Showing posts with label settlements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label settlements. Show all posts

Thursday, June 29, 2023

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 16— Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled Mufti of Jerusalem, and his Arab Higher Committee have started. a move to create a solid belt of Palestine Arab settlements around Israel and prevent-the moving of refugees away from Israel borders.

This change of front has come with the present evident collapse of the. former insistence by the Arab League, the Arab Higher Committee -and the Arab governments on the return of Palestine Arab refugees to their original homes under the terms of a 1948 United Nations resolution.,

The Arab Higher Committee was the last to demand that the refugees must return to the territory now under Israeli control. This demand not only has been abandoned. for practical, as opposed to political, purposes but the Arab Higher Committee and certain Arab statesmen now are opposed to. any return of Palestine Arabs to Israel territory. This change has been brought about by the fact that Israel will accept only a few Arabs into their old home, and that it is better to avoid the impression that the Palestine case has been settled. by agreement for a few to return.

...Strongly nationalist elements apparently are rallying around the Mufti and the Arab Higher Committee’s program for a belt of thickly settled Palestinians surrounding Israel.

...‘The shift in. the Mufti’s policy was apparently connected with the enthusiasm which Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria displayed for the preservation of the independent Kingdom of Jordan, and their strong opposition to its unification with Iraq. The Palestinian element is becoming increasingly predominant in Jordan in which it constitutes not only some two-thirds of the. population but is an educated and trained element that is pushing the original Jordanians, largely of Bedouin stock, into the background.
At the time, UNRWA was actually trying to solve the problem: it was pushing hard for Palestinian Arabs to be resettled in areas of Syria and Lebanon where they would be given plots of land and could become financially independent. And Israel had agreed to allow tens of thousands of Arabs to return but only in conjunction with the Arab world naturalizing the rest. 

But the Mufti did not care about what was best for the Palestinian Arabs. He wanted to destroy Israel. If he couldn't flood Israel with hundreds of thousands of refugees, he intended to turn Jordan into a temporary Palestinian state whose only purpose would be to destroy Israel - and that included building settlements surrounding Israel where they could be used as a means to attack Israel from a short distance. 

While his entire plan was not realized, during the 1950s and 1960s Israel suffered numerous terror attacks from Palestinian "fedayeen" who lived in nearby communities in Syria, Jordan and Gaza.

The Mufti's plan still lives, though. The PA, with the EU, are building their own settlements non-stop in Area C specifically to block Israel from controlling the land it is supposed to control in the Oslo Accords. Hundreds of illegal structures and ramshackle communities have been built, and Palestinians moved in from Areas A and B, daring Israel to tear them down in front of the cameras. 

It is an updated version of the Mufti's plan for settlements being built in Judea and Samaria not to benefit Palestinian Arabs but to hurt Israel. 

(h/t Charles)



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Tuesday, February 14, 2023



Today, the Yasir Arafat Museum opened up a new exhibition. 

What part of Palestinian history is it about?

Silly. It is about how terrible Jews are.

Dignitaries, including the Palestinian prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh, crowded the space to see maps and text on the walls showing how Jews are taking over what they consider Palestinian land.

Shtayyeh commented after his tour,  "What we saw today in this exhibition is an exceptional effort in documenting settlement crimes and colonial crimes since the occupation of the Palestinian territories in 1967. Settlement is a tool to destroy the two-state solution, and the colonialists have been defeated throughout history. This is the only case in the world in which the settler-colonial conflict with the indigenous people remains. "

Shtayyeh thanked the management of the Yasser Arafat Foundation for this "exceptional, distinguished and great effort in preserving, presenting and documenting the crimes of Israeli colonialism and occupation." 

He called for "Palestine to remain in the heart of every Palestinian, in the heart of every Arab, and in the heart of every free and honorable person in this world." 

Shtayyeh also called on the United States and the European Union to put pressure on Israel to stop plans to build new settlement units in the West Bank.

One demand I have not hear before: Shtayyeh called on the US and Europe to revoke citizenship from Jewish settlers who have two passports.



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Wednesday, February 08, 2023



From Times of Israel:
The High Court of Justice issued a sharp rebuke on Tuesday of the government’s recent request for yet another delay in the court’s order to evacuate the illegal Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin encampment in the West Bank.

Justice Noam Sohlberg rejected the government’s request for a four-month extension for the submission of its position on the issue, and instead set a hearing for a request by the right-wing Regavim organization that the court issue a final order requiring the hamlet’s immediate evacuation and demolition.
We've been inundated with articles from around the world about how fascist and theocratic the current Israeli government is, and how it is trying to eviscerate the only Israeli institution that is defending good old fashioned liberal values. But if that is true, why is the government trying to delay the demolition of Khan al Ahmar - and why is the High Court insisting that it be demolished immediately?

