Muslims complain that Kotel blessing ceremony is too loud

On Monday, thousands of Jews went to the Western Wall for the annual Passover blessing by Kohanim.

Palestine Times complained that the sounds were loud enough to be heard at the Al Aqsa Mosque where it caused "confusion" among worshippers during their daily noon prayers.

Yes, the people who use ear-splitting loudspeakers day and night to call people to prayer or to broadcast their services - without the least regard for any non-Muslims - are bothered that a couple of times a year they hear some Jews making a blessing.

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Mahmoud Abbas says Israel politicizes religion - during his Christmas message

Mahmoud Abbas issued his annual Christmas message yesterday. As he always does, he hijacked what should be a message of peace into an anti-Israel screed.

Here's the introduction:

It is a divine blessing that this year we are coincidentally celebrating the birth of Jesus and the birth of Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon them, for the first time in centuries. On this day, billions around the world celebrate the birth of two great messengers of love, hope, justice and peace.

Jesus is a symbol for all Palestinians. Palestine and its people take pride in being the birthplace of Christianity and having the oldest Christian community in the world.

Christmas is a message of hope which should prevail even during the difficult times that our nation, and the world, are facing. In Bethlehem this year, Palestinians will celebrate Christmas surrounded by eighteen illegal settlements and an annexation wall, which are taking over their land. Over the past few months, we have seen how the Israeli government has continued to consolidate an Apartheid regime by accelerating policies which destroy the two-state solution. And yet, Palestinians continue to defy the daily oppression imposed by their occupier with steadfastness and love for their country.

Those stabbers are acting out of love!

Throughout the speech, Abbas relentlessly focuses on the anti-Israel theme. He praised churches that practice BDS. He pretends to speak on behalf of the dwindling Christian population to slam Israeli defensive actions near Bethlehem.

But at the end of a speech that is nothing less than hijacking Christmas to slander Israel, he says, "The use of any religion for political purposes is absolutely unacceptable and must be fought."

Except, of course, by Palestinian Arabs.

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The silence of Jeremy Ben Ami

J-Street never tires of claiming to be supportive of a two-state solution, a position that it falsely claims is not the position of American Zionist organizations.

On Friday, I posted a video showing that a speaker at the recent J-Street conference, during a panel discussion on the future of liberal Zionism, advocated for the ending of the Jewish state and instead saying that Jews should be a "protected minority" in their homeland.



The speaker, former MK Marcia Freedman, is a member of J-Street's advisory panel.

The moderator of the panel, J Street co-founder Daniel Levy, did not challenge Freedman for advocating what is in complete opposition to what J-Street claims its position is. None of the other panelists showed any anger at the idea of the destruction of Israel that Freedman was pushing.

Since then, over 12,000 people have viewed the video - far more people than attended the conference itself. Despite repeated tweets to J-Street leaders or other panelists like Peter Beinart, not one has distanced themselves from Freedman's statements. (J-Street's synopsis of the panel skips Freedman's participation altogether.)

For every statement made by real Zionists to defend Israel - whether it is from terror or Iran - J-Street has forcefully come out in opposition. But J-Street's media machine does not seem to spend any time defending Israel's existence from attacks by people like Freedman or groups like "Jewish Voice for Peace."

Why not?

Perhaps it is because J-Street's commitment to Israel's existence is far more tenuous than they pretend when they do their fundraising and lobbying. After all, this same Daniel Levy who moderated the panel is on the record as saying that if Arab states refuse to accept Israel, "then Israel really ain't a very good idea." Which sounds a lot like Marcia Freedman.

J-Street complains loudly that it is not being accepted by mainstream Jewish and Zionist organizations. This episode is one good example of why that is. J-Street, despite claiming to be pro-Israel, has yet to defend Israel's position against those that want to see it destroyed - even within its own conference. I have shown that founder Jeremy Ben-Ami's Twitter timeline has not once defended Israel's existence against attacks from its left.

Which means that its "pro-Israel" stance is really a cover for its truly anti-Israel message.

Over the past couple of months, we've heard more praise of Israel from the EU than from J-Street. That ought to tell you something.

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Arab writer justifies Palestinian terrorism as mere "anti-colonialist counter-discourse"

Sometimes, pseudo-intellectual haters of Israel use their pretentiousness to justify the most heinous crimes.

Introducing Rana Baker.

Baker writes regularly for Electronic Intifada, and she has also written for The Guardian. When the three Israeli teens were abducted, she gloated.

This article by Baker is in Open Democracy:

I wonder whether, when the settler-colonial army of Israel is pounding Gaza, Palestinians should grab guitars, pianos, and white ribbons, look up at their oppressors flying over their heads in apaches and F16s, and sing a lullaby of peace. Perhaps, then, we can impress Middle East "experts" and "non-violent resistance" -mind you, I am using the V word- butterflies. I wonder, moreover, what authority, defined by what experience, entitles these experts and butterflies to ask us, the Palestinians, to put down our arms. Nonsense.

...Resistance rockets fired from the Gaza Strip provide a necessary counter-discourse. The Israeli Jewish public must understand that there shall be no security so long as they do not turn their anger and frustration at their very supremacist privilege and ideological system which is embodied in the Israeli government, left-wing, centrist, or right-wing. No one is asking them to leave, but they must accept Palestinian resistance insofar as they accept the arrogance which characterises the Zionist ideology. The radical potential of Palestinian rockets, of sirens going off, lies in these rockets' ability to disrupt a system of privilege which Israeli Jews enjoy at the expense of colonised and displaced Palestinians. Rockets, in other words, are a radical declaration of existence and unmediated expression of self-determination.

...Israel was born in May 1948 after a mass wave of ethnic cleansing which led to the expulsion of more than half the native Palestinian population. This is the aggression to which every Palestinian rocket, demonstration, and burned tire, is a response. Until Palestine is liberated, and by Palestine I mean historical Palestine, Palestinian resistance cannot be expected to wane. To be clear, Palestinians fire rockets into what belongs to them in the first place.

There is a lot more nonsense in the article, but this is enough to demonstrate the lengths some people will go to in order to justify the rabid antisemitism that the Arab world has towards Jews - which is the real root cause of the conflict.

To perverts like Baker, terrorism is moral, and the only self-determination that means anything is that of a newly-minted people whose existence is impossible to find in any literature that is over a century old. Jews, of course, aren't a people at all.

