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Sunday, July 08, 2018

From Ian:

David Singer: Hamas and PLO Entrench Apartheid in Gaza and West Bank
The British Foreign Office showed appalling judgement when scheduling a visit by Prince William to a refugee camp in the West Bank which should have been closed down long ago. The Prince – obviously moved by what he saw – remarked:
“I saw at Jalazon (refugee camp) the tremendous hardships faced by the refugees, and I can only imagine the difficulties of life lived under these conditions, the ed (sic) resources and the lack of opportunity”

Regrettably Prince William failed to question why:
1. Jalazon had not been dismantled during the past 25 years after it came under Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) control.

2. Jalazon’s inhabitants should still be classified as “refugees” when they are living in part of former Palestine now under PLO occupation.


Prince William’s visit was closely followed by a meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and United Nations (UN) Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process – Nickolay Mladenov.

During their meeting Abbas stressed the UN's important role in providing protection for
the “Palestinian people” and the necessity of continuing to provide services to the “Palestinian refugees” through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Undiscussed between them was why the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza have failed to close down the 27 refugee camps still remaining within their respective fiefdoms.

Caroline Glick: Democrats Reject Israel Because They Reject American Nationalism
The problem is that over the past twenty years or so, the American left has undergone a profound shift in values, from liberal nationalism to radical post-nationalism. This process, facilitated and accelerated during Barack Obama’s presidency, and expressed most emblematically in Democratic support for open borders, has made post-nationalism the sine qua non of the Democrats since Trump’s electoral triumph in 2016.

Israel’s relations with the American left, then, are a collateral victim of a wider shift in American society. Jewish nationalism, with its inherent affinity to American nationalism, was once the basis of Israel’s relationship with the American people as a whole. But now nationalism is the main cause of the Democrats’ increasingly fraught and antagonistic relationship with the Jewish state, while remaining the foundation of ever increasing levels of Republican affinity and support for Israel.

Perhaps Israel will be able to heed Ross’s advice, at least in terms of the Democrats. Perhaps it will be able to develop a common language with the U.S. based on shared interests. There are certainly a number of steps Israel can take to advance that goal.

But the fact is that the Democrats’ shift in values from nationalist to post-nationalist, rather than any action Israel has taken in its domestic or foreign policy, is what has caused the rupture in Israel’s ties to the American left.

So long as Meretz remains a marginal force in Israeli society on the one hand, and post-nationalist forces continue to rise in the Democratic party on the other, bipartisan support for Israel, like bipartisan support for American nationalism, will remain a thing of the past.
David P. Goldman: The Real Modern Anti-Semitism
A Brezhnev-era joke asked whether it was a crime to say that the party chairman was an idiot. The answer was yes, because it’s a state secret. For those who miss Soviet-era humor, French President Emmanuel Macron has provided some consolation, by firing the French ambassador to Budapest for observing in a private memorandum that the president of Hungary is not an anti-Semite. Evidently that is a state secret in France.

In a June 18 dispatch, Eric Fournier, the French ambassador to Hungary, reported that the alleged anti-Semitism of Hungarian President Viktor Orban was “a fantasy of the foreign press.” He added that the allegation diverted attention from the “real modern anti-Semitism,” whose source is “Muslims in France and Germany.” The private memorandum was leaked by the left-wing website Mediapart and reported widely in the French press. Hungary’s “management of illegal immigration” might be a model for France, Fournier added.

The French president denounced the memo as “contrary to the French official position,” saying that if it were shown that Fournier’s views had been made in public, he would be removed. The memo was private, but Macron fired him anyway. Fournier’s memo had struck a raw nerve. On April 18, 250 French notables, including former president Nicolas Sarkozy, had denounced the “new anti-Semitism” arising from “Islamic radicalization,” declaring: “We demand that the fight against this democratic failure that is anti-Semitism becomes a national cause before it’s too late. Before France is no longer France.” Nearly a tenth of France’s half-million Jews have emigrated in the past decade in response to Muslim violence against Jews.

Ambassador Fournier was entirely correct: Polling data provide massive evidence of Muslim anti-Semitism in France. Fifty-six percent of believing and practicing Muslims in France believe that there is “a Zionist conspiracy on a global scale,” according to a 2014 Fondapol study. French soldiers guard synagogues and Jewish schools. French Jews are advised by their community leaders not to show themselves on the street with visible signs of Jewish identity, such as a kippah.

By contrast, Hungary’s 100,000 Jews—a larger presence relative to the country’s population of 8 million—walk unmolested to synagogue in traditional Jewish costume and hold street fairs with minimal security presence. During a visit to Budapest in May, I walked from my hotel to synagogue on Friday night and Saturday wearing a kippah, crossing the city four times. No one looked at me twice. I wouldn’t attempt that in France or Germany.

Saturday, June 30, 2018

From Ian:

MEMRI: Fatah Announces 'National Campaign To Thwart The Deal Of The Century,' Publishes Posters Against The Deal And Its Initiators
Even before its terms have been publicized, the Trump administration's Middle East peace plan, known as "the Deal of the Century," has encountered harsh opposition from the Palestinian Authority (PA), on the grounds that it does not promote peace but seeks to eliminate the Palestinian national identity and the Palestinian state and to topple the Palestinian leadership.[1]Against this backdrop, PA elements have directed personal attacks at the U.S. officials promoting the deal. For example, a statement by the PA Foreign Ministry called Trump's advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner a "political novice who reads history through Israeli eyes."[2] An editorial of the PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida likened U.S. President Donald Trump to "the last Roman emperor, Nero, who burned Rome down, so that the roads no longer led to it..."[3] Al-Hayat Al-Jadida columnist 'Omar Hilmi Al-Ghoul called Trump "a disgrace for America and its people," whose "populist policy" is "dangerous" for the U.S. and the world at large. [4]

Harsh criticism against the deal and its proponents was also voiced by Fatah, whose chairman is Palestinian President Mahmoud 'Abbas. Recently the movement announced the launching of "a national campaign to thwart the Deal of the Century."[5] An announcement on behalf of the campaign, which was also posted on Fatah's official Facebook page, stated that its objective is "to clarify the dangers posed by this deal, which is known to be a bad deal, and explain how it can destroy our national cause [by] proposing alternative solutions that circumvent the Palestinian people's eternal rights [in favor of] humanitarian gestures and economic enticements." The announcement states further that the Deal of the Century is an American attempt "to impose [on the Palestinians] the vision of the Israeli occupation state and to end the dream of the Palestinian state and of national independence."[6]

Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmeh announced that the movement supported the campaign and called on Palestinians to join its activities "on the ground and in the media, and in every language, in order to voice [the protest of the] Palestinian people that will not accept surrender and disgrace."[7] In addition, following the launching of the campaign, Fatah Central Committee member Jamal Muhaisin met with the heads of the movement's branches in the West Bank in order to prepare "The March of Refusal of the Deal of the Century,"[8] and also announced that protests would take place in Ramallah on July 2, 2018 against "the American crime of our era."[9]

Melanie Phillips: The hurdles in front of the Trump peace plan
President Trump’s peace plan for Israel and the Palestinian Arabs, his attempt at the “deal of the century,” will apparently soon be revealed to the world.

His envoys, Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt, have been making the rounds in the region to get Arab allies on board. Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhau has paid a visit to the King of Jordan.

No one yet knows the terms of this deal. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas has refused even to talk to the United States about it and has presumptively rejected it sight unseen.

The message he has received, however, is that the days of using such rejectionism to stymie progress are over. If he won’t agree to these terms, the Israelis will have U.S. backing in doing what they need to do to safeguard their security. And the Arab world has indicated that it will raise no serious objection.

Abbas and his camp are in effect being told: “You lost. Now get over it.” So will they?

As has been clear for decades, there are no terms on which the Palestinian Arab leadership can ever accept the existence of the State of Israel.

Until now, the West didn’t believe that. It thought that if only Israel would give more, and then more again, there could be a two-state solution and an end to the conflict.

This merely demonstrated the delusion born of Western hubris that the agenda of everyone in the world is negotiable. It failed to grasp two crucial aspects of the Palestinian Arab story—one dating from the 1930s, and the other going back to the seventh century.

Consider this: Strikingly, the image Palestinian Arabs present to the world systematically appropriates for themselves characteristics of the Jewish and Zionist experience.
Ben-Dror Yemini: The Palestinian paradox: 70 years of perpetuating refugeeism
“The Palestinian side won by a knockout,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, the IDF’s international spokesperson.

