Lt. Gen. (ret.) H.R. McMaster reveals in his new book that as President Donald Trump's national security adviser, he warned that there would be terrible consequences if the US embassy was moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Well, guess what? The embassy was moved, and there weren't any terrible consequences. So what does that tell us about all the "experts" – and there were many – who made those kinds of predictions? According to McMaster's new memoir, "At War With Ourselves", President Trump was ready to announce the relocation of the embassy when he visited Israel in May 2017.

But McMaster and then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pushed to delay the move, because they thought there would be a massive, violent Arab reaction. Their advice succeeded, for a time: Trump held off on the relocation for another seven months before finally proceeding with it in December 2017. Looking back to see who else got it wrong is important – not because of the I-told-you-so opportunity, but because so many of those people are today still in positions of influence, or are still being quoted by the major news media as "experts."

Ilan Goldenberg, for example. He's a senior Middle East adviser to Vice President Kamala Harris and serves as her liaison to the American Jewish community. Many media outlets are reporting that he would have a major role in US Mideast policy if Harris becomes president.

Moving the embassy to Jerusalem would be "playing the role of arsonist throwing more fuel on the flames instead of calming things down," Goldenberg told Politico. A Jewish ex-State Department official likewise invoked the dramatic danger of Arab wildfires if the embassy was moved. "It's hard to come up with a single act that would make the Middle East burn more than it is burning right now," Aaron David Miller declared.

Miller's colleague Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Israel, spoke and wrote extensively against moving the embassy to Jerusalem. He predicted it "will likely spark protests, some possibly violent, in Palestine and throughout the Arab and Muslim world."

Ex-Ambassador Martin Indyk claimed the Embassy move would "make everybody very angry." US Senator Bernie Sanders said it would "exacerbate tensions in this highly volatile region." Pundit Peter Beinart asserted it would "provoke Muslim violence" by "deepening Palestinian despair."

The New York Times interviewed eleven former US ambassadors to Israel. Nine of them predicted mass Arab violence. William Harrop (who was ambassador from 1992 to 1993) said the decision to move the embassy was "reckless" and even "masochistic." Richard Jones (2005-2009) said it would "cost lives in Israel and the region."How did all these so-called experts, with all their years of experience, manage to get it so wrong? Some got it wrong because they simply don't understand the Palestinian Arabs. They assume that the Palestinian Arabs are as if they are children who are incapable of doing anything but rioting when they're mad about something. Such an immature view of Palestinian Arab strategy and policymaking inevitably leads to simplistic and wrongheaded expectations.

But it's likely that some of these "experts" were not simply wrongheaded but downright cynical. Privately, they didn't really believe there would be substantial Arab rioting; they were just hoping that highlighting that alleged danger might stop Trump from moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Either way, the fact that these policy wonks and ex-diplomats were so wrong on such an important American foreign policy issue should disqualify them from being treated as experts on Israel or having any role in future US policy toward Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

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The fumbled suicide bombing in Tel Aviv might sound as if it was just another one of the countless attempted terrorist attacks that fail for whatever reason and are ignored by the international community. But if you look closer, you see that there's much to be learned from this incident.

Let's start with the fact that the bomber, Jafar Muna, was a resident of Nablus (Shechem, in Hebrew), a city governed by the Palestinian Authority. Why did he travel all the way to Tel Aviv, 26 miles away, to carry out the attack?

After all, if Nablus and other Palestinian Arab cities are "occupied" – as the media and Peace Now constantly claim – why didn't he attack the "occupiers" right there? Why travel to Tel Aviv, risking capture along the way?

Because there aren't any Israelis in Nablus, aside from a handful of Israeli soldiers guarding an ancient Jewish religious site, the Tomb of Joseph. Despite what Israel's enemies claim, there is no "Israeli occupation" of Nablus. The Israeli governor, and the Israeli military administration, left back in 1995, as a result of the Oslo II Accord.

If they were still "occupying" the city, Jafar Muna could have targeted them. The fact that Muna had to leave Nablus to find a target proves that the "occupation" claim is a lie. Killing a few Israelis at the Tomb of Joseph would not have satisfied him. He wanted to kill a lot of Jews. So he set his sights on Tel Aviv.

Tel Aviv is, of course, within Israel's pre-1967 armistice lines. It's not a "settlement." It's not "occupying" anything or anybody. But there are lots of Jews there – that is, Jewish targets.

The second lesson from the Tel Aviv bombing has to do with the response of the bomber's family.

"My love, my brother, we are proud of you, thanks be to Allah," his sister, Nahla Muna, declared. "We consider you one of the martyrs before Allah, and we praise him before Allah. We only say what pleases Allah: to Allah we belong, and to Allah we return."

