A national referendum should determine whether pro-Hamas activists should be free to glorify terrorism in our streets

Mar 14, 2025  

In the heart of Toronto, a dangerous event is set to unfold once again: Al-Quds Day, an annual rally held on the last Friday of Ramadan rooted in the extremist ideology of Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, which calls for the destruction of Israel. What might appear to some as a political demonstration is, in reality, an event driven by a foreign terrorist entity — the Iranian regime, a state sponsor of terrorism that bankrolls groups like Hezbollah and Hamas. This rally does not promote peace or dialogue. It is a direct attack on Jewish people, their right to self-determination, and ultimately, on Canadian values.

The event’s organizers openly state that “Palestine resists; Zionism ceases to exist” — a blatant call for the eradication of Israel and, by extension, the Jewish people’s national homeland. According to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, which Canada has adopted, denying Israel’s right to exist is inherently antisemitic.

Already, Jewish neighbourhoods and events are being targeted directly by pro-Hamas activists in Toronto and across the country. If you are not Jewish and your home was blocked by jihadists, how would you feel? It is often said that Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Well, this is a great example of what is happening right here in our country. If Canadians continue allowing this behaviour and do not demand immediate action, they too will be impacted.

The greater danger is that events like this are being given an umbrella of legitimacy under the guise of so-called “anti-Palestinian racism” policies being pushed by certain activists. This Orwellian effort is not about protecting Palestinians from discrimination; rather, it is a calculated strategy to criminalize criticism of anti-Israel extremism. If these government guidelines are allowed to take root, Al-Quds Day and similar rallies will not only be tolerated but actively shielded under the false pretence of fighting racism.

This is a direct threat to public safety. We are already seeing the consequences of unchecked extremism in Europe, where police forces are struggling to regain control of their streets after years of inaction against radical Islamist demonstrations. Every week, new reports emerge of attacks on Jewish citizens and non-Muslim communities and growing no-go zones where authorities fear to tread. Canada must not follow this path.

As jihadist sentiments take free rein in Canada, the government must take urgent action to strengthen hate speech laws and enforce them without political bias. Hate speech is not free speech. It is incitement to violence, and when it goes unpunished, it emboldens extremists who seek to impose their ideology through fear and intimidation. We must categorically reject the notion that those who glorify terrorism, call for the destruction of Israel and target Jewish communities should be allowed to march freely through our streets. The message from our leaders must be clear: there is no place in Canada for those who promote terror, incite hatred and undermine the safety of our citizens.

Our neighbours to the south are already taking steps to curb radicalism on their campuses and in their streets. This week, when asked about the arrest and impending deportation of Mahmoud Khalil, a radical Palestinian activist at Columbia University, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson did not mince words.

“If you are on a student visa, and you’re in America, and you’re an aspiring young terrorist who wants to prey upon your Jewish classmates, you’re going home,” Johnson said. “We’re going to arrest your tail and we’re going to send you home where you belong…. I appreciate free speech, I used to defend it in court, but this is far beyond the pale of that; you are threatening your classmates and spewing antisemitism and spewing all this hatred. It’s enough.”

Leaving our economic anger at America aside, this is the kind of attitude Canada desperately needs. Instead, our government is cowering in fear of pro-Hamas activists, refusing to crack down on those who glorify terrorism while silencing those who stand up for Israel and the Jewish community. If our federal, provincial and municipal governments refuse to take action, then it is time to let the Canadian public decide. A national referendum — or province-by-province referendums — should be held to determine whether Canadians want to allow terrorist-backed demonstrations like Al-Quds Day on our streets.

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There is no doubt that Canadians are fed up. They have seen the footage of violent antisemitic mobs in London and they do not want the same happening here. They do not want their communities turned into battlegrounds for jihadist propaganda. They do not want their children growing up in a country where hatred against Jews is excused and legitimized.

If our government refuses to act, Canadians must take a stand. The time for silence is over. Canada is at a crossroads: do we stand up against extremism, or do we allow our streets to be hijacked by those who promote terror? The answer should be clear to every Canadian who values peace, democracy and security.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-terrorist-backed-al-quds-day-demonstrations-have-no-place-in-canada

They had a chance to prove themselves as partners in peace, but they blew it on October 7 and their celebrations of violence afterward Published Feb 28, 2025

No one can fault us for believing that a complete reset is necessary in our future dealings with the Palestinians. Not just a reset, but a fundamental severing and distancing. This perspective comes from someone who has long supported the two-state solution — not out of any illusion that the Palestinians truly desire peace, nor that peace was entirely possible, but because I was willing to give them a chance to take responsibility for their own future. I wanted to believe they wanted a better life for themselves, for the sake of all of us.

Abba Ebban was right when she said, “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Time and again, they have rejected every chance to establish their own independent state. Even former U.S. president Bill Clinton — who had a front-row seat in negotiations alongside Israeli prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert — recently admitted that the Palestinians were entirely to blame for the failure of past peace agreements. Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and later Mahmoud Abbas, repeatedly turned down deals that would have given them a state.

Then came October 7, 2023, and everything changed. Not just for me, but for the majority of Israelis, the Jewish world and our friends and allies. That single day shattered any remaining illusions about their true intention. Yet it was this past week that sealed, for me, the fate of the Palestinian cause.

At the funeral of her husband, Oded, Yocheved Lifshitz — a woman who had dedicated her life to peace — spoke painful but undeniable words: “We fought all through the years for social justice, for peace. To my sorrow, we were hit by a terrible blow by those we helped on the other side. I stand here staggered to see the number of graves, and the terrible destruction of our community that was completely abandoned on October 7.”

Many of the residents of the kibbutzim targeted by Hamas had spent years assisting Gazans — driving them to medical appointments inside Israel, including for cancer treatments, and providing them with employment. None of it mattered. The hatred was so deep, so ingrained, that they massacred the very people who had extended a hand in kindness.

This week, Israel also buried the Bibas family — Shiri and her two small children, Ariel and Kfir. The world recoiled in horror upon learning that their Palestinian captors had killed the children with their bare hands. And yet, through it all, not a single word of condemnation has come from the Palestinian Authority or its leader, Abbas. Instead, Abbas was caught in yet another lie — despite previously appearing to revoke the “pay-for-slay” program which supported the families of Palestinians jailed, wounded or killed by Israelis, he was recorded affirming that not a penny would be withheld from Palestinian terrorists.

The sickening reality does not end there. Nowhere on the planet do we see grotesque images of parents bringing their children to celebrate the death of a mother and her two small children and an elderly man as was done this past week in Gaza over the Bibas and Lifshitz caskets. This is not a fringe element. This is a barbaric culture nurtured under Arafat-Hamas rule, indoctrinated by schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and funded by international aid.

For two decades, Hamas controlled Gaza, and instead of using billions in aid to build a thriving society — with schools, hospitals and infrastructure — it dug more than 700 kilometres of terror tunnels and militarized every inch of the territory, transforming it into a launchpad for destruction. Yet, Hamas is not the only one responsible. Every nation and organization that funneled money into Gaza without accountability — including Canada — bears a share of the blame.

Meanwhile, Palestinians in Canada and around the world have not denounced Hamas. They have not expressed regret or outrage at the terror group’s atrocities. Instead, they have openly aligned themselves with its cause, marching in our streets in support of those who butchered women, children and the elderly.

The Palestinians had a historic opportunity to build a state, to prove themselves as partners in peace. They chose, instead, a path of destruction. And now, at least for the next generation, they have lost every opportunity. There is no turning back.

For Israel, and for Jews around the world, this moment has brought a renewed sense of unity and purpose. Our resolve is stronger than ever. Israel will not just survive — it will thrive. Our people will grow fiercer, our ingenuity will expand and the next generation of Israelis will rise as lions. The Jewish people have always endured, and we will do so again. But this time, we do so with the clarity that peace cannot be made with those who glorify our murder.

National Post

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-the-palestinians-dont-deserve-a-state-because-they-chose-destruction

The images of premature babies outside incubators in a Hamas-controlled hospital and the tragic deaths of women and children in Gaza evoke deep emotions, emphasizing the equal preciousness of all life. Israel makes every effort to preserve life, while Hamas uses its population as human shields, sacrificing them for gullible western sympathy.

By now we know that these hospitals housed and covered up Hamas' terrorism against Israel. One wonders if many of the doctors and staff at these hospitals were not Hamas operatives themselves.

But Prime Minister Trudeau, known for his empathetic communication, went overboard against Israel again by declaring "The world is witnessing this killing of women, of children, of babies. This has to stop." It made Canadians wonder just whose side Trudeau is on — Canada's democratic ally or the jihadists?

His statement was so over the top hurtful it sent a shudder down the Jewish community in Canada and it provoked an immediate reply from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said: "It is not Israel that is deliberately targeting civilians but Hamas that beheaded, burned and massacred civilians in the worst horrors perpetrated on Jews since the Holocaust ... The forces of civilization must back Israel in defeating Hamas barbarism."
Ever since our prime minister wrongfully implied Israel was to blame for an errant Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that hit Al-Ahli hospital, that sent thousands of Antisemitic rioters to our city streets (in reality, the rocket didn't even hit the hospital, only the parking lot).

Canadians are puzzled about Mr. Trudeau's moral clarity, and ability to differentiate between terrorists and a democratic state defending itself.

After the horrifying brutality of the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre in which 1,200 Israelis were murdered (the vast majority civilians) and 239 hostages taken, the U.S., the U.K., Germany, France, and Italy, issued a joint statement condemning the attack with moral clarity and a clear strategy.

Mr. Trudeau initially appeared to be in agreement, acknowledging Israel's right and obligation to defend itself against Hamas. Western nations emphasized that Hamas, as a terrorist organization, did not represent the aspirations of the Palestinian people.

However, concerns arise as Mr. Trudeau seems to have shifted away from both moral clarity and a viable strategy in this war against terrorism. His concern about human life lacks proper assignment of responsibility for civilian deaths in Gaza. International law is not a suicide pact; rights come with responsibilities, and intent in war is seminal.

Senior Hamas member Ghazi Hamad's statement, that Oct. 7 should be repeated, underscores the proud commitment to atrocities and the intention to repeat them until Israel is eliminated. In such a scenario, what actions would Canada take when faced with an existential threat?

Mr. Trudeau's declaration that Israel's defence is unacceptable due to civilian casualties implies a demand for Israel to fight with both hands tied behind its back. Imposing such conditions on a defending ally seems impractical and potentially detrimental to their survival.

But Israel's survival may not be atop of Trudeau's list, it seems. Recently, Canada announced an increase in funding to the infamous United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA). It's the same organization that has said more about Israel in this war than about Hamas hiding its munitions in its schools.

Despite our incessant warnings that money is fungible and therefore the organization is indirectly subsidizing antisemitic curriculum in its schools and worse, helping incentivize terrorism (through payments to martyrs), our prime minister turned a blind eye. We even published a comprehensive report on funding of Palestinian terrorism on the matter that was signed by Judea Pearl, whose son Daniel was beheaded by Pakistani Jihadis and by Stuart Force, whose son Taylor was murdered by Palestinian Jihadis.

Leading up to the Hamas massacre, the murder of dozens of Israelis was partly and indirectly funded by UNRWA, which receives funding from Canada. When one Canadian diplomat called our reaction to Canada's $100 million allocation "harsh" we wondered just how out of touch with its own complicity in driving Palestinian terrorism our government is. Does this response still seem harsh in the face of such brutal massacres of Jews? Or is it still okay because local politics trumps morality?

The money we and other western democracies give the Palestinians went to building the tunnel system in Gaza, rather than to improving Palestinian lives. The Hamas rockets fired at Israeli citizens are made possible by our aid money. And the massacre itself, quantified by the sadistic hatred of the jihadists, can be linked to the school textbooks that teach hate in UNRWA schools.

How is it possible that Hamas leaders who are basking in the sun in Qatar are worth $5 billion? Most were once labourers on construction sites. Its because they have taxed our aid money and siphoned it into their personal bank accounts, instead of helping and uplifting Gazans. They want them to live in squalor and misery.

