Yesterday, I was about to post a report from Ha’aretz (originally published in USA Today), that the palestinians want their future state to not just be Palestine, but also Judenrhein. Here is what I saved in the post draft:
Maen Areikat
PLO official: Palestinian state to be free of Jews
The future independent Palestinian state will not include a Jewish minority, a top Palestinian official told USA Today on Wednesday, adding that it was in the best interest of both peoples to “be separated.”
Maen Areikat, PLO Ambassador to the United States, made the comment just as the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, was preparing to offer up Palestinian statehood to a vote in the United Nations General Assembly later this month.
Answering questions on minority rights in a future state, Areikat was quoted by USA Today as saying on the possibility of a Jewish minority: “After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated.”
Former U.S. National Security Council official Elliot Abrams responded to the Palestinian official’s comment, saying to USA Today that the Palestinian demand was “a despicable form of anti-Semitism,” adding: “No civilized country would act this way.”
When I went back to the Ha’aretz report this morning, lo and behold, the headline had changed.*
Nevertheless, the evidence remains when you type in the original headline in Google.
So clearly someone at Ha’aretz decided the original headline was not conducive to pulling the wool over our eyes about the PA’s real intentions the peace process, and had it summarily changed.
And I’m glad they did it. Because what was originally just a post about the PA’s true feelings about us, the prospects of peace with the establishment of a palestinian state, and the sheer chutzpah of their insistence on the so-called palestinian “right of return,” is now also a post about the complicity of the left-wing media in advancing a certain agenda.
Update: Commenter Engelo points out that Areikat has since claimed he was misinterpreted.
But in an interview with The Huffington Post, Areikat rejected USA Today’s characterization of his remarks, saying that he would never want to ban Jews from a Palestinian state.
“Under no circumstances was I saying that no Jews can be in Palestine,” Areikat said by phone. “What a statement that would be for me to make! I never said that, and I never meant to say such a thing. This is not a religious conflict, and we want to establish a secular state.”
I call BS on this. As EoZ points out, these latest statements are entirely consistent with what Areikat stated in an interview with Tablet last year.
So, you think it would be necessary to first transfer and remove every Jew—
Absolutely. No, I’m not saying to transfer every Jew, I’m saying transfer Jews who, after an agreement with Israel, fall under the jurisdiction of a Palestinian state.
Any Jew who is inside the borders of Palestine will have to leave?
Absolutely. I think this is a very necessary step, before we can allow the two states to somehow develop their separate national identities, and then maybe open up the doors for all kinds of cultural, social, political, economic exchanges, that freedom of movement of both citizens of Israelis and Palestinians from one area to another. You know you have to think of the day after.
* I also received an email from someone who noticed this.
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
A law school graduate, David Lange transitioned from work in the oil and hi-tech industries into fulltime Israel advocacy. He is a respected commentator and Middle East analyst who has often been cited by the mainstream media
