UNRWA Artificially Extends Its Mandate

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) was created in December 1948 as a temporary agency to handle shelter, medical assistance and education for the roughly 700,000 Arabs who left what became Israel. Over seventy years later it continues to artificially extend its mandate.

UNRWA’s term was to end “at the earliest practicable date,” as outlined in UN General Assembly Resolution 194 which stated in article 11:

“RESOLVES that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;

INSTRUCTS the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;”

In December 1949 the UN General Assembly issued Resolution 302 which built upon the nature of UNRWA while also making clear the desire to end its existence quickly as stated in article 5:

“Recognizes that, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief;”

One would imagine a primary focus of UNRWA would have been to help the Arabs learn to live in peace to facilitate their “repatriation.” Not so much.

The war waged by five Arab countries to destroy Israel in 1948-9 continued with cross-border skirmishes and wars leading to the 1967 war which all made clear that the refugees had no interest in living “at peace with their [Israeli] neighbours.” Consequently, no Arab refugees came to Israel, UNRWA continued to roll along and millions of dollars of international assistance continued to flow.

Only with the Oslo Accords in 1993 and 1995 did the Palestinian leadership express a willingness to recognize Israel. As such, Israel gave the newly-created Palestinian Authority the Gaza Strip and several towns in Judea and Samaria called “Area A.” However, the new reality that Gaza was under the rule of the Palestinian Authority made no impact on UNRWA which maintained that its mission continued until the refugees (at this point descendants of refugees who were born in Gaza) move into their ancestors’ towns in Israel. Seemingly, being under Palestinian rule was irrelevant to UNRWA’s term.

But in a pivot of mental gymnastics, UNRWA now claims that its mandate will continue until a Palestinian state is established.

Consider the virtual get-together on April 22, 2020 of the Second Ministerial Strategic Dialogue on UNRWA. The participants underlined that:

“UNRWA must continue to operate in fulfillment of its UN mandate until a durable and just solution to the Palestine refugee issue is found in accordance with international law and relevant UN resolutions, including UN General Assembly resolution 194, and within the context of a comprehensive solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on the basis of the two-state solution.“

UNRWA’s original mission was to help displaced people until they returned to their homes or were compensated. No longer. It first extended its mission to assist refugees in the physical return to homes, a partisan action which was never part of its mandate. It has now conditioned its term on the creation of a Palestinian state, further inserting itself as a highly biased political entity.

Entrance to UNRWA’s Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem portrayed as a keyhole with a key on top, demonstrating that the pathway to ancestors’ homes is via UNRWA.

There are many reasons to terminate UNRWA and fold it into the general United Nations agency which handles refugees around the world. There are ever-increasing reasons to starve UNRWA of all funding and donations as well.

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Related First One Through articles:

New Head of UNRWA is Another Hamas-Sympathizer Politician

UNRWA Annoints New Palestinian Wards

What’s Wrong with UNRWA

UNRWA’s Munchausen Disease

UNRWA’s Ongoing War against Israel and Jews

Help Refugees: Shut the UNRWA, Fund the UNHCR

Time to Dissolve Key Principles of the “Inalienable Rights of Palestinians”

The United Nations’ Adoption of Palestinians, Enables It to Only Find Fault With Israel

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For Ramadan and Israel’s Independence Day, Palestinians and Israelis Call For Jewish Prayer on The Temple Mount

Unfortunately, just a dream.

On April 28, 2020, as Israelis marked the solemn day of mourning for 23,816 soldiers killed in wars against Arab nations which refused to accept the country’s existence, and another 4,166 victims of terrorist attacks at the hands of Arabs who could not coexist with Jews, The New York Times wrote about a group of Palestinians and Israelis who chose to mark that day with a call for peace.

The Times piece “Palestinians and Israelis Use Mourning to Mull Peace,” described how several tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinian Arabs came together online in a grassroots call for peace. It was written as a note for optimism in the face of mourning. The Times said that the United Nations Middle East envoy “praised the participants in the alternative ceremony.” An interesting choice of words, suggesting that mourning for the murdered is inconsistent with desiring peace. Is Israel’s Memorial Day uniquely offensive to the world and the “alternative” is praise-worthy?

I would be more optimistic if tens of thousands of Arabs used the Palestinian Authority’s “Independence Day” holiday on November 15 in such a vocal support of peace with Israel.

I would be encouraged if tens of thousands of Muslims would use Eid al-Adha, the holiday marking the day that Abraham – the father of Jews, Arabs and monotheism – went to offer his son at the place that became the cornerstone of the Jewish Temple, as a call to welcome Jewish brothers onto the Temple Mount so they could once again pray at the holiest place for Judaism.