Mr. Trudeau's inversion of truth is not dissimilar to the leftists moral bankruptcy of blaming the Hamas massacre of Jews on Israel. Even UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres had the audacity of alluding that the killing of Jews was brought on by themselves. Its the post-colonialist, woke, perversion of reality. Its like saying the horrific murder and treatment of our indigenous population by colonizers was their own fault.

In truth, the blame of the death of civilians on both sides is on Canada and other western nations. Our tax dollars continue to perpetuate Palestinian animosity against Israel by keeping them in a refugee holding pattern, unlike any other refugee group on earth.
Trudeau owes Israel and the Jewish community an apology for putting the blame on them, rather than on where it truly belongs — on Hamas. Hamas is centrally responsible for the deaths of civilians on both sides, but Canada and the West need to recognize that by funding UNWRA we a unwittingly or irresponsibly have contributed to this disaster.

Avi Benlolo is the Founder and Chairman of The Abraham Global Peace Initiative. Aurel Braun is a professor of political science and international relations at the University of Toronto and an associate at Harvard University’s Davis Center.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/opinion-hamas-massacres-funded-by-western-aid-money

The UN secretary general's statement was equivalent to telling Ukrainians that they invited the Russian slaughter

Author of the article:Avi BenloloPublished Oct 27, 2023

In 1996, Daniel Goldhagen published a seminal book that changed the Holocaust narrative. In “Hitler’s Willing Executioners,” Goldhagen showed that the vast majority of the German public supported Hitler’s determined effort to commit genocide against the Jewish people because they were motivated by a unique and virulent form of “eliminationist antisemitism” that had been ingrained in German identity for centuries.

Antisemitism, in other words, empowered ordinary people to believe that Jews deserved to be eliminated from the face of the earth.

The view that 1,400 Israelis deserved to be murdered by Hamas is not dissimilar. Having been indoctrinated with large doses of antisemitism since childhood, Hamas terrorists brutally murdered Jewish men and women, babies and children, the infirm and the elderly. Their barbarism mirrored the heinous genocidal crimes committed by the Nazis.

Despite these crimes, the Jewish people have been re-victimized by those who have attempted to justify this mass murder. In ancient times, pogroms and crusades against Jews blamed the Jews themselves. After all, we were supposedly responsible for things like deicide, the black plague and a global conspiracy to control the world. We deserved all the pain and suffering that befell us. That’s antisemitism.

In light of this history, it was disturbing to hear United Nations Secretary General António Guterres tell the world in front of the Security Council this week that Jews were essentially responsible for Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre. “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” he declared.

Caught red-handed, the following day, Guterres refused to apologize, instead saying, “I am shocked by misrepresentations by some of my statement yesterday in the Security Council — as if I was justifying acts of terror by Hamas.” Yet that is exactly what he appeared to be doing, given that, in the same breath, he said that, “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

This is equivalent to telling the Rwandan Tutsis that they were responsible for their own murders. It’s like telling the girls that Boko Haram kidnapped and raped that it was their fault. It’s akin to telling Ukrainians that they invited the Russian slaughter.

Guterres is not antisemitic. He has denounced antisemitism vigorously in the past. Yet somehow, perhaps because of the prevailing bias against Israel at the UN, he adopted the rhetoric espoused by Hamas apologists, blaming Israel for the massacre inflicted on its citizens.

His comments seemed out of character to me, given his past support for the Jewish people, but it demonstrates how easy it is to succumb to the concerted PR campaign Hamas supporters launched even before the bodies of the dead Israelis had grown cold.

Guterres would have appeared like a statesman had he used the opportunity to scold the Palestinians for not accepting the UN’s 1947 partition plan and for consistently scuttling opportunities for peace. He could have held the Palestinians accountable for creating and supporting Hamas. He could have castigated them for decades of incessant terrorist attacks against Israelis and relentless incitement against Jews.

Guterres could have used the moment to critique the UN for maintaining the status quo by ensuring Palestinians remain as perpetual refugees. He could have criticized the antisemitic indoctrination of Palestinian students in UN-run schools.

After being blamed by the United Nations for the murder of innocents, Israel has rightly stopped issuing visas to UN officials and called for Guterres’s resignation. Like the instantaneous false blame Israel received over the bombing of the hospital in Gaza, it’s too late to walk this back. This kind of sentiment seeps into the public consciousness immediately and invites antisemitism and more incitement against Israel.

Words are weapons and they are used today, as they were used by the Nazis and those who came before them, to invite hate against the Jewish people. This must stop.

National Post

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/antonio-guterres-blames-the-victims-of-hamass-massacre

The decades-long push to delegitimize Israel has led to a reprehensible willingness to excuse the largest mass slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust

Author of the article:Avi BenloloPublished Oct 13, 2023  

In a recent encounter at the Capitol building in Washington, D.C., a Fox News reporter approached U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, pressing her to condemn the tragic events involving the loss of innocent lives in Israel at the hands of Hamas. Tlaib chose not to respond and continued walking.

In two moving speeches at the White House this week, President Joe Biden passionately condemned silence and complicity. Not since the Holocaust, he said, had so many Jews been murdered. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that, “There is only one place for Germany — the place at Israel’s side.”

But the past week has been marked by an overwhelming sense of moral dilemma, stemming from the heart-wrenching loss of over 1,300 lives along the Gaza border. Some victims were still asleep in the early hours of Saturday when Hamas terrorists invaded their homes, committing unspeakable acts of violence.

Reports of around infants being decapitated and burned alive in Kfar Aza — a village that fell victim to acts of brutality that can only be likened to a bygone era of feudal barbarism — defy adequate description. Even seasoned reporters, who were present to document these horrors, were profoundly shaken by what they witnessed.

Elsewhere along the Gaza border, thousands of young adults gathered at a music festival to celebrate “friends, love and peace.” But their joy was short-lived. Palestinian terrorists indiscriminately opened fire on them, surpassing even the ruthlessness of groups like ISIL.

Over 260 young people, most in their 20s, were murdered in cold blood. Many were shot as they desperately tried to flee. They were unarmed and bewildered, yet the Hamas terrorists showed no mercy, killing innocent civilians and raping young women next to the dead bodies of their friends.

In addition to these massacres, there were numerous kidnappings. Hamas terrorists abducted an estimated 100-150 individuals, including children, women, teenagers and even a Holocaust survivor. Those they killed suffered a gruesome fate, their bodies dragged naked through the streets of Gaza, desecrated and humiliated. For those held captive, it’s feared that torture and ransom may await them.

Representative Tlaib’s refusal to condemn these horrors raises questions about the moral underpinnings of the international Palestinian solidarity movement. The chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” takes on a haunting dimension considering these events. There’s little doubt about what would happen to the State of Israel and its citizens if they were to lay down their weapons even for a day.

Tlaib is part of a generation of advocates who have long called for Israel’s eradication, a sentiment that can be traced back to the Durban Conference on racism and xenophobia in South Africa in 2001. This event laid the foundation for the delegitimization and defamation of Israel, including the unfounded claim that it is an “apartheid state,” mirroring tactics legitimately used against apartheid South Africa.

Radical leftists, unionists and academics joined the Palestinian cause in South Africa, often masking their deep-seated antisemitism. Upon their return home, they launched and supported campaigns such as “Israeli apartheid week” and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against the Jewish state.

For nearly two decades, university students have been exposed to falsehoods about Israel and, by extension, the Jewish people. These beliefs became normalized in global organizations like the United Nations Human Rights Council, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, all of which echoed and reinforced these baseless allegations.

In Toronto, the annual Al-Quds Day event has long been permitted to take place at the footsteps of the provincial legislature. Originating in Iran, the event draws leftist and Islamist groups, forming an unlikely coalition united by their hostility toward Jews and their call for Israel’s destruction. Last weekend’s events are exactly what they were calling for.

Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, has persistently fought against these campaigns to delegitimize it. The country has proudly championed human rights, advanced LGBTQ and women’s rights, celebrated coexistence and played a leading role in promoting these values in the region.

Despite these efforts, the Palestinian campaign of defamation, coupled with deeply rooted antisemitism, has continued to legitimize and embolden hatred against Israel, specifically among progressive leftists and far-right white supremacists.

Recently, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that Adolf Hitler “fought the Jews because they were dealing with usury and money.” For centuries, these words have been spoken by rabid antisemites to mobilize violence against Jewish communities.

While governments, like Canada’s, have condemned antisemitism, they have simultaneously continued to fund the Palestinian narrative by channelling money to organizations like UNRWA. This funding has sustained schools in Gaza and the West Bank that promote violence and hatred against Jews.

Let me be clear: any country that condemns Hamas but is still sending money to the Palestinians — including Canada’s Liberal government, which pledged this week to continue funnelling around $55 million annually in development assistance and aid to Gaza and the West Bank, thus allowing their governments to divert resources to terrorism —  is complicit in the crimes that are being committed against Jews in Israel.

The shocking loss of Israeli lives represents the culmination of years of emboldening Hamas and other terrorist organizations by delegitimizing Israel and allowing antisemitism to flourish. Even in the face of war crimes and heinous acts, the Palestinian movement refuses to unequivocally denounce such actions. Some media outlets, including the CBC, which are heavily influenced by the Palestinian narrative of “resistance,” have adopted policies that inaccurately label terrorists as militants.

Social media is rife not just with antisemitic Palestinians, but with people who hold influential positions, including doctors, union leaders and academics, posting messages denying the barbarism that took place. If they cannot deny it, they blame Israel and the Jews for inviting the murders, decapitations and rapes. This should be condemned vigorously by all.

Reflecting on our historical experiences, particularly the Holocaust, we understand the dangers of complicity. The brutal murder of six-million Jews and millions of others occurred because hundreds of thousands of people played a role, be it as journalists, train operators, contractors, doctors, lawyers, mothers or fathers. They perpetuated the propaganda and antisemitism they were exposed to, which ultimately led to the genocide. The same is applicable today.

For those of you who identify as pro-Palestinian and remain silent in the face of Hamas’ heinous acts, it’s crucial to examine your moral compass. Such silence has far-reaching consequences — not only for the present, but for the future of humanity.

National Post

Avi Benlolo is the founder and chairman of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

October 8, 2023: Here we go again. Not even 24 hours had passed since terrorists launched and unprecedented attack on Israel, and unfounded Palestinian propaganda was already being used to justify Hamas' mass slaughter.

Despite the fact that Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist organization by Canada and other free countries, murdered an estimated 600 Israelis in cold blood, Palestinians in Toronto set up a cheering squad on a local highway overpass this weekend. They are also planning rallies against the “Zionists.”

If you are rooting for the terrorists, understand this: Grandmothers were killed in their wheelchairs. Children have been beaten, ripped from their mothers' arms and taken hostage in Gaza. Thousands of rockets are being shot at Israeli neighbourhoods, aiming to maim and kill.

What is there to celebrate? Death and destruction? An ISIL-style attack by terrorists riding in pickup trucks through villages and murdering people? What kind of sick people are waving Palestinian flags on our highways?

Already, our political leaders are talking out of both sides of their mouths. While Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow condemned the attack on Israel in one tweet, two hours later she also wrote, "We must acknowledge Palestinian pain and severe loss of life during this time" (though the tweet has since been deleted).

This is like saying that we must acknowledge the pain Taliban fighters suffered following their murder of women in a soccer stadium. There is no moral equivalence between the pain suffered by Israeli civilians as a result of this unprovoked attack and the Hamas fighters who have been killed in retaliation. If we fail to differentiate between good and bad, right and wrong, our own society will begin to crumble. Maybe it has.

And the radical left-wing spin is only picking up speed. We are going to hear our media call Hamas "militants," not terrorists. We are going to hear justifications for the murder of Israeli children based on the false narrative that Israel is an “apartheid state” or an “occupier” — even though it does not occupy Gaza, the festering enclave of terrorism from which these attacks originated.