Baker's invocation of "historic Palestine," whose borders were drawn by her hated colonial powers, proves as well as anything that she is not really interested in justice or self-determination - she's interested in only the land that happens to be controlled by Jews. The complete silence of these supposed ideologues regarding any part of Transjordan is all the proof you need that their agenda isn't as pure as they pretend.

But this essay is more than just about Baker's hypocrisy.

Rana Baker is creating and pushing her own, new model of morality, where Palestinians - and only Palestinians - do not have to adhere to any laws, ethics or standards.  

Once you justify terror rockets in whatever bizarre and disgusting worldview you have, you justify everything. Arabs can rape Israeli Jewish women for the cause. Gazans can strap bombs to newborn babies and throw them over the fence. Hamas is allowed to place Arab women and children in mortal danger in the hope that Israel will be blamed. (Oh, right, they already do that.)

This is the perverted moral universe that Rana Baker is advocating.

Not surprisingly, it is the exact same moral universe that Hamas and Islamic Jihad operate in. Just they use the Koran to come up with their justification, and Baker uses a twisted concept of liberal values like "self-determination" and "anti-colonialism." It doesn't matter - because the justification isn't improtant, only th results are. And both Baker and Hamas want a lot of dead Jews.

If Jews who believe that the land belongs to them would adopt Baker's mindset, then flattening Gaza is not only allowed, but morally necessary. Israel's morals interfere with Baker's morals? Well, too bad, she made the rules. Now that anyone can do anything they want if they consider themselves oppressed, we can dispense with such irritating constructs as international law or the laws of armed conflict or The Golden Rule. Baker justifies living in a post-moral world.

Not that she would admit that. She believes that her cause is unique and only Palestinians can act in any manner they choose in order to take away Jewish human rights.  She is advocating a form of Palestinian supremacy, where the rules that apply to the rest of the world do not apply to Palestinians, and anything goes.

If a Zionist Jew would write essays using the exact same language justifying terror against Palestinian Arab civilians as a necessary part of  their right to self-determination, he or she would (rightly) be called racists, while Baker's paean to the beauty of terrorism is considered merely "anti-colonialist." You see, after decades of Palestinians believing that they do have a unique set of rules that apply only to them, many in the world actually start to believe it.

Isn't that interesting?

Consistency in rhetoric isn't important to Baker and her ilk, except for in a single, narrow dimension. The only moral or rhetorical consistency for people like Baker is that, to them, the existence of Jews maintaining anything other than their natural status of dhimmis is unnatural and must be fought, with whatever means is necessary: rockets, suicide bombs, nuclear weapons, or tendentious essays that give the Jew-haters a means to justify their sickening immorality. As one cheerleading commenter writes:

Rana, I wonder if you realise what brilliant piece you just penned down. As Arundhati Roy wrote " Gandhi get your gun" in Walking With The Comrades I say keep those rockets from Gaza coming and let the siren echo in every stolen corner, square, street, park and home.

Baker provides the veneer of intellectualism to justify terror for those who are still uncomfortable with the concept.  The murderous rampages in Paris and Frankfurt are a natural result of the sickening supremacist of Rana Baker - because if proudly targeting civilians is a moral obligation, then so is attacking Jews wherever they might be.

What is scary is that so many so-called "progressives" would never think about calling Baker what she is: a disgusting cheerleader for murder.

(h/t Geuzen1)

UPDATE: I forgot that I fisked her before.

UPDATE 2: Best comment on the thread at Open Democracy from Podein: (h/t Alexi)

If rockets are the way Palestinians engage in discourse, then Apaches, gunships and assassinations are simply the way Israelis correct their grammar.

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Amnesty's false charge of "collective punishment"

An EoZ reader wrote to Amnesty International about their characterization of Israeli actions in Hebron as being "collective punishment" as well as asking if they condemn the kidnapping of Israeli civilians.

Here was their answer:

Dear Sir/Madam,

International humanitarian law and human rights law applies to all civilians - Israeli and Palestinian.

Our statement makes clear that the abducted teenagers must be released - the abduction of civilians and the taking of hostages is prohibited by international law at all times (Article 34 of the Fourth Geneva Convention).

The statement also goes into detail on how Israel is breaking Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention by carrying out collective punishment, including:

• - the imposition of a complete closure on the Hebron district of the West Bank, which prevents some 680,000 Palestinians from moving between villages and the city of Hebron, as well as within the city.
• - thousands of residents of the Hebron district who have permits to work inside Israel or in Israeli settlements cannot reach their places of employment.
• - residents of the Hebron district under the age of 50 have also been prevented from leaving the West Bank via the Allenby Crossing to Jordan.
• - the Israel Prison Service has cancelled family visits for Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
• - the Israeli authorities are also considering transferring Hamas officials or prisoners who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip. The Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting people from an occupied territory.
• - the Israeli authorities have also closed the Erez Crossing, the only crossing for people between the Gaza Strip and Israel, to the limited categories of people who have permits to use it, except for patients needing urgent medical assistance. The Kerem Shalom Crossing, the only entry point for goods, has also been closed except for the transfer of limited amounts of fuel.

Regards,
Gordon Bennett

Supporter Care Team
Amnesty International UK

I asked a couple of lawyers to respond.

Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor quoted the major text in the field, Yoram Dinstein's "The International Law of Belligerent Occupation." He writes:

363. The issue of collective penalties also came up before the Court, in the Shua case, in the setting of a prolonged night curfew imposed on the Gaza Strip for a cumulative period of two years."' The Court (per Justice G. Bach) conceded that, ordinarily, such a protracted curfew might appear to amount to an improper collective penalty; but it reached the conclusion that this was not so in the present instance, given the special circumstances of the intifada." The ruling was confirmed by the Court (per Justice I. Zamir) in the Sruzberg case.'

364. Evidently, a drawn-out night curfew seriously upsets the life of the civilian population in an occupied territory. The legality of a curfew therefore depends on its purpose in the concrete circumstances. The real aim of the military government, in imposing the measure, is liable to contravene the Geneva prohibition of collective penalties in an occupied territory." Yet, as long as a curfew is directly associated with the exigencies of a specific security situation, there is nothing legally wrong with it.

