Miami Anti-Gay Imam Calls Fellow Radical Muslim Leaders “Trash”
Fadi Kablawi verbally assaults Congresswoman Ilhan Omar and ICNA President Mohsin Ansari.
Since Ilhan Omar was elected US Representative, she has participated at various functions for the South Asian terror-linked Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), including ICNA national conferences. This has become a matter of controversy, because, while many in the Muslim community appreciate Omar’s strong anti-India, anti-Israel and even anti-Jewish stances, other Muslims have voiced their offense at her overt embrace of LGBTQ. One of the offended, Miami-based Imam Fadi Kablawi has gone on the attack against both Omar and ICNA, for inviting her. It is a case of radical Muslims condemning their fellow Islamists for not being radical enough.
For 30-plus years, ICNA has harbored death squad leader Ashrafuzzaman Khan, who allegedly murdered 18 people while participating in the 1971 Bangladesh genocide. ICNA has promoted Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FiF), a banned front for Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the terrorist group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. ICNA partners with and has donated to the Al-Khidmat Foundation (AKF), a Pakistani charity that openly finances Hamas. In October 2000, along with links to various terrorist websites, ICNA told its followers to provide “material support” to “fellow Chechnyan Muslims,” while providing a link to an al-Qaeda financing/recruitment site.
Every year, ICNA holds annual conventions, along with the equally radical Muslim American Society (MAS). This year’s event is taking place, this month, in Baltimore, Maryland.
The convention website lists a number of female speaker participants for 2023. One is the Executive Director for the San Francisco chapter of CAIR, Zahra Billoo, who, in September 2019, was thrown off the Board of Directors of the group Women’s March for her antisemitism. Billoo has written that “one amazing reason to get married” is to “raise fighters” to attack Israel. She has referred to US troops as “scum.” She proudly announced on her blog that her younger brother, Ahmed, was quoted in an article voicing his support for suicide bombings. She wrote that she, herself, contemplated suicide, after viewing a pro-Israel ad on a San Francisco train.
A female who did not make it onto this year’s convention roster, though, was US Representative Ilhan Omar. This may come as a surprise to some, as since becoming Congresswoman, ICNA has welcomed her with open arms, much for her being Muslim and out of appreciation for her seemingly bigoted stances towards India and Israel. She has called India’s attempt to exert her sovereignty over Kashmir and root out terrorists operating in Kashmir, whose Hindu population has been decimated by Muslim militants, a “Hindu nationalism project.” And she has claimed US lawmakers have dual loyalty to Israel. She said, “It’s all about the Benjamins baby” (i.e. bribery).
Omar, however, has increasingly received criticism from Islamists for her strong embrace of the LGBTQ community. ICNA President Mohsin Ansari, this past January, discussed the subject on The Mad Mamluks podcast, whose co-host said Omar had at times “mocked the Sharia.” On the show, Ansari spoke self-congratulatory about how the 2022 ICNA-MAS Convention included “several sessions… against LGBT” and how, during his introduction to Omar’s speech, he took a not-so-subtle jab at her, stating that “all those immoral things, which people are trying to make it acceptable in our society, ICNA stands against them.”
Ansari’s words were in stark contrast to his adoring introduction of Ilhan Omar, just one year earlier, at the 2021 ICNA-MAS Southeast Virtual Conference. There, he stated, “This sister of Islam, this American Muslim woman made all us proud …[S]he stood up for her faith. She stood up for her beliefs. She stood up against the bullying of a very powerful man, [former President Trump]… [P]lease give a warm welcome, all prayers, all the praises for our sister… On behalf of ICNA, as the President of ICNA, I welcome you sister, and I hope we will continue to support you, and I hope you will continue to be as brazen as you have been, and may Allah bless you.”
The equivocation and duplicity of Ansari caught the attention of North Miami Islamic Center (NMIC) imam Fadi Kablawi, someone who has been tagged by the FBI as being a member of ISIS. This past March, Kablawi went on a verbal assault against Ansari and Omar, calling the two “trash,” “knuckleheads” and “liars.” He said, in part, “Someone sent me a video, yesterday… a short video of the President of ICNA and how he’s bragging about Ilhan Omar – how she’s a great representation of Islam… Your version of Islam… You’re both trash to me – seriously trash… Those people are worse enemies to people like us than the kuffar (disbelievers).”