Well, of course. That’s the result of the “wait and see” policy. Hamas knows it won’t defeat Israel in the battlefield. But it knew in advance that it would defeat Israel in the global public opinion. Hamas wasn’t the only one that knew that. Any sensible person knew that.

Israel should have made the Palestinians in Gaza, including Hamas, an offer they couldn’t refuse a long time ago. I have repeated this claim, I must say, like Cato the Elder.

Now, Hamas is proposing a hudna. The proposal’s precondition, senior Israeli officials responded, doesn’t meet Israel’s demands. Such foolishness. Not only is Israel failing to initiate anything, it is also rejecting a Hamas proposal.

When Hamas propose something, Israel should first of all say yes, and add that the hudna must be based on the international community’s terms. Does Israel have anything to lose? No.

But Israel, once again, is winning on the Gaza border and suffering a defeat in the global media. That’s what Hamas wanted. That’s what Hamas got. And the admission of senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil, that 50 of the Palestinians killed on May 14 were Hamas members, doesn’t help Israel in any way. We have lost this conflict—not because of Hamas, but because of Israeli foolishness.

Thursday, June 28, 2018

From Ian:

Australian Unions channelled millions of dollars to an organisation that employed a terrorist leader
AUSTRALIAN taxpayer funds are being funnelled to a Palestinian aid organisation that has employed and supported a leader of a terrorist group in Gaza.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) has given at least $21 million in the past decade to a Sydney-based charity set up by the unions, Union Aid Abroad (APHEDA).

This charity then channelled millions of dollars to the MA’AN Development Centre — a Palestinian organisation that employed a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

The revelations have prompted Foreign Minister Julie Bishop to announce an audit of the union funding, understood to have been decided by her department.

PFLP has been on the official terror lists of the United States, European Union and Canada as a result of its hijacking of planes, assassinations and suicide bombings, while Australia has the group on its “Consolidated” list of organisations subject to financial sanctions as a result of security threats.

One of the MA’AN Development Centre’s 36 staff working in Gaza was Ahmed Abdullah Al Adine, 30, who held the job of Project Co-ordinator and Field Monitor since 2012.

Al Adine was also a leader of the PFLP in Gaza until he was killed in border protests last month. The terror group now hails him as a “martyr” and gave him a grand funeral last month, attended by at least a dozen PFLP terrorists.
Caroline Glick: Trump Must Respond to Putin’s Double-Cross in Syria
President Donald Trump will soon meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. When he does, he must respond to a challenge Putin threw down in Syria, on the heels of Trump’s diplomatic breakthrough with North Korea.

How Trump and his administration respond to that challenge will affect not only the future of U.S.-Russian relations, but also Trump’s ability to operate credibly on the international stage. And, more acutely, it will impact the prospect for a major war in the Middle East.

Last July, despite nearly desperate Israeli opposition, Trump and Putin concluded a ceasefire accord regarding southern Syria. Jordan was also a party to the deal.

On Saturday, in a highly destabilizing and contemptuous move, Putin threw the deal into the garbage can.

The deal, the “Memorandum of Principle for De-escalation in Southern Syria” had three main components.

First, it defined the area of southern Syria below Quneitra and Suwayda as an “exclusion zone” for fighters of “non-Syrian origin,” including Iranian forces and their proxies, and fighters linked to al Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State.

Second, the deal called for maintaining existing governance and security arrangements in opposition-held areas in southwestern Syria. In other words, it barred the Syrian regime from seeking to retake the border area with Jordan and Israel.

Finally, it called for unimpeded access for humanitarian aid workers and the creation of conditions to allow the 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan to begin to return home.
PMW: "With our skulls we are paving the path to certain victory," PA TV host quoted arch-terrorist Abu Jihad
When Palestinians marked the anniversary earlier this year of the death of arch-terrorist Abu Jihad who was responsible for the murder of at least 125 Israelis, a PA TV host quoted the terrorist, encouraging death for "Palestine":

Official PA TV host: "Thirty years since the death as a Martyr of Khalil Al-Wazir Abu Jihad, the First Bullet and the First Stone. On this day we remember what Prince of Martyrs [Abu Jihad] said: 'Our heads will remain in the sky and our feet are planted in the homeland. With our skulls we are paving the path to certain victory and return. The compass will never err and the path will continue to guide towards Palestine.'" [Official PA TV, Good Morning, April 20, 2018]

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that PA and Fatah leaders have turned terrorist Abu Jihad into a role model for Palestinians. Fatah, for example, recently named a futsal championship after him.

PMW has also exposed that the PA encourages Martyrdom-death, for example a song on PA radio stated that "Palestine is etched on the heart of the fetus, a proud Martyr in his mother's womb," and Abbas' Fatah broadcast this song, asking Allah to grant Palestinians "Martyrdom" in Jerusalem:

Friday, June 22, 2018

From Ian:

Israel then and now shows power of a good defense and a strong wall
What impressed me on this visit was the confidence of the Israeli people. The security was much less oppressive. I barely saw a handful of weapons out in the open during 10 days in the country.

The Israeli military wasn’t present in heavy numbers in the border towns, at least not out in the open. Ashkelon and Sderot were thriving, expanding, growing, with families and lots of children everywhere. No one was concerned about Palestinian terrorists. The walls were working, keeping the killers away from the Israeli people.

I had lunch with a journalist colleague who lives in Jerusalem. He laid out for me the altered facts on the ground in the region over the years and how an effective security wall can rewrite the strategic balance of power.

“The Palestinians are screwed,” he started off. “They have tried suicide vests, car bombs, stabbings, tunnels, rockets, etc. Nothing has worked. They have been opposed by Israeli might at every turn. What do they do now?” he asked.

While standing on the top of a yeshiva in Sderot a few days before I left, I looked out at the Gaza border. This time there were several large plumes of smoke. “Now Hamas is reduced to flying flaming kites to burn Israeli grassland. They are defeated,” my friend said.

Israel will survive this phase of the conflict as well and come out even stronger. In fact, her people will continue to thrive. With President Trump in the White House, the U.S. is once again unambiguously on her side — as it should be.

Take it from one who has just been there: For all the media hand-wringing and pro-Palestinian forces at the U.N. and in Europe, Israel is stronger than ever.

Two months of burning kites from Gaza


Thursday, June 21, 2018

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Road to Peace Does Not Run Through Ramallah
Last week, hundreds of Palestinians in PA-controlled Ramallah took to the streets to demand that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas end his economic war against Gaza. Rather than bow to the public’s demand, Abbas declared the protests illegal. His security forces attacked protesters with truncheons and tear gas.

To date, then, not only has the PA done nothing to help the people of Gaza, but the same regime that also uses every international stage to condemn Israel for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, has taken active measures to deepen the suffering and poverty of the population.

Monday, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s spokesman released a statement responding to the Trump administration’s reported plan to help the people of Hamas-controlled Gaza. Promising that the Kushner-Greenblatt regional tour would end in abject failure, the PA spokesman insisted that the U.S. is trying to “divide the Gaza Strip from the West Bank under humanitarian pretexts.”

His statement also accused the U.S. of using the cause of “humanitarian aid or rehabilitation” as a means to defeat the Palestinian war against Israel by transforming the suffering of the people of Gaza into a “humanitarian issue rather than a political one.”

In other words, as far as the PA is concerned, Gaza’s humanitarian crisis is not something that is supposed to be dealt with on a practical level. No one is actually supposed to improve the lot of the residents of the Hamas-controlled enclave. Rather, Gaza is nothing more than a launching pad for human cannon fodder in the war against Israel. The purpose of the Palestinians’ existence in Gaza is to suffer and die to advance the cause of Israel’s annihilation. Anyone who treats the people of Gaza as human beings is harming the Palestinian cause.
Khaled Abu Toameh: The Palestinian Authority’s Policy of Denormalization
Conclusion
The Palestinian leadership and its NGO partners and supporters have distracted the international focus from addressing Palestinian economic development, liberalization, and infrastructural development. Instead, they have focused international attention on boycott and denormalization campaigns against Israel. Unlike much of the developing world, which has sought stronger economic relations in an age of technology, globalization, and economic integration, the Palestinian leadership has refused to develop its economy in conjunction with its economically thriving Israeli neighbor, who is potentially the prospective Palestinian state’s strongest trading partner.

Following the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians had the unique advantage of receiving aid from Israel, unlike other newly formed states. However, under the pretext of refusing to bolster Israel’s “occupation economy,” the Palestinian leadership has publicly declined to cooperate on joint projects with the Israeli government or the Israeli private sector that would benefit both economies.

