Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 14, 2018

06/14 Links Pt2: UNRWA: Gaza Baby Mortality Increased As Soon As Israel Left; What a Pakistani Muslim learnt from a Jew; Who to Root For in the World Cup, From Least to Most Anti-Semitic

From Ian:

UNRWA: Gaza Baby Mortality Shot Up As Soon As Israel Left

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) periodically estimates infant mortality rates (IMR) among the Arabs in its Gaza Strip camps. These surveys recorded a decline from 127 per 1000 live births before the Israeli takeover in 1967, to 20.2 in 2006 – a few months after Israel had unilaterally left the Strip.

A survey in 2006 revealed an IMR of 22.2. A survey conducted in 2011, following five years under Hamas rule, revealed an IMR of 22.4. And a survey in 2013, estimated the IMR at 22.7.

Alerted by these findings, a follow up survey was conducted in 2015 to further assess the trend of IMR. It found, according to a new UNRWA report published on Wednesday (Stalled decline in infant mortality among Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip since 2006), that the mortality rate in infants in the refugee camps has not declined since 2006.

Infant mortality refers to deaths of young children, typically those less than one year of age, measured by the IMR, which is the number of deaths of children under one year of age per 1000 live births. IMR is an indicator used by the UN to monitor progress in the efforts to ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. Meaning, the higher your IMR, the lower are the chances that the rest of the population is healthy.

According to the Director of UNRWA’s Health Department, Dr Akihiro Seita, the new findings are “an extraordinary warning sign, an alarming trend in the overall situation not only of health for infants but also the health of entire Palestine refugee population in Gaza. Moreover, it is a warning sign on the overall social and economic situation of Gaza, as the Palestine refugees account for more than seventy per cent of the entire populations in Gaza. Infant mortality is a barometer of the health of an entire population.”

PMW: PMW welcomes FIFA investigation of Jibril Rajoub

FIFA announced that it received and is investigating the Israel Football Association’s (IFA) complaint against Jibril Rajoub, for inciting violence against Argentinian football players

PMW has resubmitted PMW’s complaints to FIFA’s disciplinary committee against Jibril Rajoub due to his incitement to murder Israelis and glorification of terrorists who killed Israelis. From PMW’s letter to FIFA:

“Should the Disciplinary Committee deal only with the complaints against Rajoub related to Messi and the Argentinian football team, the clear implication would be that while attacks on football stars is unacceptable to FIFA, incitement to murder Israelis and the glorification of terrorist murderers of Israelis is acceptable. This clearly discriminatory and even racist approach cannot and must not be reflective of FIFA’s message.”

PMW calls on the Israel Football Association to also submit PMW’s complaints to FIFA in addition to its own recent complaint. It is important that the IFA expresses as much protest against Rajoub’s calls to murder Israelis as it expressed to Rajoub’s threats of violence against Argentinian players

The international football association FIFA announced yesterday that following the complaint of the Israel Football Association (IFA) it will be investigating the statements by Jibril Rajoub and the threats that he made against the Argentinian national football team and its star Lionel Messi, which led to Argentina canceling the friendly match that had been scheduled to take place in Israel.

While PMW welcomes FIFA’s decision, it is far too little and far too late.

Who to Root For in the World Cup, From Least to Most Anti-Semitic

The World Cup starts tomorrow, and if you were planning on rooting for either the U.S. or Israeli team, you already had your hopes dashed when they failed to qualify.

And so, with 32 countries vying for the title, it’s hard to decide which team to support. Should you root for an underdog? Pick the team with the best looking players? Or, better yet, ask yourself the age-old question: Are they good for the Jews?

The ADL conducted a study about global anti-Semitism in 2014 (partially updated in 2015). The study’s general system: If you answer “probably true” to a majority of the anti-Semitic stereotypes polled for, you count as an anti-Semite, and a country’s overall score is the percentage of people questioned who fall into this category. So the lower the score, the less anti-Semitic the country. And the more likely we are to root for their soccer team.

The ADL even has a nifty “compare” feature—so if two countries with the same overall index play each other, you can easily look at them side by side, and think, “Hm. More South Koreans think Jews complain too much about the Holocaust, but in Senegal we’re more likely to get blamed for the world’s wars!” (Or, you can side with the country with the lower population, which therefore contains fewer total anti-Semites. You can insert your own judgment.)

We've spoken about Ein al Hilweh, the Palestinian "refugee" camp in Lebanon that is surrounded by a high wall and watchtowers - a literal prison camp.

Now it is even more of a prison camp:

The Lebanese Army has placed electronic security screening gates at all entrances to the Ain al-Hilweh Palestinian refugee camp in south Lebanon to screen everyone entering or leaving the camp. The installation of the gates around the perimeter of Ain al-Hilweh drew a strong rebuke from Palestinian factions and camp residents, with activists taking to social media to call for protests at the camp’s entrances. The camp has four main gates in addition to multiple smaller entry points.

The political leadership of secular and Islamists factions in Sidon Sunday held an emergency meeting to discuss the issue.

The leadership condemned the “e-gates, which damage the brotherly ties between the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples.”

In a statement released after the meeting, the Palestinian factions called for Lebanese authorities to remove the “e-gates, which [undermine] the dignity of the Palestinian people and the families in the Ain al-Hilweh camp.”

