Hundreds of Gazan residents joined protest marches organized by the terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad on Friday, August 23, AFP reported.

Upon completion of Friday services, protesters gathered and marched to a central square in Gaza City.  Signs reading “no to negotiations” and labeling Mahmoud Abbas a “political failure” were held aloft by the protesters.

Hamas’s religious affairs minister Ismail Radwan condemned Mahmoud Abbas for engaging in negotiations with Israel and for considering any compromises of core Arab Palestinian demands in his speech to the protesters.

“All the Palestinian factions say you don’t have the right to relinquish any piece of our land, or to give up Palestinian rights,” he said.

“Returning to talks is a blow to the jihad and to the sacrifices of our people, the blood of our martyrs and to our prisoners behind bars in Israel,” Radwan declared.

“No to these absurd negotiations, no to returning to the negotiating table, no to security cooperation, no to the exchange of land, and not to giving up on the right of return,” Radwan shouted into the microphone.

Israeli and Arab Palestinian negotiators held the third in their series talks on Tuesday in Jerusalem.  The next session will take place in Jericho.

There has been an ongoing effort by Fatah and Hamas to form a unity government which would represent all the Arab Palestinians.  The Palestinian Authority unity government was disbanded in 2007 by Abbas, whose term officially ended in 2006.  Since that time Hamas has been the de facto government in Gaza while Fatah has been the de facto Arab Palestinian ruling government over Areas A and B of the disputed territories.

During the past week, Abbas offered to hold general elections, ostensibly as a move to unify Fatah and Hamas.  That offer was rejected by Hamas which demanded more issues to be placed under consideration, while Fatah wished the items to be more carefully circumscribed. In addition, Hamas strongly supports the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt – Hamas is an outgrowth of the Brotherhood – while Fatah favors the military’s control over Egypt and supported the overthrow of former president Mohamad Morsi.

The Arab Palestinian negotiators engaged in the current rounds of U.S.-moderated ‘peace talks’ solely represent Fatah.  Whatever concessions or agreements entered into by Fatah would surely be rejected by Hamas, if those parties ever succeed in creating a unity government.

On the other hand, the Arab Palestinians, the U.S. and the global community will undoubtedly demand that Israel honor  whatever concessions, if any, the Jewish State makes during these talks.

When  U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry  again says that Mahmoud Abbas has stopped terror, he will not recall that the IDF does the dirty work for the Palestinian Authority, such as it did overnight Monday when soldiers trying to carry out an arrest were met with live fire.

The Israeli soldiers responded by killing one terrorist, wounding three others and achieving their objective of capturing the wanted Islamic Jihad member.

The Palestinian Authority is responsible for security in Jenin, as in most other areas in Judea and Samaria. It officially is responsible for “law and order,” which usually amounts to handing out traffic tickets and fighting crime and drug trafficking.

The Israeli army maintains security at the security fence that separates Judea and Samaria from the rest of Israel. It also is responsible for economic and civil coordination with the Palestinian Authority, cooperating with the PA army, officially known as a “police force,” and acting independently when necessary.

“When we identify an emerging terror attack, including plan s for an attack, or ongoing terrorist activity, the IDF together with other security personnel takes  matters in its own hands, IDF Spokesman Capt. Eitan Buchman told The Jewish Press Tuesday.

He added that is what happened in the overnight raid in Jenin early Tuesday morning.

The IDF, including the Kfir Brigade, the orthodox Jewish Netzach Yehuda regiment, and Border Police moved into Jenin, located in central Samaria, but were met with heavy resistance of approximately 50 Arabs, some of whom opened fire at the soldiers. They  wounded two of them, and also threw grenades.

The troops returned fire, killing one terrorist.

Foreign media reported the incident.

The missing part of the story is that the Palestinian Authority does not carry out its commitment, dating back to the Oslo Accords, to tear apart the terrorist infrastructure in Judea and Samaria.

If Monday night’s wanted terrorist was a Fatah member, one could make the excuse that the Palestinian Authority is not mature enough to arrest its own terrorists

But in this case the terrorist was a member of the rival Islamic Jihad. If PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas really wants to prove that he can provide security for Israel in a future Palestinian Authority country, one would think he would try to prove it instead of letting the IDF do the dirty work for him.

That is a question no one asks, for the simple reason that it would harm the “peace process.”

John Kerry and President Barack Obama have frequently praised Abbas for reducing terror in Judea and Samara, so they got half of it right. Terror has been reduced, but not because of Abbas.

