Empowering Lies by Barry Rubin

Empowering Lies
Barry Rubin
January 12, 2008

What if a major news story is completely made up? What if it is basically Hamas propaganda without any basis in truth? And what if this story is repeated around the world?

Of course, nowadays it is not hard to imagine such things happening on debatable issues. When one gets to specific statistics, however, it should not be too easy to lie and get away with it.

But it is.

The story in question here is by Ibrahim Barzak, "Israel cuts fuel, electricity to Gaza," January 7, 2008. Like all individual articles it might be of limited importance by itself but it is an example of a phenomenon which has grown to be almost daily.

In the version run by the Philadelphia Inquirer it carries the following subheadline: "People have only a third of winter needs, said an official. The intent is to halt rocket attacks."

It is important to emphasize--do a computer search if you like--that this article has been published and broadcast around the world by huge media outlets, not to mention websites.

And the main point--and impact--of the story is a fabrication.

Here is the lead:

"With winter deepening, Gazans will be forced to live without lights and electric heaters for eight hours a day because Israel has cut fuel supplies to the territory's only electric plant in half, Gaza's top energy official warned yesterday....

"Yesterday, Kanan Obeid, chairman of Gaza's Hamas-run energy authority, said Gaza now has only 35 percent of the power its 1.5 million residents need."

Well, perhaps Gaza's top energy official said that but it is a lie. AP and the media that depend on AP--fell for this lie. Or perhaps the author and institution are not so innocent because there is no Israeli source provided for the main issues at stake. When I investigated the story it took me five minutes to get an official who totally denied the claims made by it.

Here is the true story, so obscured by the AP article that one can only believe the distortion was deliberate.

1. Gaza's electricity comes about 70 percent from Israel (the article says 60 percent though this changes nothing about the analysis that follows), 5 percent from Egypt, and 20 percent from Gaza itself.
2. There has been very little cutback in the electricity provided directly by Israel.
3. The only reduction is in supplying diesel fuel, some of which is used in the Gaza generating plant, though more is used by trucks.
4. Thus if the diesel fuel supply was cut back by half, the Gaza generator would lose less than half of its supply, even less if the Hamas government made it a priority. At most, the electricity supply would be cut no more than 10 percent--not 65 percent.
5. Note also that while it sounds rather horrible not to have electricity eight hours a day, this merely would mean that you don't use electricity when you are sleeping. It should also be added that winter in Gaza is not exactly like Maine.
6. In addition, Barzak tries, and no doubt succeeds, in fooling readers by stating in passing: "The power outages, which will rotate across Gaza...." In other words, at worst each sector would only have temporary power reductions, taking turns, rather than--as the article states earlier--everyone having eight hours without electricity.

After trying to convince readers that people in Gaza are suffering greatly from existing cuts, the article slips into making its case by talking about things that have not happened yet. The Israeli government wants small cutbacks in the electricity directly applied to the Gaza Strip. Even if these cuts were made--and this may not happen--the result would still fall very far short of the claims made about huge reductions and tremendous suffering.

The article continues:

"Israel said the purpose of the cutback was to nudge Palestinians to call on extremists to stop their daily rocket attacks on southern Israel. But Gazans contended they have become targets of unfair punishment, and 10 human-rights groups took that argument to the Israeli Supreme Court."

Note that while, technically, Israel's motive is presented--so the AP can claim to be balanced--we are quickly told that this claim is untrue. Israel's statements are questioned; Hamas's statements are accepted as fact.

The point here is to avoid telling readers three other things as well:

1. Israel is a remarkable democracy where even wartime actions against an enemy openly declaring an intention to kill all its people and carries out daily attempts at terror attacks are fairly adjudicated in court.
2. Israel is still supplying directly and indirectly the vast majority of Gaza's power despite the war being waged against it by a regime there which sponsors cross-border attacks, holds an Israeli soldier as hostage, and proclaims that it will never accept Israel's existence.
3. If the Hamas regime were to change its policy there would be no sanctions at all.