They also spoke of the need for “bridges of trust” between Lebanese and Palestinian communities.

I'm sure that the "pro-Palestinian activists" will pressure entertainers to boycott Lebanon for treating Palestinians so badly. I mean, they really care about Palestinians and their rights, right?

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

I am an American-Israeli, an American-born Jew who has lived about 17% of his life in Israel. I made aliyah back in 1979, lived on a kibbutz for nine years, and then returned to the US for 26 years, before coming back to stay four years ago. Unsurprisingly, I am interested in the relationship between American Jews and the Jewish state.

I was born in 1942, and I grew up in non-Jewish neighborhoods. The Jews I did know were mostly secular. I had what was supposed to be a bar mitzvah in a Reform Temple (my grandfather insisted), but since I stubbornly refused to learn anything in the obligatory religious school, it was embarrassingly pointless. Later, during summer jobs at Jewish camps, I came to know some Orthodox Jews who finally taught me a little about Judaism.

Nevertheless I always had a very strong sense, from my earliest days, of belonging to the Jewish people, though I would not have expressed it that way for some years. We lived with my grandparents for the first 8 years of my life, and after that nearby, and although they were not “religious” at all, they understood Jewish peoplehood in a way that only those who had lived as Jews in pre-revolutionary Russia (or perhaps an Arab country) could. I interacted with them more than with my parents, who were born in the US, and whose formative experiences were the Depression and WWII. They were Jewish and their friends were Jewish, but their “peoplehood,” if this makes sense, was American.

My grandparents lost siblings and cousins in the Holocaust. I was just old enough to begin to understand what had happened when they received the final confirmation of their fears. They had lived in the part of the Pale of Settlement where the Germans simply shot every Jew they could get their hands on, and as far as I know, my only living relatives are descended from those who left Europe long before the war. It was very clear to me, even as a child, that this happened to them because they were members of an extended family, a family that the evil Nazis hated. My family.

So it was natural for me to strongly identify with the new Jewish state, a place of refuge for my extended Jewish family. It was also the country that allowed my people to regain their self-respect after being treated like vermin in Europe and the Arab world. My people. I cheered when Israel won wars and when it hanged Eichmann. And I have a feeling of admiration and identification when I see the flag of the state of Israel, the nation-state of the Jewish people. Nothing made me more proud than the opportunity to wear the uniform of the IDF, unless it was seeing my children wearing it.

I am representative of an older generation of American Jews, a generation that is now stepping back from active participation in the institutions of society in favor of playing with their grandchildren. We remember when there wasn’t a Jewish state, and some of us remember what that actually meant in terms of Jewish blood.

But younger American Jews have different experiences. The Holocaust recedes and they are less likely to meet survivors or know anyone who lost close relatives or friends. They know about Israel’s wars as one-sided victories, and they don’t remember when her continued existence was in doubt. They don’t know about the weeks before the outbreak of the 1967 war, when Nasser and other Arabs were bragging about the massacre they planned to perpetrate, and volunteers were preemptively digging graves in Tel Aviv parks. They don’t remember the early days of the Yom Kippur war, when massive Syrian and Egyptian forces were on the verge of breaking through.

What they do know is the story they see in the media and on the net, which is almost all contrived to present Israel as a colonial superpower which oppresses the “native” Palestinians. In its mildest form, they are told that there is a “cycle of violence” which only a “two-state solution” can end. This served the interests of several US administrations and the oil companies, which were concerned to force Israel back to pre-1967 lines in order to mollify the Arab countries that controlled the world’s oil supply. At worst (and most recently) they are presented with propaganda intended to delegitimize and demonize Israel in order to set the stage for her destruction.

The millennial generation (born in the 1980s and 1990s) walked into a fusillade of vicious anti-Israel hatred in the universities from groups like Students for Justice in Palestine. Today they face the “intersectional” Left which associates opposition to Israel with support for every kind of minority rights, and demands compliance as the price of social acceptance. Those who do not comply are ostracized as “racists” or “fascists.”

Many American Jews, especially younger ones, are not able to withstand the assault – or don’t even recognize it as such – on their sense of peoplehood. It’s not surprising, because this identification has been suppressed by the American educational system and media from their earliest years. Although certain minority groups are encouraged to feel pride in their heritage and their cultures, Jews are not included as one of these groups – they are considered “white,” which is to say, colorless. Therefore they are required to appreciate the minority cultures (and to feel guilty for their oppression by the majority of “whites”), but not to express their own pride in their culture or of their homeland.

Indeed, if they do so, they may be accused of having “dual loyalty.”

The Israeli experience has been significantly different. There are more Holocaust survivors around. Everyone knows veterans of Israel’s wars, most have served in the IDF, and while there may be a lesser sense of vulnerability among younger people, most people understand that the Jewish state’s continued existence isn’t guaranteed. The hierarchy of victimhood of minorities and the concept of intersectionality that have so damaged intergroup relations in America haven’t appeared in Israel. Although there is much room for improvement, the teaching of Jewish and Israeli history to Israelis is better than what most American Jews get.

Jewish Israelis know they are living in the state of the Jewish people. There is no existential contradiction, no continuous reminder that you are a guest in somebody else’s state. They are Jews in the Jewish state.

A new survey of American and Israeli Jews by the American Jewish Committee confirms that Americans are far less Jewishly identified than Israelis. Only 40% said that being Jewish is “very” or “most” important in their lives, while 81% of the Israelis felt this way.