I would be excited if hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs would use this time of Ramadan and the 72nd anniversary of Israel’s independence, to acknowledge the Jewish people’s history and rights to live throughout the holy land and call for the Palestinian Authority to abolish the law for capital punishment for any Arab that sells land to a Jew.

Until then, using this day of pain for the Jewish State as a cheap marketing ploy to wash the blood from the hands of Arab murderers to absolve their culpability is yet one more layer of callousness by the participants, the United Nations and The New York Times.

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Hamas Charter, Articles 17 and 18

Articles Seventeen and Eighteen of the Hamas Charter speak to the role women should play in Palestinian society. More specifically, how Muslim women should fight for the liberation of Palestine.

The Role of the Moslem Woman:

Article Seventeen:

The Moslem woman has a role no less important than that of the moslem man in the battle of liberation. She is the maker of men. Her role in guiding and educating the new generations is great. The enemies have realised the importance of her role. They consider that if they are able to direct and bring her up they way they wish, far from Islam, they would have won the battle. That is why you find them giving these attempts constant attention through information campaigns, films, and the school curriculum, using for that purpose their lackeys who are infiltrated through Zionist organizations under various names and shapes, such as Freemasons, Rotary Clubs, espionage groups and others, which are all nothing more than cells of subversion and saboteurs. These organizations have ample resources that enable them to play their role in societies for the purpose of achieving the Zionist targets and to deepen the concepts that would serve the enemy. These organizations operate in the absence of Islam and its estrangement among its people. The Islamic peoples should perform their role in confronting the conspiracies of these saboteurs. The day Islam is in control of guiding the affairs of life, these organizations, hostile to humanity and Islam, will be obliterated.

Article Eighteen:

Woman in the home of the fighting family, whether she is a mother or a sister, plays the most important role in looking after the family, rearing the children and embuing them with moral values and thoughts derived from Islam. She has to teach them to perform the religious duties in preparation for the role of fighting awaiting them. That is why it is necessary to pay great attention to schools and the curriculum followed in educating Moslem girls, so that they would grow up to be good mothers, aware of their role in the battle of liberation.

She has to be of sufficient knowledge and understanding where the performance of housekeeping matters are concerned, because economy and avoidance of waste of the family budget, is one of the requirements for the ability to continue moving forward in the difficult conditions surrounding us. She should put before her eyes the fact that the money available to her is just like blood which should never flow except through the veins so that both children and grown-ups could continue to live.

“Verily, the Moslems of either sex, and the true believers of either sex, and the devout men, and the devout women, and the men of veracity, and the women of veracity, and the patient men, and the patient women, and the humble men, and the humble women, and the alms-givers of either sex who remember Allah frequently; for them hath Allah prepared forgiveness and a great reward.” (The Confederates – verse 25).

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Hamas states that women should stay at home doing “housekeeping matters”, and to raise children teaching them jihad against the “Zionist” enemy in “the battle of liberation.” Muslim women must be careful to not spend too much of her family’s money which she should treat “just like blood” and to not be swayed by “conspiracies of the [Zionist] saboteurs” who try to pull them and their families “far from Islam.”

With such a progressive and peaceful agenda, it is no surprise that leading progressive Muslim women in America support Hamas. (sarcasm)

Proud mother of Palestinian “Shahid,” living the values of Hamas

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Related First One Through articles:

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The Proud Fathers of Palestinian Terrorists

The Shrapnel of Intent

On Killing Terrorists

The War Against Israel and Jewish Civilians

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #10

The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

Pick Your Jihad; Choose Your Infidel

Videos from Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI:

Mother of Palestinian “Martyr”: All Palestinian Mothers Should Urge Their Children to Wage Jihad

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The Building’s Auschwitz Tattoo

I came with my parents to Vienna on a heritage trip to see where my grandparents lived and my mother was born before they fled the city in December 1938, just after Kristallnacht.

My grandmother passed away twenty years before the trip when I was a young adult. I remember her telling me about her beautiful apartment just off of Ringstrasse, the famous street that looped through the center of town. She spoke of her governess, her walks in the mountains with her classmates at the edge of the city and the wonderful life the family had.

She had also spoken fondly of Kaiser Franz Josef, of whom I knew nothing. Only years after she died in preparing for the trip did I look him up to see that he was the emperor in Austria when she moved to Vienna as a young child. I audibly gasped when I saw that my grandmother had the same name as one of the emperor’s daughters, and was further shocked to see that my Grandma named my mother after the Archduchess’s daughter.

I was both excited and curious to see her city.

My parents, sisters and I stayed at a hotel on Taborstrasse where my grandmother’s eldest sister had a shoe store before the war. That side of the canal had wide buildings but narrow streets which made it feel more residential than the more regal side of the canal which had the Ringstrasse, the opera house and famous hotels. This neighborhood continues to house most of the city’s Jews – about 8,000 today – and kosher restaurants. It was also around the corner from my grandmother’s first apartment where she lived until her marriage.