If they continue to convince themselves that Abbas has fought terror, while inciting it, they should be asking why the IDF was operating in Jenin in the first place.

The answer, of course, is that the Palestinian Authority cannot exist without the IDF. Every Israeli army soldier and junior officer serving in Judea and Samaria knows that, but senior officers, wanting to win a promotion, toe the party line and boast of coordination with the Palestinian Authority security forces.

Indeed, there is cooperation to a certain extent, but whenever the IDF carries out a counterterrorist operation in Judea and Samaria, Abbas gets the credit and Israel is blamed.

PA media reported that the soldiers shot him “directly in the heart,” making the arrest attempt appear to be a cruel attack aimed at murdering Arabs.

The New York Times’ Jodi Roderon duly noted that Arabs shot at the soldiers while reminding readers that the victim was a Palestinian “man” and not a terrorist, and that “such killings are rare,” as if “killing” is an IDF policy when trying to arrest terrorists.

Rodoren reported, “Israeli soldiers killed a young Palestinian man early Tuesday during a confrontation in the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank, as troops arriving to arrest an Islamic Jihad member suspected of planning terrorist attacks were greeted by violent protesters.”

The newspaper, like virtually all foreign media, uses the same terms over and  over again to brainwash themselves and readers and perpetuating  the myth of an “Occupation Army.”

The “refugee camp” connotes some poor village of tents for poor Arabs who were uprooted by Israel, while they are in fact third and fourth generation Arabs of those who fled or were chased out of Israel in previous wars.

The following is a list of the 26 prisoners scheduled for early release from prisons in Israel later this week as a ‘goodwill gesture’ to encourage Palestinian leaders to return to the negotiating table. In all, Israel agreed to eventually release 104 so-called pre-Oslo prisoners.

As we have noted, many in the media (including the Guardian, The Independent, and the Irish Times,) have whitewashed the violent, and often brutal crimes of the prisoners being released, and, conversely, have depicted the families of the soon-to-be released prisoners in a disturbingly sympathetic light.  So, in addition to listing details about the perpetrators, we’ve also included some information on the victims.  (You can see the complete list of pre-Oslo prisoners – information which was translated, edited and published exclusively by CAMERA – here.) 1. Kour Matwa Hamed Faiz (Fatah. Born 1964, resident of Judea & Samaria, arrested 1985) was sentenced to one life term for his part in establishing an armed Fatah cell and for the murder of Menahem Dadon in 1983 and for another attempted murder.

Menahem Dadon from Netivot was 22 years old when he was murdered. He had been sent by his employer to purchase building materials in Gaza and whilst in the shop, was shot in the head at point-blank range. He left a pregnant wife and two daughters.

2. Tsalah Ibrahim Ahmed Mugdad (Fatah. Born 1966, resident of Judea & Samaria, arrested 1993) was sentenced to 32 years imprisonment for the murder of Israel Tennenbaum and was due to be released on 13/6/2025.

Born in Poland in 1921, Israel Tennenbaum from Moshav Vered was a farmer who also worked as a security guard at a hotel in Netanya despite being 72 years old at the time of his death. In June 1993 Tsalah broke into the hotel and murdered Israel Tennenbaum by beating him over the head with a steel rod. He also stole a television from the hotel.

3. Na’anish Naif Abdel Jafar Samir (Born 1967, resident of Judea & Samaria, arrested 1989) was sentenced to a life term for his part in the murder of 24 year-old reservist Binyamin Meisner in February 1989.

Na’anish was part of a group which lured Meisner into an ally in Nablus (Schem) in which they had pre-prepared a stockpile of rocks. They then stoned Meisner to death.

4. Arshid A’Hamid Yusuf Yusuf (Fatah. Born 1968, resident of Judea & Samaria, arrested 1993) was sentenced to five life sentences after having been convicted of the murders of Nadal Rabu Jaab, Adnan Ayaad Dib, Mufid Canaan, Tawfik Jaradat and Ibrahim Said Ziad by stabbing. Arsheed was also indicted on several additional counts of attempted murder of others he also suspected of ‘collaboration’.

5. Al-Haj Othman Amar Mustafa (Fatah. Born 1968, resident of Judea & Samaria, arrested 1989) was sentenced to a life sentence for his part in the murder of 48 year-old Frederick Steven Rosenfeld in June 1989.

