We Palestinians, as a new people on the stage of history, have not yet learned from the experience of those who preceded us. We always seem to be motivated by factors working against us, and let ourselves be manipulated by foreign countries who use us as proxies to further their own interests.

We are making mistakes again, one after another. We do damage to the Palestinian national interest and instead of propelling ourselves forward, we push ourselves back. We work against our own best interests by constantly lying. We all know, for instance, that there is no truth to the claim that Jesus was a Palestinian, or when we say that the Jews have no historic links to Jerusalem. We just make ourselves look ridiculous. Whoever makes such claims not only attacks Christianity but also represents the entire Palestinian narrative as a blatant lie.

The Palestinian leadership continues to destroy every chance the Palestinians might have of becoming a genuine, internationally recognized nation by insisting on demands they know the Israelis will never meet. These include the right of return for more than 11 million Palestinians to a country of eight million, and refusing to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. The Israelis correctly understand both demands not as a desire to have a Palestinian state, but as a desire to have Israel’s state. That impression can only be confirmed every time anyone looks at a map of Palestine: by pure coincidence, of course, it is identical to the map of Israel, only the names are different

In 1948, when we could easily have established a Palestinian state in the large territories offered by the UN, and instead joined with five Arab armies in an attempt to destroy Israel and erect Palestine in its place.

Between 1949 and 1967, we could have established a Palestinian state in the West Bank while it was still under Jordanian control, and in the Gaza Strip governed by Egypt.

During the 1970s, instead of thanking Jordan’s King Hussein for taking in Palestinian refugees, Yasser Arafat and the PLO tried to overthrow him. The result was a civil war and the expulsion of the Palestinian leadership from Jordan to Lebanon.

Once in Lebanon, we set about creating a terrorist state-within-a-state, bent on subverting Lebanese sovereignty and attacking Israel. The Israelis consequently entered south Lebanon, and with the support of the Shi’ites there, we were expelled once again, this time to Tunisia.

Under Palestinian influence, Tunisia then became a hotbed of crime and international conspiracies, again endangering our hosts.

We are now following the same pattern in Syria. The Palestinian leadership first betrayed Syria’s then President Hafez Assad in 1982, when elements of the PLO fought, together with the rebels, against the regime in Homs and Hama. Now, in the Syrian civil war, some Palestinian movements, mainly in the Yarmouk refugee camp, are fighting together with the rebels against President Bashar Assad.

Yasser Arafat stupidly supported Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait, a choice that led to the expulsion from the area of 400,000 Palestinian white- and blue-collar workers, and doing untold damage to the Palestinian cause. When Saddam Hussein was defeated and the Iraqis withdrew from Kuwait, the extent of Arafat’s mistake became evident. The Gulf States came to regard Palestinians as traitors and alienated themselves from the Palestinian cause, overtly for a long time and covertly — with the exception of Qatar — to this day.

The same pattern of ingratitude and thick-headedness is also being repeated by Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist organization that rules the Gaza Strip. While totally disregarding what Egypt sacrificed for the sake of the Palestinian cause in its many wars against Israel, senior Hamas officials are now working to undermine Egypt and its president, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, by supplying the Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula with arms and training.

Hamas, composed of Sunni Muslims, has also become the willing dupe of the Iran, which is Shi’ite. Hamas is therefore openly collaborating with the arch-enemy of Sunni Saudi Arabia and the other Sunni Gulf States. Iran has promised Hamas arms and money to circumvent the Palestinian Authority (PA), in an attempt to topple it. The Iranians are also trying to trying to convert members of Hamas, and eventually all Palestinians, to Shi’ite Islam.

Recently, a senior official of the Fatah’s Central Committee, Abbas Zaki, spoke out in favor of Iran’s plot. His remarks will not only help Hamas in its attempts to overthrow the Palestinian Authority, but could mean the end of Saudi Arabian and other Sunni-Arab Gulf States’ support for the Palestinian cause. On March 11, all 22 members of the Arab League officially branded Hezbollah — Iran’s proxy — a terrorist organization because it collaborates with the Syrian regime in slaughtering Sunnis, has terrorist cells in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, and fights in the ranks of Yemen’s Houthi Shi’ite rebels against Saudi Arabia and other Sunni countries.

It has become painfully clear that, regardless of political affiliation, the Palestinian leadership is motivated only by greed — with no thought to the interests of the Palestinian people.

