Mahmoud Abbas Says No To Israel Boycott, American Professors Say Yes.

Believe it or not, Palestine's Mahmoud Abbas opposes boycotting Israel, how's that for a shocker. He took the opportunity to tell it to the world while he was at Nelson Mandela's funeral. No doubt actress Emma Thompson and all her BDS movement cronies are foaming at the mouth, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel factions across the world, including the South African BDS movement, have already expressed outraged. Not surprising.

Of course, Abbas does support boycotting products from "illegal" Israeli settlements in the West Bank, just not Israel itself. In response to a question, Abbas said:

“No, we do not support the boycott of Israel." “But we ask everyone to boycott the products of the settlements. Because the settlements are in our territories. It is illegal. But we don’t ask anyone to boycott Israel itself. We have relations with Israel, we have mutual recognition of Israel.” 

But on the heels of Abbas' anti-boycotting statement comes this: a group of around 5,000 American professors and scholars- members of the American Studies Association- voted 2 to 1 to boycott Israeli professors and academic institutions. The Association of Asian American Studies announced its boycott earlier this year.

Well what do you expect from liberal academia.

More here and here.

Mahmoud Abbas: Hamas Has Same Policies As the PA So Remove Them From Terrorist Lists

On 'Russia Today' Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas claims there is no difference between the policies of the PA and those of Hamas, so why should they be labeled as terrorists. This was in response to the possibility of the EU removing Hamas from its list of terrorist organizations.

"In my opinion, (the EU) can remove Hamas (from the list), why not?"

The interviewer then asks:

"But do you not fire missiles at Israel?"

And this is where it gets interesting. Mahmoud replies:

"Neither we nor Hamas fire missiles. [snip] ..we have no intention or desire to violate, or rather to engage in an armed Intifada with Israel. [snip] Hamas declared (the same), but then there were skirmishes once or twice. Hopefully that was the end of it."

Well, not quite Mahmoud. Several rockets from Gaza made their way into Israel to greet President Barack Obama as he was leaving Jerusalem for Ramallah in the West Bank.

Hamas doesn't fire missiles? Does he think we're stupid?

Gatestone Institute's Khaled Abu Toameh's has an interesting take on Hamas' bid to be removed from the U.S. and E.U.'s terrorist list:

Hamas wants to be dropped from the list not because it has changed. Rather, Hamas wants to be removed from the list because it feels that the world has changed, and that many naïve Westerners are now willing to tolerate its radical ideology and terrorism.

Anyone who supports Hamas's bid should also vote in favor of removing Al-Qaeda from the same list.

And if the PA has the same policies as those of Hamas, then perhaps the PA should be added to the list of terrorist organizations.

Muslim Arab Writer Gets Facebook Account Closed For Post Critical of Palestine

Khaled Abu Toameh, an Arab Muslim who writes for the Jerusalem Post, posted on his Facebook page an article he wrote entitled : The Palestinian Authority's Inconvenient Truths that was published on The Gatestone Institute website.  We're talking about the Palestinian Authority (PA) of so-called 'moderate' Mahmoud Abbas, friend of the West.

In the article, Toameh accuses the PA of a plethora of corruption and embarrassments that it's hiding from the West. Here are a few snippets, or "inconvenient truths" as he puts it:

- Over 100 senior PLO and Fatah officials hold Israeli-issued VIP cards that grant them various privileges denied to most Palestinians. Among these privileges is the freedom to enter Israel and travel abroad at any time they wish. This privileging has existed since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the PLO in 1993.

- Out of the 600 Christians from the Gaza Strip who arrived in the West Bank in the past two weeks to celebrate Christmas, dozens have asked to move to Israel because they no longer feel comfortable living under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

[snip]

- Tens of thousands of Palestinian Authority civil servants in the Gaza Strip receive salaries to stay at home and not work. The practice has been in effect since Hamas seized control over the Gaza Strip in 2007. According to Fatah spokesman Ahmed Assaf, the Palestinian Authority, which is funded mostly by American and European taxpayer money, spends around $120 million each month on the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

- Mahmoud Abbas's ruling Fatah faction has allocated more than one million dollars for celebrations marking the 48th anniversary of the "launching of the revolution" -- a reference to the first armed attack carried out by Fatah against Israel.