An assistant professor at Wilfrid Laurier University retweeted a message that the Hamas attack was in response to Israeli incursions into Arab towns in recent months and years. Not mentioned was the thousands of terror attacks Israel has sustained this year at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

One of CUPE's Twitter accounts retweeted a tweet reading, "Today, as Palestinians break down colonial barriers, they breathe life into the dream of an open, liberated geography." This is false. Israelis are not colonizers of their own land. They are indigenous to the Land of Israel.

As Israel's offensive commences and inevitably, and sadly, people get killed and hurt, the media will quickly forget about Saturday's brutal Palestinian assault on Israel. It will begin siding with the Palestinians, lying and distorting the truth and giving ample fodder for pro-Palestinian demonstrations on our streets and campuses.

The shame of left-wing hate and antisemitism will be couched in the language of "proportionality" and Israel's so-called “military edge.” Some military edge. The Palestinian-controlled images will flow onto our screens, attempting to create sympathy and justifying Saturday's brutal terror attack.

The United Nations will likely pass resolutions calling for a ceasefire and criticizing Israel for defending itself. Throughout history, and during all of Israel's 75-year existence, Jewish self-defence has consistently been questioned. A Jew? Defending himself? How can this be?

But alas, this time, Israel has awoken. Jews are a peaceful people by nature, but they easily fall asleep at the wheel. Yet when Israel does wake up, when Jews unify, there is no amount of false sympathy that will save the other side. To all the propagandists out there, to the flag-wavers on the highway, to those who falsely accuse us of being colonizers and justify mass murder, shame on you. If you think we are willing to be herded once again like sheep to the slaughter, you are in for a rude awakening.

National Post

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-campaign-to-justify-hamas-mass-murder-of-innocent-civilians-is-well-underway

U.S. and Canadian aid to UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority is morally reprehensible and legally dubious

Author of the article:Avi Benlolo and Henry Kopel,  National Post

Published Sep 15, 2023

Sept. 11 came and went this week as little more than an afterthought. Addressing concerns about terrorism is no longer in vogue, especially in this country. Yet the date when 2,977 innocent women and men were killed in New York’s Twin Towers, the Pentagon and on four airliners serves as a yearly reminder of the devastating consequences of terrorism.

Thus, this week, the Abraham Global Peace Initiative (AGPI) drew on the lessons of 9/11 in a newly released report calling on Canada, the United States and Europe to address the ongoing problem of foreign aid financing Palestinian terrorism. AGPI’s report draws attention to the fact that the international community (including our own country) signed international protocols against financing terrorism.

On Sept. 28, 2001, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1373, requiring all UN member states to: “Prevent and suppress the financing of terrorist acts; Criminalize the wilful provision or collection, by any means, directly or indirectly, of funds … to carry out terrorist acts; (and) Refrain from providing any form of support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in terrorist acts, including by suppressing recruitment of members of terrorist groups.”

Despite this fact, Canada recently announced $103 million over four years in taxpayer-funded aid to UNRWA. Likewise, American taxpayers are sending more than $200 million a year to the Palestinians, despite the fact that such aid is in direct violation of the Taylor Force Act, which prohibits the U.S. government from funding the Palestinian Authority so long as it maintains financial supports for terrorists.

Palestinian terror attacks across Israel are surging this year, totalling over 3,600 attacks in the first half of 2023, which left 28 Israelis dead. Despite these horrific numbers, the West is circumventing its own laws by funnelling money ostensibly for aid through UNRWA and other UN aid vehicles.

It’s been well documented that both the PA and UNRWA operate school systems and summer camps that relentlessly indoctrinate Palestinian children to hate Israelis and Jews. The schools falsely teach that Israelis are the equivalent of Nazis perpetrating a Holocaust on Palestinians, while glorifying suicide bombers as heroes of Palestinian society. The PA’s state-run newspapers and television stations convey the same messages across Palestinian society.

Foreign aid also allows the PA to maintain an extensive government-run system of pensions paid both to terrorists who successfully murder Israelis, and to the families of terrorists who died while successfully murdering Israelis. The pensions increase for each additional Israeli murdered, and sometimes exceed the salary received by Palestinian civilian employees, such as teachers. In recent years, these terrorist pension payments have cost the PA in excess of $300 million a year.

After each successful terrorist murder of Israelis, Palestinian communities across the West Bank and Gaza erupt in public celebrations, which often include dancing in the streets, lighting fireworks, firing weapons and handing out candy to children. These murder celebrations have been recorded on several occasions.

As long as the PA continues to incite and promote terrorism, including maintaining its terror reward payments, aid to the PA and UNRWA will continue to be in direct violation of domestic and international laws.

AGPI’s new report also delves into the human cost of terrorism. Its contributors include Stuart Force, a retired U.S. air force pilot whose son Taylor was murdered by a Palestinian on a boardwalk in Tel Aviv, along with UCLA Prof. Judea Pearl, whose son Daniel was beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Pakistan.

By continuing to fund the PA, Canada and America are fuelling terrorism. By supporting the PA, we are also reinforcing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ disturbing level of antisemitism and Holocaust denial. Thus, we are calling on both countries to immediately suspend funding to the PA and UNRWA until such time as both institutions cease to incentivize Palestinian terrorism. It’s illegal. It’s wrong. It’s unethical. And it will never lead to peace.

National Post

Avi Benlolo is founding chairman and CEO of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative. Henry Kopel is a retired U.S. federal prosecutor and the author of "War on Hate: How to Stop Genocide, Fight Terrorism, and Defend Freedom."

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/stop-supporting-palestinian-terrorism

In Canada, we proudly espouse values of pluralism, co-existence and anti-discrimination. Why, then, does our government continue to funnel money to a serial racist’s dictatorship to the tune of $30 million a year? I am, of course, referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. 

Recently, Abbas openly and unabashedly said that Adolf Hitler “fought the Jews because they were dealing with usury and money.” For centuries, these words have been spoken by rabid antisemites bent on inciting violence and promoting hate.

These lies were delivered in a speech he gave to Fatah’s Revolutionary Council on Aug. 24, according to a translated video published by the Middle East Media Research Institute and exposed on Twitter by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.

In the speech, Abbas also accused Ashkenazi Jews of not being of Middle Eastern origin, putting forward the false notion that European Jews have no historic ties to the Land of Israel, in a blatant attempt to delegitimize their right to live in their homeland.

Like other antisemites before him, Abbas spreads myths and innuendos among his people and others in the Arab wold, stating, in this case, that Ashkenazi Jews hail from the Khazars, a community said to have converted to Judaism. By attempting to delegitimize a large portion of Israel’s Jewish population, in effect, Abbas is trying to invalidate Israel’s very right to exist.

“The truth that we should clarify to the world is that European Jews are not Semites … they have nothing to do with Semitism," said Abbas. "They say that Hitler killed the Jews for being Jews and that Europe hated the Jews because they were Jews. Not true. It was clearly explained that (the Europeans) fought (the Jews) because of their social role, and not their religion.”

In our forthcoming report on Palestinian terrorism, my friend Judea Pearl (father of Daniel Pearl, who was murdered by Islamist terrorists) put this falsehood into context: the Palestinians have an “incendiary mentality that Israel is a temporary colonial enclave that has no right to exist, that Israel is the malignant equal of Nazi Germany, that Israel perpetrates a perpetual Holocaust upon Palestinian Arabs, that the Palestinians’ only recourse to liberation is the elimination of Israel and, hence, that their greatest heroes and role models are murderers of Jews.”

For years, Abbas was known for his Holocaust denial. His 1982 dissertation for his doctorate from Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow claimed that Jews helped perpetuate the Holocaust. “The Zionist movement led a broad campaign of incitement against the Jews living under Nazi rule, in order to arouse the government’s hatred of them, to fuel vengeance against them and to expand the mass extermination,” wrote Abbas.

His true colours emerged more concisely and boldly during his speech to Fatah’s leadership, but his long history of antisemitism and Holocaust distortion has been clear for decades. Last year, he had no problem openly telling German Chancellor Olaf Scholz that Israel had committed “50 Holocausts.”

"If you wonder why the Oslo peace process hit a dead end and stayed there, consider that Mr. Abbas and Fatah have been described for decades as 'moderates,' ” wrote the Wall Street Journal's editorial board recently. "His predecessor, Yasser Arafat, once stunned President Clinton’s negotiators by denying even that Jerusalem had been the site of the Jewish Temple."

The problem is that no one is stunned any longer by the antisemitism, Holocaust distortion and denial of Jewish indigeneity to the Land of Israel that is so often espoused by Palestinian leaders. The money from the West, including from Canada, keeps flowing and indirectly arriving into the coffers of these liars.

Canadian taxpayers are largely oblivious to our government’s support of a leadership that inspires terrorism and goes against the grain of our foundational values and national identity. Sadly, these words will fall on deaf ears. But one day, maybe decades from now, a historian will find them and ask the same question we now ask about the Holocaust: why did so many people look away?

National Post

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/mahmoud-abbas-openly-flaunts-his-antisemitism-for-all-to-see

Updated AGPI Report on Western Aid Supporting Palestinian Terror

and Call for Donors to Stop Funding Mass Murder

September 6, 2023

Prepared by: Henry Kopel, a retired U.S. Federal Prosecutor and the author of War on Hate: How to Stop Genocide, Fight Terrorism, and Defend Freedom (Lexington Books, 2021). He serves on the AGPI Global Advisory Board.

Contributors:Avi Abraham Benlolo, Founding Chairman and CEO of The Abraham Global Peace Initiative, an international human rights organization based in Canada.

Professor Judea Pearl, UCLA Computer Science Department. Father of Daniel Pearl, the Jewish Wall Street Journal reporter who was murdered by Islamic terrorists.

The Hon. Senator (ret) Jerry Grafstein Q.C. is a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and politician who served in the Senate of Canada from 1984 to 2010. 

Six months ago AGPI issued a report titled “Western Aid Supporting Palestinian Terror and Call for Donors to Stop Funding Mass Murder.” It documented how Western aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) finances and facilitates those agencies’ massive annual investments in inciting, glorifying, and financially rewarding Palestinian terrorists who murder and maim innocent Israelis. Since then the numbers of those savage attacks and murders have only increased – all of them being encouraged, praised, and rewarded by Palestinian leaders. And yet, not a single major Western donor has changed its aid policy, despite the fact that any support for terrorism constitutes a blatant violation of PA commitments to foreign aid donors, and clear violation of US and EU conditions on such foreign aid. Accordingly, AGPI is now issuing an updated version of that report, renewing its call for Western donors to finally STOP funding the PA and UNRWA for as long as they continue to promote this tsunami of mass terror.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Israel in 2023 now faces an even worse year of surging Palestinian murders and terror attacks targeting innocent Israelis, following 2022’s totals of 29 terror-murders amid 2,200 terror attacks. As of August 21, 2023, Israel already has suffered 29 terror-murders amid a tsunami of more than 3,600 terror attacks. This violence and slaughter happens not just despite, but in part because of, over $6 billion in US, Canada, and EU aid given to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and UNRWA since 2008. 

The PA invests a substantial share of its budget, and hence of this foreign aid, on inciting terrorism, on glorifying terrorism, and on financially rewarding terrorism. UNRWA conducts similar incitement in its extensive, donor-supported school system. The PA’s and UNRWA’s complicity in terrorism promotion, and the PA’s payment of rewards to terrorist murderers stand in blatant violation of several PA commitments to foreign aid donors, and in clear violation of US and EU conditions on such foreign aid. All other efforts to get the PA and UNRWA to halt their promotion and financing of terror having failed, it is long past time to enforce the many laws that this conduct violates. AGPI accordingly calls on the world’s donor community to forthwith STOP the aid flow to the PA and UNRWA, unless and until they conclusively end their incitement of, glorification of, and financial rewards for acts of terror.

FULL REPORT

Western Aid Supports Palestinian Terror -

It’s Long Past Time to Stop Funding Mass Murder

Yet again the world is witnessing a surge of Palestinian terrorists attacking and mass-murdering innocent Israelis – innocents driving to work, waiting for busses, and even at houses of prayer. A few representative examples:

On January 27, at the end of Friday evening synagogue prayers in Jerusalem, a terrorist opened fire into the departing crowd, murdering seven congregants aged 14 to 68.

