Israeli Checkpoints Stop Terrorists, not Elections

by Khaled Abu Toameh
May 2, 2013 at 5:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3695/israeli-checkpoints-palestinian-elections

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It is the Fatah and Hamas leaders, and not Israel, who do not want to see reforms and democracy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. But the anti-Israel spokesmen in the U.S., Canada and Europe are not going to let facts get in their way.

Is it true that Palestinians cannot hold new elections because of Israeli security measures?
This is a claim, often made in the U.S., Canada and parts of Europe, is that the Palestinians have not been able to hold new presidential and parliamentary elections for the past five years because of Israeli army checkpoints in the West Bank, and that it will be impossible for the Palestinians to hold new elections in the future so long as Israel maintains checkpoints in various parts of the West Bank.
Another claim is that Israel is responsible for the fact that Palestinians enjoy no democracy in their two separate entities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
First, it is worth noting that such claims are often made by people living in the West, and not by Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
These people in the West like to think they are pro-Palestinian, but by their consistent distortion of facts, they seem in reality to be more anti-Israeli than pro-Palestinian. They never advocate against the repression and corruption that are actually stifling the Palestinians. Instead, they prefer to ignore the reality on the ground and often blame Israel for all that goes wrong in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
Not surprisingly, many Palestinians seem to be much more pragmatic and realistic than the anti-Israel spokesmen sitting in Washington, New York and London.
The Palestinians know, for example, that were it not for the continued power struggle between Hamas and Fatah, they would have had free elections several years ago.
The Palestinians, moreover, know that Israeli checkpoints have nothing to do with restricting freedom of expression and voting. They are fully aware that the checkpoints are there to stop terror attacks and not democracy or reforms.
In the past, despite Israeli security measures and checkpoints, Palestinians did have free and democratic elections for the presidency and parliament.
Israeli "occupation" did not prevent Hamas from winning the January 2006 parliamentary election.
Not only did Israel freely allow Arab residents of Jerusalem to run and vote in that election, but for the first time ever, Israel opened its post offices in Jerusalem so that Arab voters could cast their ballots in the 2006 election, and permitted a number of Hamas candidates from Jerusalem to contest the vote.
Since then, Palestinians have held different elections for various bodies in the West Bank, including municipalities, university campuses and professional unions.
Needless to say, these elections were all held despite the presence of Israeli checkpoints.
Israel has never stopped Palestinians from holding free elections or implementing administrative and financial reforms, and there have never been any complaints from Palestinians about Israeli attempts to obstruct these elections or prevent them.
The Fatah and Hamas leaders are the only ones to blame for ongoing divisions and rivalry in the Palestinian arena. It is these leaders, and not Israel, who do not want to see reforms and democracy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
The checkpoints are there to stop suicide bombers and other terrorists, and not to prevent anyone from running in an election or forming a new political party.
Hamas and Fatah do not tolerate competition. When a Palestinian religious figure, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, recently announced his intention to run in the next presidential election, Palestinian thugs in the city of Hebron torched his car. Palestinian Authority security forces in the West Bank have also been harassing Tamimi supporters in a bid to deter him from participating in the election.
Similarly, Hamas has been cracking down on Palestinian activists who have openly been challenging the radical Islamic movement's rule in the Gaza Strip.
It is worth reminding those people who profess love the Palestinians that there are no Israeli checkpoints inside the Gaza Strip to foil either Palestinian elections or democracy, and that those in the West Bank do not foil elections or democracy, either.
But the anti-Israel spokesmen in the U.S., Canada and Europe are not going to let facts get in their way. They seem determined to continue spreading lies that are harmful not only to Israel, but also to Palestinians, who want see an end to tyranny and corruption in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Related Topics: Israel | Khaled Abu Toameh

Guilty in Perpetuity: Where Does Western Self-Blame Stop?

by Douglas Murray
May 2, 2013 at 4:30 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3694/western-self-blame

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Is there any timeline that can be plotted out for the absolution of historic sins? Any sense of how many lives it will take, or how many lifetimes? The answer of course is "No." It does not matter what America does. These are enemies who will always be with us.

