Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: Search results for dci

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Thursday, May 02, 2019

US representative Betty McCollum introduces bill to give millions of dollars to NGO aligned with PFLP terrorists

NEW LEGISLATION PROPOSED by Rep. Betty McCollum, a Minnesota Democrat, would ban Israel from using any of the billions of dollars in military assistance it receives from the United States every year to pay for the detention, interrogation, or torture of Palestinian children living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank.

McCollum’s bill, HR 2407, would amend the Foreign Assistance Act to prohibit funding for the military detention of children in any country, including Israel. The proposed law would also provide $19 million a year to American, Israeli, and Palestinian nongovernmental organizations to monitor the treatment of children detained by Israel’s army and offer physical and psychological treatment.

This bill is heavily influenced by "Defense of Children International - Palestine," which is promoting the bill on its website. It appears that McCollum worked with DCI-P to craft the language of the bill. Indeed, the bill quotes from a DCI-P report to "prove" how Israel mistreats children:

The nongovernmental organization Defense for Children International Palestine collected affidavits from 739 West Bank children who were detained between 2013 and 2018, and concluded that 73 percent of the children endured physical violence following arrest...

We've looked at DCI-P before. It's methodology is to interview these children with leading questions and to prompt them to answer what they want. They almost admitted this in previous reports, saying that first they seek out people to write affidavits, and then "Lawyers and human rights documentation professionals reviewed testimonies and other documentation for accuracy and assessed any gaps that required further research." - meaning if there were problems with the "testimony" they would try to fit the evidence to their preconceived notions.

We know that DCI-P does not adhere to the "UN standards" they claim to use for interviewing people. During the 2014 war, it ludicrously claimed that the IDF kept a 16-year old son of a Hamas terrorist for five days to go, alone, into Gaza houses to look for Hamas tunnels and to dig for them with his bare hands. These were all obvious lies compounded by his father saying that the family disposed of the too-large clothes that the IDF supposedly gave him and "forgot" to take photos of his many injuries at the hands of the Israelis. (The New York Times reported this as fact, too.) These are laughable lies. UN standards for interviewing include being skeptical of what people say and how to corroborate the stories. DCI-P prompts or believes anything that makes Israel look bad.

In addition, DCI-P has listed children known to have been killed while involved in terror attacks as being innocent, and to count those killed by Hamas rockets as being killed by Israel. They know that some of the children they count as innocent victims are terrorists themselves - they've admitted it on Palestinian TV - but their official reports never mention that.

In other words, DCI-P reports have nothing to do with reality.

It would be bad enough if DCI-P was merely another NGO with dubious methodology whose entire purpose is to smear Israel. There are lots of those. But DCI-P is far worse.

DCI-P is associated with the PFLP terror group.

NGO-Monitor has documented many workers for DCI-P who were also officials of the PFLP. For example, here is DCI-P General Director Rifat Odeh Kassis addressing PFLP and DCI-P member Hashem Abu Maria’s memorial service in front of the PFLP flag and pictures of the group’s founder, George Habash:

HR 2407 doesn't just rely on bogus research by a NGO with known terror ties. It wants the US to give millions of dollars to that NGO!

FUNDING.—There is authorized to be appropriated not less than $19,000,000 each fiscal year to the Secretary of State to be made available to nongovernmental organizations from the United States, Israel, or the Occupied Palestinian Territory for the following purposes:
(1) MONITORING HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES ASSOCIATED WITH ISRAEL’S MILITARY DETENTION OF PALESTINIAN CHILDREN.—
(A) IN GENERAL.—Nongovernment organizations with human rights experience are eligible to receive funding under this subsection.
Such funding shall be used to monitor, assess, and document incidents of Palestinian children subjected to Israeli military detention, including interviews with victims, family members of victims, relevant community members, health care providers, legal advocates, civil society monitors, and Israeli military officials.

This is exactly how DCI-P describes itself! The rest of the description of the role of these "NGOs" - annual reports showing affidavits from children - shows that DCI-Palestine is the only organization in the world that adheres to the requirements of the bill.

A US member of the House of representative, Betty McCollum, is introducing a bill to give millions of dollars annually to a fake NGO, associated with a US-designated terror organization, that knowingly and consistently lies in its reports.

This is scandalous and sickening.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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+972 Mag will believe anything - as long as it is anti-Israel

Ultra-left +972 magazine has an exclusive!

An affidavit obtained exclusively by +972 reveals what appears to be the first documented case of a ‘human shield’ used by the Israeli military during its invasion of the eastern Gaza town of Khuza’a.

Ahmad Abu Raida, now 17, was separated from his family by Israeli soldiers on July 23 as he and his family were trying to flee to safety. During Abu Raida’s five-day captivity, an Israeli soldier, who insisted he be called “captain,” repeatedly asked the boy about alleged Hamas tunnels and rocket launching sites in his neighborhood.

“I told him I did not know,” Abu Raida, who was 16 years old at the time of the incident, said. “‘I’m young. I’m 17 years old. How am I supposed to know these things?’ I said to him, but he became angry and started punching and kicking me.”

Abu Raida’s case was documented by Defense for Children International-Palestine, which released a statement Thursday based on the affidavit it collected. +972 spoke with the 17-year-old earlier today.

...Abu Raida described being taken out of the house the following day, at about 1 p.m., by a soldier who “made me walk in front of him and [ordered] me in broken Arabic to [turn] ‘left and right’. He was walking about three meters behind me.”

The soldiers then took Abu Raida to two houses, ordering him to “[g]et in and see if there are tunnels or not,” according to the 17-year-old. He told them that he did not find any, which prompted the “captain” to physically assault the child.

“He started punching and kicking me. He even brought a wire and hit me with it on my back,” Abu Raida told DCI-Palestine.

Here is Abu Raida’s complete account of the abuse:

“I was crying and begging him to stop, but he did not show any mercy. He kept hitting me over and over. He poured a glass of water on my trousers. He insulted me using very dirty words that I am familiar with, and other dirty words that I have never heard of. Even soldiers who did not speak Arabic insulted me as well. They threatened to ‘shove a stick into my … bottom’ if I did not tell them where the tunnels were.”

...On July 26, according to the affidavit, Abu Raida was ordered to climb down into a hole and dig for tunnels. When he replied that the hole was the beginnings of “a sanitation well,” the captain “took off his helmet and hit me with it on my head,” said Abu Raida.

After complaining that he was feeling ill and could not dig anymore, Abu Raida was taken to a relative’s house, where soldiers again interrogated him about alleged Hamas tunnels:

“I told them I did not know anything about the tunnels, so they would slap me across the face or on my neck, or punch me or kick me whenever they wanted,” Abu Raida said.

After a night of repeated questioning and physical abuse – including being forced “to sit and stand up again more than 60 times” – Abu Raida was asked the following morning if he would “work for them as a spy.” After he refused, a soldier “pointed to the police dogs they had with them and said, ‘You see that dog, it’s better than you.’”

According to the affidavit, at around 1 p.m. on July 27, the fifth day of Abu Raida’s captivity, the soldiers allowed him to put his clothes back on and released him.

Anyone who even glances at this "testimony" objectively can see that it makes no sense. Israelis relying on a 16-year old to search for hidden tunnels? Spending 5 days with him while fighting is going on? Making him dig tunnels with his bare hands?

And yet there are no photos of injuries from his being repeatedly kicked, punched, slapped and hit with various objects like helmets and wires.

The charges are so absurd that only a crazed anti-Israel activist could believe it.

Not surprisingly, the original affidavit that +972 received "exclusively" came from DCI-Palestine.

How reliable is DCI-Palestine?

I researched that last month:

DCI-Palestine lied about the number of children killed in Operation Cast Lead, and they consistently report kids killed by Palestinian Arab rockets as being killed by Israel. Even when other NGOs confirmed that children were engaged in fighting during Cast Lead, DCI-P claimed that they couldn't find any good witnesses so they counted them as being innocents.