Kablawi, who has scolded Omar before for her support of transgenders, often targets LGBTQ. During an August 2021 sermon, Kablawi pondered why Allah has not destroyed all gays. He said, “When Allah tortured Lot, they knew that what they were doing is wrong… So you want to tell me the gays of today are better? Yet, Allah is not destroying them. The only explanation I know… is because we Muslims are here. So based on that, all gays and all lesbians in America should be standing outside this masjid to give us appreciation. But we don’t want it. Stay away from me.” In this same speech, Kablawi blamed women for rapes committed against them.
In determining their levels of fanaticism, it must be understood that Muslim extremists adhere to an ideological template. Israel, India and Muslim nations, who establish a relationship with Israel, are common targets. Factions embattled and derided by such individuals, include Jews, Hindus, Christians, homosexuals and women. Fellow Muslims, who exhibit extremism themselves but who fail to follow completely the Islamist precepts regarding Sharia, are frequently attacked and shunned.
Such is the case with regard to Fadi Kablawi’s condemnation of the national President of ICNA, a group with links to overseas terror, and Ilhan Omar, an anti-Semitic lawmaker. Mohsin Ansari’s morality ‘disclaimer,’ after having pandered to Omar previously, failed to appease the imam.
For Kablawi, who has admitted the FBI believes him to have had involvement with ISIS, any ounce of support for LGBTQ or their patrons is tantamount to Islamic heresy. In his eyes, ICNA and Omar are not radical enough. In reality, though, each of these entities – Kablawi, Ansari, ICNA and Omar – all play a role in Muslim fanaticism and need to be exposed for the bigotry they epitomize and disseminate.
Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.
Joe Kaufman
Joe Kaufman is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, and the Chairman of the Joe Kaufman Security Initiative. He was a 2014, 2016, and 2018 Republican nominee for the U.S. House of Representatives (Florida-CD23).
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Old Joe’s Cringefest at Muslim White House Event
Losing what little grip he had.
Is Old Joe Biden losing what little grip he had?
The reputed president hosted a reception in the White House Monday to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim feast marking the end of Ramadan, the monthlong season of fasting by day and gorging by night, and he was in even worse form than usual. The senescent corruptocrat who holds the job that not too long ago entitled him to be called the leader of the free world was slurring his words and making wildly inappropriate cracks. At one point he even told an audience member, “Hush up, boy,” which would have made for at least a week’s worth of media outrage for his predecessor, if not impeachment proceedings. All in all, Biden’s Eid display was another I-told-you-so moment for the Democrats who wish Old Joe would just go away already.
Biden struggled with his teleprompter even more than usual, and was often defeated. In the midst of a lengthy bout of Islamopandering, he declared: “Muslims surveyed and served very, very bravely in the U.S. Armed Forces and law enforcement.” “Surveyed and served” was clearly a matter of the dementia-ridden octogenarian reading his cue cards wrong and then correcting himself. A bit later on he said: “And the cheer from Muslim —” No, that can’t be right, Joe, try again: “We cheer for Muslim athletes, like Kareem” – uh oh, you know this is going to be a tough one for The Big Guy – “Alj- — Alj- — Abdul-Jabbar.” Old Joe tried to cover for this by adding: “I know him, and I still mispronounced his name. But he calls me ‘Joe Bidden’ once in a while.” That almost certainly was yet another lie from Joe, but the audience, knowing that the jabbering old man who is supposed to be president was very much on their side, dutifully laughed, anyway.
Even amidst all his pandering, however, the alleged president managed to make some clumsy and tone-deaf remarks. He called out, “Congresswoman Omar. Where are you, Congresswoman Omar?” When the winsome and patriotic Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Mogadishu) responded, “Right here.” Biden said: “I’m not supposed to — I’ll get in trouble for saying this, but you look beautiful tonight.” Omar is a Sharia-adherent, hijab-wearing Muslim. The basis for the hijab in Islamic theology is that it is supposed to reduce a woman’s attractiveness and thereby remove the possibility that men will be tempted; for Biden, as a male who is unrelated to Omar and an infidel at that, to tell her that she looks beautiful was the height of inappropriateness. If he weren’t pretending to be president, he would indeed have gotten in trouble for saying such a thing.