Why is the liberal High Court on the side of the right-wing Regavim NGO and the right-wing government on the side of the EU?

Because the memes are all wrong. Every biased assumption behind these articles is wrong. And this is the real outrage.

Clearly, the High Court insists the encampment is illegal. It always was illegal. Even though the Europeans and progressive Americans are saying that demolishing Khan al-Ahmar is a war crime or whatever, the Israeli courts see no validity in that argument. 

Equally clearly, the current "most right wing government in Israeli history" is not anxious to demolish Khan al-Ahmar. It is engaging in realpolitik, and it doesn't want to antagonize the Europeans. I'm sure that the government knows Khan al-Ahmar is illegal but instead of using the court as a shield to destroy the outpost, it is fighting it.  

Moreover, the "extremist Likud" prepared a site for the residents to move that would have a sewage system and electricity - all on the Israeli taxpayer's dime, essentially rewarding the lawless Bedouin. 

When you look past the headlines, none of the memes about Israel jive with the facts. Too bad most journalists prefer to parrot the memes and try to fit the facts to the narrative rather than point out the truth. 





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Wednesday, January 25, 2023




In yesterday's State Department briefing there was this exchange between Said Arikat and spokesperson Ned Price:

Q: The Arab press and the Israeli press are both reporting that Israel is planning a – like a – to accelerate the demolishing of – the demolition of Palestinian homes in Area C and in other areas. Do you have a comment on that?

MR PRICE: Our comment on this is – remains the fact that we believe it’s critical for Israel and the Palestinian Authority to refrain from unilateral steps that exacerbate tensions and undercut efforts to advance a negotiated two-state solution. This includes the annexation of territory, settlement activity, and demolitions.
I just went through a selection of press briefings that used the word "unilateral" in respect to Israel and Palestinians over the past year, and while the spokesperson often says that the US is against either side making any unilateral moves that could increase tensions, I cannot find a single example where any Palestinian actions are considered unilateral.

Not them submitting complaints to the ICC. Not them building entirely new Arab settlements in Area C. Not them praising suicide bombers and other terrorists. Not paying terrorists and their families lifetime salaries.

Someone should ask Ned Price explicitly what Palestinian unilateral moves the US opposes.



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Tuesday, January 24, 2023

From Ian:

Palestinians are playing the long game on world stage – Israel could lose
The United Nations General Assembly recently approved a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render an opinion on whether the continuing Israeli occupation of the territories has become permanent, and in fact an annexation of the territories. In principle, the Court’s opinions are not binding, and its decisions cannot be directly translated into steps against Israel. However, in practice, the petition of the case to the ICJ is part of a broader Palestinian strategy, and in the present international climate is liable to have significant implications.

In recent years, the Palestinians have adopted the practice of involving international institutions in their conflict with Israel. These efforts include their appeal to the ICJ on the legality of the separation fence, a push for the establishment of international commissions of inquiry after every military operation in Gaza, complaints to the International Criminal Court that led to a pending investigation of Israeli actions related to the conflict, and a drive to have Palestine admitted as a member state of various international organizations.

The Palestinian activity in international organizations is coordinated and aggregate. For example, the General Assembly’s recognition of the State of Palestine in 2012 provided the basis for the determination that the International Criminal Court has the authority to investigate Israeli actions related to the conflict. An ICJ decision that the Israeli occupation is illegal would serve as the basis for additional proceedings against Israel.

Developments in Israeli law are also liable to affect the legal ramifications of the ICJ proceeding. In 2004, it published an opinion that the construction of the separation fence in the territories was a violation of international law. In practice, no steps were taken against Israel as a result of that ruling. A significant factor in Israel’s ability to fend off the opinion was the fact that the Supreme Court had looked into the issue and concluded that the fence was legal under international law. In several places, the Supreme Court even intervened and ordered that its location be modified in order to comply with international law.

However, it seems that the Supreme Court’s willingness to impose international law on Israel’s activities in the territories is no longer as resolute as in the past. In recent years, the court has refrained from intervening in issues related to international law. If the Override Clause is enacted, the Court’s authority to review Israeli actions in the territories will be weakened even more, and the Knesset will be able to pass legislation such as the Settlement Regulation Law, which the Court struck down in 2020. In this situation, it is quite likely that international tribunals will pay no attention to proceedings in the Israeli Supreme Court and not view them as a reason to refrain from investigating the issues.
PMW: The continuing lie of the “Gaza blockade”
In 2022, United Nations officials and reports, many countries and their representatives, and the Palestinian Authority continued to perpetuate the lie alleging that Israel has applied a “blockade” on the “besieged Gaza Strip.”