I don’t like the question about “being Jewish” because it is ambiguous between peoplehood and religion. I would have asked a question about “being part of the Jewish people.” I know that at any time in my life after about the age of 15, I would have answered that being a member of the Jewish people is the most important part of my identity. And this is why it turned out that I feel more comfortable and secure here than I did in the US.

Unfortunately, no age breakdown was included in the results as published. But other surveys have consistently showed that their Jewish identity is less important to younger Jews than older ones, for the reasons above.

The survey showed that there are various other divergences, particularly over the chances for a peace agreement with the Palestinians (Americans think it’s possible and Israelis are doubtful) and Donald Trump (Israeli Jews approve of him; American Jews overwhelmingly don’t). There are disagreements about the role of religion and state in Israel, about which the Reform movement in the US has chosen to stir the pot. But these are minor matters that can be worked out. Identity is the big thing.

American Jews are losing the connection with the Jewish people. America has been good to them and they are happy being Americans. If the situation changes – and historically, that’s a good bet – then they may yet be reminded of who they are.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

06/14 Links Pt1: The silver lining in the UN’s almost-condemnation of Hamas; Hamas threatens to launch 5,000 fire kites, balloons Friday; Why Abbas Refuses to Ease Sanctions on Gaza

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.

Andrew Pessin and Doron Ben-Atar have edited Anti-Zionism on Campus, a scary look at the situation on many college campuses today in the US and worldwide.

After an introduction by the authors, the book has 24 chapters written by scholars and other employees at colleges and universities, followed by 7 chapters written by students and alumni, describing their experiences clashing with anti-Israel forces on campus.

The stories by the scholars are almost all depressingly similar. A university employee, usually a professor, encounters an anti-Israel group, usually Students for Justice in Palestine or some other group that advocates the boycott of Israel. The encounter could be because the scholar wanted to sponsor a visit by an Israeli scholar, or he/she wanted to fight against a BDS resolution.

The scholars appear to me to be almost always liberal. They support Palestinian rights. Most are against Israel's settlement policy. Some go out of their way to help Palestinians.

They are stunned when they are confronted with BDS hate.

Nearly all of them try to have a dialogue with the BDSers. They try to have debates, or cosponsor lectures on topics they might have in common. They almost beg the BDSers for the chance to present their side of the story so the students can decide for themselves who makes a stronger case.

In literally every case, the BDSers refuse to have any sort of dialogue. They continue to hammer home the message of Israel and Israelis (and often Jews) being racist and colonialist and violators of human rights. They try to add their venom to the agendas of minority groups.

And in nearly every case, the BDSers viciously attack the liberal, usually Jewish scholar who tried so hard to meet with and discuss things with them. The BDSers accuse the professors of harassment or bias or hate or whatever they can.

The depressing pattern continues: in many cases while the pro-Israel scholar tries to defend him or herself through the proper university channels, following the rules of that institution which often forbids them to say anything publicly about the case and often does not allow them legal representation, the BDSers attack the scholar as a racist in social media, often getting their lies published in Electronic Intifada or similar sites.

The scholars are stunned, upset, and feels their hands are tied. The administration more often than not does not step in to stop the libels. (There were a couple of notable exceptions.) The scholars are concerned about their careers, about their ability to teach with the accusation of racism on their heads, accusations that they cannot fight because they trust the university procedures that the Israel haters happily bypass with impunity.

It is a playbook, but each of the scholars are so caught up in defending themselves and in trying to get an apathetic or hostile administration to listen to their side of the story that they do not realize that they cannot win if they play by the rules.

There are some variants in the story but in almost every case people are attacked, professionally as well as crudely, for a principled position, and the people who are supposed to defend this person end up making their lives hell. There are also a couple of more general essays on BDS and its methods and goals.

The student essays are similar - showing intimidation against them for holding a pro-Israel, or an insufficiently anti-Israel, position.

All the campuses described, from the US to UK to Australia and Canada, are simply not places where it is safe to publicly identify as a Zionist or to say anything pro-Israel because you will be attacked and smeared.

There are other important lessons that can be clearly drawn from the book. The BDS movement claims that they do not target individuals - but this book documents that this is exactly what they do.

The people claiming to want "fairness" or "justice" are against Israel's very existence, and against a two state solution. This is not a position of fairness, it is an extremist position of hate that is not only tolerated but celebrated on campus. They will treat anyone who wants actual peace and two states and Palestinian rights with the exact same attacks and the exact same vitriol as if they were right wing Zionist "settlers." Israel is evil, full stop, and they are infecting a generation of students with that message.

The book is a worthwhile read, if only to understand the macro picture that the writers often miss in their own local academic environment. My only problem with the book is that too often the writers, having been forced to defend themselves in grotesque ways within a system where the cards are stacked against them, go into details of their defenses that are not as fascinating to the reader as the authors might think. Some of the essays are excellent, such as Judea Pearl's.

In every single story, the BDSers are shown to be the most intolerant bigots possible - but since they pretend to be on the side of social justice, our esteemed institutions of higher learning are not willing to label them what they are: hate groups.

That is really the lesson that I get from this book, even though it is emphatically not a lesson that most of the victims of BDS have managed to understand even today. Too many of the authors of the essays still hold on to the fantasy that open debate will solve the problem, that people will eventually reject BDS in the marketplace of ideas.