That's not all. She continued: "We will meet in paradise. You preceded us to Father, may Allah have mercy on him, may Allah have mercy on you and accept you, praise be to Allah. Martyr, blessed be Allah."

In a normal, civilized society, a person is ashamed if one of their close family members commits a heinous crime. Attempted mass murder is considered a bad thing. A sibling of the would-be killer either condemns her brother's action or at least has the decency to remain silent.

But not in Palestinian Arab society. Nahla Muna wrote the above praise of her brother-the-bomber on her Facebook page. She was so proud of his attempt to massacre Jews that she was willing to risk arrest by the Israelis in order to proclaim her support for his vile deed.

Notice, too, that Nahla wasn't concerned that her friends or neighbors in Nablus might ostracize her when they saw her pro-terrorism comments on Facebook. Nahla knows that they, too, support murdering Jews. Her employer won't fire her. Her neighbors won't shun her. And the Palestinian Authority won't arrest her for incitement.

Which brings us to the third – and most important lesson – from the attack in Tel Aviv: the response of the Palestinian Authority. Or, more accurately, the non-response.

The Oslo Accords obligate the PA to condemn terrorist attacks. It did not say a word about the Tel Aviv bombing. Why? Because the PA didn't disapprove of it. More than that: The Palestinian Authority supports slaughtering Jews. Jafar Muna is now regarded as an official "martyr" by the PA, meaning that his family qualifies for a monthly payment for the rest of their lives.

The Oslo agreement also requires the PA to stop teaching "hatred and incitement" in its schools. Instead, for the past 30 years, Palestinian Arab schoolchildren have been taught that Jews are evil, that terrorists are heroes, and that all of Israel is "occupied Palestine" and must be destroyed.

Jafar Muna is proof of that. He was the product of the PA's educational system. He was taught by PA teachers and studied PA textbooks. He absorbed their messages of antisemitic hatred. And he acted upon them.

Muna's bomb detonated before he intended. But how many more Jafar Munas are out there? Plenty. Because the "moderate," "peace-seeking" PA has raised an entire generation of them – and the world has stood by silently as it did so.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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The news that Hamas was planning to dig up corpses from an old British cemetery in the Gaza Strip to pressure the British government to turn against Israel shines a spotlight on a question that needs to be asked: How did dead people come to be regarded as "hostages"?

In normal discourse and popular culture, a hostage is typically a person taken prisoner and held bound in some basement – alive – while the kidnappers wait to see if their demands will be met.

A person who is kidnapped and murdered is not normally referred to as a "hostage." He or she is referred to as dead – as a murder victim.

Yet in recent months, mainstream media agencies have been reporting that Hamas is holding 110 Israeli hostages, one-third of whom "are believed to be dead." Technically, a dead body can be held hostage, but normally, live prisoners are called hostages, and dead ones are called corpses.

If Hamas had proceeded with its plan to dig up dead British soldiers from long ago, would the British media describe those corpses as "hostages"? I doubt it.

Would the British public demand that their government change its entire Middle East policy in order to get the bodies back? I doubt it.

Would anybody call for the release of convicted Muslim terrorists serving jail sentences in Britain in exchange for the corpses? I doubt it.

Yet that's exactly how governments around the world and media agencies are treating the question of the dead Israelis in Gaza.

Why? Because it's a way of increasing pressure on Israel to cease firing at Hamas.

Throughout the 10-month-long war in Gaza, those who want to stop Israel from defeating Hamas have been pushing the idea that Israel should release thousands of terrorists and stop pursuing Hamas in exchange for Israeli hostages.

But as the months have passed, the number of hostages has decreased. Some were released in an exchange last November. Some were rescued. And, according to Israeli officials and other sources, many others were murdered either on Oct. 7 or subsequently, and some of those bodies have been recovered.

The smaller the number of hostages, the less incentive there is for Israel to cease firing and free thousands of terrorists. The smaller the number of hostages, the greater the possibility that Israel might be able to rescue them. And the smaller the number of hostages, the fewer terrorists Hamas can demand in exchange for them.

So for all those in the media and the international community who want to see Hamas saved from destruction, the larger the number of hostages, the better.

It's not that editors or diplomats want to see Israelis – or anybody else – held hostage. It's that they either sympathize with the Palestinian Arab cause, or they are terrified that Hamas might murder them next.

It's not a conspiracy; it's that those who favor one side naturally have constructed a narrative that advances their cause. And so a narrative has gradually taken hold in the news media and the diplomatic world in which events are described in ways that are advantageous to stopping Israel and saving Hamas.