Instead, the Palestinian leadership has been complicit in its own economic stagnation, due to questionable business ventures and investments that have largely failed to benefit the Palestinian people, and instead have denormalized relations with Israel.

The BDS movement and the Palestinian and foreign NGOs that subscribe to its destructive doctrine have also worsened the economic situation for Palestinian workers, by limiting access to Israel, the largest labor market for Palestinians. Instead of allowing its own people to find well-paying jobs, including salaries that could be taxed by the Palestinian Authority, and encouraging disposable incomes that could be reinvested in Palestinian services, the Palestinian leadership has operated not as a developing state, but a corrupt and even failing regime. This fact has long been evident to large sectors of Palestinian society. They recognize that the Palestinian leadership’s failure on the economic and political fronts has resulted in their attempts to refocus the debate on attacking Israel as an illegitimate, apartheid, colonial implant that is the source of all Palestinian ills.
Nikki Haley Blames Human Rights Orgs for Undermining Efforts to Reform U.N. Human Rights Council
The New York Times reports that Haley criticized the groups for opposing her efforts to garner support in the U.N. to reform the council. One of the groups Haley sent the letter to, Human Rights Watch, opposed Haley's push for a U.N. General Assembly vote on the reforms.

"The risk was that it would have opened a Pandora’s box of even worse problems," Human Rights Watch U.N. director Louis Charbonneau said.

Haley told the groups that they have aligned themselves on the side of Russia and China, which possess a murky record on human rights.

"You put yourself on the side of Russia and China, and opposite the United States, on a key human rights issue," she wrote. "You should know that your efforts to block negotiations and thwart reform were a contributing factor in the U.S. decision to withdraw from the council."

The Times reports that Haley grew frustrated with the groups after they sent a joint letter to member states of the U.N., asking them to oppose Haley's resolution.

Tuesday, June 19, 2018

From Ian:

Noah Rothman: The Triumph of Reason at the United Nations
This leads us to the UNHRC’s irredeemable flaw: Its institutional biases are so skewed in favor of murderers, dictators, and bigots that it serves primarily to legitimize the dregs of the earth.

The Council has a permanent agenda item—item seven—which obliges it to regularly survey potential abuses committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories. Item seven is such a blatant misuse of the Council’s time that Europe and North America boycott the group when that article is invoked.

In 2008, the commission appointed Richard Falk, a 9/11 conspiracy theorist and Hamas apologist, to serve a six-year term as a United Nations Special Rapporteur for the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories. In 2011, Falk was reprimanded by UN General Secretary Ban Ki-moon for endorsing the idea that the U.S. was behind the attacks on its own territory.

Jean Ziegler, co-founder of the Muammar Qaddafi International Prize for Human Rights—which is a real thing that has been awarded to such paragons as Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Louis Farrakhan—currently serves in an elected role on the United Nations Human Rights Council.

The Council’s special rapporteur on “unilateral coercive measures,” Idriss Jazairy, is alleged by UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer in testimony before Congress to have executed an “aggressive campaign of non-democracies to muzzle UN rights experts.” One of Jazairy’s most recent reports to the UNHRC is a typical jeremiad attacking the civilized world for maintaining strict sanctions against Bashar al-Assad’s government as punishment for Damascus’s use of genocidal tactics and chemical weapons on civilian populations.

Despite Haley’s earned hostility toward the United Nations for its biases against both Israel and the general appearance of sanity, she has proven to be a particularly effective ambassador. Last week, amid a rote condemnation of the Jewish State for engaging in targeted self-defense amid a flare up on its border with Gaza, Haley managed to expose something new: cracks in the UN’s anti-Israel consensus.
The United Nations’ Flawed Condemnation of Israel
As a thought experiment, one may consider, “What was Israel to do?” It is a shame that there were innocent civilian casualties and injuries — Palestinians that did not take part in the violence were harmed. It is important, however, to make a clear distinction that Israel did not see these protests as an opportunity to kill as many Palestinians as possible. These protests, especially when they turned violent, thrust Israel into a position to defend its border. Of course, Israel and Palestine have differing stories on the militant status of the protestors killed.

During the protests, the IDF has been running a live twitter feed of their defensive actions with video recordings for reference. In addition to this, the IDF have on several occasions dropped leaflets from aircraft warning protestors not to approach the border fence.

In response to the Israeli defense, Hamas fired approximately 100 rockets toward heavily populated Israeli towns and cities. The Iron Dome Missile defense system was able to prevent the projectiles from causing any civilian casualties. Again, the UN failed to make any mention of this in their latest condemnation towards Israel, even after the United States proposed an amendment enumerating such.

In the UN general assembly chamber, Turkey, Algeria, and Palestine, some of Israel’s most outspoken critics, proposed a resolution condemning Israel for “excessive use of force.” The Palestinians also formally requested heavier security apparatus to defend themselves against the Israelis. A majority of countries also chose to neglect the defensive position Israel maintained or any mention of Hamas’ involvement. The only nations that voted against this measure were Australia, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Togo, the United States, and Israel.

The greater community of the United Nations chose to forgo objectivity, and opt for a one-sided narrative.
Elliott Abrams: More Evidence that the UN's Automatic Majority Against Israel is Fraying
A few days ago (here) I analyzed the recent UN General Assembly vote on Gaza and concluded that the UN's automatic majority against Israel is fraying.

Now there is an important piece of new evidence. In his first address to the UN Human Rights Council, British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said this:
I will say that we share the view that a dedicated agenda item focused solely on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories is disproportionate and damaging to the cause of peace and unless things change, we shall move next year to vote against all resolutions introduced under Item 7.

Thus the British are now saying they will next year automatically vote against any and every resolution brought under this agenda item, regardless of its content. Britain's move is likely to open the door for others in the EU or the Commonwealth to follow suit, or at least give Israel and the United States a powerful new argument against that agenda item that singles out Israel. There are some good candidates on the Human Rights Council who ought to follow the UK--and, it should be said, Australia, which already takes this position. Among them are Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Switzerland in Europe and Japan outside it. They should be the targets of an American and Israeli campaign for some basic standard of fairness. The alternative will be the withdrawal of the United States from the Human Rights Council.

Having criticized the Foreign & Commonwealth Office recently (in this blog post) it is only fair to give credit where it is due. Hat's off to Johnson and the FCO on this one.

Monday, June 18, 2018

From Ian:

Ruthie Blum: Gaza Media Coverage: Snipers and Lies
"We will take down the border [with Israel] and we will tear their hearts from their bodies." — Yahya Sinwar, Hamas political leader.

"[W]hen we talk about 'peaceful resistance,' we are deceiving the public. This is a peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies, and enjoying tremendous popular support." — Mahmoud Al-Zahar, senior Hamas official, on Al Jazeera.

When a doctor in Gaza announced that a congenital heart defect was likely the cause of her death, the Gaza health ministry removed her name from the list of those killed in clashes with Israel, pending an autopsy.

"Hamas' goal is to have Israel kill as many Gazans as possible so that the headlines always begin, and often end, with the body count. Hamas deliberately sends women and children to the front line, while their own fighters hide behind these human shields." — Alan Dershowitz, Esq.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Victims of Arab Apartheid
Tens of thousands of Palestinians are now living in a Lebanese ghetto called Ain Al-Hilweh, and the world seems to be fine with that.

No one cares when an Arab country mistreats and discriminates and kills Palestinians. But when something happens in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, the international media and community suddenly wake up. Why? Because they do not want to miss an opportunity to condemn Israel. One can only imagine the uproar in the world were Israel to pass a law denying Arabs jobs or the right to inherit property.

There are no protests on the streets of London or Paris. The UN Security Council has not -- and will not -- hold an emergency session to condemn Lebanon. Of course, the mainstream media in the West is not going to report about Arab apartheid and repressive measures against Palestinians. As for the leaders of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, they do not have time to address the problems of the camp residents. The Palestinian Authority and Hamas are too busy fighting each other, and the last thing they have on their minds are the interests and well-being of their people.
Former Israeli minister Gonen Segev charged with spying for Iran
Former minister Gonen Segev was charged last week with spying for Iran, giving Israel’s arch-foe sensitive information about locations of security centers and the country’s energy industry, the Shin Bet security service said Monday.

He was allegedly an active agent at the time of his arrest, and had twice been to Iran to meet his handlers.

Segev, a disgraced politician who served time in jail for drug smuggling, was extradited to Israel from Equatorial Guinea and charged with spying for Iran last month.