Biden also boasted that Muslims in his regime were working away at his socialist, America-Last agenda: “Muslim Americans in my administration are working on everything from making sure our veterans get quality healthcare, to meeting the climate crisis, to representing Americans overseas as members of our diplomatic corps.” But as Biden was in mid-pander, an audience member called out: “We also have the first federal judge — Muslim federal judge. The only one.” Biden began to reply, but the audience member kept talking until Papa Dementia snapped: “You want to come and make a speech? Hush up, boy.” Boy? Who are you calling “boy,” Joe? If Biden had an “R” after his name, this “boy” would have been screaming headline news all Tuesday morning. But as always, Old Joe gets a pass.
Pious Joe also seized yet another opportunity to run down his own tradition, marveling at how Catholics have it easy compared to Muslims in terms of fasting: “It’s not so different than we Catholics have Lent. We do it for 40 days, but not nearly as hard as your time. It’s a little longer than Ramadan, but we get to eat and drink during the day, which makes a big difference, to say the least.” Sure, but Biden didn’t mention that during Ramadan, Muslims feast all night, which makes the fast look quite different. Nor did he note that the traditional Lenten fast, which some Christians still observe, involves eating no meat, dairy, or fish for forty days, and that’s far more rigorous than Ramadan. Why did Catholic Joe have to go out of his way to compare his own faith unfavorably to Islam? Why does he profess to be a pious Catholic and yet never misses an opportunity to denigrate Christianity or foster legislation that is opposed to its teachings?
Biden concluded by wishing the audience a “Happy Eid Mubarak.” The name of the feast is actually “Eid al-Fitr,” that is, the Feast of Breaking the Fast. “Eid Mubarak,” or “Blessed feast,” is what Muslims say to one another on the big day. So what Biden was saying to his guests was the equivalent of saying “Happy Merry Christmas.” Just more tone-deafness, and one more indication that it’s long past time for Old Joe to retire to his taxpayer-funded walled Delaware beach house and catch up on those Matlock reruns.
Robert Spencer
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. He is author of 26 books including many bestsellers, such as The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades), The Truth About Muhammad and The History of Jihad. His latest books are The Critical Qur’an and The Sumter Gambit. Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
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France: Muslim Migrant Rapist Shocked At His Sentence: ‘I’m A Good Person’
“I came to France to build a future."
The steep increase in the incidence of rapes in France is entirely a result of the rise in Muslim migrants from North Africa. Fifty percent of the crimes in Paris are noe committed by “foreigners” – overwhelmingly maghrébins; in France’s second city, Marseille, 55 percent of crimes are committed by “foreigners,” also overwhelmingly maghrébins. Muslims make up 9% of the population in France, but 70% of those who have been imprisoned for rape. They do not think they have done wrong; their French victims, after all, are Infidels, and their dress and mien are regarded by Muslims as come-hither invitations to sexual encounters.
An Algerian just convicted of rape at knifepoint by a Paris court was shocked at the verdict of 26 months in prison, astonished that someone as genuinely decent as himself could be punished for this slight infraction. His story can be found here: “‘I came to France to build a future’ – Algerian migrant who raped woman at knifepoint ‘shocked’ to be handed 26-month prison sentence,” by John Cody, Remix News, April 25, 2023:
After 35-year-old Algerian migrant Ahmed Khalef was convicted of raping a woman who was waiting for a tram in the French city of Bègles, he argued that he is a “good person” and that he was “shocked” at the length of his prison sentence.
“I am a good person,” said Khalef in court. On Monday, April 24, the Assize Court of Gironde found him guilty of rape under the threat of a weapon and violence against a person holding public authority.
However, he claimed not to “understand anything. I am shocked to find myself here and in prison for 26 months when I came to France to build a future.”
Yes, we, too, are “shocked” by the sentence – just a bit more than two years in prison for “rape under threat with a weapon” — but not for the same reason as Ahmed Khalef. We are shocked because we would expect at least a ten-year sentence; in some American states, rape in the first degree can bring a sentence of life imprisonment. But Ahmed Khalef, in Ahmed Khalef’s view, is “a good person.” He thinks 26 months is far too long a sentence.
