U.S. Taxpayers Foot Bill for Ludicrous Palestinian Authority Propaganda Campaign
Over and over, the Obama administration shows its capacity for misunderstanding Israel and decreasing its own popularity there. Even while bilateral relations are good, it reminds Israelis of why they shouldn’t fundamentally trust this government and that Washington doesn’t understand them at all.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (AID) — which is supposed to help countries raise their living standards — gave a $250,000 grant to the H.L. Peace Education Program of the Geneva Initiative. (I wonder if the U.S. Congress considers this to be within AID’s mandate!) The money isn’t paying for potable water, health clinics, or small factories. It’s paying for billboards and videos in Israel, featuring the faces of Palestinian and Israeli officials asking:
We are partners — what about you?
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Typical, isn’t it? The implication of the signs and film clips is that the Palestinians are ready for peace, the question is only whether Israel wants it. Should be very effective with Israelis, right? If you have any doubts on that point, read the article about what went on behind the scenes during production from Israel’s leading newspaper, Yediot Ahronot. Even the Israeli film crew members were making sarcastic cracks about what the “partners” were saying off-camera.
I should mention that there is also a series of billboards aimed at Palestinians with Israelis featured. Not a single heart or mind will be changed by this waste of money. One of the main Israelis featured is Yossi Beilin, plus others in the opposition in Israel but who were involved in some cases with the sponsoring group. In a sense, the campaign is an advertisement for themselves, not for peace, since these people aren’t in the government.
When writing a biography of Yasir Arafat, I had a long interview list of Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans. One of the few who simply would not respond to my requests was Beilin. One day, a friend said he was next going to meet Beilin, so I asked him to pass along my interview request.
An hour later I spoke again to the friend and asked him what happened. He responded:
Beilin told me that he won’t do it because if he gives an interview he will have to speak well of Arafat, and he told me he doesn’t want to say nice things about that SOB.
In other words, Beilin, pretty much forgotten on today’s Israeli political scene, is a propagandist who believes in what I call “lying for peace.” In this case he is also promoting himself by putting his picture on billboards.
Prof. Rubin, you’re being far too kind.
People are taking this as a joke, an insulting joke, but a joke nonetheless.
This ad campaign is making people laugh, bitter laughter to be sure.
The people involved with this campaign are idiots, fools, liars, knaves, total retards.
I’ll add something to my previous comment – just what does this say about the competence of government? You think it’s just Obama? Government at every level is incompetent, the world is governed by morons. For decades, government institutions have been filling up with dummies, Israel included. All of the monstrous bureaucracies of the world, the US, the EU, the UN, major universities, are chock full of incompetents & bunglers, if not outright wackos & cranks. And, they are making a big mess, mismanaging literally everything they touch. Obama & his amateur-hour team of left-wing bunglers are just a symptom of a much more serious problem.
It’s sad but typical. Our dear government seems to be doing everything it can to antagonize our only real ally in the middle east.
This is simply not our issue, and never has been. When the warring parties want to talk, they can. Until then, we shoud let them handle their own affairs.
The Palestinians wanted war, and they got it. They lost. I see no reason whatsoever for us to bail them out. I see no reason whatsoever for Israel to give them an inch without an honest peace.
(I wonder if the U.S. Congress considers this to be within AID’s mandate!) The money isn’t paying for potable water, health clinics, or small factories. It’s paying for billboards and videos in Israel,
It seems that very few people in the States really know what USAID has been up to all these years:
Your Taxes for PLO Propaganda
“We are partners — what about you?”
Partners with the Pals?
Never.
Hope that answers your question.
There would be peace between Israel and the Arabs if the Arabs stopped waging war against Israel. Their only motive is religious. It is the consequence of Soviet propaganda to call Arabs “Palestinian,” the Soviet Union and Gamal Nasser having founded the “Palestine Liberation Organization” in Cairo in 1964, with all the phoney history to go with it. The name “Palestine” has always meant “land of the Jews” or “the Holy Land” (Jesus having been a Jew) and “Palestianian” synonymous with “Jew.” The Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judea “Palestina” after having defeated the last Jewish rebellion under Bar Kochba in 135 A.D., and outlawed Judaism. The Zionists wanted the Palestine Mandate, and Great Britain was awarded the Palestine Mandate after World War I to be the “homeland of the Jews.”