DCI-Palestine openly admits that it "develops its programs and acts according to Palestinian children's needs and Palestinian priorities."

In other words, its objectivity is zero.

DCI-Palestine describes its methodology here:

Initial identification of potential human rights violations
Al Mezan and DCI-Palestine identify potential violations through two main avenues: victims’ reports and field monitoring. Al Mezan is a well-known Gaza-based human rights organisation in operation since 1999 and victims of human rights violations regularly contact one of Al Mezan’s three offices located across the Gaza Strip for assistance; in addition, Al Mezan’s five experienced fieldworkers based throughout the Gaza Strip use their strong community links to identify potential cases of human rights violations. Similarly, DCI-Palestine receives reports from children and parents in any of its four West Bank offices and through Gaza-based fieldworkers; however, most investigations are initiated following ongoing and proactive field monitoring from nine fieldworkers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This means that the way DCI (and Al-Mezan) work is that every case of "torture" that they document is either self-reported or they go out of their way to find them. And if there are inconsistencies, what do they do?

Fieldworkers frequently go back to the source in order to verify details and correct any data inconsistency.

An organization that admits up front that it is biased says that rather than discard any inconsistent testimony as being unreliable, they go back and massage the reports until they fit together better with the other "facts" that they handpicked to begin with!

This is a fancy way of admitting that they coax the "witnesses" to lie, or at the very least to shade the truth until they fit the agendas of the Israel-hating NGOs.

DCI-P claims that some 75% of under-18s arrested are tortured. But they hand-pick the people who make the most ludicrous claims to come up with this utter fantasy of a statistic.

For some reason, +972 thinks that there is something magic about an "affidavit" that makes it less likely that it is a lie. But the fact is that any kid in Gaza who seeks fame and fortune can go to the DCI-Palestine website, make up a story, and have a team of "professionals" work at making sure that it fits their explicit anti-Israel agenda. You just know they use leading questions to elicit the most insane responses.

+972, of course, eats this all up without the slightest skepticism.

It is not a mystery that the co-founder of +972 just reiterated that he believes Zionism to be racism.

How NGO's make up lies about Israel

We've looked before at the Euro-Mid Observer, a Geneva-based organization that has no compunction about lying about Israel in order to push its agenda.

We've seen that one of its members openly celebrated a Hamas murderer.
We've seen them write a report blaming Israel for Gaza men beating their wives.
In the same report, they falsely claim that Israel limits medical equipment to Gaza.
We've seen them count Gaza terrorists as "children" who were killed in Gaza.

Clearly, Euro-Mid Observer is not too interested in truthful reporting.

They just released a new report with this graphical summary:

Let's look first at the cartoon. Notice that the word "Israel" on the soldier's jacket is backwards. The original cartoon was a mirror image. Why did they flip the cartoon?

The cartoon is one of Latuff's most famous antisemitic cartoons, which is meant to evoke the famous photo of a Jewish child being arrested by Nazis (although edited to take out the dish and fork):

Euro-Mid is using an antisemitic cartoon to illustrate their anti-Israel report! But since the original cartoon is so obviously a product of a sick Jew-hating mind, they were considerate enough to flip it so as to not be so explicitly antisemitic.

Let's look at one of the statistics, that 75% of Palestinian Arab children detained by Israeli forces are supposedly tortured. Going through the report, they do not give a source for this statistic: they merely say that "International humanitarian agencies have documented that 75 percent of Palestinian children
detained by Israeli forces are subjected to treatment that meets the definition of torture."

What agencies might these be?

It turns out that the main source for this statistic is another rabidly anti-Israel NGO, called DCI-Palestine. We have looked at them before, too - they lied about the number of children killed in Operation Cast Lead, and they consistently report kids killed by Palestinian Arab rockets as being killed by Israel. DCI-Palestine openly admits that it "develops its programs and acts according to Palestinian children's needs and Palestinian priorities."

In other words, its objectivity is zero.

DCI-Palestine describes its methodology here:

Initial identification of potential human rights violations

Al Mezan and DCI-Palestine identify potential violations through two main avenues: victims’ reports and field monitoring. Al Mezan is a well-known Gaza-based human rights organisation in operation since 1999 and victims of human rights violations regularly contact one of Al Mezan’s three offices located across the Gaza Strip for assistance; in addition, Al Mezan’s five experienced fieldworkers based throughout the Gaza Strip use their strong community links to identify potential cases of human rights violations. Similarly, DCI-Palestine receives reports from children and parents in any of its four West Bank offices and through Gaza-based fieldworkers; however, most investigations are initiated following ongoing and proactive field monitoring from nine fieldworkers across the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

This means that the way DCI (and Al-Mezan) work is that every case of "torture" that they document is either self-reported or they go out of their way to find them. And if there are inconsistencies, what do they do?

Fieldworkers frequently go back to the source in order to verify details and correct any data inconsistency.

An organization that admits up front that it is biased says that rather than discard any inconsistent testimony as being unreliable, they go back and massage the reports until they fit together better with the other facts!

This is a fancy way of admitting that they coax the "witnesses" to lie, or at the very least to shade the truth until they fit the agendas of the Israel-hating NGOs.

The 75% statistic (actually, in 2013 the number increased to 76.5%) comes from "affidavits" that DCI-Palestine coaxes "victims" to give, and then coaxes "eyewitnesses" to corroborate in turn. They pretty much say this explicitly. There is nothing scientific about their methods, the "victims" are all but handpicked for their fanciful stories, not chosen according to any objective criteria of children detained. A real statistician would cringe at this methodology.

So DCI-Palestine coaxed about 100 Palestinian Arab kids to say what they wanted them to say. Then they published a statistic saying that about 75% of the kids they interviewed - not all the kids, but the ones they handpicked - claim that they are tortured.

Euro-Mid Observer runs with that statistic as if it has any validity, and expands it to the (unverified) number of Palestinian Arab kids who are supposedly detained, to claim that Israel physically tortures thousands of Palestinian Arab kids a year.

It is a lie built on top of previous lies, but they are lies that no journalist bother to follow back to the source. I fully expect there to be articles today about this report without the slightest bit of skepticism.

Now that we know the methods that these NGOs use, how valid is the statistic that "95% of children are forced to admit to charges they did not commit"? Or any of the other bogus statistics mentioned?

Given the published methodology and the knowledge that Palestinian Arabs often lie to NGOs, and knowing that DCI-Palestine and Euro-Mid are anything but unbiased, the only conclusion is that every single statistic in this paper is not only suspect but can be assumed to be knowingly false.

The idea that Euro-Mid Observer, or DCI-Palestine, or Al Mezan, or PCHR, any of dozens of other biased anti-Israel NGOs can produce verifiable facts, is a joke.

Yes, the PFLP links to "children's NGO" DCI-P are real and relevant

From TOI last week:

Israel is angry at Belgium for what Jerusalem says is a systematic campaign to demonize the Jewish state at the United Nations, including by hosting a “radical” pro-Palestinian activist next week at the Security Council.

In February, Belgium holds the rotating presidency of the council and is using this privilege to invite speakers who, according to fuming Jerusalem officials, hold an extreme anti-Israel bias. They were especially outraged about Brussels inviting Brad Parker, a senior official for a nonprofit called Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), to speak at the council’s session.
“Belgium has positioned itself as one of the Security Council member states most hostile toward Israel,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lior Haiat told The Times of Israel on Thursday. “Inviting a one-sided radical activist such as Mr. Parker to brief the Security Council is yet another negative record.”

Israel’s Ambassador to Belgium Emmanuel Nahshon on Thursday took to Twitter to express regret at Brussels inviting “terror supporters” to the Security Council. “This is extremely disappointing and we will express our outrage in the strongest possible terms.”

Unfortunately, @BelgiumMFA @BelgiumUN has chosen to invite terror supporters to a Security Council debate . This is extremely disappointing and we will express our outrage in the strongest possible terms.
— Emmanuel Nahshon (@EmmanuelNahshon) February 6, 2020

I posted a tweet pointing to an NGO-Monitor report detailing some of the links between DCI-Palestine and the PFLP.