According to the Shin Bet, Segev, whose former ministerial responsibilities included energy and infrastructure, has knowingly been in contact with Iranian intelligence officials since 2012, making first contact with them at Iran’s embassy in Nigeria.

“Segev gave his operators information about [Israel’s] energy sector, about security locations in Israel, and about buildings and officials in diplomatic and security bodies, and more,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.

“Segev even visited Iran twice to meet with his handlers in full knowledge that they were Iranian intelligence operatives,” the security service said.

The Shin Bet said Segev met with his Iranian handlers in hotels and safe houses around the world and used a special encrypted device to send them messages in secret. (h/t Yenta Press)

Saturday, June 16, 2018

From Ian:

When Does Pro-Palestinian End … and When Does Anti-Israel Begin?
In a 2013 news item on Iran’s annual Quds Day march, the Associated Press reported that newly elected President Hassan Rouhani said at the event that Israel was an “old wound” that needed to be removed.

The AP later provided some context for those remarks, “Rouhani spoke at an annual pro-Palestinian rally marking ‘Al-Quds Day’ — the Arabic word for Jerusalem — and although his remarks appear contrary to his outreach efforts to the West, they should also be seen in the context of internal Iranian politics where softening the establishment’s anti-Israeli stand is not an option.”

Despite the AP’s efforts to downplay the extremism of Rouhani’s comments – that he had no choice but to express his opposition to the Jewish state – it also reported, “In the capital, Tehran, tens of thousands took to the streets, chanting ‘Down with America’ and ‘Death to Israel.'”

In a report about last week’s cancelled soccer match between Israel and Argentina, The Washington Post reported, “The BDS movement aims to pressure Israel into complying with international law vis-a-vis its policies toward the Palestinians by discouraging the purchase of Israeli goods, pressuring international companies not to conduct business in Israel and urging celebrities not to visit or perform in the country.”

Omar Barghouti, one of the founders of the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) campaign, has been clear about the goal of his movement. He has said, “A Jewish state in Palestine in any shape or form cannot but contravene the basic rights of the indigenous Palestinian population and perpetuate a system of racial discrimination that ought to be opposed categorically….Definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian, rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian, will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.”

Nor is Barghouti alone among proponents of BDS in calling for an end to the modern state of Israel.
Elliott Abrams: The UN's Automatic Majority Against Israel is Fraying
On June 13, the United Nations General Assembly voted once again to condemn Israel, this time for its actions against Hamas in Gaza when tens of thousands of Hamas supporters and terrorists stormed the Israeli border. The condemnation is not news, but the voting patterns are worth a look.

The final resolution passed 120 (yes) to 8 (no) with 45 abstentions. Who were the eight countries voting no? The United States and Israel, several Pacific island states (Marshall Islands, Nauru, Micronesia, Solomon Islands), Togo—and Australia.

Last year Australia’s government announced that it was through with unfair and unbalanced UN treatment of Israel and would henceforth vote against such resolutions in all parts of the UN system. And so it has. For example, on May 18 of this year, the UN Human Rights Council adopted yet another worthless resolution condemning Israel. The vote was 29 to 2, and the two countries voting no were the United States and Australia. So the first thing to note about the recent General Assembly voting was the Australian vote: a rare show of principle and determination on the international diplomatic scene, and a model for other democracies who all ought to be following Australia’s path.
In Israel, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Calls to Turn the Tide Against Terrorists
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told the International Homeland Security Forum in Israel on Tuesday:

Our alliance has been fortified through crises and strengthened by collaboration. Following the 9/11 attacks - the deadliest terror assault in modern world history - you were right there by our side. We knew we could not win the coming fight alone. And we turned to you for guidance because the State of Israel has withstood decades of violence at the hands of fanatics - and has proudly defended freedom against relentless terrorist enemies.

From Ottawa to Berlin, our communities are now on the frontlines. All countries represented here have experienced this evil in one form or another, whether your nationals have been victims or your homelands have been hit directly. We are at war. And we must respond accordingly.

Victory in this struggle begins with moral clarity. We are engaged in a generational struggle against Islamist militants, the preeminent terror threat to our lives, our livelihoods, and our way of life.

Whether it is global jihadist groups such as ISIS and al-Qaeda and their legions of digital followers, or the proxies of rogue nation states such as Iran, our enemies have perverted a major religion to justify horrific violence and lust for power. Their goal is to establish a totalitarian empire governed under a backwards and repressive worldview. And the danger they pose is at its highest point in decades.

There have been more than 100 terrorist attacks in Western countries since the rise of ISIS in 2013, resulting in thousands of casualties. The U.S. has been the victim of around 25 of those incidents. Most were carried out by homegrown violent extremists inspired by the group's heinous propaganda.

The good news is that we have put clear-eyed, focused pressure on terrorist groups around the world. We have obliterated the core safe havens of groups such as ISIS and taken tens of thousands of them off the battlefield. The U.S. is standing up to rogue regimes that bankroll terror and use proxies to advance their malign goals.

Friday, June 15, 2018

From Ian:

What an Israeli Wishes Palestinians Could Understand
In Letters to a Palestinian Neighbor, Yossi Klein Halevi, an American-born Israeli who now spends much of his time fostering Jewish-Muslim dialogue, makes the case for Israel to the Palestinian people. He has even made an Arabic translation of his book available for free online. In an interview with Adam Rubenstein, he explains why peace has so far proved impossible:

The conflict [with Israel] is at the heart of Palestinian identity in a way that’s not true for [Israel’s] other neighbors. The Palestinian national movement, in all its factions, tends to see compromise [with the Jewish state] as a betrayal of justice. What we’ve just seen on the Gaza border in these last weeks is an expression of what’s wrong with Palestinian national identity. Why are Palestinians who live in Palestine demanding the “right of return” to a country that is no longer Palestine? Return to where from where? Leave Gaza—Palestine—and go to Israel? Why, for that matter, are there refugee camps in Gaza—in Palestine? Aren’t they already home? Or does the Palestinian right of return only play out literally, to the actual ancestral homes that were lost in war 70 years ago? Those homes are never going to be retrieved; in most cases they no longer even exist. No Israeli government will agree to national suicide by allowing the descendants of refugees to move to the Jewish state.

The Palestinian demand for right of return to the state of Israel is an expression of the rejection of Israel’s right to exist. . . . I believe that that rejection is the source of the conflict. If there was an indication that even part of the Palestinian people was publicly challenging the official narrative about Israel and the Jewish people—namely, that we are thieves and colonialists and liars who have invented our own history—if there was only some indication on the other side that this is now being debated in Palestinian society, that would be a moment when many of us in Israel would say, “well, maybe we really do have a partner.” In the absence of any debate within Palestinian society over Israel’s legitimacy, it’s hard to argue with the Israeli consensus that there is no partner for peace among the Palestinian leadership.
'BDS efforts harm the Palestinians'
Like the authors of the study, Diker is all too familiar with the ‎main obstacle to coexistence – violence. Dajani Daoudi's car was ‎rigged with explosives in 2014 after he took his students to visit ‎the Auschwitz concentration camp. Aloush refuses to have her ‎photo featured here for fear of retaliation, and Basherat was ‎questioned by Palestinian intelligence after participating in a ‎conference promoting coexistence that was sponsored by the ‎Peres Center for Peace and Innovation. ‎

The study, which has already been published in English, will ‎soon be published in Hebrew, but releasing it in Arabic is a ‎highly sensitive matter and Diker, as the editor, is careful when ‎he addresses the issue. ‎ ‎"The Arab world for 'normalization' can also be used to mean ‎‎'collaboration,' and that has a very negative connotation of ‎helping Israel," he explained. "This is why we opted for 'shared ‎perspectives on a new path to peace.'" Sensitivities aside, the ‎paper will soon be issued in Arabic, as well. ‎

JCPA President Dore Gold explained that the study is directed at ‎the international community but also at the Arab and Jewish ‎sectors. ‎ ‎"We must bring about a change in awareness, not only among ‎the Palestinian public but also in the international community, ‎which must understand that any progress towards a solution ‎between us and the Palestinians has to be based on cooperation ‎and not on the approach promoted by the BDS movement.‎

‎"That's something that has to be said and it's one of the goals of ‎our publications. Moreover, there are those in the Jewish ‎community abroad who think that BDS is what we need now. We ‎have to say – loud and clear – that this is the wrong approach ‎and that the right path is cooperation. If we don't say that, we ‎will lose the battle and that is why it is so important," he ‎concluded. ‎

From Ian:

Haley: UN Makes ‘Morally Bankrupt Judgement’ by Passing Resolution Against Israel
The UN General Assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Israel for using “excessive force” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in recent weeks.