We walked to the building, entered the open front door and climbed the stairs of the very wide and somewhat worn large building. In the 1910’s and 1920’s, this building housed many of my grandmother’s relatives, as she was the youngest of thirteen and many siblings married and got apartments right next to the family.

We knocked on the apartment door and explained to the older couple living there why we had come to visit. They were very welcoming and showed us around the small apartment and balcony which had views of the surrounding buildings.

We then continued across the canal to the more affluent side of central Vienna where my grandparents moved after they were married. The stories I heard in my youth led me to believe that my grandparents lived along the Danube River, but the address made clear that their home was actually along a canal which weaved through the city center. At first we walked on the grand Ringstrasse to get to the apartment but it was clear from a map that walking along the canal would be more direct and switched course.

We were all very excited to find the apartment. It was a large corner building with floors which must have been at least twenty feet tall. The first floor of the building on the canal front had a restaurant and retail stores, while the side street was completely residential.

We located the buzzer to her apartment and saw that it was now a law firm. The receptionist seemed nonplussed by our request to come up and buzzed us in.

It was at that moment when we saw the etching in the large wooden double-doors: Jew.

Our excitement melted. The fabricated images of my grandmother’s happy years living in Vienna were washed away by the reason she left.

I rubbed my fingers along each letter to consider whether the vandalism was recent or historic. The engraving was deeper than the surface but not deep through the wood. There was no sawdust or sharp edge to the ‘J’ which was carved the deepest.

Did my grandparents see this? Did my grandmother come home one day after pushing my mother in a stroller along the canal in mid-1938, just after the Nazis were welcomed into Austria in the Anschluss to see that someone was watching her? This fancy apartment was only a quarter of a mile away as the crow flies from her first apartment in the Jewish section of town: was it the local Viennese people who didn’t want her in the neighborhood?

We pushed the thoughts away, entered the building and rode the ornate elevator to the third floor.

The receptionist let us into the apartment and allowed us to roam. The apartment took up most of the floor including the whole front of the building overlooking the canal. We checked out each room, now reconfigured from a very large apartment for four people to a law firm to handle twenty, almost none of whom were present. While many of the walls were original, I could not imagine where or how my grandparents, mother and uncle lived in the space. Only the dining room which served as a large board room provided a seamless setting for the ghosts of my grandparents.

We thanked the receptionist and left.

I stopped at the front door of the building again and took a picture. And then a few more.

Was antisemitism still breathing in Vienna? Was it embedded into the fabric of the city, to emerge as pogroms now and again? In the 1420’s the city’s residents confiscated the Jews’ possessions, burned 200 Jewish adults at the stake and converted the children to Christianity. Under the guide of the cross or orders of the Fuhrer, the city seemed ripe for a match to incinerate its Jews.

My grandparents survived the Holocaust by fleeing Europe a few weeks after the Nazis burned their city’s synagogues and Jewish stores in November 1938. While some of my grandmother’s siblings did not leave and died in the Holocaust, I had never considered my mother or grandparents “Survivors” as they did not go into the concentration camps or have numbers tattooed on their arms like some of my friend’s parents. My grandmother spoke with such love of Vienna, not of pain and torture.

But indeed there was a tattoo. Not on her body, but on the place that she loved.

While the Nazis stole the humanity from Jews tattooing their bodies with numbers, they also marked her home and city. She was not Viennese at all. She was a Jew.

That is the heritage of the Jews of Europe.

More than the government-placed plaque marking the place where the city burned its Jews 600 years ago and the commissioned sculpture of a Jew on his knees scrubbing the streets 80 years ago, the markings on the walls by the people of Vienna reveal the hatred that enabled the slaughters to take place.

I came to Vienna excited to see my grandmother’s city, only to discover it was never hers at all.

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Related First One Through articles:

Austria’s View of Kristallnacht

Wearing Our Beliefs

Watching Jewish Ghosts

The Termination Shock of Survivors

The Holocaust Will Not Be Colorized. The Holocaust Will Be Live.

The Long History of Dictating Where Jews Can Live Continues

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Conditional U.S. Support in The Middle East

In late 2019, some Democratic candidates for president stated that they would condition American support for Israel with Israel’s behavior regarding Palestinian Arabs. Former Vice President Joe Biden considered the suggestion made by Senator Bernie Sanders (as well as Elizabeth Warren and Pete Buttigieg) to be “bizarre.”

Biden seemed to further cement his position of not compromising on military aid to Israel in a recorded message to an AIPAC conference on March 1, 2020 when he reiterated that “I will never boycott [Israel]…. Israel must be able to defend itself. It’s not just critical for Israel’s security, I believe it is critical for America’s security.”