Ahmed Khalef told the court in Gironde that he is deeply disappointed: He’s confused. He cannot understand why he should have received such a “harsh” sentence. After all, he “came to France to build a future.” What kind of “future” do you think he had in mind? He is not an asylum seeker – there is no persecution or war in Algeria for him to have fled — but an economic migrant. He was hoping to “build a future” not through his own work, but based on the cornucopia of benefits the generous French welfare state provides: free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education (including language classes), unemployment benefits, and more. That is the future Ahmed Khalef was “building,” like millions of other Muslim migrants to France, by draining the French treasury of monies that could otherwise have gone to help the French poor and elderly, and even possibly be sufficient to allow the French to keep their retirement age of 62 years.
Note that Ahmed Khalef says nothing about being gainfully employed. Had he been, he would certainly have mentioned it at trial, as a point In his favor. His silence on this score undoubtedly means that, like many Muslim migrants in France, he was unemployed.
The case he was convicted for dates back to 2021. On Feb. 20 of that year, he approached a 20-year-old woman who was waiting for tram C at the Parc Mussonville stop in Bègles.
She became suspicious of the man and moved in front of the tram’s CCTV cameras, according to a report from French news outlet Sud Ouest. This did not deter Khalef, who pressed a knife into her back, dragged her into a park, and then proceeded to rape her by force.
Police had already been called to the scene after witnesses to the incident became concerned about the woman. The victim, who was in a state of shock, saw police walking with flashlights in the park and reported the incident to them.
A little earlier, his attacker had already set his sights on two young 18-year-old passengers by groping them and insulting them in Arabic.
The police indicated that when they moved in to arrest the perpetrator, he began biting his tongue, spitting blood at them, and resisting arrest; he then hit an officer on his nose, resulting in an injury.
Khalef, who said he is an “only son” among seven sisters, told the court he is “a normal person” to whom his parents “gave a good education.”…
Khalef may have been “a normal person” in Algeria, where women who are not Islamically correct in their clothing can be considered as fair game for male sexual predators, but in civilized France, his behavior is not that of “a normal person.”
As to that “good education” he claims his parents made sure he received, what does he mean? Was he taught useful skills that would make him employable? If so, why did he not find a job in France? Or didn’t he bother to look for work, preferring to receive the full panoply of welfare benefits instead?
Ahmed Khalef feels he has been wronged. He was raised correctly, he tells the court, receiving “a good education” We have to wonder whether his “education” included subjects that would help him be gainfully employed.
He’s “shocked” to be treated in such a cruel and unfeeling manner. When he arrived in France, he expected to receive all kinds of benefits. And when he needed sexual release, he thought he’d take his pleasure with a French girl. He failed to understand that Infidel women are not to be treated, as the Pakistani groomers in the U.K. call them, as “easy meat.” It’s all been a cultural misunderstanding. How can the French judges be so unfeeling when this was not at all what poor Ahmed Khalef, a self-described “good person,” ever expected? And doesn’t that 26 months in prison for acting as Muslim men understandably will act with women who are asking for it, such as this 20-year-old Infidel woman, seem awfully harsh? Does that sentence seem fair? Where is the justice that the French are so proud of? Could his sentence be, alas, one more example of Islamophobia?
The steep increase in the incidence of rapes in France is entirely a result of the rise in Muslim migrants from North Africa. Fifty percent of the crimes in Paris are noe committed by “foreigners” – overwhelmingly maghrébins; in France’s second city, Marseille, 55 percent of crimes are committed by “foreigners,” also overwhelmingly maghrébins. Muslims make up 9% of the population in France, but 70% of those who have been imprisoned for rape. They do not think they have done wrong; their French victims, after all, are Infidels, and their dress and mien are regarded by Muslims as come-hither invitations to sexual encounters.
An Algerian just convicted of rape at knifepoint by a Paris court was shocked at the verdict of 26 months in prison, astonished that someone as genuinely decent as himself could be punished for this slight infraction. His story can be found here: “‘I came to France to build a future’ – Algerian migrant who raped woman at knifepoint ‘shocked’ to be handed 26-month prison sentence,” by John Cody, Remix News, April 25, 2023:
After 35-year-old Algerian migrant Ahmed Khalef was convicted of raping a woman who was waiting for a tram in the French city of Bègles, he argued that he is a “good person” and that he was “shocked” at the length of his prison sentence.