The resolution, “Protection of the Palestinian civilian population,” which was proposed by Algeria and Turkey, was passed with 120 “yes” votes, eight “no” votes, and 45 abstentions. A similar resolution was rejected by the UN Security Council earlier this month after a US veto.

According to the language of the resolution, it condemned the “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate force by the Israeli forces against Palestinian civilians,” while calling on UN Secretary-General António Guterres to submit a report within 60 days on his proposals for “ensuring the safety, protection and well-being of the Palestinians.”

Prior to the resolution’s adoption, the United States attempted to add an amendment condemning Hamas. However, that amendment, which was supported by a slim majority of countries, 62-58, was ultimately rejected on procedural grounds after failing to achieve a two-thirds majority.

“The nature of this resolution clearly demonstrates that politics is driving the day. It is totally one-sided. It makes not one mention of the Hamas terrorists who routinely initiate the violence in Gaza,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told the UN body.

In his address prior to the vote, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon harshly criticized the countries supporting the resolution.

“The resolution before you today does not protect innocent Palestinians. It does not protect innocent Israelis. It does not condemn, does not even mention, Hamas, the internationally recognized terrorist organization directly responsible the violence in our region,” he said. “By supporting this resolution, you are colluding with a terrorist organization. By supporting this resolution, you are empowering Hamas.”


UN rights body reopens amid US threat to withdraw over anti-Israel bias
The UN Human Rights Council will kick off a new session Monday under a cloud of growing US criticism and the threat of Washington withdrawing from the body altogether, primarily over its anti-Israel bias.

Longstanding US criticism of the council for its bias against Israel has escalated since UN-skeptic Donald Trump came to power.

US ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley gave a fiery speech before the Geneva-based council a year ago, demanding deep reforms to fix its “chronic anti-Israel bias.”

She also demanded the body throw out abusive regimes, like Venezuela and Burundi, which hold seats on the rotating 47-seat council.

Despite the tough US rhetoric — which essentially said reform or we are leaving — little has changed.

Tired of waiting for reform, Washington a few weeks ago circulated a proposed resolution unilaterally laying out the full makeover it was looking for.

But the US received little support and has not yet formally tabled the resolution, sparking fevered speculation it was about to quit, and fears of the impact that would have.
David Singer: PLO Rejects Trump Lifeline on Negotiations with Israel
President Trump – still mulling over the release of his ultimate peace deal to resolve the Arab-Jewish conflict – has seen the swift rejection of the call by Jason D. Greenblatt – Trump’s Special Representative for International Negotiations – to have Dr Saeb Erekat replaced as chief negotiator for the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) in future negotiations with Israel.

Greenblatt raised America’s objection to Erekat in stark and uncompromising terms – alleging Erekat
- failed to contribute to an atmosphere conducive to peace
- used rhetoric and made claims that were in many respects simply inaccurate
- had baselessly claimed that Trump’s decision to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem was part of a U.S. attempt to force an Israeli-written agreement on the Palestinians.
- had failed to acknowledge a significant escalation of rockets fired by Hamas and other militant groups into Israel, which clearly represented the danger that Hamas and these groups present.

Greenblatt asserted that the Palestinian leadership need not shackle themselves to Hamas’s failure – in fact, this should be the Palestinian Authority’s opportunity to do the right thing for the people they lead.

Greenblatt called on Erekat and the Palestinian Authority to reject Hamas’s violence and lies and work with America to bring relief to Gaza where America believed real progress could be made that would lay the foundation for a more hopeful future.

Greenblatt’s reference to the “Palestinian Authority” was strange indeed – since it had been disbanded by written decree issued by PLO Chairman Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.

Greenblatt stressed it was time to stop indulging in overwrought rhetoric and give the Palestinian people something beyond words. Palestinian leadership must create better lives, not sacrifice those lives for Hamas’ grim agenda of terror.

Greenblatt claimed he had heard many Palestinian voices over the past 16 months and many did not agree with Erekat or his approach. Yet, the sad thing is that most would only meet and speak honestly and openly in private because they are afraid to speak publicly.

White House to present Trump peace plan 'not before August'
The White House is unlikely to present its Middle ‎East peace plan before August, a source familiar ‎with the issue told Israel Hayom Thursday. Jerusalem ‎officials confirmed they had no information ‎regarding an earlier rollout of a peace plan. ‎

A U.S. National ‎Security Council spokesperson said ‎senior presidential adviser Jared Kushner and ‎Special Representative for ‎International ‎Negotiations Jason Greenblatt are expected to travel ‎to ‎Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia "to discuss the ‎situation ‎in Gaza and to discuss the next stages of ‎the peace effort, as well ‎as get some ideas from ‎players in the region about some remaining ‎questions ‎the White House peace team has. The trip may include ‎‎other stops as well."‎

While in Israel, Kushner and Greenblatt are scheduled ‎to team with U.S. Ambassador to Israel David ‎Friedman ‎for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin ‎Netanyahu. ‎

Since U.S. President Donald Trump's Dec. 6 recognition of Jerusalem as ‎Israel's capital, the Palestinians have refused to ‎meet with American officials, citing their "gross ‎biased" toward Israel. As such, Kushner and ‎Greenblatt are ‎not scheduled to meet with anyone ‎from Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' ‎government.‎ ‎

Thursday, June 14, 2018

From Ian:

‘Times Are Changing’ at UN: US Wins Plurality of Votes to Condemn Hamas During General Assembly Day of Drama
The 50-year-old reputation of the UN General Assembly as a trusty platform for incitement against the State of Israel acquired its first blemish on Wednesday evening, when a plurality of member states voted in favor of a US-sponsored amendment condemning Hamas for the deadly violence on the border between Israel and Gaza.

“The UN bias against Israel runs very deep, but the fact that the American amendment against Hamas won a voting plurality in the UN General Assembly shows that times are changing,” an official at the US mission to the UN told The Algemeiner after the vote.

The official’s observation followed an afternoon of high drama over a resolution submitted by Arab and Islamic member states that blamed Israel for the Gaza violence, ignored Hamas entirely, and demanded “international protection” for Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The US amendment — holding Hamas responsible for rocket attacks against Israel, the destruction of crossing points delivering humanitarian aid from Israel into Gaza, and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields — won the support of 62 member states, but only after an attempt led by the Algerian delegation to prevent a vote outright failed.

As Miroslav Lajčák, the president of the UN General Assembly, attempted to call a vote on the American amendment, the Algerians, backed by Cuba, the State of Palestine and Venezuela among others, invoked a procedural rule to prevent the vote from taking place at all. Speaking from the floor, US Ambassador Nikki Haley countered that “denying a vote on the US amendment would be the height of this body’s hypocrisy.”

Haley Lambasts U.N. Opposition to Amendment Condemning Hamas
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley called on U.N. member states Wednesday to vote on an amendment condemning the Palestinian terror group Hamas.

Haley touted the U.S. amendment implicating Hamas in the violence and incitement in Gaza to balance the resolution put forward condemning Israel for "excessive violence" in response to the riots. Turkey and Algeria brought the resolution on behalf the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and Haley criticized members who are quick to denounce Israel but scared to oppose Hamas.

"Nothing in our amendment is controversial; it would condemn Hamas for launching rockets, diverting resources to build military infrastructure, and obstructing humanitarian aid," Haley said. "These are issues where we should be united in opposing Hamas. This motion suggests that these issues are not even worthy of a vote in the General Assembly. What are you afraid of to vote on this amendment?"

Later Wednesday afternoon, the General Assembly voted to adopt the non-binding resolution without the U.S. amendment mentioning Hamas. Assembly members voted in favor of the U.S. amendment but fell short of the two-thirds majority needed, so the amendment failed.

Haley has strongly opposed the U.N.’s myriad denunciations of Israel and recently vetoed a similar resolution in the Security Council. The rioting and violence along the border between Israel and Palestinian-controlled Gaza involved attacking Israeli soldiers and resulted in about 120 Palestinians being killed, most of whom were members of terror groups.

She concluded by saying Hamas’ actions worked against the cause of peace.


Netanyahu praises Nikki Haley for strong defense of Israel at U.N.
Even before the U.N. passed a General Assembly condemning Israel for “excessive use of force” in Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US ambassador Nikki Haley for Wednesday night her spirited defense of Israel in the U.N. and her efforts to get an amendment to the resolution added that would condemn Hamas violence.