As Biden tries to court the Sanders supporters who are highly critical of Israel, it remains to be seen how far Biden will tilt towards the anti-Israel stance of Team Sanders who demand a boycott of Jewish homes and businesses east of the Green Line and funneling Israeli military aid towards rebuilding Gaza.

To appreciate the “bizarre” Sanders conditional approach to Israel, consider America’s approach to the Middle East overall.

American Blood

The United States has thousands of troops deployed throughout the Persian Gulf.

Country	U.S. Troops	Operations
Bahrain	5,000	Headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (USNAVCENT)
Qatar	10,000	Home to the Al Udeid Air Base, which includes the forward headquarters of U.S. Air Forces Central Command (AFCENT)
Saudi Arabia	2,500	Prince Sultan Air Base
Kuwait	14,500	U.S. uses Camp Arifjan, Camp Buehring, Ali Al Salem Air Field and the naval base Camp Patriot
Iraq	6,000	Remaining troops after Operation Inherent Resolve to fight ISIS
Oman	600	Relatively small footprint
UAE	5,500	Al Dhafra Air Base hosts several U.S. fighter, attack and reconnaissance aircraft of the U.S. 380th Air Expeditionary Wing.

There are over 225,000 U.S. troops stationed abroad but the United States has no permanent base in Israel and no troops are stationed there. Based on the shared principles of democracy and trust, the United States relies on Israel as a partner in the region and supplies it military aid to defend itself.

The figures of American dead and wounded reflect these facts. The data below is from October 2001 to April 18, 2020 from the U.S. Department of Defense:

Military Operation	Killed	Wounded
Iraqi Freedom	4,431	31,994
New Dawn (Afghanistan)	74	298
Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan)	2,353	20,149
Inherent Resolve (ISIS)	96	224
Freedom’s Sentinel (Afghanistan)	92	570
	7,046	53,235

No Americans have died protecting Israel.

In June 1996, a truck bombing killed 19 Americans at the Khobar Towers barracks near Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.Credit…U.S. Navy, via Associated Press

Treasure

The United States spent roughly $2 trillion to fight wars in Iraq and has spent over $2.5 trillion fighting in Afghanistan. It has spent tens of billions of dollars maintaining its various bases throughout the Persian Gulf and supporting and protecting the Arab and Muslim Persian Gulf countries.

In Egypt, the United States has provided over $40 billion in military aid and $30 billion in economic assistance since 1980. The United States also provides over $1 billion of aid to Jordan every year, in addition to billions of dollars of loan guarantees.

In total, the United States has spent roughly $5 trillion since 2001 on countries in the Middle East, excluding Israel. Almost all of that money has been expenses to stabilize failing regimes and protect U.S. interests. There has been almost no investment in technology development to advance the U.S. military.

However, when it comes to Israel, the United States has benefited from an INVESTMENT in a close ally. As described by the U.S. State Department,

“Israel has long been, and remains, America’s most reliable partner in the Middle East. Israel and the United States are bound closely by historic and cultural ties as well as by mutual interests.”

The U.S. gives Israel over $3 billion per year in military assistance, much of which is spent procuring American products. Israel shares the technological advancements that it develops to enhance America’s military capabilities. In total, the U.S. has given Israel roughly 1/80th of the funds it has spent on the rest of the Middle East, while receiving over 80 times the benefits in technological advancement.

Conditionality

The United States has spent $5 trillion this century on Middle Eastern countries that do not share American values, yet the progressive wing of the Democratic Party has been mum.

Saudi Arabia, a major trading partner, executes minors – in public. It kills people for basic human rights like converting religion. It executes men for engaging in homosexual sex (it only beats woman who are lesbians). Women are forbidden to drive and cannot leave the house without a male escort or approval.

No one seems to care.

Qatar and the United Arab Emirates also have a death penalty for apostasy, converting from Islam. Kuwait, Oman and the UAE have capital punishment for people dealing in drugs. The Palestinian Authority has capital punishment for Arabs who sell land to Jews.

Yet there have been no calls from Sanders or other Democratic Socialists to condition aid to these countries which KILL people for basic human rights. There are over 70 countries – mostly Arab and Muslim – which consider homosexuality a crime, and there is not a peep about placing any conditions on trade and assistance.

The singling out of Israel for allowing a basic human right of a family living in a home and protecting itself from missiles is both hypocritical and antisemitic. Threatening to withhold or divert military aid to Israel which directly benefits American security interests while saying nothing to spending 80 times as much on Arab and Muslim countries is insane. And putting thousands of American lives in danger for backwards regimes while denying Israel the ability to protect Israeli and American interests with ITS OWN SOLDIERS is outright un-American.