The article's goal, therefore, is to muster support for Hamas within the Gaza Strip and to mobilize forces throughout the world against sanctions. That may be the job of Hamas but is it the task for the world news media and Associated Press? Instead, this article is not reporting news but attempting to indoctrinate readers in the belief that Palestinians are suffering, Israel is responsible, and Israel's excuses for doing so are false.

But it is this article that is false by claiming that Israeli activities have reduced Gaza's electricity by two-thirds.

Oh, by the way, on January 11, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said that the restrictions on even diesel fuel oil would be lifted. So residents of the Gaza Strip will get everything necessary for 100 percent of their usual electricity production.

While rocket attacks, attempted terrorist operations, and incitement continue, Israel will provide power for Hamas's offices, broadcasts calling for the killing of all Israelis, and arms' workshops. This, we are told by too much of the media, is the way things are supposed to be according to morality and international law.

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Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center http://www.gloriacenter.org and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal http://meria.idc.ac.il . His latest books are The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan) and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley) .

"Root causes" of root rot.

While most of the world is focused on what President Bush has done in Iraq, his resurrection of the dreaded "road map" to peace in the Middle East bears some attention. The best thing that Bush should have done would have been to forget about what the Saudis proposed as yet another draft for a two-state solution to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, Bush still doesn't get it, and his solution, and all other such solutions that do not address the underlying problem are doomed to failure.

The road to peace in the Middle East is filled with the potholes of racial hatred, blood libel, and distortions of reality that paint Jews as "brothers of pigs and monkeys," "Zionist Nazis," "blood suckers," "usurpers of Arab lands," and other epithets too terrible to print.

How can the world expect the seeds of peace to take root in the toxic soil of anti-Semitism?

If the quartet is serious about wanting peace, then they must do the following:

1. Insist that all countries and entities stop fomenting hatred towards Jews and stop spreading lies, distortions, and blood libels about Israel and the Jewish people.

2. Remove weapons and explosives from all Palestinian refugee camps (which have become armed fortresses). Remove all materials from these camps that promote hatred and violence against Jews (especially those given to Palestinian children), and remove any U.N. relief workers who have ties to terrorist groups.

3. Insist that the U.N. abide by its own resolutions which call for the cessation of hostilities towards Israel and which also identify the West Bank and Gaza as "disputed territories," not "Palestinian lands under Israeli occupation."

4. Insist that the U.N. and other countries of the world stop referring to the "1967 borders." These are armistice lines, not recognized borders of Israel because Arab countries have never recognized Israel. The U.N. resolutions called for the establishment of "secure and defensible borders," and the withdrawal from "some" of the disputed territories acquired by Israel in 1967 -- not "all" territories as so many claim.

5. Finally, the true agenda of Yasser Arafat's Fatah, Hezbollah, Al-Aksa, Islamic Jihad, Hamas and others has to be revealed and repudiated which is, and has always been, the destruction of Israel and the creation of a unified Palestine from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. Arafat nor anyone of the aforementioned groups will ever be satisfied with any plan that allows Jews to exist anywhere in the Middle East.

Peace cannot be achieved when the death and destruction of Jews are preached as the solution to all the ills of the world. The road map to peace will be a dead-end as long as hatred for Jews continues to be the driving force in the Middle East.

New years resolutions like those made in the UN.

What's happened to the United Nations? It's been awhile since they passed their last anti-Semitic/anti-Israel resolution. Gosh, people might forget that its Anti-Jewish and Anri-Israel bias not changed one bit for the past 50 years.

The examples are numerous, but, perhaps what event sums it up best is when the U.N. General Assembly passed the infamous and outrageous resolution that equated Zionism with racism in November 1975.

What is even more damning are the 43 U.N. resolutions condemning Israel for human rights abuses, when not a single condemnation was ever passed against such human rights "champions" as Cuba, China, North Korea, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran and even Iraq.

The Oslo Accords were a seven-year experiment in Palestinian self-government that demonstrated, quite clearly, a failure at self-government and a failure to rehabilitate the Palestinians' hatred of Israel.

Palestinians do have rights, but these rights do not include the right to preach the destruction of Israel and hatred of Jews, and to commit acts of terrorism.

