Why Aren’t Palestinians Joining The Rush To Europe?

Why Aren’t Palestinians Joining The Rush To Europe?


Only Palestinian Arabs do not seem to be seeking "a better life" in Europe.Isn't that odd?

By Jack Engelhard

Another day, another murder in Jerusalem – and Bibi is taking swift action. He’s collecting his staff together for an “emergency meeting.”

That’ll scare the pants off the terrorists! They’re shaking in their boots at the thought of, oh my gawd – an emergency meeting.

Actually it wasn’t just another day when Alexander Levlovitz was killed as the result of Palestinian Arab rock throwers.

It happened at the time of Rosh Hashanah – the Hebrew New Year.

Which automatically says that the new year will be the same as the old year. The Arabs will keep murdering Israelis.

Israelis will continue to hold meetings.

If these particular Arabs are so unhappy about living among Jews that it drives them crazy enough to commit such frequent acts of random bloodshed, why stay? Logic assumes that they’d be happier among their brothers – in Syria, for example. No wait. The Syrians are leaving in droves. They’re not happy among their fellow Syrians.

Same for Iraq, Yemen, Libya and a dozen other such places where Arabs can’t live in harmony with Arabs, never mind Jews.

Arabs are miserable living with Jews. Arabs are miserable living with Arabs. Do we have this straight? Seems so, even if we are only talking about a minority. But a minority is still a big crowd, enough to fill entire stadiums, like the ones in Hungary, a nation that is trying to keep them penned in to thwart a full-scale invasion of the continent.

That won’t stop anybody “seeking a better life,” as the BBC and the rest of the news media keep reminding us. But why mostly men? Those are mostly men in those imagines of the stampede waiting to storm across all borders. Don’t Muslim women also deserve a “better life?”


Germany offers free room and board, healthcare, jobs, and plenty of space to throw rocks. What’s keeping the Palestinians?
Plus the question of a better life to do what? Best not to ask. Germany, Austria and Sweden are already finding out to their everlasting peril.

So the Syrians are doing the smart thing. They keep coming. By the thousands, and soon the millions, step-by-step they’re taking over Europe as these pages saw coming with the warning that, “The Koran has arrived and it has come to devour the Bible.”

The Europeans may be stupid.

Not so Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States or even Lebanon and Jordan, who want no part of “their culture and their conflicts.”

But the Syrians know a good thing when they see one – and Germany, most of all, is a good thing.

Germany (though now hesitant) still wants these people and has already sent out a formal invitation for 800,000, which, as we wrote earlier here, will raise the total number of Muslims living within Germany to six million, the same number of Jews that the Germans sent to the gas chambers merely a generation ago.

We called it karma and a trade, Muslims for Jews, that Germany will rue.

So if Germany is so hospitable a place for unhappy Syrians – what’s wrong with the Palestinians? They are also unhappy.

Why wait?

Germany offers free room and board, healthcare, jobs, and plenty of space to throw rocks. What’s keeping the Palestinians?

They’ll be welcomed. Everything will be so much like home – mosques galore, five calls a day to prayer, and the heartwarming summons to trample the infidels.

But they refuse to budge. They’re staying. Puzzling that they are not joining the million-man migration.

Is it because they have it so good in Israel? I think so. Israel is a land of freedom. Arabs enjoy all the freedoms enjoyed by Jews.

So it is not necessary for the Palestinian Arabs to “seek a better life.” They already have it by staying put.

Why do they murder? Is the pope Catholic?

Another emergency meeting might be timely for Bibi and his ministers. This one ought to be about how to entice the Palestinians to leave for the happier hunting grounds of such European countries as Sweden and Germany. These two are always complaining about the birthrate.

Just the other day, with a straight face, The New York Times quoted Germans as being thrilled by the migration for the sake of birthrate.

They need to boost the birthrate, you see, which keeps declining due to the lack of infants being born to everyday Swedes and Germans.

Hence, the Syrians and the Iraqis to the rescue. There will be birthrate. What can possibly go wrong with that!

So it’s only fair that Israel ought to consider a program that would be of service to everybody. Send them the Palestinians.

By doing this Europe will be happy and the Palestinians will be as happy as they can ever be, anywhere.

New York-based author and bestselling novelist Jack Engelhard writes a regular column for Arutz Sheva. His novel “Indecent Proposal” was translated into more than 22 languages and turned into a Paramount motion picture starring Robert Redford and Demi Moore. His latest thriller is “The Bathsheba Deadline.” Website: www.jackengelhard.com

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/17559#.VfmkWGSeDGc

I Saw Hamas' Cruel and Selfish Game in Gaza

I Saw Hamas' Cruel and Selfish Game in Gaza

Polish reporter Wojciech Cegielski spent a month in Gaza during last summer's war. He has no doubt Hamas used people as human shields.

