Has President Biden, as his arms delay and words of warning were described in some media, “abandoned” Israel? Or is he still the stalwart defender of Israel’s right to destroy her declared mortal enemy that he declared himself to be in the wake of the October 7 massacre?
My thoughts are here.
I have a suggestion for long-time New York Times opinion columnist Nicholas Kristof. To read what it is, please click here.
Did you hear? NPR is biased!
Who—other than any mentally uncompromised listener to National Public Radio—knew?
To read what made that revelation newsworthy, click here.
It’s an image to warm the deepest cockles of any peace-loving heart: A Gaza in peace with Israel, conducting commerce with her, with both countries exchanging tourists and economically prospering as a result. Indeed, by all logic and reason, Gazans should recognize that Hamas’ rule over the territory has brought them nothing but grief, death and destruction.
What chills those cockles, though, is that we’ve seen this play before. In 2005, 21 Israeli settlements in Gaza were unilaterally dismantled and the strip was rendered Judenrein. With the Gazan populace’s approval, Hamas quickly took charge and, well, the rest is tragic history.
Today, six months since the merchants of murder demonstrated the depth of their hatred and barbarism, Gaza’s infrastructure has been destroyed. Hospitals (aka military arsenals), schools (aka missile bases) and countless homes (some of which were just homes). Roads, sewage systems and the electrical grid – are in ruins.
Whether the unprecedented death, destruction and displacement Hamas has brought upon Gazan civilians has convinced them that supporting evil doesn’t pay can’t be known at this time.
But, embracing hope, the U.S. has called for a revitalized Palestinian Authority to administer postwar Gaza ahead of eventual statehood.
The P.A.? Please.
In Mahmoud Abbas’ kingdom of corruption in Yehudah and Shomron, government jobs are doled out to supporters; international aid enriches officials; basic services are spotty; elections haven’t been held for nearly twenty years.
Mr. Abbas, of course, was elated by the U.S. endorsement of even a “reconstituted” Palestinian Authority. And, in March, he announced the formation of a new cabinet, to demonstrate his readiness to step up to the reconstruction plate.
Tapped for prime minister is Mohammad Mustafa, a longtime Abbas adviser. He pledged to form a technocratic government and create an independent trust fund to help rebuild Gaza.
The U.S. National Security Council welcomed the development, contending that “a reformed Palestinian Authority is essential to delivering results for the Palestinian people and establishing the conditions for stability in both the West Bank and Gaza.”
The key word there is “reformed.”
The signs are hardly encouraging. According to Palestinian Media Watch, the new Palestinian Authority’s minister of women’s affairs, Muna Al-Khalili, offered praise in 2018, for Dalal Mughrabi at an event honoring the terrorist, who in 1978 led a group that hijacked a bus and murdered more than three dozen riders, including 12 children. “A quality resistance operation,” Al-Khalili gushed, proclaiming that the attack “proved that Palestinian women are capable of carrying out the most difficult missions.” The most heinous ones, at least.
And, mere weeks after the Shemini Atzeres massacre, Ms. Al-Khalili hailed the “right to resist the occupation” until Palestinians achieve “self-determination, freedom, independence in its sovereign state whose capital is Jerusalem…”
An equally disturbing member of the “revitalized Palestinian Authority” is its minister of religious affairs, Muhammad Mustafa Najem. He has called Jews “apes and pigs” who are full of “conceit, pride, arrogance, rioting, disloyalty, and treachery.” He sermonized that Muslims should “afflict the Jews with the worst torment.”
No, neither the old P.A. nor its “new and improved” version – as a bard once put it, “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” – is a path forward for Gaza. Any respectable government there will have to be something truly novel, an administration whose focus is on the wellbeing of its citizens, not on murdering citizens of a neighbor.
Could that happen?
The latest poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, on March 20, showed that Gazans’ support for continued Hamas control over the Gaza Strip showed a 14-point rise over the prior three months to more than 50%.
If that reflects Gazans’ true feelings, no sane, responsible government will emerge in the territory. The only grounds for hope are the many reports of Gazans who quietly admit that they hate Hamas but are afraid to speak up.
Their fear is understandable. Hamas has warned Gazans that anyone seeking to undermine its administration of the territory will be treated as a collaborator – which, of course, means execution.
Are there enough Gazans who prefer peace to endless bloodshed and who will vote that preference in some future election?
I’m not taking bets.
(c) 2024 Ami Magazine
I wonder if Peter Beinart would regard a white robe and tall pointed hood as a mere fashion statement.
To read why I ponder that, click here.
