Thursday, August 30, 2018

From Ian:

Haley: US to Work With UNRWA Again When Refugee Numbers are Corrected
US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley appeared to put into doubt the Palestinian claims of a “right of return” to land inside the State of Israel, agreeing that the issue should be “off the table.”

Speaking at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington think tank, she responded to questions, saying, “I absolutely think we have to look at right of return.”

When asked whether the “right of return” applies to Palestinians whose recent ancestors fled Israel during the 1948 War of Independence, Haley said, “I do agree with that, and I think we have to look at this in terms of what’s happening [with refugees] in Syria, what’s happening in Venezuela.”

She confirmed that the United States had cut the budget to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN agency responsible for Palestinian refugees, by more than 82 percent, adding, “We will be a donor if it [UNRWA] reforms what it does … if they actually change the number of refugees to an accurate account, we will look back at partnering [with] them.”

UNRWA claims a number of 5 million Palestinian refugees, including in that figure every descendant of Arabs who fled Israel during Israel’s War of Independence. However, international law states that refugee status cannot be passed down to descendants, meaning that only the original 750,000 refugees of 70 years ago can be legally defined as refugees.

Several days ago, Israel’s Hadashot news reported that the Trump administration would officially refute a Palestinian “right of return.” The White House offered no comment.
Is UNRWA a scam?
Why is the US discussing cutting funding to UNWRA? Here are some fast facts, with Emily Schrader. UNHCR covers all refugees in the world EXCEPT Palestinians...and they have 1 staff for every 5,982 refugees. UNRWA, the agency exclusive to the Palestinians, has 1 staff for every 186 refugees. Does that sound proportional to you?


David Singer: Trump Turns Screws as PLO Creates Fake News on Jerusalem and Refugees
The PLO and Hamas have maintained this discriminatory two-tiered refugee segregation system in both Gaza and the West Bank for at least the last ten years.

The failure to close these camps and integrate their residents into the general Gazan and West Bank Arab populations is a damning indictment of Hamas and the PLO.

Expecting Trump to pick up the tab as these inhumane practices continue for crass political purposes is arrogant and unwarranted.

Trump has made it clear these funds will go to relieving genuine refugee distress in other parts of the world.

The PLO’s outright refusal to negotiate with Israel on Trump’s long-awaited peace plan – inflamed by these latest false claims – only ensures the PLO’s increasingly-rapid slide into political irrelevance.

PMW: What`s the connection between the new PLO Head of Prisoners' Commission and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing?
The new Head of the PLO Commission of Prisoners, Qadri Abu Bakr, is in all likelihood the uncle of Mohammed Salameh, one of the terrorists convicted for the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing. Abu Bakr spent 18 years in an Israeli prison for an attempted terror attack before being released in 1986 and expelled to Iraq, where he was a senior PLO representative.

During the year prior to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Qadri Abu Bakr spoke on the phone with Mohammed Salameh over 40 times. The first to publicize the connection between Salameh and Abu Bakr was the Washington Post in a report published two years after the first WTC bombing documenting a possible Iraqi connection to the bombing:

"Another bit of intriguing evidence leading back to Baghdad are the more than 40 calls Salameh made to the Iraqi capital in June and July 1992 -- most of them to his uncle, Qadri Abu Bakr. Abu Bakr, who had spent 18 years in an Israeli prison, has been identified as a top official of a now largely inactive Iraqi-sponsored Palestinian group."

Professor Laurie Mylroie, in her book Study of Revenge: The First World Trade Center Attack and Saddam Hussein's War against America, documented the Iraqi connection to the World Trade Center bombing, and Abu Bakr's position. Abu Bakr, she explained, was arrested by Israel after he infiltrated from Jordan to carry out a terror attack and was sentenced to 20 years in prison. After serving eighteen years of his sentence he was released and made his way to Iraq. While in Iraq, Mylroie asserts that Abu Bakr was "number two in the PLO's "'Western Sector'... a terrorist unit within the PLO... under Iraq's strong influence."

  • Thursday, August 30, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
I found a mostly sympathetic paper about UNRWA called "UNRWA and the Palestinian refugees: a history within history" on the UNRWA website. It was written in 2010 by Riccardo Bocco for the Refugee Survey Quarterly.