While the lie was commonplace and even often embellished by claiming that “Gaza is the biggest prison in the world,” statistics released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the so-called “occupied Palestinian territory” (OCHA) reveal the truth.

According to the OCHA statistics, in 2022 there were 424,417 exits via the Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel. 14,909 exits were for Gazan patients, who were accompanied by 10,930 people, entering Israel to receive medical treatment. There were also 573 entries into Israel to visit imprisoned terrorists.

Alongside the entry of the Gazans into Israel, OCHA also reported that 74,096 truckloads of commodities entered Gaza from Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing in 2022. According to the statistics, only 5% of the truckloads were carrying humanitarian products.

In addition to the 74,096 truckloads of commodities, thousands of trucks entered Gaza from Israel carrying fuel:

While statistics released by the Israeli Defense Ministry showed that from 2017-2021 Israel - incredibly - allowed 11,499 new vehicles into Gaza, the number of new cars that entered Gaza from Israel in 2022 has not yet been released.

The OCHA website further revealed that in 2022, in addition to the 424,417 exits from Gaza into Israel, there were an additional 245,145 exits from Gaza, via the Rafah crossing, into Egypt.

In addition to the movement of people, 32,353 truckloads of commodities also entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing. All the commodities that entered Gaza from Egypt were for commercial use. No humanitarian goods entered Gaza from Egypt.
A child of Oslo watches the Tel Aviv protests
Yet as a child of Oslo, born and raised in the dark years of rampant terror in which parents lost friends and friends lost parents, in which the obituary sections drove home realities that were decades premature, I have to ask myself: Does the Supreme Court really fulfill these functions in the name of protecting democracy and civil liberties? If so, shouldn't its decisions to rein in government policies be devoid of political bias?

In Oct. 1995, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's government pushed the Oslo B agreement through the Knesset by a 61-59 majority. It did so by promising members of Knesset, from a right-wing party, positions in the government in exchange for their votes. Where were the calls for reining in majority rule back then?

At the time, the left was perfectly happy to win by the slimmest of majorities, however it was achieved. This was the case even though the ramifications of the vote were severe. They did not only threaten civil rights but the physical lives and safety of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Israelis.

Ten years later, I spent the summer of 2005 in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip. I witnessed firsthand what it was like for the people there when Ariel Sharon turned his back on everyone who voted for him and rammed the disengagement plan through, firing anyone in his government who dissented.

Yet for some reason, the Supreme Court, sans Justice Edmond Levy, decided that it was not its place to interfere. It stood by as the government sent soldiers to expel citizens from their homes, crushing any semblance of their civil liberties.

Sadly, we are still paying for this decision to this day, with Hamas now ruling the dunes where once our hothouses bloomed.

This two-faced approach proves that we should not blindly accept the rhetoric employed by the protestors. This controversy is not really about civil rights or the strength of Israel's democracy. It's about power. Political power and judicial power. It is about people who want influence over the future of the State of Israel even when the majority of the people chose not to elect them.

It's hard to contain the feelings that bubble up when I hear friends on the left who supported Oslo and then the disengagement talk about how the Supreme Court is the defender of civil rights in this country. The Supreme Court proved otherwise when it abandoned the people of Gush Katif. They proved that their own politics supersede their supposed commitment to upholding the civil rights of all Israelis, making this argument against the reform null and void.

Sunday, January 08, 2023



On Thursday I wrote about The Nation article claiming that Ken Roth, formerly head of Human Rights Watch, was unfairly passed over for a position at Harvard Kennedy School because of powerful Jews who didn't like his being a critic of Israel.

The argument, as I showed then, was absurd. Even according to the article, "Roth’s tweets on Israel were of particular concern." 

Since then, the "progressive" crowd has been amplifying The Nation story - and its subtle antisemitic trope of rich Jews who try to control free speech - with no skepticism. Roth has also been tweeting the story. 

So while I had looked previously at Roth's anti-Israel tweets many times and identified lots of bias and lies, I decided to do a survey of his tweets in 2021, the year before his Harvard rejection, to objectively prove that he has an anti-Israel obsession.

I looked at every tweet of Roth's that used the phrase "war crime" or "war crimes" during the year and counted which countries he was referring to. Some tweets referred to more than one country or entity - for example, Syria and Russia both bombing civilians in Syria - and I would count tweets like that for both countries.

The results are stunning. 

In 2021, Roth associated Israel of war crimes 65 times, more than triple any other country or organization.