CNN stands accused of endorsing “Israeli propaganda” and censoring “Palestinian perspectives” (note those different, telling nouns.) The New York Times and Washington Post have been similarly criticized. Really.
To read about some of the accusations, and their ludicrousness, click here.
My most recent Ami Magazine column surveys some challenges being faced by “The Squad” in Congress, and can be read here.
Covered in blood, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is eating a child.
That succinctly describes a cartoon published by a Libyan news organization on this past October 20.
The next month saw a Bahrain news outlet depicting Mr. Netanyahu driving through Gaza in a blood-soaked tank while pulling the Statue of Liberty and President Biden behind him.
Yet another cartoon, featuring a frocked Jew with a large microphone in place of his nose, is captioned: “The Lie of Zionist Media.”
That’s rather like the pot calling the glass of milk black. For decades, Arabic-language newspapers and websites have crawled with anti-Israel and antisemitic images and sentiments. And since the October 7 Hamas massacre, according to the Anti-Defamation League, the ugliness has only increased.
A report from the organization cites examples from Palestinian publications as well as in media based in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Some also appeared in UK Arabic-language news outlets.
Welcome to the warped world of Arab media.
It’s not only the Arab world’s cartoons that evidence hatred for Jews. What passes for actual news reportage in that realm also regularly promotes incendiary falsehoods, claiming, for instance, that Israel wishes to kill Gazan civilians; and provides ample space to opinion writers whom Goebbels would have been overjoyed to have had on hand.
Among the best examples of such propaganda posing as reportage is Iran’s PressTV, which is nothing more than the malignant mullahs’ mouthpiece. It regularly traffics in Holocaust denial and spreads an assortment of antisemitic conspiracy theories. (Iran isn’t an Arab land, but its rulers share their Arabian coreligionists’ sentiments when it comes to Jews.)
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station, based in Lebanon, is another contender. Its director let his less-than-journalistic sentiments show when, speaking about Mr. Netanyahu, he explained that “We want to get close to him, not to interview him, but to kill him.”
And then, of course, we have Qatar’s Al-Jazeera network. It does a good job of pretending to be a neutral, objective medium. But not good enough.
Recently, a laptop belonging to an Al-Jazeera reporter, Muhammad Washah, was found at one of Hamas’ bases in Gaza. It contained photos and intelligence materials linking him to Hamas.
“In the morning a ‘journalist’ on the Al-Jazeera network and in the evening a terrorist in Hamas,” was IDF Lt. Col. Avichay Adraee’s comment on a social media platform.
Apparently, according to Mr. Adraee, Mr. Washah is a senior military operative in Hamas’ anti-tank missile system and has worked in the research and development of aerial weapons for the terror group. Photos show him with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and weaponized drones.
On October 7 itself, it eventually came to light, at least two Al-Jazeera journalists entered Israel with Hamas terrorists and photographed atrocities. Ahmed Najjar accompanied some of the terrorists and filmed several kidnappings. Ismail Abu Omar filmed the Hamas slaughter in Kibbutz Nir Oz, even sharing a video in which he is heard saying: “The comrades have progressed, may Allah bless.”
Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, a cleric who praised Hitler, condoned Palestinian suicide bombings against Israeli civilians and appealed for people to “kill Zionists and Jews, down to the very last one…” was, until his death in 2020, a frequent guest on Al-Jazeera’s Arabic channel.
As to moderate Arab voices, Jordan Cope, of the think tank Middle East Forum, asserts that “Other than in Israel… freedom of expression in the Middle East is limited.” There must be some prize for understatement.
And need we even mention Hamas’ own Al-AqsaTV? Renowned for its children’s programming, a medium in its own right, its broadcasts have featured cute furry characters like “Nahoul,” a giant bee, who encouraged his young fans to “punch” Jews and “turn their faces into tomatoes”; and his co-host, an actual little girl, responded to one of her pint-sized peers who expressed the wish to grow up and “shoot the Jews” – “all of them” – with: “Good!”
When some of the cuddly creatures suddenly disappeared from the program, the kiddies watching were solemnly informed that their beloved friends had been “martyred” by Israelis.
That particular “educational” program aired back in 2014. I find myself wondering if any of the young people who watched it back then might have been, ten years later, in the vicinity of the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel on October 7.
© 2024 Ami Magazine
The remarkable evolution of Bassam Eid, beginning with his discovery that Jews aren’t cannibals, was the topic of my Ami column last week. It can be read here.
What do an established clothing store in Gaza and a new shawarma eatery in Jordan have in common?
Don’t think too hard. Just click here for the answer, provided in my Ami column last week.