Palestinians did not bypass the Arab politicians in the Israeli Knesset, who are among the worst offenders, as well. As soon as the Arab League voted to designate Hezbollah a terrorist organization, three Arab Israeli parliamentarians, who were elected to represent Arabs inside Israel, condemned the decision. In comical language that sounded as if it had come straight out of the Cold War Kremlin, they said that declaring Hezbollah a terrorist group served the interests of “the reactionary Arab states loyal to Israel and the United States.” The objective, they claimed, was to neutralize Hezbollah in order to damage the security of the “Arab nation;” turn the war towards the destruction of Lebanon, and get rid of anything that could stop America and Israel’s imperialistic plans for the Middle East in general and Palestine in particular.

One can only ask why we, Sunni Palestinians, should support the Shi’ite Hezbollah, which slaughters Sunni Muslims in Syria and subverts Arab states while serving Iran’s desire to keep Syria’s Assad in power. What do these three Arab members of Israel’s Knesset think they have in common with Hezbollah?

Why, throughout its history, have the Palestinians been the victims of so many irresponsible leaders who harm their own constituents? What makes the radicals of Hezbollah more appealing to some Arab Israeli legislators than the radicals of ISIS? Do those honorable Arab Knesset members not understand the damage they do to the Palestinian cause by challenging the Sunni Arab states, which have contributed so much to us — both politically and economically — over the years?

Historically, the Palestinian “liberation organizations” have had no ideology or motivation beyond the destruction of the State of Israel. They are all proxies of the countries funding them, instead of acting in accordance with the authentic national interests of the Palestinian people. In the instance of the three Arab Israeli legislators, they evidently followed instructions from the Iranians. Instead of bringing jobs, water and better education — as they promise when they stand for election — they sell out their people for a few crumbs of headline attention. They self-importantly parrot the Iranian line with no regard for the needs of the people who voted for them. They cynically exploit their parliamentary immunity and the defense provided them by a country they call their sworn enemy, in order to support Hezbollah and Iran, which are comfortably manipulating them.

Iran just wants to get its foot in the door. That is the reason the Iranian regime is so persistent in courting the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas, both Sunni organizations (as well as its own Gaza proxy group, Al-Sabireen), while it slaughters Sunnis in Syria and Iraq, and puts agents in place to overturn the Sunni governments of Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

Can Iran’s plot possibly be a secret from the Israeli Arab Knesset members, whose support of Hezbollah harms the interests of the Arabs inside Israel? Have these three members of Knesset forgotten the thousands of missiles Hezbollah fired into the Galilee, where so many Israeli Arabs live? Do they not understand that if Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah carries out his threat to bomb an ammonia installation in the Haifa area, thousands of Israeli Arabs will be killed? With the generous “help” of our Palestinian leaders — and especially with the “help” of the treacherous Europeans who keep on enabling them — any real help for the Palestinians, and the top of our mountain, look more distant than ever.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recently threatened to launch missiles at an ammonia installation in northern Israel, which could kill tens of thousands of civilians — including thousands of Israeli Arabs.

Bassam Tawil is a scholar based in the Middle East.

The trial of Geert Wilders has resulted in a guilty verdict. The court – which was located in a maximum security courthouse in the Netherlands near Schipol airport – found the leader of the PVV (Freedom Party) guilty of ‘insulting a group’ and of ‘inciting discrimination’. The trial began with a number of complaints, but the proceedings gradually honed down onto one single comment made by Wilders at a party rally in March 2014. This was the occasion when Wilders asked the crowd whether they wanted ‘fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands’. The crowd of supporters shouted ‘Fewer’.

On Friday morning the court decided not to impose a jail sentence or a fine, as prosecutors had requested. The intention of the court is clearly that the ‘guilty’ sentence should be enough.

For Wilders himself this will have been another unpleasant ordeal. But he may have become used to them by now. Five years ago Wilders was put on trial for insulting a religion. The first trial fell apart after one of the judges was found to have attempted to influence the evidence of one of Wilders’s defence witnesses. Once the trial restarted, it resulted in an acquittal. So the Dutch Justice system turn out to have been “second-time lucky” in getting the conviction they appear to have so badly wanted.

This is apparent from remarks, incomparably more damning than “fewer Moroccans”, made by members of the Netherlands’ Labour Party, who of course were never prosecuted:

• “We also have s*** Moroccans over here.” Rob Oudkerk, Dutch Labour Party (PvDA) politician.
• “We must humiliate Moroccans.” Hans Spekman, PvDA politician.
• “Moroccans have the ethnic monopoly on trouble-making.” Diederik Samsom, PvDA politician.