Palestinians have yet to demonstrate that they are serious about coexisting with Israel by ending terror attacks. Lest one give credence to the claim that the Palestinian Authority "lacks the resources" to fight terrorism, consider this: Under Oslo, the PA had a 42,000-person security force -- nearly twice the number it was supposed to have -- and still did nothing to stop terrorism.

Palestinians living in Israel now have far more rights, feel safer and have a higher standard of living than anywhere else in the Middle East.

In retrospect, the best thing that could have happened for Palestinians would have been for Israel to annex the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, instead of propping up a terrorist organization (the Palestine Liberation Organization) as their de facto government in the hopes that they would reform.

It never happened, and there are no signs that it ever will. The PA will never morph into the kind of responsible government that it takes to run a democratic state.

Simply electing a new prime minister and rehashing failed "land-for-peace" schemes won't work either. What is needed is a total change in the way Palestinians (and other Arabs) view themselves and their Israeli neighbors.

MIDEAST: U.S. helped Arafat to gain his position

I love it when leftist Americans parrot Arab characterizations of Israel as a "terrorist nation" and call upon the United States to stop funding Israel, its only friend and ally in the region.

I agree that we should stop funding terrorist organizations. However, Israel is not one of them.

He may be dead, but he his deadly legacy remains. Yasser Arafat took over as chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1969 and built it into the world's largest and richest terrorist organization.

In the 1970s, Arafat made billions of dollars by exploiting the narcotics trade and by looting Lebanon banks.

Arafat and friends continued to get rich during the Gulf War. Palestinians who supported Arafat helped direct Iraqi troops to rich Kuwaitis and deposits of gold and valuables, while joining in the rape, pillage and murder of Kuwaiti citizens.

With the Oslo Accords, the PLO-dominated Palestinian Authority began receiving billions of dollars in funds from previously reluctant Western countries, in addition to the $500 million our Congress gave it annually in foreign aid.

In 1995, the General Accounting Office produced a financial report (made classified by the Clinton administration) confirming that Arafat and the PLO held well over $10 billion in assets, even at a time when Arafat was publicly claiming bankruptcy. To date, more than 37 percent of these assets remain unaccounted for.

None of Arafat's money has ever been invested in refugee camps or human services infrastructure, whereas much has been invested in lavish housing and gifts for Arafat and friends. So much for saving his Palestinian people.

How then did Arafat and his thugs wind up in control of the Palestinian Arabs with the authority and appellations of government officials? The reason is because our government thought that the more money and "re- sponsibility" it gave to Arafat, the more inclined he would be to "join the international community."

It was American money and influence that enabled the PLO to make itself into the Palestinian Authority, a typically corrupt, internally violent and externally warlike Third World regime based on "special security forces."

Before people ask why we fund Israel, maybe they should ask why we funded an organization that murdered hundreds of Americans in the past and has never made any apology or restitution. Maybe they should also ask why we continue dealing with Mamoud Abbas, Arafat's protege.

Who CAIR's about Islamofascists

Whether we call the perpetrators radical Islamics, militant Islamics, Islamists or Islamofascists, the common denominator is a pernicious political ideology that is an extreme interpretation of Islam.

It is called Wahhabism and is perhaps the most dangerous "ism" since Nazism, with which it has many parallels.

Islamic terrorism is a hallmark of Wahhabism, and the vast majority of its victims are non-Wahabi Muslims.

Which brings me to my main question:

Why does an organization like the Council for American-Islamic Relations, which claims to protect the welfare of other Muslims, do all it can to thwart any discussion of Islamic extremism and Islamic terrorism?

Two weeks ago, its national chairman, Parvez Ahmed, sent another letter to the editor complaining yet again about our government's war on terror, which Ahmed calls a "war on Islam."

Crying "Islamophobia," he complained about the Bush administration, the State Department and key members of the Evangelical Christian community for their "belligerent viewpoints."

I guess he wants us to be nice to the people who chant, "Death to America."

In his October letter, Parvez accused our government of conducting a "smear campaign" against an Islamic organization suspected of funding terrorism.

In his November letter, he tried to convince us that we condone the actions of two, non-Islamic terrorist groups (which is not true), and that somehow this nonexistent contradiction invalidates our concern about the worldwide spread of Islamic terrorism and the millions of Muslim victims of it.