Another lawyer replied:

Since the best information Israel has indicates that the hostage-takers are members of a cell of the Hamas terrorist organization operating in Hebron and that the terrorists took their hostages to Hebron, it is obviously a vital security measure to restrict movement in and out of Hebron until the hostage-takers and their accomplices are apprehended and the hostages safely released from captivity. The measure is not intended as punishment, and Israel has explicitly and repeatedly said so. Amnesty International is claiming the power to read minds and insisting that it detects an evil intent in order to transform legitimate security measures into “punishment.” Or does Amnesty International have evidence to show that the measures are not related to apprehending terrorists or recovering the hostages?

There’s almost nothing to be found defining the prohibition.

In my opinion, collective punishment is criminal or quasi-criminal punishment of the innocent (e.g., convicting someone of the “crime” of being related to a war criminal), especially actions against civilians that would be war crimes in any event (like Nazis rounding up villagers and shooting them as punishment for someone else’s resistance). Here are the only two cases that appear in the ICRC manual on customary law: Nazis killing hundreds of civilians in response to partisan attack on German army; and a US officer who ordered the My Lai massacre (summary execution of Vietnamese civilians as reprisal for killings carried out by North Vietnamese combatants). The rest is opinions outside of legal proceedings, or prohibitions without definitions.

The ICRC manual section is entitled “Individual Criminal Responsibility and Collective Punishments.”

In all cases, the intent is key – if the measure is not intended as punishment/penalty/disciplinary measure but as something else (e.g., securing an area), it is not collective punishment.

This second lawyer also notes Amnesty's inconsistency on their fifth point (which has nothing to do with "collective punishment"):

Amnesty says that Israeli authorities are considering transferring Hamas officials or prisoners who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip, and that this would be forbidden since the Fourth Geneva Convention explicitly prohibits an occupying power from forcibly transferring or deporting people from an occupied territory.

However, Amnesty International also claims that Gaza is currently belligerently occupied by Israel. If that is the case, transferring Hamas officials who are residents of the West Bank to the Gaza Strip is simply a reassignment of residence of persons within occupied territory that is explicitly permitted by article 78 of the Geneva Convention. In any event, transfer to Gaza could not possibly be a "deportation" from occupied territory.

Is Amnesty International now finally admitting that the Gaza Strip is not belligerently occupied by Israel?

(h/t Mike)

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Why HRW is racist: it condemns Sharon in death, ignores Phalangists, supports Dieudonné

Human Rights Watch remains as disgusting as ever.

As Ariel Sharon died after his long illness, HRW is very sad. Not about his death, of course:

Ariel Sharon died without facing justice for his role in the massacres of hundreds and perhaps thousands of civilians by Lebanese militias in the Sabra and Shatilla refugee camps in Lebanon in 1982. The killings constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Sharon also escaped accountability for other alleged abuses, such as his role expanding settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, prosecutable as a war crime. Sharon ordered the removal of all Israeli settlers from the Gaza Strip and from four West Bank settlements in 2005, but the overall number of settlers in occupied territory increased significantly during his term as prime minister.

“It’s a shame that Sharon has gone to his grave without facing justice for his role in Sabra and Shatilla and other abuses,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “His passing is another grim reminder that years of virtual impunity for rights abuses have done nothing to bring Israeli-Palestinian peace any closer.”

As far as I can tell, HRW has never written an article like this about the death of any other person. Not Osama bin Laden, not Moammar Qaddafi, not Saddam Hussein. Only Ariel Sharon gets treated this way.

Now, if you do a search through HRW's archives of the word "Phalangist" (or "Keta'eb," which is the current name of that group in Lebanon, still an active political party) you will not find a single condemnation of their massacres in Sabra and Shalita. Every single time they are mentioned it is in context of - Ariel Sharon.

To HRW, the people who actually slaughter human beings and mutilate pregnant women are blameless. They are not worthy of any calls to investigation, there is no reason to seek justice from them.

How can this be? How can Human Rights Watch ignore the perpetrators of the crime and give the lion's share of responsibility to someone who, while he should have anticipated and stopped the crime, was not either its planner nor executor?

The answer is very simple, and it betrays the racism of Human Rights Watch and many other such groups, media and politicians:

Middle Easterners are expected to be savages. Arabs and Maronite Christians, in HRW's world, are animals. They have no free will - their actions are disgusting but inevitable, a consequence of their subhuman natures.

Jews, on the other hand, must act like human beings. They must prevent two sets of animals under their control from killing each other.  Indeed, this is how human beings should act, and Sharon was correctly slammed by Israeli commissions for his not being proactive in stopping what was almost inevitable.

Human Rights Watch, however, only blames Sharon. The esteemed organization cannot be bothered to condemn Maronites or Arabs for acting like this - that is their nature. This is pure racism.

Sabra and Shatila would not exist on the website of Human Rights Watch if it wasn't for Ariel Sharon. In fact, Lebanon saw much worse massacres in recent decades- even against Palestinian civilians - and HRW has not a word to say about those massacres. Only if a Jew can be blamed is it worth being brought up.

Another angle: Sharon forcibly expelled thousands of people from their homes in Gaza and the West Bank. This would seem to be against the Geneva Conventions. The ICRC interprets international law this way: "Individual or mass forcible transfers...are prohibited, regardless of their motive." But they were Jews, so HRW has nothing bad to say about that. Jews in the territories are the only group of people in the world that HRW insists should be forcibly removed from their homes. There is a double standard clear to all: international law must be twisted to ensure that Jews, the indigenous people of ancient Israel and Judah, are always violators of law while Arabs who invaded or moved in millenia later are nearly blameless in their actions.

To put the icing on the HRW anti-semitism cake, they also wrote this about antisemitic French "comedian" Dieudonné:

France made the wrong decision when it banned controversial comedian Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala, known for appallingly and insultingly mocking the Holocaust, from performing a number of his stand-up shows.

The government’s representative in Nantes banned a show scheduled for Thursday, on grounds of threats to public order. On the day of the show, one of the city’s courts overturned the ban. But Minister of the Interior Manuel Valls, who has spoken out openly and strongly against Dieudonné, appealed to France’s highest administrative court, the Conseil d’Etat, which later in the day upheld the ban.

On Friday, another court upheld the ban on another show by Dieudonné that was to take place in Tours in the evening. Welcoming the ruling by the Conseil d’Etat, Valls said that “The Republic has won”.

