• Christians in Israel, as well as all other minorities, understand today that serving in the Israeli military is essential. Many Christians and other minorities in Israel share the same fears: they understand that in this region, Israel is the only island of safety that allows them freedom and democratic rights.

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• Christians and other minorities in Israel prosper and grow, while in other countries in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Authority, they suffer heavily from the Islamic movement and persecution — until forced to disappear.
• Contrary to propaganda, there is no “Apartheid” of any kind in Israel, and no roads on which only Jews may travel.
• In Israel, members of the Christian and Muslim minorities fill all types of high positions — just as any Jewish Israeli who wishes to have a successful career. There is the Maronite Christian Supreme Court Judge, Salim Jubran.
• Widely discussed in the region is how the Europeans secretly want Israel wiped out, too, and are hoping that their new laws, combined with old Arab violence, will do the trick.

Last year, Israel recognized the existence of a group of Christians — “Arameans” — within its borders; an act that no Arab or Muslim nation from the Middle East has ever done or would ever do. Israel recognized a distinct religious and ethnic group: the indigenous people of the ancient Fertile Crescent.

Their language, Aramaic, was the language spoken by Jesus centuries before Islam came to the region.

Israel not only supports and gives Christians and other minorities — Druze, Muslims, Baha’i, everyone — full civil rights, freedom and legal rights to exist peacefully and practice their faith as they wish, but also to develop themselves as a minority with all the implications of differences in culture. Arabs, for instance, are welcomed into the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), but are not, as opposed to Jews, required to serve. Israel’s founding Prime Minister, David Ben Gurion, humanely did not want Arabs to feel as if they were obliged fight their “brothers.”

In Israel, members of the Christian and Muslim minorities fill all types of high positions — just as any Jewish Israeli who wishes to have a successful career. There is the Maronite Christian Supreme Court Judge, Salim Jubran.

Contrary to propaganda, there is no “Apartheid” of any kind, and no roads on which only Jews may travel. Those roads are in Saudi Arabia, which has real Apartheid roads, since only Muslims may travel to Mecca.

Israel does this, moreover, in a neighborhood where most of its neighbors — often the most brutal enemies of humanity — wish Israel were wiped out and often do their utmost to make this wish come true. Sadly, many Europeans join in. Everyone has seen the recent vicious attempts by the European Union to snuff out Israel economically by labeling goods made in disputed territories. This requirement, made of no other country with a disputed border actually hinders any prospects for peace that working together is meant to bring about.

These Europeans are not fooling anyone. Their slyly sadistic, self-righteous “punishments” meant for Israel will only throw thousands of Palestinians out of well-paying, badly-needed work; these diktats also drive many newly out-of-work Palestinians to the employment bureau of last resort: Islamic extremism and terrorism. Ironically, these Europeans, to satisfy their wish to hurt Jews by pretending to help Palestinians, are actually seeding a new crop of terrorists who will later come to Europe and show them what they think of such hypocrites.

Widely discussed in the region is how the Europeans secretly want Israel wiped out, too, and are hoping that their new laws, combined with old Arab violence, will do the trick. That way, the Europeans can pretend to themselves that they had “nothing to do with it.” These Europeans need to know they are not fooling anyone.

Israel, meanwhile, despite having to deal with the European and American fronts as well as often genocidal Muslim threats, continues actively to strengthen its minority communities through a variety of state-sponsored programs. Among them is a five-year plan to develop Israeli Arab and other minority communities adopted by the government on December 30, 2015, at cost of 15 billion shekels [roughly $4 billion]. Social Equality Minister Gila Gamliel, of the Likud Party is in charge of implementing the plan. Prime Minister Netanyahu, who is unjustly demonized, has for the last several years operated the “Authority for the Economic Development of the Arab, Druze and Circassian Sectors.” It is headed by an Arab Muslim, Aiman Saif, who controls a sizeable budget of 7 billion shekels [roughly $1.8 billion], which has mostly gone to different Arab cities and villages to develop modern infrastructure, industrial zones, employment opportunities, education and other elements. The rest was allocated to helping Christian villages in the Galilee.