Here is @NGOmonitor's detailed report on ties between @DCIPalestine and the PFLP terror group.@EmmanuelNahshon is 100% correct.@PeterBeinart, @jvplive and other terror apologists like to pretend that this information isn't true.https://t.co/XGXkYL6Hii
— Elder Of Ziyon ҉ (@elderofziyon) February 7, 2020

A group I never heard of responded:

And here is our report on @NGOmonitor, which spreads guilt-by-association allegations to advance its partisan agenda:
SHRINKING SPACE: Defaming human rights organizations that criticize the Israeli occupationhttps://t.co/lOwbYKatr3
— Policy Working Group-Israel (@IsraelPolicy) February 9, 2020

So I looked at their report. The relevant part says:

The second tactic that NGO Monitor employs to defame Palestinian NGOs is associating them with armed groups, in particular by claiming they have alleged ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is listed as a terrorist organization by Israel, the US and the EU.
NGO Monitor says it has exposed ties between Palestinian NGOs and the PFLP. However, it has not presented any evidence that the accused organizations ever participated in terrorist activities or violence. It also has not explained how the organizations’ work – field research, documentation, legal work, international advocacy – is in any way related to terrorism.
The accusations are largely based on references to outdated information, on a small number of cases in the 1970s and 1980s, on selective internet inquiries and on guilt-by-association. Employees of those organizations are often accused of being “affiliated”, “linked”, or of having “alleged ties”, sometimes via family relations, with terrorist organizations or their leaders. Apart from very few exceptions, no trials or formal indictments have been initiated by Israeli authorities against employees or board members of Palestinian organizations relevant to NGO Monitor’s accusations and relating to the period of their involvement in the organization.

DCI-P lies in its reports. I've proven that many times over. Here are two of the "innocent children" they claim Israel killed for no reason:

Moreover, when it claims that 75% of children arrested by Israel are tortured, their methodology is laughable - they look for kids that will say what they want, and if they find inconsistencies in their stories, they go back and prompt the kids to change the stories.

The funny part is that this group accuses NGO-Monitor of bias, but its members seem to all be associated with the NGOs (like B'Tselem) that NGO-Monitor goes after. Moreover, this group, which seems to only have one report issued, accuses NGO-Monitor of no transparency in its sources of funding (which isn't true) - but they told me that they are all volunteers and not funded by anyone. Yet this report says it was funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, associated with Germany's democratic socialist Left party.

In other words, Leftists are defending the leftist/terrorist NGOs whose entire purpose is to bash Israel.

Reporting the ties between the PFLP and various NGOs, including DCI-P, is not meant to show a direct link between the NGOs and specific terror acts. It shows that the groups themselves have an agenda that aligns with that of the PFLP, which as a Marxist/socialist terror group is well versed in using Soviet-style propaganda against Israel - and there is no more effective propaganda nowadays then to accuse Israel of human rights abuses.

NGO-Monitor isn't the only group to show ties between the PFLP and DCI-P. Israel itself has issued a report that shows that (at least until May 2018 when there seems to have been a major re-organization) many senior DCI-P members were also PFLP members.

The anti-Israel Left is purposefully ignoring the facts that NGOs like DCI-P lie, liberally, and they try to cloud the critiques with half-baked information. I've proven the lies - go after my proof if you want to defend a terror-supporting group.

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"Defending" Palestinian children by turning them into martyrdom-seekers

Palestinian Media Watch reported last week:

For almost a decade, the Palestinian NGO Defence for Children International - Palestine (DCI-P) has unjustifiably been accusing Israel of breaching the rights of Palestinian minors who are arrested on suspicion of committing terror attacks. Most recently, DCI-P launched a campaign in the US and in Canada under the title "No Way to Treat a Child", whose goal is "to challenge and end Israel's prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system."

Among other baseless claims, DCI-P argues that the Palestinian minors are arrested, interrogated in breach of all of their rights, prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms.

A recent interview with DCI-P's Accountability Program Director Ayed Abu Qteish on official PA TV, shows that the claims made by his own organization are false. Abu Qteish explained that Palestinian minors do in fact commit terror attacks, and they do it, not necessarily because they want to attack Israelis, but in order to enhance or maintain their status in Palestinian society.

Ayed Abu Qteish: "There are children who, when they were in prison, told the lawyer: 'I want to be imprisoned.' The first time [the child] was imprisoned, he didn't confess, and they released him because there was no evidence to convict him in the Israeli military court. The second time, there was no evidence either. The third time, he wanted to be imprisoned so that his image won't be hurt in the eyes of his friends, even though he is actually innocent... In several cases [Palestinian children] carried out stabbing operations because of the way the public looks at them. They realized 'the best way to clear myself of this image [of helping Israel] is to participate in resistance operations.'"

[Official PA TV, Personal Encounter, Oct. 11, 2017]

PMW correctly points out that this interview shows that, contrary to DCI-P's claims, Israel does not unjustly convict kids.

But I think the most important part of this is the sheer hypocrisy of DCI-P. They claim to "defend" Palestinian children's rights, but they have nothing to say about a society where the kids are brought up to hate. To lionize stabbers and suicide bombers. To aspire to martyrdom. To gain social status by becoming terrorists and criminals.

One would think that the defense of children would include a mention of these actual things that can incarcerate, injure or kill children. But DCI-P is not an organization that cares about helping children, it is only meant to attack Israel under the pretext of helping children.

It is a shame that most people cannot tell the difference.

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An NGO that deserves no donations - but gets plenty anyway

We have discussed "Defense for Children International-Palestine" before. They have consistently called terrorists "innocent children," counting children killed by Hamas rockets as victims of Israel, and coaxing children to make up the most lurid anti-Israel stories they can for their reports which often then get picked up by mainstream media.

DCI-P is a pure propaganda organization that calls itself a human rights NGO.

The latest example comes from a new report where DCI-P pretends to document the deaths of 41 children since October 1. (The article and report are not yet on their English site as of this writing.)

Not once does the news release mention that any of these teens were involved in terror attacks at the time they were killed.

To issue reports that say that Israel is killing innocent children in cold blood without even deigning to mention a single word about what they were doing at the time is a travesty and a slander.

The report lists Fuad and Nihad Waked, killed while attacking people and killing Tuvia Weissman at a supermarket, as victims.

At the exact same time that Palestinians are lauding them as heroes.

But DCI-P claims to support human rights for children. From looking at its website it appears that 90% of what it does is document often imaginary Israeli crimes and the other 10% is some vague activities on "teaching children about their rights." Apparently that claim is enough to prompt it to be funded by:

1. Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO and KerkinActie) Netherlands
2. Bread for the World – Germany
3. Save the Children International
4. Stichting Kinderpostzegels Nederlands (SKN) – Netherlands
5. ARCI Cultura e Sviluppo – Italy
6. Mundubat - Spain
7. Broederlijk Delen - Belgium
8. United Nation Development Programme -UNDP
9. Swiss Interchurches Aid- HEKS
10. World Vision
11. The United Methodist Church
12. The United Church of Canada
13. Temporary International Presence in Hebron – TIPH.
14. UNICEF
15. Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
16. Solidarity Fund
17. French Consulate
18. Open Society
19. MANARA
20. Geneva Kantoon
21. Human Rights and International humanitarian law Secretariat

Either these donors just like to throw money at any organization that claims to be supporting children, or they share a special hate for Israel. If they read any of DCI-P's reports with the slightest bit of skepticism, they know the truth.

We know that DCI-P has nothing to do with truth or accuracy. They are a bunch of liars who have learned that people will believe anything as long as it is "documented" with bogus evidence and half-truths, sprinkled with lies that they coach children to say.

DCI-P is not pro-children. It's main purpose is to create bogus reports to encourage more terrorism by children.

But what about the funders? Are they dupes - or is their hate for Israel so strong that they believe that the stream of lies out of DCI-P is worth more than other actual charities that really do help children?

