main stage and ask the crowd to cheer for Israel.
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Trump Warns US Jews in Most Danger Since Holocaust
Republican presidential nominee and former US President Donald Trump raises his fist from the stage on Day 4 of the Republican National Convention (RNC), at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 18, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
JNS.org – Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Saturday that Jews in the United States are facing their greatest threat since World War II.
“What’s happening with Israel and Jewish people, there has never been a more dangerous time since the Holocaust if you happen to be Jewish in America,” the former president told supporters at a rally in Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania.
He made similar remarks on Thursday at a “Fighting Antisemitism” event with Miriam Adelson at the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“What’s going on now is exactly what was going on before the Holocaust,” he said.
The New Jersey event, featuring prominent Jewish supporters, took place the day the Trump campaign launched an initiative to reach out to Jewish voters.
The former president announced Jewish Voices for Trump, which the GOP campaign describes as “a coalition of thought leaders, business trailblazers, former administration officials, authors, influencers and those within the Jewish community.”
According to the group’s mission statement, it seeks to stand up against “radical antisemitism.”
“While the world has fallen into chaos with [presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala] Harris, President Trump’s Abraham Accords chartered new territory in regional stability, not just for Israel, but for the world,” it states.
At the Wilkes-Barre rally, Trump also accused his opponent of not choosing the governor of the Keystone State, Josh Shapiro, as her running mate because he is Jewish, a charge that Shapiro has denied.
“They turned him down because he’s Jewish,” said Trump. “They turned him down for other reasons, but the primary reason is because he’s Jewish.”
Trump also said during his nearly two-hour campaign event at Mohegan Arena at Casey Plaza that “any Jewish person that votes for [Harris] or a Democrat has to go out and have their head examined.”
At the New Jersey event, Trump claimed that “instead of aggressively confronting these venomous antisemites in her party, Kamala Harris has maneuvered for their support.”
Pennsylvania is a critical swing state, with fierce competition to secure its 19 electoral college votes. The latest New York Times/Siena and Quinnipiac polls show a slight lead for Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was announced in Philadelphia earlier this month.
Trump tapped Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance for the vice presidential nominee at the Republican convention in Milwaukee last month. The Democratic convention takes place in Chicago from Monday to Thursday.
The battleground states also include Arizona, North Carolina, Nevada and Georgia.
Trump’s comments come amid a surge in antisemitism in the United States and globally after Hamas started a war against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. According to the 2023 Antisemitism Worldwide report, released on May 1 by Tel Aviv University and the Anti-Defamation League, last year saw the highest number of antisemitic incidents in the United States ever recorded by the ADL.
Antisemitism has run rampant on college campuses, including pro-Hamas rallies featuring calls for genocide against Jews.
In the United States, the ADL recorded 7,523 incidents in 2023 compared to 3,697 in 2022. The number of assaults increased from 111 in 2022 to 161 in 2023, and incidents of vandalism rose from 1,288 to 2,106, per the ADL.
In New York, the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, the New York Police Department recorded 325 anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2023 in comparison to 261 in 2022.
In Los Angeles, the city’s police department recorded 165 antisemitic incidents, up from 86, and in Chicago, there were 50 up from 39.
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