They want to see Hamas appeased, not destroyed. They want to prevent Israel from achieving victory because an Israeli victory would infuriate the Palestinian Arabs and the Arab world in general. The plight of the hostages, therefore, has become a political weapon. And inflating the number of hostages – by adding dead bodies to the total – has become part of that pressure campaign.

Of course, Israel would like to secure the return of the bodies of the murder victims. The victims' families deserve closure, and the dead deserve a proper burial. Still, not many Israelis would support releasing thousands of terrorists or letting Hamas remain in power to do so.

The only way to push the plan through without significant Israeli public opposition is to exploit the hostages by promoting the idea that the corpses, too, are "hostages." And if there's one thing Israel's enemies are very good at, it's exploitation.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Nobody in the State Department, or the United Nations, or at J Street headquarters, is talking about the recent terrorist shooting attack on the Israeli town of Bat Hefer, less than 12 miles from the coastal town of Netanya. Because it shattered the premise at the heart of all their proposals concerning the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Hamas terrorists standing within the municipal boundaries of Tulkarm, a Palestinian Authority-governed city, unleashed a barrage of gunfire aimed at the nearby Israeli town of Bat Hefer. Then they posted a video of the shooting on social media.

It was the third such shooting attack on Bat Hefer in two weeks. The Times of Israel pointed out that there have been similar attacks targeting Kibbutz Meirav, which is next to the PA city of Jenin. Once again, terrorists within the boundaries of the city were able to shoot into an Israeli community without ever having to go beyond the borders of their PA-ruled city.

These incidents lay bare the flaws in the ongoing crusade by the Biden Administration and J Street to establish a Palestinian state. The statehood proponents try to reassure the Jewish public by using vague, soothing terms such as "security guarantees" and "demilitarization." But those words are worthless. No Arab regime has ever been demilitarized, and nobody can "guarantee" Israel's security – because there is no government on earth that will ever have the political will to step in and forcibly demilitarize or guarantee anything.

Look at the shootings at Bat Hefer and Kibbutz Meirav. The terrorists opened fire, and then quickly disappeared into the alleyways and safe houses of Tulkarm and Jenin. Where were the police? The PA has a huge police and security force. Why didn't they arrest the shooters?

When the PA signed the Oslo Accords back in 1993-1995, it explicitly undertook the obligation to act against terrorists. The text of Oslo II requires the PA security forces to "apprehend, investigate and prosecute perpetrators and all other persons directly or indirectly involved in acts of terrorism, violence and incitement." (Annex I, Article II, 3-c).

The PA has more than enough manpower to do the job. The original 12,000-man police force that the Accords authorized have illegally ballooned into a 60,000-man de-facto army. That makes it the sixth-largest per-capita security force in the world – 1,250 "police officers" per 100,000 people.

Yet the PA refuses to use its forces against terrorists. It treats Hamas like its brothers, not its enemies. So the shooters in Tulkarm and Jenin went on their merry way. These are the kinds of attacks that force Israeli soldiers to periodically enter the PA-governed areas in hot pursuit of the would-be murderers.

Right now, when the PA is not a sovereign state, the entry of Israeli forces into PA areas results in angry UN resolutions and angry articles by Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, but nothing worse than that.

But things would be very, very different if there is a sovereign state of Palestine. Jenin and Tulkarm would be part of Palestine. They would have to be. There's no way that the PA is going to turn over its fourth-largest and sixth-largest cities to Israeli rule.

So the terrorists shooting at Bat Hefer or Kibbutz Meirav would be shooting from within sovereign Palestinian territory. Meaning that Israel would be crossing an international border if it tried to chase the shooters. Violating another country's sovereignty is a serious matter. Israel could face international sanctions – and possibly even military action by neighboring Arab regimes.

It's also important to keep another factor in mind. If Jenin and Tulkarm are filled with terrorists now, just imagine how much worse it would be if Jenin and Tulkarm were part of a State of Palestine. All sorts of weapons would flow freely into the city. Who is going to stop that? UN peacekeepers? J Street staff members? Thomas Friedman?

So don't expect any of Israel's critics to say anything about the shooting attacks on Bat Hefer and Kibbutz Meirav. The premise of everything they say is that Israelis can trust that a Palestinian state will be peaceful. These latest shootings are a reminder, yet again, that the exact opposite is true.

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This year's Yom HaZikaron, Israel's Memorial Day, starting on the evening of May 12, will be unlike any in the Jewish State's history as it is the first since October 7th.

One of the soldiers being mourned this year and who was killed in action on October 7 was named Dov Indig. However, Dov did not die in 2023 he was a casualty of 1973's Yom Kippur War and his family has mourned him 50 times on Yom HaZikaron before they do so in 2024.

