The Obama State Department Whitewashes Palestinian Terror, Again

Saturday, November 21 2015

UPDATE 8:00 pm

7:28 pm: Major Palestinian stabbing attack in Kiryat Gat. At least 4 Israelis stabbed: 2 women (56,44); 1 man (51); teenager (13). All of the wounded have been evacuated to Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon.  Police in pursuit of terrorist. All entrances to Kiryat Gat have been closed.

7:22 pm: Terrorist attack at the Oranit Checkpoint. Details unclear. Palestinian terrorist shot and wounded.

UPDATE 4:00 pm

1:47 pm: Palestinian stabbing attack thwarted. Female Palestinian terrorist with a knife captured at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron. No Israelis wounded.

UPDATES 9:00 am

***Palestinian terror in the last 24 hours . . .

At 6:09 yesterday afternoon, a Palestinian terrorist ran over an Israeli Border Guard at Abu Dis. The Border Guard was “moderately wounded”, and the terrorist was captured.

At 3:27 pm, a Palestinian stabbing attack was thwarted at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron by alert Border Guards who captured the terrorist.

Here are a few of the places where Palestinian terrorists attacked Israelis with”rocks” and Molotov firebombs between 8 am and 3:30 pm: Hizma (8:03 am), Silwan (8:09 am), Bethany (8:31 am), Atarot (9:40 am), Mt. Hebron (9:54 am), Umm Safa (10:08 am), Ofer (11:17 am), Nabi Saleh (12:41 pm), Samaria Square (12:58 pm), Beit Ummar (1:01 pm), Government House in Jerusalem (1:13 pm), Shfaram (1:32 pm), Deir Hanna (1:46 pm), Bedunah (1:52 pm), Toran (2:04 pm), Kafr Manda (2:11 pm), Qana (2:19 pm), Mashad (2:31 pm), Anata (2:46 pm), Rachel’s Tomb (3:17 pm), and Hebron (3:29 pm).

. . . The Muslim terror attack in Bamako, Mali . . .

This morning, your humble servant has received the tragic news that an Israeli man that I knew well was killed in the hotel attack in Bamako.

His body is being flown back to Israel this morning.

The question of the moment is how many of the other 28 dead are Israelis?

***The outrageous offer of Ehud Olmert . . . and the outrageous rejection of Mahmoud Abbas . . .

Israel’s Channel 10 news, the most “left-wing” channel on Israeli television, has been running a series on Israel’s various peace offers to the Palestinians over the years–from the Oslo Accords to Ehud Barak’s offer in 2000, to Ehud Olmert’s offer in 2008. The purpose of the series is to show that the “poor” Palestinians have been unduly criticized by Israelis for rejecting those offers.

In reality, the series has shown just the opposite. It has shown that the Palestinians had every chance for peace and threw each of them away.

In the recent Olmert segment, the program began by describing Olmert’s outrageous offer:

Note on the map that eastern Jerusalem is in white (Olmert wanted to turn it over to an international consortium) and that the red areas are sections of Israel that would have been given to the Palestinians in exchange for the blue areas.

1. Israel would withdraw from 93.7% of Judea and Samaria.

2. In return for the 6.3% that Israel would keep, Israel would give the Palestinians land in Israel proper equivalent to 5.8%, and create a land link between the “West Bank” and Gaza equivalent to the other 0.5%.

3. Israel would withdraw from the Arab neighborhoods of eastern Jerusalem.

4. Israel would relinquish sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem–even the Western Wall (the Kotel)–to an international consortium.

5. Israel would agree to receive “a symbolic number” of Palestinian “refugees” (the number discussed was 5000) into Israel.

In short, the Palestinians were offered everything that they have always claimed that they want–an independent state with its capital in eastern Jerusalem. The only thing that they were not offered was the “return” of 5,000,000+ so-called “Palestinian refugees” to Israel–a “return” that would wipe the Jewish country of Israel off the map. Of course, the word “return” is absurd because virtually none of these 5,000,000+ have ever lived in Israel–they are the second, third, and fourth generation of descendants of people who did.

The Channel 10 show then features an interview with Mahmoud Abbas made in the last month. In that interview, Abbas agrees that he “rejected” the offer, and then gives two reasons.

First, despite the fact that Olmert showed him a map of the way things would be, he never “was given” a map “to sign.” The absurdity of this statement is shown by the fact that “despite having no map”, Abbas continued to negotiate. What was he negotiating on the basis of, if not the map? 