Team Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib should not be allowed on any foreign policy committee or have any hand in crafting the Democratic Platform. They are dangers to America on multiple levels.

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Bernie Sanders’ Antisemitic and Anti-Zionist Friends

Bernie Sanders is Less Sophisticated Than Forrest Gump

Bernie Sanders is the Worst U.S. Presidential Candidate for Israel Ever

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Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem and Joe Biden

In March 2010, Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel with the hope of pushing the Palestinians and Israelis towards a peace agreement. A 10-month settlement freeze which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced in November 2009 was just drawing to an end with no engagement by the Palestinian Authority over the duration, but Biden was trying to move the parties forward.

Not long after he arrived, Israel announced the advancement of 1,600 homes in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo which is located north of the 1949 Armistice Lines. In response, Biden scolded Israel, saying “I condemn the decision by the government of Israel to advance planning for new housing units in East Jerusalem.” The statement using “condemn” was shocking, as it is normally only used regarding terrorism. Netanyahu’s 10-month freeze also never included any construction in any part of Jerusalem, so the Israeli activity was not surprising.

Further, it is important to understand Ramat Shlomo.

Ramat Shlomo, Jerusalem

Ramat Shlomo is not a vacant plot of land, it is not privately owned by Arabs and it is not located in the middle of Judea and Samara / the West Bank. It is an established Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem.

• This “East Jerusalem” neighborhood is located northWEST of Hebrew University which was built in 1925.
• It is located southWEST of Pisgat Ze’ev, the second largest neighborhood in Jerusalem and just next to Ramat Alon, the largest neighborhood
• it is located northWEST of the Jewish Temple Mount, Judaism’s holiest location
• It is located just on the other side of Highway 1 from Mobileye, a company which Intel bought for over $15 billion

The population in Ramat Shlomo is mostly ultra-Orthodox, and include Chabad and Litvish communities. The neighborhood has a median age among the youngest in Jerusalem and highest birth rates. Yet from 2006 to 2017, the population of Ramat Shlomo was flat at around 14,700 people. The lack of new homes and flat population growth despite the high birth rates meant that families actually had to leave their neighborhood. The Jerusalem Institute noted “The highest negative migration balance in relation to the size of the neighborhood’s population was recorded in Ramat Shlomo.”

Things finally turned around in 2018 with 500 new apartments commencing construction, the most in Jerusalem according to the Jerusalem Institute. The neighborhood also had the largest voter turnout for municipal elections in 2018, with 83% of eligible voters, indicating a highly engaged populace.

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As the U.S. presidential election season moves into high gear, people will consider Biden’s relationship with Israel and the 2010 Ramat Shlomo incident will surely be discussed. It is therefore worth reviewing how Biden’s highly critical comments slowed the natural growth of that residential Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem for many years until just recently.

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The Jews of Jerusalem In Situ

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Arabs in Jerusalem

The Arguments over Jerusalem

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Toronto Star Sanitizes Hamas During Pandemic

On March 30, 2020, the Toronto Star wrote an article “Fearing Gaza coronavirus spread, Hamas preps for mass quarantines” which painted Hamas as a reasonable and responsible government caring for its citizens.

The article opened with a woman returning to Gaza from Egypt who was surprised that Hamas had set up quarantine facilities for people entering the territory, who then became alarmed when people in the neighboring facility tested positive for Covid-19. In the description, Hamas was simply referred to as a “militant group” and not a designated terrorist organization by the government of Canada which notes that “since 1990, Hamas has been responsible for several hundred terrorist attacks against both civilian and military targets.”

Not in this puff piece.

In this Star article, Hamas is on the front lines battling disease, not Jews, stating “Hamas is racing to build two massive quarantine facilities — hoping to prevent the disease from spreading and overwhelming Gaza’s already shattered health system.”

According to the article, the system is in dire condition with quotes like “The health care system is in shambles — a result of the blockade, three wars between Hamas and Israel and chronic underfunding due to infighting between Hamas and the rival Palestinian Authority in the West Bank,” and “high rates of obesity, smoking and stress-related disorders appear to make Gaza’s population especially vulnerable.”

For starters, UNRWA, the organization that manages the healthcare in Gaza for the vast majority of the population is over-funded and over-staffed relative to the other global refugee agency UNHCR, by a wide margin. The people in Gaza have among the lowest mortality rates and highest life expectancy in the world, close to wealthy Arab kingdoms like Qatar and Kuwait.

Over 65% of the population in Gaza is under 25 years old, one of the youngest populations in the world with a median age of just over 17 years old. Only 6% of the population is over 55. This very young population has a very low risk of dying from Covid-19 which is most deadly for people over 70.

No matter. After stating that the healthcare system is underfunded and people are highly vulnerable, The Star burnished the credentials of Hamas’ leader: “After seeing images of the makeshift facilities, Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yehiyeh Sinwar, ordered the group’s military wing to build two new quarantine centres.”