Arabs have their own section in the Ministry of Education, headed by an Arab Muslim, Abdalla Khateeb, who is also in charge of a sizeable budget of 900 million shekels [$230 million].

Christians, as well as all other minorities, understand today that serving in the Israeli military is essential for their integration in Israel. Many Christians and other minorities in Israel share the same fears: they increasingly understand that in this region, Israel is the only island of safety that allows them freedom and democratic rights. The Muslim Arab community in Israel, as well as the Christian and other Arabic-speaking communities, see the tragic destiny of their brothers in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and other Arab countries. Muslims killing Muslims; fanatical Muslim groups killing Christians, uprooting them, slitting their throats, burning them alive, drowning them in cages and of course crucifying them, even little children. Israel’s minorities are very aware of this. They also cannot understand why no one is demonizing those villains. They fear that this devastation will spread, first to the holy land of Israel, and then to Europe.

This fear is one of the reasons there have been increasing numbers of Christians applying to serve in the IDF: 30% recruitment on a voluntary basis; while in general Jewish society, the number stands for 57% on an obligatory basis. Today there are even more than 1000 Muslim Arabs serving in the IDF.

We all know the danger of these fanatic Islamic jihadist groups such as Hamas groups, and feel ever more committed to protect this lone pluralistic state.

The community to which this author belongs, Aramean Christians, is of Aramean-Phoenician ethnic roots and language, and was originally based in Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Over the 1400 years following the Islamic conquest, Aramean Christians were forced to switch to speaking Arabic, and more recently to flee their homes in Syria and Iraq. They have no status in Arab and Islamic states, most ruled according to Islamic sharia law. Aramean Christians also have no status in the Palestinian Authority, which now rules Judea and Samaria.

We are aware of some Christian groups, such as Sabeel, Kairos Palestine and others under the thumb of the Palestinian Authority, who still feel the need to pay lip-service to the Muslim Arabian lords who have conquered them.

Jerusalem is open to everyone. But it has not always been, especially under the jurisdiction of Jordan, until 1967. Not only were Jews not allowed in, but 38,000 Jewish gravestones were taken from the Mount of Olives cemetery and used as building materials and flooring for Jordan’s latrines.

Muslim Arab members of Israel’s Knesset [parliament] reject the right of Christians to preserve their unique heritage. On February 5, 2014, Knesset member Haneen Zoabi of the United Arab List party threatened the Israeli Christian representatives who lobbied in the Knesset Employment Committee in favor of a law that would add Christian representatives to a committee on employment equality in the Economy Ministry. Zoabi rejected their declaration that they were a separate Aramean Christian ethnicity. She insisted on forcing upon them an Arab and Palestinian identity. This identification was of course, as false as if we Christians had insisted that Muslim Arabs call themselves Native Americans. The law passed despite the efforts of Zoabi and her colleagues, due to a coalition of Knesset members — with vast majority of Jewish MKs voting in favor of it.

This incident illustrates how some of Israel’s Muslim Arabs, while asking their Jewish neighbors for help in preserve their own Muslim-Arab heritage, prohibit other ethnic minorities these same rights.

Instead, they try to impose Arabization and Palestinization by threats and by force. In September 2014, for instance, an Aramean Christian woman, IDF Captain Areen Shaabi, was stalked by Arab Muslim activists in Nazareth. She was threatened with shouts of “Allahu Akbar” [“Allah is Greater!”], and at night her car tires were slashed.

IDF Major Ehab Shlayan, an Aramean Christian in Nazareth and the founder of the Christian Recruitment Forum, awoke on the morning of August 2015 to find that a Palestinian flag had been put in front of his door during the night. On Christmas Eve, December 24, 2014, thirty Muslims throwing stones and glass bottles attacked a Christian soldier, 19-year-old Majd Rawashdi, and his home.

All this is hypocrisy at the highest levels, mixed with racism.

In an official Christmas greeting to Israel’s Christians on December 24, 2012, Prime Minister Netanyahu said:

“Israel’s minorities, including over one million citizens who are Arabs, always have full civil rights. Israel’s government will never tolerate discrimination against women. Israel’s Christian population will always be free to practice their faith. This is the only place in the Middle East where Christians are fully free to practice their faith. They don’t have to fear; they don’t have to flee. At a time when Christians are under siege in so many places, in so many lands in the Middle East, I am proud that in Israel Christians are free to practice their faith, and that there is a thriving Christian community in Israel.”