Israel's Memorial Day and it is not celebrated with barbecues but with tears of ultimate grief. And as so many Israelis mourn for their precious fallen fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers, sons and daughters, and friends and comrades, it is not the same for Jews outside of Israel. Reading about Dov Indig's life is one way to bridge that gap.

Dov Indig fell in combat fighting the invading Syrian army on the Golan Heights and was just 22 years old. He was a dedicated yeshiva student and part of the religious Zionist movement as are a disproportionately high percentage of the soldiers who have fallen fighting against Hamas since last year. Letters to Talia is a collection of correspondence between a kibbutz-born secular Israeli high school girl and Dov. Even though its words were penned decades ago it is a timeless work. The Hebrew edition of the book was originally published in 2005 and became hugely popular, selling tens of thousands of copies. Unfortunately, somehow the book never achieved the status it so richly deserves outside of Israel. Gefen Publishing released the English translation in 2012. One way for American Jews to share in the mourning this year is to read Dov's book.

"Letters to Talia" is eerily reminiscent of "Self-Portrait of a Hero: From the Letters of Jonathan Netanyahu 1963–1976". Both reveal the tragic loss that Israel has suffered by sacrificing its best and brightest on the fields of battle for generations: Nearly 25,000 soldiers will be remembered on Yom Hazikaron this year. Many of the letters in the book center around Talia's desire to put the Jewish religion in proper context in her life as a modern, thinking young woman, and Dov's answers to her questions, as well as glimpses into his army experiences.

What makes the book so moving is not just the emotion that each writer attaches to their search for truth, but the commitment they demonstrate to the Jewish People, their love of the Land of Israel, and their faith in the State of Israel. The topics tackled encompass an entire range of issues from the Israeli surrender of Sinai to women's rights, and from emigration to the Diaspora to a critique of Western culture. Intermarriage is discussed as are books as widely disparate as Erich Fromm's "The Art of Loving" (1956) and the "Book of Job".

Subjects such as religious coercion and the importance of Israeli settlements are written about at length. The depiction of visits to Sinai are vivid and leave the reader with a better sense of what Israel lost when this vast area was surrendered to Egypt at Camp David. The reader is left to ponder how these young Israelis could have had more common sense than the politicians who surrendered so much of the lands liberated in 1967 that feature so prominently in the book.

Here are a few random quotes that give a sense of the patriotism of these very young Israelis:

Talia: I really envy you that you were on the Golan Heights. I love hiking there more than anywhere else in Israel.

Dov: How fortunate we are that we are privileged to be soldiers in the IDF [Israel Defense Forces], which defends the lives of Jews in Israel and throughout the world.

Talia: We thought that our amazing victory in the Six-Day War would put an end to wars and that the Arabs would resign themselves to our existence, but it turns out that we made a mistake.

Dov: I am happy to hear from you that most of the kids hold that it is forbidden to give up Sinai and it is forbidden to be tempted by the promises of the Arabs, who until today have broken all of them.

We may all mourn together on Tisha B'Av and during Yizkor on Yom Kippur, but tragically, it is not the same observing Yom Hazikaron inside the Jewish State as it is anywhere else. One book to read that may assist you to feel the depth of the loss that so many Israelis feel on Yom Hazikaron is Letters to Talia. It is our task in the Diaspora to bridge the miles and other differences and mourn along with our fellow Jews in Israel.

Read Letters to Talia for yourself; you will be moved by the experience. Grow close to Israel and thank G-d for the blessing of Israeli soldiers.

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Nineteen Democratic US senators have called on President Biden to "recognize a nonmilitarized Palestinian state." Until now, congressional supporters of Palestinian statehood have always used the term "demilitarized." Why the sudden change?

There's just no way it was an accident. Letters signed by US senators are reviewed and revised by a large team of writers and public relations advisers. In this case, the staffs of nineteen different senators reviewed and approved this letter dated March 20. A change like this, from "demilitarized" to "nonmilitarized," didn't just slip through without anybody noticing.

Especially when "nonmilitarized" is such a peculiar term. Throughout modern history "demilitarized" has always been the conventional term. Somebody made a conscious decision to change the word. Here's a theory as to why. It involves two reasons.

The first reason for the change is rhetorical. A major problem for advocates of "demilitarization" is that it has a long history of not working. The most famous example is the German territory of the Rhineland, which was supposed to be demilitarized after World War One – that is, until Hitler decided to remilitarize it. And the world stood idly by.

American advocates of Palestinian statehood don't want their opponents to be able to cite that historical precedent. They hate historical precedents – because they prove the fallacy of the "demilitarization" idea. They think that by changing the word, they can preempt criticism of the idea.