BDS is hate. SJP is a hate group. It does not want dialogue - it only wants to demonize the Jewish citizens of Israel and anyone who does not follow their BDS manifesto of boycott, divestment and sanctions, purportedly by "Palestinian civil society." The BDSers are bullies, not academics. There is nothing that is beneath the BDSers, including defacing the doors of faculty and threatening them.

The only way to fight BDS is to use their playbook. Just as they want everyone to associate Israel with the words "apartheid" and "racist," we need to associate BDS with hate and bigotry. Not to wait until a person becomes a victim, but to be proactive, the way BDS is. To put "BDS=HATE" stickers on every poster, every "apartheid wall," every flyer. To make sure that every college student, when they see the initials SJP or BDS or whichever anti-Israel organization is on campus, sees the word "HATE."

And these people must be attacked the way they attack the pro-Israel crowd. If they try to silence an Israeli speaker or stop a pro-Israel activity, then they must be charged with bigotry and hate through the proper university channels. Put them on the defensive. Make them waste their time finding lawyers and trying to keep their positions.

Professors, especially the apparently mostly liberal professors writing in this book, are generally loathe to be muscular, pro-active Zionists who defend Israel proudly. That is because they have already accepted a campus that is anti-Israel and they still believe in an ideal campus that hasn't existed since the 1960s.

But if they want to bring campuses back to becoming places that value debate and arguments, then these professors and scholars and students need to push against BDS' Achilles heel, that they refuse to debate. Insist that they want to debate and emphasize that BDS advocates are babies who cannot defend themselves in open debate.

BDS is aggressive and regressive. Zionism is progressive. Zionism needs to be equally proud, equally public, and equally willing to demonize and expose the haters.

Only then will college students gravitate towards the pro-Israel position. People want to be associated with the proud, not the cowering.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Once again, Human Rights Watch has issued a report on how evil Israel is, this time in context of the Gaza riots.

And once again it shows that the point of the organization isn't human rights but attacking Israel.

A careful reading of the report shows that they know they are lying.

For example:

Israeli forces’ repeated use of lethal force in the Gaza Strip since March 30, 2018, against Palestinian demonstrators who posed no imminent threat to life may amount to war crimes, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli forces have killed more than 100 protesters in Gaza and wounded thousands with live ammunition.

“Israel’s use of lethal force when there was no imminent threat to life has taken a heavy toll in life and limb,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “The international community needs to rip up the old playbook, where Israel conducts investigations that mainly whitewash the conduct of its troops and the US blocks international accountability with its Security Council veto, and instead impose real costs for such blatant disregard for Palestinian lives.”

Yet later on HRW admits that the Israeli Supreme Court has looked at Israel's open fire regulations and decided they were within the law, so this is beyond any supposed "whitewash" by the IDF. So HRW attacks the well-respected court as well:

On May 25 Israel’s supreme court rejected petitions by human rights groups against the military’s live-fire orders without applying the clear standard on the use of lethal force set out in international human rights law, and substantially deferring to the government’s discretion. The court’s unwillingness to apply international law and to challenge a policy that authorizes lethal force even when there is no imminent threat to life highlights the importance of the International Criminal Court prosecutor opening a formal investigation into the situation in Palestine.

Yes, HRW is claiming that the Supreme Court is ignoring the law.

In another place, HRW mentions Israel's legal arguments that were apparently supported by the Supreme Court:

The government response rejected applying human rights law applicable in law enforcement to the demonstrations, and claimed that only international humanitarian law, applicable in fighting in armed conflicts, applies, because the protests were “organized, coordinated and directed by Hamas, a terrorist organization engaged in armed conflict with Israel.”

HRW states as a fact that these demonstrations fall under "human rights law and not the laws of armed conflict. Israel gives a specific reason why this is not true. Israel's Supreme Court agrees with Israel. HRW ignores that and insists that Israel adhere to a standard that they are not required to meet - and HRW condemns Israel on the basis of the false premise of which laws Israel is obligated to meet.

But that isn't enough. HRW says on the one hand that Israel should use the more restrictive human rights laws rather than the laws of war - in its headline it accuses Israel of "war crimes!" This inconsistency is only possible because HRW only has one consistency - find ways to blame Israel no matter what, and change the yardstick to measure Israel against as needed.

HRW quotes Israel's position later, and does not come up with any substantive arguments against it except its own gut instinct that Israel is lying:

Israeli officials argued that Hamas directed protesters to cross the fences so that armed fighters could run through the breach to kill or kidnap Israeli civilians or soldiers. The Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, said on May 15 that there was “no dilemma” in deciding between “having a lower amount of Palestinian casualties,” and using lethal force in order to “defend Israeli communities immediately behind the [Gaza perimeter fences].” The government’s April 29 court response elaborated that soldiers could use “potentially lethal force” to prevent protesters from breaching the fences and crossing from Gaza to Israel if “the evaluation is that the force is necessary at that time to remove the danger before it is realized, even if the danger itself has not yet become imminent,” and that shooting demonstrators before they reach the fences is justified because if crowds breached them, it would “operationally require live fire on a massive scale.”

...Israeli concerns that members of armed groups would use the protests as cover to fire at Israeli soldiers or plant explosives near the fences do not justify the repeated use of live ammunition, including with apparent lethal intent, against protesters who posed no imminent lethal threat, Human Rights Watch said.