Yet a country’s dedication to human rights and democratic values is measured in the way it treats those with whom it disagrees, and in this instance, France has failed that test. France should respect freedom of expression, including those opinions that shock, offend, or disturb – unless they amount to inciting violence. Any restrictions to this freedom must be necessary and proportionate, and banning Dieudonné shows is neither. If there are indeed threats to public order, authorities should deploy enough police officers to deter violence, not ban the show altogether.

Please, HRW, explain how making fun of the Holocaust and Jews is anything less than incitement. How does creating an environment where Jews being gassed and burned is a subject of mockery make it a safer country for Jews to live in? There is a reason that record numbers of French Jews moved to Israel this year, but, hey, HRW probably considers that a war crime as well.

And, of course, Arab media regularly has much more open incitement against Jews, as I have documented countless times. Yet to this day, HRW has never said a word against Arab antisemiticm and incitement to kill Jews.

HRW has a halo effect as being one of the most prestigious human rights organizations. And in some parts of the world, perhaps it does some good work. But its standards are twisted into a mockery of human rights when the subject or object of the reports happen to be Jews. The standard for Jews to tolerate hate against themselves is lower than that for anyone else; while the standard for Jews to act in a humane manner is much, much higher than that of their neighbors.

 It is hard to find this to be a coincidence.

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Juan Cole remains a lying idiot

The lying, fifth rate academic Juan Cole is at it again, with a spectacularly stupid post called "Recognizing Israel as a Jewish State is like saying the US is a White State."

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is adding a fifth demand to his negotiations with US Secretary of State John Kerry and Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas: That the Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish state.”

As I've noted, this is not a new demand, and it was originally created by Olmert and Livni, not Netanyahu. But, hey, Juan Cole is an "expert," right?

Now comes the straw man arguments:

For Netanyahu’s demand to make any sense, he first has to define “Jewish.” “Jewish” has a number of possible meanings. It can mean “those recognized by Talmudic law as members of the Jewish ‘race’ via maternal descent.” The latter is the legal definition of Jewishness in Israeli law itself, and for this reason we must presume that it is what Netanyahu has in mind. It can also mean “adherents of the Judaic religion,” and we can explore those implications, as well.

Of the some 6 million self-identified Jews in Israel, about 300,000 are not recognized as “Jewish” by the Chief Rabbi and there is no prospect of them being recognized as Jewish any time soon. They were allowed to immigrate to Israel because they had at least one Jewish grandparent, but if their mother was not Jewish neither are they.

So if Israel is a “Jewish” state, is it a state for these (largely Russian and Ukrainian) “non-Jewish” Jews? Many of them are Jewish by religion, but not all are. None of them are Jewish by the Talmud.

He then goes on and on with discredited genetic studies and other points to buttress his moronic point that if any Israelis aren't considered Jewish by some definition, then they are being disenfranchised. And, of course, all Israeli Arabs are disenfranchised as well.

Here's a news flash for Cole, that he must not be aware of in his years of scholarly research: Israel has defined itself as a Jewish state for 65 years now, and somehow none of these supposed showstoppers have slowed down the Jewish state one tiny bit!

According to Cole, it is simply impossible - yet here it is. Imagine that.

Here's another news flash for Cole: Judaism is more than a religion. It isn't a race. Jews are a nation/people, and have been a people for over 3000 years.

Don't trust me. The famed 14th century Arab historian and intellectual Ibn Khaldun says explicitly that Jews are a people. Jewish prayers have said the same thing since before Islam existed. The Bible says so (e.g., 1 Kings 8:16.) . Perhaps Cole has heard of that work, it's fairly famous.

It is possible to join a nation, so this isn't a racial or genetic group. It isn't purely a religious group.

Cole's entire thesis is not only invalid, but laughably absurd.

Apparently Cole subscribes to the PLO's "logic" that the Jews aren't a people, because if they are a people, that means they have rights as a people.

Oh, and Cole also seems unaware that Israel defining itself as Jewish is not at all analogous to the US defining itself as white - it is analogous to many nations defining themselves as Arab. And guess who does that?

If he wants to be morally consistent, Cole must condemn every single Arab state that defines itself as "Arab." This disenfranchises all non-Arabs who live in Arab nations. It is discriminatory, according to Cole.

But Juan Cole isn't interested in consistency. He isn't interested in morality. He is certainly not interested in the truth. His major interest appears to be to deny the Jewish people their human rights. The very idea that Jews have such rights is anathema to lying pseudo-academics like Cole who use their pretense of knowledge to deny human rights to the Jewish people.

(h/t Adam)

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My conversation with an anti-Israel Amnesty spokesperson

I called Amnesty this morning to ask about the outrageous report they issued that I discussed earlier today. I waited about five hours for a response before posting my article.

I then received a phone call from Deborah Hyams, Amnesty researcher and media contact.

Hyams explained to me that the Amnesty press release was meant to not only discuss the current exacerbation of the fuel shortage since November 1, but to look at the longer history of Israel's closure and restrictions on exports to Gaza, to explain the "root causes," from Amnesty's perspective.

When I asked specifically about why Amnesty was calling for Israel to lift restrictions on fuel when there are in fact no restrictions, she said that there are restrictions on some types of fuel. In fact, she told me, it was because Israel refused to provide industrial fuel for Gaza's power plant that Hamas was forced to smuggle regular diesel from Egypt. She did admit that price was a factor.\

I explained to her my understanding that Hamas actually retooled the power plant to handle regular diesel smuggled from Egypt because they didn't want to pay Israel and they felt that with the Muslim Brotherhood in power they would have an unlimited supply of subsidized, cheap fuel from Egypt.

Hyams insisted that Israel has restrictions, today, on industrial diesel to Gaza. That is not my understanding and I told her that I've read COGAT reports since at least 2011 where they said that they can pump heavy duty diesel for the power plant and Hamas has refused. (Actually, I documented that Israel has provided heavy-duty diesel to Gaza since 2009.)

I pointed out to Hyams that, even if everything she said was true, the current crisis has nothing to do with Israel - Hamas decided it didn't want to pay the normal prices according to agreements between Israel and the PA as it has done in the past. She disagreed, saying that the current fuel outages must be looked at from a larger historical perspective and that Israel is the party most responsible for supplying Gaza with fuel under its legal obligations as an occupier; although she knows some disagree about whether Gaza is occupied by Israel, Amnesty's position is that it is. (We've discussed the hypocrisy of Amnesty vis a vis occupation in the past.)

