In an almost desperate bid to counter the new historical trend, pro-Palestinian elements recently attempted to change direction and bring the Palestinian issue back to the agenda, through what they referred to as " Land Day." But they failed. 
For dozens of years, Arab regimes dealt with Israel and the Palestinians artificially, in order to hide what went on in their own countries and divert the attention of the Arab masses outwardly. Yet today there is no longer a need for this, as the Arab world's real problems have emerged in force.
| Hebron Dispute |
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| Arab racism prevents peace /Giulio Meotti |
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Op-ed: Hebron house dispute highlights Arab desire for Middle East free of any Jewish presence
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And so, from being a major issue, and possibly the main issue, the Palestinians were pushed down to the bottom of the priority list; their Land Day did not receive any substantial coverage, neither in the Arab world nor in the Western world.
Today, when the Muslim Middle East is disintegrating into religions, ethnic groups, minorities and distinct regions, when the slaughter in Syria is merely intensifying (the number of fatalities is already nearing 10,000,) when Libya's militias are killing each other, Yemen is crumbling and Egypt is facing deep trouble, it turns out that relatively speaking, the Palestinian issue is the most stable in the Mideast.
Truth be told, that was always the case, yet for self-interested reasons the situation was distorted by various elements.
The Palestinians encountered another grave calamity: Israel's public opinion lost interest in them. For dozens of years, Israel's leftist camp turned the Palestinians into its defining issue. Yet suddenly the Left discovered that Israel moved on and that the issue is no longer on its agenda. When the Left also discovered that the Palestinians have no interest in peace or negotiations, just like Syria's Assad, it replaced the Palestinian agenda with a new one, premised on social issues like cottage cheese and the tent protest.
As those behind Palestinian moves over the years were almost always Israeli or Jewish, once they moved on to another issue there was no longer anyone who could do the work for the Palestinians. The Shalit deal killed any remaining traces of interest in the Palestinian issue. Rockets from Gaza didn't change matters and neither did claims about a Gaza "blockade," as there is no such blockade. Gaza is in fact prospering after connecting to Egypt, but not to Ramallah.
On top of this comes an international doubt: did the Palestinian issue justify such great attention all these years? When a US presidential candidate asserts that there is no such thing as a Palestinian people, many things that appeared solid and absolute no longer seem that way.
Instead of wooing Western policy-makers, the Palestinians' dual leadership chose to barricade itself via unilateral steps doomed for failure, such as the bid to force a new reality through the UN. As result of this, the Palestinian Authority lost much of its credibility in the West, while the embarrassing courting of Hamas, defined as a terror group, did not grant the PA much extra credit.
The Palestinians were also stunned to discover that despite the so-called "Arab Spring," the Arab regimes have not changed much from the previous ones as far as matters pertaining to the Palestinians are concerned. Land Day proved that the regimes in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt, as well as Hezbollah, are unwilling to mess with Israel because of the Palestinians. On top of this come the domestic Palestinian divisions, which cannot be healed.
However, another fact emerged on Land Day: The Palestinian Authority and Hamas regimes are also uninterested in a major flare-up, for fear that this will ultimately come at their own expense and spread against unpopular leaderships. Moreover, Israel is too strong and has much experience with facing crises and protests.
All these developments require the Palestinians – both regimes and societies – to engage in self-reflection, yet such phenomenon of self-reflection and correction happens to characterize Israeli society, rather than Palestinian society. As was the case in the last dozens of years, the Palestinian public will continue to follow its leaders, who lead it, one generation after another, to defeats and failures.
Arab racism prevents peace
Op-ed: Hebron house dispute highlights Arab desire for Middle East free of any Jewish presence
Giulio Meotti
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The invisible headlines go beyond the settlers who bought a housenear Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs. The real story is not abouthome ownership; rather, it's at the very core of the Mideastern conflict.
While Israel is not “Arabrein” (Jewish citizens live with their fellow Arab citizens and neither they nor anyone else suggests they are “an obstacle to peace”), a Nazi-like ideology sees the entire State of Israel as an alien presence among Islamic nations, an undesirable island in an Arab sea that must ultimately be submerged.
