IDNS: Hamas Training Its Own Diplomatic Corps
September 6, 2012 12:57 by Pesach Benson
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Today’s Top Stories:
1.Hamas is training its own diplomatic corps. Till now, the PLO was the sole representative body of the Palestinian people. Reuters says the move will deepen the Hamas/Fatah divide:
Hamas officials seemed keen to play down the scheme to matriculate envoys from its mostly makeshift and short-staffed foreign ministry. They said they hoped a deal with Fatah could remove any need to deploy Hamas diplomats, but planned to have a corps of envoys ready should reconciliation prove impossible.
2. Palestinian social protests continue. Haaretz reports that another Palestinian tried to light himself on fire in Ramallah:
Hasan Qahwaji’s attempt to set himself on fire was the third such attempt in the territories of the last week . . .
Qahwaji claimed that he had asked the PA to help him finance medical treatment for his daughter, but that it had refused. PA President Mahmoud Abbas’ office denied this . . .
3. Big news of the day was the sturm und drang over Jerusalem at the Democratic National Conventional. Aaron David Miller’s measured reaction at CNN suffices:
[W]hat’s so curious about the flap is that the Jerusalem issue is less relevant today than ever. There are no prospects for reviving serious Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Taking positions on Jerusalem is a thought experiment now.
Israel and the Palestinians
• The Hamas response to Hanan Ashrawi’s denial of Jewish refugees ain’t surprising:
Hamas: Israeli Jews should return to their Arab countries of origin
• In a Jerusalem Post op-ed, Ari Briggs says the Bedouins are learning from the “tower and stockade” settlements from Israel’s pre-state days. Something to think about when seeing media accounts of Bedouin structures being demolished, and the non-governmental organizations who are the primary sources of info:
Unlike the case of Kfar Hittim, no Beduin National Fund purchased the land. The residents just took it. Whether it is privately owned Jewish land, as in the case of Al Zarnoog, or Bir El Daj, built on JNF lands or state lands, doesn’t matter to them.
The Beduin understand that their communities must also have means of defense, but their “Tower & Stockade” is not physical. It’s virtual, but very effective.
Their protective “Stockade” consists of NGOs such as the Negev Coexistence Forum (NCF), Adalah, ACRI and the like. Their virtual Towers are the New Israel Fund (NIF), the EU and the UN, all of which are extremely well-funded and focused on protecting the “rights” of the Beduin to the lands on which they have built illegally.
• Worth reading: Professor Nino Levy discusses Israel’s media war with Israel Defense.
Charles F. Miller
4:31 pm
Sep 06, 2012
Aaron David Miller’s piece titled “Jerusalem omission’s silly significance” unfortunately is not an accurate assessment but rather a crafted apology for a shift in the Democrats’ position on Jerusalem and Israel. Just watch the video clip from the convention over the contentious voice vote to add the Jerusalem support language back into the platform. The extent of the negative sentiment expressed by the no votes reflects the growing divide in the Democratic Party over support to Israel.
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Barry
5:48 pm
Sep 06, 2012
The floor “vote” was a show. Had it been a real vote, they’d have counted votes. Obama didn’t expect as strong a reaction as the change in wording caused and suddenly saw Jewish & evangelical support & votes disappearing. In his panic he reinstated the Jerusalem language and to save face, a fake vote was produced. To my mind, it shows consistent policy on his part to placate the Arabs at the expense of Israel diplomatically, as he has done for 4 years now. His behavior has emboldened the Palestinians to such a degree, as to encourage them to make absurd preconditions to even “contemplate” entering negotiations, or threatening to walk away from them outright. His policies drive away peace.
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J.S.
7:00 pm
Sep 06, 2012
So Aaron David Miller is claiming that the Republicans are creating the “wedge” issue? How amusingly backwards. I believe even Dershowitz maintains that the DNC is the originator, the cause, the very one who created Jerusalem as a wedge issue. The wedge was created by the DNC’s removing sections of their platform. (I would also add that Miller’s attempt to distract attention to the Republican party really doesn’t wash — there are too many instances of Obama engaging in quesitonable policies — from supporting the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to denying Israel’s presence at an anti-terrorism conference — to be so easily dismissed. Obama’s stance towards Israel deserves scrutiny.)