HRW is making guesses on why the IDF targeted who they targeted. They trust Gazans to tell the truth about what the people who were shot were doing. They push the idea that invading another country is not reason to be shot.

Netanyahu referred to a May 15 statement by a Hamas leader, Salah al-Bardawil, that 50 of 62 people killed by Israeli forces on May 14 were Hamas members – “in other words, members of a terrorist organization,” Netanyahu said. Israeli military and political officials also claimed that Hamas “strategically placed [civilians] in harm’s way” because graphic media coverage of their injuries would harm Israel’s image. Hamas’s encouragement of and support for the protests and the participation of Hamas members in the protests do not justify the use of live ammunition against protestors who posed no threat to life.

HRW again is twisting the facts. The Hamas members who were indeed further from the fence were directing civilians to cut the fence and to provide smoke cover for the fence cutters. This is a military operation, and targeting the people who were giving the military orders is perfectly legal in an armed conflict (as is targeting those who are trying to invade your country.)

The fact that the military leaders were wearing civilian clothing, a violation of international law, doesn't bother HRW.

Perhaps most outrageously, HRW implies that even if masses of Gazans poured through a breached fence into Israel, then Israel still wouldn't have the right to defend itself:

In addition to the barbed wire fence separating Gaza and Israel, the two-meter-high fencing with electronic sensors, ditches, and military watchtowers along the Gaza periphery, in 2015 the Israeli military built fences around 12 Israeli communities near Gaza with electronic sensors that detect any contact with the fence and automatically alert the military. This further undercuts the claim that the protesters posed an imminent treat.

How, exactly, would the IDF stop thousands of Gazans who were instructed to attack Jews with knives once they were already in Israel - especially when HRW says that the IDF isn't allowed to shoot them even then?

HRW simply doesn't care about the facts. It wrote the headline of accusing Israel of possible war crimes before it even talked to a single Gazan to support the argument. As always, it judges Israel to be guilty first, and then it looks for facts or half-truths to twist into justifying their initial accusation.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

TOI reports:

Iraq’s representative at the 2017 Miss Universe pageant — whose Instagram photo last year with her Israeli counterpart forced her family to flee the Middle Eastern country — was cheered and hugged this week by shoppers at an iconic Jerusalem market during an extraordinary visit to Israel.

“It actually felt weird — the people look like my people. And the city looks like Damascus, like Syria, and I’ve been there, so everything seems familiar to me,” Sarah Idan said in a TV item aired Tuesday by Hadashot.

While Idan toured the Mahane Yehuda market, she encountered numerous Israelis of Iraqi origin, one of whom told her she would like to go back to Iraq.

“Inshallah,” or God willing, was Idan’s answer.

Idan was showered with praise, with one Israeli woman telling her: “Thank you for being so brave, you are an inspiration to all the women in the world.”

The 26-year-old Iraqi-born contestant lives in the United States, but her family was forced to relocate from the Arab country after a photo she posed for together with Miss Israel Adar Gandelsman went viral last year.

At the time, she withstood considerable pressure and refused to remove the Instagram image.

Here she is in Mahane Yehuda:

Idan spoke at the AJC conference:

Imagine the reaction from an Arab audience at her vision of a future where Jews could visit Arab countries and Arabs could visit Tel Aviv.

She was also interviewed on i24:

Look how enthusiastic the entire country is about the idea of peace with the Arab world, about a vision of normalcy between Israel and its neighbors, about a young woman who risked her life in order to promote peace between ordinary people.

Compare to the uproar in Arab media whenever either an Israeli manages to visit an Arab country, or when some of theirs visits Israel.

With all the demonization of Israel as a violent colonialist regime at the UN, at NGOs and in the media, this episode shows very clearly that the real problem is this: Only Israel, as a nation, wants real peace with the other side.

(h/t Yoel)

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06/13 Links Pt2: Bill to Counter Palestinian Textbooks That ‘Demonize Israel’ Introduced in Congress; The Palestinians’ ‘Kitetifada’ deserves an ignoble prize

From Ian:

Bipartisan Bill to Counter Palestinian Textbooks That ‘Demonize Israel’ Introduced in Congress

Members of Congress have brought forward a bipartisan bill to review textbooks and other materials used in Palestinian schools that have been accused of promoting extremism.

The Palestinian Authority Educational Curriculum Transparency Act — introduced in the House of Representatives on Thursday by Rep. David Young (R-Iowa) — calls on the US State Department to annually verify whether educational resources published by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the United Nations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip continue to encourage “violence or intolerance toward other nations or ethnic groups.”

The bill notes that despite being reformed in 2016 and 2017, Palestinian curriculums for grades 1 through 11 “fail to meet the international standards of peace and tolerance in educational materials established by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.”

Textbooks used by the PA and the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) likewise “demonize Israel, encourage war, and teach children that Palestinian statehood can be achieved through violence,” it warns.

UNRWA — which has in the past asserted that its textbooks have been rigorously reviewed to ensure they are in line with UN standards — maintains 349 schools in the Palestinian territories, with 240,400 students in Gaza and 50,000 students in the West Bank.

If passed, the State Department will be required to inform Congress whether any US foreign aid was used to fund the inciting materials, and of any steps the PA and UNRWA have taken to address the situation.