The only reason Hamas and the PA are in second place is because of his Israel obsession as well - he usually mentioned "war crimes by both sides" when talking about Hamas rockets during the May Gaza war, but most of his tweets about Israel mentioned only Israel. 

Is Israel 10 times worse than Russia? Six times worse than Syria? And infinitely worse than North Korea, who didn't get accused of war crimes once?

This is not "criticism of Israel." This is obsessive, psychotic hate, which is part of a consistent pattern we've seen over years of his tweets. And his 2021 tweets were even more obsessive over Israel than his 2020 tweets were. 

In that year, 2021, Roth tweeted real antisemitism as well, by blaming British antisemitism on Jews rather than on the attackers. And shortly afterwards implied that American Jews who were upset about Ben and Jerry's anti-Israel moves were acting on behalf of the Israeli government - the age-old dual loyalty trope that is a sure sign of antisemitism. 

But the sheer number of anti-Israel tweets, and scores of flatly false accusations of war crimes (neither settlements nor Israeli actions in Gaza are illegal, let alone war crimes), prove without a doubt that Roth has no credibility.

I have plenty of other evidence that Human Rights Watch under Roth was also obsessed with Israel - but the tweets are his own words, from his own keyboard, and these statistics cannot be denied. Roth has a crazed obsession with demonizing Israel. The numbers don't lie, and anyone can reproduce my research. 

Harvard did the right thing. 





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Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Imagine a Jew waking up each morning in his plush, temporary Jerusalem digs, drinking his chai latte, and saying to himself, “What immediate steps can I take today to make Judea Judenrein? Is there something I can do right now to block Israel’s use of the mountain aquifer that supplies half of Israel’s water? Who can I meet with during my 8-hour workday to ensure that Jerusalem is surrounded by hostile Arab terrorists sworn to annihilate the Jewish people—little girls like Hallel Yaffa Ariel; high school boys like Naftali Frenkel, Gilad Shaer, and Eyal Yifrah; and babies still housed in their mother’s wombs like Amiad Yisrael Ish-Ran?”

“Most of all, how can I get Jews to stop building homes so they can’t take shelter or raise families in their indigenous territory?”

If you’ve imagined all that, congratulations. You’ve just imagined U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, who, in an October 7 interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), said “We do not support settlement growth. Period. I work every day behind the scenes, with the Israelis, to try and eliminate, slow down or avoid that.”

In other words, Tom Nides daily threatens Israel out of the public eye in his quest to eliminate all traces of a Jewish presence in the place where G-d made an everlasting covenant with Abraham and his descendants. God and only God promised the Jews that they would forever inherit this land, which is why it’s called “the Promised Land.” Tom Nides, however, is apparently so powerful that he can render God’s promise to the Jews null and void.

God told Abraham that He would make his descendants “as numerous as the stars in the sky.” But Tom Nides, a Jew, would like to “slow down or avoid that,” at least in the land where Jacob wrestled with the angel and was renamed “Israel” (Yisrael), “for you have contended (‘sarisa’) with the divine and with man and you have prevailed” (Gen. 32:29).

Ambassador Tom Nides has forgotten these words. He does not tremble, thinking of the consequences of turning Jewish land Muslim. For Nides, the nonsensical makes sense in that he thinks he can announce his intentions, publicly, via a supposedly Jewish news service, and God will not know what he, Tom Nides, plans to do. As if he could hide anything from God, though perhaps even Nides read these words in synagogue not three weeks ago, and would have been wise to consider them well:

You remember the dealings of [men in] today’s world, and You [also] consider the behavior of all those who lived in earlier times. In Your Presence are revealed all hidden things and the multitude of secrets from the beginning of creation; for there is no forgetfulness before the throne of Your Glory, and there is nothing hidden from Your eyes. You remember all that has been done, and even all that which is formed is not concealed from You. All is revealed and known before You Adonoy, our God Who observes and looks until the end of all generations.

For You set an appointed time of remembrance, to consider every soul and being; to cause numerous deeds to be remembered and the multitude of creatures without end. From the beginning of creation, You have made this known, and from before time You have revealed it. This day [Rosh Hashana] is the beginning of Your work a memorial of the first day. For it is a statute for Yisrael a [day of] judgment of the God of Yaakov. And over countries [judgment] is pronounced, which of them is destined for the sword [war] and which for peace, which for famine and which for abundance. And on it, creatures are brought to mind, to be remembered for life or for death.

