Who are the True Friends of the Palestinians?

© David Burton 2015

     Arabs who live in or adjacent to the State of Israel have numerous supposed “friends” working on their behalf to “help” them in their efforts to lead free, independent, and self-sufficient lives. However, the unfortunate truth of the matter is that these supposed “friends” have managed to accomplish exactly the opposite result.

Palestinians Hurting Themselves

     Palestinians who murder Israeli civilians by driving their cars into crowded bus and light rail stops and who stab people on buses and in the street are usually killed or quickly apprehended. But their murderous rampages have consequences beyond the simple acts of killing and being killed. These heinous acts further isolate the Palestinian community from much needed income and work. “Because of the tensions created by the murders, Jews are not visiting Arab villages. ‘We want to see the Jews coming again and shopping with us’, say residents of the villages.” (Ref. 1) Once again, we have Arabs causing harm to their fellow Arabs. But the murderers don’t really care about their fellow Arabs. They are only interesting killing someone. They are only interested being killed themselves so they can garner crocodile tears and feigned sympathy from the anti-Semites and the useful idiots of the world. If their fellow Arabs suffer because of them, so much the better, because the suffering of their fellow Arabs will only elicit more sympathy. This is more commonly referred to as “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.” Palestinians and their Arab compatriots have acquired a martyrdom complex that requires them to always see themselves as the victim rather than the actual cause of their miseries.

     Gaza and the West Bank are economic basket cases that must depend upon handouts from the United States and the European Union to survive. Palestinian terrorism against Israel isolates both Gaza and the West Bank from the one country that can actually help them to achieve economic independence - and that one country is Israel. Each act of Palestinian terrorism further lessons the opportunities for work, trade, and mutually beneficial cooperation. Palestinian terrorism is simply self-destructive.

The Good Fence – The PLA and Hezbollah Prevent Israel from Helping the Lebanese

     The Jordanian Civil War, which began in September 1970 and ended in July of 1971, was fought between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) under the leadership of Yasser Arafat, and Jordan. The war ended with the expulsion of the PLO leadership and thousands of Palestinian fighters to southern Lebanon. This is known in the Arab world as “Black September”.

     Civil war began in Lebanon in 1975. The southern half of Lebanon had basically been left without any government after Yasser Arafat and his Palestine Liberation Organization settled there after being expelled from Jordan. In the state of chaos that prevailed in Lebanon during its long civil war, the 350,000 inhabitants of the southern region, most of them farmers, found themselves without government support or services.

     In the early 1970s, tension along the Israel-Lebanon border had increased, after the relocation of the PLO from Jordan to Lebanon. In March 1978, a PLO attack in Israel resulted in many dead and wounded among the Israeli population. In response, Israeli forces invaded Lebanon and occupied the entire southern part of the country except for the city of Tyre and its surrounding area.[2]

     In June 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon again, reaching and surrounding Beirut. Then, in 1985, Israel carried out a partial withdrawal, but it retained control of an area in southern Lebanon manned by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) and by Lebanese de facto forces (DFF), the so-called "South Lebanon Army" (SLA).[2]

     The “Blue Line” is the internationally recognized border between Israel and Lebanon. Israel built an electrified wire fence along this 49-mile border with Lebanon. Despite numerous minor violations of the border by the PLO and others, the area in northern Israel adjacent to Lebanon remained relatively calm.

     As part of a humanitarian policy toward the Lebanese civilians in southern Lebanon, Israel installed “a number of gates along the electronically controlled fence that separated the two countries. This policy, known as ‘the good fence policy,’ gave Lebanese citizens access to medical care and other services in Israel. Up until the end of the first Lebanon War, in 2000, the Good Fence was open, which was the only official border crossing between Israel and Lebanon.” (Ref. 2) Lebanese citizens could cross the border through the Good Fence to obtain work, receive medical attention, and transport goods back and forth.

     Israel unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon to the "blue line" in June 2000. Today, southern Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah, an acknowledged terrorist organization, which has conducted cross-border attacks and fired rockets into Israel. For this reason, the gates in the “Good Fence” are closed and Lebanese civilians have lost all access to goods and services in Israel. The Lebanese government has effectively lost control of the area and U.N. forces there are limited to observing and reporting violations of the truce agreement. Lebanese civilians are often caught in the crossfire between Hezbollah and Israel and Hezbollah is only too happy to exploit Lebanese civilian casualties for propaganda purposes. The innocent civilians living under Hezbollah control in southern continue to suffer as a result. Hezbollah may pose as the champion of the Palestinian and Lebanese people but it certainly has proven to be no friend to either.