False Terminology and the Delegitimization of Israel

Furthermore, when Israel pre-empts attacks, it is the aggressor, when it responds to attacks, its response is disproportionate, when it is attacked, it deserves little sympathy because of the occupation. In effect, the liberal media whitewashes the disproportionality of the Islamic terror onslaught on Israeli Jews as a “natural response” to “settlement growth” or “glimmering hopes of peace”, while requiring Israel to adhere to artificial under-proportionality “norms” when dealing with the homicidal national security threats.

This is not neutral reporting, this a concerted effort to create an anti-Israel bias and resentment, bordering on incitement.

Then there are false clichés and expressions that are used left and right. Take the “peace process”, for example. No sane person would choose war over peace, yet if the “peace process” is in fact a cynical euphemism for Israeli land surrender without enforceable long-term security guarantees, no sane person would support it, unless, like many Western liberals, he believes that the land is stolen in the first place.

Despite the obvious falsity of this claim, it is impossible to fully rebut it as long as one continues to call the land “Palestine” and the Arabs “Palestinians”. The same goes for other liberal mantras, such as the “two-state solution” rather than proposal, the “cycle of violence”, which is equates terrorism with self-defense and security measures, or the “land-for-peace” formula, which has the accuracy of a Russian roulette.

The unravelling of these false myths will not come about until the false terminology is unravelled together with them. All those who value truth and integrity must call these terms for what they are: false euphemisms, misnomers or canards.

Once the anti-Israel jargon is replaced with the historically accurate, logical and balanced terminology, the demonization and delegitimisation of Israel would lose its appeal for the decent but largely ignorant majority, and the unique story of Israel as a nation risen from the ashes of the Holocaust and the two thousand years of exile would give inspiration and hope to people around the world.

The Palestinians’ ‘Kitetifada’ deserves an ignoble prize

With Hamas’s “Kitetifada,” Palestinians are pushing new frontiers in terrorism, again – while giving nationalism a bad name, again.

It’s become a routine surprise to watch the world overlook Palestinians’ assaults on international norms. One day their goons threaten Argentinean soccer stars – and everybody blames Miri Regev for the “Messi mess.” (Even while criticizing her grandstanding, let’s acknowledge that boycotters don’t need her to prompt their thuggishness.) Before and after that debacle, Palestinians violate the Geneva Convention’s ban on attacking foodstuffs or crops, and everybody blames Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu for the American embassy to Jerusalem move.

We should be used to this selective perception and moral prosecution-as-persecution. Still, it’s disappointing that many who renounce nationalism because they dislike Trump’s aggressiveness nevertheless tolerate Palestinians’ violence.

It’s become one of this spring’s big underreported stories. Once again being honest, exposing the “March of Return” as an attempt to destroy its neighbor, Hamas launched hundreds of combustible, often poisonous kites and balloons.

The kites – in a touch no novelist or anti-Palestinian propagandist would dare concoct – were exposed by Adele Raemer of Kibbutz Nirim and other intrepid bloggers as gifts from the Japanese people to Gaza’s children. While Israel’s air defenses have intercepted as many as 500 burning kites, another 300 or so have set more than 270 fires, destroying 2,510 hectares of land, including vast parts of the Be’eri Crater Nature Reserve. Once known for its red carpets of anemones every February, its gazelles, its porcupines, its turtles, the reserve is now scarred by tens of hectares of newly blackened wasteland.

The Geneva Convention’s 1977 protocols proclaim: “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works... whatever the motive.”

Varda Epstein’s recent review of my book Ten From The Nations: Torah Awakening Among Non-Jews offers me a perfect opportunity to elaborate on how I see the world and why I do what I do. To the best of my knowledge, Varda and I have met exactly once, fleetingly. Nevertheless, we maintain a mutually respectful, professional relationship and admire one another’s work. It’s important to mention that at the outset because, although our viewpoints differ on a number of issues, civility is important to both of us. And I thank Varda for her graciousness in giving me a chance to respond.

I spend a significant amount of time each week building bridges with people from the Nations. Most of them come from Christian backgrounds, although many of the people with whom I interact no longer consider themselves mainstream Christians. A huge part of what distinguishes them from the rest of the 2.2 billion Christians worldwide is their fascination with Israel, with the Torah and with the Jewish people. Although they identify variously as Christian Zionists, as Ephraimites, as Bnei Noach or as gerei toshav, they are united in their understanding that the Jewish people have something to offer them.

I believe we are in an unprecedented time in history when, after 2,000 years of anti-Semitic pogroms, forced conversions and murder of Jews by Christians, there are now Christians who are singing a whole new song to the Jewish people. These are the people whose stories I published in Ten From The Nations and whose spiritual longings to get closer to Israel and to authentic Torah I both admire and work to nurture. In a nutshell, these are not your grandparents’ goyim. These are not the non-Jews you’ve been taught to fear, mistrust and hold at arm’s length.

I was raised to mistrust non-Jews at worst and to see them as irrelevant to my life at best. Since becoming involved in this work, my viewpoint has changed. It took a series of paradigm shifts for me to get to where I am now.

As I see it, Varda and I differ in our understanding about three main issues.

A) Do all Christians have a missionizing agenda?
B) To whom does the Torah belong?
C) Do the Jewish people have any responsibility to non-Jews?