On February 10, a terrorist rammed his car into a crowd of civilians standing at a Jerusalem bus stop, immediately killing a 6-year-old boy and a 20-year-old man; the boy’s

8-year-old brother died later from his injuries.

On February 26, a terrorist murdered two brothers, ages 21 and 19, while sitting in their car in a traffic jam.

On February 28, a terrorist shot and killed Elan Ganeles, a Connecticut native and recent Columbia University grad, who was visiting Israel for a wedding.

This horror of terror-slaughter has continued throughout the Spring and Summer. On April 7, in one especially notorious massacre, Palestinian terrorists fired a hail of bullets at a car driven by Rabbi Leo Dee accompanied by his wife and two daughters, the latter aged 15 and 20. Only Rabbi Dee survived; days later, all of Israel mourned the burial of his wife and daughters.

By August 21, 2023, Israel had suffered 29 terror-murders, which equals the total number of terror-murders from the entire twelve months of 2022. And that latter figure was the highest annual number of terror-murders since 2008. A list of the 2023 terror-killings is attached as an Appendix to this report. 

To be clear, the number of terror victims killed reflects only the tip of the Palestinian terror wave rolling through Israel. Just for the year 2022, Israeli security agencies recorded 2,200 terror attacks across Israel and the West Bank. By comparison, for just the first six months of 2023, Israel’s emergency response services report a total of 3,640 acts of terror throughout Israel.

Those attack numbers are very possibly understated. Fatah, the political faction of Palestine Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas, disputes the foregoing numbers as far too low, publicly boasting of having committed 7,200 terror attacks against Israeli targets in 2022.

And for Western audiences, all of those numbers greatly understate the gravity of the situation, owing to Israel’s much smaller population than most other democracies. At 8.9 million, Israel has a mere thirty-seventh of the population of the United States, which tops out at 333 million.

Translated into American population numbers, Israel’s 2022 terror wave would have meant 1,073 terror-murders, and 81,400 terror attacks. Just the first eight months of the 2023 terror wave would have meant 25,480 attacks. Fatah’s higher claimed 2022 number would translate into 266,400 terror attacks across the U.S. in one year.

Now try to imagine the American response if the terrorist group responsible for such murderous carnage and violence were being generously subsidized by foreign countries. Because that has been exactly the Israeli experience for several years.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the United States since 2008 has given the Palestinian Authority between $250 million and $500 million annually. Over that same period the United States also has given between $180 million and $390 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers the Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East. In total therefore, annual US aid to the Palestinians has ranged between $430 million and $890 million, or well in excess of half a billion each year.

Similarly, since 2014 the European Union has granted a total of $1.5 billion in aid to the Palestinians. And through donations to UNRWA, Canada has been gifting the Palestinians over $20 million annually.

In sum, over the past ten years the United States, Canada, and Europe have cumulatively given well over $6 billion from their respective taxpayers to the principal institutions of Palestinian governance.

And over that same period, the Palestinian Authority has been investing a substantial share of its budget on inciting terrorism, on glorifying terrorism, and on financially rewarding terrorism. Often ignored by donors, these malevolent practices have a long history.

In fact the Palestinian leadership’s machinery of terror incitement has been operating continuously for nearly a century, since 1928. In that year the then-Palestinian Arab leader Haj Amin al-Husseini launched a murderous anti-Jewish propaganda campaign, falsely accusing the Jewish community of plotting to attack and destroy the Muslim mosques atop the ancient Temple Mount in Jerusalem. That campaign culminated in August 1929 with a wave of Arab pogroms across Palestine, destroying homes and properties, massacring over 130 Jews, and wounding hundreds more.

Lionized as the father of Palestinian-Arab nationalism, al-Husseini in 1941 moved to Berlin, where he publicly concluded an alliance with Adolf Hitler based on an explicit commitment to conquer the Middle East, annex it to the Nazi empire, construct death camps, then exterminate all Jews across the region. That this did not happen is owed entirely to the British-American defeat of Hitler’s armies in North Africa in May 1943. 

Al-Husseini also helped direct Hitler’s Arab-language propaganda operation, disseminating Nazi propaganda from Germany via daily radio broadcasts across the Arab world.

Al-Husseini’s decades of Jew-hating incitement was embraced and expanded in 1968 by the PLO’s then-new leader Yasir Arafat, and it continues today under Arafat’s successor Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas has explicitly praised al-Husseini as “a great man whose ways should be emulated by all PA Arabs.”

And the PLO faithfully emulates al-Husseini’s dissemination of Jew-hatred. As abundantly documented by NGOs like Palestine Media Watch (PMW) and Impact-SE, Palestinian schools, summer camps, TV shows, newspapers, and civic ceremonies relentlessly disseminate Jew-hating propaganda on a scale comparable to that of Nazi Germany.

The schools of the Palestinian Authority orient their entire curricula toward inculcating Jew-hatred and Israel-hatred. A typical eighth-grade reading text includespassages like this: “Your enemies have murdered your children, have sliced open the stomachs of your wives, have seized the beard of your honorable Sheiks and have driven them into the ditches of death.” A twelfth-grade literature exercise includes this sentence: “Zionist gangs stole Palestine and expelled its people from their cities, their villages, their lands and their houses, and established the State of Israel.”

When the school year ends, Palestinian kids attend PA summer camps named for and glorifying terrorists who committed mass murders of Israelis, such as Dalal Mughrabi. In 1978 Mughrabi led a terrorist team that hijacked two Israeli busses and murdered 37 civilians, 12 of them children.

Palestinian TV regularly broadcasts commentary declaring that Israel perpetrated the Holocaust (though there was no Israel until after the Holocaust), and falsely claiming that Israel now conducts an ongoing Holocaust against the Palestinians: “They opened the ovens for us . . . destroyed the villages and burnt the cities. . . . Their hands are covered with the blood of our children.” Children’s theatrical performances, broadcast on PA TV, include plays that claim the Jews crucified Jesus and murdered Yasir Arafat through poisoning.

The PA’s state-run daily newspaper reinforces these messages of hate with declarations like these: “[m]assacre is the basis of the State of Israel”; “[c]orruption is the nature of the Jews”; the Jew is “the disease of the century”; Israelis “are the new Nazis upon the earth,” who commit crimes “worse than” the “gas chambers”; “the oppressive occupier [Israel] drives his nails into our living flesh and murders in cold blood”; “Israel . .

. is . . . a cunning Satan which violates all human principles . . . [and] carries out the ugliest forms of racism and torture”; and Jews are “‘Shylocks of the land, busily emptying Palestinian pockets.”

In the UNRWA refugee camps, the same type of incitement predominates in the schools and civic culture: children are taught to hate Jews and Israel, and terrorism against Israelis is glorified.

Lest there be any doubt about the purpose of the hate incitement, Palestinian leaders also celebrate and glorify those who convert the hatred into acts of mass killing. Not just summer camps, but public streets, sports teams, and civic events across the West Bank are named in honor of suicide bombers. Mass murderers of Jews are routinely lauded by PA leaders as “heroes,” and PA leaders regularly visit and thank the parents  of suicide bombers for their child’s successful mass kills. 

In fact, across the West Bank and Gaza, news of Jew-murders are virtually always followed by dancing and cheering in the streets, and the handing out of candy to children – as exemplified here(Gazans celebrate March 2019 murder in Ariel); here (Hebron residents celebrate October 2022 murder in Kiryat Aba); here(Palestinians celebrate November 2022 murder of three men, all fathers, in Ariel); here(Palestinians celebrate January 27, 2023 murder of seven Jerusalem Jews after Shabbat services); here(Palestinians celebrate February 10, 2023 car ramming attack that killed 2 children and one adult); and here(Palestinians handing out candy in streets to celebrate August 21, 2023 murder of a Jewish mother). 

Similarly, funerals of Palestinian suicide bombers are routinely treated as occasions for mass celebration, for which “martyr cards” portraying the murderer are printed up by the thousands; the cards are then distributed en masse to children and neighbors. “Martyr posters” of glorified suicide bombers also are plastered throughout public spaces in the Palestinian territories. As Palestinian political analyst Addie Awad puts it, “the veneration of martyrs is part and parcel of the Palestinian national identity.”

In sum, the Palestinian Authority – subsidized by billions in Western aid money – relentlessly inculcates each generation of children in the incendiary false beliefs that Israel has no right to exist, that Israel is the malignant equal of Nazi Germany, that Israel perpetrates a perpetual Holocaust upon Palestinian Arabs, and that the Palestinians’ greatest heroes and role models are mass murderers of Jews.

Fully documenting the falsity of the factual claims embedded in that toxic propaganda lies beyond the scope of this report. But it does bear mentioning that the so-called Israeli “occupation” – which is the central stated justification for the Palestinians’ ongoing terror war – is actually a result of the Palestinian leaders’ deliberate choices, despite and in sharp contrast to Israel’s repeatedly demonstrated efforts to end its role in those territories. 

Specifically, the territories in question were seized in 1967, not from any Palestinian entity, but rather from the then-occupying powers of Egypt (over Gaza) and Jordan (over the West Bank), as an act of self-defense during several Arab countries’ attempted invasion and annihilation of Israel. Since then, Israel has offered, and Palestinian leaders have outright rejected, seven invitations to negotiate a definitive end to both Israel’s role in the disputed territories and the Israel-Palestinian Arab conflict, namely: in 1967 (the Arab world’s “three No’s” from Khartoum), in 1979 (Camp David invite, rejected); in 1993+ (Oslo agreements, sabotaged by a Palestinian terror war), in 2000 (Camp David statehood offer, rejected), in 2001 (Taba statehood offer, rejected), in 2007 (Olmert statehood offer, rejected), and in 2019 (Trump statehood offer, rejected).

These repeated Palestinian rejections of efforts to end Israel’s so-called “occupation” makes abundantly clear that – as constantly declared in their annihilationist propaganda – the Palestinian leaders’ goal never was to obtain a separate state living in peace alongside Israel, but rather the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.” 

That reality also explains why the Palestinian leaders’ hostile efforts are not limited to just propaganda and glorification of terrorism. Their annihilationist program also includes generous financial rewards that incentivize and promote terror. For several years now the PA has paid lavish cash bonuses and pensions to terrorists, as well as to the families of suicide killers. In total the PA’s spending on terror bonuses has exceeded $300 million per year, which includes “salaries to Palestinian terrorists in Israeli jails, continuing after they are released, and to the families of dead terrorists . . . .” The PA makes no secret of these payments, which it publicly lists in its annual budgets. These so-called “pay-to-slay” payments equal more than 20 percent of annual foreign aid to the PA.

For just a hint of the horror behind this program: “Among the thousands of recipients of the PA payments are mass murderers like Abdallah Barghouti, who is responsible for multiple terror attacks in which 67 people were murdered, and the family of Abd Al-Basset Odeh, the suicide bomber who carried out the Passover attack at the Park Hotel in Netanya on March 27, 2002, murdering 30 Israelis.”

The PA has created whole bureaucracies to administer its pay-to-slay program. As reported in Commentary magazine: “Payment amounts correlate to the number of people the terrorists manage to victimize. It’s a system that not only foments violence but also makes terrorism a lucrative career choice for young Palestinians.” As also reported, the payments are exceedingly generous:

Salaries start at $400 per month for terrorists incarcerated for up to three years. They rise to $570 for those in for three to five years, and $1,142 for five to 10 years. For those serving more than 30 years, the salary is $3,429. That’s per month. And this is a society in which the gross national product per capita amounts to $258 per month.

Accordingly, for Palestinians contemplating their future life course, it is “five times more profitable to become a convicted terrorist than a teacher.”