Hamas and UNRWA Prevent Palestinians from Earning a Living

     Israel produces a lot of farm goods – both for domestic consumption and for export. Consequently, there is considerable demand for farm laborers. At one time, much of this agricultural labor was supplied by Arab and Palestinian workers, many from the West Bank and from Gaza. But, with the advent of Palestinian terror attacks against Israel’s civilian population, the use of potentially hostile Arabs and Palestinians was severely curtailed and, to a large extent, stopped. In their place, foreign farm workers have been brought to Israel to cultivate and produce its farm goods.

     In the case of a young Israeli farmer and his wife, who live a stone's throw from the wall that separates their village from the Gaza Strip, he used to hire hardworking Palestinians from Gaza to tend his tomatoes. “But since the escalation of terrorist attacks in recent years, the Palestinians cannot leave Gaza.” So now, even though unemployment in Gaza approaches 50 percent, he imports workers from Thailand, halfway around the world.[3]

     In 2005, when Israel pulled out from Gaza and turned its administration over to the Palestinians living there, “about 100,000 Gazans were allowed to cross the border daily” to earn a living from working on the Israeli side of the border. Today, farmers on the kibbutzim abutting Gaza wonder when they can replace Thai migrant workers with Palestinians from across the fence that separates them. ‘We have more in common,’ says one {of the farmers}.” (Ref. 4)

     So, because of the Hamas terrorists who rule Gaza, unemployed Arabs living there cannot cross the border into Israel to earn a living. While nearly 50% of the labor force in Gaza is unemployed, nearly all of the ones lucky enough to have jobs are employed by the Hamas-run government or by UNWRA, the UN relief agency that has kept Palestinians confined to refugee camps for the last 66 years. Again, because of Hamas, there is little indigenous industry in Gaza and hence no work in the private sector.Both Hamas and UNWRA bear full responsibility for creating the environment in which Gazans cannot obtain much needed employment just over the border in Israel.

     Such is case throughout Israel. Work that could be going to Palestinians to help them establish viable economies in Gaza and the West Bank is, instead, going to imported foreign guest workers. “. . . according to {Israel’s} Ministry of Agriculture, the vast majority of farm workers on all 270 of Israel’s kibbutzim are foreign guest workers.” (Ref. 5)

     “Most of Israel’s foreign farm workers come from Thailand, through an agreement between the Thai and Israeli governments that allows them to work in the agricultural sector for a maximum of five years. Once those five years are up, they return to Thailand, where the money they’ve earned in Israel goes far.
     “According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, foreign agricultural workers earn an average of $1,470 a month. In Thailand, according to the International Labour Organization, agricultural workers take home an average of $184 a month.” (Ref. 5)

     When one considers the death and misery that Hamas has brought upon the people of Gaza, the obliteration of much of the infrastructure there, the virtual destruction of Gaza’s economy resulting in its astronomical unemployment rate, and the brutal rule Hamas has imposed, there can be but one answer to the question: Are the Palestinian citizens of Gaza better off today under the rule of Hamas than they were some ten years earlier under the jurisdiction of Israel? And to any objective observer, the answer is emphatically that: the people of Gaza were much better off when Israel controlled the Gaza Strip then they are today under the tyrannical grip of Iranian-backed Hamas!

Terrorists Prevent Palestinians From Working in Israel

     And agriculture is not the only area where Palestinians are losing out on opportunities to earn a living in Israel. The Israeli government recently “approved plans to permit roughly 20,000 Chinese guest workers to come to Israel and work in construction” (Ref. 6)

     In 2014, “roughly 28,000 of Israel’s construction workers were Palestinian, and just 5,000 from China or Europe.” (Ref. 6) At that time, it was announced that a major security incident could endanger Israeli building. In 2015, there has been a spate of Palestinian knife attacks on Israelis and Palestinians driving cars into crowds, resulting in tightening of security throughout Israel. As a result, rRelatively high paying construction jobs and other work for Palestinians in Israel are becoming much harder to come by.