I pressed on, saying that the press release is clearly taking advantage of a crisis that was not precipitated by Israel but the response essentially ignored all other parties but Israel. She admitted that the immediate trigger of the crisis was Egypt's closing of the tunnels (not really, since that happened over the summer and Hamas decided to stop paying the PA's taxes in late October.) However, this press release was pretty much a way for Amnesty to focus the world on Israel's role in the closure of Gaza.

It was a surreal conversation. Hyams didn't say it explicitly, but in effect she said that the current crisis with the sewage and water problems was an excuse to call attention to the fact that Israel has the primary responsibility for Gaza, according to Amnesty. Amnesty mentioned the other parties with responsibility (in wishy-washy language at the very end of the press release after paragraphs of blaming Israel) but the power problems are, in Amnesty's view, primarily an Israeli responsibility.

Immediately afterwards I called up Guy Inbar from the IDF COGAT unit and asked him if there were any restrictions on any specific type of fuel to Gaza - industrial, petroleum, cooking gas, anything. His answer was an unequivocal "no." The reason Gaza has no fuel is the PA/Hamas disagreements, not because of Israel.

Deborah Hyams is part of the problem. As NGO Monitor has documented:

Hyams has an extensive background in radical anti-Israel activism:

• In 2001, Hyams volunteered as a “human shield” in Beit Jala (near Bethlehem), to deter Israeli military responses to recurrent gunfire and mortars targeting Jewish civilians in Jerusalem.

• Hyams employs demonizing language regarding Israel: In 2008, she was signatory to a letterclaiming Israel is “a state founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land.” Hyams alsostatedin 2002 that “[some] of Israel’s actions, all the way back to 1948, could be called ‘ethnic cleansing’.”

• In a 2002 Washington Jewish Week article, "Hyams said that while she does not condone suicide bombings, she personally believes they 'are in response to the occupation.'" In another instance she defended violence stating "occupation is violence...and the consequence of this action must result in violence [against Israelis]."

• Hyams has worked for some of the most radical political advocacy NGOs in the Arab-Israeli conflict, including the Alternative Information Center (AIC),Jews for Justice in Palestine and Israel (JPPI),Rachel Corrie Foundation, and Ma’an Network. Any of these affiliations should have been a red flag for Amnesty.

It is clear that at least in the Middle East, Amnesty is run by people with an anti-Israel agenda, where human rights, and even basic facts, are trumped by antipathy towards Israel.

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Amnesty's incitement against Israel (UPDATED)

I have noted here many times that Israel has no restrictions of diesel and petroleum into Gaza, outside of the physical amount that can be transferred via the pipeline at Kerem Shalom. (As far as I can tell, that pipeline has never reached capacity.)

The current Gaza fuel crisis started when Hamas decided in 2011 that it didn't want fuel from Israel and instead chose to run Gaza's power plant with Egyptian fuel, sold by smugglers at lower prices that reflected the subsidy that Egypt gives all its petroleum. When Hamas' Muslim Brotherhood patrons lost power, Hamas lost its source of fuel as the smuggling tunnels were closed.

Now, instead of paying market prices (and PA taxes), Hamas chose to let the Gaza power plant shut down, causing a cascading crisis as water treatment plants, water pumps and other essential infrastructure gets shut off. This was a cynical decision on Hamas' part, as they gambled that the resulting media coverage about the crisis they started would pressure Egypt, Qatar, the PA and perhaps Gulf countries to provide fuel at a discount again.

Amnesty International chooses to blame Israel, though.

Israel must immediately lift its blockade on the Gaza Strip, including by allowing the delivery of fuel and other essential supplies into the territory without restrictions, said Amnesty International today.

“This latest harsh setback has exacerbated the assault on the dignity of Palestinians in Gaza and the massive denial of rights they have experienced for more than six years because of Israel’s blockade, together with restrictions imposed by Egypt,” said Philip Luther, Middle East and North Africa Director at Amnesty International.

“The blockade has collectively punished Gaza’s population in violation of international law. The power plant shutdown has further affected all aspects of daily life, and the Israeli authorities must lift the blockade immediately, starting by allowing urgently needed fuel supplies into the Strip and working with all relevant parties to avert a prolonged humanitarian crisis this winter.”

“The reason for the flood of sewage was the blockade,” a resident of al-Zaytoun told Amnesty International. “The question is, why is the blockade being allowed to continue? What is our crime? There is no justification for this situation. We just want to live like any other people in the world.”

I'll put it in large letters so Amnesty can understand:

ISRAEL ALLOWS FUEL INTO GAZA. 

HAMAS DOESN'T.

At the very end of the anti-Israel screed, Amnesty decides to do a little CYA:

Continuing disputes between the Hamas de facto administration in the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Authority over payment and taxes are also a factor in the current crisis. Both authorities must co-operate so that the power plant again receives a steady supply of fuel and can resume operations.

This isn't the first time Amnesty chose to ignore facts and blame Israel for Gaza's fuel woes. But this is even worse, as it starkly reveals Amnesty's anti-Israel bias.

My only question is - what exactly is it demanding Israel do to help provide fuel for Gaza? Already Israel agreed to pump free fuel from Qatar via Kerem Shalom, in a story I broke first:

Qatar recently offered to transfer to Hamas large amounts of fuel which it holds in storage tanks in Egypt, but the Palestinian Authority has objected. According to the Paris accords reached with Israel, it is entitled to collect value added tax on goods coming into the territories. Israel has agreed to transport Qatari oil from Israel, after unloading it in Ashdod, but the proposal has met with opposition. Over the last few days, intense negotiations have been held between Qatar, the Hamas government and the Palestinian Authority, in an attempt to resolve the problem and overcome the dire fuel shortage in Gaza.

So what exactly does Amnesty expect of Israel? Free fuel? Should Israel invade Gaza to physically place fuel into the power plant (if Israel is the legal occupier of Gaza, then the answer is probably yes!)

This press release proves one thing: Amnesty's bias against Israel is systemic and embedded. There is no way to spin this absurd, counter-factual press release as anything other than pure antipathy for Israel.

Even worse, it shows that Amnesty's concern over actual human rights of Gazans is dwarfed by its bias against Israel. Downplaying the roles of Hamas and Egypt in the crisis, and instead demanding Israel do something it already does, actually increases Gaza's suffering because it distracts from the reality and the actual steps needed to bring fuel to Gaza.