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NYT parrots absurd, unverified accusations against the IDF

Look how traumatized he is

Yesterday I wrote that +972 Magazine had swallowed, without skepticism, an absurd story of a Gaza teenager, Ahmed Abu Raida, who accused the IDF of forcing him to search for and dig (!) tunnels for five days with hardly any food and without clothing.

Besides the obvious holes in the story, the more lurid details were clearly coaxed out of Abu Raida by the thoroughly discredited DCI-Palestine, a group that says outright that it will work overtime to smooth over any inconsistencies in the "testimonies" it prompts from Palestinian children. The same group has significantly inflated numbers of children killed according to other Palestinian human rights groups, and it ignores cler evidence of children acting as militants that are noted by these other groups. Moreover, it creates statistics based on the coaxed testimony it elicits, claiming that an impossible 75% of children detained by the IDF are tortured.

Today, Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram in The New York Times published the story with the same lack of skepticism as the Zionism-hating +972mag.

Not only that, but the NYT didn't even discount the additional details that further prove that this story is fantasy for any real reporter:

His assertions, of actions that would violate both international law and a 2005 Israeli Supreme Court ruling, could not be independently corroborated; Ahmed’s father, Jamal Abu Raida, who held a senior position in Gaza’s Tourism Ministry under the Hamas-controlled government, said the family forgot to take photographs documenting any abuse in its happiness over the youth’s return, and disposed of the clothing he was given upon his release.

Seriously? His father is a Hamas official and "forgot" to photograph the alleged bruises or to keep the alleged ill-fitting IDF clothes as evidence - a goldmine of anti-Israel material?

The NYT notes that the story first surfaced in a report from the equally one-sided Euro-Mid Observer, an organization that works closely with DCI in fabricating facts and statistics.

But there are significant differences between the initial report from Euro-Mid and the later, more lurid report from DCI-P:

On July 23, 17-year-old Ahmad Jamal Abu Reeda, says he was restrained by Israeli troops who threatened to kill him. After harshly interrogating and beating him, the troops ordered Abu Reeda to walk ahead of them at gun point, accompanied by police dogs, as they searched houses and other buildings. Several times, they demanded that he dig in places they suspected tunnels to exist. Abu Reeda was forced to remain with the Israeli forces for five days.

In this report, Abu Raida claims that he accompanied IDF troops while they searched for tunnels, a week later he is claiming that they sent him inside by himself to search for tunnels - because, of course, the IDF would trust a 16-year old son of a Hamas official to accurately pinpoint and report back on hidden tunnels in houses in the middle of a war zone.

The New York TImes didn't note the inconsistencies. The New York Times didn't research the record of lies and subterfuuge from DCI-P and Euro-Mid Observer. Instead of researching the history of those two groups, The New York TImes pretended that only the IDF finds DCI-P to be unreliable, making it a case of "he said, she said" instead of verifying easily found facts as real journalists would. The New York Times didn't think that the complete absence of corroborating evidence from the family was enough to cast doubt on the story, writing it as if the coaxed testimony had credibility.

To be sure, the NYT pretended to be even-handed, asking the IDF to respond and not getting an answer. But given the known biases and history of flat-out lies from DCI-P and Euro-Mid Observer, Jodi Rudoren and Fares Akram went the lazy route.

Let's be clear: quoting anti-Israel propaganda organizations that masquerade as "human rights" organizations is not reporting. It is recycling propaganda. And they rely on an interview with a teenager whose own testimony is not only ridiculous on the face of it, but self-contradictory (besides the "searching for tunnels" accusation, DCI-P claimed that he was threatened sexually, one of their favorite accusations, but Abu Raida did not say that to the interviewer in two lengthy interviews.)

Real journalists would be more than skeptical with over-the-top claims that have no independent corroboration whatsoever. Certainly a real journalist wouldn't headline a story based on such meager evidence. And real journalists would know that even Amnesty International admits that Palestinian Arab testimony is often suspect.

But lazy journalists, and journalists with an agenda, are a whole different breed. Instead of ignoring or abandoning a story that has little credibility, they decide to go ahead and use little caveats to cover their behinds, caveats that the average reader will discount because the story is written in a way to give credence to the incredible.

(h/t YMedad, PreOccupied Territory, EBoZ)

Latest Richard Falk slander: "IDF sexually abuses PalArab kids"

Richard Falk has outdone himself again in his never ending quest to demonize Israel.

His latest report to the UN Human Rights Council includes this passage:

The continued reports of inhumane and degrading treatment, including sexual assault, of children in detention is further deplorable....In the Ariel settlement in the occupied West Bank, children reported that they had been given electric shocks by Israeli interrogators in the settlement. The children, one as young as 14 years of age, were each accused of throwing stones at a settler bypass road in the occupied West Bank. Following the electric shocks, the boys provided their interrogators with confessions, although they maintained their innocence. In May 2010, a 14-year-old boy reported that his interrogator in the Israeli settlement block of Gush Etzion, in the occupied West Bank, attached car battery jump leads to the boy’s genitals and threatened to electrify the cable. After further abuse, the boy confessed to throwing stones, although he maintains his innocence.

The footnotes for these accusations come from DCI-International Palestine where they simply ask children who were detained by Israeli authorities whether they were abused, and the kids happily answer with what the Israel-haters want to hear.

The accusations are so ridiculously lurid and absurd that only people who are already convinced of Israel's pre-determined guilt could possibly believe them.

Hence, Richard Falk quotes them approvingly.

DCI-PS counted some 40 more children killed in Cast Lead than PCHR did. Invariably, any of the children who were known to have been killed while fighting (and even those that PCHR admitted were combatants) their deaths were described by DCI-PS this way: “Despite DCI-Palestine’s best endeavours to collect affidavits from eyewitnesses to [the child’s] death, no reliable evidence could be gathered.”

More evidence of DCI-PS's disregard for the truth comes from their descriptions of the fictional "massacre" in Jenin in 2002, from April 12th and 16th, the second being copied in a separate report to the UN on the 19th after it was already becoming obvious that there was no massacre:

Reports emanating from residents of the Jenin refugee camp indicate hundreds of dead, a significant percentage undoubtedly children, as well as mass destruction of homes, businesses, and vital infrastructure.

With a limited number of journalists finally allowed entry into Jenin refugee camp, the picture of the massacre that occurred there has become increasingly clear. Testimony from survivors of this massacre present a harrowing picture of a bloody military offensive designed to destroy a civilian population and raze Jenin refugee camp to the ground. Survivors estimate that 1/3 of the camp has been completely destroyed. Moreover, eyewitnesses from the camp describe how Israeli soldiers dug mass graves for those killed in an attempt to hide evidence of the massacre. Thousands of residents have been made homeless and are now seeking refuge in neigbouring villages while desperately trying to seek missing family members.

It is estimated that several hundred residents of the camp were killed during the Israeli attack, including a large proportion of children. Video documentation and photographs from the camp are images of horror that no words can ever describe. They overwhelming illustrate the mass destruction wreaked on the camp and its residents. Journalists in the camp are describing that the air is filled with a noxious stench of rotting bodies that remain lying in the street or buried under rubble. There are also reports of summary executions carried out by Israeli soldiers in the centre of the camp.

As far as I can see, DCI-PS never retracted their lurid claims of a massacre in Jenin that killed possibly hundreds of children. And this report also shows how DCI will happily swallow any lies being given to them by "eyewitnesses" who make up stories.

Just like the kids who claimed to be given electric shocks by Israel.

In other words, the group has no compunction about lying, and they certainly would have no hesitation to ask kids released by Israel leading questions to indicate abuse when there was none. It is no surprise that they support BDS and that they do not say a word about Hamas' abuse of children and use of child soldiers.

So DCS-PS is a really great fit for Richard Falk, for whom facts that contradict his beliefs are ignored and for whom absurd rumors that confirm his beliefs are God-given truth.