Ken Livingstone, the twice-defeated former Mayor of London, cropped up again this week. His return is not entirely welcome. Livingstone cropped up on Iranian television to blame America for the Boston bombings.
Yes, you read that right. Livingstone appeared on the propaganda station of the Iranian government to berate Americans for bringing the bombings on themselves. And it should be stressed that Livingstone did not appear as a guest on this program but as a presenter – that is an employee, someone on the Tehran pay list.
As Gatestone readers will know, Press TV is the propaganda wing of the Iranian government abroad. Unbelievably, and shamefully, it has studios in London. Happily the station's broadcast license was revoked a couple of years ago after the station broke its licensing requirements. For the insatiable, die-hard Khomeinist, however, badly produced propaganda is still available to view daily online. And one of the staple amusements of following the station is finding washed-up radicals like Livingstone who spent their careers burnishing their "liberal" credentials now shilling in retirement for a regime which hangs gays from cranes and stones women for adultery.
However, even for Press TV, what Ken Livingstone said on its program (captured by the superb MEMRI) could hardly have been bettered had it been scripted for the former mayor by the Mullahs themselves.
In a discussion posted on the internet on 26^th April, Livingstone was discussing the Boston marathon bombings. A caller named "Muhammad" from the UK asked Livingstone how it was that the Boston bombers could have enjoyed "all these pleasures" (of being in the West) "and yet, they ended up blowing themselves up [sic] like that?"
Reminding us Londoners of the full horror of his time in office, this is Livingstone's answer:
"Well, I think there is a problem… Very often people get incredibly angry about injustices that they see. They would have been reading about the torture at Guantanamo Bay, at Baghram airbase. They would have read stuff about how, I think it is 54 different countries secretly collaborated with America for this rendition – people being snatched off streets taken to be tortured, because the Bush regime believed that they were all potential terrorists. There was such ignorance in the Bush White House about Islam and about the history of so many disputes that exist in the Middle East. People get angry – they lash out."
One of the absolute fail-safe things one learns to look out for in the wake of any terrorist act is ascribing motives to the attackers that the attackers themselves never asked for. Most of us have become wearily familiar with this trait over the last decade or more. After 9/11, Noam Chomsky & co. told us exactly why they would have done what Al Qaeda had just done before Al Qaeda was even off the starting blocks with its own explanation. The same with the London bombings, Madrid and every other subsequent attack.
Livingstone was always especially keen on this game of pre-emptive explanation, although he played a slightly more cautious game when the attack happened in his own city, aware as he must have been that the public who had voted for him might be wary of repeating the mistake were he to promptly tell them that they had brought the assault upon themselves. But the former Mayor of London had no such concerns, moral or political, when it came to Boston. Here he is again in reply to "Muhammad":
"It's the whole squalid intervention that has disfigured the record of the Western democracies. I think this fuels the anger of the young men, who – as we saw in Boston – went out, and, out of anger and demand for revenge, claimed lives in the West."
There are a number of things to note about this other than the 2001-ness of it all.
The most striking is the question of where all this Western self-blame must stop. It is not just in the outlets of the Iranian propaganda machine that the "Bostonians brought it on themselves" crowd have begun to be heard. They have already spoken, albeit in more cautious tones, in the New York Times and other mainstream U.S. publications. Granted they have been slightly discombobulated by the ethnic issue. The fact of the culprits being Chechen has dampened their greatest hopes -- after all what is the U.S. supposed to do about Chechnya? Should they withdraw all those US troops that aren't there? Or put troops in, perhaps? It would have been so much easier if the bombers had just hailed from Iraq or Afghanistan or – jackpot of jackpots – one of the many countries which Palestinians can call home.
Where would the Livingstone view of exculpation end? Is there a date on which the former mayor and others think that Bostonians will no longer have to fear a marathon attack? Or deserve it? Is there any timeline in the future that can be plotted out for the absolution of historic sins? Any sense of how many lives it will take, or how many lifetimes?
Of course the answer is "No." As Livingstone and his employers have demonstrated before, and as they and others have demonstrated again and again, comments such as these are made not by critics of any one administration or policy, but by enemies of our societies. It does not matter what America does, or who attacks it, these are enemies who will always be with us.

Related Topics: Douglas Murray

Britain's Arabists

by Samuel Westrop
May 2, 2013 at 4:00 am

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3690/britain-arabists

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Why is the British government keen to whitewash its funding of the Palestinian Authority's support for terrorists, but even keener to demonstrate its opposition to any funding of Israeli scientific projects? Douglas Carswell MP has accused Foreign Secretary William Hague of "being under the thumb of pro-Arabist" diplomats in the Foreign Office, but what if it is actually the other way around?

