Mahmoud Abbas is an Israeli collaborator and the Canadian Prime Minister is too pro-Israel as well, according to the commentator and academic, Gerald Caplan.
Writing in Canada’s Globe and Mail, Caplan criticized Canadian PM Justin Trudeau for being just as pro-Israel as the last PM, Stephen Harper. Caplan refers to Harper’s “Pavlovian” support for Israel, disregarding the notion that Harper supported Israel because he recognized where Israel is morally right.
For Caplan however, Israel can only ever be wrong.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
He holds Israel solely responsible for the unlikelihood of a two-state solution, because of — what else — settlements. He claims that Netanyahu has said he will never accept an independent Palestinian state and “will never agree to force those settlers off Palestinian lands.” Netanyahu may have said in 2014 that he won’t forcibly evacuate settlements, yet the residents of the outpost Amona are due to be evicted by December 25th, and their homes razed, under an order by Israel’s High Court. Netanyahu supports a two-state solution, under the right conditions — where a Palestinian state wouldn’t be able to threaten the Jewish state, and issues of settlers and borders would have to be negotiated — not imposed.
As for “Palestinian lands,” presumably Caplan means the land that Jordan occupied after the Jewish state was established, before Israel won it in self-defense in the 1967 war.
More Palestinian Than the Palestinians?
But Netanyahu isn’t the only object of Caplan’s scorn.
Becoming more Palestinian than some Palestinians, Caplan accuses PA President Mahmoud Abbas of being “effectively an Israeli collaborator.”
Israeli collaborator?
The PA and Fatah party which Abbas leads glorify terrorism and pay stipends to terrorists and to the families of “martyrs.” Abbas incited Palestinians in last year’s terror wave, and by waging war on the Balfour Declaration has made it clear he questions the very existence of a Jewish state. In what sense can that be construed as collaboration?
According to Caplan, “it is madness to imply any kind of equivalence between the two entities.” True enough, but not for the reasons Caplan gives. He mentions the aid Israel receives from foreign governments, but doesn’t mention the aid Palestinians receive — much of it ending up in the pockets of terrorists and their families, diverted to Hamas to use for weapons and tunnels, or lost to mismanagement or corruption.
He dismisses Israel’s decades of fighting for its existence and protecting its citizens from constant terrorism and attempted attacks, by essentially saying that Israel’s only problem is that “its neighbours cause it occasional anxiety.”
Canada has experienced several terror attacks over the last few years, including a car-ramming in Quebec in 2014, shootings in Ottawa, and in August, a terrorist was killed when he was in the final stages of a terror attack. Would Caplan refer to it as “occasional anxiety” if these kind of attacks happened in Canada on an almost daily basis as they do in Israel?
So far in 2016 in Israel there have been at least 1317 attacks including stabbings, firebombings, car-rammings, shootings, and more. Is that the “occasional anxiety” that drives the Western world to turn to Israel to learn how to prevent, cope with and fight terrorism in their countries, because unfortunately Israel has been targeted by it for so long that it has become an expert in the field?
But Caplan ignores all of this, portraying Palestinians as completely innocent, holding Israel alone responsible for their problems, and portraying Israelis as intrinsically evil and violent people, who humiliate, oppress and murder Palestinians for no reason.
The article may clearly be an opinion piece, even if The Globe and Mail hasn’t labeled it as such, but that doesn’t mean the author can get away with demonizing Israel, writing lies and completely distorting the truth.
Image of Caplan via YouTube/Al Jazeera English;