10/17 Links Pt2: The British Labour Party’s ‘Kosher Stamp’ for Anti-Semitism; BBC radio: Nazareth is a ‘Palestinian city’

From Ian:

David Collier: Inminds Jew haters gather. Fools, conspiracy theorists and antisemites

On Saturday 14 October, a group of anti-Israel activists went to protest outside of Jason Atherton’s ‘Little Social restaurant’. The group behind the demonstration was ‘Inminds’, a small, highly active, and particularly thuggish group, whose activists clearly have an issue with Jews. This time, they gathered to protest a restaurant participating in ‘Round Tables‘, an international culinary festival in Tel Aviv. As is so often the case now, you can become a target for these haters merely for not being antisemitic yourself.

When I arrived, Jonathan Hoffman was already there. Standing by the door of the restaurant with an Israeli flag. Taking this position meant the Inminds crew wouldn’t be able to crowd the restaurant door and intimidate the restaurant’s clients. Three other counter demonstrators arrived, Richard Galber, Tony Jacobs & Stephen Franklin. These four Zionists spent their Saturday lunchtime, countering an attack on the legitimacy of the State of Israel.

On the other side of the argument, the Inminds crew arrived. In the end there were fifteen protestors in total (not counting two children). As is always the case when dealing with material of this sort, many of the links on this page may not be safe to open at work.

MEMRI: Algerian Journalist In Antisemitic Article: 'Our Dispute With The Jews Is A Religious One'

In an article published August 10, 2017 in the Algerian daily Al-Shurouq, journalist Sultan Barkani wrote that the Muslims' dispute with the Jews is religious rather than political. He stated that the Jews have been plotting against the Muslims since the days of the Prophet Muhammad, and that they are responsible for most of the disasters that have befallen the Muslim ummah. By controlling media, cinema, art and fashion, he said, they control the Muslims' minds and character, inciting them to promiscuity and depravity and causing them to be feeble and defeatist. He called on Muslims to search their souls and return to Islam before it is too late and before the Jews and their secularist agents strip the Muslim ummah of everything it has.

The following are excerpts from his article.
"We all know that the Jews hated the Prophet Muhammad and fought his da'wa [call to Islam]. We also know that they plotted against the [Muslim] ummah after the Prophet's time, that the Righteous Caliphs [the first four Caliphs] were killed because of their slander and the quarrels they sparked, and that the disagreement among the [Prophet's] companions broke out because of their treachery and deception. We know that the Jews continued to plot against the Islamic Caliphate until they eventually managed to topple it in the first quarter of the 20th century,[2] and that they exploited the ummah's weakness to conquer the blessed land [of Palestine] and turn it into the headquarters of their scheming against the ummah. But is that all the Jews did and are still doing against us and our ummah?

"Today, many among us believe that our conflict with the Jews is only because they occupied Palestine, but the truth is that our conflict with them is a religious one, because they hated our Prophet and plotted against our religion and faith, and continue to do so. They were also behind most of the calamities that befell the ummah before the toppling of the Caliphate and the conquest of Palestine, and they continue to be behind most of the troubles that afflict it. It was they who acted to divide the ummah into small countries. [Then] they appointed unambitious rulers to head them and embroiled them in corruption and immorality scandals, so [they could] pressure them and carry out their plans in the Muslim countries.

"It is the Jews who control the media that afflicts the ummah today – media that spreads lust and religiously-dubious [ideas], fills the Muslims' hearts with feebleness, turn food, drink, clothing, cosmetics and cars into their greatest desires... causes them to fear the power and the weapons of the enemies, and turns them into empty-headed cowards. This media fights good traits and morality [by] spreading corruption and depravity, destroys the family unit, and encourages wives to tease and oppose their husbands and daughters to rebel against the authority of their fathers.

Why is the Center for Jewish History celebrating anti-Zionism?

The campaign demanding the firing of David N. Myers as CEO of the Center For Jewish History has been covered by The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and countless other media outlets including establishment Jewish newspapers such as the New York Jewish Week and Los Angeles Jewish Journal.

Allowing Mr. Myers, who mourns the “nakba” (the term meaning catastrophe, used by the Arabs for Israel's Independence Day) to remain in his role, seems to mean that events celebrating forms of anti-Zionist activity become the norm at the Center for Jewish History. Events as these are the direct result of having a CEO who supports a boycott of the Jewish state. If, for no other reason than the fact that in the course of two weeks, multiple events have been planned which are Anti-Zionist, Is there no reaction to an organizational leader hosting events which are violently Anti-Israel?

Mr. Myers remains an active board member of the New Israel Fund, an organization which Israel’s Education Minister Naftali Bennett has called upon to be boycotted (as does Birthright Israel). Bennett said that he would “boycott whoever persecutes Israeli soldiers,” and “not apologize for it.” Bennett went on: “Members of the New Israel Fund, listen carefully: Whoever harms, slanders and persecutes Israeli soldiers are not my brothers. The NIF works methodically and consistently to attack our Israeli soldiers, accuse them of war crimes, of torturing Palestinians and intentionally attacking women and children. They turn to the UN and to the committees that are most hostile to Israel and try their best to convince them that Israel is a war criminal.”

How can the leader of the Center for Jewish History sit on a board that persecutes Israeli Soldiers?

We call upon the board of the Center for Jewish History, including Bruce Slovin, Ira H. Jolles, Martin Karlinsky, Bernard Blum, David Dangoor, Michael Jesselson, Ed Stelzer as well as the American Sephardic Federation, Yeshiva University Museum, American Jewish Historical Society, Leo Baeck Institute and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research to stand up and replace David N. Myers as head of the Center for Jewish History.

01/10 Links Pt1: Send the Hebron observer force home; Why the UN Is Awful: Part Eleventy Billion; Is the key to Middle East peace Ted Cruz's beard?

From Ian:

Prof. Eugene Kontorovich: Send the Hebron observer force home

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron is Israel's perpetual own-goal. The special task force oversees Jewish areas of Hebron and – beyond its members' diplomatic passports – is similar in its activities to left-wing rights groups such as the B'Tselem and Breaking the Silence. At the end of the month, Israel will have an opportunity to send TIPH home.

Israel has more observers than any other country, from the U.N. presence in Jerusalem's Armon Hanatziv neighborhood to the U.N. Disengagement Observer Force on the Golan Heights. But the TIPH is an entirely different animal. It isn't operated by the U.N. yet it is still an international force in Hebron. And unlike other such forces, which only the U.N. can abolish, it maintains an ongoing presence in Hebron because Israel says it can.

Israel was pressured to accept TIPH's presence after Baruch Goldstein massacred 29 Palestinians at the Cave of the Patriarchs in 1994. The organization received its current mandate as part of a 1997 agreement stipulating that its validity must be renewed every three months – hence its "temporary" status. For 20 years now Israel has renewed the hostile organization's mandate to operate in Hebron. Otherwise, its presence would have ended long ago. It is now one of the oldest observer forces in the world, and it contributes to Israel's image as an outlaw state that demands special observation.

The anti-Israel bias of TIPH is built into its mandate, which tasked organization members with the one-sided mission of "promoting by their presence a feeling of security" for Palestinians in Hebron. Protecting Jews from constant terrorist attacks is not part of their job description. Members of the organization even "succeeded" in veering from this narrow definition by attacking Jews in Hebron in the last year. The attackers were later pulled out of the country by the TIPH leadership without ever having to stand trial. TIPH has cooperated with radical groups like Breaking the Silence and leaked confidential reports to the press. The organization's reports are full of anti-Israel claims that have no connection to its stated task. According to media reports, TIPH asserts that Jews have no right to any presence anywhere in Hebron.

Jonah Goldberg: Why the UN Is Awful: Part Eleventy Billion

Via the inestimable Hillel Neuer, I learned that the UN elected Yemen to the vice-presidency of the organization that promotes gender equity.