Second, and more importantly, Abbas said that the Olmert’s offer did not “resolve the issue of the Palestinian refugees.”

Abbas concludes by saying:  “I feel if we had continued four to five months, we could have concluded the issues.” They could not continue for four or five months because Olmert was accused of various frauds, eventually convicted, and is now waiting to go to prison when his appeal process is exhausted.

Again, the Palestinians could have had everything they wanted except the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, but they chose to walk away. 

But Abbas is right about one thing. If he and Olmert had talked for another four or five months, Olmert would have completely given Israel away. 

TODAY’S BLOG:

It never ceases to amaze your humble servant how the Obama Administration, via the White House or State Department spokesman, feels perfectly free to interfere in the judicial proceedings of Israel, a sovereign democratic country.

The sheer “holier than thou” presumption that such declarations are based on boggles the mind.

Yesterday, State Department spokesman John Kirby blasted Israel over judicial proceedings earlier this week in a Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court. In a decision on Wednesday, the presiding judge sentenced an Israeli Border Guard to 45 days of community service for “beating” 15-year-old Palestinian-American Tariq Abu Khdeir. 

Abu Khdeir, who lives in Tampa Florida, had been in Israel in July of last year, “mourning” the death of his cousin Muhammad Abu Khdeir. While “mourning”, he was involved in a violent demonstration during which the “beating” occurred. Abu Khdeir’s role in the violence was such that Israeli prosecutors were initially going to prosecute him.

However, in an unsurprising and politically correct decision, they finally decided to drop charges against the perpetrator (Abu Khdeir), and prosecute the Border Guard.

In the meantime, Abu Khdeir was invited to the Obama White House this year as a hero and even met, absurdly, with members of Obama’s national security staff.

In the end, as stated, the Border Guard reached a plea deal with the prosecution “confessing remorse” in return for community service. In your humble servant’s opinion, even the 45 days was grossly excessive, and no remorse was called for.

But the sentence was not enough for the Obama Administration.

John Kirby declared yesterday that the State Department is “disappointed” that the Border Guard was not given “a prison sentence.”

Kirby went on to say: ” . . . it is difficult to see how this sentence would promote full accountability for the actions of the police officer in this case. We understand there is a possibility for the Israeli state prosecutor to appeal the decision, and we’re going to continue to follow that closely, as you might expect.”

In other words, the Obama Administration will continue its efforts to stick its nose into the Israeli judicial system.

All of this comes in the context of the Palestinian murder of American Ezra Schwartz by a terrorist at the Alon Shvut Junction on Route 60 two days ago.

A brutal murder that Kirby was also asked about yesterday.

Contrast Kirby’s “disappointment” concerning Abu Khdeir with his outright inability to describe what happened to Ezra Schwartz (from the State Department website):

“QUESTION: . . . And I wanted to ask you about something that came up at yesterday’s briefing but – which had, I think, literally just happened a little while ago, and that was the killing, the murder of this college student from Massachusetts. Do you have any more – American citizen college student. Do you have any more – anything to say – more to say about that than you did yesterday?

MR KIRBY: I don’t have anything additional to say. Obviously, the Secretary was deeply saddened to hear of the death and we’re, obviously, concerned by it. And we’re going to continue to monitor the situation and the circumstances as best we can. And our hearts and prayers obviously go out to the family.

QUESTION: You do – and I know you don’t like to play the – or get into kind of name calling, but you do think that he was killed in what was a terrorist attack, right?

MR KIRBY: I don’t think that I’m in a position to characterize the circumstances right now. But again, we’re mindful of what happened. The Secretary sends his deepest thoughts and condolences to the family. I don’t have —

QUESTION: Right, but you don’t think it might have happened in some kind of a robbery gone bad or something, do you? You believe that it wasn’t just a – was it just a run of the – I don’t want to say run of the mill – a criminal act? Because it’s certainly not being looked at that way.”

Let’s review this.

A Muslim Palestinian-American is allegedly “beaten” by an Israeli Border Guard (possibly Jewish, Christian, or Muslim/Druze) attempting to stop violence, and an American Jew is murdered by machine gun fire from a Muslim Palestinian terrorist.

The action of the Obama Administration is to glorify the Palestinian-American and whitewash the Palestinian terrorist murder of the American Jew.

It’s business as usual in Washington, D.C.