Amnesty should be embarrassed by such an absurd statement. Decent reporters, NGOs and governments should call Amnesty to task for abandoning its true purpose and instead choosing to use its "human rights "platform to incite against Israel.

Because that is what this is - incitement.

UPDATE: Amnesty returned my phone call for comment.

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Cornell BDS group justifies hypocritically using Israeli web technology

Last week, the ZF and I discovered that a number of groups that push boycotts for Israel are using WiX, an Israeli web technology, on their websites.

One of those was Cornell University's "Students for Justice in Palestine." People on Twitter made fun of them for their obvious hypocrisy.

Finally, Cornell SJP came out with a long, nonsensical, convoluted justification for their BDS inconsistency; 1500 words of hilarious attempts to make themselves look a little less idiotic:

BDS is a tactic, not a principle, let alone a call for abstention. The charge that any contact with Israeli products negates the logic of BDS can only be made by people who do not understand what BDS actually is, how it’s worked in the past, or why Palestinian civil society is calling for it now.

The idea that supporters of BDS must avoid contact with anything Israeli not only misconstrues the nature of BDS, but also contorts the idea of politics in general. Politics is about making change in the world, not shying from contamination to keep oneself pure. GWF Hegel explored—and put to rest—the idea of the political subject whose only options were abstention and total withdrawal from action. He called it the “beautiful soul” syndrome. We do not strive to be beautiful souls, and we resist a view of politics that demands total abstention. In the words of Built to Spill, “I don’t like this air / But that doesn’t mean that I’ll stop breathing it.”

Those who call us hypocritical for not adhering to a rigid logic of separation simplistically insinuate that if one believes in boycotting Israel one must do it absolutely and deprive oneself of all the innovative benefits of the “Start-up Nation”; since one is opposed to Israel, one must not be in contact with anything Israeli. This separation in turn supports the misguided idea of two clear “sides” to the conflict. It is a troubling binary: on the one side, Israel, a plucky, can-do Zionist spirit, innovation, technology, modernity; on the other, Palestine, poverty, backwardness, violence.

The entire piece is filled with similar straw men.

So, who's right? Is BDS a call to boycott all Israeli products or not?

Well, let's look at the original 2005 source of the BDS call, from BDSMovement.net:

Boycotts target products and companies (Israeli and international) that profit from the violation of Palestinian rights, as well as Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions. Anyone can boycott Israeli goods, simply by making sure that they don’t buy produce made in Israel or by Israeli companies. Campaigners and groups call on consumers not to buy Israeli goods and on businesses not to buy or sell them.

Pretty explicit, isn't it? No nuance, no exceptions for nice web technologies. Nope - a blanket call to boycott Israeli produce and goods and businesses. It is the BDS movement that advocates the "beautiful soul" syndrome, in Hegelian terms (!!!)

Cornell  SJP doesn't support BDS as it is officially defined, because - well, because it would be an inconvenience. They like WiX. They want to boycott Israel, but they only want to ban products that they would never use anyway! They are so moral!

Actually, they admit:

Let us be clear: BDS is not abstention, nor an absolute moral principle.

There's an understatement for you!

Sorry, Cornell SJP. All that hand waving and attempts to change the subject in your very funny screed didn't prove that you aren't hypocrites.

Quite the opposite.

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Israel haters try to ram a BDS resolution through American Studies Association

From Inside Higher Ed:

The National Council of the American Studies Association is deliberating a proposed resolution to endorse a boycott of Israeli universities, and a decision is expected before Thanksgiving, according to the executive director of the association, John F. Stephens. The council had a long meeting on Sunday morning, at which many thought there would be a decision, but the meeting is still technically considered to be in session.

The resolution, which was proposed by the ASA’s Academic and Community Activism Caucus, has been endorsed by the current president and president-elect of the association, and attracted strong support from members during an open forum at the association’s annual conference on Saturday. A letter opposing the resolution on academic freedom grounds was signed by more than 50 members, including seven past presidents. Comments on the resolution continue to pour in.

The National Council, which is a body of about 20 elected representatives within the ASA, may choose to endorse or reject the resolution as is, to rewrite or revise it, or to refer it to the general membership for a vote, among other options.

...[S]entiment at Saturday's open forum for ASA members skewed pro-boycott by a huge margin.

Isn't it interesting that so many of these anti-Israel initiatives are scheduled on Saturdays?

Both pro- and anti-boycott scholars claim the mantle of academic freedom. Opponents of the boycott cite the AAUP's stance that boycotts cut off free exchange between scholars, while those in favor describe a desire to increase academic freedom for Palestinian students and scholars specifically. The resolution presented to the National Council outlines concerns about the closure or destruction of schools as a result of Israeli military strikes and restrictions on the ability of Palestinian students and scholars to travel.

“It’s very important that when we think about this issue, if we’re going to think about it, as well we should, in the context and framework of academic freedom, that we keep primarily in mind the freedom and ability for Palestinians to study free of a military occupation,” said Steven Salaita, an associate professor of English at Virginia Tech.

So let's punish Israeli schools because, allegedly, Palestinian Arabs can't easily get to school!

Proof that this was a well-organized anti-Israel initiative meant to overwhelm the ASA council comes from this telling detail:

Speakers on Saturday overwhelmingly urged the council to immediately act and approve the resolution -- any delay, they argued, was a tactic for defeat.

Like a car salesman telling you that if you don't buy it today, the opportunity will be lost forever. Don't think! Don't deliberate! Just do as I say! Now! or else there will be terrible consequences! The last thing these haters want is a sober discussion of the facts, because the facts are not on their side. These pseudo-academics are using emotion to subvert the very standards of objectivity and evidence that they pretend to uphold.

Can you imagine the outcry if people said to boycott Palestinian Arab schools because of the pro-terror atmosphere they encourage? Even though some Palestinian Arab universities are directly complicit in terrorism?

Yet boycotting Israeli universities - whose connection to the crimes alleged by the haters is extraordinarily tenuous - gets respectful hearings from academics???

It is obvious that the motivation here isn't academic freedom for Palestinian Arabs. If it was, then they would mention the restrictions that Palestinian students face in Lebanese public universities, including a quota system  limiting "foreign students" (aimed specifically at Palestinians) and some courses and majors that are simply off limits if you are Palestinian.

Yet no one is bringing that up. No one is criticizing Lebanon for its institutionalized bias against Palestinians, including specifically against Palestinian students.