Rosenfeld was hiking in the hills near Ariel when he came across a group of shepherds who stabbed him to death with his own knife and hid his body.

6. Matslah Abdallah Salama (Hamas. Born 1969, resident of the Gaza Strip, arrested 1993) was sentenced to one life sentence for the murder of Reuven David in Petah Tikva in 1991.

Together with an accomplice, Matslah entered 59 year-old Iraqi-born Reuven David’s mini-market, tied him up, gagged him and then beat him to death, before escaping in the victim’s car. He left a wife, three children and several grandchildren.

7. Abu-Musa Salam Ali Atia (Fatah. Born 1971, resident of the Gaza Strip, arrested 1994) was convicted of the murder of Isaac Rotenburg from Holon as part of an initiation rite for joining a terror organisation and sentenced to one life sentence.

Holocaust survivor Isaac Rotenberg was born in Poland. Most of his family was murdered in the Sobibor death camp, but Isaac managed to escape and joined the partisans. After the war he tried to make his way by ship to mandate Palestine, but was interred by the British and sent to a detention camp in Cyprus until 1947. After his release Isaac arrived in pre-state Israel and fought in the War of Independence. He continued his work as a plasterer even after pension age and in March 1994 was at his place of work in Petah Tikva when he was attacked by two Palestinian labourers with axes. He died, aged 67, two days later.

Israel gave Palestinian Authority chairman Mahmoud Abbas a double boost in the planned release of 26 terrorists names Monday morning, first by agreeing to Abbas’ pre-condition linking their freedom with the resumption of peace talks and secondly by including six terrorists from gangs that are rivals to Abbas’ Fatah party terrorist branch.

Two of the terrorists were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), two belonged to Hamas, and two others belonged to the Islamic Jihad. The remaining 20 murdered or attempted to murder Jews in the name of Abbas’ Fatah movement.

The scheduled release of the six from rival terrorist gangs gives Abbas a boost in his image among the terrorist organizations, all of which do not make any claims that they are interested in a “two-state” solution.

Excerpts from “Fighting Terrorism”, 2001 Edition, by Benjamin Netanyahu, page 119-120.

Understandably, many Israelis do not want to see that [Gaza] base expanded twenty times to include the West Bank, thereby having an Iranian-influenced Islamic domain hovering over its major cities, and within 10 miles of the sea.

Such a PLO-Hamas state would sooner or later threaten to topple the pro-Western Hashemite regime in Jordan, the majority of whose population is composed of Palestinian Arabs, many of them susceptible to the fundamentalist message.

A Palestinian-Islamic state on the West Bank of the Jordan River might soon expand to the East Bank as well (i.e. the present state of Jordan).

…

Above all, a PLO-Hamas state is likely to eventually deteriorate into a new avatar of the PLO terror state in Lebanon, which was responsible for the exportation of terror far beyond the Middle East…

It might take several years for such a state to reveal its true nature. It might first wish to build up its power, adopting a relative docile outward appearance to continue receiving Western aid and Israeli concessions. But the underlying irredentist and terrorist impulses are at the core of its political ideology and raison d’etre  are unfortunately not likely to disappear.

Even now it is possible to correct the mistakes which the Labor government has made in its efforts to appease Palestinian terror.

Stability may be achieved and terrorism put on the defensive if Israel reassumes responsibility for its own security and asserts a policy of local autonomy for the Palestinian Arabs instead of the independent terror-free zones (editor:  state) now being built.

It will take some time for the rest of the world to understand what many in Israel now know: that far from producing the durable peace all Israelis yearn for, the continued expansion if an armed Palestinian domain is merely a stepping-stone to the eventual escalation of conflict and the continued march of Islamic militancy in the Middle East and beyond.

It’s become apparent to all that Syria is the natural Arab state. Without a strong and powerful leader, anarchy and internecine murder swiftly develops.

This is not because Arabs are primitive, though in part it is because Islam is fundamentally a violent religion. The real reason is that the Arabs are not really one people, as the root word in Hebrew “Arev” attests to. Arev translates as mixture. The Arabs are in reality a mix of distinct sects, tribes and clans who don’t really like one another. When they are supposedly unified, it is only because a strong leader temporarily suppresses their independent identities and locks them together under his strong thumb.

Arab state after state proves this to be true.

This brings us to our first obvious question about the current peace process….

1) Who does Abbas actually represent in the peace talks? While Abbas controls the Palestinian Authority in Judea and Samaria, he doesn’t control the Palestinian Authority in Gaza, as that is under control of a different group – a competing terrorist gang that not only doesn’t he speak for, but a gang who is prepared to overthrow him once conditions are right.