"Israel appreciates the firm support of the Trump administration in Israel at the United Nations and Ambassador Haley's resolute statement today, which exposed the hypocrisy of the bias against Israel at the U.N.,” he said in a statement

The U.N. resolution condemning Israel passed by a vote of 120-8, with 45 abstentions. Haley's amendment also passed by a simple majority of 62-58, with 42 abstentions, but because of a procedural ruling that a two-third majority was needed, that amendment was not adopted.

“The unceasing focus of the United Nations in Israel shames the organization, it also diverts attention from other burning issues that require the attention of the international community,” Netanyahu said.

Regarding the situation in Gaza, Netanyahu said “Hamas is responsible for the difficult situation there, for the loss of life and suffering resulting from the violent riots it has been waging in recent weeks.”

Netanyahu said that Instead of improving the lives of Gaza residents, “Hamas uses the Palestinian population as a human shield in the ongoing war of terror against Israel. President Abbas only exacerbated the humanitarian distress in Gaza by cutting salaries in Gaza and refusing to pay for the electricity supplied to Gaza.”
UN General Assembly condemns Israel for ‘excessive’ force at Gaza border
With a huge majority, the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday passed a resolution condemning Israel for using “excessive, disproportionate and indiscriminate” force during the recent clashes at the Gaza border and calling for an “international protection mechanism” for Palestinian civilians.

The dramatic, down to the wire session saw the United States attempt to add a paragraph condemning Hamas, which was ultimately rejected on procedural grounds though most member states supported it. The resolution, proposed by Algeria and Turkey, then passed with 120 “yes” votes, 8 “no” votes and 45 abstentions.

The eight countries that voted against the resolution were the US, Israel, Australia, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Togo and the Solomon Islands.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a statement issued before the actual voting took place, condemned the resolution, entitled “Protection of the Palestinian civilian population.”

“The UN’s incessant focus on Israel not only brings shame to the organization. It also draws attention away from so many other pressing issues that demand the attention of the international community,” he said.

Friday, June 08, 2018

From Ian:

Pierre Rehov: Exposing the Truth About the Gaza Riots
Islamist organizations attacking Israel have always had a propagandist’s keen sense of vocabulary in their communication with the Western world.

Rightly convinced that few of us are able or even interested in deciphering their original speeches — which reveal their true intentions — they have been flooding us for decades with erroneous concepts and false claims, all playing on our desperate desire to do “good” and fight for the oppressed. They try to use our own history and heartstrings to make us react in a way that will be favorable to them.

And over the years, their terminology has been accepted by everyone, including — it must be said — in Israel itself.

For weeks, Hamas and other terrorist organizations have undertaken what they want the world to believe is a peaceful and “pacifist” popular uprising.

Once again, their deceptive use of vocabulary is clever and manipulative. On one level, these “protests” are peaceful demonstrations, thereby serving as cover for multiple attempts to destroy the separation barrier between Gaza and Israel, kidnap soldiers, kill Israeli and Jewish civilians, and launch terrorist attacks.

Why are the Palestinians “protesting” at the fence? The true answer is to destroy and overrun the Jewish state. But according to Hamas, they are simply seeking a “right of return” for the descendants of “refugees.”

Buses chartered by Hamas and Islamic Jihad — decorated with giant keys and illuminated names of missing villages supposed to symbolize this “right of return” — show up every Friday in front of mosques and schools in Gaza. Hamas has created a manipulated population, ready to kill themselves for these cynical or obsolete words and ideas.
MEMRI: Palestinian Authority Supreme Shari'a Judge And Abbas' Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: The Jews Have No Connection To Jerusalem; This Is An Imperialist Myth And Distortion Of History
Mahmoud Al-Habbash, the PA Supreme Shari'a Judge and President Mahmoud 'Abbas's advisor for religious affairs, said at a June 4, 2018 conference that the struggle in Jerusalem is between the rightful owners of the city – the Muslims and Christians – and "some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil." He added that the state of Israel is an imperialist Western enterprise whose purpose is to weaken and divide the Arab world, and that the claim that the Jews have a historical connection to Jerusalem is nothing but a distortion of history.

The conference at which Al-Habbash spoke, organized by "the Muslim-Christian Council for the Salvation of Jerusalem and the Holy Places" and the Organization for Muslim Cooperation (OIC) under the title "The Monotheistic Religions against the Judaization of Jerusalem and Its Holy Places," was also attended by other PA officials, including the Palestinian Mufti, as well as other Christian and Muslim religious leaders, and ambassadors.

The following are translated excerpts fromn Al-Habbash's statements at the confrence:
"The battle for Jerusalem is not a religious one; it a political battle between the rightful owners [of the city] and the imperialists. This obligates us to raise the Arab and Muslim world's awareness of the Arab, Muslim and Christian identity of Jerusalem...

"We must be careful when using a particular term or word in connection with Jerusalem, for this is not a conflict with the Jews, but a struggle between the [real] residents and owners of Jerusalem, who are Muslim, Christian and Arab, and some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil. The catastrophe of Jerusalem did not begin in 1967 or 1948, or with the Balfour Declaration. It began much earlier, about 450 years ago, when imperialist calls began to be heard in the West.

"Palestine is not the [Jewish] Promised Land or the land of the [Jewish] forefathers – for if it is, why did they consider it as [only] one of several options when they started looking for a place for their state?...

Wednesday, June 06, 2018

From Ian:

PA warned Paris that Gaza border clashes financed by Iran — report
The Palestinian Authority informed the French government last month that Iran was financing and encouraging the weeks of violent protests along the Gaza border, Channel 10 reported Tuesday.

“Iran is fully financing and pushing the Hamas demonstrations,” Salman al-Harfi, the Palestinian ambassador to France, reportedly told a government official. “The PA has no choice but to support the demonstrations because so may of the participants are demonstrating against the economic situation.”

While the Ramallah-based PA does not support the Hamas-led protests, the Palestinian ambassador said it “does condemn Israel’s response, because most of the protesters are non-violent.”

Last week Iran agreed in principle to renew its funding for the Hamas terror group, according to a report published in a London-based Arabic daily.

The move reportedly sparked anger in Iran, which is experiencing an economic crisis and in recent days Iranian protesters have been throwing away charity boxes for the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation after a film showed it gave millions of dollars to Palestinians rather than direct the money to needy Iranians.

Poverty Isn’t What Causes Gaza’s Endemic Violence. It’s the Other Way Around
No cliché has dominated the discourse on the Gaza situation more than the perception of Palestinian violence as a corollary of the Strip’s dire economic condition. No sooner had Hamas and Israel been locked in yet another armed confrontation over the past weeks than the media, foreign policy experts, and politicians throughout the world urged the immediate rehabilitation of Gaza as panacea to its endemic propensity for violence. Even senior members of the Israel Defense Forces opined that a “nonmilitary process” of humanitarian aid could produce a major change in the Gaza situation.

While there is no denying the argument’s widespread appeal, there is also no way around the fact that it is not only completely unfounded but the inverse of the truth. For it is not Gaza’s economic malaise that has precipitated Palestinian violence; rather, it is the endemic violence that has caused the Strip’s humanitarian crisis.

For one thing, countless nations and groups in today’s world endure far harsher socioeconomic or political conditions than the Palestinians, yet none has embraced violence and terrorism against their neighbors with such alacrity and on such a massive scale.

For another thing, there is no causal relationship between economic hardship and mass violence. On the contrary: in the modern world it is not the poor and oppressed who have carried out the worst acts of terrorism and violence, but rather the militant vanguards from among the better educated and more moneyed circles of society – be they homegrown terrorist groups in the West or their Middle Eastern counterparts.

Yasser Arafat, for instance, was an engineer, and his fellow arch terrorist George Habash – the pioneer of aircraft hijacking – a physician. Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, was a schoolteacher, while his successor, Sayyid Qutb, whose zealous brand of Islam fired generations of terrorists, including the group behind the assassination of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, was a literary critic and essayist. The 9/11 terrorists and certainly their multimillionaire paymaster, Osama bin Laden, as well as the terrorists who massacred their British compatriots in July 2005 and those slaughtering their coreligionists in Algeria and Iraq, were not impoverished peasants or workers driven by hopelessness and desperation but educated fanatics motivated by hatred and extreme religious and political ideals.