I have to wonder, once again, why are Ahmed and CAIR not more concerned about the worldwide spread of Islamic terrorism?

I understand his frustration given that CAIR is also one of those accused of supporting Hamas.

Hamas' desire to destroy Israel is well-known, as are its brutal attacks against innocent civilians.

It raises children into a culture of death, instilling in them a pathological hatred of Jews.

Terrorists themselves don't raise money, which is why they want to halt our efforts to turn off their funding tap and throw them in jail

Who hasn't called for Israel's destruction?

When the President of Iran said that "Israel should be wiped off the map," he was far from being the first Arab leader to do so. Back in April 2003, Bashar Assad of Syria stated to the world media that "Israel needs to be destroyed."

Likewise, the state-run news- papers of Egypt, Yemen, Iran and Libya repeatedly have called for "ridding the Middle East of the Zionist entity (Israel by another name)" during the previouys four months.

Since its inception, Hamas has always called for Israel's destruction. Even so-called "moderate" Arabs have expressed their determination to destroy Israel.

President Mamoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority is considered by President Bush and our State department to be a "moderate Palestinian willing to make peace with Israel." Yeah, right, the Al-Aksa Martyrs, card-carrying members of Abbas' Fatah group, is responsible, along with Islamic Jihad, for every homicide bombing committed inside Israel. Also, Abbas has repeatedly stated, in private and in Arabic, that he will never abandon the strategy of "armed struggle" (terrorism by another name).

Abbas is doing the Arafat dance. He continues to blame Israel for all the failures to reach a peaceful settlement because Israel had not given up plans for expansion inside the West Bank and Gaza.

Wrong. Israel gave up control of 98 percent of the West Bank and Gaza under the Oslo accords, despite the repeated violations of the Palestinian Authority.

Israel has no plan to annex what is, in effect, its ancient land, which is why the Israelis gave up control of it. Abbas, Hamas and Islamic Jihad are the biggest obstacles to peace. They will never give up their vision of a unified Palestine, which, by the way, requires the destruction of Israel.

Finally, it was the Arabs who rejected the U.N. resolution to create an Israeli state in 1948. It was the Arabs who urged Palestinians to leave their homes until after Israel was "driven into the sea" by "the victorious Arab armies."

The Arabs not only created the Palestinian refugee problem, but they have maintained it for the past 50 years to deflect criticism of their own failings.

These are the cold, hard facts.

They are not stereotypes if they are valid descriptions.

A lot of misguided people mistakenly blame Israel for engendering hatred of America by Arabs and other Muslims, even going so far as to claim that 9/11 was the result.

They also question our support and monetary aid to Israel, acting as if the United States never gave a dime to any other Middle Eastern country.

Reality check. For the past three decades, the United States has sent hundreds of billions annually in military aid to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkey, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority, without so much as a peep from the public.

Although Israel was slated to get $3 billion in U.S. aid this year (now cut by $700 million), this pledge was made only because the United States also planned to give $20 billion in advanced weaponry to Saudi Arabia and $2 billion to Egypt.

Why are we sending billions in advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, the richest country on Earth?

Saudi Arabia, the home of Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11, is also ground zero and Grand Central Station for their radical Islamic beliefs, having given birth to them, and relentlessly spreading them throughout the world (with our tax money).

What about the billions to Egypt?

Egypt, home to Musab al-Zarquawi, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack, and the other hijackers, is getting weapons supposedly to protect it from Iran and to reward it for its "peace" agreement with Israel.

With it being the world's leading exporter of the most virulent, anti-Semitic media ever seen, and the top exporter of illegal weapons to terrorist groups in Gaza, Egypt is hardly a great partner for peace.

Why aid Israel?

Who else in the Middle East shares its expertise and technology with the United States, contributing to our efforts to combat terrorism and to protect our troops and nation?

U.S. troops use several Israeli technologies, such as unmanned aerial vehicles, decoys to confuse enemy radar and reactive armor on Bradley tanks to repel enemy fire.

Both countries coordinate strategies for combating terrorism and weapons proliferation.

Israel, as the world's leading expert in collecting intelligence on terrorist groups and counterterrorism, shares highly sensitive data with us on a daily basis.