In March 2012, British MP Douglas Carswell accused William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, of being "under the thumb of pro-Arabist" diplomats in the Foreign Office. In response, a furious Hague denounced Carswell as a "fantasist".
Britain has certainly worked hard over the last few years to strengthen its relationship with the autocratic Gulf States. Prime Minister Cameron has visited the Gulf States on a number of occasions, taking representatives from arms trade along with him. His most recent trip followed an outburst by the Saudi ambassador to London, who said the Saudi kingdom was "insulted" by British parliamentary proposals for an inquiry into relations with Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates [UAE] Government condemned a British newspaper's decision to publish an editorial written by an anti-regime activist from the UAE.
Cameron and his entourage met with Saudi and UAE officials to smooth things over and set up a number of lucrative arms deals. Cameron stated that ensuring security for Saudi Arabia and the UAE was also "important for our security." Further, the Conservative government recently signed a declaration reaffirming the 1979 UK-UAE Treaty of Friendship.
Last month, the Prince of Wales toured the Gulf States. The Guardian has reported that William Hague, the foreign secretary, and Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, are planning their own Gulf tours.
But is it actually all about trade? Certainly, the £15bn of goods and services exported to the Gulf each year, as well as the £1.4bn investment the Gulf States poured into Britain in 2009, is a position upon which the government is keen to build. Britain's support and excuses made for other actors within the Middle East, however, clearly go beyond economic interests.
Since Carswell accused Hague of 'Arabism,' the behavior of Britain's ruling Conservative Party suggests that Carswell was on the right track. Earlier this month, the British Parliament held a rare debate on "hate incitement against Israel and the West by the Palestinian Authority." The discussion was initiated by Gordon Henderson MP, who cited evidence compiled by Palestinian Media Watch, which documented the Palestinian Authority's long history of glorifying terror and promoting hatred against Jews.
In response to the examples of Palestinian incitement that were presented, Alistair Burt, the Under Secretary for the Foreign Office, stated that this hate education "is not simply a cause of separation between peoples and hatred; I am afraid that it is a symptom of it … We deplore incitement on either side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."
Blaming Israel for the Palestinian government's glorification of suicide bombers was not quite enough; Burt added that it is important the Parliament sees Palestinian incitement "in context."
Here is the deal that exists so far: The British government provides £86 million every year to the Palestinian Authority. The Palestinian Authority pays the salaries of terrorists in Israeli jails, names football competitions after suicide bombers, and its government-controlled media promotes martyrdom and demonizes Jews.
While the British government is keen to whitewash its funding for the terror-supporting Palestinian Authority, it is even keener to demonstrate its opposition to any funding of Israeli scientific projects.
In response to a campaign by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, a radical anti-Jewish movement which has long supported the terror group Hamas, Burt sought to reassure the extremist group's members: "We understand that Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories received an EU contribution totalling 1.13 million Euros ... for Research, Development and Technological Development. We are following up with the European Commission to outline our concerns."
In the battle between providing funds to support and glorify terrorists, or to a scientific research project, evidently scientific research is considered the bigger villain.
In the 1930s, after returning from a posting to the Middle East, a few British Foreign Office officials famously took to wearing Arab dress as they walked around Whitehall. Today, such imitation may not be so vividly apparent, but plenty of Conservative MPs echo the sentiment. William Hague, for example, while in opposition in 2006, claimed that Israel had "over-reacted" to the cross-border attacks by the Lebanese terror group, Hezbollah. Now as the Foreign Secretary, he recently described Israel's stance towards the Palestinian Authority as "belligerent."
In early 2012, Conservative politician Julian Brazier blamed Israel's policies for attacks by Taliban terrorists against British soldiers in Afghanistan. Also, Nicholas Soames, Chairman of the Conservative Middle East Council, condemned Britain's decision to abstain rather than vote in favor of Palestinian statehood at the United Nations General Assembly.
The Conservative Government, moreover, seems eager eager to avoid discussing the issue of Palestinian terrorism at all. In May 2012, the Glasgow Herald published details of a secret document, which incriminated the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC) in the Lockerbie bombing, and cast doubt on the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the Libyan who was convicted for the deadly attack. Although the document was originally obtained from Jordan by the Crown Office, it was never shown to Megrahi's defense team.
For months, the British government, apparently desperate to prevent publication, threatened legal action against the newspaper. Government lawyers had arranged for the document to be covered by Public Interest Immunity on national security grounds. Why is it so important to protect the Palestinian reputation?
In calling the British Foreign Minister an "Arabist," Carswell was perhaps being a bit too generous. Support for Arab interests actually goes all the way to the top.
Not long after Prime Minister David Cameron first entered 10 Downing Street, he decided to resign, very publicly, as a patron of the UK's Jewish National Fund – a position that involves no work but is designed to illustrate Britain's high-level support for the state of Israel. Until Cameron's refusal, every single British leader since 1901 has held this honorary position. Although Cameron's office claimed that he had stepped down from a number of charities, only the Jewish National Fund was publicly named.
Meanwhile, charities accused of links to terror receive government support. Although Islamic Relief Worldwide, for example, is designated as a "terrorist front" by the Israeli authorities, it enjoys strong support from the Conservative Government. The Israeli Foreign Ministry has stated that the charity "provides support and assistance to Hamas' infrastructure." In spite of these alleged connections to terror, in 2011, during its annual conference, the Conservative Party screened an Islamic Relief fundraising video. In 2012, the Department for International Development matched public donations, up to £5 million, to Islamic Relief Worldwide's Ramadan appeal.
Douglas Carswell MP accused Foreign Secretary William Hague of subservience to "pro-Arabist" diplomats in the Foreign office, but what if it is actually the other way around?

Related Topics: United Kingdom | Samuel Westrop

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