“I am a good person,” said Khalef in court. On Monday, April 24, the Assize Court of Gironde found him guilty of rape under the threat of a weapon and violence against a person holding public authority.
However, he claimed not to “understand anything. I am shocked to find myself here and in prison for 26 months when I came to France to build a future.”
Yes, we, too, are “shocked” by the sentence – just a bit more than two years in prison for “rape under threat with a weapon” — but not for the same reason as Ahmed Khalef. We are shocked because we would expect at least a ten-year sentence; in some American states, rape in the first degree can bring a sentence of life imprisonment. But Ahmed Khalef, in Ahmed Khalef’s view, is “a good person.” He thinks 26 months is far too long a sentence.
Ahmed Khalef told the court in Gironde that he is deeply disappointed: He’s confused. He cannot understand why he should have received such a “harsh” sentence. After all, he “came to France to build a future.” What kind of “future” do you think he had in mind? He is not an asylum seeker – there is no persecution or war in Algeria for him to have fled — but an economic migrant. He was hoping to “build a future” not through his own work, but based on the cornucopia of benefits the generous French welfare state provides: free or greatly subsidized housing, free medical care, free education (including language classes), unemployment benefits, and more. That is the future Ahmed Khalef was “building,” like millions of other Muslim migrants to France, by draining the French treasury of monies that could otherwise have gone to help the French poor and elderly, and even possibly be sufficient to allow the French to keep their retirement age of 62 years.
Note that Ahmed Khalef says nothing about being gainfully employed. Had he been, he would certainly have mentioned it at trial, as a point In his favor. His silence on this score undoubtedly means that, like many Muslim migrants in France, he was unemployed.
The case he was convicted for dates back to 2021. On Feb. 20 of that year, he approached a 20-year-old woman who was waiting for tram C at the Parc Mussonville stop in Bègles.
She became suspicious of the man and moved in front of the tram’s CCTV cameras, according to a report from French news outlet Sud Ouest. This did not deter Khalef, who pressed a knife into her back, dragged her into a park, and then proceeded to rape her by force.
Police had already been called to the scene after witnesses to the incident became concerned about the woman. The victim, who was in a state of shock, saw police walking with flashlights in the park and reported the incident to them.
A little earlier, his attacker had already set his sights on two young 18-year-old passengers by groping them and insulting them in Arabic.
The police indicated that when they moved in to arrest the perpetrator, he began biting his tongue, spitting blood at them, and resisting arrest; he then hit an officer on his nose, resulting in an injury.
Khalef, who said he is an “only son” among seven sisters, told the court he is “a normal person” to whom his parents “gave a good education.”…
Khalef may have been “a normal person” in Algeria, where women who are not Islamically correct in their clothing can be considered as fair game for male sexual predators, but in civilized France, his behavior is not that of “a normal person.”
As to that “good education” he claims his parents made sure he received, what does he mean? Was he taught useful skills that would make him employable? If so, why did he not find a job in France? Or didn’t he bother to look for work, preferring to receive the full panoply of welfare benefits instead?
Ahmed Khalef feels he has been wronged. He was raised correctly, he tells the court, receiving “a good education” We have to wonder whether his “education” included subjects that would help him be gainfully employed.
He’s “shocked” to be treated in such a cruel and unfeeling manner. When he arrived in France, he expected to receive all kinds of benefits. And when he needed sexual release, he thought he’d take his pleasure with a French girl. He failed to understand that Infidel women are not to be treated, as the Pakistani groomers in the U.K. call them, as “easy meat.” It’s all been a cultural misunderstanding. How can the French judges be so unfeeling when this was not at all what poor Ahmed Khalef, a self-described “good person,” ever expected? And doesn’t that 26 months in prison for acting as Muslim men understandably will act with women who are asking for it, such as this 20-year-old Infidel woman, seem awfully harsh? Does that sentence seem fair? Where is the justice that the French are so proud of? Could his sentence be, alas, one more example of Islamophobia?