Monday, June 04, 2018

From Ian:

When Democrats embrace an anti-Semite
In both cases, Democrats have made a meal of this embarrassing situation, despite the fact that the GOP in both California and Illinois has condemned and disowned these candidates, who have no more chance of being elected to Congress than they have of flying to the moon.

But what’s going on in the Virginia district that just so happens to include Charlottesville is something very different.

The Democratic candidate for Congress in Virginia’s Fifth District is Leslie Cockburn, an author and film producer who is presenting herself to the voters as nothing more than an ardent liberal critic of Trump. But far from a garden-variety Democrat, Cockburn is a veteran left-wing propagandist with a troubling history of anti-Israel extremism.

Along with her husband, Andrew, Cockburn was the author of 1991 book Dangerous Liaisons: The Inside Story of the U.S.-Israeli Covert Relationship. The book was a compendium of conspiracy theories and smears that sought to depict Israel as manipulating U.S. foreign policy. The Cockburns weren’t content to feed the notion that Jews were the tail wagging the American dog to the detriment of American interests. Instead, they sought to blame Israel for a host of international problems, including South American drug cartels, Central American massacres and apartheid in South Africa.

As no less a critic of Israel than The New York Times noted in its review of the book at the time, it was dedicated to “Israel bashing for its own sake,” and that its message was that Israelis “are a menace” who are responsible for “everything that ails us.”
Women’s March Co-Founder Condemns Founding of Israel as ‘Human Rights Crime’
Women's March co-founder Tamika Mallory said during an event Friday that Israel committed a human rights crime in doing "whatever" it took to take land from Palestinians.

"This is not about stopping one side. This is about ensuring that the native people are able to enjoy the land. They shouldn’t have to ask anybody for their land. This is their land," Mallory said in remarks made via video at an event hosted by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Justice Delegation, and flagged by The Forward.

Mallory, who joined the group of lawyers and civil rights activists on a trip to the Holy Land last month, accused Israel of obtaining the land by force.

"When you go to someone’s home and you need a place to stay, you ask ‘Can I come into your home and can I stay here, and can we peacefully coexist?’ You don’t walk into someone else’s home, needing a place. It’s clear you needed a place to go – cool, we got that! I hear that!" Mallory began.

"But you don’t show up to somebody’s home, needing a place to stay, and decide that you’re going to throw them out and hurt the people who are on that land. And to kill, steal, and do whatever it is you’re gonna do to take that land! That to me is unfair. It’s a human rights crime," she added.


J Street Chapters Aiding BDS Campaigns on Campuses
Campus branches of the liberal group J Street have been helping anti-Israel activists gain support for student government resolutions calling for boycotts of Israel, according to a Washington Free Beacon review of BDS campaigns on college campuses during the recently concluded 2017-2018 school year.

At many schools where boycott and divestment campaigns have taken place, J Street chapters provided key assistance to BDS activists through statements, lobbying, and activism that fueled the anti-Israel climate on campus and reinforced accusations against Israel made by BDS groups. Despite J Street claims that the group is an important progressive opponent of BDS, at many schools J Street chapters did not oppose BDS campaigns and sat on the sidelines during contentious fights over student government divestment resolutions.

The revelations, compiled from Free Beacon interviews with campus activists and pro-Israel professionals who fought BDS resolutions this year, call into question the group's publicly claimed opposition to the BDS movement. Catie Stewart, deputy director of J Street U, recently boasted that her organization "does not support Israel Apartheid Week or BDS campaigns and joins anti-BDS coalitions." This year's campus fights suggest a different record.

At the University of Minnesota, where a BDS referendum succeeded in March, a pro-Israel coalition launched a campaign to oppose the vote. J Street U refused to participate in the effort, instead releasing a statement condemning the campus Hillel for being insufficiently anti-Israel. The president of J Street U at UMN, Imogen Page, is a donor to Jewish Voice for Peace, a BDS group that endorses terrorism and calls for Israel's destruction. Page was seen handing out anti-Israel flyers during the voting period of the referendum. Weeks later, she was arrested for disorderly conduct during an anti-Israel protest staged by a different BDS group.


From Ian:

Why History Still Matters: The 1967 Six Day War
Today, there are those who wish to rewrite history.

They want the world to believe that there was once a Palestinian state. There was not.

They want the world to believe that there were fixed borders between that state and Israel. But there was only an armistice line between Israel and the Jordanian-controlled West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.

They want the world to believe that the 1967 war was a bellicose act by Israel. It was an act of self-defense in the face of blood-curdling threats to vanquish the Jewish state, not to mention the maritime blockade of the Straits of Tiran, the abrupt withdrawal of UN peacekeeping forces, and the redeployment of Egyptian and Syrian troops.

All wars have consequences. This one was no exception. But the aggressors have failed to take responsibility for the actions they instigated. They want the world to believe that post-1967 Israeli settlement-building is the key obstacle to peacemaking.

But the Six Day War is proof positive that the core issue is and always has been whether the Palestinians and larger Arab world accept the Jewish people’s right to a state of their own. If so, all other contentious issues, however difficult, have possible solutions. But, alas, if not, then all bets are off.

These people want the world to believe that the Arab world had nothing against Jews per se, only Israel. Yet they trampled with abandon on sites of sacred meaning to the Jewish people. In other words, when it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, dismissing the past simply won’t work.

Can history move forward? Absolutely. Israel’s peace treaties with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 prove this. At the same time, however, the lessons of the Six-Day War illustrate just how tough and tortuous the path can be, and are sobering reminders that, yes, history does matter.
‘Nakba,’ ‘Naksa’ … Nowhere
When it comes to the Palestinian “original sin” theory of Israel’s creation, there are two key milestones: the flight of approximately 750,000 Arab refugees during the 1948 War of Independence and the 1967 conquest of eastern Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip during the Six Day War. The events of 1948 are known in Arabic as the nakba (“catastrophe”) and the events of 1967 are called the naksa (“setback”).

This week, with the 51st anniversary of the Six Day War upon us, Palestinians will mark “Naksa Day” on June 5 with protests and demonstrations — and it will be interesting to see whether any new wave of protests fizzles out in much the same way as those on the Israel-Gaza border in recent weeks, which were presented as a commemoration of the events of 1948. It will also be interesting to see whether Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and allied Islamist groups will use the occasion to fire another barrage of missiles at Israel.

It’s increasingly clear to everyone that neither of these strategies is working for the Palestinians. Compare the international reaction to Gaza in 2018 to that of summer 2014, when Israel took military action to end the daily missile launches from Gaza, and which the Palestinians similarly depicted as a total war designed to deliberately kill and maim civilians. Four years on, especially among European governments, there is much greater recognition that Hamas uses Gazans as human shields and far less lecturing Israeli leaders about the moral perils of a “disproportionate response.” As for the expected convulsion of international protests, there really hasn’t been one so far.

Instead, the Palestinians are confronted with a region that no longer places them front and center, as well as an impatient international community, less willing to indulge Palestinian tales of Israel’s inherent brutality. In her speech to the UN Security Council emergency meeting on the Palestinian missile attacks on Israel — called by the United States — US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley openly declared that the time had come for the Palestinians to consider alternative leadership that can adopt a peace strategy. Haley, significantly to my mind, made no distinction between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and the Hamas rulers of Gaza, puncturing yet another prevailing myth that the former is dramatically more moderate than the latter.

PMW: Trump is “the copy of Hitler,” says official PA daily op-ed
Following the US veto of a UN resolution, which called for "international protection" for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over Israel's response to the violent March of Return riots, US President Trump was described as "the copy of Hitler" and a "racist" in an op-ed in the official Palestinian Authority daily:

"This racist [Trump], the copy of Hitler, does not want to see us free but rather dead, uprooted, expelled, and captive. He is happy to see us hungry, chasing the American sack of flour and leaving the principle of freedom thousands of miles behind us." [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, June 3, 2018]

This is how writer Muwaffaq Matar, a member of the Fatah Revolutionary Council, interpreted the American motives behind the decision to veto the Kuwaiti resolution that was brought to a UN Security Council vote on June 1, 2018. The resolution did not mention Hamas' rule over the Gaza Strip or the violent demonstrations and attempts to breach the border into Israel, nor the recent escalation of rocket fire from Gaza into Israel.
Erdogan and Other Turkish Politicians: "The State of Israel Emulates Hitler"


Tuesday, May 29, 2018

From Ian:

France Is Hypocritical on Israel, the U.S., and ‘International Law’
Along with several other European countries, France has strongly opposed America’s decision to relocate its embassy to Israel’s capital. To support its position, Paris has claimed, on the basis of various UN resolutions, that international law militates against recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state. These legal claims, writes Michel Gurfinkiel, are muddled—at best:

Both France and the EU claim that the 1949 cease-fire lines between Israel and Jordan in the Jerusalem area (the “Green Line”) are an international border. If this were indeed the case, those sectors in Jerusalem held by Israel [following the cease-fire] would be internationally recognized Israeli territory; accordingly, Israel would have every right to turn them into its capital, and the United States, or any other country, to locate its embassy there.