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| Palestinians deny sale of Machpelah house / Elior Levy |
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Palestinian family who lived in contested Hebron property says it never sold it to anyone; settlers forged ownership papers
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This is the real apartheid, which is supported by the West and which emerges from President Barack Obama’s de-legitimization of Jerusalem’s post-1967 neighborhoods.
The concept of removing a religious or ethnic community from a certain region brings back the worst memories of World War II, yet has become mainstream when it is applied to a part of the land of Israel. The scandal is epitomized by the fate of the Arabs who sold houses and land to the Jews. By now, dozens of Arabs have been murdered for selling their homes to Jews.
In 1995, the Palestinian Legislative council voted unanimously in favor of the death sentence. The law was endorsed by the PA on the basis of a Jordanian law that had been in effect until the eve of the Six-Day War in 1967. The PA's mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ikremah Sabri, and the Palestinian chief Islamic judge, Sheikh Tayseer Tamimi, issued religious decrees authorizing the killing of Arabs who sell property to Jews and forbidding Muslims from burying them in Islamic cemeteries.
Not even Nazi Germany in the 1930s knew this level of anti-Jewish pathology.
In that sense, Hebron is a test: The only Palestinian city with a Jewish presence in its midst. It is a safe bet that the ordinary Israeli population will say that given a choice between a Jewish presence in Hebron and peace, they would, with little hesitation, choose the latter. But all the news from Hebron provide proof that no such choice exists. It’s an illusion.
The simple fact is that the Arabs consider everything in and around Hebron, as indeed they do everything in the land of Israel, to be sacred Muslim land. Jews had lived in Hebron as “dhimmis,” second-class residents, forbidden to pray in the Cave and humiliatingly confined to the seventh step leading into the building.
In December 2010, PA President Mahmoud Abbas said that “I will never allow a single Israeli to live among us on Palestinian land.” Such a state would be the first to prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany.
This obsessive logic just drew Abbas to honor with a medal veteran White House Correspondent Helen Thomas, who has provoked a storm in the US after saying the Jews must “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Germany or Poland. However, this is racism that goes well beyond the Palestinians.
 Laws hampering Jewish life in Arab countries are the customary condition, not the exception. Saudi Arabia doesn’t even permit Jewish visitors, let alone Jewish foreign employees. As a matter of policy, the Jordanians do not permit Jews to be domiciled in their country. This racist view, found Arab textbooks and taught in the schools of all Arab nations, is the ultimate bar to real peace in the area, not the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.
In 1942, the Nazis gathered in a villa outside Berlin and adopted the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question.” Back then, anti-Semites wanted to make the world “Judenrein" - Free of Jews. In 2012, anti-Semites want to make the world “Judenstaatrein” - Free of a Jewish state.
Giulio Meotti, a journalist with Il Foglio, is the author of the book A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel's Victims of Terrorism
Palestinians deny sale of Machpelah house
Palestinian family who lived in contested Hebron property says it never sold it to anyone; settlers forged ownership papers
Elior Levy
The Palestinian family who claims to be the rightful owners of theMachpelah house in Hebron told Ynet Tuesday that the house was never sold to anyone – Jewish or otherwise.
On Tuesday afternoon the premises became the scene of a standoff between security forces and the settlers who have taken up residents on the property.
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The Civil Administration had ordered the evacuation of the house by 3 pm, but the settlers have yet to leave. Still, the Palestinian family expressed confidence that they will be evicted.
Hazem Abu Rajab, whose family claims to have lived in the house until the settlers moved in, told Ynet that "They came into the house at 1:30 am, accompanied by the military and the police.
"They broke all three doors to get in. We were asleep. We asked the police to let us take some personal items, but they said no and told us to leave. They said we could file a complaint."
Rajab added that the property was in the name of Ibrahim Abu Rajab and that 120 family members have a stake in the property.
At the time when they were evicted by the settlers, 25 family members were living in the house, he said.
Rajab stressed that the family never sold the house and that he has never met the man the settlers claim sold them the house; adding that the papers the settlers have are forged.
Attorney Samar Shehade, who represents the family, reiterated that sale's denial, saying that none of the house's legal owners were ever approached about a sale.
He too said that the settlers' papers were forgeries: "This house is no different than any other home invaded by the settlers in Hebron… I'm confident that there was never any deal and that we will be able to evict them."
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