Just as Pearl Harbor brought us into the ongoing global war between fascism and the free world, so, too, did 9/11 bring us into the ongoing global war between radical Islamics and the free world.

To avoid another 9/11, we desperately need to keep Israel safe and thriving.

Jews in nation for 3,000 years

Jews in nation for 3,000 years

Question:

How many Palestinians does Israel have to kill in order for Palestinian leaders to call them atrocities?

Answer:

Zero.

The only answer that Palestinian Arabs and their apologists have to real atrocities committed against Jews is to manufacture a few. The only problem is that there were no "Palestinians" in the former state of Israel. There were just plain, old Arabs and the British. It does not matter that there were thousands of terrorist attacks against Jews long before there was any movement to create an independent Arab state, such as the anti-Jewish riots in 1920-1921 (which the British encouraged and made no effort to stop), the 1929 massacre of Jews in Hebron and the Arab revolt of 1936-1939, which, in total, left 700 Jews killed and several thousands injured.

Therefore, given the anti-Jewish violence that existed well before 1948, the oft-mentioned charge that "Israel's occupation begets terrorism" is totally bogus.

Meanwhile, between 1936 and 1945, the British turned away thousands of Jews seeking exile from Nazi Germany, while simultaneously allowing thousands of Arabs to migrate to Israel unrestricted.

In doing so, the British signed their death warrants, as returning Jews were sent to the gas chambers.

Following the Hebron massacre and the Arab riots, the British evicted Jews from their homes in Gaza and Hebron and prevented their return, despite the fact that they had lived there for centuries.

Secondly, just because the despicable Roman Empire changed the name of Israel to Syria-Palestine does not mean that Israel ceased to exist.

The same goes for the expulsion of most, but not all, Jews.

There has been a continual Jewish presence in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza for the past 3,000 years.

The Zionist movement was, and has always been, to return to the land that was taken from them.

The Zionists did, in fact, legally purchase empty land that had been abandoned and left undeveloped for over 100 years.

The Zionist movement began almost 70 years before the nationalistic movement to create an independent Palestinian state. Only after the Zionists had turned Israel from a desert into a garden did Arabs want to live there.

"O' Little Town of Bethlehem" through lying Leftist eyes

National Georgraphic is a wonderful magazine when it come to photographing and sicussing nature. I would have also included, "Writing true historical documentaries," but not after reading your artcile on Bethehem. It is revisionist history, littered with glaring factual errors and filled with intentional fabrications that comprise the same anti-Jewish rhetoric and anti-Israel propaganda spewed out by the Arab media, Palestinian terror groups, and empty-headed Leftists. It is the most egregious collection of tripe ever to appear in your magazine, and I strongly suggest that you stick to Anthropology, Astronomy, and Paleontology and stay away from things for which you have no real understanding.

Here are my responses to their statements:

NG: The reason the wall exists here, according to the Israeli government, is to keep terrorists away from Jerusalem.

ME: The wall is only there to keep terrorists from entering into any part of Israel, not just Jerusalem. Bethlehem is a hotbed of terrorism. Yet, your use of the comment, "according to the Israeli government," and is to make readers think that the wall is there for other, nefarious reasons.

NG: After World War II, in the wake of the Holocaust, the United Nations voted to partition the region into two states—one Jewish, one Arab

ME: The decision to set aside land on for a Jewish homeland began in 1917 with the Balfour Declaration, which was followed up with others documents saying the same thing. Several partition plans had been issued for over 30 years before the 1948 UN plan -- most of which came from the League of Nations. As you may or may not know, The League became the UN who was mandated to enact and maintain the resolutions passed by the League. The UN did not. The 1948 partition planIt was NOT in response to the Holocaust. The land included what was ancient Israel established 3,000 years earlier. Terrorist attacks by Arabs on Jews had been going on for 50 years BEFORE 1948, that date when Israel declared her independence, and th Arab States declared their intention to "push the Jews into the Sea."

NG: Fighting between Arabs and Jews began even before Israel declared independence, in 1948, and the ensuing war resulted in about 750,000 Palestinians fleeing their native villages, many of them forced to do so by the Israeli army.