Wilders’s legal trials are perhaps the least of it. For more than a decade Wilders has had to live under permanent security protection because of the threat to his life from Muslim extremists in the Netherlands. One might agree or disagree with a person who believes there should be fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, but it requires an extraordinary degree of callousness to prosecute someone whose life is in danger from parts of such a community for voicing a desire not to see that community grow. The irony cannot have been lost on the wider world that on the same day that news of Wilders’s conviction came out the other news from Holland was the arrest of a 30 year-old terror suspect in Rotterdam suspected of being about to carry out ‘an act of terrorism’.

There are two aspects to this verdict which matter. The first is what it will do for Wilders himself. Domestically, within the Netherlands, it is hard to say. On the one hand it is possible that his supporters and others will be galvanised by the intrusion of the judiciary into politics and by the nakedly partisan and political nature of this trial. Many observers predict a boost in the polls for Wilders, who may benefit from this further proof of what he has often said – that it is Wilders against the Dutch establishment.

But internationally and among a good many Dutch nationals the conviction will carry a stigma. Internationally it will continuously be used against Wilders that he has been convicted of ‘inciting discrimination’ even though the charge is about a proto-crime – a crime that has not even occurred: like charging the makers of a car chase movie for ‘inciting speeding’. As with many ‘hate-crime’ trials across the free world, from Denmark to Canada, the aim of the proceedings is to blacken the name of the party on trial so that they are afterwards formally tagged as a lesser, or non-person. If this sounds Stalinist it is because it is.

In the long-term, though, there is something even more insidious about this trial. For as we have noted here before, if you prosecute somebody for saying that they want fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands then the only legal views able to be expressed about the matter are that the number of Moroccans in the country must remain at precisely present numbers or that you would only like more Moroccans in the country. In a democratic society this sort of matter ought to be debatable. But the judges in the Wilders case have tried to make it un-debatable. By prosecuting somebody for expressing one opinion they have sent out a message to all citizens. And that is where the stifling effect of the Wilders trial will be felt.

It will be felt by all those Dutch men and women who have concerns about the direction their country is going in, including concerns that the rate of immigration has been too high in recent years. Many of these people will already have felt a certain social pressure not to air their views and now there is the additional restraining factor that their views have been made illegal. At social gatherings across the land the people who believe that there should only ever be more Moroccans in the Netherlands will have an additional card to play against anyone who believes the opposite. For their conversational partner will not merely be risking a social embarrassment but will be standing on the verge of committing a crime.

Any half-way civilised society – as the Netherlands most certainly is – must see that trying to squash contrary views in such a manner is the behaviour of tyrants. This gang-up of the courts and the political elite in an effort to crush dissenting opinion is unbecoming for a great and distinguished nation such as The Netherlands. But they may yet have their comeuppance.

If there is one great mental note of which 2016 ought to have reminded the world, it is how deeply unwise it is to try to police opinion. For when you do so you not only make your society less free, but you disable yourself from being able to learn what your fellow citizens are actually – perhaps ever more secretly – feeling. Then one day you will hear them. And only then – when it is too late – will you remember why you should have listened.

Douglas Murray, British author, commentator and public affairs analyst, is based in London, England

Welcome to the progressive “next frontier of ‘liberation'”, where the most urgent question in Western democracies is “genderism”.

North Carolina was subjected to a year of being boycotted, until it withdrew its transgender bathroom law. Last month, the National Union of Teachers in Great Britain asked the government to teach children as young as two new transgender theories. New York recently presented the first “trans-doll“. American universities are wracked with hysteria over the correct use of neutral pronouns. Even National Geographic, instead of writing about lions and elephants, started covering the “Gender Revolution”. One of the first announcements of Emmanuel Macron, as the French President-elect, was that he would appoint officials from a “gender equal” list.

(Image source: Sara D. Davis/Getty Images)

What does it mean that this gender mania is permeating every corner of Western societies and culture? According to Camille Paglia, the contrarian feminist, it is a sign of the decline of Western civilization. In her new book, Free Women, Free Men, she writes:

“Civilizations have gone through recurrent cycles. Extravaganzas of gender experimentation sometimes precede cultural collapse, as they certainly did in Weimar Germany. Now as then, there are forces aligning outside the borders, scattered fanatical hordes where the cult of heroic masculinity still has tremendous force”.