     While working for Jews and Israelis may be viewed as demeaning by the more uninformed and the Jew haters of the world, it is not so demeaning to the Palestinians who can find no work in the West Bank or in Gaza or who can earn better wages from Israelis than from Palestinian employers and who receive much better benefits from the Israelis.

     Indeed, working for a living can well be the first step to economic, political and social independence which is what is sorely needed by the Palestinians living in the West Bank and in Gaza. As Abraham Lincoln in a speech delivered in Kalamazoo, Michigan in 1856 said: “They think that men are always to remain laborers here – but there is no such class. The men who labored for another last year, this year labors for himself, and next year he will hire others to labor for him.” (Ref. 7)

BDS

     “A push to “boycott, divest and sanction” (BDS) Israeli companies has limited impact on the credit profile of Israel, yet it directly harms its intended beneficiaries, the Palestinians. [Emphasis mine] The BDS movement, including universities, pension funds and leaders of some Christian denominations (to the chagrin of many congregants), ignores economic data. And it coincides with a disturbing rise of violent anti-Semitism across Europe.
     “ ‘The impact of BDS is more psychological than real so far and has had no discernible impact on Israeli trade or the broader economy,’ {a} senior vice president at Moody’s Investors Service and Moody’s lead analyst for Israel . . . told Forbes. ‘That said, the sanctions do run the risk of hurting the Palestinian economy, which is much smaller and poorer than that of Israel, as seen in the case of SodaStream.’
     “While the broader Israeli economy is presently shielded from BDS, one victim is SodaStream, an Israeli company manufacturing DIY soda that shuttered a West Bank factory and moved it to southern Israel. “This cut hundreds of jobs for Palestinians that reportedly paid between three and five times the local prevailing wage. [Emphasis mine]
      - - -
     “The numbers speak for themselves: Israel (population 8.3 million) has GDP of $291 billion, the Palestinian Territories (population 4.1 million), $11.3 billion. In 2012, Israeli sales to the Palestinian Authority were $4.3 billion, about 5% of Israeli exports (excluding diamonds) less than 2% of Israeli GDP, according to the Bank of Israel. In 2012, Palestinian sales to Israel accounted for about 81% of Palestinian exports and less than a percentage point of Israeli GDP. Palestinian purchases from Israel were two-thirds of total Palestinian imports (or 27% of Palestinian GDP).
     “Such trade flow asymmetry shows Palestine needs Israel, economically speaking. Yet the BDS crowd would impair economic ties between these areas, despite evidence that trade between peoples lessens outbreak of war. BDS-ers want to obliterate the vast trade surplus Israel extends to Palestine and offer nothing in its place. [Emphasis mine]
     “It’s easy to cast digital stones from the comfort of a California dorm room or a posh British mansion. It’s difficult to gainfully employ some 110,000 Palestinians as Israel does, or build 16 industrial parks in the West Bank and East Jerusalem hosting 1,000 facilities where Jews and Arabs work shoulder-to-shoulder. [Emphasis mine]
     “Despite overheated BDS rhetoric about exploitation, last year the Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper hailed working conditions for Palestinians employed by Israelis in West Bank settlements. It also scolded Palestinians hiring other Palestinians for low wages with no benefits.
      - - -
     “. . . The BDS movement inflames rather than enlightens global dialogue around the peace process. Israel invests heavily in Palestine; the rest of the world doesn’t bother.” (Ref. 8)