In a 2016 speech before the UN General Assembly, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu graphically describedwhat this means in day-to-day Palestinian life:

On YouTube, Ali [a Palestinian teen] watches a clip of President Abbas himself saying, “We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem.” Over dinner, Ali asks his mother what would happen if he killed a Jew and went to an Israeli prison. Here’s what she tells him. She tells him he’d be paid thousands of dollars each month by the Palestinian Authority. In fact, she tells him, the more Jews he would kill, the more money he’d get. Oh, and when he gets out of prison, Ali would be guaranteed a job with the Palestinian Authority . . . . Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children . . . are indoctrinated with hate every moment, every hour. This is child abuse. Imagine your child undergoing this brainwashing. Imagine what it takes for a young boy or girl to break free out of this culture of hate. Some do but far too many don’t.

A 2015 hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs offered a similar description of Palestinian terror promotion: 

Israel is contending with a deep-seated hatred, nurtured by Palestinian leaders over many years in mosques, in schools, in newspapers, and on television channels. Consider growing up in an environment in which television shows regularly glorify terrorists who have killed Israeli civilians; where you are taught that Jews are subhuman. Or watching a small boy interviewed on television who speaks of wanting to be an engineer, in his words, “so that I can build bombs to blow up all the Jews.” Or seeing the family next door receive a generous stipend for their son igniting his suicide vest.

All of the above-described activity – incitement to terror, glorification of terror, and financial rewards for terror – blatantly violates several laws and agreements binding on both the donors and the Palestinian Authority.

Most significantly, these activities violate the United States’ Taylor Force Act, codified at 22 United States Code, Section 2378c-1. This Act requires that all U.S. aid “that directly benefits the PA” be suspended unless the Secretary of State certifies that the Palestinian Authority has met four conditions: terminating these payments to terrorists, revoking laws authorizing this compensation, taking “credible steps” to end Palestinian terrorism, and “publicly condemning” and investigating such acts of violence. The Act excepted from its coverage, aid to the East Jerusalem Hospital network, and aid for water projects. To date, the Palestinian Authority has never been in compliance with the Act – and yet American aid still flows to the PA.

Viewed objectively, these activities also violate the European Union’s conditions on foreign aid grants. Under the heading “Annex II,” section 12.2(d) of those conditions requires termination of any foreign aid grant for which “it has been established . . . by proof in possession of the contracting authority that the beneficiary(ies) has been guilty of . . . terrorist financing, [or] terrorist related offences . . . .” The PA has never ceased its support and promotion of “terrorist related offences” – and yet, European aid still flows to

the PA.

These activities also violate multiple commitments made by the Palestinian Authority as part of the Oslo Peace Process. The so-called Cairo Agreement of May 1994 required that the “Palestinian Authority . . . shall . . . abstain from incitement, including hostile propaganda,” against Israel. In the Oslo II agreement of September 1995, the PA promised to “take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime, and hostilities.” And again in January 1997, after further Israeli territorial withdrawals, the PA promised to prevent “incitement and hostile propaganda,” to combat terror, and to prevent violence. The PA was then and still now stands in blatant violation of all such commitments – and yet the foreign aid keeps flowing to it.

It also bears mentioning that, if such foreign aid funding were provided by private citizens or NGOs rather than by governments, it would conceivably constitute criminal conduct subject to prosecution. In Title 18 of the U.S. Code at section 2339A, the United States criminalizes all acts deemed to constitute “material support” of terrorism, specifically including the provision of “currency or monetary instruments” for use in preparing for or conducting terrorist acts. European countries similarly criminalize financial support for terrorism, as in the British Terrorism Act of 2000 at Chapter 11, Part III, Offences Section 15, and in the German Criminal Code at Section 89c. Canada’s Anti- Terrorism Act also criminalizes terrorist financing. Why such otherwise criminal acts become legitimate when sovereign governments pay the terror bills has yet to be explained.

With respect to the aforementioned civil law prohibitions on the use of foreign aid for terrorism, there have been occasional efforts to bring the Palestinian Authority into compliance. After passage of the Taylor Force Act, the Trump administration cut aid to  the PA; but the Biden administration restored it despite the PA’s continuing to pay reward money to terrorists and to suicide bombers’ families. The European Union suspended aid payments to the PA because of terrorism promotion in children’s schoolbooks, but then restored the aid without verifying whether such materials had been removed. The US Congress has occasionally held hearings Palestinian incitement to terrorism, but the aid keeps on flowing.

Hence in 2023, direct US aid allocated to the PA exceeds $250 million. The EU in February announced a €296 million PA aid package. Additionally, America, Canda, and the EU all continue to shower hundreds of millions on UNRWA. Total annual aid for 2023 thus exceeds half a billion dollars – despite the fact that 2022 marked a 14-year peak of Palestinian terror attacks, and that 2023 has witnessed even moreattacks just through the month of August.

The unfortunate but glaring reality here is this: Decades of negotiations, agreements, promises, warnings, moral appeals, and temporary aid suspensions all have done nothing to reduce or prevent the Palestinian Authority’s relentless commitment to inciting, glorifying, and financially rewarding acts of terrorism committed against innocent Israelis. While diplomats talk, Israelis are murdered in cold blood. While aid keeps flowing, Israelis are murdered in cold blood. While Western leaders call for peace, Israelis are murdered in cold blood. 

Accordingly, it is long past time to take the Palestinian leaders’ propaganda seriously, namely, to recognize that in their repeated declarations of “from the river to the sea,” they mean just what they say. Their overarching goal always was and still remains the annihilation of Israel, which explains why Western aid to the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA continues to finance a relentless propaganda and terror war against Israel. 

It is therefore also long past time for Western leaders to recognize, to expose, and to impose consequences for the Palestinian Authority’s deep and culpable involvement in this long history of murder and mayhem. And finally, it is long past time for Western donor countries to tell the Palestinian leaders that they now face a choice: End the incitement; End the glorification of; and End the financial support of terror. Or else, we end the aid, period.

APPENDIX: 

2023 PALESTINIAN TERROR-MURDERS OF ISRALIS

Date Victims Circumstances

January 27 Eli Mizrahi (48)  At the conclusion of Friday night prayers, a 

Natalie Mizrahi (45) Palestinian terrorist opened fire on a crowd in 

Rafael Ben-Eliyahu (56) Jerusalem’s Neve Yaakov neighborhood, killing 

Asher Natan (14) seven and wounding three.

Shaul Chai (68)

Irina Korolova (59)

Ilya Sosonsky (26)

February 10 Shlomo Liderman (20) A Palestinian rammed his car into civilians at a 

Yaakov Yisrael Paley (6) Jerusalem bus stop, immediately killing a 6-

Asher Menahem Paley (8) year-old boy and a 20-year-old man. The boy’s 

8-year-old brother died later from his injuries.

February 26 Hallel Yaniv (21)  Hallel Yaniv and Yagel Yaniv, two brothers from 

Yagel Yaniv (19) Har Bracha, were murdered when a Palestinian 

gunman opened fire from close range at their 

car while it was caught in a traffic jam on the 

Route 60 highway near Huwara.

February 27  Elan Ganeles (27) Elan Ganeles was shot dead by a Palestinian 

terrorist on a highway between Jericho and the 

Dead Sea.

March 9 Or Eshkar (32) Or Eshkar died on March 20 after he was 

seriously wounded by a Palestinian gunman in Tel Aviv.

April 7 Lucy Dee (48)  Lucy Dee and her two daughters were killed in 

Maia Dee (20  a shooting attack in the Gilboa region. 

Rina Dee (15) 

April 7 Alessandro Parini (35) Panini killed when a terrorist rammed a car into 

people walking on the promenade at the beach

in Tel Aviv.

May 11 Inga Avramyan (80) Killed when a rocket fired from Gaza by PIJ 

scored a direct hit on an apartment in Rehovot.

May 30 Meir Tamari (32) He was shot while driving on a road near his 

home in the West Bank community of Hermesh.

June 20 Ofer Fayerman (64) Palestinian gunmen affiliated with Hamas 

Harel Masood (21) opened fire at a gas station in the West Bank, 

Elisha Anteman (17)  killing four Israelis and wounding four others.

Shmuel Mordoff (17)

August 5 Chen Amir (42) A gunman from Jenin, West Bank, shot and 

killed an Israeli security guard.

August 19 Aviad Nir (28)  Aviad and his father Silas were shot and killed 

Silas Nigreker (60)  at a car wash in the Palestinian town of Huwara.

August 21 Batsheva Nagari (40)  Nagari was killed when a terrorist in a 

passing car shot at her car while she was 

driving on the highway.

(Source: Jewish Virtually Library, as of August 30, 2023, at

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/comprehensive-listing-of-terrorism-victims-in-israel#2023)

יהי רצון שכל זיכרונותיהם יהיו ב

May all of their memories be a blessing.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Articles on Palestinian Terrorism Published by The Abraham Global Peace Initiative:

June 30, 2023 – National Post: Canada Complicit in Palestinian Terror

https://agpiworld.com/canada#9c7f7e00-5851-44df-87cc-375db528f2a1 

March 3, 2023 – National Post: West is Subsidizing Terrorism

https://agpiworld.com/terrorism#5129f069-cad5-4ad1-9371-3c887eb525d1

May 23, 2023 – National Post: Israel Forced to Defend Itself on Multiple Fronts. 

https://agpiworld.com/terrorism#0805315d-f0dc-47d0-ab71-1c8defc6bd60 

March 24, 2023 – National Post: Dashed Hopes for Middle East Peace

https://agpiworld.com/terrorism#d82d8712-46fd-4349-9607-4bbff4d2d543 

Headlines in the media this week accused Israel of provoking a backlash over its meeting with Libya’s foreign minister, a meeting that was meant to initiate diplomatic ties. Israel’s Foreign Minister, Eli Cohen, found himself defending his ministry’s press release which announced the historic meeting.

For their part, while agreeing to the meeting, the Libyans pretended that the encounter was a catastrophe. Libyan Foreign Minister Najila Mangoush who undoubtedly was sent to meet with Cohen to establish ties, was first suspended and then fired for meeting with a Jewish-Zionist. Apparently, the outrage was so deep in Libya that Mangoush had to flee for her life, ending up in Turkey.

When it comes to diplomacy, no country other than Israel must deal with double standards grounded antisemitism. Why should we accept this behaviour and blame Israel, especially with respect to a broken country with a history of terrorism?

Libyans must think highly of themselves. They shamelessly took to the streets once the news of the fateful meeting broke headlines. For all this righteousness, Libya apparently still holds onto Muammar Gaddafi’s disgusting policy of not recognizing the Jewish state. While numerous Arab nations have normalized relations with Israel and moved their nations forward, Gaddafi’s hateful ethos still resonates among Libyans.

Let’s be honest. Many Libyans, and the current government, are holding onto the ideas of a man who was admittedly responsible for the Lockerbie bombing that resulted in 270 deaths. This is the man who readily harboured Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat, supporting him in his quest to terrorize Israel. And Libya itself is the place where the U.S. consulate in Benghazi was attacked and the U.S. ambassador murdered. Just this week, it was revealed that Gaddafi stole $200 Billion from the Libyan people and stashed it in Canada.

The Libyan Street executed Gaddafi in 2011 during the Arab Spring, but sadly, it has not excised its prejudices. The loss of diplomatic relations is not on Israel, but on Libya. The rampaging mobs on the streets of Tripoli coupled with an unelected government without legitimacy failed to realize that Israel is not only an economic lifeline, it’s also a gateway to the West.

The media should be much less concerned about the backlash against Israel, as the fact that the last elections in Libya were held in 2014. Presidential elections were slated first for 2018, then 2021 and have now been postponed indefinitely. Frankly, the Libyans should be thanking Israel for even considering diplomatic relations, given the instability and lack of legitimacy.

Israel should be commended for its outreach and continuous search for peace, despite the backward behaviour of some of these countries. To put this into perspective, in 2021, Libya’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was $42.82 Billion USD. In comparison, Israel’s GDP for the same year was $488.5 Billion USD. Israel’s economy is 11.4 times larger than Libya’s.

By striving to open diplomatic relations with its sworn enemies, Israel has shown the moral high ground. It’s true that timing is everything, especially in the Middle East. It’s also true that quiet diplomacy works as in the case of The Abraham Accords.