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Frank Adam
8:28 pm
Sep 06, 2012
Who is funding the Hamas diplomatic corps? Saudi?
As for the Jews returning to Arab countries perhaps the Palestine Arabs could, given their toponym names/ All Masri / Misri should return to Egypt; Mugrabi/Maghrebis to North Africa West of Egypt, Taraboulsi to Tripoli whether in Libya or Lebanon; and the Sirhan assassins of Robert Kennedy to the Sirhan which runs along the Saudi side of their frontier with Jordan. As for the Turki and hindi no problem.
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Barry
8:58 pm
Sep 06, 2012
who would want to return to the stone age in these “enlightened” jewels of the middle east. and while you are right in showing that Palestinians are anything but Palestinian for the most part, those “Palestinians” that you mention are in the corrupt leadership. they are millionaires from all the aid money they steal from their people who they artificially keep in poverty. why would they want to leave? only the average Palestinian wants to live in Israel or have Israeli citizenship cards or work permits.
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Henry Federman
9:40 pm
Sep 06, 2012
Hamas in response to Ashrawi’s comment that Jews were not refugees fleeing from Arab countries, to me it sound like the joke of the day. They say that “Israeli Jews should return to their Arab country of origin” but what they don’t say is what will happen afterward, would they simply be killed or just plain exterminated? It’s like asking Jews to go back to Auschwitz, or maybe worse!
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H.Laddie Schnaiberg
6:48 am
Sep 07, 2012
It was Obama who insisted that the Jerusalem resolution be reinserted and voted on by the convention. Both the Vice-President’s and the President’s remarks left no doubt that Israel and America are Friends and that the U.S. will always provide security for Israel. The U.S has provided Israel with 3 billion dollars of military equipment per year. This year the amount was tripled. The writers who degrade the Democratic Party, have not examined the facts. If they did, they would never written their hateful comments
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Barry
3:32 pm
Sep 07, 2012
Even if what you say is right about Obama’s materiel support for Israel, you ignore the diplomatic ramifications of his actions. Politically, he has let Israel down again and again. What good is materiel support, when you are eroding all other support? On one hand you embolden the Palestinians to demand more and negotiate less, and on the other, you give Israel a bit more aid to fight them. Regarding Obama’s “insistence” on the Jerusalem language, you honestly think they took that language out without his approval in the first place? Or what of the teleprompter showing a passing vote on it AHEAD of the vote? Are u a blind supporter of Obama? I suppose that Wasserman Schultz was honest too.
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Barry
3:59 pm
Sep 07, 2012
continued: I wasn’t denigrating Obama or the Dems, I was pointing to facts the way they played out Mr Schnaiberg. Sorry if the obvious offends you. They revealed themselves. How do you explain the teleprompter reading of the vote having passed prior to the voting? Or the booing at the convention at the “passing” of the wording “by 2/3″ ? How do you explain Wasserman Schultz’s outright lies regarding the Israeli ambassador’s remarks? Or that it be at all likely that a rogue decision to change the Jerusalem wording seem possible, from such a detail oriented president? Take off your political blinders for a moment and examine the facts. Don’t divert the issue with irrelevancies & cool-aid..
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Barry
4:19 pm
Sep 07, 2012
And please check your figures Mr Schnaiberg. President Barack Obama requested a record amount of $3.1 billion in military assistance to Israel for the 2013 fiscal year. Not “triple the amount” of aid as you stated. You must’ve been referring to this story prior to its release: “the president flubbed the amount of new aid, initially giving the correct $70 million figure and later saying it was actually $70 billion.” Put aside your political proselytizing and examine unemotional facts. Your political over-sensitivity seems to be blinding you from seeing the games that are really going on.
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jeb stuart
8:01 pm
Sep 09, 2012
At worse Aaron Miller’s presumptions indicate the down grading the Obama administration has accorded Israel while raising the status and acceptability of radical Islamic nations forming in the wake of the Arab Srping. If Miller can treat the issue of Jerusalem with such frivolous abandon then I wonder if he thinks the Netanyahu Zionist government is apartheid.
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Is Gaza Preparing to Declare Independence From Palestine? | The Conservative Papers
9:06 am
Sep 12, 2012
[...] Continued on Page 2 [...]
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