The so called “two-state” solution is phoney, using the name “Palestine” for “Arab,” since it would mean yet another Arab state in Judea and Samaria.
The problem is not one of naivete but of cynicism. Cold blooded Jew hatred by posers with olive branches. And the chief villain is the US State Department.
In their prior incarnation our diplomatic corps were Protestant missionaries who traveled the world defrauding primitive and aboriginal peoples by conflating the benefits of modern medicine in their minds with Christian miracles.
Triumphalist condescension is the State Department mindset. Antisemitism comes with the territory. Our diplomats don’t love the Muslims but they aren’t in religious and intellectual competition with them. A convinced Christian can easily condescend to a Muslim. Islam is derivative and Mohammed and the Koran don’t hold a candle to Jesus and the Bible. Ecumenicism toward Muslims is no challenge. The two-faced inheritors of the American missionary movement give up nothing by honoring Mohamed and Allah.
The Jews who authored the whole of the Christian Canon and from whom Christianity is derived are not so easily dismissed. Jews can’t be condescended to. If the State department operated on merit, Jews would be running American foreign policy.
Replacement theology and Jew-hatred live and thrive at Foggy Bottom.
The Egyptians who were glad to be rid of Gaza and keep the Palestinians bottled up there don’t want a Palestinian state next door. The British Hashemite puppet in Jordan and his loyal Bedouin, already drowning in Palestinians, don’t want a Palestinian state next door. The Saudis hire Palestinians but keep them under tight control and deny them citizenship. The Kuwaitis did the same until Saddam invaded after which they evicted a hundred thousand Palestinians accused of collaboration with the enemy. In Iran, Palestinians are detested for their role in helping the Mullahs brutally suppress the native Persian population. American Jews returning from duty in Iraq report that Iraqis are not fond of Palestinians either.
The plain fact is, no one in the middle East really wants a Palestinian state save as a weapon–and only a temporary weapon–against the Jews and the Jewish State.
Israel’s most determined and potent enemy is the American State Department.
Israel’s most determined and potent enemy is the CURRENT American State Department.
(it was bad before but NOW it has become 10x more so)
The Palestinian Arabs are not partners – they are stalkers.
What do you recommend we do about this?
Re. the State department, simply follow the advice of Pat Buchanan re the UN: Evacuate and fumigate.
Got to youtube and look up a brief snippet of genuine TV footage entitled “Muslims celebrating 9/11″. Refers to those peaceful Pals. Here it is. Lest we forget..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-9JpRytCx0&feature=player_embedded
I hope some representative is placing Prof. Rubin’s articles in the congressional Record.
and Obama is trying to convince us he’s not a Muslim?
He’s sure acting and talking like one…
He thinks us Israelis are stupid, death blind and dumb.
Well, we’re not
Amen Steve007
People will not believe Obama is a muslim, until they actually see him dressed in traditional apparel and on a pray rug in a mosque. Like Jesus said, they have eyes but still can not see, they have ears but still can not hear!
“One such individual is Jibril Rajoub, formerly Head of Preventive Security in the West Bank, who in February 2002 had a widely publicized skirmish with Arafat, in the midst of which the pistol-toting ra’is slapped Rajoub in the face.”
http://www.tau.ac.il/dayancenter/TAUnotes70.pdf
What’s the big deal? The United States wastes untold amounts of money every year on Israel, the real TERRORISTS in the Middle East. I don’t see you objecting to that fact. I would suggest the U.S. cease giving any money or services to Israel until they stop spying on the U.S. and quit assassinating people they do not agree with, stop forging Canadian and British Passports and stop the Genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. ( See: cast Lead, the Goldstone Report.) If only the World knew?
Israel can’t come to the Peace Table with bloody hands. They stole the land from the Palestinians in the first place, just as the much admired Helen Thomas said last summer, “They should go back where they came from”, referring to the Jews of Israel. She was admonished for speaking the truth so how on earth is that fair? So much for “Freedom of Speech”. And then there is the numerous UN resolutions directed at Israel which Israel has ignored without any ramifications. Is it any wonder the World is giving second thoughts to the Ligitimacy of Israel?