     “On the surface, BDS calls for people, ministries, and businesses to boycott companies operating or based in the ‘West Bank’ (Judea and Samaria), divest from these and other international companies that operate there, and impose sanctions on these as well.
     “Their agenda is more, and unabashedly anti-Semitic.
      - - -
     “By not divesting in companies that provide support for the Palestinian Authority and the hate and terror they inspire, sanction, and fund, {BDS supporters are} guilty of blaming the victim, discrimination against Palestinians, and harming actual elements of coexistence and the well-being of the Arabs they claim to want to support against Israel's ‘occupation.’
     “The reality is that thousands of Palestinian Arabs work in Israeli communities and businesses, making good money and often benefits on par with Israeli standards that provide an excellent quality of life and foster coexistence.
      - - -
     “The truth is that what's needed is not to divest from companies in and operating in the ‘West Bank,’ but to invest more. . . .
     “While the world media portrays Israelis and Palestinian Arabs as unable to get along and live together, facts on the ground affirm the exact opposite. When {people} from overseas come to visit, they see—and are shocked—by this reality. But it's a fact.
     “That's not to say there are no shortage of Palestinian Arabs who don't want to get along, who want to kill and terrorize {Jews}, and delegitimize Israel at every turn. From the leaders of the Palestinian Authority, various terrorist groups, and Palestinian Arab media, that's the message that's delivered over and over, and encouraged. But the reality is different.
     “The PA has made it illegal for Palestinian Arabs to shop in Israeli stores or buy Israeli goods. But if you come to any of the major grocery stores {in Israel}, you'll hear Arabic spoken abundantly, and see Palestinian Arabs shopping and working right alongside Israeli Jews many of whom . . . are deemed ‘settlers and thus ‘obstacles to peace.’ There may not be love, and certainly there is no formal peace, but there is peaceful coexistence in abundance.
     “Barring actual peace, which seems distant and unattainable under current circumstances, what's necessary is not to boycott and divest, but to build and diversify. Israel—with abundant foreign support and investment—should proactively build and facilitate the creation of infrastructure that will create industry and jobs for Palestinian Arabs. It doesn't matter if the companies are Israeli or foreign, and it doesn't matter if the companies are located in Israeli controlled areas of the ‘West Bank.’ “ (Ref. 9)

     Rather than boycott, divest and sanction, people who genuinely care about the welfare of Palestinian Arabs need to counter the BDS fraud. Even symbolically, they need to encourage doing more business in the "West Bank", not less! Calling for a boycott may be fashionable, but everyday Palestinians are the people who are really getting hurt.

     Quite simply, the supporters of BDS don’t give a damn about the Palestinians who they are supposedly aiding. In truth, the BDS supporters are anti-Semites whose only objective is the elimination of the Jewish State of Israel. They are certainly no friends of the Palestinian people and the end result of the BDS movement is to eliminate high-paying jobs for Palestinian workers and to weaken the Palestinian economy.

UNRWA

     The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) was established some six plus decades ago to help Palestinian refugees. Since then, it has done just the opposite. UNRWA is perhaps the one organization in the entire world most responsible for preventing peace between Israel, the Palestinians and its Arab neighbors and UNRWA has done more than anyone else to keep the people it was founded to help in abject poverty, misery and despair.

     UNRWA has morphed into a huge UN bureaucratic machinery dedicated to keeping Palestinians in the camps it operates.

     “Unlike the millions of refugees around the world who are the concern of the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), only the Palestinians have their own dedicated UN agency. While other refugees (including Jewish refugees from Arab lands) are successfully integrated and absorbed into other countries, why do Palestinian refugees still exist over 60 years after Israel’s creation? . . .
     “UNRWA’s definition of the refugees to whom it devotes its time and attention are well beyond the original 900,000 Palestinian refugees who were identified in 1950. Today the number served is over 4.5 million. Why? Because UNRWA has defined its mission to serve the descendants of the original 900,000. This means grandchildren or even great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees are the focus of UNRWA’s attention in refugee camps located in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank and Gaza. (Some might ask: Why haven’t the Saudis, with all their oil money, contributed to finding homes for the great-grandparents, parents, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees over these 60 years?)” (Ref. 10)

     UNRWA has become a decidedly negative force in the quest to improve the status of the original Palestinian refugees and their descendants. It is also a major obstacle in the search for peace. Members of Hamas and other potential terrorists have been on the UNRWA payroll; Anti-Semitic and anti-Israel textbooks have been in use in UNRWA-sponsored schools; UNRWA spokespeople have issued anti-Israel statements.[10]

Arabs Helping Arabs

     Why is it that for the past 61 years, Palestinians have been trapped in UNRWA-run refugee camps? Perhaps what hurts the most for these refugees is the feeling that they have been forgotten by the world – and particularly by other Arabs.