Here are some other recent quotes from Sinwar, as translated by MEMRI:

• “But I say this loud and clear: God forbid, if a time comes when we have no choice but to watch our citizens breathe their final breaths, and when there are no ventilators – I say to [Israeli Defense Minister] Bennet that we will make six million Israeli settlers [Jews throughout Israel] unable to breathe.“
• “Umm Muhammad, do not worry about the resistance in Gaza. The whole world is hit by the coronavirus, but the members of the Al-Qassam [Brigades] are working day and night to complete their preparation for the liberation [of all of the land of Israel].”

Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip, speaks to foreign correspondents in his office in Gaza City, May 10, 2018. (Khalil Hamra/AP)

The Toronto Star wrote a puff story about the Hamas leadership acting responsibly trying to care for a population desperately short of funds because of an Israeli-Egyptian blockade of a highly vulnerable Gaza population. This in sharp contrast to the facts of the terrorist group leader making ongoing threats of war against the Jews of Israel while his over-funded and uber-young population ask for additional billions of dollars for theft and military purposes.

Oh, Canada.:(

Collecting protection money through rocket fire: cartoon by Palestinian cartoonist Ala al-Luqta entitled “Through protection money (in the original: khawa): Gaza is connected to a ventilator in the form of a rocket” (PALDF forum, April 2, 2020)

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The United Nations Can Hear the Songs of Gazans, but Cannot See Their Rockets

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For CNN, The Critical Israeli Facts Have No Murdered Jews

The bias against Israel in the liberal media is no longer an accusation but established fact.

Consider the salient facts regarding Israel by the largest global media company, CNN.

Its website has a page called “Israel Fast Facts” which attempts to showcase the most relevant information about the modern state of Israel.

The “Timeline” runs from November 2, 1917 until January 28, 2020 (as of this writing). From the 1917 Balfour Declaration until Israel’s independence in May 1948, CNN wrote that there were “riots” between 1936 and 1939 due to “tensions between Arabs and Jewish settlers.”

• For CNN, every single Jew who came to Palestine was a “settler.” In today’s parlance, CNN and the liberal media call any Jew living east of the 1949 Armistice Lines a “settler” committing an illegal activity. Does CNN believe that every Jew who came to Palestine did so illegally? The facts that Jews have been a majority in Jerusalem since the 1860’s and many thousands of Jews lived in the land for years is unmentioned and irrelevant.
• The “riots” included massacres of Jewish civilians as in Hebron in 1929. However, no blame on Arabs or Jewish victims are noted.
• The 1936-9 Arab riots resulted in the British succumbing to Arab pressure to issue a White Paper limiting the immigration of Jews into Palestine to 75,000 over five years, just as the Holocaust in Europe was starting. CNN failed to mention the Arab riots not only killing hundred of Jews in Palestine but resulting in over 100,000 dead Jews in Europe.

Two papal visits are listed in CNN’s timeline, in 1964 and 2000. It is unclear how that is critical to the history of Israel as CNN does not list papal visits to other countries like Lebanon in their timelines.

Dozens of Palestinian terrorist attacks around the world are unmentioned, and the sole attack listed by CNN was the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympic Games, which failed to label the terrorists as Palestinian.

There is no mention of Hamas being formed in 1987, the publication of its anti-Semitic charter calling for the killing of Jews and destruction of Israel in 1988, its election to a majority of the Palestinian parliament in 2006 or its routing of Fatah and takeover of the Gaza Strip in 2007.

No mention of Israel’s peace agreement with Jordan in 1994.

While CNN mentioned the Gaza Disengagement Plan in December 2003, it failed to mention the April 2004 letter from US President George W. Bush to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in conjunction with such action, clearly stating the US position that a two-state solution would NOT run along the 1949 Armistice Lines.

The May 2010 Turkish flotilla to Gaza is referred to as bringing “humanitarian supplies,” in which “nine activists” were killed by Israeli commandos. Lost in this description was that the boat refused to dock peacefully in an Israeli port to have the supplies delivered to Gaza and that the “activists” actively beat the Israelis with the soldiers responding in a defensive action.

Continuing its theme of Israelis being aggressors, CNN wrote about Israeli confrontations with Hamas in 2008, 2014 and 2018 mentioning the number of Palestinians killed but never mentioning any Israelis killed or injured.

CNN map of Israel, referring to “East Jerusalem,” a place that only existed for 19 years as an artifice of war

CNN’s timeline of Israel’s history includes thousands of dead Palestinians at the hands of Israelis but not a single dead or injured Israeli by Palestinians. It further minimized Palestinian terrorist attacks against Jews around the world with only a solitary mention of the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Olympics and even then, refusing to state the terrorists were Palestinian.