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Peace With the Palestinians
Can it ever happen if they consider peace an enormous failure?
Peace requires both sides involved to believe that a state of peace is in their national interest. The Palestinians do not want peace and for them peace would be considered an enormous failure.
Think of the who’s who of secretaries of state who have tried to broker peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs since 1948. Giants from both parties put their own personal prestige as well as that of the United States on the line and never produced anything more than temporary agreements and photo ops. Both Republicans and Democrats failed, as did their “Quartet” counterparts. Dean Rusk, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry, Colin Powell, Tony Blinken and others all worked for a final peace agreement and came up empty-handed—as did the presidents who employed them. The question is why? If you throw the best and brightest and enormous resources and promises at a problem, how can the problem still remain unsolved?
A thought exercise will provide part of the answer. Do you hate somebody? Most people dislike some people and this feeling may even reach the point of hatred. That’s pretty normal. Would you kill that person? And would you kill yourself in the process of killing that person? Those last two questions for most normal people are beyond discussion. One may hate another but taking a life is immoral and not something most would consider. Now think of the Palestinians. One canard sold to the West is that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are extremist terrorist groups but the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its associated Fatah organization are somehow moderate. Nothing could be further from the truth. While many Fatah and PA officials do not seem to be Islamic fundamentalists, their hatred of Jews and their desire to destroy the State of Israel are indistinguishable from the feelings of Hamas and PIJ members. Their hatred is so intense that they are willing to die to kill a Jew, any Jew—not some specific Jew who somehow may have harmed them personally. In the indictments of those involved in the suicide bombing in downtown Jerusalem on March 21, 2002, the bomber (a PA policeman) was told by a PA intelligence officer that whatever he did, he had to kill at least one Jew. To the best of my knowledge, no Nazi officer told another officer or enlisted man to ever endanger himself in order to kill Jews. The ones dropping the Zyklon gas canisters were on the roofs of the gas chambers and out of harm’s way. Those in the mobile killing squads on the Eastern front murdered Jewish men, women and children and were never in danger from their victims or the locals who often helped in the task. The Palestinians themselves often say that they love death more than Israelis love life. At the height of the Intifada and subsequent killing periods, Palestinian support for attacks against Israeli citizens would reach 65 percent or higher in the general Palestinian population. Many of those famous secretaries of state wished to claim that only a small percentage of Palestinian Arabs were actually involved directly with terror. While that might be technically correct by the numbers, the PA and its voting populace lionize the murderers and name streets and buildings after them. How would you like to visit a square named after someone who killed one of your parents or a sibling?
One may argue that the Japanese also committed and glorified suicide with many of their kamikaze attacks against US soldiers and naval ships. So if the Japanese could come around to make peace and be a solid ally of the US and the West, why can’t the Palestinians one day change course and make peace with Israel? We see that fanatical devotion to killing the enemy does not necessarily have to prevent peace between former combatants. While true, there is one more consideration in the Palestinian view of Israel.
The hatred of Israel and Jews is only one reason behind failed peace efforts for all of Israel’s 75 years of existence. The second is geopolitical brainwashing. If you ask Palestinians or their international supporters about the history of this portion of the Levant, they will tell you that there was a Palestinian state over what today is Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank—”from the River to the Sea.” Jews showed up and took over about half in 1948 and then stole the rest in 1967. They thus see Israel as a completely illegal state, and if you listen to them, that is what they will tell you. They—unlike our distinguished secretaries—do not see the events of 1948 as a legitimate birth of a nation and those of the Six Day War in 1967 as some type of overreach; rather, they see 1948 as a disaster (“Nakba” they call it and memorialize it every year since 1948). They do not see any legitimate place for a Jewish homeland, and all of the arguments of Jews being in the Land of Israel for 3000 years or Jews purchasing land for kibbutzim and moshavim mean nothing to those who believe in a nonexistent Palestinian state prior to 1948. Israel is a terror state; Israel is an illegal state; Israel is an apartheid state. The only real difference between the Palestinian factions is that Hamas, Jihad and the PFLP say they want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, while the mealymouthed PA claims only when speaking with Western officials that there is land for two states. One notes that the PA has rejected any proposal that would allow Israel to have defensible borders, and that is no accident. The PA wants to get rid of Israel as badly as Hamas does, but they simply enjoy the billions in international aid that come with pretending to want peace. Did you know that Yasser Arafat went straight from the White House signing of the Oslo Agreements to a mosque in South Africa, where he promised a “million martyrs” to go up and take Jerusalem? Was the Yasser Arafat of the Rose Garden or of the mosque the real deal? You can figure that out for yourself.