This isn't about education. This isn't about helping Palestinian Arab students. This is a thinly veiled attack on Israel, period. It uses "academic freedom" as an excuse to betray academic freedom.

Some see this clearly:

Simon J. Bronner, a distinguished professor of American studies and folklore and chair of the American Studies Program at Pennsylvania State University at Harrisburg, criticized what he described as “the curtailing of academic freedom in the name of somehow guaranteeing academic freedom.” The letter opposing the boycott, which Bronner signed, states that the adoption of a boycott resolution would “do violence to this bedrock principle of academic freedom."

“Scholars would be punished not because of what they believe – which would be bad enough – but simply because of who they are based on their nationality. In no other context does the ASA discriminate on the basis of national origin – and for good reason. This is discrimination, pure and simple."

Scholars for Peace in the Middle East wrote a lengthy and devastating fisking of the anti-Israel resolution, pointing out its lies and errors.

Simon Bronner set up a petition to counter the anti-Israel resolution. If you are an academic you may want to sign and give your reasons. (Although it appears that the anti-Israel petition is being signed by non-academics as well.)

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Rafah closed yet again. NGOs still pretty quiet.

For the fourth day in a row, Egypt has closed the Rafah border to Gaza.

Here is a calendar showing how often the crossing was open in recent weeks:

Rafah, October-November-December

S	M	Tu	W	Th	F	S
27	28	29	30	31	1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
1	2	3	4	5	6	7

Green- open

Red-closed

Even the days it was open the number of people who could cross were severely limited. While the average number of travelers allowed to cross in June averaged over 1800 people daily, during the days Rafah was open in November the number of people allowed across averaged closer to 100 a day.

Which means that, practically speaking, Rafah has been closed the entire time.

The handful of people who have been allowed to cross include medical patients.

By contrast, Israel has been allowing about a thousand people a week to cross through Erez.

Sometimes NGOs will mention Rafah. They might even betray puzzlement as to Egypt's arbitrary rules for opening and closing the crossing. But they never, ever condemn Egypt for its siege of Gaza.

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BDS leader explains how the movement is meant to manipulate Western liberals

The Badil Center, a Palestinian Arab organization that is a major force behind the BDS movement, has published an extensive analysis in Jadaliyya magazine of their perspective on its progress and shortcomings over the past eight years.

The magazine reprints what appears to be a seminal 2011 piece by Nimer Sultany of SOAS in London, one of the theoreticians behind today's BDS movement.

A careful reading of his article reveals the pure hypocrisy that underpins the entire anti-Israel movement.

Sultany brings up three points and potential pitfalls about BDS.

His first point is about the role of pacifism and violence in Palestinian Arab discourse:

Palestinian history oscillates between two dogmas: the new dogma of nonviolence and the old dogma of violence and armed struggle. ...Given its apparent failure to achieve its declared objective, armed struggle has given way to nonviolence, which has become more fashionable today since it resonates with Western perspectives. Given that stereotypes cast Palestinians as violent, aggressive, and irrational Arabs or Muslims, Palestinians are forced to declare their pacifism before being admitted to the world of legitimate discourse or given a hearing of their views.

...But nonviolence should not now become the new dogma. Westerners ask, “Where is the Palestinian Gandhi?” They ignore the fact that Western practice and discourse have always vindicated violent resistance to unjust foreign occupiers. Thus, it is hypocritical for Westerners to dismiss violent means altogether in the Palestinian case.

...The legitimacy of the struggle and the justness of the demands need not necessarily correlate with the character of the means. The fact is that violent and nonviolent tactics have always co-existed as forms of resistance and they are likely to do so in the future. Therefore, in order to choose nonviolent means, one need not necessarily be a pacifist. The choice of the means depends on historical and political circumstances; they need not become the end. The means should not be deployed for their own sake but for the purpose of achieving noble political goals. The ability of violent or non-violent means to achieve them in a concrete, prudential form should be constantly critiqued and re-examined.

So while BDSers swear up and down that they are against violence, we see that the truth is quite the opposite. The movement is meant to sway Westerners, but it is not meant to mirror how Palestinian Arabs think. Amongst themselves, violence is considered quite acceptable - but not prudent at this time. Next year, it is possible that violence might come back into vogue. He even refers to the current Palestinian Arab pretense of nonviolence as "fashionable."

There is no morality here except the "noble" goal of destroying the Jewish state, and for that, all means are on the table. Pretending that they embrace non-violence for moral reasons is simply a scam to fool clueless Western liberals.

Sultany's second point is about international law:

The boycott movement speaks the language of human rights and international law. It is intended to pressure Israel to abide by international law. By doing so, it risks falling into the trap identified by critical legal scholars. The risk has two aspects. First, there is a danger in conflating law with justice; there is no intrinsic connection between law and justice. The gap between them may not be apparent to those who equate the attainment of justice with the application of law. Second is the belief that applying international law can produce self-evident, concrete consequences; this belief presupposes that applying law is a mechanical operation. But law-application involves inevitably normative interpretations that are not independent of power relations and hegemonic understandings. In addition, law (whether local or international) is not a monolithic entity nor a gapless system. Rather, it contains gaps, ambiguities, and contradictions...

This is not to say that the language of universal human rights and international law should be rejected or that it lacks a positive value. I only wish to caution that this rather limited discourse could produce unintended consequences. One should be cognizant of the detrimental ramifications of this discourse.

Sultany understands that while the anti-Israel movement uses the language of international law and human rights, they don't really mean it - if they can be interpreted in ways that is detrimental to the cause.

If, for example, the definition of "refugee" is standardized so that Palestinian Arabs have the same definition as the rest of the world, that would be quite supportable under international law - but it would be catastrophic for a movement whose intent for decades has been to use millions of people as pawns to help destroy Israel. The same can be said for the definition of "occupation" - if Gaza or Areas A is not occupied, the Israel-haters lose a great deal of their rhetorical power. Ditto for the mythical "right of return," one of BDS' cornerstones, which has no basis in international law in these circumstances.

Beyond that, Sultany makes it clear that human rights and international law have no value to Palestinian Arab nationalist thought. They are only concerned with what they call "justice." And who decides whether justice is served? Why, they are! And there can be no justice, in their minds, while Israel exists.

This is not compatible with international law, and Sultany knows it. But he figures that using the fig leaf of international law, with luck, can weaken Israel enough that the "justice" part of the equation can then have a chance of succeeding.