No joke: @UN_Women, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, just elected 🇾🇪 #Yemen — ranked as the worst country in the world on gender inequality (149th out of 149) — to be Vice-President of its Executive Board. pic.twitter.com/sW3x9KofSt
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) January 9, 2019

You should read his whole tweet-storm. Yemen is not a woman-friendly place.

But this is yet another example of how the worst actors flock to the organizations charged with “fixing” various problems. Human-rights abusers race like moths to a flame to sit on human-rights bodies, precisely because that is the best way to protect themselves from international condemnation and, all too often, focus international fury on Israel. Also via Hillel:

Why dictators actually LOVE the UN Human Rights Council.

UNHRC Condemnations, 2006-2016:
🇮🇱 Israel - 68
🇩🇿 Algeria - 0
🇨🇳 China - 0
🇮🇶 Iraq - 0
🇵🇰 Pakistan - 0
🇶🇦 Qatar - 0
🇷🇺 Russia - 0
🇸🇴 Somalia - 0
🇹🇷 Turkey - 0
🇻🇪 Venezuela - 0
🇿🇼 Zimbabwe - 0
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) October 12, 2018

NGO Monitor: Palestinian NGO Inadvertently Exonerates IDF

A Palestinian non-governmental organization (NGO), Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), has, in two documents, compiled information demonstrating Palestinian violence along the Gaza border during the “Great March of Return.” Despite DCI-P’s claims that the march is a series of “protests” led by “civilians,” the actual evidence provided in their documentation proves otherwise.

For example, in its December 31, 2018 “Year in Review” report, DCI-P states that “protestors’ activities have involved…burning tires, efforts to pass through the perimeter fence on foot or the Israeli-enforced ‘no go zones’ at sea on fishing boats, launching incendiary balloons across the perimeter fence, and throwing stones, molotov cocktails, firebombs or other objects toward the perimeter fence” (emphasis added). Individuals committing these acts of violence are combatants, or civilians directly participating in hostilities.

DCI-P labels other undoubtedly military acts as civilian, claiming that “some civilians have developed other protest strategies such as the ‘night confusion unit’ whose goal is to create distractions for Israeli forces late at night with loud sounds and fireworks. Another group has self-organized to construct large kites with flaming tales to be flown across the perimeter fence in order to start fires in Israeli agricultural fields and forests” (emphasis added).

In the second publication, “Two children died from Palestinian armed group activities,” DCI-P simultaneously claims that children participating in the violence along the Gaza border were both “recruited and used” as child soldiers and killed as civilians. For instance, DCI-P states that “a 15-year-old boy killed by Israeli forces on May 14, was a member of Islamic Jihad’s youth ‘Scouts’ program, known as Al-Faris” adding that “According to eyewitness testimony, Ahmad was throwing two tires toward the remnants of burning tires…he was unarmed and dressed in civilian clothing” (emphasis added).

DCI-P also explains that a 16-year old was “shot him while he was attempting to set fire to a tire near the perimeter fence…while wearing civilian clothing and unarmed”.

05/03 Links Pt1: Israel Will Not Be Forced to Pay for the Murder of Its Own Citizens; From Philasteen to Philadelphia: Muslim Youth Taught to Hate Israel; Polish bishop delivers thinly veiled anti-Semitic sermon

From Ian:

Israel Will Not Be Forced to Pay for the Murder of Its Own Citizens

The Palestinian Authority is again crying wolf over the financial crisis it is currently facing. Let there be no mistake: this is a fake, self-created crisis that is a direct result of the PA's "pay for slay" policy. Since its creation, the PA has paid monthly salaries to imprisoned terrorists and allowances to the families of dead terrorists. These are not dependent on social need but are simply financial rewards for terrorism. Moreover, if a terrorist spends five years in an Israeli prison, he is entitled to a guaranteed "pension" for life.

In 2018, Israel passed legislation according to which any sum expended by the PA on "pay for slay" during a given year would be deducted from the tax revenues Israel transferred to it the following year. Accordingly, in February 2019, the Israeli cabinet decided to deduct $11.7 million a month from tax transfers to the PA - the sum the PA had publicly admitted to paying to terrorist prisoners.

While this monthly deduction was no more than 6.2% of the total amount to be transferred, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas decided to plunge the PA economy into the abyss by refusing to accept any tax revenues. True to form, instead of castigating the PA for squandering billions on incentivizing and rewarding terrorists, French President Macron, the EU and the UN are pressuring Israel to capitulate to Abbas' blackmail and find a way to give the PA all the funds.

Abbas Is Trying to Scare Israel and the World

The Palestinian Authority is refusing to accept any funds transferred from Israel because Israel has begun deducting the value of stipends the PA pays to terrorists and their families. As a result, the PA is now telling the world it faces economic collapse. PA President Mahmoud Abbas is trying to scare Israel and the world community into believing the result will be chaos and terror. The PA leadership is emulating Hamas' behavior by threatening that a humanitarian disaster will ensue unless more financial aid is rendered.

One way to reject the forthcoming American peace proposal and yet not be blamed is to engineer an economic crisis that diverts attention from continuous Palestinian intransigence regarding any and every attempt at peacemaking.
Israel is doing more than its share to bolster the Palestinian economy - providing jobs to Palestinians in the Israeli labor market; supplying water, electricity and health services to Palestinians; and keeping Hamas from overthrowing Abbas' PA.

While it is best for all concerned to ensure a decent standard of living for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, it is highly unlikely that the PA will collapse since it is a source of significant income for Abbas and his coterie.

Dr. Martin Sherman: Let the PA collapse

PA collapse as an opportunity, not a threat

In this regard, there should be a sea-change in the prevailing perception of the significance for Israel of the collapse of the PA and with it, of the entire mendacious Oslowian edifice.

After all, if the only way for the PA to endure is for Israel to collaborate in the financing of the slaughter of its own citizens by transferring “pay-to-slay” funds to perpetrators of terror, grave doubts must be cast on the prudence—indeed, the sanity—of sustaining this state of affairs.

Moreover, for Israel to back down on this issue would not only greatly undermine its credibility—and hence its deterrence capabilities—but would constitute a sharp slap in the face for its staunch allies in the US Senate, who passed the Taylor Force Act to curtail American support for the PA—unless it halts payments to perpetuators of terror and/or their families.

It is generally considered that the imminent financial collapse of the PA comprises a threat to Israel, heralding increasing instability and security problems.

Although this may be true to some extent in the short run, it must be rejected as a long term constraint on Israeli strategic thinking. Indeed, rather than a threat, the impending collapse of the PA should be perceived as an opportunity to extricate the nation from the hazardous cul-de-sac into which the deceptive Oslo process lured it.

03/05 Links Pt1: Abbas’s legacy; Hamas's Systematic Use of Civilians to Promote Terrorism; The UK Admits That Hezbollah Is Nothing But Terrorism; Europe Must Follow

From Ian:

Abbas’s legacy

Abbas’s response was again quick to come. If Israel dares to implement the law, he will refuse to accept any of the remaining taxes.

Without these funds, the PA will no longer be able to provide essential services to the innocent Palestinian population or pay the tens of thousands of its law-abiding civil servants.

As if positively choosing to deprive the law-abiding Palestinians of hundreds of millions of shekels a year while instead squandering it to pay financial rewards to terrorists was not enough, Abbas is now positively choosing to inflict financial ruin on all the Palestinians. The PA has announced that public employees and employees in the private sector will have to take pay cuts in order for the PA to continue paying terrorist murderers in full.

In the absence of any other clear legacy, Abbas will certainly be remembered as the PA chairman who paid the most in financial rewards to terrorists, at the expense of and to the detriment of the millions of law-abiding and productive Palestinians.

The writer is head of legal strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, and a retired lieutenant-colonel who served for 19 years in the IDF Military Advocate General Corps, most recently as director of Military Prosecution in Judea and Samaria.

Hamas's Systematic Use of Civilians to Promote Terrorism

Since seizing power in a 2007 violent coup, Hamas has developed a range of cynical ways to exploit civilians in the Gaza Strip to build up its military wing and promote lethal terrorist activities.