By Wojciech Cegielski 

I spent a month in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge. It was one of the worst and deadliest months I have seen in my life. The reality there was much more complicated than was seen from a safe distance in Europe or the United States.

Yes, Israel bombed Palestinian houses in Gaza. But Hamas is also to blame for its cruel and selfish game against its own people. I do not have hard evidence, but for me, spending a month in the middle of this hell, it was obvious that they were breaking international rules of war and worst of all, were not afraid to use their own citizens as living shields.


The first incident happened late in the evening. I was in the bathroom when I’ve heard a loud rocket noise and my Spanish colleague, a journalist who was renting a flat with me near the Gaza beach, started to scream. He wanted to light a cigarette and came to one of the open windows. The moment he was using his lighter, he saw a fireball in front of his eyes and lost his hearing.

From what our neighbors told us later, a man drove up in a pickup to our tiny street. He placed a rocket launcher outside and fired. But the rocket failed to go upwards and flew along the street at ground level for a long time before destroying a building. It was a miracle that nobody was hurt or killed.

Masked Hamas gunmen hold weapons during a rally to commemorate the 27th anniversary of the group in Gaza City, 2014.AP

When we calmed down, we started to analyze the situation. It became obvious that the man or his supervisor wanted the Israel Defense Forces to destroy civilian houses, which our tiny street was full of. Whoever it was, Hamas, Iz al-Din al-Qassam or others, they knew that the IDF can strike back at the same place from which the rocket was fired. Fortunately for us, the rocket missed its target in Israel.

The second story happened in the middle of the day. I was sitting with other journalists in a cafe outside one of the hotels near the beach. During wartime, these hotels are occupied by foreign press and some NGOs. Every hotel is full and in its cafes many journalists spend their time discussing, writing, editing stories or just recharging the phones. Suddenly I saw a man firing a rocket from between the hotels. It was obvious that we journalists became a target. If the IDF would strike back, we all would be dead. What would Hamas do? It would not be surprising to hear about the “cruel Zionist regime killing innocent and free press.”

A foreign journalist, left, embraces her Palestinian news assistant, who burst into tears after discovering his family home was destroyed by Israeli strikes in Gaza. AP

For me, provoking is also creating living shields.

While I was interviewing people on the streets of Gaza, I couldn’t meet anyone who spoke something other than official propaganda. But some Palestinians, when they were sure my microphone was turned off, told me they have had enough but they are afraid. No one would dare to say publicly that Hamas is creating a hell inside Gaza. But they were also asking “what if not Hamas?” The Palestinian Authority government would have no authority there. So if not Hamas, they say, there could be somebody much worse. “The choice is between evil and evil plus,” one of them said.

The reality is much more complicated than can be seen from a distance.

The writer is a foreign news correspondent for Polish Radio.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.672684

What Are Palestinians Doing With U.S. Money?....Like who would expect this???

What Are Palestinians Doing With U.S. Money?

by Khaled Abu Toameh

Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah did not tell the visiting U.S. Congressmen that the $4.5 billion the Americans invested in promoting Palestinian democracy went down the drain or ended up in secret Swiss bank accounts. Nor did he tell the Congressman that the Palestinians do not have a functioning parliament or a free media under the PA in the West Bank or under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And, of course, Hamdallah never told the Congressman that for Palestinians, presidential and parliamentary elections remain a remote dream.

The refusal of the international community back then to hold Arafat accountable was the main reason a majority of Palestinians were driven into the open arms of Hamas. Palestinians saw no improvement in their living conditions, mainly as a result of the PA's corruption. That is why they turned to Hamas, which promised them change, reform and an end to financial corruption.

The Americans and Europeans are therefore responsible for Hamas's rise to power.

One does not have to be an expert on Palestinian affairs to see that the billions of dollars have neither created democracy for the Palestinians nor boosted the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. The "investment" in Palestinian democracy and peace with Israel has been a complete failure because of the refusal of the U.S. Administration to hold the Palestinian Authority fully accountable.

Unless Western donors demand that the PA use their money to bring democracy to its people and prepare them for peace, the prospects of reviving any peace process will remain zero.

During the past 20 years, the U.S. has invested $4.5 billion in promoting democracy among the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and boosting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

This is what Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah revealed during a meeting in Ramallah this week with Congressman Kevin McCarthy, Majority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Hamdallah said that the money was also invested in projects in various Palestinian sectors.

The $4.5 billion that Hamdallah talked about does not include the billions of dollars poured on the Palestinian Authority (PA) since its creation in 1994. Palestinian economic analysts estimate that the PA has received a total of $25 billion in financial aid from the U.S. and other countries during the past two decades.