Christians and other minorities in Israel prosper and grow, while in other countries in the Middle East, including the Palestinian Authority, they suffer heavily from the Islamic movement and persecution — until forced to disappear.

Shadi Khalloul, is founder of the Israeli Aramaic Movement. Prior to graduating from University of Nevada, Las Vegas, he served as a lieutenant in the IDF paratrooper division. He is also an entrepreneur, a community leader and a candidate for Israel’s parliament.

Israel said it refuses to negotiate under ultimatum in response to France’s threat, despite the wave of Palestinian terror, to recognize the “state of Palestine.”

France will recognize a Palestinian state if its efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks at an international conference fail, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Friday.

He told French diplomats that the conference will aim to bring together the two parties and their American, European and Arab partners in order “to make happen a two-state solution.”

If this attempt faces a deadlock, Fabius said, France will have to recognize a Palestinian state.

 

“This is not how one conducts negotiations and not how one makes peace,” the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office stated, Ha’aretz reported. Many in government circles say this latest ultimatum to Israel encourages the Palestinian Authority (PA) to be unbending in its demands, according to unnamed sources.

The French threat to Israel was made amidst a wave of Palestinian terror against Jews in Israel, in which 29 victims have been killed and close to 300 wounded – 25 seriously.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has repeatedly invited PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations, but to no avail. Instead, he has been making unilateral moves to force a solution upon Israel, and his government has been inciting terror.

Fabius’ announcement comes as the Palestinians, buoyed by the Iran nuclear deal and the start of U.N.-mediated talks on Syria, have been exploring steps that could lead to a two-state solution without direct negotiations, including an international conference and a Security Council resolution that would demand an end to construction of homes in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, or what they call “illegal Israeli settlement building.”

“Israel will not negotiate under threat,” Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz stated on Saturday.

Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian U.N. ambassador, told AP: “The Palestinian leadership does welcome the announcement of foreign minister Fabius today in Paris in connection with the convening of an international conference in the next few weeks, and if things fail the recognition of the state of Palestine by France.”

“I think the objective of this conference … has to be to open the process that would lead to the end of the occupation and the preservation of the two-state solution,” he said.

As for recognition, Mansour said, “France promised us some time ago that if there is no opening for a meaningful political process — a collective process that would lead to the end of occupation and independence of the state of Palestine and therefore saving the two-state solution soon — then they will recognize the state of Palestine.”

He said the Palestinians wanted recognition from France “some time ago,” noting that the French parliament has unanimously recommended recognizing the “state of Palestine.”

“And we hope that they do that,” Mansour said. “If they are tying it to the political process, that is their thinking. But eventually if you believe in a two-state solution, then recognizing the state of Palestine is an investment.”

Earlier on Friday, at U.N. headquarters in New York, Mansour said the nuclear talks on Iran and talks on Syria, Yemen and Libya have spurred the Palestinians to seek a broader international framework to try to settle the decades-old conflict with Israel. “This is a new culture — and why shouldn’t that spread to the Palestinian issue?,” he asked.

Mansour said the Palestinians don’t accept that in 2016 “the door is closed” and that nothing can be done to make progress toward a two-state solution because of the U.S. presidential election in November.

He said that’s why he has been engaging all 15 members of the Security Council, including the United States, as well as the U.N. Secretariat and other “friends,” on their readiness to take steps — especially since virtually all members at the last Mideast meeting spoke out against Israeli settlement building.

Mansour commended Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon “for characterizing correctly the settlements as illegal, illegitimate and a major obstacle to peace.” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Ban’s remarks justify terrorism.

“As oppressed peoples have demonstrated throughout the ages, it is human nature to react to ‘occupation,’” the UN chief said, thereby placing the blame for Palestinian terror on Israeli policies.

“The UN Secretary General’s remarks give a tailwind to terrorism,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in response. “There is no justification for terrorism. The Palestinian murderers do not want to build a state – they want to destroy a state and they say this openly. They want to murder Jews simply because they are Jews, and they say this openly. They do not murder for peace and they do not murder for human rights.”