I’ll address these one at a time.

Do all Christians have a missionizing agenda? I believe that the vast majority still do. At the same time, I have personally met hundreds of people coming from Christian backgrounds who actively repent for the sins that have been committed against the Jewish people for 2,000 years. They have put to rest the fallacious and destructive ideas behind Replacement Theology and no longer believe that Christianity replaced Torah and that Christians replaced the Jewish people in God’s eyes. In the main, it was the return of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel that rocked their theology and caused them to reexamine the most fundamental truths they had been taught. Rather than being the “strange ducks” that Varda suggests, I believe they are spiritual leaders who buck the potent forces of convention to follow Truth.

It has been suggested that only 1% of Christians today have renounced Replacement Theology. On the one hand, 1% is a tiny minority. On the other hand, 1% is 22 million people. And that’s enough to keep me busy for the rest of my life.

I wish to be very clear. I find the proselytizing of Jews odious. I have zero tolerance for it. The relationships I build with people from the Nations are based on mutual respect. We agree to let our differences be settled by God at the End of Days. In the meantime, we inhabit the space where our worldviews overlap – a love of God, a love for Israel, a longing for Torah and a joy at seeing Biblical prophecy fulfilled in our days.

To whom does the Torah belong? I used to believe that Torah was the exclusive property of the Jewish people and its precepts were for us alone. Over time, the words of the Torah itself convinced me that it was intended, from the beginning, to be shared with the Nations. I believe that the Jewish people were tasked with being guardians of the Torah – until the rest of the world was ready for its teachings. Then we were intended to become the teachers of Torah to people from the Nations, while maintaining our unique relationship with God’s Holy texts.

Do the Jewish people have any responsibility to non-Jews? There are dozens of verses in Tanach, and also in our liturgy, even during Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, that speak of a time when the entire world will worship the One True God, the God of Israel. I believe that time has dawned. The shift is already taking place. Just as it says in the Book of Zechariah, people from the Nations are aligning with the Jewish people and begging, “Teach us about God.” This is unprecedented and the exact thing for which we have been preparing for 3,300 years.

Varda wrote, “Being a ‘light unto the nations’ doesn’t mean preaching Torah to them. It means being a good and moral example. No more, no less.” I also used to think exactly as she does. Now I see things differently. Today, I understand that fulfilling our God-given role as Ohr LaGoyim means that, when the Nations are receptive, we are obligated to teach them. Without question, the people I teach are desperately hungry for authentic Torah. It may not yet be the tafkid of the Jewish people as a whole, but I believe that Hashem has given this task to me personally, to serve among the group of Jews who are willing to build bridges with people from the Nations, using Torah as a primary tool.

Varda wrote, “I don’t understand why any Jew wants to help these people, instead of their own people, as a calling. I think that’s bizarre.” Working with non-Jews is an important part of my life, but it is not the only thing I do in life. For me, it’s not “instead of”. Rather it is “in addition to”. We are not all intended to do the same work in the world. Each of us is uniquely qualified for certain tasks. I believe, with all my heart and soul, that Hashem chose this challenging work for me personally. As Varda correctly said, I do indeed see it as holy work.

It would be misleading if I didn’t acknowledge that there are landmines in this work. There are things I see, hear and read that make the Jew in me cringe. All is not sweetness and light. We are building something new and it’s a huge and, oftentimes, messy job. I accept that as part of the process. I see Hashem’s Hand in bringing geula closer by re-aligning the relationship between Jews and people from the Nations. I can be patient.

I realize that, no matter what I say, there are people who will remain unconvinced. I accept that as part of the nature of what I do. If you have questions you’d like to ask me, I can be reached at editor@tenfromthenations.com. I’m happy to conduct a respectful dialogue with anyone who is interested.

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Hamas To Advise Kim On Oppressing Own People For Political Gain (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

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Gaza City, June 14 - Openness that many hope will come in the aftermath of a summit between the leaders of the US and North Korea has officials in the Islamist movement that governs Gaza hoping they can provide expertise to the dictator of the latter country in such areas where they have significant experience, such as depriving one's population of essential goods and investing resources instead in near-suicidal, Sisyphean projects for purposes of threatening neighbors.

A spokesman for Hamas told reporters today (Wednesday) that while the long-term outcome of the warming relations between the US and North Korea remains undetermined, Kim Jong-un's administration in Pyongyang could benefit from more than a decade of experience that the organization has accrued since overthrowing Fatah in a violent coup in 2007.

"Mr. Kim has much to learn from us, and we are willing teachers," stated Yahya Sinwar, who leads the movement within the Gaza Strip. "The many parallels between our situations invite collaboration across a range of issues, but most importantly, we have much in common in our preference for conflict over prosperity. Both societies stand to gain from a sharing of information and expertise in that arena."

"Of course our situations differ somewhat, in that non of our people are starving, thanks to the UN, whereas Kim starves his own people," continued Sinwar. "But the principle remains the same. He diverts crucial resources that could feed his people into his nuclear and military programs, whereas we allocate every available dollar to tunnels for attacking Israel and smuggling or hiding weapons for killing Israelis, but overall, we're engaged in the same kind of activity, and I'm sure we can help each other out."