Who is not considered on this day? For the remembrance of all that is formed comes before You: the dealings of man, and the decree of his fate, and the misdeeds of man’s actions, the thoughts of man and his schemes, and the motives for the deeds of man. Fortunate is the man who does not forget You, the son of man who gains strength in You. For those who seek You will never stumble, and never will they be disgraced— all who trust in You. For the remembrance of all their deeds come before You, and You examine the deeds of all of them.

And No’ach too, You remembered with love, and [therefore] decreed for him a promise of deliverance and compassion, when You brought the flood-waters to destroy all flesh because of the wickedness of their deeds. Therefore, his remembrance came before You, Adonoy, our God, to multiply his seed like the dust of the earth, and his descendants as the sand of the sea; as it is written in Your Torah; “And God remembered No’ach and all the beasts and all the cattle that were with him in the Ark, and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters were calmed.” And it is said: “And God heard their groaning cry, and God remembered His covenant with Avraham, with Yitzchak, and with Yaakov.” And it is said: “I will remember My covenant with Yaakov, and also My covenant with Yitzchak, and also My covenant with Avraham, will I remember; and the land [of Yisrael] I will remember.”

God remembers Israel and always will, but apparently Nides forgot. Or couldn't care less. At any rate, Nides believes he can go over God’s head by making threats against Israel behind the scenes. As Nides told the JTA: “This is a sovereign country. We can’t dictate to them what they can or can’t do, but I can put as much pressure as I can to make sure they understand our position.”

Tom Nides, it is true, has ways to really hurt the Jewish people, irrespective of what God might want. We know this because we have learned to read between the lines. “Pressure,” in the lexicon of America’s dealings with Israel, is the equivalent of the Arab terrorist’s “legitimate resistance.” Just as “legitimate resistance” gives moral permission to Arab terrorists to murder, decapitate, ram, kidnap, rape, bomb, stab, and burn Jews—even civilians, children, babies, rabbis, and grandmas—“pressure” means, for example, no more American aid, Iron Dome, or F-35s.

“Pressure” might also, for example, mean many more pallets of cash for Iran, so eager to spend that money toward the obliteration of the Jews. 

Why would he, Tom Nides, do these things to Israel? Because he, Tom Nides, can rally the combined hate of the world against the Jews, to finally prove to the world, that he, Tom Nides, is not one of THOSE Jews—the ones whom everyone hates.

It’s a funny thing: God can see everything about Tom Nides, but Nides can’t see God. Is it possible that Nides has dyslexia, or that he has never read the bible? Does Nides not know that God commanded the Jews to settle the Promised Land?:

“And you shall take possession of the land and settle in it, for I have assigned the land to you to possess” (Numbers 33:53).

Settlement in Judea and Samaria is a mitzvah, a religious imperative. But Tom Nides, in his JTA interview, suggests he doesn’t care about any of that, demonstrating that God’s words mean nothing to him. Nides thinks he can turn his back on his tradition, his people, and his God. Perhaps he thinks it is the only way he can declare his allegiance to the non-Jewish world, as if to say, “Here I am, Hineni. I am not one of them, the accursed Jews.”



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Sunday, September 25, 2022




As he does every year, Mahmoud Abbas gave an anti-Israel speech to the UN. And as with every other one on record, it was filled with lies.

Here are some of them, based on the official speech (he sometimes ad libs outside the speech, often betraying more  antisemitism...)

I speak to you on behalf of more than fourteen million Palestinian people, whose parents and grandparents lived through the tragedy of the “Nakba” seventy-four years ago, and they are still living the effects of this “Nakba”, which is a disgrace to humanity, especially those who conspired, planned and carried out this heinous crime.  
The "Nakba" came about because Arabs did not accept the concept of a Jewish state in any boundaries. They chose to fight. They lost. No one "planned" to expel Arabs. It was a war started by the Arabs, not a "heinous crime" started by Jews. 

Notice that his definition of "Palestinian" is anyone who lived in Palestine in 1947-48. Meaning, anyone who lived there for centuries beforehand and who left is not a Palestinian. Abbas is admitting that the concept of "Palestinian people" is less than a century old. 

More than five million Palestinians have been suffering under the Israeli military occupation for fifty-four years.
There were less than a million Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza after the Six Day War.

It has become clear, ladies and gentlemen, that Israel, which disavows the resolutions of international legitimacy, has decided not to be our partner in the peace process. Israel is the one that destroyed the Oslo Accords it signed with the Palestine Liberation Organization. It is the one that, with its current policy, has premeditated and determined to destroy the two-state solution, which proves with conclusive evidence that they do not believe in peace, but in the policy of imposing a fait accompli by brute force and aggression, and therefore there is no longer an Israeli partner with whom to talk.   
Oslo died with the second intifada, orchestrated by the leaders of the PLO that had pledged to stop all terror. Israel kept on trying for peace for years afterwards and the PLO - first Arafat, then Abbas - kept saying no. This is historical revisionism. 