One does not have to be an expert on Palestinian affairs to see that the billions of dollars have neither created democracy for the Palestinians nor boosted the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.

Twenty years later, the Palestinians still have a long way to go before they ever see real democracy in the West Bank or Gaza Strip.

To begin with, the Palestinian Authority, which was born out of the 1993 Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO, was never a democratic regime. On the contrary; what the Palestinians got from the start was a mini-dictatorship run by Yasser Arafat and his PLO and Fatah cronies. It was a corrupt regime, was directly funded and armed by the U.S., Europe and several other countries.


President Barack Obama, accompanied by Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, reviews the PA honor guard in Ramallah, March 21, 2013. (Image source: AFP video screenshot)
Those who were funding Arafat's autocratic regime back then never cared about either democracy or transparency. They were pouring billions of dollars on the PA without holding its leaders accountable.

The result was that the Palestinians got a regime that not only deprived them of most of the international aid, but that also cracked down on political opponents and freedom of speech. The Palestinian Authority was actually a one-man show called Yasser Arafat; he and his cronies were the main benefactors of American and European taxpayers' money.

At the time, the assumption in the U.S., Europe and other countries was that a corrupt and repressive Arafat would one day make far-reaching concessions for the sake of peace with Israel.

Because he was on the payroll of the Americans and Europeans, the thinking went, Arafat would never be able to say no to any offer -- such as the generous proposal he received from then Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at the botched Camp David summit in the summer of 2000. But when Arafat was finally put to test at Camp David, which was sponsored by President Bill Clinton, he walked out of the summit, accusing the U.S. of trying to force him to make concessions that no Palestinian would ever accept.

The billions of dollars that Arafat received between 1994 and 2000 from the Americans and the international community failed to convince him to accept the most generous offer ever made to the Palestinians by an Israeli prime minister. Even worse, the first seven years of the peace process resulted in the second intifada, which erupted in September 2000 -- a few months after the collapse of the Camp David summit.

The refusal of the international community back then to hold Arafat accountable was the main reason a majority of Palestinians were driven into the open arms of Hamas. Palestinians lost faith not only in the peace process, but also in the Palestinian Authority and its leaders. Palestinians saw no improvement in their living conditions, mainly as a result of the PA's corruption.

That is why they turned to Hamas, which promised them change, reform and an end to financial corruption. The Americans and Europeans are therefore responsible for Hamas's rise to power.

Until 2007, the Palestinians had only one corrupt and undemocratic regime, called the Palestinian Authority. Since then, the Palestinians have earned another regime that is even more ruthless and repressive: Hamas.

So if $4.5 billion brought the Palestinians two corrupt and undemocratic regimes, what would have happened had the U.S. and Europe invested a few more billion dollars in promoting Palestinian democracy? The Palestinians would most likely have seen the emergence of a few more dictatorships in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Of course, the Palestinian Authority prime minister did not tell the visiting U.S. Congressmen that the $4.5 billion the Americans invested in promoting Palestinian democracy went down the drain or ended up in secret Swiss bank accounts. Nor did he tell the Congressman that the Palestinians do not have a functioning parliament or a free media under the PA in the West Bank or under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. And, of course, Hamdallah never told the Congressman that for Palestinians, presidential and parliamentary elections remain a remote dream.

But, like most Westerners who visit Ramallah, Congressman McCarthy obviously did not ask harsh questions, especially regarding the Palestinians' responsibilities toward democracy and the peace process. The Congressman was undoubtedly glad to hear that the U.S. has invested $4.5 billion in Palestinian democracy and boosting the peace process. But did he and others ever ask whether and how the Palestinian Authority used those funds to advance these two goals?

One does not need to ask Palestinian Authority officials about the way they spent the American aid money because the reality on the ground is too obvious. The PA took the billions of dollars and continues to operate as a corrupt and undemocratic regime. Democracy is the last thing the Palestinians expect to see from the PA or Hamas.

And what has the Palestinian Authority done with the billions of dollars to advance the cause of peace with Israel? Has the PA leadership used this money to promote peace and coexistence with Israel? The answer, of course, is no. Instead of using American financial aid to further this cause, the PA has done -- and continues to do -- the exact opposite. In addition to inciting its people against Israel on a daily basis, the Palestinian Authority leadership has been using these funds to wage a massive campaign in the international community with the purpose of isolating and delegitimizing Israel and turning it into a pariah state.

The "investment" in Palestinian democracy and peace with Israel has been a complete failure because of the refusal of the U.S. Administration to hold the Palestinian Authority fully accountable.

Unless Western donors bang on the table and demand that the Palestinian Authority use their money to bring democracy to its people and prepare them for peace, the prospects of reviving any peace process in the Middle East will remain zero.

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/6353/palestinians-us-aid