The fact that the Ottomans ruled this region until World War I and then afterwards, the British took over Egypt, Palestine, Jordan and beyond means nothing to the Palestinians or their Jew-hating supporters in universities and BDS movements. That there was never a Palestinian state anywhere is simply an inconvenient fact for our 21st century antisemites. Even after 1948, Gaza was under brutal Egyptian rule, while the West Bank of the Jordan River was claimed by Jordan as its own. Not until the ill-conceived Oslo Accords of 1993 did Palestinian Arabs ever have governmental control over a square centimeter of any land. But the Palestinians and their supporters are not big on history. They are big on converting traditional Jew-hatred into Israel hatred and vice versa. It does not take much to convince an antisemite in Europe or on a university campus to hate Israel.
Now let’s take the two pieces together. We have a people convinced that they had a country that was stolen from them by a bunch of European Jews leveraging the Holocaust to take their land. Couple that with a mentality that is filled with hatred and grievance for the theft of their non-existent country. The result is Palestinian intransigence. They simply have no interest in making a peace agreement that would require them to recognize a legitimate state of Israel and leave Israel militarily safe. But the West blames Israel because they have enormous leverage over the Jewish state. President Obama halted shipments of Hellfire missiles during an active conflagration in 2014, while European countries routinely blackball Israeli products produced over the 1948 armistice line. If the West wants peace between Israel and the Palestinians, then they should tell the Palestinians that they are on their own. Begging them to make peace has led to nothing but misery for Palestinians left in ancient refugee camps as well as Israelis who have lost loved ones or been injured in Palestinian terror attacks. As James Baker did to Israel, the time has come for Secretary Blinken to tell the PA that when they are serious, they should call the State Department switchboard.
Peace requires both sides involved to believe that a state of peace is in their national interest. The Palestinians do not want peace and for them peace would be considered an enormous failure.
Think of the who’s who of secretaries of state who have tried to broker peace between Israel and Palestinian Arabs since 1948. Giants from both parties put their own personal prestige as well as that of the United States on the line and never produced anything more than temporary agreements and photo ops. Both Republicans and Democrats failed, as did their “Quartet” counterparts. Dean Rusk, Henry Kissinger, Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, John Kerry, Colin Powell, Tony Blinken and others all worked for a final peace agreement and came up empty-handed—as did the presidents who employed them. The question is why? If you throw the best and brightest and enormous resources and promises at a problem, how can the problem still remain unsolved?
A thought exercise will provide part of the answer. Do you hate somebody? Most people dislike some people and this feeling may even reach the point of hatred. That’s pretty normal. Would you kill that person? And would you kill yourself in the process of killing that person? Those last two questions for most normal people are beyond discussion. One may hate another but taking a life is immoral and not something most would consider. Now think of the Palestinians. One canard sold to the West is that Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are extremist terrorist groups but the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its associated Fatah organization are somehow moderate. Nothing could be further from the truth. While many Fatah and PA officials do not seem to be Islamic fundamentalists, their hatred of Jews and their desire to destroy the State of Israel are indistinguishable from the feelings of Hamas and PIJ members. Their hatred is so intense that they are willing to die to kill a Jew, any Jew—not some specific Jew who somehow may have harmed them personally. In the indictments of those involved in the suicide bombing in downtown Jerusalem on March 21, 2002, the bomber (a PA policeman) was told by a PA intelligence officer that whatever he did, he had to kill at least one Jew. To the best of my knowledge, no Nazi officer told another officer or enlisted man to ever endanger himself in order to kill Jews. The ones dropping the Zyklon gas canisters were on the roofs of the gas chambers and out of harm’s way. Those in the mobile killing squads on the Eastern front murdered Jewish men, women and children and were never in danger from their victims or the locals who often helped in the task. The Palestinians themselves often say that they love death more than Israelis love life. At the height of the Intifada and subsequent killing periods, Palestinian support for attacks against Israeli citizens would reach 65 percent or higher in the general Palestinian population. Many of those famous secretaries of state wished to claim that only a small percentage of Palestinian Arabs were actually involved directly with terror. While that might be technically correct by the numbers, the PA and its voting populace lionize the murderers and name streets and buildings after them. How would you like to visit a square named after someone who killed one of your parents or a sibling?