The second reason for the change is more practical. If you say "nonmilitarized," you're pretending that right now, the Palestinian Authority regime does not have military capability, so to create a state, you would just convert the existing entity into a fully sovereign state without having to impose any real changes on it.But if you use the term "demilitarized," that means acknowledging that the Palestinian Authority already has a de-facto army – and therefore you would have to disarm it. Which nobody in the international community is willing to do.

The PA's de-facto army began its existence disguised as a "strong police force," according to Article VII of the first Oslo agreement. While nobody was paying attention, the PA expanded the original 12,000-man "police force" into a 60,000-man "security force."

Then came Oslo II, in 1995, which required the PA security forces to "apprehend, investigate and prosecute perpetrators and all other persons directly or indirectly involved in acts of terrorism, violence, and incitement." (Annex I, Article II, 3-c).

The PA never fulfilled that obligation. In fact, just the opposite. A new study by a major Israeli think tank, Regavim, found that the PA security forces themselves list 2,000 of their members as "martyrs" – meaning they died while committing terrorism. In addition, fully 12% of all Palestinian Arab terrorists currently jailed in Israel are members of the PA security forces – that's approximately 500 out of the 4,500-5,000 jailed terrorists. Yet our own CIA continues to provide training for the PA's de-facto army.

The World Atlas lists which countries have the largest per-capita security forces. The largest ones are those with the tiniest populations, thus making the size of their security forces disproportionately large, like the Vatican, the Pitcairn Islands, and Monaco. Sixth on the list – despite having a population of several million – is the Palestinian Authority. The PA has a whopping 1,250 "police officers" per 100,000 people.

A 2018 report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, titled "Evolution of the Palestinian Authority Security Forces," revealed that "by late 1998, the PA security services…had in almost every regard violated the letter of the agreements reached with Israel," turning the PA-governed areas into "one of the most heavily policed territories in the world."

"A proliferation of weapons was occurring, both in quantity and quality, well beyond that stipulated in Oslo II," according to the Washington Institute. "By one estimate, there were at least 40,000 more weapons than allowed in the agreement, including RPGs, mortars, mines, grenade launchers, and sniper rifles; also being developed was a small-scale indigenous manufacturing capacity for hand grenades and other ammunition." That was fifteen years ago. One can only imagine what the PA has in its arsenal now.

Now you see the problem with using the term "demilitarization" – it would mean taking away most of the PA security forces' weapons and military equipment.

In all likelihood, the change from "demilitarized" to "nonmilitarized" was initiated by some ex-State Department official or some "as a Jew…" critic of Israel. Or maybe one person who fits both descriptions. He probably thought he was being clever. Maybe nobody would notice; the term would start to gain circulation, and before long nobody would remember its significance.

But words matter. And when it comes to Middle East diplomacy, words really matter. Just think about the countless debates over why UN Security Council Resolution 242 said Israel should withdraw from "territories," not "the territories."

The same is true for "demilitarized" and "nonmilitarized." That seemingly small change is actually a big deal. A very big deal.

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The International Criminal Court is examining Israel's policies in what it calls the "occupied Palestinian West Bank." But how can the court possibly render a fair verdict when that very term is a complete and utter falsehood?

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For as long as any of us can remember, the phrase "occupied Palestinian West Bank" has been a regular part of the vocabulary used by the media, as well as the political and diplomatic world. The fact that those words have been around for a long time doesn't make them true.

Contemporary American English includes all sorts of names and phrases that don't mean what they actually suggest. "French fries" are not French. "Koala bears" are not bears. "Driveways" are for parking, not driving—and parkways are the opposite. That's all great fodder for stand-up comedians who specialize in observational humor.

But the way the terms "occupation," "Palestinian" and "West Bank" are used is no joking matter.

"Occupation" was accurate for a short period of time. But Israel's "occupation" of the territories in question ended long ago.

The Israelis first occupied those areas in self-defense during the Six-Day War in June 1967. Between 1993 and 1995, however, that occupation came to an end. It was replaced by an agreed-upon division of the region between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The Israelis withdrew from the parts where 98% of the Palestinian Arabs reside. There are no Israeli troops, no Israeli administration and no Israeli military governor there anymore. So who exactly is "occupying" it? The Palestinian Authority, of course.

The P.A. has its own armed troops (euphemistically called "security forces"), its own administration and its own governors. It runs the courts, the police, the schools, the news media and everything else that constitutes an occupation.

The only part of the area that Israel occupies is where Israelis reside. And that Israeli presence is stipulated by the Oslo Accords. Not that Israel's right to the area is based on the Oslo agreement, of course. It's based on 3,000-plus years of continuous Jewish inhabitation and many centuries of Jewish national sovereignty—not to mention international law and the Hebrew Bible. But the fact is that the P.A. agreed to it.

