ANT KATZ

It’s Comical Ali again!

In a special update issued Friday morning, the Europe Israel Public Affairs Committee (EIPA) – the fast-growing European Jewish lobby that speaks on Israel at the EU in Brussels – added its voice to that of Israeli PM Netanyahu, who called on the world in a special meeting with English-language media on Thursday, to speak out against what he said was a clear case of lies and incitement on the part of the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president, Mahmoud Abbas.

“Mahmoud Abbas is such a master of stretching the elasticity of the truth, such a perverter of language, that in ordinary circumstances you couldn’t help but admire his downright deluded chutzpah. This week he reminded us here at Europe Israel Public Affairs of Comical Ali, the Iraqi information minister during the Iraq War, with his lies and deluded pronouncements,” said the EIPA.

“But this is not something that we can laugh at. He is the leader of Israel’s supposed partner in peace. He is supposed to represent Palestinian interests. In short he is supposed to be a statesman.

RIGHT: The Temple Mount

Netanyahu yesterday ACCUSED ABBAS OF LYING, saying the PA leader knew he was lying to Palestinians as he knew the “status quo” regarding the Temple Mount would remain. The Israeli leader said he was meeting with the media to refute what he called the “big lies” that Abbas was feeding to his people, namely that Israel is attempting to change the status quo on the Temple Mount and is executing innocent Palestinian youths.
Netanyahu referred to Abbas’ accusation – which had been made on Wednesday in a publicly televised speech from Ramallah – in which he accused Israel of “executing” a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who took part in a stabbing attack against an Israeli teenager. The boy, said Netanyahu, was neither innocent nor dead.

The EIPA statement continues: “This week we were also treated to another word bending extravaganza worthy of the world finest linguistic contortionist. These acts against innocent Israelis (including the stabbing of a 70-year-old grandmother at a bus stop) are deemed as “popular resistance”.

Now, when most people think of “popular resistance” they think of a strike, a picket line, a demonstration, or something like social protests. For Mahmoud Abbas scores of teenagers roaming the streets, shops, bus stops, trams, synagogues, restaurants, bars, schools, wherever to stab Jews (any Jew will do) is not attempted or wilful murder.” It is neither terrorism or popular resistance, says the EIPA.

Meanwhile, Europeans sit on their bottoms

 “A Palestinian man ran into a group of Orthodox Jews at a tram stop this week, got out and used a hatchet to hack at the injured. In this distorted Palestinian world, the assailant told his attorney (remember that Israel affords the basic human right to legal representation despite the lack of respect of human right shown by those committing such abhorrent crimes), that this was in fact… wait for it… a car accident! He had clearly learned a trick or two from his master in Ramallah,” said the statement by EIPA.

“What are European leaders saying about this? They are urging both sides to restrain. Both sides? Is the lunacy of Abbas’ language so contagious that it has spread to the EU institutions? Has political correctness got so bad and so twisted that the attempted murderer and the 70-year-old are treated the same? As if she prompted the attack? Mr Abbas must be laughing to himself at such a false premise.

“As you know from last week’s update, 13 MEPs, all friends or members of EIPAs’ political advisory board wrote to EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini and European Parliament President Martin Schulz, urging them to send a strong and unambiguous message to Mahmoud Abbas that incitement to hatred and silence in the face of murder would not be tolerated by the Brussels institutions.

“As of today, still nothing. Not even a courteous acknowledgement of the letter by democratically-elected parliamentarians from across the political divide and across the continent. Mr Schulz delivered his State of the Union speech to the European Summit yesterday here in Brussels and didn’t even mention events in Jerusalem.

“Despite all of this, despite a bewildered, afraid and traumatised Israeli public, many of whom are calling for a tough response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has once again, and only yesterday, extended his invitation for peace talks with Mr Abbas, at a place of his choosing and without preconditions,” they said.

“Like him or loathe him. Mr Netanyahu is showing statesmanship and solid political leadership,” adding: “One doesn’t expect any reciprocity from the Palestinian leader. “But one certainly does from Brussels.
“The fact that a strong statement is not forthcoming from the EU’s leadership, that outright murder is couched and downgraded through political language and that the aggressor is treated in equal terms as the victim, is indeed worthy of the late Comical Ali.”

Except nobody in Israel, nor indeed the hundreds of thousands of Jews living in Europe, are laughing. Instead they feel nauseous. It feels to them like Israeli and Jewish lives don’t matter.

And Europe, right now, is doing nothing to prove that this is not, in fact, the case.