She then asks:

“How has it happened that so many of today’s most daring and radical young people now define themselves by sexual identity alone? There has been a collapse of perspective here that will surely have mixed consequences for our art and culture and that may perhaps undermine the ability of Western societies to understand or react to the vehemently contrary beliefs of others who do not wish us well. Transgender phenomena multiply and spread in ‘late’ phases of culture, as religious, political, and family traditions weaken and civilizations begin to decline”.

It is not a coincidence that this obsession with gender grew out of Western culture during the 1990s, the decade of peace and prosperity before 9/11. The decade was free of any existential angst, consumed by the Monica Lewinski scandal and dominated by Francis Fukuyama’s “End of History”. According to Rusty Reno, editor of First Things, gender ideology is a symbol of our epoch of “weakening”, pointing to a globalized future “governed by the hearth gods of health, wealth, and pleasure”. The high priests of this ideology, however, did not take into account the rise of radical Islam.

Before the French cities of Paris, Nice and Rouen came under the assault of jihadist groups, the French Socialist government had just one cultural priority: the “ABC of gender equality“. The name came from a controversial program that France’s women’s rights minister, Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, had launched in 500 schools.

After approving same-sex marriage, the French government apparently thought it also had to promote a cultural revolution. According to Education Minister Benoît Hamon, who failed miserably in the recent presidential elections, schools are “a battlefield“. Half the pupils boycotted “gender theory” lessons. Then French authorities imposed on students ridiculous books such as Daddy Wears a Dress. It would have been comical if the following years would not have been so tragic. What, in fact, wrecked these French illusions was Islamic terrorism.

The effect on Western culture of this gender ideology is the rejection of the critical spirit combined with a kitsch appeal to sentiment against reason. The same gender-obsessed culture refuses to see the burkini as an Islamist tool, and instead turns it into a symbol of human rights. The consequence is that the jihadist threat is perceived merely as an unacceptable disruption of Western lifestyles. Europe risks to losing all its historic gifts: human dignity, freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of expression and its colossal culture.

The erotocratic French élites were not prepared for what turned out to be the most severe terror assault since 9/11. France, obsessed with the “ABC of equality”, was caught off-guard and ready to be disarmed when terrorists attacked it during the day that celebrates equality. In France, there was simply no public resistance to sharia law and jihadist ideology. Intoxicated with the obsolescence of identity, the only enemy these French élites knew were patriarchal privileges, since for them “domination” comes only from the white male Europeans.

The presidency of Emmanuel Macron has already been hailed by gender activists. “Macron is like a breath of fresh air in this country,” said Natacha Henry, a writer on gender issues, at the New York Times. “I think he won because he didn’t do any kind of macho performance, and that’s what we need.”

Anesthetization by an obsession with gender rights further seems to have become a fixture of countries after terror attacks. Soon after jihadists targeted Spain in 2004 and forced it to withdraw troops from Iraq, the Socialist government of Jorge Louis Zapatero embraced the titillation of gender ideology, including gay-friendly “diversity” training at elementary schools. The “Zapatero Project” was based on the “scorn of nature, reinvention of what is human, exaltation of desire”. Former U.S. President Barack Obama’s years were also marked by an “obsession” with transgender rights. Obsession with gender is a convenient distraction to avoid facing matters that are more difficult and less pleasant.

There is a saying that civilizations can be destroyed from within, rather than by armies from without. If the West will not commit itself to preserving Western societies and values, it will fall. And its extraordinary progress will be blanketed over by darkness, along with all those gender rights.

According to Camille Paglia, “a purely secular culture risks hollowness and, paradoxically, sets itself up for the rise of fundamentalist movements that ominously promise to purify and discipline”. Such as — name it — radical Islam.

Giulio Meotti, Cultural Editor for Il Foglio, is an Italian journalist and author.

The European Commission has published a document outlining five scenarios for how the European Union could evolve within the next ten years.

The so-called White Paper on the Future of Europe, which will be presented at the Rome Summit on March 25, 2017 to mark the 60th anniversary of the European Union, is intended to be “the starting point for a wider public debate on the future of our continent.”

Each of the five scenarios is based on the premise that “the 27 Member States move forward together as a Union.” The document does not consider the possibility that the EU could collapse or break apart, or even that the powers of the EU be significantly curtailed. The document states:

“Too often, the discussion on Europe’s future has been boiled down to a binary choice between more or less Europe. That approach is misleading and simplistic. The possibilities covered here range from the status quo, to a change of scope and priorities, to a partial or collective leap forward.”