"Palestinian" is not an authentic term either, which is to say that when the Romans coined that term in ancient times, that did not automatically confer "Palestinian" ethnicity upon the people who were living there. Of course, in principle, new nationalities can be invented, as some of the Arabs living in that region eventually did.

Still, that's no reason for the rest of us to pretend that the history, culture and language of Palestinian Arabs are substantively different from that of Jordanian Arabs or Syrian Arabs. It simply isn't. So to say that a particular territory is intrinsically "Palestinian" is false.

Finally, we have the term "West Bank," which is just as inauthentic as the rest, although it's also geographically false. Parts of what the International Criminal Court is calling the "West Bank" are more than 40 miles to the west of the Jordan River. Obviously, no river bank in the world is 40 miles wide.

The term "West Bank" was invented by journalists after the 1948 war as a matter of literary convenience. It designated the area that Jordan occupied (yes, occupied) from 1948 to 1967. Arab propagandists gradually saw it as a useful alternative to the term "Judea-Samaria," which is historically and geographically correct but reminds everybody of the area's Jewish roots. So "West Bank" is, in effect, a de-Judaizing device.

The president of the National Religious Broadcasters, Troy Miller, recently urged Christian news media to use "Judea-Samaria" instead of "West Bank." And many of them undoubtedly will do so. After all, the world's 2.4 billion Christians know that both the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Bible repeatedly use the terms "Judea" and "Samaria," and don't refer to "Palestine." Supporters of the Palestinian Arab cause, including many in the international news media, no doubt will continue to use the inaccurate term because it helps the cause.

This brings us back to the International Criminal Court and its ongoing investigation of the non-occupied, non-Palestinian, not-West Bank.

Since the entire case is based on a false premise, the verdict inevitably will reflect politics rather than truth. But the rest of us know the truth.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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A Greek Orthodox priest named Georgios Tsibouktzakis was murdered for the crime of driving while mistakenly being perceived as Jewish. And now his killer is being widely touted as the likely first president of "Palestine."

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In recent weeks, pundits in The New York Times, The Guardian, and other news outlets have promoted Marwan Barghouti as the best candidate to replace Mahmoud Abbas as head of the Palestinian Authority and then become the first president of the "Palestine" that they hope to establish.

Incredibly, many of these Barghouti enthusiasts make no mention at all of the innocent people he was convicted of murdering. That's like murdering them twice. Here's some information on one of Barghouti's victims.

Georgios Tsibouktzakis was born and raised in the picturesque northern Greek town of Evosmos, a name that means "pleasant scent." Among its notable sites is the Agios Athanasios Church, which is more than 200 years old.

The Tsibouktzakis family must have been impoverished because upon completing primary school, at age 12, Georgios set aside his studies and found a job in a local fabric factory.

At some point, young Georgios experienced a religious awakening. He adopted an extremely humble lifestyle, giving away his belongings, including his most precious possession—his bicycle—and entering a Greek Orthodox religious order.

After studying at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Georgios decided to go to Israel. And why not? Christianity was born in the Land of Israel. The Christian Bible is filled with references to Judea (although there is no mention of "Palestine," for some reason). As a devout man of faith, he wanted to spend the rest of his life in the Holy Land.

In 1990, Georgios arrived in Israel and resumed his religious studies at a local Greek Orthodox seminary. After three years, he became a monk and was given the name Father Germanos. Eventually, he was ordained a priest and deacon. He was assigned to live at St. George's Monastery.

A word about St. George's. Despite the frequent lies by Arab propagandists and their supporters about Israel supposedly mistreating Christians, in fact, the country is home to numerous monasteries such as St. George's, which all operate as freely as any Jewish religious institution. St. George's is located on a prime piece of real estate just 12 miles outside of Jerusalem.

For many years, Father Germanos was the only resident of the monastery. He spent his days in prayer and study. When necessary, he would drive to nearby Jerusalem to run errands. It was a humble and peaceful existence. Until June 22, 2001.

On that evening, the priest was driving back from Jerusalem to St. George's. A Palestinian Arab terrorist with a sniper's rifle was hiding above the highway near the exit for the Jewish community of Ma'ale Adumim.

As Father Germanos's car came into view, the terrorist saw his yellow Israeli license plates. So he opened fire. Because if you have Israeli plates, you're probably Jewish, and if you're Jewish, you deserve to be murdered. Thus, the clergyman's life was taken at the age of 34.

Israel's security services learned from their sources that the attack had been planned and carried out by Force 17, a terrorist unit of Yasser Arafat's Fatah Party movement that was commanded by longtime "intifada" leader Marwan Barghouti. That information was confirmed by the apprehended shooter, a 22-year-old Fatah member Hassin Radeida.