One may argue that the Japanese also committed and glorified suicide with many of their kamikaze attacks against US soldiers and naval ships. So if the Japanese could come around to make peace and be a solid ally of the US and the West, why can’t the Palestinians one day change course and make peace with Israel? We see that fanatical devotion to killing the enemy does not necessarily have to prevent peace between former combatants. While true, there is one more consideration in the Palestinian view of Israel.
The hatred of Israel and Jews is only one reason behind failed peace efforts for all of Israel’s 75 years of existence. The second is geopolitical brainwashing. If you ask Palestinians or their international supporters about the history of this portion of the Levant, they will tell you that there was a Palestinian state over what today is Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank—”from the River to the Sea.” Jews showed up and took over about half in 1948 and then stole the rest in 1967. They thus see Israel as a completely illegal state, and if you listen to them, that is what they will tell you. They—unlike our distinguished secretaries—do not see the events of 1948 as a legitimate birth of a nation and those of the Six Day War in 1967 as some type of overreach; rather, they see 1948 as a disaster (“Nakba” they call it and memorialize it every year since 1948). They do not see any legitimate place for a Jewish homeland, and all of the arguments of Jews being in the Land of Israel for 3000 years or Jews purchasing land for kibbutzim and moshavim mean nothing to those who believe in a nonexistent Palestinian state prior to 1948. Israel is a terror state; Israel is an illegal state; Israel is an apartheid state. The only real difference between the Palestinian factions is that Hamas, Jihad and the PFLP say they want to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth, while the mealymouthed PA claims only when speaking with Western officials that there is land for two states. One notes that the PA has rejected any proposal that would allow Israel to have defensible borders, and that is no accident. The PA wants to get rid of Israel as badly as Hamas does, but they simply enjoy the billions in international aid that come with pretending to want peace. Did you know that Yasser Arafat went straight from the White House signing of the Oslo Agreements to a mosque in South Africa, where he promised a “million martyrs” to go up and take Jerusalem? Was the Yasser Arafat of the Rose Garden or of the mosque the real deal? You can figure that out for yourself.
The fact that the Ottomans ruled this region until World War I and then afterwards, the British took over Egypt, Palestine, Jordan and beyond means nothing to the Palestinians or their Jew-hating supporters in universities and BDS movements. That there was never a Palestinian state anywhere is simply an inconvenient fact for our 21st century antisemites. Even after 1948, Gaza was under brutal Egyptian rule, while the West Bank of the Jordan River was claimed by Jordan as its own. Not until the ill-conceived Oslo Accords of 1993 did Palestinian Arabs ever have governmental control over a square centimeter of any land. But the Palestinians and their supporters are not big on history. They are big on converting traditional Jew-hatred into Israel hatred and vice versa. It does not take much to convince an antisemite in Europe or on a university campus to hate Israel.
Now let’s take the two pieces together. We have a people convinced that they had a country that was stolen from them by a bunch of European Jews leveraging the Holocaust to take their land. Couple that with a mentality that is filled with hatred and grievance for the theft of their non-existent country. The result is Palestinian intransigence. They simply have no interest in making a peace agreement that would require them to recognize a legitimate state of Israel and leave Israel militarily safe. But the West blames Israel because they have enormous leverage over the Jewish state. President Obama halted shipments of Hellfire missiles during an active conflagration in 2014, while European countries routinely blackball Israeli products produced over the 1948 armistice line. If the West wants peace between Israel and the Palestinians, then they should tell the Palestinians that they are on their own. Begging them to make peace has led to nothing but misery for Palestinians left in ancient refugee camps as well as Israelis who have lost loved ones or been injured in Palestinian terror attacks. As James Baker did to Israel, the time has come for Secretary Blinken to tell the PA that when they are serious, they should call the State Department switchboard.
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