Within Gaza, around its borders, and away from it, Hamas's military wing sends out tentacles disguised in civilian camouflage.

These tactics including importing equipment for its military build-up program, embedding rocket launchers in civilian neighborhoods, using human shields to protect its armed operatives, digging attack tunnels into Israel, and exploiting civilian infrastructure needs for terrorist purposes. Hamas regularly exploits humanitarian efforts, designed to save Gazan lives, in order to enable terrorist atrocities designed to kill Israelis.

Exploiting humanitarian traffic

Hamas frequently tries to exploit Israel's practice of allowing humanitarian crossings in from Gaza to send cash and explosive materials to its West Bank terror cells.

For example, when the Palestinian Authority stopped medical equipment supplies to Gaza, as part of its pressure tactics against Hamas last May, and reduced the number of medical referrals for Gazans that allow them treatment in West Bank hospitals, Israel increased the number of permits allowing Gazans to visit Israeli hospitals.

Israel did this despite having multiple intelligence warnings of Hamas intentions to take advantage of the measure.

A 65-year-old Gazan woman, received a permit last April to receive cancer treatment in an Israeli hospital. The woman was stopped at the Erez border crossing with enough explosives to blow up four buses.

What media ignored: 15-year-old killed at Gaza border was active military member of terror groups

On February 23rd, 2019, a 15 year-old Palestinian, Yusef al-Daya, was shot in the chest at a weekly event called the March of Return. The event is held every Friday at the Gaza border. Al-Daya was rushed to a local hospital where he was resuscitated but a short time later, succumbed to his wound.

Prominent media outlets such as Reuters stated; “Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teen.” The article makes no mention of important facts about al-Daya and what he was doing at the security fence.

This is a common framing of the “protests” at the security fence, which portray the participants as civilians and highlight people under 18 (“children”) killed. The death received considerable media attention, and came not long before the UN Human Rights Council issued a report condemning Israeli killings of “civilians” at the Gaza security fence.

Al-Daya wasn’t just a civilian protesting, he was a member of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement who have a military wing called Mujahideen Brigades.

"The Palestinian Mujahideen Movement mourns its knight: The knight of the Mujahideen / Yusuf Sayeed al-Daya, who was martyred during his participation in the March of Return and Breaking the Seige east of #Gaza." #Israel pic.twitter.com/tRGtLYnZgK
— Joe Truzman (@Jtruzmah) February 22, 2019

Caroline Glick: Time to walk away from Afghanistan

While curtailing U.S. support for Pakistan, the Trump administration has been working steadily to solidify a strategic alliance with India. Most significantly, last September, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis met with their Indian counterparts in New Delhi and signed an agreement that increased the interoperability of the U.S. and Indian armed forces, paving the way for Indian purchase of U.S. military technology that had been out of bounds until then.

That brings us to Afghanistan. The current U.S. policy is to leave after finalizing an agreement with the Taliban and other stakeholders through ongoing talks in Geneva. The talks are reportedly leading to an outcome that will see the Pakistan controlled-Taliban return to power in Afghanistan supported by Turkey on the one hand, and Iran on the other. This outcome, which may be inevitable in light of the balance of forces on the ground, is not one that redounds to the U.S.’s benefit.

Given that the outcome of the talks will not be a good one for America, the U.S. has no interest in being a party to such an agreement. The U.S. would be better off not signing any deal and walking away, rather than acquiescing to a settlement that isn’t in its interest. By walking away with no agreement, the U.S. would reserve its right to attack enemy targets, as it deems necessary, in the future.

Pakistan’s policy of using terrorism and nuclear brinksmanship to force India to accept its belligerence, like its policy of sponsoring the Taliban and other groups attacking U.S. forces in Afghanistan even while serving as the logistical base for U.S. operations, shows that it is well nigh time for the U.S. to follow through on Trump’s campaign policy of walking away from Afghanistan.

Just as there is nothing to be gained by taking a neutral stance between India and Pakistan, so there is no point in permitting Pakistan to play the U.S. for a fool in Afghanistan.

There are downsides to walking away from Afghanistan and Pakistan, but they are far smaller than the price the U.S. pays by funding the wars Pakistan wages against it.

11/09 Links Pt1: Let’s stop lying to ourselves about a Palestinian state; Palestinian children commit terror attacks to enhance their status in society

From Ian:

Saudi Arabia has united with Israel against Iran – and a desert storm is brewing

For the Crown Prince’s supporters — vast swathes of the country’s young, eager for progressive social change — his way may be dictatorial but his motives are honourable. The purge represents the opening salvo in a fight against corruption that comes with an embrace of moderate Islam, a determination to relax the strict segregation of the sexes and introduce entertainment venues. Why should ordinary Saudis have sympathy for the arrested if they have, as alleged, been engaged in massive criminal schemes involving bribery and money laundering? When did any of those speak up on behalf of the oppressed masses?

Bin Salman’s power grab is in itself spectacular. But the wider significance of this can only be fully understood in conjunction with events in Israel. The Jewish state is hardly a natural ally for Saudi Arabia, but they have long shared a common enemy: Iran. Both fear the latter is exploiting the opening created by the fall of Isis, and the triumph of the Assad regime in Syria, to dominate the region. Iran and its proxies — whether the Houthi rebels in Yemen or Hezbollah in Lebanon — are in the ascendant, and neither Israel nor Saudi Arabia are going to sit on the sidelines.

So the two have been working together: close diplomatic cooperation, intelligence sharing and perhaps more. Israeli media recently reported that a senior Saudi prince, possibly Bin Salman himself, paid a secret visit to the Jewish state. The idea of a Saudi-Israeli alliance is still deeply controversial in both countries, but details are starting to leak out.

Amid the recent madness, for example, we saw the resignation of Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, a Saudi puppet. He was summoned to Riyadh, where he was forced to read a letter announcing his immediate departure, the official reason being that he feared an assassination attempt by Hezbollah. But why would a prime minister visit a foreign capital to resign? The odds are that he had no idea he was resigning until he landed in Riyadh to meet Saudis furious at him for holding talks with both Iranian and Hezbollah officials. His departure has shocked the region.

But it didn’t shock the Israelis. A leaked memo shows Israeli diplomats being instructed to back the Saudi version of events, and start to join Riyadh in denouncing the Houthi rebels. Such diplomatic coordination is dangerous, given that an alliance has the potential to create a massive backlash among ordinary Saudis. For generations, they have been taught that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs and Israel is the eternal enemy.

This brings us back to the night of the long knives. An outpouring of anti-Israeli sentiment might, only a few months ago, have provided a rallying cry for those determined to oust the Crown Prince. They would have likely turned to Al-Waleed bin Talal, a fierce critic of Trump and the most vocal Saudi supporter of the Palestinians. But he is in prison, presumably as a warning to anyone who shows opposition to the young new broom.

PMW: Palestinian children commit terror attacks to enhance their status in society

For almost a decade, the Palestinian NGO Defence for Children International - Palestine (DCI-P) has unjustifiably been accusing Israel of breaching the rights of Palestinian minors who are arrested on suspicion of committing terror attacks. Most recently, DCI-P launched a campaign in the US and in Canada under the title "No Way to Treat a Child", whose goal is "to challenge and end Israel's prolonged military occupation of Palestinians by exposing widespread and systematic ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system."

Among other baseless claims, DCI-P argues that the Palestinian minors are arrested, interrogated in breach of all of their rights, prosecuted and sentenced to prison terms.