Barghouti was arrested and indicted as the mastermind of the murder of Father Germanos, as well as a string of other murders. Barghouti had the opportunity to contest the charges and prove his innocence. But he refused to deny culpability and declared that the "Zionist" court had no right to prosecute him.

Of course not—since, in Barghouti's view, murdering Jews is right and proper, then prosecuting anybody for murdering them is wrong and improper.

On May 20, 2004, Barghouti was convicted of the murders of Father Germanos and four other innocent people. He is serving five consecutive sentences of life imprisonment.

The various news columnists and others who have been building up Barghouti in recent weeks say that he is the only figure in the Palestinian Arab world who is popular enough to serve as head of the P.A., and then as the president of "Palestine."

If that's true, what does that tell us about Palestinian Arab society? Their single most popular political person is a serial killer. How sad that supporters of the Palestinian cause have decided to champion such a monster, while Father Germanos and the murderer's other victims lie in their graves, forgotten and abandoned.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Former US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross just can't stop blaming Israel.

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Speaking via Zoom for the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism & Policy on Jan. 31, Ross offered some expected, perfunctory criticism of Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah. But again and again, he managed to bring in one-sided and unfair criticism of Israel.

Referring to Israel's counter-terrorism actions in Judea and Samaria, Ross said: "West Bank violence [by Arabs] is not disconnected from Israel's policies in the West Bank."

That's just absurd. The terrorists are not responding to Israeli policies. They were murdering Jews long before there were any settlements or so-called occupied territories. They oppose Israel's existence, not its borders. It's these terrorists who are the aggressors, and Israelis must respond to them.

Regarding Gaza, Ross said: "The Israelis haven't done everything they could to spare civilians in Gaza." Is he kidding? The Israelis have refrained from striking terrorist targets where there are civilians. They have personally warned civilians to evacuate, again and again, through leaflets and phone calls and public announcements. They have risked the lives of their own soldiers by going house to house, instead of just bombing from the air. What else can they possibly do?

Ross also commented on the recent ruling by the International Court of Justice – the ruling that failed to condemn Hamas and demanded that Israel give more aid to Palestinians in Gaza. He said the ruling was "not irresponsible" and that it was provoked by "extreme statements by Israeli politicians." That's simply nonsense. The statement that the court cited most prominently was made by Israel's left-leaning president, Isaac Herzog, who said that many ordinary Gazans supported the Hamas massacre, which was a perfectly reasonable statement of fact.

The practice of saying a few perfunctory crucial words about terrorists and then "balancing" it with criticism of Israel is typical of the grotesque "even-handedness" that Ross and his colleagues pushed during his many years at the US State Department.

That approach was wrong then, and it's wrong now. There can be no "balance" between good and evil. Israel and the Palestinian Authority are not on the same moral level. Israel is America's loyal, reliable, democratic ally. The PA is a terror-sponsoring, hate-mongering dictatorship.

In recent months, Ross has been saying that Israel should allow the Hamas leadership to leave Gaza in exchange for the release of the remaining hostages. He points to Israel's decision in 1982, under US pressure, to allow PLO chief Yasser Arafat and thousands of PLO terrorists to leave besieged Beirut.

But Ross never mentions what happened after Arafat left. He didn't retire. He set up PLO terrorist headquarters in Tunisia, and then 20 additional years of terrorism followed – suicide bombings, intifadas, mass shootings, stabbings. Ross's new plan would have the same result.

This is the same Dennis Ross who has acknowledged – on the op-ed page of The Washington Post in 2014 – that he pressured Israel to allow Hamas to import concrete. Ross wrote that the Israelis opposed his demand because they feared that Hamas would use the cement to build terror tunnels. Ross insisted the concrete would be used to build houses, and because of his pressure, the Israelis gave in. We all know the result.

In his Zoom talk this week, Ross had the chutzpah to mention that Hamas used imported cement to build tunnels instead of homes, though never mentioned that he was the one who helped them to get that cement into Gaza in the first place.

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Ross is frequently quoted in The New York Times and invited to appear on television shows and webinars. He's treated as if his past involvement in Mideast diplomacy makes him an expert on how to make peace today. Yet every one of those diplomatic efforts failed. He has never facilitated real peace because he continues to pretend that both sides are to blame for the absence of peace.

The Jewish world is full of talented speakers, thinkers and writers. Surely, our institutions should be able to find more thoughtful lecturers than those same tired, old critics of Israel with their familiar and disastrous proposals.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Inherent in the recent outrageous charges that Israel has an apartheid system, or is committing genocide is that somehow Israel is not a true democracy while nothing could be further from the truth. This Jan. 25 is the 75-year anniversary of Israel's first open and free elections for its national legislature, the Knesset.