Besides a new resolution on settlements and an international conference, Mansour said he has raised the French idea of “a support group” of other countries to promote progress toward peace, an expansion of the Quartet of Mideast mediators — the U.S., U.N., European Union and Russia.

He said adoption of a Security Council resolution would be “a signal” that the council and key world powers want to end the conflict and see an independent Palestinian state.

By: AP and United with Israel Staff

In a recent letter to the New York Times, the current Earl of Balfour, Roderick Balfour, argued that it is Israel’s fault that there is “growing anti-Semitism around the world.”

Balfour, who is a descendent of Arthur Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary who wrote the Balfour Declaration a hundred years ago, wrote the following: “the increasing inability of Israel to address [the condition of Palestinians], coupled with the expansion into Arab territory of the Jewish settlements, are major factors in growing anti-Semitism around the world.” He argued further that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “owes it to the millions of Jews around the world” who suffer anti-Semitism, to resolve the Israel-Palestine conflict.

This well-intentioned but benighted view is particularly ironic in light of the fact that the Balfour Declaration had, as one of its purposes, to end anti-Semitism around the world by creating a homeland for the Jewish people. But now the scion of Lord Balfour is arguing that it is Israel that is causing anti-Semitism.

Roderick Balfour’s views are simply wrong both as a matter of fact and as a matter of morality. Anyone who hates Jews “around the world” because they disagree with the policy of Israel would be ready to hate Jews on the basis of any pretext. Modern day anti-Semites, unlike their forbearers, need to find excuses for their hatred, and anti-Zionism has become the excuse de jure.

To prove the point, let us consider other countries: has there been growing anti-Chinese feelings around the world as the result of China’s occupation of Tibet? Is there growing hatred of Americans of Turkish background because of Turkey’s unwillingness to end the conflict in Cypress? Do Europeans of Russian background suffer bigotry because of Russia’s invasion of Crimea? The answer to all these questions is a resounding no. If Jews are the only group that suffers because of controversial policies by Israel, then the onus lies on the anti-Semites rather than on the nation state of the Jewish people.

Moreover, Benjamin Netanyahu’s responsibility is to the safety and security of Israelis. Even if it were true that anti-Semitism is increasing as the result of Israeli policies, no Israeli policy should ever be decided based on the reaction of bigots around the world. Anti-Semitism, the oldest of bigotries, will persist as long as it is seen to be justified by apologists like Roderick Balfour. Thought Balfour does not explicitly justify anti-Semitism, the entire thrust of his letter is that Jew hatred is at least understandable in light of Israel’s policies.

Balfour doesn’t say a word about the unwillingness of the Palestinian leadership to accept Israel’s repeated offers of statehood to the Palestinians. From 1938 through 2008, the Palestinians have been offered and repeatedly rejected agreements that would have given them statehood. Even today, the Palestinian leadership refuses to accept Netanyahu’s offer to sit down and negotiate a final status agreement without any pre-conditions. Nor does Balfour mention Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorists groups that constantly threaten Israel, along with Iran’s publicly declared determination to destroy the state that Lord Balfour helped to create. It’s all Israel’s fault, according to Balfour, and the resulting increase in anti-Semitism is Israel’s fault as well.

Roderick Balfour ends his letter by essentially joining the boycott movement against Israel. He has declared his unwillingness to participate in the Centenary Celebration of the Balfour Declaration, until and unless Israel takes unilateral action to end the conflict. So be it. I am confident that the author of the Balfour Declaration would have willing participated in this celebration, recognizing that no country in history has ever contributed more to the world – in terms of medical, technological, environmental and other innovations — in so short a period of time (69 years) than has Israel. Nor has any country, faced with comparable threats, ever been more generous in its offers of peace, more committed to the Rule of Law, or more protective of civilians who are used as human shields by those who attack its civilians.

So let the Celebration of the Balfour Declaration go forward without the participation of Roderick Balfour. Let Israel continue to offer a peaceful resolution to its conflict with the Palestinians. And let the Palestinians finally come to the bargaining table, and recognize Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish people in the way that the Balfour Declaration intended.