Israeli and American leaders and intelligence officials have rightly been critical of Cohen for his ministry's lack of discretion in making the meeting public. Many claim, this will harm future talks and even the bid to reconvene the Negev Forum. The fact is that politicians make mistakes all day long — especially in a democracy. It’s also part of being grown-ups in a media world where leaks happen. Hardly anything can be kept a secret.

But its more interesting to study Libya’s reaction to diplomatic efforts. They speak volumes about Libya more than about Israel. The case uncovered a government that is vengeful and poorly communicative. It points to a nation with deeply held prejudices that is undeserving of Israel’s hand in peace. And it showed that the hateful ethos planted by Gaddafi still echoes.

So here is some advice for the Libyan government: First, get your house in order, then come knocking on Israel’s door. Second, join the rest of the Arab world in moving forward from your ancient prejudices against the Jews. They are taking you nowhere fast. Third, next time an olive branch is placed in your hand, take it. Israel is not your enemy.

May 12, 2023

What would you do if a terrorist organization that sought your destruction lived next door? Would you take preventive action if you knew the group was amassing weapons to be used against you? If the terrorists fired rockets indiscriminately at your community’s kindergartens, hospitals and neighbourhoods, would you back down and accept your fate? Probably not. Most people would defend their families and their communities.

Yet Israel is the only country on earth that has to fight terrorism and defend itself against international condemnation all at the same time. It is fighting terrorist organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad with one hand tied behind its back — always cognizant of the international propaganda levelled against it every time it defends itself.

After taking out a terrorist cell in Jenin recently, the head of Israel’s intelligence service said, “We have no intention of waiting defensively for threats, but are always acting on the offensive against those sending them.”

For this reason, Israel has built the most ethical military force on the planet, always striving to minimize civilian casualties. Unfortunately, it’s well documented that Palestinian terrorists have perfected the cowardly behaviour of hiding among civilians and using children and families as human shields.

This week, to protect its civilians, Israel had little choice but to neutralize four Islamic Jihad terrorists who were responsible for recent rocket fire into Israel. It’s the moral obligation of any nation to protect its own citizens through deterrence, including the destruction of military facilities that manufacture rockets and store weapons.

Predictably, in response, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have so far launched more than 800 rockets into Israel. Thousands of Sderot residents were evacuated from the city this week to hotels near the Dead Sea. On Thursday, an Israeli man was killed and five other were injured when a rocket hit an apartment building in the city of Rehovot.

Internationally, the White House and the Pentagon affirmed Israel’s “right to defend its people from indiscriminate rocket attacks.” Similarly, Tariq Ahmad, the British minister of state for the Middle East, condemned the “indiscriminate rocket fire from Gaza targeting innocent civilians in Israel.”

The U.S. and Britain are standing up to terrorism. They immediately blocked the United Nations Security Council’s usual knee-jerk attempt to condemn Israel for this latest flare-up in Gaza.

However, many other democratic countries lack the fortitude to take a firm position on the Middle East conflict — including Canada, which has a substantial pro-Palestinian community. This is sad, because defending the only democracy in the Middle East should be sacrosanct and above politics.

While most western nations deal with no more than a handful of terrorist incidents a year, since the start of this year, Israel has thwarted over 110 terrorists, including numerous potentially devastating terrorist attacks, according to the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel.

Peace in the Middle East will only be achieved once terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad end their violent struggle against Israel. They have no hope of winning a military confrontation, but backed by Iran, they still hold onto the radical idea that the land of Israel should be governed by Islamic law.

They fail to recognize the historic indigenous presence of the Jewish people in the holy land and aim is to rid the land of “Zionists” and to liberate it from the Jews. So long as they are being funded by outside interests, they will continue launching rockets at Israel.

This violent behaviour is being aided, not only by terrorist states such as Iran, but by western countries that continue to funnel cash into Gaza and the West Bank. So long as billions of dollars continue to flow into Hamas-held Gaza and the corrupt West Bank, peace will remain elusive.

Despite Israel’s political instability, this week’s take down of Gaza’s top terrorists demonstrated Israel’s cutting-edge ability to meticulously plan and execute military operations meant to defend its citizens and protect its right to exist in the Jewish homeland.

National Post

Avi Abraham Benlolo is the founder and chairman of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/israel-morally-justified-in-its-recent-action-against-islamic-jihad-terrorists

In a scathing indictment of Canada, Mohsen Baharvand, Iran’s deputy foreign minister for legal affairs, accused this country of “hampering Tehran’s efforts to clarify the truth” about the crash of the Ukrainian airliner.

Yet it was Iran’s own missiles that brought down the plane, which resulted in the deaths of 167 civilians, including 57 Canadians. Iran says it mistook the Ukrainian passenger plane for an “invading missile after the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) fired ballistic missiles at a U.S. airbase in western Iraq … in retaliation for the assassination of Qassem Soleimani.”  Well, at least the deputy minister admitted that the responsibility for shooting down of the airliner lies squarely with the IRGC — an organization that has been accused of supporting terrorist activities.

Even though Canada has repeatedly demanded, and failed to receive, access to the crash site, an explanation from the Iranians and access to the flight recorder, Iran still claims that there is nothing preventing Canada from “investigating the incident in accordance with international conventions.” Baharvand claims that the “Canadian government does not respect international law” and that all this is “based on political prejudice.”

If so-called political prejudice means justice for the victims who were murdered in cold blood, so be it. It’s about time we stand up for our own citizens. Of all the countries that have been accused by the international community of being state sponsors of terrorism, Iran has much to answer for about its conduct.

Its pursuit of nuclear weapons, terror escapades in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq, and pseudo-military operations against Israel all beg the question of how it can justifiably demand a co-operative and trusting multilateral relationship with Canada.

“If the Canadian government thinks that it can put pressure on Iran with propaganda and unrealistic statements, it will not work,” charged the deputy foreign minister. But for this regime, propaganda and “unrealistic statements” is par for the course, as we regularly see Iranian Twitter accounts making anti-Semitic statements and denying the Holocaust. How can anyone ever take such ignoramus behaviour seriously?

My hope is that Iran will eventually settle down, stop sabre rattling and causing uncertainty in the Middle East and join the community of peaceful nations. In the meantime, why should Iran be trusted? Who among us can forget the horrific murder of Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian citizen who was raped and tortured in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran before she was killed?

Iran has been accused of arresting dual nationals to barter for its own citizens held in other countries, or economic concessions. Just recently, Iran exchanged a jailed British-Australian academic for three Iranians who had been detained abroad.

With its intransigence, Iran has irritated many Gulf states, particularly Saudi Arabia. Recently, King Salman bin Abdulaziz urged the world to take “a decisive stance” against Iran: “The kingdom stresses the dangers of Iran’s regional project, its interference in other countries, its fostering of terrorism, its fanning the flames of sectarianism and calls for a decisive stance from the international community against Iran that guarantees a drastic handling of its efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction and develop its ballistic missiles program.”

It appears the Iranians have several axes to grind with Canada. The deputy minister claims Canada has become a safe haven for Iranian fraudsters who Iran wants extradited. Moreover, after Canada demanded the closure of the Iranian Embassy in Ottawa, the deputy minister claimed the “Iranian government had some money in the embassy and some other diplomatic centres, mostly related to the Iranian Cultural Counsel, which Canada illegally confiscated … and Canada must repay.”

What he is probably referring to is the approximate $28 million in Iranian property seizure in Canada in 2019 that was sold off and given to victims of terror attacks perpetrated by Hamas and Hezbollah, which have been bankrolled, armed and trained by Iran. Since Canada ended diplomatic relations with Iran under the Harper government in 2012, relations between the two countries have continued to sour. And with the downing of the Ukrainian airliner, things have only gotten worse.

Canada’s foreign policy has clearly gotten the attention of Iran. Nearly two years ago, the House of Commons passed a resolution with substantial bipartisan support to designate the IRGC a terrorist entity. It’s unclear why this process has stalled, despite the reassurances from the Liberals that they were making progress on this file. It’s time for Canada to take substantive action in this regard.

Nothing can be achieved from war, conflict or continued sabre rattling. Persians have a long and proud history. As a people, they are very much respected. Sadly, the Iranian people have been mislead by their government’s hostile ideology. It appears as though the regime wants international acceptance and recognition, which is why it lashes out uncontrollably.

It’s time for Iran to stop these shenanigans and start reflecting on how it can productively rejoin the world community, advance its people and take part in a peaceful dialogue in the Middle East.

A seismic shift is taking place in the Middle East. A year ago, the Abraham Accords offered the promise of peace, which has been illusive for Israel’s nearly 75-year history. However, due to a confluence of factors mainly energized by Palestinian radicalism and the West’s unwitting support of it, the region has turned into a tinder box that could explode into absolute chaos.

As a proponent of peace and a two-state solution — a term hardly in vogue these days — it's disillusioning to learn about surveys like the one recently released by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PCPSR), which found that 71 per cent of Palestinians support the recent murder of two Israelis in the West Bank town of Huwara. In other words, they support the murder of brothers Hallel Menachem and Yagel Yaakov Yaniv, who were murdered as they drove through town.

At the United Nations Security Council’s monthly meeting on the Middle East this week, Israel’s UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, addressed the Palestinian representative directly, saying, "Shame on you … your president and the rest of the Palestinian leadership regularly incite terrorism, never condemn the murders of Israeli civilians, praise Palestinian terrorists and actively attempt to rewrite facts and the truth by erasing Jewish history."

Sadly, Palestinian terrorism claimed another victim this week: Or Eshkar, 32, died on Monday after being shot in a terrorist attack in Tel Aviv on March 9. He was one of three Israelis wounded in the attack, which was claimed by Hamas.

According to PCPSR, only 27 per cent of Palestinians support a two-state solution, which dashes any hope for peace. But it should not come as a surprise. In Canada, as elsewhere, pro-Palestinian groups regularly walk the streets with placards and megaphones yelling, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” It’s a call to ethnically cleanse the Jews from the Land of Israel and replace the Jewish state with a Palestinian one.

More significantly, that call continues to be validated through aid agencies like the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and its funders — including Canada and the United States — which are keeping the Palestinians in a holding pattern in camps in Gaza, the West Bank, Beirut, Amman and Damascus.

Because Palestinians are prevented from reaching their full potential by ensuring they remain as perpetual refugees, their anger and frustration is directed at the Jewish state. For this reason, the survey also found that 68 per cent favour forming armed groups such as the Lions' Den — a new independent terrorist organization based in the West Bank, whose leadership has been targeted by the Israel Defence Forces.

Showcasing the incredible foreign influence working to disrupt Israel’s stability, in the Tehran Times this week, the pro-regime paper called the now-deceased leader of Lions' Den, “Man of the year.” In a cover photo glorifying him as “The lion of Nablus,” the Iranian editorial worked to undermine the Abraham Accords, arguing that, "Some treacherous Arab rulers have chosen to normalize relations with the child-killing regime, but the Muslim people of the region have never forgotten Palestine."

Not dissimilarly, Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based, anti-Israel media powerhouse, posted a new “documentary” on what it says is a “new generation of Palestinians fighting Israeli raids.” In reality, it is a propaganda puff piece that portrays terrorists as heroes. “We gain rare access inside the Jenin Battalion as they fight back against Israeli raids,” reads the subhead. Yet it's those same terrorists who are responsible for the murder of scores of Israelis in recent months.

So is it any wonder that 83 per cent of Palestinians say they are "against the surrender of the armed groups’ members and their arms to the PA"? Especially considering that 69 per cent of Palestinians living in the West Bank and 48 per cent in Gaza expect the situation to continue to deteriorate, leading to a third intefadeh (violent uprising).

Since 73 per cent of Palestinians believe that a two-state solution is no longer viable or feasible, the question is: what comes next? A third intefadeh wold only lead to more misery on both sides.

For those of us who have been advocating for a peaceful resolution since Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed the Oslo Accords on the White House lawn in 1993, these latest developments are a disappointment. While we have been advocating for a peaceful solution, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas have been inciting their people against Israel.

With 58 per cent of Palestinians calling for renewed violence, according to the study, driven by an international community that is funding them and an Iranian government that's cheering them on, the promise of a better future is quickly fading.