"It's telling that the Trump-Kim summit took place in Singapore," remarked Ismail Haniyeh, whom Sinwar succeeded in Gaza and now heads Hamas's political echelon from Qatar. "It's always Singapore that our critics cite in noting that we have chosen to make fighting Israel our only priority rather than invest in peaceful infrastructure and economic enhancements - that we could be like Singapore if we stopped making jihad our raison d'être. Well, we'd rather be like North Korea, thank you very much. We already have so much in common: an alliance with Iran, ties to Syria, a knack for abusing our own people, taking and holding foreign hostages, and a dream of conquering territory that we have pursued for decades despite that quest condemning our people to prolonged suffering."

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06/13 Links Pt1: Israel has prevented 250 terror attacks in 2018; The "Trump Doctrine" for the Middle East; Israel, UAE Maintained Secret Close Ties Since 1990s

From Ian:

Shin Bet chief reveals Israel has prevented 250 terror attacks in 2018

Using traditional and new big-data abilities, the Shin Bet has prevented 250 terrorist attacks so far in 2018, director Nadav Argaman told a group of visiting interior security ministers Wednesday at a closed session of a Jerusalem international conference on terrorism.

Though Argaman’s presentation was closed to the public, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) provided a summary to the media.

Argaman said that the agency had succeeded in blocking major terrorist attacks involving suicide bombings, kidnappings and shootings.

The Shin Bet chief said that especially big-data abilities had helped the agency to hone in on lone-wolf attackers in a way that was impossible before Israeli intelligence advanced its abilities in massively tracking postings on social media.

Argaman said that the Shin Bet was striking the right balance between continuing its effective human intelligence collection programs and new cyber intelligence gathering abilities.

One of the flagship issues was to stay ahead of the curve when using technology to fight terrorism. He previously disclosed that under his leadership, the Shin Bet’s technological workforce has jumped from single digits to representing around one-quarter of the work force.

Argaman also emphasized the importance of “strategic cooperation with our international partners in Israel and overseas as well as with the Israeli hi-tech community and other civilian bodies.”

JPost Editorial: Did Trump achieve what Obama couldn't?

During his term of office, US president Barack Obama was roundly slammed by his critics for pushing away traditional allies in favor of new alliances. How could he block out friends like Israel and Saudi Arabia in favor of the radical regime in Iran, they shouted, even if it was aimed at reaching a deal to curb its nuclear ambitions and ultimately make the world safer?

Life is full of irony, as this week we’ve seen Obama’s successor, US President Donald Trump, take more or less the same tack.

Over the weekend, he went on the attack at a Group of Seven summit in Canada in an escalating clash over trade between Washington and some of its closest global partners. He alienated NATO allies, the European Union and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and backed out of a joint communique that attempted to reach a fragile consensus on the trade issue.

Leaving America’s traditional alliances frayed, Trump left the summit early to fly to Singapore ahead of Tuesday’s history-in-the-making summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, one of America’s bitterest foes.

And history-making it was. In a stark contrast to the now-famous weekend G7 shot of the US president petulantly staring up at a gaggle of stern-faced world leaders, Trump and the North Korean dictator shook hands with big smiles, while disproving the naysayers who, based upon the summit-on/summit-off seesaw of the past couple weeks, expected something outrageous, dangerous or embarrassing to take place – if the summit went through at all.

After all, Trump boasted that he would be able to ascertain Kim’s motives and sincerity within the first minute of meeting him. Kim must have impressed Trump, because in a substantial move that would have been unthinkable a year ago, the two leaders signed a joint statement pledging to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula while Washington stated its commitment to provide security guarantees for its longtime enemy.

The "Trump Doctrine" for the Middle East

Trump has shown the strength of the United States and restored its credibility in a region where strength and force determine credibility.

Trump more broadly laid the foundation for a new alliance of the United States with the Sunni Arab world, but he put two conditions on it: a cessation of all Sunni Arab support for Islamic terrorism and an openness to the prospect of a regional peace that included Israel.

Secretary of State Pompeo spoke of the "Palestinians", not of the Palestinian Authority, as in Iran, possibly to emphasize the distinction between the people and their leadership, and that the leadership in both situations, may no longer be part of the solution. Hamas, for the US, is clearly not part of any solution.

Netanyahu rightly said that Palestinian leaders, whoever they may be, do not want peace with Israel, but "peace without Israel". What instead could take place would be peace without the Palestinian leaders. What could also take place would be peace without the Iranian mullahs.

I have mentioned many times before that Palestinians aren't interested in building a state, but in destroying one.

The latest evidence for this comes from a new upcoming edition of the Encyclopedia of Palestine.

The author states the purpose of the book in the introduction: "to refute the Jewish claim to their historical right in Palestine."

That's Palestinianism in a nutshell - to deny Jewish history.

Just imagine any other encyclopedia whose introduction says that its purpose isn't to teach the history of the cover subject, but to refute the history of an entirely different group of people.

Of course, the book has to create a fake history where Arabs inhabited Palestine before Jews.

"The right of the Arabs in Palestine is immaculate and true. They are connected to it, and inhabited it since the dawn of its history and before there were Jews in the world," the book is quoted as saying.

Meaning that suddenly the Hittites. Jebusites, Amorites and other Canaanites were somehow all Arab.

Which they weren't.

So we have an entire encyclopedia, purportedly a scholarly work that should be in all Palestinian schools and libraries, that simply makes things up in order to deny Jewish history.

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