A recent interview with DCI-P's Accountability Program Director Ayed Abu Qteish on official PA TV, shows that the claims made by his own organization are false. Abu Qteish explained that Palestinian minors do in fact commit terror attacks, and they do it, not necessarily because they want to attack Israelis, but in order to enhance or maintain their status in Palestinian society.
Ayed Abu Qteish: "There are children who, when they were in prison, told the lawyer: 'I want to be imprisoned.' The first time [the child] was imprisoned, he didn't confess, and they released him because there was no evidence to convict him in the Israeli military court. The second time, there was no evidence either. The third time, he wanted to be imprisoned so that his image won't be hurt in the eyes of his friends, even though he is actually innocent... In several cases [Palestinian children] carried out stabbing operations because of the way the public looks at them. They realized 'the best way to clear myself of this image [of helping Israel] is to participate in resistance operations.'"
[Official PA TV, Personal Encounter, Oct. 11, 2017]

12/08 Links Pt2: N.Y. blacklists Dutch companies for boycotting Israel; Amanpour Misleads CNN Viewers About Israel

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: Recent Activities of NGOs Receiving Core Funding from the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat

The Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Secretariat is a joint funding mechanism of Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, and, until recently, Norway. The Secretariat is managed by the Institute of Law at Birzeit University (IoL-BZU) in Ramallah and the NIRAS consulting firm. The Secretariat has been providing $6 million in 2013-2017 to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) active in BDS campaigns (boycott, divestment and sanctions) and other forms of demonization. Some of these NGOs have also promoted antisemitic rhetoric and have apparent links to terror.
The following document summarizes the recent activities of Secretariat-supported NGOs:
B’Tselem (Received $710,000 between 2014-2016)
14 October: Hagai El-Ad, head of B’Tselem, spoke at a highly publicized Arria-formula UN Security Council session, where he described Israel as committing “invisible, bureaucratic, daily violence” against Palestinians that occurs from “cradle to grave.”
Defense for Children – Palestine (DCI-P) (Received $738,000 between 2014-2016)
31 October: Released an article claiming that the Gaza wars “propel child labor for Palestinian kids” due to “Israel’s blockade and repeated military offenses.” In its repeated demonization of Israel, DCI-P referred to the Gaza blockade which, they alleged, “perpetuates and worsens an entirely man-made humanitarian and economic crisis,” entirely removing the context of terrorism.
17 November: In a meeting with the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Palestine, held with Addameer (see above), DCI-P “urged the European Union during a meeting on Thursday to pressure Israeli authorities to end ill-treatment of Palestinian children in the Israeli military detention system.” In accusing Israel of violations, Khaled Quzmar, general director of DCI-P, erased Palestinian stabbing and other terror attacks against Israeli civilians that were perpetrated by minors.
Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) (Received $710,000 between 2014 and 2016)
31 October: Director Raji Sourani spoke at an event sponsored by the World Council of Churches. Sourani asserted that Israel’s blockade of Gaza was “illegal” and “criminal,” and that the Palestinians are living “in one of the biggest manmade disasters.”
22 November: Sourani was quoted in the press release promoting the 145-page communication to the ICC falsely claimed that “The siege on Gaza is unprecedented and is a form of collective punishment. The aim of the closure and the occupation is to de-develop Gaza, to strip Palestinians of their dignity and send Gazan society back to the Middle Ages.”

Keith Ellison’s Views on Israel Reflect the Democrats’ True Colors

Haim Saban is wrong when he says Minnesota’s US Rep. Keith Ellison is unqualified to head the Democratic National Committee. Ellison’s anti-Israel and antisemitic lineages do not disqualify him from the position. They more than qualify him.
It is Ellison, not Saban — the Israeli-American mega-donor to both the Democratic Party and pro-Israel causes — who represents the Democrats’ true colors. The party has been abandoning support for the Jewish state for well over a decade. Recent studies by Brookings, Gallup and Pew reveal a growing gap of support for Israel between Democrats, Independents and Republicans. Israel — an issue that should never be partisan — is strongly supported by Republicans and independents. Democrats? Not so much.
When there are anti-Israel demonstrations and antisemitic activities on our college campuses, it is not the Young Republicans declaring allegiance to the US-designated terrorist group Hamas. Progressives are chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” This call for the destruction of Israel and murder of the Jewish people comes from Leftist groups, not Christian organizations.
Democrats generate more sackcloth and ashes over a Jew building an extra bathroom in eastern Jerusalem than an Iranian building a nuclear device in Tehran. This is the party that remains silent over the murder of gays in Iran and inhumane treatment of women in Saudi Arabia, while condemning Israel when they defend their citizens from rocket attacks launched from Gaza.

Crazy About Keith Ellison

In one of the comments that the ADL said was disqualifying, Ellison described the Jewish state as having a stranglehold on U.S. foreign policy.
“The United States foreign policy in the Middle East is governed by what is good or bad through a country of 7 million people,” Ellison said in 2010. “A region of 350 million all turns on a country of 7 million. Does that make sense? Is that logic?”
Ellison is no stranger to making controversial statements.
Back in 2010, the same year of his comment on Israel, Ellison called Arizona’s immigration laws “fascist” and “racist.”
He also compared anti-terrorism surveillance policies to Japanese internment during World War II.
In 2013, Ellison said the National Rifle Association supports people who “traffic in death” and the following year said he wished the Democratic Party would come out against the Second Amendment.
Ellison is running against South Carolina Democrat Jaime Harrison, who spent the last eight years as a lobbyist for the Podesta Group, and New Hampshire Democratic Party chairman Ray Buckley to head the DNC.

Crazy About Keith Ellison SUPERcuts!

DCI-Palestine called terrorists "innocent children"

Yesterday, I showed that Defense for Children International - Palestine had just released a study that included at least one bogus report, about a Gaza boy who claimed that the IDF used him as a human shield to find terror tunnels.

The central theme of DCIP's report says:

Evidence and documentation collected by DCIP found that, on numerous occasions, Israeli forces unlawfully targeted individual civilians and civilian structures resulting in the killing of children.

Carrying out an attack that is not directed at a specific military objective constitutes an indiscriminate attack and amounts to a war crime.

The circumstances of each attack briefly discussed below strongly suggest unlawful conduct by Israeli forces that amount to war crimes.

EoZ researcher Bob Knot spent some time documenting the military objectives of the specific examples DCIP gives.

For example:

Around 1:30 p.m. on July 20, an Israeli warplane fired a missile without warning at the Skafi family home on Nazaz Street. Anas, 17, and his twin brother Saad died in the attack. Another five children sustained injuries in the same attack.

Here are photos of these poor dead children:

And here other "civilians" killed in the airstrike that DCI-Palestine characterizes as a war crime because there was "no specific military objective:"

Abdel Skafi:

Ahmed Skafi, in front of the Hamas flag:

Mujahid al Skafi, in his martyrdom video:

Ali Skafi:

DCI-P only admits that "According to sources interviewed by DCIP, one member of the Skafi was affiliated with the Palestinian armed group Saraya al-Quds, and present in the building at the time of the attack." No - there were six terrorists we know of.

And so does DCIP. Their nine months of "research" were clearly not meant to uncover any truths.

Bob Knot found other examples of flat-out lies and deception in the report.

DCIP claims that the Joudeh family were innocent civilians. But their father Issam, who they quote, is acknowledged by Fatah to be a "fighter" for their brigades.

DCIP considers him a reliable witness to say that there was no military target at his house knowing full well that he was the target himself.

DCIP lists other family homes that were used as bases of operations of known terrorists.

On the right is a photo of the target of the Hayyeh house airstrike, Osama Khalil Hayyeh, son of Hamas leader Khalil Hayyeh:

From this and other previous examples we have given, we know that "Defense for Children International - Palestine" willingly lies to slander israel.

And they get plenty of money from other NGOs - and the EU.

Defense for Children-International is funded by these organizations as of 2012:

Every single one of these organizations and governments is guilty of funding a group whose sole purpose is to use children as an emotional ploy to slander Israel. Every single one of these funding organizations must be held to account for why they are giving money to an anti-Israel propaganda outfit that pretends to be an objective NGO.

If you want to help Israel, today, you will write to every single one of these organizations and demand answers.

In a sane world, organizations like DCI-P should be shamed and defunded. You can help do that.

I invite any journalists who still have the slightest bit of integrity to investigate everything I am saying independently and to publish their findings, no matter what they are.