It thus ends the contractual relationship with us, and makes the relationship between the State of Palestine and Israel a relationship between an occupying state and an occupied people, and nothing else. We will not deal with Israel except on this basis, and we demand the international community to deal with it on this basis as well. This is Israel’s choice, not ours.  
The Palestinian Authority, which Abbas unilaterally declared to be the "State of Palestine," was created by the Oslo Accords. If he says that they don't have any legal force, he is the president of - nothing.

Abbas wants the benefits of Oslo but none of the responsibilities.
Israel is carrying out a frantic campaign to confiscate our lands and spread its colonial settlements and plunder our resources, as if this land was empty and had no owners, just as it did in 1948.   
Palestinians have been saying this for decades. Yet the percentage of land Israel has legalized for settlements is virtually the same as it was 25 years ago. 

Oh, and in 1948, the percentage of land privately owned by Arabs was about 20%. The rest was owned by the ruling country.

Parts 2 and 3 will be posted in the coming hours.




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Thursday, September 08, 2022

You know how Palestinians say that occupation and settlements are the worst human rights abuses in world history?

It appears that they mean "only if done by Jews."

From Kurdistan 24:
A delegation of Kurds from Afrin visited the Palestinian Consul in Erbil, Nazmi Hazouri, and handed over a letter of protest of a Palestinian foundation building housing units for displaced Syrians in Afrin.

Levant 24 reported that the Palestinian organization Wafaa al-Mohsenin Charitable Foundation delivered 34 housing units to displaced Syrian Arabs in Jindires, in Afrin.

The organization says the project is funded by “the donation of the people of Al-Zaeem village in the city of Jerusalem”

Turkish-backed factions have occupied Afrin since March 2018, when the Turkish Army launched a cross-border offensive against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

Kurds used to make up 96 percent of Afrin's population, but now represent only 25 percent after 2018, over two dozen organizations said in a letter last year.

In a letter, handed over to the Palestinian Consul, the delegation complained over the fact that the demography of Afrin have been changed since 2018, and the orignal people of Afrin have been replaced by Arabs and Turkmens, with the aim of Arabizing the region.

Also two years ago, there were reports that said a Palestinian NGO called “Association for Living with Dignity for the 48 Palestinians” funded Turkish NGO Beyaz Eller to construct a mosque in the Tal Tawil village in Afrin.

In a report released on 6 May 2021, the Syria Justice and Accountability Center, focuses on the role of "Kuwait and other regional governments in financing Turkish-led reconstruction efforts on land in Afrin belonging to displaced Kurdish populations."

The Syria Justice and Accountability Center said the "foreign-funded housing projects are desperately needed to meet the humanitarian needs of IDPS currently residing in the area."

But it noted that the "the manner of their implementation means that they are also contributing to processes of demographic change that many have seen as the explicit intent of Turkey and its proxies."

"By funding the construction of settlements that hinder the return of the original residents displaced by Turkish-backed forces, foreign donors may be complicit in the forced transfer of populations – a crime against humanity under international criminal law," the report concluded.
Yes, Palestinians are helping to build illegal settlements on occupied territory.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Thursday, August 04, 2022


By Daled Amos


Representative Andy Levin's defeat in the Democratic primaries has brought out his defenders, who staunchly defend his Jewish bonafides.

Like Mehdi Hassan, for example:

Because nothing establishes the unassailability of your position on Israel like being a synagogue president.

Sheesh, indeed.

If you do a search on Twitter, it seems that everyone knows that Levin was a synagogue president, and thinks it actually means something. Twitter doesn't track how many tweets come up, but in a Google search, over 9,500 hits come up.

More dishonest is Hassan's deft little twist that the opposition to Levin must be based on his support for Palestinian human rights -- a nice touch.

Peter Beinart certainly agrees:

Left unsaid is the fact that Jewish opposition to Levin was not about his support for Palestinian human rights.

Israel-supporters were more concerned with backing for the rights of Israelis in their homeland.

After all, Levin is the one who introduced the H.R.5344 - Two-State Solution Act, which if passed would have established (among other things):

o  It is the policy of the United States that the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza are occupied territories and should be referred to as such consistently in official United States policies, communications, and documents.

o...the United States should maintain diplomatic relations with the Palestinians, including by reopening a United States consulate in Jerusalem and allowing for the reopening of the Palestine Liberation Organization foreign mission in the District of Columbia. [emphasis added]

So according to Andy Levin -- the Congressman and former synagogue president -- Jerusalem should once again be a divided city.