We cannot afford to take Israel’s safety and security for granted. Its up to each and every one of us to defend Israel unconditionally, advocate for western governments to stop funding UN agencies unconditionally and tell our Abraham Accord peace partners in the region that we stand by them in this important journey. This is the time to stand together for peace.

National Post

Avi Abraham Benlolo is the founder and chairman of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-palestinian-intransigence-once-again-dashes-hope-for-peace-in-the-middle-east

Thousands of people attended Elan Ganeles’s funeral this week in Israel. They came from every sphere of Israeli society, representing an incredible level of social cohesion around the denunciation of Palestinian terrorism. Ganeles, 27, represented the epitome of modern Zionism. Raised a proud American Jew, his family belonged to Young Israel of West Hartford synagogue where he also attended modern Orthodox schools. Ultimately, he fell in love with Israel and enlisted and served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).

His only crime for being murdered by a Palestinian terrorist was that he was Jewish. On his way to a close friend’s wedding, Ganeles was shot and killed as he was driving near the dead sea. As in the case of most Palestinian terror attacks, they simply wanted to murder a Jew. Any Jew.

Two days earlier, on Sunday, brothers Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, were murdered as they drove through the West Bank Palestinian town of Huwara. For them too, their only crime driving through the town was that they were Jewish. Sadly, and despite the fact their parents called for unity amidst the pain, anger over the incident boiled over as religious Jews set fire to the town. This was the first ever such incident and it has been condemned by Israel’s President Isaac Herzog and the international community.

Palestinian terrorism has destabilized the region for decades and now threatens to elicit direct people-to-people confrontations. Weeks before these murders, seven Israelis were murdered in front of a Jerusalem synagogue. In the last year alone, 29 Israelis were murdered in terror attacks, while the IDF reports it had prevented an additional 2,200. 

Shockingly, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas boasted that this number is too low and that in fact, Palestinians perpetuated 7,200 attacks against Israeli targets in 2022. All this, says a new report on terrorism published today by The Abraham Global Peace Initiative (my foundation) is directly linked to western aid supporting Palestinian terror.

Prepared by Henry Kopel, a retired U.S. Federal Prosecutor and the author of War on Hate: How to Stop Genocide, Fight Terrorism and Defend Freedom, our report states that the spike in terrorism happens “in part because of, over $6 billion in U.S., Canada, and European Union aid given to the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) since 2008. The PA invests a substantial share of its budget, and hence of this foreign aid, on inciting terrorism, on glorifying terrorism and on financially rewarding terrorism”.

Foreign nations that are funnelling money to the PA through UN agencies and other entities have Jewish blood on their hands. Despite the fact that the PA rewards terrorists for murders through the so-called pay-for-slay program, these three western entities have increased their allocations. Aside from breaking every moral and ethical code established by democracies when it comes to human rights, apparently it's perfectly okay to compensate terrorism despite “blatant violation of several PA commitments to foreign aid donors, and in clear violation of US and EU conditions on such foreign aid” says our report.
Palestinian terrorists have no shame. They are strategically targeting our youth and our children. Just two weeks before the Ganeles and Yaniv murders, a terrorist rammed his car into a crowd of civilians standing at a Jerusalem bus stop killing another two brothers — Yaakov, 6, and Asher, 8, Pally. Alter Shlomo Liderman, 20, was the third victim who was also murdered in that incident.

Despite these heinous terror attacks, our report says that “according to the Congressional Research Service, the United States since 2008 has given the Palestinian Authority between $250 million and $500 million annually. Over that same period the United States also has given between $180 million and $390 million to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which administers the Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East. In total therefore, annual US aid to the Palestinians has ranged between $430 million and $890 million, or well in excess of half a billion each year.”

In other words, the West is subsidizing the Palestinian Authority to destabilize Israel (we are seeing this play out right now) by inculcating generations of Palestinian children to be venerated as “martyrs” for mass murders. How often do we see Palestinians handing out candy in their villages when a Jew is murdered? How often do we see PA leaders pay their respect to the “martyred” families? Or hear about streets being named after terrorists? This is the death-culture the west is supporting unabashedly.

More significantly, Israel’s lurch to the right and the resulting social turmoil we are witnessing right now in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem is a direct consequence of aid to the Palestinians. The very reason this government was elected with a substantial majority was because of increasing Palestinian terrorism. Israelis did not necessarily vote for Judicial reforms. They voted for security against the forces that are attempting to destabilize the country through Palestinian terrorism and incitement.

We believe that “the unfortunate but glaring reality here is this: Decades of negotiations, agreements, promises, warnings, moral appeals, and temporary aid suspensions all have done nothing to reduce or prevent the Palestinian Authority’s relentless commitment to inciting, glorifying, and financially rewarding acts of terrorism committed against innocent Israelis.” So long as this irresponsible behaviour continues, there will be more victims like Ganeles and the Yaniv and Pally brothers. G-d help us. May their memory be a blessing.

National Post

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/the-west-keeps-subsidizing-the-palestinian-authoritys-death-culture

Our funding of UNRWA allows the Palestinian Authority to continue its murderous 'pay-for-slay' program

Canada funds the Palestinians with an average of around US$23 million (C$31 million) a year through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). On top of that, in 2021, Canada also gave the Palestinians an extra $25 million, ostensibly for emergency relief due to “urgent humanitarian needs in Gaza, as well as those affected by violence in the West Bank.” That year, Canada’s aid to the Palestinians was over US$48 million, making us about the sixth-largest donor.

Following the murder of seven Israelis outside a synagogue last week by a Palestinian terrorist, there is a question that begs to be answered: by continuing to fund Palestinians, are we complicit in these murders?

It’s not that the money sent to organizations like UNRWA, which has an annual budget of around US$1.5 billion, isn’t necessarily needed for poverty relief, medical assistance and education. It’s that UNRWA is keeping them indefinitely as refugees. In addition, countries like ours are not only helping cover the costs of providing these services, but also assisting organizations — Hamas and the Palestinian Authority — that incite violence and incentive terrorism.

Its been well documented that the Palestinian Authority rewards terrorists by giving monthly allowances to their families, should they die while carrying out an operation against the Jews or find themselves in prison if they survive. It sounds completely insane, but the Palestinian Authority has actually institutionalized what is now called “pay for slay.” In other words, you get paid to murder Israelis — especially Jews.

Where does the Palestinian Authority (PA) get the money to finance its pay-for-slay program? Think about it. With a per capita GDP of roughly US$3,500 and an average unemployment rate of 25 per cent, the PA simply could not afford to pay for the salaries of terrorists without international assistance. These funds alleviate stress on the PA to pay for schools, hospitals and social programs, so it can instead support the “resistance.”

Reacting to the Jerusalem attack, British journalist Melanie Philips wrote, “Once again, we have witnessed the nauseating spectacle of western governments — which sanitize, fund and pump up the genocidal Palestinian Arab cause — expressing shock and sympathy with Israel over these attacks (while continuing) to fund the Palestinian Authority despite the PA’s ‘pay-to-slay’ policy of rewarding the families of terrorists for every Israeli Jew they murder, and despite its never-ending incitement to murder Jews and steal Israel’s land.”

Indeed, both Canada under Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the United States under President Donald Trump cut funding to UNRWA due to its close ties with Hamas, systemic corruption and antisemitism. Yet these policies were reversed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration has funded UNRWA with a whopping US$890 million over the past two years. And this week, instead of penalizing the Palestinians for last week’s heinous terror attack, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rewarded them with an additional US$50 million.

In Forward, Palestinian political analyst Bassem Eid wrote, “It’s time to admit that Palestinian institutions are broken, and that they have developmentally harmed generations of Palestinian men and women, boys and girls, by whipping them into a constant froth with violently antisemitic educational and media content that celebrate ‘martyrdom’ attacks against Israelis. The Palestinian Authority provides a financial incentive for terrorism by providing pensions to the families of those who attack Israelis.”

Palestinian Media Watch found recently released prisoners Karim and Maher Younis were the highest-paid Arab-Israeli terrorists. Each collected nearly US$100,000 from the Palestinian Authority for murdering Avraham Bromberg, a corporal in the Israel Defence Forces.

Back in 2018, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that, “We will neither reduce nor prevent (payment) of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners.”

As a result of the latest Palestinian killing spree, Israel’s parliament is fast-tracking new legislation that will revoke the Israeli citizenship of terrorists who receive financial support from the Palestinian Authority. But this is clearly not enough.

Countries like Canada have a moral and ethical obligation to stop funding the Palestinians until the PA stops its pay-for-slay program. Our hands are bloodied with each dollar we provide the Palestinians, as it enables them to fund terror. We cannot continue to hide behind the illusion that we are providing much-needed aid.

By providing free money to the Palestinians, we are feeding a beast that openly promotes terrorism and compensates terrorists. So long as we and other countries pour money into Palestinian coffers, Israelis like 14-year-old Asher Natan will continue to be murdered at the hands of Palestinian terrorists.

National Post

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/avi-benlolo-seven-israeli-civilians-are-dead-and-canada-has-blood-on-its-hands

Iran’s fingerprints are on much that counters our prevailing values in this country. This week, a groundswell of voices from Canada and around the world joined The Abraham Global Peace Initiative in calling on Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Toronto Mayor John Tory to stop the hateful and antisemitic Iranian-backed “Al-Quds Day.”  

We will hear condemnations from our leaders to appease the Jewish community — especially in an election year. But ultimately this annual hate fest against Jewish people will continue despite the fact our provincial and federal governments are investing millions of dollars to combat antisemitism. Antisemitism at Al-Quds Day events and on our university campuses is not being addressed in law and public policy. 

Instead, money is being thrown back at the very community that is being attacked, for it to mount a counter-offensive alone. This is equivalent to asking assault victims to stand up for themselves.  Al-Quds Day was invented by the Iranian regime as a way to incite violence and hatred. As we all know, many nations consider Iran a state sponsor of terrorism. Its Holocaust denial and promotion of antisemitism is well documented, and it has engaged in terrorist activity for decades. 

In the past number of weeks, Argentina commemorated the 30th anniversary of the bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires, in which 29 died and for which a group linked to Iran claimed responsibility. Iran was also blamed for the bombing two years later of the Jewish Community Centre (AMIA) building in Buenos Aires, in which 86 people died.  

Al-Quds Day was invented by the Iranian regime to incite violence and hatred  This, of course, is merely the tip of the iceberg of crimes Iran has committed, and the toxic antisemitism it has bred. It has bolstered such terrorist groups as Hezbollah and Hamas, while expanding its own terrorist activities into Syria — engaging in the slaughter of thousands of civilians — in order to protect Bashar Assad, now believed to be the world’s No. 1 war criminal.  

Just last week, former Canadian cabinet ministers Peter MacKay, John Baird and Stockwell Day and many other leading Canadians joined me in warning U.S. President Joe Biden against consenting to Iran’s demand that its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) be dropped from the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organization list. Canadians know Iran’s terrorism well. On Jan. 8, 2020, the IRGC shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 with 167 people on board, including 55 Canadian citizens and 30 permanent residents. Like the Jewish community in Buenos Aires, the Iranian community in Canada has been calling for justice.  

This is why fighting Al-Quds Day is significant not only for the Jewish community, but for all Canadians. The Jewish community is the vanguard of rebuffing threats to freedom and democracy. If you believe this is an internal tribal squabble between two rival ethnic groups, you are missing the radicalization taking place in our country.  

Over the years, Torontonians have witnessed speaker after speaker defame the state of Israel and, by extension, motivate the rising tide of hatred of Jewish people. Young people attending the rallies are infected by hateful propaganda that undermines our peaceful communities.  

 In truth, no other religious or ethnic community in Toronto is as maliciously and continuously attacked as the Jewish community. Last May, we witnessed brawls and violent attacks by pro-Palestinian demonstrators targeting Jewish people.  Justifiably, we condemn the horrific war crimes unfolding now in Ukraine and take action. At the same time, society turns away from calls for violence against Israelis. But we cannot have double standards when it comes to ethics and morality — speaking out and taking action for some persecuted groups and not for others.  Canadians need to start paying closer attention to foreign-driven threats to peace upon our soil. Otherwise, the security and freedom of all citizens here is in jeopardy. 