ME: Terrorist attacks by Arabs on Jews had been going on for 50 years before 1948, such as the Arab revolts of 1920-21, the Arab massacre of Jews in Hebron in 1929, and the Arab Revolts in 1935-46. The date when Israel declared her independence was followed a week later by an invasion of Arab armies intent on "pushing the Jews into the Sea." No more than 390,000 Palestinian Arabs left their homes in 1948, and the vast majority who left were URGED TO DO SO BY THEIR ARAB LEADERS. They were told that after the Arab armies ethnically cleanse Israel of Jews, that they could return and take what had belonged to the Israelis. Israel's leaders pleaded with the Palestinian Arabs to stay and become full citizens of israel, which many did. The smaller percentage of those who left in advance of the IDF did so in response to the IDFs call to get out of harm's way.

At the same time as when 350,000 Palestinian Arabs left Israel on their own accord, 850,000 Jews were expelled from neighboring Arab States and were subsequently absorbed by Israel. Conversely, the Arab states have done everything in their power to keep Palesitinan Arabs in refuge camps in order to use them as political pawns.

NG: He was born in what is now Israel but was then, during World War II, known as the British Mandate for Palestine

ME: It should read, "He was born in the historic land of Israel that is mistakenly called Palestine." After destroying the 2nd Temple in Jeruslam, and the last of the Jewish revolt, the Romans renamed Israel to "Syria-Palestina" after Israel's most hated enemy, the Phillistines. They also renamed Jerusalem to "Aelia Capitolina," butits rightful name was restored soon after the Roman Empire collapsed. The same should have been done to Israel. There has never been a country or nation known as "Palestine" and Palestinian Arabs are no difeent than any other Arabs.

NG: Many relocated to the West Bank of the Jordan River, administered by Jordan, or the Gaza Strip, governed by Egypt. These were the first Palestinian refugees.

ME: Jordan and Egypt illegally captured and annexed the West Bank and Gaza, respectively. Jordan occupied the West Bank for 19 years (where were the cries of "occupaton?" before both countries negotiated separate peace agreements with Isreal. FYI: When Jordan captured and occupied the West Bank, all Jews were expelled from jordan and not permitted to visit Jerusalem or any other part. Well before Israel became a state, the British carved out 75% of the land that was intended to be the Jewish Homeland and gave it to Jordan -- a country comprised of 75% Palestinian Arabs (or, in other words, the real Palestinian state.)

NG: When, in 1967, Israel defeated the military forces of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon in six chaotic days and occupied, among other lands, the West Bank, a place many Israelis refer to by its biblical name, Judaea and Samaria. This initiated the settlement movement—Jews establishing homesites throughout the newly won territory.

ME: Wrong! The "settlement movement," is a part of the "Zionist movement," that began in the late 1890's. The number of Jews were establishing homesites in the West Bank could be counted in the hundreds, whereas there were hundreds of thousands of Arabs who also built there, many of which were really iillegal. Jews were never prohibited from building these settlements in the West Bank by an UN Resolution. Jews have lived continuously in Judea and Samaria for over 3,000 years, and the vast majority of Jewish settlements in the West Bank were in the exact, same places that Jews had lived before being expelled by Jordan. By the way, a significant proportion of Christians all over the world also refer to the West Bank by its Biblical names.

NG: Palestinian Muslims also revere this land as sacred, since Jesus is one of their prophets. Also Bethlehem and the surrounding West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, are where they hope to establish a viable homeland.

ME: They did not revere any of these lands as sacred before 1967, nor did they ever have any movement to create a Palestinian homeland before 1967. These are the result of myths concocted by Yassir Arafat, who was the leader of the PLO terrorist group at the time, and perpetrated on the Palestinian Arabs. The vast majority of Palestinian Arabs who lived in Israel prior to 1948, had migrated there from other countries. Today, the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs (71%) would prefer to live in Israel rather than a state run by the PA or Hamas. What they did to Gaza after Israel pulled out is a testament to how far away they are from creating a "viable homeland."

NG: The United Nations, the European Union, and the International Court of Justice have declared the Israeli settlements illegal, a violation of the Geneva Convention that prohibits occupying powers from allowing its citizens to populate the territory it occupies.

