Freedom Line Blog

As pro-Israel marchers congregate in Washington, D.C., today and too much of the world swallows Hamas’s portrayal of itself as victim, an oldie but a goodie provides a helpful primer and corrective:

The Difference Between Israel and Hamas

Today’s Wall Street Journal commentary “Take the Palestinians’ ‘No’ for an Answer” offers the choice quote of the day today, highlighting the way in which President Trump’s decision to finally (and rightfully) relocate the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem has once again proved him more prescient than the foreign policy “experts” who predicted dire consequences:

This week’s U.S.-led Peace to Prosperity conference in Bahrain on the Palestinian economy will likely be attended by seven Arab states – a clear rebuke to foreign-policy experts who said that recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory would alienate the Arab world.”

The piece also highlights how the Palestinians stand alone among nations who somehow claim entitlement to 100% satisfaction of their demands before accepting a generous offer of independence.  Pakistan, Ireland, India and even Israel never made such demands in their independence movements, yet somehow Israel is a malign force for not granting Palestinians every one of their demands?  The double-standard as applied to Israel is obvious.

In a brilliant primer entitled “Refute Palestinian Lies to Promote Mideast Peace” in The Wall Street Journal, Max Singer refutes a persistent myth that the United States must work to refute:

[D]espite widespread use of the term in diplomatic documents and debate, there is no such thing as ‘occupied Palestinian territory’ because there has never been a Palestinian territory to occupy.  As some Palestinians point out, they have never had a state of their own.  This is far more than a game of semantics.  If the land was Palestinian, then Israel could have stolen it.  If the land isn’t Palestinian, then Israel couldn’t have stolen it.  It’s critical that the U.S. actively combat the falsehood that Israel exists on stolen Palestinian land.”

After three terrorist gunmen killed two Israeli police officers last month at the Temple Mount outside of Jerusalem’s Old City, Israel installed metal detectors at the entrance of the site to protect both visitors and officers.  Perhaps predictably, those seemingly common-sense measures triggered a call for a “day of rage” from Palestinian leaders, and an ensuing round of violent protests in Palestinian cities.

Today, a reader letter in The Wall Street Journal provides some helpful historical perspective in the ongoing controversy:

It is ironic that the Muslim population complains that the metal detectors interfere with their worship.  Until the Six Day War in 1967, when the Temple Mount was in Muslim control, Jews weren’t allowed to come within miles of the Western Wall, much less pray there.  To this day, Jews aren’t allowed to pray at their holiest site – the summit of the Temple Mount – by the Islamic Waqf.”

A recent Pew Research survey reveals an alarming and corrosive new reality.  The political left in America for the first time sympathizes more with the Palestinians, who effectively deny Israel’s right to even exist and officially celebrate terrorist attacks in Israel, over the Israelis whom they seek to eradicate.

American Left Now Favors Palestinians Over Israelis

This strange sense of radical chic was previously more confined to European shores among western societies.  Given the rising degree of liberal sentiment in America, this begins to suggest a larger trend, which we can only hope doesn’t eventually import the disturbing degree of anti-Semitism and balkanization that Europeans regrettably suffer.