And CNN goes further to label Israelis as militants and Palestinians as victims by describing every Jew that ever came to Israel as a “settler,” inherently deserving of Arab wrath.

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Transitions, Juxtapositions and the Night of the Exodus

“O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing,
ever waning,
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
as fancy takes it;”

opening of “O Fortuna” from Carmina Burana

This 13th century Latin poem was put to music by Carl Orff in 1935-6. It describes fate as an ever “whirling wheel” in which a person goes through life with ups and downs.  The pace of the rise and fall is unclear, but presumably happens over time as the wheel slowly rotates.

There are, however, moments in time when two competing realities exist side-by-side. A woman may be pregnant one second and a mother the next. The transition lasts for a moment.

There are also situations when a transition is not only defined by time but by space. A person can be inside a house and then outside. A simple threshold is crossed to change not only location but situation.

In rare situations, alternative realities are neither separated nor juxtaposed, but twist and fold upon each other. Such is the Night of the Exodus and the first night of Passover.

The Night of the Exodus

On the night of last plague on Egypt, the killing of the first born, the Jews were commanded to take a lamb, slaughter it, paint its blood on the doorposts of the home, then roast the lamb and devour every morsel.

The lamb was considered a deity in ancient Egypt. Killing it, roasting it and displaying its blood on the outside of the homes was designed as a clear affront to Egyptian sensibilities. They could smell the roasting of the meat and see how the Jews enjoyed sticking their faces in it.

Remarkably, the Jews did this while still slaves. They were still in Egypt and not yet free as they feasted and killed the Gods of their masters. They took liberties associated with free folk, pulling their future freedom into the moment of slavery. These choreographed actions helped transform their mental state from one of servants to masters. When God said “And the blood on the houses where you are staying shall be a sign for you,” (Exodus 12: 13) it was truly designed as a way for the slaves to break the orientation of servitude.

Every generation afterwards was also commanded to remember that remarkable night – to place themselves as if they were there thousands of years ago – making that transformation at the Seder, holding the matzah, the bread of slavery, together with the pascal lamb, the symbol of salvation. Holding both items together serves as a vehicle to transform time, space and mental state, just as Jewish ancestor did long ago.

The Seder

The Passover Hagaddah captures the essence of these curious juxtapositions and transformations at the beginning of the Magid section with a short paragraph called Ha Lachma Anya.

This is the bread of affliction that our ancestors ate in the land of Egypt.

Taken literally, each person at the Seder is facing a fossil, a 3,300-year old object. Perhaps more incredible, this item from antiquities is actually connected to relatives who lived far way (time AND place) in Egypt. On this special night we display a family heirloom.

All those who are hungry, let them enter and eat.

Based on the juxtaposition of the sentences it would appear that we are going to eat this precious piece of history. While we may be a tad hungry, it seems inappropriate to eat something irreplaceable.

All who are in need, let them come celebrate Passover.

This sentence seemingly addresses the whole world. As food is the cure for hunger, Passover must be the remedy for “need.” It is unclear whether the needs are physical – like food for hunger – mental, spiritual or emotional. Perhaps celebrating Passover helps them all.

Now we are here, next year in the land of Israel.

The paragraph pivots again. After two invitations for people to participate in the meal and holiday, there is a declaration that we will celebrate next Passover in Israel. Presumably, this is for all of the people who we just invited to sit down with us, to celebrate together in Israel.

This year we are enslaved, next year we will be free.

Another interesting juxtaposition of sentences of here versus next year. Does this suggest that we are here now and enslaved and next year we will be free and in Israel? Or, should we rethink the entire discussion: are we reciting words that are thousands of years old, just as we point to matzahs of our ancestors? This entire scene is a reenactment of the last night in Egypt, when Jews were on the threshold of freedom, on their journey to the land of Israel.

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The first night of Passover we do not simply imagine lives as slaves in Egypt nor our freedom that we have today. We reenact that pivotal moment of transforming ourselves in time, place and mental health which happened on the last night in Egypt, when we jumped forward and feasted and imagined life in the promised land, even while anchored in the reality of slavery.

Like no other year in over 3,000 years, with a pandemic upon us with many mourning departed loved ones and spending Seders in solitude, let us all say Ha Lachma Anya and pull forward that future of freedom to live full lives in the complete Jerusalem.

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Related First One Through articles:

A Plague for Others

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Hamas Charter, Articles 15 and 16

The Hamas Charter builds on its theme of jihad in Articles Fifteen and Sixteen.