ME: Totally false! Israel is not an "occupying force in a foreign country," which is what the Geneva convention requires. Israelis and Palestinian Arabs both live in what the UN calls, "disputed territories," even though the territory used to belong to israel. Disputed territories do not fall under the rules of the Geneva convention. Since neither the UN or the rest of the world did anything to prevent Jordan from "administering" these territories for 19 years, then, it is totally disingenous to say that Israel cannot do the same, especially since it gained control of them from Jordan as part of their peace agreement.

NG: The Israeli government, though, provides easy loans to those seeking houses in West Bank settlements.

ME: You fogot make it seem like only Jews can get easy loans when, in reality, Israel offers easy loans to both Jews and Arabs. There are 10 to 20 times more new Arab settlements in the West Bank than Jewish ones.

NG: Not one Palestinian who owned acreage was compensated.

ME: Yet another outright Palestinian lie. Palestinians were, indeed, compensated if they produced proof of ownership. Why didn't you talk about the land purchased for Jews with Jewish money that was stolen by the Palestinians? What about the tens of thousands of Jews who were evicted from the West Bank after Jordan captured it?

Where is "Palestine?"

"Palestine" was part of the lost continent of Atlantis, and Palestinians are direct descendants of Homo Erectus.

As ridiculous as this sounds, it pales in comparison to the fairy tales and lies that are at the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict (which, in 1967, morphed into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). The idea that European Jews invaded a country called "Palestine," displaced millions of Palestinians who had lived there for millenia and forced them to live in refugee camps, began an "illegal occupation" of "Palestinians," which included torturing, brutalizing, and murdering innocent civilians, building illegal settlements on their land, and causing all sorts of misery for the rest of the Arab world, is at the core of the second-most pernicious, despicable, and evil plot ever perpetrated against the Jewish people. The worst, of course, is the Holocaust, but the same, twisted logic that led to it is "alive and well" in the mindset of the Arab world.

There has never been a state or country called, "Palestine." "Palestinians" are no different than any other Arab. Before 1948, the only people called, "Palestinians" were Jews -- the others were called "Arab."

After Britain defeated the Ottomans in 1917, they subsequently divided the former Empire into independent Arab states, all except for the land east and west of the Jordan River That land was given the informal title of "Mandated Palestine" because both Britain and the League of Nations were mandated to set aside this land as the permanent "Jewish National Homeland." The US also supported this mandate. Were it not for WWII, and some British double-dealing, the Jewish National Homeland would have replaced all of “Mandated Palestine,” instead of only a tiny strip of along the coastline that the Arabs claim is theirs as well.

In 1922, after the British disregarded their own Mandate and gave 75 percent of it Jordan, Jordan subsequently granted full citizenship to all Palestinian Arabs living on both side of the Jordan river, while denying Jews even the right to visit. Given that over 70 percent of its population consists of Palestinian Arabs, Jordan became the de jure Palestinian state, and Arabs have no right to demand yet another Palestinian state.

This push for Palestinian statehood is a political invention of the PLO, and was begun in 1967 after the Six-Day War. By their leaders' very own words, it is nothing more than a straw man that Arabs are using as a political way to eliminate Israel.

Between 1921 and 1948, the British restricted Jewish immigration into what was left of Palestine to only a trickle while simultaneously allowing the unrestricted (and unreported) migration of hundreds of thousands of Arabs into and around existing Jewish settlements.

What’s worse is the Arab’s so-called, “Right of Return” whereby any Arab claiming to have lived in Israel only two years before the 1948 War is considered to be "an indigenous resident of the land for generations." Furthermore, this “Right” is also extended to every member of their family regardless of where or when they were born.

There is no "Right of return" mentioned anywhere in any of the UN resolutions regarding Israel and Palestinians. It is, and has always been, a problem created by the Arab states that attacked Israel, and one perpetuated by the same Arab states who wish to use the "refugee problem" as a way to destroy Israel.

There is a well-established and well-organized conspiracy among Arabs and Jewish-hating leftists to replace all of Israel with an Arab state by whatever means possible, and that is what I call, "The Palestine Plot"