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Contrast that with the last time Palestinian Arabs had elections for their parliament – it was in 2006. And in 2006 the Hamas terrorist organization overwhelmingly won those elections. As a result of the Hamas win the Palestinian Authority's presidential elections were postponed indefinitely and Mahmoud Abbas, elected in 2005, has never allowed elections again.

In its first 75 years Israel has had 25 national elections. Israel's 1949 elections took place eight months after the Jewish State declared its independence and a month before Israel and Egypt signed its armistice agreement. In other words Israel was still at war when they held their first elections.

Israel's commitment to free elections was without a doubt extremely important to Israel's founding fathers otherwise they would not have held elections while a war was ongoing. Multiple parties led by Arabs participated in this initial Israeli election. Israel has always been an extremely vibrant democracy. Its politicians and jurists, as well as everyday Israelis, have gone to great lengths to ensure that anti-democratic ideas are marginalized while also protecting civil rights at the same time. None of the Arab nations that have fought wars against Israel have shown any interest in regular, free elections like the ones we have in the United States. Not one.

And this is where Antony Blinken comes in.

Blinken met with Mahmoud Abbas on Jan. 10 in Ramallah where the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters.

Following the meeting the New York Times reported that "Mr. Blinken said he had spoken with Mr. Abbas about the need to make changes to the Palestinian Authority to make it more effective as a governing organization. He said Mr. Abbas was "committed" to that."

What kind of new quasi-government does Blinken think Abbas is committed to transforming the Palestinian Authority into?

Based on all evidence any impartial observer would have to say the Palestinian Authority will continue to be both a horrifically violent and a stridently undemocratic one. There is no argument to support otherwise.

Let's remember, if there is one person who is more responsible than any other for sponsoring terrorist attacks in Judea and Samaria (what the UN and mainstream media still insist on calling the West Bank) it's Abbas. And he has no intention of moving aside. There is also no reason to be optimistic that any successor that Abbas would select from his underlings would have any intention to act any differently than he ever has.

– Abbas's Palestinian Authority (PA) constantly exhorts the Arab Palestinian Authority masses to attack Jews.

For example, on Oct. 21, 2023 the head of the Nablus branch of Fatah– which is the largest faction of the PA and happens to also be chaired by Abbas– announced, "We are united and aiming our bullets at the occupier and at the settlers."

And on Oct. 23, the Bethlehem and Tulkarm branches of Fatah issued a proclamation to "Sons of the West Bank," urging, "Call out 'Allahu Akbar,' this is a call of mobilization to all those who have a weapon; shame and disgrace on everyone who abandons the struggle."

(Thank you to Palestinian Media Watch for the translations.)

– The PA's news media and schools glorify "extremists who attack Jewish civilians." On Oct. 10, official PA Television broadcast a declaration by the head of the Tulkarm branch of Fatah, calling the Oct. 7 pogrom "a source of pride, heroism, and honor for the Palestinian people.

– The PA pays salaries to Palestinian Arab "extremists who attack Jewish civilians," and pays monetary rewards to their families. It also pays bonuses that

– The PA shelters "extremists who attack civilians," and has refused Israel's dozens of requests to extradite them.

– The PA's security forces frequently hire "extremists who attack civilians." On August 6, 2023, the Fatah Commission of Information and Culture posted on its Facebook page the names and photos of 30 members of the PA security forces whom it considers "Martyrs" because they died while carrying out terrorist attacks.

– The PA names schools, streets, and parks after "extremists who attack Jewish civilians," so that the Palestinian Arab public will view them as heroes who deserve to be praised and honored.

– The PA runs hundreds of summer camps where young Arabs are given military training and perform skits about kidnapping Israelis. This past summer, Fatah Central Committee secretary Jibril Rajoub boasted on his Facebook page that the PA ran 648 such camps, in which 65,000 boys and girls took part. PA Television reported on July 16, 2023 that the camps "bear the names of Martyrs" who "watered the land of the homeland with [their] blood, for freedom and liberation from the occupation."

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– The PA uses its network of salaried imams in mosques to spread a message of encouraging "extremists who attack civilians." On Oct. 18, the PA's Ministry of Religious Affairs issued a directive to all mosques in its territories to include in their Friday sermons the Islamist teaching that redemption "will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them."

So if Blinken expects Mahmoud Abbas to change his ways and reform his Palestinian Authority, where's he finding his evidence to match his wild and dangerous optimism? There's only ever been one true democracy in history between "from the River to the Sea" and that's the State of Israel.

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