 National Post April 22, 2022

30th Anniversary of Bombing in Argentina

BUENOS AIRES — Iran has been committing and supporting heinous acts of terrorism in the Middle East and around the world for years. It is responsible for war crimes committed in Syria, for supporting Hamas and Hezbollah’s hostility against Israel and for financing the war in Yemen. Iran shot down a Ukrainian airliner, killing 167 passengers, including many Canadians. It is also responsible for the horrific bombing of the Israeli Embassy and a Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires. Can you imagine an Iran equipped with nuclear weapons?

  Thursday marked the 30th anniversary of the devastating attack on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina. On that horrific day in 1992, 29 people were killed by the blast and 242 were injured.  Iran struck again just two years later, hitting the Argentine Israelite Mutual Association (AMIA), killing 85 people and injuring hundreds more in the vicinity. Argentine state commissions and international investigations have implicated Iran and its terror proxies in the bombings, which were part of its shadow war against the State of Israel.  

Argentina immediately broke off diplomatic relations and severed its ties with the Islamic republic, accusing Iran of murdering Argentinian nationals. Yet despite Argentina’s obvious support for Israel and its Jewish community, the wounds and trauma of these terror attacks resonate profoundly with the country's Jewish population.  Argentina has issued five requests through Interpol for the extradition of suspected Iranian terrorists who were identified as having been complicit in the attacks. 

Still, most Latin-American Jewish community leaders who are currently in Argentina for meetings with the Latin Jewish Congress expressed shock and dismay at the lack of progress in bringing the perpetrators to justice.  In fact, Argentina’s top Jewish leader, Jorge Knoblovits — who sits on the Abraham Global Peace Initiative's board of advisors and presides over the community’s umbrella organization, the Asociationes Israelitas Argentinas — is concerned that Iran will demand immunity for its crimes, as part of the ongoing nuclear talks in Vienna.  By most accounts, the Argentinian Jewish community is highly respected by the government. In a meeting I attended with Argentinian President Alberto Fernández earlier this week, he spoke of the nation’s shared values and the importance of its Jewish community. This sentiment was shared by multiple government officials with whom I had the pleasure of meeting.  

The City of Buenos Aires’ undersecretary for human rights and cultural pluralism, Pamela Malewicz, told me that the city instituted legislation marking March 17 as the Day of Memory and Solidarity with the Victims of the Attack on the Embassy of Israel, to make people aware of the consequences of international terrorism and promote peace. Most significantly, the legislation is incorporated into the school calendar so that each year all students read a text of remembrance of the attack against the Israeli Embassy.  While the terror attacks against Jewish institutions unified the city, life hasn’t been the same ever since. Nearly every Jewish building I toured, including the Macabi Jewish community centre and the AMIA complex, is defended by massive concrete barriers. Every visitor must endure a complex system of security measures upon entry, which is often more stringent than airport security. 

The doors on these buildings are all made from bullet- and blast-proof heavy metal. Even the newly renovated Holocaust Museum is heavily guarded (imagine the sad irony).  As nuclear negotiations between the United States, Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and Iran continue in Vienna, the West must make every effort to prevent Iran from ever acquiring nuclear weapons. Russia’s assault on Ukraine illustrates just how dangerous it is for the West to deal with genocidal regimes, especially when they fall under the protection of a nuclear umbrella.  

Iran has a history of supporting terrorism and extremism throughout the Middle East and around the world and has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. Even while Iran was sitting across the negotiation table from the United States, it launched a ballistic missile attack on Iraq’s northern city of Erbil, which was described by Reuters as "an unprecedented assault on the capital of the autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region that appeared to target the United States and its allies."

  This year’s anniversary of the bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Argentina is more important than ever. The Iranians may be sitting in beautifully tailored suits in fancy hotels in Vienna, creating an illusion of civility. But make no mistake: an Iran guided by religious fundamentalism with a nuclear weapon is much more dangerous than even Russia.  

So why are we making a deal with the devil?  National Post - March 18, 2022

Assault on synagogue was terrorism

National Post January 21, 2022

That the attack by a lone gunman on Jewish worshippers at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, was immediately labelled a “hostage-taking,” instead of a terror attack, highlights the blind spot that many people in authority and in the media have when it comes to violent anti-Semitism.

For nearly 24 hours during and following the incident, authorities refused to label the attack as terrorism — despite the fact that most of the evidence pointed in that direction.

To his credit, U.S. President Joe Biden eventually declared the incident a terrorist attack. But there is still a strange debate about whether the terrorist, Malik Faisal Akram, was motivated by anti-Semitism. This is despite the fact he chose to vent his anger by targeting a synagogue on the Sabbath.

Suggesting he wasn't motivated by anti-Semitism would be like arguing that, in 2015, Amedy Coulibaly chose to attack the Hypercacher Kosher Supermarket in Paris at random, rather than because he knew it would be full of Jewish people shopping for Shabbat.

Indeed, despite recent evidence showing that Akram was motivated by Islamism and had made anti-Semitic comments before the attack, one FBI agent was quoted as saying that Akram was “singularly focused on one issue, and it was not specifically related to the Jewish community.”

As naive as that may sound, he seemed to believe Akram was only driven by a desire to free Aafia Siddiqui — a Pakistani neuroscientist with links to al-Qaida, who was sentenced to 86 years for the attempted murder of American soldiers and is being held in Fort Worth, Texas.

Well, my friends, let me say this: the minute anyone enters a synagogue with a gun and points it at Jewish people, it becomes an issue related to the Jewish community. This was not merely an act of “hostage-taking”; it was a terrorist attack motivated by anti-Semitism.

If the definition of terrorism is the unlawful use of violence and intimidation against civilians in the pursuit of political aims, Akram’s assault to force the release of Siddiqui and his intimidation of civilians clearly qualifies him as a terrorist.

To its credit, the FBI immediately flew in top officers and negotiators and, together with local law enforcement, succeeded in killing the terrorist and freeing the four Jewish hostages. It is becoming clear that law-enforcement agencies throughout North America are now paying more attention to the dangerous trend of violence perpetrated against Jewish institutions.

In 2018, following the attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, I sent an alert to police agencies across the country about the need to secure Jewish communities. This time around, as the terrorist attack was unfolding in Texas, local and national police immediately contacted me to reassure me that extra patrols were being immediately deployed to Jewish institutions to guard against copy-cat attacks.

In my remarks at this week’s launch of the Abraham Global Peace Initiative's Power of One exhibit at Vancouver police headquarters, I spoke about the necessity for law enforcement to secure our communities. Without question, the work of police services is more essential than ever in protecting and defending faith communities from targeted assaults. Often times, this is done in collaboration and partnership with the communities themselves.

Even though Akram had been investigated for possible terror activity in the United Kingdom, he was able to sneak into the United States in an attempt to carry out an attack against the Jewish community. This should concern intelligence agencies in both countries. While lone-wolf attacks are often challenging to uncover, we cannot let our guard down when it comes to potential acts of terrorism.

To a large degree, Akram, and others like him, represent a moral and ethical failing of our society. He apparently thought that Jewish people wielded so much power that they could free Siddiqui with a single call to the White House. How ignorant.

Whereas in past decades, anti-Semitism was deemed to be reprehensible and forced to the extreme margins of society, today, conspiracy theories like this one have become normalized. Instead of countering these lies with truth, our education system is propagating them.

Nearly four generations of students have now graduated university falsely believing that Israel practices apartheid and that Jewish people are “colonizers” of their own homeland. Some high schools are also getting in on the action by supporting students organizing “free Palestine” walkouts.

Despite being a free and democratic state, left-wing media is refusing to position Israel in a positive light, while “woke” culture refuses to even acknowledge racism against Jewish people. Is it any wonder that violence against Jewish people is increasing?

Let's start calling a spade a spade: what happened in Texas last weekend was terrorism — full stop.

National Post January 21, 2022

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Hamas, a globally designated terrorist organization, is indiscriminately targeting Israeli civilian 

Let’s put everything on the table: there is no equivalence between Hamas and Israel. The latter is a nation just like any other and should be treated with the respect and dignity it deserves. The former is a globally designated terrorist organization that should be treated with the disrespect and the indignity it deserves. There should be no ifs, ands, or buts.

Instead, what we are starting to see once again in the media and in some political circles are attempts to excuse Hamas for sending 1,500 high-powered Iranian-made rockets into civilian populations in Israel. Rockets that are launched indiscriminately targeting civilian populations (not the military) are classified as a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. They are intended to murder as many people as possible — including children.

In the past 72 hours, five-year-old Ido Avigal was fatally struck by shrapnel that penetrated his home in Sderot during one Hamas rocket barrage. I have visited Sderot many times and met with its mayor, seen the piles of rockets at the local police station and noted that every bus stop is also used as a bunker against rockets. The town is within eyesight of the northern tip of the Gaza Strip and is the most targeted by Hamas terrorists. I have seen art-therapy drawings by its children — they are traumatized and suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder. Many have nightmares. Some wet their beds at night from fear. Others cry spontaneously.

So when politicians like NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh stand up in Canada’s Parliament and denounce Israel for so-called human rights violations, they should be answerable to the Jewish and Muslim children of Israel who hunker underground in fear of a murderous terrorist organization that is out to kill them. 

Before standing in our House and accusing Israel of anything, Singh and similar minded leaders should step into the shoes of every Israeli child. That includes 16-year-old Nadine Awad, an Arab citizen of Israel, who was killed alongside her 52-year-old father, Khalil, when a Hamas rocket hit their home in central Israel.

Israel does not discriminate against defending and saving the lives of its citizens, no matter their faith. Conversely, Hamas does not discriminate in wanting to kill any Israeli citizen, no matter their faith. When a rocket is launched from Gaza at Israel, crowds are heard cheering and yelling “Allah Akbar.” When Israel sends its soldiers to the border with Gaza, mothers and fathers cry in pain and sorrow that their children may have to fire a weapon to defend their nation state.

While strongly condemning Hamas and rocket fire into Israel, our government leaders are also unfortunately drawing a moral equivalence of some sort. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Canada would always support “Israel’s right to assure its own security.” But in the next sentence, he added, “We are also gravely concerned by the continued expansion of settlements and evictions.” What does this have to do with terrorist rocket attacks on innocent civilians in Israel? Do land disputes justify bombing an ally? Would Ottawa allow bombs to fall on any Canadian city without taking action?

Bassem Eid, a Palestinian human rights activist living in Jerusalem, wrote that he only blames Hamas: “The fanatics who rule over Gaza with an iron fist cannot resist the opportunity to stir up anti-Jewish violence for their own political gain. If innocent Jews and Muslims die in the process, all the better for them. The pretext for the latest missile barrage is the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in Jerusalem, where a long-running legal dispute was scheduled for a court hearing. It is the kind of situation that would be handled by a local municipal court in any other country and there would be no public interest.”

Exactly. Instead, what we are seeing once again is that some Western governments are excusing the bombing of Israel and interfering in the civic and security affairs of a free and democratic state. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Iran has been deeply involved in arming Hamas, and in the past week, inciting the violence now taking place. Given the fact that Iran shot down an airliner killing nearly 60 Canadians, Canada’s leaders should be well aware of what Iranian proxies like Hamas are capable of.

Former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper got it right when he tweeted days ago, “Attacks on the State of Israel are attacks on us all and must be immediately condemned by international leaders.” Harper understands there is no moral equivalency between a free and democratic state that shares the same values as Canada, and Hamas or the Palestinian Authority. This conflict is not about so-called “settlements,” “evictions” or land disputes. It is not about the Al Aqsa Mosque, which is treated with the utmost respect by Israel and all Jews alike. This is about a terrorist group whosr mission statement and raison d’être is the destruction of the State of Israel.

To excuse this terrorist attack on Israel with “ifs, ands, or buts” endangers freedom, democracy and human rights worldwide.