Abbas also doesn’t have the support of the Chamulot, the traditional clan and tribes, who despise him, and would also overthrow Abbas in a second if given the chance.

So if Israel negotiates with Abbas, when the reality is that he doesn’t represent Gaza, when he doesn’t represent the Chamulot, and in fact, since there haven’t been elections, we don’t even know if he represents the rest of the Arab citizens he rules, and he is likely to be overthrown soon, what value does his signature have?

The answer is nothing.

That brings us to the second question…

2) What will keep the “West Bank” from turning into Syria? As we pointed out above, the so-called “Palestinians” are a mixture of different religious sects, tribes and clans, and Bedouin too, who all hate each other, if God forbid, Israel were to pull out the IDF further, we will quickly see a repeat of the Hamas takeover in Judea and Samaria. But this will end up as messy as Syria, when all the groups will start to kill each other to take over. The “West Bank” would quickly deteriorate, and it would be as if we had listened to Shimon Peres as his idiotic ideas to give away the Golan to Syria – pointless and dangerous.

What will stop this Syria-like collapse in the “West Bank”?

Again, the answer is nothing.

And that brings us to our third question and final question…

3) Why in the world would Abbas even want to make peace, when he knows that as soon as he does, his dead, mangled, and cannibalized carcass will be hauled through Bethlehem’s Manger Square by one of the many sects, clans, and tribes that want him dead, and will use this as an opportunity to attempt a coup?

The answer is, he does not.

Reaching peace in these peace talks is the last thing Abbas wants or needs. Ignoring for a moment that he will never obtain the terms of agreement that his cohorts and various friends and enemies are demanding, reaching a true peace agreement means his death, and no further access to his Swiss bank accounts.

For Abbas (or any other future “Palestinian” leader), nothing is better than the current situation. The continuation of the conflict provides him a lifeline (and access to his Swiss bank accounts).

What Abbas does need to get out of this, is a strengthening of his position vis a vis Hamas. The only subject of tangible value for him is the release of terrorists and baby killers.

“Palestinian” society is so sick, that the value they hold most dear, is the value of murdering Jewish babies, and those who murder Jewish women and children are their society’s heroes.

That is why releasing these baby-killers is their first and most non-negotiable demand.

That is why Abbas made it a requirement for talking peace.

Abbas expects nothing else from the talks. He wants nothing to succeed from the talks, but if he is being forced to talk, he can at least demand the one concession that he knows from experience Israel will give him that will temporarily buttress his position as the “Palestinian” leader before the talks collapse.

Originally published at Rubin Reports.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) leader Mahmoud Abbas has appointed a new prime minister. He is Rami Hamdullah.

Who?

It is useful to remember that the post of PA prime minister was originally forced on PLO, PA, and Fatah leader Yasir Arafat ten years ago in the hope of getting the PA to be more moderate and more competent as an economic and administrative entity. It has not worked too well.

But once you think about it, Hamdullah is the perfect PA prime minister. His predecessor was Salam Fayyad. Fayyad, named six years ago, was a serious economist who actually tried to curb the ruling Fatah party’s corruption. The Western donors liked Fayyad and kept him in office for years against the will of the Fatah bosses, who periodically tried to get rid of him. They feared that if they forced out Fayyad, the money would be cut off. At any rate, they blocked all of Fayyad’s reform measures and he never played any significant role in negotiations with Israel.

The Fatah bosses run the PA’s broad policy. Of the 18 members elected in 2009 they are mainly hardliners, either radicals or old Arafat loyalists. After the election, a moderate, Ahmad Qurei (better known as Abu Ala), who missed out on election by two votes said, albeit with exaggeration, that the Fatah elections were more dishonest than the recent ones in Iran.

But even he, perhaps the most moderate individual in the higher ranks of the organization, showed the culture of Fatah by accusing Israel of fixing the election and those who won as being Israeli agents! So the arguably most moderate leading figure claimed that Israel conspired to control the election by picking hardliners. This tells you part of the problem

The victory of people like Jibril Rajoub, Muhammad Dahlan, and Tawik Tirawi—all security force commanders—showed, he claimed that “someone wants to see rubber stamps” in Fatah’s leadership. He implied that these people were too soft on Israel and were actually willing to make concessions as part of a comprehensive peace agreement. Of course, such a comprehensive agreement has not appeared in the last four years and is nowhere in sight.