And according to Levin's bill, the Western Wall belongs to the Palestinian Arabs.

But the problem with Levin's stand goes beyond his wanting to undo Israel's sovereignty over Jerusalem.

On November 18, 2019, Secretary of State Pompeo announced a change in US policy on Israeli settlements:

After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan: the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not, per se, inconsistent with international law.

On November 21, Levin responded with a letter he initiated, signed by such Israel-haters as Betty McCollum, Ilhan Omar, Mark Pocan, Rashida Tlaib, Pramila Jayapal, Henry Johnson, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others.


A copy of Levin's letter, with the signatures, is available online.

Pompeo wasted no time in responding and rebutting Levin's claims, writing:

I am in receipt of your letter of November 21 in which you criticize the State Department’s determination that the establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not categorically inconsistent with international law - a decision which you contend reverses “decades of bipartisan US policy on Israeli settlements.” You further argue. in conclusory fashion, that this determination “blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

While I appreciate your interest in this important issue, I could not disagree more with those two foolish positions. [emphasis added]

In response to Levin's claim that "the State Department's decision to reverse decades of bipartisan U.S. policy on Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank," Pompeo wrote:

First, the State Department’s determination did not reverse any policy with regard to Israeli settlements. Rather, the State Department reversed a legal determination by Secretary Kerry made during the waning days of the Obama Administration, that the establishment of settlements was categorically inconsistent with international law. That determination was made in a failed attempt to justify the Obama Administration’s betrayal of Israel in allowing UNSCR 2334 — whose foundation was the purported illegality of the settlements and which referred to them as “a flagrant violation” of international law — to pass the Security Council on December 23, 2016. [emphasis added]

In response to Levin's claim that the US policy on settlements, as reflected in UN Resolution 2334 had bipartisan support, Pompeo reminded him:

Secretary Kerry’s determination did not enjoy bipartisan consensus. Rather, it received bipartisan condemnation, including from leading Democrats in both chambers of Congress. Indeed, an overwhelming number of Senators and House Members, on both sides of the aisle, supported resolutions objecting to the passage of UNSCR 2334. 

...No less a Democratic spokesman than the Senate Minority Leader [Schumer] publicly stated at his AIPAC address on March 5, 2018, that “it’s sure not the settlements that are the blockage to peace.” [emphasis added]

Levin goes so far as to challenge Pompeo on The Geneva Convention, "This State Department decision blatantly disregards Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which affirms that any occupying power shall not 'deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.'" -- which Levin apparently is taking literally, as if the Israeli government was actually transferring Israelis to these areas, a claim Pompeo rebuts with a reference to Eugene Rostow, former Dean of the Yale Law School and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs during the Johnson Administration. He was responsible for the draft of UNSCR 242, a foundation of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Pompeo quotes Rostow, who stated in 1983 that “Israel has an unassailable legal right to establish settlements in the West Bank.”

Former Ambassador David Friedman writes in his book, Sledgehammer:

I was deeply grateful that 106 members of the House, led by Congressman Andy Levin of Michigan, wrote to Pompeo to condemn his decision. Without that letter, the record supporting the decision might have been incomplete insofar as some members of the Legal Department at State were reluctant  participants.. But the letter created a platform for a more fulsome response. [p. 165]

Hassan, Beinart and other defenders of Levin will of course continue to attempt to muddy the waters on the reaction against Levin's attempt to impose his leftwing politics on Israel.

But the fact remains that Andy Levin no more represented support of the Democratic Party for Israel than did the Israel-haters he found it convenient to ally himself with.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, June 01, 2022



Everyone knows about Turkeys' occupation of Northern Cyprus. 

But Turkey also occupied large swaths of territory in northern Syria, and the people who scream about the evil of Israeli "occupation" are silent.

Not only that, but Turkey is threatening to invade Syria, and - again - the people who are upset about countries like Russia invading their neighbors seem to not have much of a problem with this.

From AP:

Turkey's president told journalists that Ankara remains committed to rooting out a Syrian Kurdish militia from northern Syria.

"Like I always say, we'll come down on them suddenly one night. And we must," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on his plane following his Saturday visit to Azerbaijan, according to daily Hurriyet newspaper and other media.

Without giving a specific timeline, Erdogan said that Turkey would launch a cross-border operation against the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, which it considers a terrorist group linked to an outlawed Kurdish group that has led an insurgency against Turkey since 1984. That conflict with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, PKK, has killed tens of thousands of people.

However, the YPG forms the backbone of U.S.-led forces in the fight against the Islamic State group. American support for the group has infuriated Ankara and remains a major issue in their relations.