Nevertheless, for the European Commission, the powerful administrative arm of the European Union, publicly to even consider alternatives to full-blown European federalism is a testament to the growing power and influence of anti-EU political movements in Europe.

A “family photo” of the European Commission, headed by Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, in 2014. (Image source: European Parliament)

Indeed, a document such as this would have been unthinkable before Brexit — an abbreviation for “British exit,” which refers to the June 23, 2016, referendum by which British citizens voted to exit the European Union — and the rise of anti-EU populist parties in Austria, Britain, France, Germany and the Netherlands, among others. The document admits:

“Europe’s challenges show no sign of abating. Our economy is recovering from the global financial crisis but this is still not felt evenly enough. Parts of our neighborhood are destabilized, resulting in the largest refugee crisis since the Second World War. Terrorist attacks have struck at the heart of our cities. New global powers are emerging as old ones face new realities. And last year, one of our Member States voted to leave the Union.”

The five scenarios for the EU by 2025 are: 1) carrying on; 2) nothing but the single market; 3) those who want more do more; 4) doing less more efficiently; and, 5) doing much more together.

Scenario 1: Carrying On.

This scenario envisions the status quo, with the EU plodding ahead with “incremental progress” from crisis to crisis. The document explains:

“Priorities are regularly updated, problems are tackled as they arise and new legislation is rolled out accordingly. The speed of decision-making depends on overcoming differences of views in order to deliver on collective long-term priorities.”

Scenario 2: Nothing but the Single Market.

This scenario envisions a European Union re-focused on the single market, which refers to the free movement of goods, services, capital and people within the bloc:

“In a scenario where the EU27 cannot agree to do more in many policy areas, it increasingly focuses on deepening certain key aspects of the single market. There is no shared resolve to work more together in areas such as migration, security or defense. The functioning of the single market becomes the main ‘raison d’être’ of the EU27.”

Scenario 3: Those Who Want to do More.

This scenario envisions a so-called multi-speed Europe in which some member states proceed with integration in certain areas while other member states do not:

“In a scenario where the EU27 proceeds as today but where certain Member States want to do more in common, one or several ‘coalitions of the willing’ emerge to work together in specific policy areas. These may cover policies such as defense, internal security, taxation or social matters.”

Scenario 4: Doing Less More Efficiently.

This scenario envisions the EU placing greater emphasis on some policy areas, while reducing its focus on others:

“The EU27 decides to focus its attention and limited resources on a reduced number of areas…. As a result, the EU27 is able to act much quicker and more decisively in its chosen priority areas…. Elsewhere, the EU27 stops acting or does less…. The EU’s weight in the world changes in line with its recalibrated responsibilities.”

Scenario 5: Doing Much More Together

This scenario is the European Commission’s preferred option: European federalism:

“In a scenario where there is consensus that neither the EU27 as it is, nor European countries on their own, are well-equipped enough to face the challenges of the day, Member States decide to share more power, resources and decision-making across the board.

“As a result, cooperation between all Member States goes further than ever before in all domains…. Decisions are agreed faster at European level and are rapidly enforced.

“On the international scene, Europe speaks and acts as one in trade and is represented by one seat in most international fora. The European Parliament has the final say on international trade agreements. Defence and security are prioritized. In full complementarity with NATO, a European Defence Union is created. Cooperation in security matters is routine.”

The document also offers a glimpse into what European federalism may look like in practice:

“Citizens travelling abroad receive consular protection and assistance from EU embassies, which in some parts of the world have replaced national ones. Non-EU citizens wishing to travel to Europe can process visa applications through the same network.”

The European Commission, in a rare instance of candor, admits that European federalism risks “alienating parts of society which feel that the EU lacks legitimacy or has taken too much power away from national authorities.”

The document does not, however, contemplate a scenario in which the European Union faces collapse, or in which major member states decide to follow the British example and exit the bloc.

In France and the Netherlands — two of the EU’s original six founding members — anti-EU presidential candidates are leading in the polls. Marine Le Pen and Geert Wilders have both promised to call referenda on continued EU membership. If one or both of those countries were to leave the EU, this at a time when Italy and Greece are at a fiscal breaking point, a collapse of the bloc seems increasingly possible.

The European Commission says its White Paper marks “the beginning of a process for the EU27 to decide together on the future of their Union.” The Commission does not, however, consider the possibility that in 2025 it may not even exist.