     “ ‘Seven million Jews worry about the fate of Gilad Shalit, while 300 million Arabs couldn’t care less what happens to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians,’ said Walid Taha, who lives in the Shatila camp in Beirut.
     "In fact, the bulk of UNRWA’s funding comes from western donors with only a small proportion from the Arab states. [Emphasis mine]
      - - -
     “In 2001, Palestinians in Lebanon were stripped of the right to own property, or to pass on the property that they already owned to their children and banned from working as doctors, lawyers, pharmacists or in 20 other professions. Even the Palestinian refugee community in Jordan, historically the most welcoming Arab state, has reason to feel insecure in the face of official threats to revoke their citizenship. The systematic refusal of Arab governments to grant basic human rights to Palestinians who are born and die in their countries combined with periodic mass expulsions of entire Palestinian communities recalls the treatment of Jews in medieval Europe.
     “In addition, the Palestinian Authority has not been at the forefront in helping relocate the residents of refugee camps into permanent housing facilities.
     “Arabs have to share responsibility for the refugee issues since they rejected the 1947 partition plan and launched a war of destruction. Had they, like Israel, accepted the partition, there would have been no war and no refugees.” (Ref. 10)

     The facts clearly demonstrate that their fellow Arabs are not true friends of the Palestinians. Arab countries for more than 60 years have refused to accept Palestinian immigrants, have refused to grant Palestinians refugee status, have forced the Palestinians to remain in limbo in squalid refugee camps, and have failed to support the refugees financially. What these Arab countries, along with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Authority, have done is to make the Palestinians pawns in their efforts to destroy Israel and to kill Jews. Destroying Israel and killing Jews takes precedence over Arabs helping their fellow Arabs! The Arab nations are no friends of the Palestinians.

Hamas Helps Keep Gaza in the Dark

     Almost all of the electricity for the West Bank’s 2.5 million Palestinians comes from Israel.

     Gaza needs 350- 450 megawatts pf electrical energy per year. The Israel Electricity Company provides about 120 megawatts, Egypt 20 megawatts, and Gaza’s own power station (which is supposed to provide 140 megawatts) produces an additional 80 megawatts per year. That leaves a shortfall of 130 to 230 megawatts per year. Consequently, most Gazans have gotten used to electricity blackouts of up to 12 hours per day.[11]

     The Hamas-run government in the Gaza Strip cannot generate enough power on its own and over the years has had to import electrical power from both Israel and Egypt.

     “Literally biting the hand that feeds it, Hamas persistently aims at the very Ashkelon power plant upon which Gaza depends for its electricity. . . .
      - - -
     “Despite the 2005 disengagement, Israel has not been able to fully disengage from Gaza. Thus while Hamas lobs rockets indiscriminately at Israeli civilians in nearly every corner of the country, Israel continues to supply the Strip not only with electricity but also water, foodstuffs, medications, and more.” (Ref. 12)

     In march of 2013, a Grad rocket was fired from Gaza at the Ashkelon power plant in Israel.[13] The Ashkelon power station supplies electrical power to Gaza. In July of 2014, a Hamas rocket aimed at Israel hit the power line that supplies electricity to Gaza. 70,000 Gazans from Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah were in the dark after the Hamas rocket hit the power line that supplies electricity to those places.[14]

     Despite the rockets fired into Israel from Gaza and in spite of the subsequent fighting between Hama and Israel in Gaza, Israel continued to supply electricity and water to the Palestinians living there. Israel’s water and power plants were sometimes hit by the rockets fired by Hamas from within the Gaza Strip, cutting power to thousands in Gaza.[15]

     Recently, Egypt cut electric power to Gaza because of failure of the Hamas-run government in Gaza to pay its electric bills with Egypt. Noting Israel’s role in providing electric power to Gaza, one resident said, "Even when we had the war with the Zionists, they did not cut off our power supply and water like el-Sissi the criminal." (Ref. 16)

     Hamas finds money to pay for the rockets it launches into Israel; it has funds to finance the construction of tunnels into Israel and Egypt, it has the money to pay the terrorists that attack Israelis and Egyptians – but it can’t find the money to pay for the electricity it imports or to pay for improving the power generation capacity in Gaza or to improve the electricity transmission infrastructure there. On top of that, it fires rockets at the power stations and water treatment plants in Israel that supply electricity and water to the Palestinians living in Gaza. Again, Killing Jews and attacking Israel takes precedence over bettering the the lives of people Hamas rules. Besides, if water and electricity are cut off in Gaza, Hamas can call for sympathy for the poor suffering people there.

