Late last week the House Foreign Affairs Committee unanimously passed H.Res. 293, a bipartisan resolution that strongly condemns the anti-Israel and anti-Semitic incitement emanating from the Palestinian Authority, including from its acting head, Mahmoud Abbas.
The resolution was introduced in the spring by Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL-27) and Ted Deutch (D-FL-21).
At that time the resolution was directed at the PA incitement against Israelis which “has continued unabated for many years,” including the “glorification of terrorists who have murdered Israeli civilians,” and “the demonization of Jews and Israelis,” and the “denial of Israel’s existence and its demonization as evidenced by the absence of Israel on official maps used in Palestinian Authority institutions,” – this will be discussed further, below – and “false claims that Israel or the Jews are endangering Muslim holy sites, such as the Al-Aqsa mosque/Temple Mount in Jerusalem.”
The Anti-Incitement Resolution was recently amended to reflect the current wave of terrorism unleashed against Israeli citizens by Palestinian Arab terrorists. It singles out for condemnation the statement made last month by acting president of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas, “we welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah.”
The House Foreign Affairs Committee, chaired by Rep. Ed Royce (R-CA-39), unanimously voted out the Resolution, sending it to the full House for consideration.
This Committee, Republican and Democrats alike, approved the strong wording which specifically states that the current violence in Israel has been “inflamed” both by statements made by Abbas, as well as “other Palestinian officials, clerics, and official Palestinian Authority media.”
Compare that language to the words uttered by U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, each of whom have been painstakingly careful “not to place blame” on “one side or the other,” as if it is better to blame both the victim and attacker (or pretend that both are victims or both are attackers), rather than dare condemn the attacker.
The resolution approved by the House Foreign Affairs Committee also put the lie to the malicious claims by the Palestinian Authority and its supporters that Israel is to blame for seeking to change the “status quo” on Har Habayit.
The resolution repeatedly refers to such claims as false. Secretary of State Kerry, on the other hand, has repeatedly suggested that Israel needs to clarify its position about the Temple Mount, as if Israeli authorities invited the PA to make the false claims by some wrongdoing.
The resolution also directs the Department of State to regularly monitor and publish information on all official PA incitement against Jews and Israel.
There were 57 co-sponsors of this resolution, 36 Republicans and 21 Democrats.
In addition to Deutch, the other Democratic co-sponsors are Reps. Alan Grayson (D-FL-09), Steve Israel (D-NY-03), Brendan Boyle (D-PA-13), Albio Sires (D-NJ-08), David Cicilline (D-RI-01), Lois Frankel (D-FL-22), Alcee Hastings (D-FL-20), Grace Meng (D-NY-06), Brad Sherman (D-CA-30), Juan Vargas (D-CA-51), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL-23), Brian Higgins (D-NY-26), Kathleen Rice (D-NY-04), Nita Lowey (D-NY-17), Karen Bass (D-CA-37), Eliot Engel (D-NY-16), Adam Schiff (D-CA-28), Bob Brady (D-PA-01), Ted Lieu (D-CA-33), Donald Norcross (D-NJ-1).
Not everyone was happy with the resolution calling for an end to anti-Israel incitement by the PA, however.
Americans for Peace Now was agitated by the lopsidedness of the blame. They found it particularly galling that the resolution condemns the PA for failing to include Israel on any of its maps because – get this – official Israeli maps do not include the state of Palestine on their maps.
Lara Friedman scorched the bipartisan anti-incitement resolution for APN:
They cite the issue of PA maps that do not show Israel, but ignore the fact that the Israeli government is guilty of the same offense, and to what appears to be a far greater and more systematic degree. Indeed, a quick scan of Israeli government ministry websites conducted on 6/5 finds that every single site examined that displays maps of Israel includes maps of this kind: The Israel Lands Authority; The Weather Service; The Israel Meteorological Service; the Tourism ministry (an “external site” accessed through the Israeli Government portal – see map of Israel with the Green Line erased here, page with links to the “Regions of Israel,” with the Palestinians erased and the West Bank broken down into several of these “regions of Israel,” here); the Ministry of Environmental Protection (which in addition to the Green Line-less map describes the Dead Sea – located mostly in the West Bank – as one of the three bodies of water bordering Israel); and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which compounds the map issue with text explicitly defining “Israel” to erase the Palestinians and any claims they may have – “The total area of the State of Israel is 8,630 sq. miles (22,145 sq.km.), of which 8,367 sq. miles (21,671 sq. km.) is land area. Israel is some 470 km. (290 miles) in length and about 85 miles (135 km.) across at the widest point. The country is bordered by Lebanon to the north, Syria to the northeast, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the southwest and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.”
Imagine that. No fictional state of Palestine on the official Israeli maps. Oh, also the resolution didn’t condemn Netanyahu for blame-shifting the Holocaust from Hitler to the mufti of Jerusalem.