Amb. Alan Baker: The Many Ways the Palestinians Violate International Law
After the UN General Assembly on June 14, 2018, voted to condemn Israel for its handling of the Gaza border fence violence, It is all the more curious to observe the deliberate disregard of the serious and flagrant international humanitarian, environmental, and ecological crimes committed by Hamas and the Palestinians.
Since the Palestinian Authority is utilizing the events in Gaza to conduct its own political and legal campaign against Israel in international bodies, this renders the Palestinian leadership an accessory to Hamas in the commission of these crimes.
By initiating, encouraging, and supporting mass pollution of the border area through the organized stockpiling and burning of tires, the Palestinian leadership is responsible for repeatedly creating caustic clouds of carbon pollution. This act is damaging to the health of the Palestinian civilian demonstrators themselves, as well as the residents of Israeli communities in the vicinity of the border.
Incendiary kites and balloons have ignited vast swathes of agricultural land in Israel, destroyed crops, and endangered Israeli residents. The International Criminal Court Statute defines as a war crime "extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."
Weaponizing kites and balloons by attaching explosive devices with the intention that they will explode upon landing or when found by Israeli civilians is a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law, notably the 1997 Convention for the Suppression of Terrorist Bombings. Moreover, the 2001 Conventional Weapons Convention prohibits the use of incendiary weapons.
From the viewpoint of international humanitarian law and accepted norms of humanity, placing Palestinian civilians, and especially women and children, at the forefront of violent demonstrations and attacks on the border fence as human shields to conceal the presence of Hamas terrorists is a violation of several international treaties protecting children and prohibiting their involvement in warfare.
The Palestinian leadership must be made to understand that its fixation with joining international treaties is not unidirectional. It involves solemn responsibilities to abide by the obligations included in such treaties. The international community must hold the Palestinian leadership to their commitments and not ignore their violations of the most fundamental norms and principles of international law.
Radical-Left SPLC Pays Anti-Islamist Think Tank $3.37 Million After Calling It 'Extremist'
On Monday, Quilliam, a London-based counter-extremism think-tank that battles against Islamic extremism, announced the hard-left Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) would pay Quilliam almost $4 million after SPLC had included Quilliam in its “Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists.”Antisemitism at the United Nations Cannot Be Ignored
SPLC released a statement, which read:
Today, we entered into a settlement with and offered our sincerest apology to Mr. Maajid Nawaz and his organization, the Quilliam Foundation, for including them in our publication A Journalist’s Manual: Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists. Given our understanding of the views of Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam, it was our opinion at the time that the Field Guide was published that their inclusion was warranted. But after getting a deeper understanding of their views and after hearing from others for whom we have great respect, we realize that we were simply wrong to have included Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam in the Field Guide in the first place.
Then, the acknowledgment of the payment: “As part of our settlement, we have paid $3.375 million to Mr. Nawaz and Quilliam to fund their work to fight anti-Muslim bigotry and extremism.”
And this conclusion: “As we move forward, we are committed to redoubling our efforts to ensure that our work is always carried out with the utmost care and integrity. The stakes in the battle against hate and extremism are simply too great to be satisfied with anything less.”
The SPLC has defended anti-Semite and radical leftist Linda Sarsour; called the late Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum a hate group; named the Family Research Council a hate group, and written that Prager University videos are “indispensable propaganda device for the right.” (h/t jzaik)
Yet even most of us who care about these issues tend to treat the UN’s actions as mere rhetoric. While this is true, we’re wrong to treat days like June 12 as deplorable but not worth getting all that upset about. While what goes on in the United Nations is, in a sense, just talk, it’s far more dangerous than that.
What we forget about these exercises in hypocrisy is that they give official imprimatur to antisemitism. As Obama’s State Department certified, a “rising tide of anti-Semitism” is sweeping across Europe and Southeast Asia. Arab and Islamic hatred for Israel, as well as some Western elites’ belief that the Jews are the one people on the planet who aren’t entitled to a homeland, drive this trend.
If other countries are willing to give Hamas a pass for terror and bash Israel for defending its border in a way no different (if not far more humane) than almost all of the nations condemning it, then this is an act of prejudice against the one Jewish state on the planet.
To note this fact is not to assert that Israel is perfect or above criticism. But when a world body attacks Israel alone and vilifies it for doing what any other nation would do, that is called hate.
The Obama administration treated the United Nations like a sacred multilateral cow. But it’s time for the Trump administration to put even more pressure on the United Nations that it already has done, cutting the US allocations that keep it going.
By regarding everyday hate as ordinary, we are, even if only because of exhaustion and a sense of futility, enabling it. That has to stop. We must never allow ourselves to get used to UN-certified Jew-hatred. The United Nations must be made to understand that decent persons won’t tolerate this practice indefinitely without consequences.