Those are just a few mentioned in his commentary.

As you can well imagine, that did not sit well with some individuals who read that post (along with several other ones critical of  Middle Eastern regimes including Jordan), so Facebook closed his account, as FB is apt to do when faced with complaints that are justified or not.  Toameh then contacted Committee For Accuracy in  Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) telling them about his ordeal.

"In the past few days I have been bombarded with dozens of hate and threat messages because of the these postings and articles. Some anti-Israel folks in the UK are now publishing my photo with a Star of David on my forehead."

Not surprising at all.

CAMERA updated their report claiming his Facebook account has been reactivated, sans the PA corruption post. According to Toameh, Hamas and other terrorist groups have FB accounts.  The difference is, they probably don't have a bunch of haters flagging their accounts.

So much for freedom of speech.

Palestinian Mufti Uses 'Kill The Jews' Islamic Hadith At Moderate Fatah Celebration

People are under the false impression that Fatah - PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas' political party-  is a moderate one, and I suppose in comparison to Hamas (Palestine's other major party) it is.  But we must never forget that no matter how moderate Fatah might seem on the surface, most Palestinians want Israel out of the picture, Hamas and its supporters are just more obvious about their intentions.  Yes, in 2010 Fatah removed from its charter the paragraph referencing its desire to wipe Israel off the map, whereas Hamas has not, but that doesn't necessarily mean Fatah wants to coexist with Israelis. Far from it.

Palestinian Media Watch (PMW)  just posted a recent video that aired on PA TV (see below) of the head Mufti Muhammad Hussein speaking at a celebration of the 47th anniversary of Fatah where he urged Muslims to kill the Jews by quoting from a popular Sahih Muslim Hadith 6985:

"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'"

According to PMW, during the 2000-2006 Intifada this particular Hadith was commonly used on PA TV as a motivating tool for generating more violence, but not so much in recent years.  The last time was in 2010, but it's obviously still very relevant in Islamic teachings today with 73% of the Palestinian population believing it, as per a 2011 Israel Project poll. 

Apparently not all Hadiths are accepted:

There are numerous collections of Hadith, some of which are not accepted as reliable. However, the Mufti stressed that the Islamic belief that Jews will be killed by Muslims as a precursor to Resurrection, is an authentic Islamic belief because it appears in "the reliable" and trusted Hadith collections of Al-Bukhari and Muslim.

This Islamic tradition asserts that as the killing of Jews will progress, Jews will hide behind stones and trees, but even they will expose the Jews and call out: "Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him." One tree however, called the Gharqad, will hide the Jews from the Muslims. The Mufti in his talk at the Fatah event claimed that in response to this Islamic belief, Israelis have been planting Gharqad trees around their cities and towns, in order to have a place to hide from the Muslims who will be coming to kill them.

And it's not as if Abbas is unaware of Sheikh Hussein's preachings, since Abbas is the one who appointed Hussein.

It's quite obvious that regardless of what they say to the contrary, it's not just about Israel and ant-Zionism, it's about the Jews.  And the promotion of this Hadith proves it without a doubt.

Transcript:

Moderator at Fatah ceremony:
"Our war with the descendants of the apes and pigs (i.e., Jews)
is a war of religion and faith.
Long Live Fatah! [I invite you,] our honorable Sheikh."


PA Mufti Muhammad Hussein comes to the podium and says:
"47 years ago the [Fatah] revolution started. Which revolution? The modern revolution of the Palestinian people's history. In fact, Palestine in its entirety is a revolution, since [Caliph] Umar came [to conquer Jerusalem, 637 CE], and continuing today, and until the End of Days. The reliable Hadith (tradition attributed to Muhammad), [found] in the two reliable collections, Bukhari and Muslim, says:
"The Hour [of Resurrection] will not come until you fight the Jews.
The Jew will hide behind stones or trees.
Then the stones or trees will call:
'Oh Muslim, servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.'
Except the Gharqad tree [which will keep silent]."
Therefore it is no wonder that you see Gharqad [trees]
surrounding the [Israeli] settlements and colonies.."