Ankara has launched four cross-border operations into Syria since 2016 and controls some territories in the north with the goal of pushing away the YPG and establishing a 30-kilometer (19-mile) deep safe zone where Erdogan hopes to "voluntarily" return Syrian refugees.

In 2019, an incursion into northeast Syria against the YPG drew widespread international condemnation, prompting Finland, Sweden and others to restrict arms sales to Turkey. Now Turkey is blocking the two Nordic countries' historic bid to join NATO because of the weapons ban and their alleged support for the Kurdish groups.   
Oh, and Turkey is building settlements, too, to move Syrian refugees to areas under its control 

 The media seems strangely uninterested. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, January 09, 2019

Nearly six years ago I gave a lecture at Yeshiva University on how to answer anti-Israel arguments. Since the lecture was over an hour and twenty minutes, I decided to break it up into 20 sections, one each to answer one popular anti-Israel argument.

Here is the second half of part 11, probably the longest clip.







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Wednesday, August 29, 2018


Are Israeli settlements an obstacle to peace? Lots of people say so. Bulgaria’s Mladenov said it. The EU’s Mogherini said it. And the UN has said it again and again.
By why would anyone think that Jews building homes stands in the way of a peace settlement?
The homes of the 10,000 Jews the Israeli government expelled from Gaza in 2005 did not stand in the way of the unilateral gesture of peace that was Disengagement. We just knocked those homes down. We left behind the greenhouses, the infrastructure for making a living, and the Arabs knocked those down without Israel’s help, rejecting the Jew-stench that apparently still clung to these structures, in favor of poverty.

Demolition of Ganei Tal, Gush Katif
The homes of the 7,000 Israelis expelled from Sinai in 1982, similarly did not stand in the way of Israel’s peace agreement with Egypt.
This being not one, but two instances in which homes did not stand in the way of peace, what is the rationale for calling Jewish homes “obstacles to peace?”
Some say the problem is that building homes expands existing settlements. But this is not so. Settlement boundaries are already defined. Building more homes within those boundaries doesn’t expand them. The boundaries remain the same. And the settlements that are within the consensus as belonging to Israel in any peace agreement, retain their dimensions whether or not Jews build homes therein.
The real issue is that when Jews build homes in Judea and Samaria, their numbers increase in the land. The issue isn’t limiting homes, but limiting Jews. Which is antisemitism.
But can the building of Jewish homes be construed as a provocation? Is it as if the Jews are saying, “All of this is ours and this also is ours?”
Well, yes. But so what?
In what sense does this prevent the parties from sitting down at the negotiating table?
The fact is, it doesn’t.
Jews building homes on land Arabs want, doesn’t stop Arabs from demanding more land. And Jews building homes on land Arabs want, doesn’t stop Jews from being willing to sit down and discuss land giveaways.

None of this stops anti-Israel Jews like Peter Beinart from pulling a stern face when referring to the building of homes for Jews in Judea and Samaria. Because he wants what the Arabs want and not what the Jews want. He wants the land Judenfrei. 



JINOs like Beinart want what Arabs want because Arabs are brown people they see as victims. People like Beinart feel better when they do nice things for the downtrodden.
Beinart and his ilk like to identify victims and feel bad about them. They like to see themselves as self-sacrificing heroes. So they demand that Jews living where they themselves don’t live, give up their homes for the people they see as victims.
As for Jews like Naomi Chazan or Amira Hass, the Israeli versions of Peter Beinart, settlers are a breed apart from “normal” Israeli Jews like them. Settlers are vermin, while they sit in their high tower, as Beinart sits in America, pointing a finger at the nasty settlers.
From their perspective, settlers are like Nazis seeking Lebensraum in Czechoslovakia, a land not their own. These high and mighty Jews see the settlements as a colonialist project. But Judea and Samaria are the indigenous lands of the Jewish people and always have been. The idea that the land is not Jewish land betrays a preference to ignore ancient history in favor of modern revisionist history that shuts Jews out and lets Arabs in.
The truth is, building homes for Jews is not a crime, never was, and never will be.
Building homes is just creating shelter. It’s part of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which ironically, is a psychological theory proposed by a Jew, which recognizes that people have basic needs. Like shelter.

Shelter doesn’t hurt anyone. And a Jew deserves a home as much as the next person.
Homes don’t get in the way of peace negotiations.
And Jews don’t contaminate territory. They’re human beings like all other human beings. The only difference is that God gave them the Torah and the Land of Israel.
Which hasn’t stopped them from sitting down with the Arabs in peace negotiations.

And it appears it never will.


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