     Hamas has no concern for the people it rules. It keeps them in poverty; it prevents them from obtaining work in Israel; it keeps them from having adequate and reliable supplies of water and electricity; Hamas wants the people of Gaza to suffer so Hamas call solicit more funds and sympathy for its tyranny, terror and oppression. Hamas is definitely no friend of the Palestinian people that it controls.

Who Keeps the Water Running?

     “Israel is in full compliance with the terms for water use and supply as outlined in the Oslo II peace process and delineated in the Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement. In fact, Israel provides 30 percent more water to the Palestinians than required, with the total amount of water available to them exceeding agreed-upon terms. [Emphasis mine]
     “When Israel first gained control of the West Bank in 1967, just four of the 708 Palestinian towns and villages could access running water. Now, 641 of those areas – and more than 96 percent of the Palestinian population – have access to running water. Israel’s network of pipes boosted water supply for Palestinians from 64 million cubic meters (MCM) per year to 120 MCM per year. Despite Palestinian claims, there is almost no difference in the amount of water Israelis and Palestinians use. As of 2012, per capita water use is 150 MCM for Israelis and 140 MCM for Palestinians.
     “The Palestinians have mismanaged their water supply, with water losses in the Palestinian network amounting to 33 percent of total water resources. The Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) has failed to upgrade its system and use resources provided to them, ranging from wells authorized by Israel to international assistance.
     “The PWA also has failed to construct enough water treatment facilities; as a result, 63 percent of its wastewater flows untreated into streams and the West Bank countryside. The wastewater could be treated and reused for agricultural purposes to free up fresh water supplies for human consumption, as done in Israel.
     “Despite international donations for this purpose, the PWA is not moving forward on its water treatment projects. Instead, it allows the continuation of a system in which the untreated effluent pollutes the environment and contaminates the wells and aquifers of the West Bank.
     “The PWA fails to treat 94 percent of the wastewater produced by Palestinian towns and village; by comparison, Israel recycles about 75 percent {it’s now up to 85%} of its wastewater, primarily for agricultural uses. (Ref. 17)

     Meanwhile, despite the attacks launched against Israel from the Gaza Strip, Israel's national water company, Mekorot, “recently doubled its water supply to the Gaza Strip by 5 million cubic meters. The annual supply will now amount to 10 million cubic meters of water.
      - - -
     “Mekorot's Vice President of Engineering . . . said ‘Several years ago we laid the line near the fence on purpose in order to give the Palestinians the increment. With the rise of Hamas contact was cut off and only recently have conditions become ripe to supply them the water.
     ". . . ‘Thanks to our desalination plants along the coast, there is no lack of water in the country. There is no problem transferring water, the only limitation is the means of water supply. Moreover, we intend to enlarge the water lines to the Palestinian Authority in order to increase the supply’ . . .
      - - -
     "In 2014 Mekorot {also} provided 57 million cubic meters of water to the Palestinians in the West Bank from the mountain aquifer, the main part of which is in Israeli territory.
     “. . . The amount of water that Israel committed to transferring to the Palestinian Authority within the framework of a water agreement signed in Washington in 1995, as part of the Oslo Accords, was about 30 million cubic meters per year.
     “Over the years, the quantity of water supplied by Mekorot increased far beyond the amount agreed upon. Over the last five years, over 52 million cubic meters of water were annually supplied to the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and 5 million cubic meters of water were annually supplied to the Gaza Strip, nearly twice the agreed-upon amount. [Emphasis mine]
     "The amount of water provided to the Palestinian Authority from Israel's national water system and its quality are among the highest in the world, in accordance with international standards. Moreover, Israel transfers, via Mekorot, 55 million cubic meters of water annually to Jordan.” (Ref. 18)

     Based upon all the facts presented above, who are the true friends of the Palestinians? The murdering terrorists in their midst? Hamas? Hezbollah? UNRWA? The PA? The PLO? Fatah? The Arab countries in which their Arab brothers reside? The proponents of BDS? The anti-Semites of the world? The useful idiots of the world? Or Israel?

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