PA MP Calls for Medal for Murderer of Jew

Palestine Times reports that a Hamas MP in the West Bank has called for rewarding the policeman who shot and killed Ben-Yosef Livnat as he was returning from prayers at Joseph's Tomb in Shechem (Nablus.)

Sheikh Hamed Al-Betawi, MP for the "Change and Reform" party (Hamas), says that the killer should be released and he should received the Order of Pride Medal, apparently a top PA prize.

He also bitterly complained that PA negotiators were prepared to give the Jews rights to the Western Wall, which he insisted is purely Muslim.

Expecting Continued Unilateralism from Israel is Unrealistic

from Jerusalem Post
Dr. Uzi Landau, Israel's Minister of National Infrastructure, warns that in the event of a unilateral United Nations declaration of a Palestinian state, he will call upon Israel to annex the Jordan Valley and large, Jewish populated blocs in the West Bank:

“We'll have to take care of our interests,” Landau told Inside Israel's Mordechai I. Twersky in a wide-ranging interview April 21. “We'll have to take protect ourselves. If such a thing happens, I'm going to suggest to my government to extend out sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and over the highly-populated blocs we have in Judea and Samaria, just to start with.”

The former chairman of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee invoked the Bush Road Map and a letter of commitment issued by the former president committing to Israel's retention of major Jewish population centers in the West Bank in any negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. If that signed agreement can't be honored, he said, all bets are off.

“If we don't see negotiations, and if we do a policy which basically makes the entire Road Map agreement a hoax, Israel should take care of its own interests,” said Minister Landau.

This is exactly what Netanyahu should be saying. If the PA wants to act unilaterally and abrogate Oslo and the Road Map, they need to understand that Israel is under no obligation to adhere to the same agreements either. And the result will be far, far worse for Palestinian Arabs than if they would have stayed with negotiations.

The world needs to understand this as well. Nations are sympathetic to the idea of a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian state but they are basing it on the assumption that Israel will continue to adhere to its commitments that the PA is ignoring. If they know that Israel will not play a game where it is the only one that has to follow the rules, they would be much less likely to support something that will inevitably destabilize the region and make things worse for everybody.

Right now, under so-called "occupation," there is peace. It is not ideal for anyone but it is stable and getting better every year. If the PA abrogates the peace treaty, that peace will end and the Palestinian Arabs who are supposedly going to be helped by living in "Palestine" will be the real losers. This fact is self-evident but Western nations do not seem to have grasped it.

Landau's other observations are worth reading as well:

Landau said the Arab Spring has brought chaos to the Middle east, and could well spread to the important western allies of Jordan and Saudi Arabia. He questioned the logic of Israel signing a peace deal with a Palestinian leader, whose own future and that of his government, remains tenuous at best.

“Who knows what's going to happen in the future to any agreement we sign with, let's say, another chief of tribe in Judea and Samaria?” asked Minister Landau. “Today it's Abu Mazen (Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas). Who is it going to be in the future?”

Landau said the US Administration's continued insistence that a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority is key to wider stability in the region – even in the face of spreading Arab unrest – is incomprehensible.

“This is clearly, totally detached from the present reality of the Middle East,” said Landau. “Anyone who lives here clearly understands that this is totally detached from the Middle East reality.”


(h/t Yerushalimey)

Who Wants to Fight to the Last Palestinian?

Evelyn Gordon finds an unusual proponent of stopping Kassam fire by the 'Palestinians' on Israel.

After all, the rockets are usually fired from the heart of Palestinian population centers (something Hass neglected to mention, preferring to imply that Israel targets civilians deliberately). That makes civilian casualties from Israeli counterstrikes almost inevitable. Just this week for instance, an errant Israeli shell killed four Palestinian civilians; the target was a group of terrorists launching mortars at Israel “from a grove just beyond our house,” as the brother of one of those killed told the New York Times.

Since the cost of the rocket fire far outweighs its benefits, Hass argued, anyone who cares about real live Palestinians should be denouncing it in an effort to pressure Hamas and other terrorist organizations to stop it. Instead, she charged, pro-Palestinian activists have given it tacit consent:

In the binary thinking of those who oppose the Israeli occupation (Palestinians, Israelis and foreigners), public criticism of the tactics used in the struggle of an occupied and dispossessed people is taboo. It is as if criticism would create symmetry between the attacker and the attacked. To a large extent, this taboo has been broken with regard to the Palestinian Authority: Many opponents of the occupation have no qualms about portraying the PA as a collaborator, or at least as the captive of its senior officials’ private interests. But when it comes to Hamas’ use of arms, silence falls.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the shooting to stop. Most 'Palestinian' terrorists regard their own people as just so much cannon fodder.

Labels: civilian casualties, Gaza, human shields, Kassam rockets

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:50 PM

Arab Spokesman Says Resistance is a Right

Fatah spokesman Osama Qawasmi said "resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people for liberation from Israeli occupation for and achieving their goal of independence and the establishment of a Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem."

He said in a press statement issued by the Office of Information and Culture: 'Resistance and means to achieve the objectives of a comprehensive national goal is subject to its weapons and methods for a clear vision of strategic objectives and progress according to a unitary national and political goals agreed upon by the Palestinian people."

He goes on to say that Hamas' use of weapons has not been strategic and has hurt the goal of achieving a state, but in general there is a place and time for using terror against Israel.

I do not know if the "Office of Information and Culture" is a Fatah or PA organization.

Two PA Security Men Arrested Connected to Itamar

Two members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' official security forces were arrested in conjunction with this past weekend's bloody massacre in which five family members were brutally stabbed to death inside their home in the Jewish village of Itamar, WND has learned.

The names of the apprehended suspects will be released to the Israeli media within hours but were revealed to WND by security officials working on the murder.

Two cousins are now in Israeli custody and are suspected in the slayings. Ahmed Awad is an officer in Abbas' Preventative Security Services in the northern West Bank city of Nablis. Iyad Awad is an officer in Abbas' General Intelligence services in Ramallah.

Both the Preventative and General Intelligence services of Fatah are armed, trained and funded by the U.S.

Aaron Klein, World Net News