No need to wonder why this conflict continues when you look at thinking and behavior like this.
At the same time, Gaza Strip leaders of Fatah have resigned. Even aside from vote-fixing they do have a case. After all, since Hamas prevented many from attending the meeting they couldn’t vote for candidates from Gaza.

And there is still more. Who beat Abu Ala for the position on the Fatah Central Committee? Tayyib Abd al-Rahman. He was for many years the head of Arafat’s personal public relations’ operation.  I remember him well from the 1980s running Arafat’s press conferences. So much for new leadership.

Now, however, it is a sign of the contempt that the Fatah bosses feel toward President Barack Obama, as someone too powerless or unwilling to pressure them. In fact, it is a sign of their low respect that the replacement of Fayyad comes only a few days after Secretary of State John Kerry offered them a fund of $4 billion of the PA went back to negotiations with Israel. The PA refused.

According to the theory that the PA really wants a two-state diplomatic solution with Israel, this makes no sense. Doesn’t it want to compromise to end “oppression” and ”occupation” as soon as possible? No, unfortunately they would rather wait decades in hopes of wiping Israel off the map, or leaving the issue open for the next generation, or fear that compromise would mean their being called traitors and pushed out by their Islamist rival, Hamas.

Hamdullah is sort of the perfect compromise. He is a nobody, a technocrat, lacking all political experience so he won’t try to challenge the party bosses and cannot do so. Hamdullah will do what he is told.

But also Hamdullah, dean at al-Najah University, is a Fatah party member (plus 1), is British-educated (plus 2), and an English professor (plus 3). In other words, he knows how to deal with the West and will hopefully keep the money rolling in but cannot do anything and won’t try.

Hamdullah cannot negotiate even if he wanted to do so. He will ignore Western encouragements to return to the bargaining table but will keep accepting the checks and provide the PA with a moderate face that will gain public relations’ points with his British-accented English.

Long forgotten was the late Bush and early Obama Administration strategy. The idea was that with the PA’s cooperation, the West Bank would be turned into a relatively successful entity while heavy pressure would be put on the Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip. Palestinians would allegedly see the difference, support the PA and not Hamas, a wave of moderation would start, and a compromise peace result with Israel.
Today, however, Hamas survives, is entrenching itself, and now has–despite serious frictions between them–a patron in the advancing Muslim Brotherhood movement. The PA is still a mess, with aid having a bigger chance of ending up in the PA leaders’ Swiss bank accounts than in building a stable economy.

Meanwhile, we will all wait for a year or two or three to see who Abbas’s successor will be. Abbas has long passed the end of his elected term without anyone in the West pointing out that his government is no longer legitimate. His desire to become partners again with terrorist Hamas gets a pass as does the fact that the PA has now rejected the Oslo Accords of 1993 with Israel on which its own existence is based.

Yet corrupt, incompetent, and hardline as it is the PA serves a purpose. It preserves the fiction that the “peace process” is still alive and keeps Hamas out of power.

Of course, on the positive side, it also keeps Hamas from overthrowing the PA–which means the West Bank, since Hamas already controls the Gaza Strip–out of the hands of the revolutionary Islamists who would use it to launch an immediate war on Israel backed by the other Muslim Brotherhood regimes.

That in itself is worthwhile given the fact that there is zero alternative of a moderate Palestinian leadership that would make peace with Israel.  Of course, the PA has no interest in doing what is necessary to actually obtain a Palestinian state.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas finished off his latest swipe at the United States Sunday by appointing a professor, who is a member of his Fatah party, to replace PA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as prime minister of the PA.

Fayyad, trained in the United States as en economist, was hand-picked by the Bush administration to head Abbas’s government. Fayyad was widely considered as a success in trying to establish some form of normalcy in the corrupt and debt-ridden Palestinian Authority, but his independence and success were too much for Abbas, and Fayyad quit earlier this year.

His replacement, Prof Rami Hamdallah, suits Abbas just right. Hamdallah is not widely known and, unlike Fayyad who was a political outsider, is a loyal member of Abbas’ Fatah movement,

Hamdallah was educated in Britain and has headed the al-Najah University for the past 15 years.

The appointment rattled Hamas, which said that Abbas has no legal right to be in office let alone appoint a prime minister.

Abbas’ term of office ran bout four years ago after he was elected in the first and only presidential elections,  following the death of Yasser Arafat