How dare Europe applaud a blood-libeler?

By Ruthie Blum, ISRAEL HAYOM

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas lies about Israel not only as a matter of course but as one of policy. It was no surprise, then, when he stood up at the European Parliament on Thursday and regurgitated a claim made this week that rabbinical figures in the Jewish state had urged the government to poison Palestinian wells.

Abbas knew that this classically anti-Semitic blood libel was as false as a similar one, spread last week, that claimed Israel forced Palestinians from a certain village to flee by drying up their water supply during Ramadan. In fact, a pipe had burst, and it was immediately repaired. But not — as media watchdog HonestReporting pointed out — before the “water apartheid” lie, first “reported” by Al Jazeera, was picked up by The Independent, the International Business Times, Radio New Zealand and The Times of London.

In keeping with the tradition of his predecessor, the late PLO chairman Yasser Arafat, Abbas encourages the invention of all kinds of blood libels, which he then states as fact, both to his own people and to the international community. Each libel is more ludicrous than the previous one, and they would be funny if they weren’t reminiscent of Nazi propaganda and didn’t serve the same purpose: to foster the kind of Jew-loathing that enables genocide.

But annihilating Israel and the Jews is not the real reason that Abbas perpetuates utterly insane accusations against the only democracy in the Middle East. More immediate personal concerns preoccupy the PA leader, who knows his days are numbered, literally and figuratively, if he does not remain relevant at home and abroad.

Indeed, Abbas constantly faces the possibility of being ousted by members of his own faction, Fatah, and by Hamas, the terrorist organization that rules Gaza. He manages to survive by enlisting financial and political support from the United States, Europe and the United Nations.

Viewed — baselessly — as a moderate who constitutes the best hope for reaching a peace deal with Israel, he continues to be received by world leaders and to keep the cash flowing into his coffers. That hardly any of it goes to building institutions in the PA or to rehabilitating Gaza appears to be of little concern to those holding the position that Abbas is more of a victim than a perpetrator.

What his apologists fail to see, however, is that if, by some miracle, the two-state solution were to be realized by its fantasists, Abbas would instantly be thrown into the dumpster of history in every respect.The only thing unclear about “the day after” is whether his corpse or his irrelevance will come first.

In other words, Abbas has nothing to gain and everything to lose in any peace deal with Israel. He knows better than anyone that his status as a leader on the world stage depends precisely on the absence of Palestinian statehood. Yes, it is this that drives his every move and all his lies. Key among these lies are the two fictions he reiterates from every podium, including the one he occupied in Brussels on Thursday. One is that Middle East stability rests on resolving the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The other is that Israel, being responsible for the predicament in the first place, bears the burden of repairing the damage.

It therefore infuriates him every time the Israeli government urges him to come to the negotiating table, leading him to spin any overture from Jerusalem to his own advantage. His latest such act was to snub Israeli President Reuven Rivlin’s invitation to meet in the European capital.

None of this is the least bit new. In fact, at this point, it is so obvious as to be boring. In any case, most Israelis are too busy trying to avoid being stabbed, shot or hit with Molotov cocktails to listen to Abbas’ blather. Our blood is actually being spilled. We don’t need libels or lip-service to highlight that reality.

But why does anyone else still treat Abbas as a man of integrity and stature? How could hundreds of EU Parliament members applaud his vile speech, when faced with the truth about Islamist terrorism? Where do they come off believing a single word he says?

By now, what any sane representative of a free country should grasp is that it is not Palestinian wells being poisoned but rather the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people.

Ruthie Blum is the managing editor of The Algemeiner.

June 25, 2016 | 3 Comments »

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  1. @ yamit82: Thank you for an excellent comment. It also seems as if Genesis 12:3 is operating here. The EU has cursed Israel in word and deed and now we can see there are being cursed by G-d as their “Union” is starting to break up. Hopefully they will have less time and funds to attack Israel.

  2. “[Regarding] one who tells an Evildoer: ‘You are Righteous’, the peoples will curse him and the nations will loathe him.” (Proverbs 24:24) [for, in falsely declaring its Nemesis to be Virtuous, Israel implicitly accuses itself of being Wicked, thereby inviting international Scorn]

    The Gentile sees physical greatness and might, and measures his chances of success accordingly. Balak, for example, told Balaam, Now, come and curse for me this nation, for it is mightier than me (Numbers 22:6). The Jew, however, knows that he is the fewest of all the nations (Deuteronomy 7:7) – yet he is exalted above all those nations if he is faithful to G-d’s covenant: Five of you will pursue a hundred, and a hundred of you will pursue ten thousand (Leviticus 26:8). Nonetheless, for those of no faith, or even of little faith, isolation is a frightening concept. Even observant and G-d fearing Jews are fearful of this concept. The person of weak faith longs for friends and allies, for help from strong nations against the surrounding dangers. Yet whoever relies on the non-Jew and his aid, and fears that without such aid the Jews and their land will be unable to survive, has been caught by lack of complete trust in G-d, bordering on denial of His existence. The individual Jew and the Jewish People as a whole will not be forgiven if they abandon their faith in G-d,the Supreme, Omnipotent King, Who rules over the world and over the nations alone. Precisely this proves one’s true faith and trust, for it is impossible that one who fears mortal man really believes in G-d. Real trust in G-d requires the Jew both to trust in Him and cast off all fear of mortal man and reliance on human aid. When one scorns the non-Jew’s aid, this necessarily makes him trust in G-d. Conversely, as long as a Jew lifts his eyes in hope to the non-Jew and his aid, it is impossible that he will completely believe in the existence of G-d as a Supreme Power.

    “I alone have trodden a wine press, not a man from the nations was with Me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in My wrath, and their lifeblood spurted out on My garments, so I soiled all my garments. For a day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redemption has come…” (Isaiah 63:3,4)

  3. the defamers of Israel are falling apart… in ME the jew killers are slaughtering each other and going to europe to chop their paymasters heads… while their paymasters are disintegrating before our eye.
    When they set out to defame, destroy and curse Israel they did not count on the Covenant. Perhaps europe will be destroyed before Israel. I suggest that the euros should stop blood libeling Israel or they may end up fragmented and in flames… like Iraq and Syria.