Likewise, France and the EU countries [already] recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s de-facto capital, since they routinely visit the Israeli government or the Israeli parliament there. Under international law, a de-facto recognition is as valid as a de-jure recognition. . . .

Paris and Brussels [therefore] point to Security Council Resolution 470, passed on August 20, 1980, which condemned the enactment by Israel’s parliament of a constitutionally binding law enshrining Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and called upon the governments that had already established embassies in that city to withdraw them. Resolution 470 was largely based on the . . . General Assembly’s Resolution 303 of December 9, 1949.


However, Gurfinkiel argues, France refuses to apply the same logic to itself, as evidenced by the case of the island of Mayotte. Mayotte had been a French colony along with the other Comoros Islands, but when the Comoros became independent, its populace repeatedly voted to remain part of France, which to this day treats the island as its own:
Trump’s Israel Policies Compared To The Last 12 Presidents
With President Donald Trump’s fulfillment of his campaign promise to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel, his moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, his subsequent refusal to ratify the Obama administration’s Iran Nuclear Deal, and official statements from the White House twitter account such as:

"The U.S. condemns the Iranian regime’s provocative rocket attacks from Syria against Israeli citizens, and we strongly support Israel’s right to act in self-defense." – @WhiteHouse, May 10, 2018

(and all of this in just one year!), Trump has set the foundations for what could be the most stalwartly pro-Israel American foreign policy since Israel’s birth in 1947.

With religiously anti-Trump pundits (see here, or here) insisting that Trump’s policies and rhetoric are actually damaging to Israel and somehow worse than those of his predecessors, it’s worth taking a stroll down memory lane to see how past presidents perceived Israel, and how they conducted their foreign policies.

Barack Obama (Democrat) (January 20, 2009 – January 20, 2017)
Barak Obama made strong statements in his campaign for the oval office, marketing himself as an ostensibly pro-Israel candidate. He even called Jerusalem the capital of Israel: "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided. I have no illusions that this will be easy."

When speaking with Obama, French President Nicolas Sarkozy bewailed Israel’s PM saying, "I can’t stand Netanyahu; he is a coward and a liar." Rather than defend Netanyahu, Obama replied, "You can’t stand him? I have to deal with him more than you."

Obama also signed 38-billion-dollars in aid to Israel. The 10-year foreign aid package came on the heels of Obama’s Iran nuclear deal which Israel warned would only further empower Iran and do nothing to mitigate its funding of terrorist organizations or pursuit of nuclear weapons. Moreover, under a provision of the deal called, the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU), Israel is barred from receiving any additional funds with the notable exception of wartime.

As one of his final actions as US president, Obama refused to exercise the United States’s veto power in the United Nations, allowing a virulently anti-Israel resolution calling for a halt to Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem (a region Obama previously stated was without question part of Israel’s undivided capital).
Gaza electricity cut off after rocket strikes supplying facility
One of dozens of rockets launched Tuesday by terrorists from the Gaza Strip hit facilities supplying electricity to the Gaza Strip.

Due to the damage to the facilities, three lines supplying electricity to the southern Gaza Strip were stopped.

The electricity company said it would take several days to repair the equipment for a regular supply of electricity.

Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz instructed the Israel Electricity Company (IEC) not to endanger its employees and to repair the problem only after a lull.

From Ian:

Findings of the ITIC’s examination of the identity of Palestinians killed in the events of the “Great Return March” (March 30, 2018 – May 15, 2018)
After preparations which lasted for about two months, mass riots began to take place every Friday near the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. The declared purpose of these demonstrations and riots, organized and orchestrated by Hamas, was to break through the border fence and have masses of people enter into Israeli territory. According to the Palestinians, this should symbolically realize what the Palestinians refer to as the “right of return” of the Palestinian refugees (i.e., the destruction of the State of Israel). Another objective was to bring the severe economic situation of the Gaza Strip into public awareness and exert pressure to “break the siege.” The demonstrations and riots still haven’t ended. Hamas intends to pursue them also during the forthcoming weeks, even at the cost of more fatalities.

Hamas aspired to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Gaza Strip residents to participate in these events. However, eventually, the number of participants did not exceed several tens of thousands. In the two peak events, on March 30, 2018 (Land Day, the opening events) and on May 14, 2018 (the day on which the US Embassy was relocated to Jerusalem), about 40,000 residents took part in the demonstrations and riots. On other Fridays, Hamas could not mobilize that many residents. During the rest of the week days, several thousands of people took part in the riots and there were also a number of attempts to carry out terrorist attacks.

The riots culminated in the events of May 14, 2018, with attempts, halted by IDF soldiers, to penetrate en masse into Israeli territory. The attempts to break into Israeli territory were accompanied by intentionally increased violence, throwing pipe bombs and Molotov cocktails at IDF soldiers; attempting to cut the fence; and sending Molotov kites, which set fire to fields in Israeli communities adjacent to the Gaza Strip. As a result of the increase in the number of rioters and the extensive violence on their part (which was unusual compared to previous incidents), the number of fatalities reached its height. Those fatalities consist of Palestinians who were in the front line of the rioters, most of them Hamas operatives.

PMW: Birthday in Paradise – suicide bomber’s preferred way to celebrate, says Fatah
Emphasizing the message to Palestinians that “sacrificing” oneself for “Palestine” and dying as a “Martyr” while carrying out a terror attack against Israelis is an admirable act, the Bethlehem branch of Abbas’ Fatah Movement lauded the female suicide bomber Andalib Takatka, who murdered 6 when she carried out a suicide bombing in 2002.

Fatah stated that the suicide bomber hurried and carried out her attack a few days before her birthday because she “preferred” celebrating in Paradise, and that “her desire to take revenge against the Jews” was stronger than her desire to blow out birthday candles:
Posted text: "Sixteen years ago, on April 12, 2002, heroic self-sacrificing fighter Andalib Takatka carried out a self-sacrificing operation in occupied Jerusalem that led to the death of 6 Zionists and the wounding of another 85...
It was a deeply moving sight to see Andalib read her will... while holding Allah's book and saying: 'This life is fleeting, pointless, and worthless, and the best thing man seeks is a dignified life in Paradise.' ... Andalib carried out the April 12, 2002 self-sacrificing operation, and did not wait until Sunday, April 14, in order to celebrate her 20th birthday. This was because she preferred to celebrate it in a different place and a different manner, and she hurried to extinguish the flame of her desire to take revenge against the Jews instead ofextinguishing her 20th candle in her father's house...
We all bow in admiration and appreciation before the soul of heroic Martyrdom (Shahada) seeker Andalib Takatka."

[Facebook page of the Fatah Movement - Bethlehem Branch, April 12, 2018]
Peaceful Palestinian Terrorists Fire Peaceful Mortars At Jewish Kindergarten, Attempt Peaceful Murderous Border Breaches Against Israel
On Tuesday, Hamas fired an enormous wave of mortars into Israel, striking an Israeli kindergarten but causing no injuries. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis were forced to bunkers to weather the attack. That wave of mortars followed an attempt over the weekend by Islamic Jihad terrorists to cut through the Gaza border in order to murder Israelis in their beds; during the chase, terrorists fired at Israeli troops. One terrorist was killed, and another injured. The Israeli Defense Forces also announced that several days ago, Hamas attempted to fly a drone loaded with explosives over the border.

Israel has retaliated with targeted strikes against Islamic Jihad positions in the Gaza Strip. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted out:


The media coverage of Hamas’ and Islamic Jihad’s latest acts of terrorism has been skimpy at best, even though just two weeks ago, the media went full-coverage over terrorist-organized riots on the Gaza border during the US’ Jerusalem embassy move. During those riots, Hamas announced that the vast majority of Palestinians killed had been Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, and stated openly that they were attempting to use protests at the border as a cover for paramilitary action. Nonetheless, the American and European media insisted that Israel was firing indiscriminately at peaceful protesters, and that the Jerusalem embassy move had been the cause of the violence.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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