The Jihad for the Liberation of Palestine is an Individual Duty:

Article Fifteen:

The day that enemies usurp part of Moslem land, Jihad becomes the individual duty of every Moslem. In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised. To do this requires the diffusion of Islamic consciousness among the masses, both on the regional, Arab and Islamic levels. It is necessary to instill the spirit of Jihad in the heart of the nation so that they would confront the enemies and join the ranks of the fighters.

It is necessary that scientists, educators and teachers, information and media people, as well as the educated masses, especially the youth and sheikhs of the Islamic movements, should take part in the operation of awakening (the masses). It is important that basic changes be made in the school curriculum, to cleanse it of the traces of ideological invasion that affected it as a result of the orientalists and missionaries who infiltrated the region following the defeat of the Crusaders at the hands of Salah el-Din (Saladin). The Crusaders realised that it was impossible to defeat the Moslems without first having ideological invasion pave the way by upsetting their thoughts, disfiguring their heritage and violating their ideals. Only then could they invade with soldiers. This, in its turn, paved the way for the imperialistic invasion that made Allenby declare on entering Jerusalem: “Only now have the Crusades ended.” General Guru stood at Salah el-Din’s grave and said: “We have returned, O Salah el-Din.” Imperialism has helped towards the strengthening of ideological invasion, deepening, and still does, its roots. All this has paved the way towards the loss of Palestine.

It is necessary to instill in the minds of the Moslem generations that the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis. Palestine contains Islamic holy sites. In it there is al- Aqsa Mosque which is bound to the great Mosque in Mecca in an inseparable bond as long as heaven and earth speak of Isra` (Mohammed’s midnight journey to the seven heavens) and Mi’raj (Mohammed’s ascension to the seven heavens from Jerusalem).

“The bond of one day for the sake of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it. The place of one’s whip in Paradise is far better than the world and whatever there is on it. A worshipper’s going and coming in the service of Allah is better than the world and whatever there is on it.” (As related by al-Bukhari, Moslem, al-Tarmdhi and Ibn Maja).

“I swear by the holder of Mohammed’s soul that I would like to invade and be killed for the sake of Allah, then invade and be killed, and then invade again and be killed.” (As related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).

The Education of the Generations:

Article Sixteen:

It is necessary to follow Islamic orientation in educating the Islamic generations in our region by teaching the religious duties, comprehensive study of the Koran, the study of the Prophet’s Sunna (his sayings and doings), and learning about Islamic history and heritage from their authentic sources. This should be done by specialised and learned people, using a curriculum that would healthily form the thoughts and faith of the Moslem student. Side by side with this, a comprehensive study of the enemy, his human and financial capabilities, learning about his points of weakness and strength, and getting to know the forces supporting and helping him, should also be included. Also, it is important to be acquainted with the current events, to follow what is new and to study the analysis and commentaries made of these events. Planning for the present and future, studying every trend appearing, is a must so that the fighting Moslem would live knowing his aim, objective and his way in the midst of what is going on around him.

“O my son, verily every matter, whether good or bad, though it be the weight of a grain of mustard-seed, and be hidden in a rock, or in the heavens, or in the earth, Allah will bring the same to light; for Allah is clear-sighted and knowing. O my son, be constant at prayer, and command that which is just, and forbid that which is evil: and be patient under the afflictions which shall befall thee; for this is a duty absolutely incumbent on all men. Distort not thy face out of contempt to men, neither walk in the earth with insolence; for Allah loveth no arrogant, vain-glorious person.” (Lokman – verses 16-18).

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Articles Fifteen and Sixteen give clarity to the intended meaning of “jihad,” a word which people sometimes say is an inward struggle to find a purity of spirit.

Stating “In face of the Jews’ usurpation of Palestine, it is compulsory that the banner of Jihad be raised,” and “the Palestinian problem is a religious problem, and should be dealt with on this basis,” Hamas makes clear that jihad is an external religious war to purify the land of Palestine of Jews. As part of the battle, Palestinian society will direct its youth towards the “study of the enemy, his human and financial capabilities, learning about his points of weakness and strength, and getting to know the forces supporting and helping him,” and will use “scientists, educators and teachers, information and media” to make “basic changes” to “the school curriculum” so the young will know how to defeat their Jewish enemies.

And the Palestinian Arabs elected Hamas to 58% of the parliament with this charter, the United Nations pushes for Hamas to be part of a unity government, and the media talks of “Islamic resistance” as a peaceful and natural endeavor.

A Palestinian boy holds his father’s weapon during a graduation ceremony as part of a military-style summer camp organized by Hamas, August 2015. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90

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The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #2

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #3

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #4

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #5

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The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #8

The Hamas Charter, Chapter and Verse. #9

The Palestinians aren’t “Resorting to Violence”; They are Murdering and Waging War

Extreme and Mainstream. Germany 1933; West Bank & Gaza Today

Pick Your Jihad; Choose Your Infidel

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