Sultany is saying, in effect, that while they use the language of international law and human rights, it is just a scam to fool clueless Western liberals. To be sure, they work tirelessly to ensure that NGOs adhere to their definitions of terms like  "occupation", but in the back of their minds they know that international and humanitarian law is not nearly as supportive of their movement as they pretend it is. Sultany is warning the BDSers that they just might end up on the wrong end of the law before they finish their goal of making Jews as weak and marginalized as Christians are in the Middle East.

His third warning is about being too serious about boycotting everything that is "Zionist:"

Transforming every aspect of the political struggle to a boycott-orientation reduces the range of political means and vocabulary. Not every adverse discourse or initiative should be addressed through the boycott prism. Surely, these initiatives, to the extent that they warrant criticism, can and should be critiqued. However, the discourse of boycott is inapplicable when the object of the critique is not a state-sponsored activity, nor an Israeli or foreign institution involved in sustaining the occupation militarily or economically. The boycott campaign should be based on credible evidence of targeted institutions’ role in sustaining the apartheid regime’s practices.

Additionally, boycott should not be seen as merely the manifestation of an unguided, blind moral outrage. Its primary purpose should neither be moral preaching nor vengeance and punishment. Rather, it should be applied as a political tool for achieving political ends through political mobilization of activists, constituencies, and consumers. Therefore, there should be some considerations of efficacy. For boycott to be effective it should not be reduced to trigger-happy tactics. If one cries wolf all the time, one risks losing credibility and political currency.

Overplaying the boycott card can discredit it, even when directed against worthy targets. ...Consider the example of the New York Times which is blatantly pro-Israel; it does not follow that it should be boycotted by a writer commissioned to represent a pro-Palestinian position.

The argument can be extended to make sure that Apple or Google or Microsoft aren't boycotted, since that would be counterproductive. As he says explicitly, boycotting Zionist products  is not a moral position but a political tool. That's why Sodastream and Max Brenner are perfect targets but Intel isn't.

Yet BDS positions itself to the West as if it were a moral movement, using moral arguments!

For the third time, Sultany is saying that BDS is a scam to fool clueless Western liberals by using language they can identify with, while the movement itself is actually anti-liberalism. It has no ethical problem with murdering Jews, it is willing to discard international law if that contradicts its idea of "justice," and it couches its goal in terms of a morality that it explicitly discards.

This is not an essay that BDSers want thoughtful Western liberals to read.

(h/t Spotlighting)

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Amnesty falsely blames Israel for Gaza fuel woes

On November 1, I wrote:

Get ready for more heartbreaking photos of Gaza children using candlelight and riding donkeys and blaming Israel for the "siege".

The truth is, Israel has been providing all the fuel needed both for petroleum and for the Gaza power plant - but Gazans haven't been paying for it.

Right on schedule, Ma'an has both published the photos I predicted and blamed Israel:

The lack of diesel fuel is a result of the tightening of a 7-year-long blockade imposed on the territory by Israel with Egyptian support.

No, it is because Hamas - which finds money for building terror tunnels - refuses to pay market prices for fuel (and the PA tacks on taxes Hamas doesn't want to pay).

But it is not only a second-rate Palestinian Arab newssite that is pushing the lie that Israel's blockade is responsible for Gaza's fuel shortage.

Amnesty International is, also, albeit a bit more subtly.

Yonatan Gher, Director of Amnesty International Israel, writes in (where else?) +972 magazine:

[I]f the fear of more deadly attacks wasn’t bad enough, those living in Gaza have to contend with the disastrous effects of Israel’s continuing land, sea and air blockade of the territory, together with restrictions imposed by Egypt. Gazans lack safe drinking water, face 12-hour power outages on a daily basis, and many struggle to access basic necessities such as adequate food and medicines.

These hardships were compounded on November 1 of this year when Gaza’s sole power plant was forced to shut down due to lack of fuel, further jeopardizing vital health and sanitation services.

“The world has forgotten Gaza, its women and children. The blockade is as bad as the war; it’s like a slow death for everyone in Gaza..."

The world continues to look the other way when it comes to the blockade on Gaza, which collectively punishes 1.7 million civilians. This stark violation of international law has been allowed to continue for more than six years. Unless Israeli and Palestinian leaders demonstrate political will to protect civilians –on both sides – the cycle of violations will become a recurring nightmare.

Let's recap the recent history of Gaza's power plant:

Israel was providing fuel up through at least the beginning of 2011. Hamas decided it wanted cheaper fuel so it stopped the shipments from Israel and converted the power plant to use cheaper, subsidized, smuggled fuel from Egypt. (It also restricted cooking gas from Israel.) Egypt offered to provide fuel but insisted that Hamas import it through Israel's Kerem Shalom, Hamas refused. It created an artificial "crisis" when Egypt started cracking down on fuel smuggling (even under the Morsi government, in 2012), and as a result Qatar provided free fuel for a while. After Egypt started destroying smuggling tunnels, some private Gazans started purchasing fuel from Israel again in August.

There have been no Israeli restrictions on fuel to Gaza for years. Kerem Shalom's pipelines into Gaza have not been operating close to capacity.

Similarly, there are no restrictions from Israel on food or medicines into Gaza. There were never restrictions on medicines and there have been no food restrictions since 2009.

Gaza's water treatment problems are, again,  directly because of Hamas refusing to pay the higher prices for fuel and hoping, yet again, that Qatar or Egypt or someone else will be shamed into giving them free or subsidized fuel.

Yet Amnesty is placing the bulk of the blame on Israel. (It is not blaming Hamas here for its cynical part of the fuel crisis, but for rockets to Israel in order to appear even-handed.)

To Amnesty, Hamas has no culpability in creating an artificial fuel crisis for Gaza. Hamas has money for kidnap tunnels, and even shows them off on Al Jazeera, but "human rights organization" Amnesty is mum about that.

Egypt's role in shutting Gaza off completely is drastically downplayed, and is barely mentioned by Amnesty. (The Rafah crossing has now been closed for ten consecutive days, and Amnesty doesn't have a word to say about that either.)

Even Hamas doesn't blame Israel as much for the fuel shortage as Amnesty does!

From this article, Amnesty is showing that it isn't interested in solving the problems of Gaza nearly as much as it simply wants to reflexively blame Israel for all of Gaza's problems.

This isn't about human rights. This is pure anti-Israel advocacy.

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