Here is an interesting section:

In looking at who is a Palestinian refugee, there is no definitive response. The definition and the number of Palestinian refugees can differ according to the approach (administrative, juridical, political) used to define Palestinian refugees and also according to the social context of interaction between Palestinians (registered refugees or not) and others and the actors defining them. UNRWA, particularly at the beginning of its mandate, lacked a fixed definition; this changed mainly due to a need to delimit the number of relief recipients. When the Agency began its activities, it inherited a legacy of inflated registration: the United Nations Economic Survey Mission recorded approximately 720,000 people, while the number of recipients on the ration rolls of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees (UNRPR) surpassed 950,000. It is the 1952 definition that has become the accepted one and has remained virtually unchanged: “a Palestine refugee shall mean any person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period June 1, 1946 to May 15, 1948, and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict."

It is important to emphasize that the UNRWA definition of a Palestine refugee is an administrative one and does not translate directly into recognition by international law. Furthermore, a tacit understanding seems to prevail: UNRWA’s continued existence (and the associated Palestine refugee status) is directly linked to the realization of a permanent resolution to the Palestine refugee issue.
UNRWA created the definition of "Palestine refugee," not the UN and not international law. It is an administrative definition, not a legal one. Today, practically zero of the current "Palestine refugees" are refugees; even most of the ones who fled in 1948 would not qualify under the legal definition since they were not fleeing persecution, as their brethren who remained behind prove.

But the next sentence shows that UNRWA has a great disincentive to redefine "refugee" to be closer to the legal definition: if it did so, it would not exist. Its very existence, Bocco notes, is dependent on there being no solution to the refugee issue - so why would UNRWA want to change the definition that would render it unnecessary?

There is a huge conflict of interest here, and no one wants to talk about it. The agency that takes care of people cannot make up its own rules of who it decides to take care of; that should be done by an independent and objective group. This is why we have the absurdity of an organization with no cessation rules on how a "refugee" can lose their status, how there can be "refugees" living in the area that they supposedly fled from, and how there can be "refugees" who are full citizens of another country (primarily Jordan but also the US, Canada, South America and every country in Europe.)




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  • Thursday, August 30, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
MEMRI has a very revealing interview with a former Jordanian prime minister, who signed the Jordanian peace treaty with Israel.



For most of the interview he is pragmatic and he even defends Israeli actions as the host tries to get him to say Israel is stealing water from Jordan:

Former Jordanian Prime Minister Abdelsalam Al-Majali: My mentality is a mentality of peace. I believe that peace is the best thing for our nation in its current… or rather, at the time of the peace process, as well as today. It is the best solution for us, as Arabs, and I still believe in it. As long as you do not have force of another kind, peace is your only option.

[…]

We are interested in five fundamental issues: The land, the water, the economy, the possibility of [Jordan] becoming the alternative Palestine – we are the only ones threatened by this – and security. These are the things Jordan accomplished [in the peace accord with Israel]. What did Jordan want? Its land? It got it back. Jordan wanted its water? We got it back. The economy? We restored it. And on top of all of this, we gained the respect of the world. Am I supposed to liberate Palestine? Is it my job?

Host: Some believe that this accord did not accomplish anything.

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: How can you say that? Didn’t you get your water? Your land?

Host: Israel did not comply with its commitments regarding the water quotas it must give Jordan.

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: That's not true! Absolutely not! Israel continues to give us more water than we are due.

Host: Didn't Israel divert rivers in the area into its [territory]?

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Sir, you have not read the history books, I'm sad to say. Israel diverted the Jordan River a long time ago.

Host: And we didn't get it back!

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Our quota does not come from the Jordan River. When the water was divided [in the peace accord], we got our quota from the Yarmouk River. The Jews get 25 million cubic meters, and the rest is ours. But since we don't have a dam to store the winter precipitation, they took the water.

Host: What, they took it, and now it's gone forever?

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: No, they have been giving it all back – and more – to us. They have been giving us more than our due. But as for the Palestinian quota – we don't intervene. The Palestinians get their quota from the Jordan River.
Al Majali is clearly as moderate an Arab as one can imagine - defending Israeli actions on Arab TV is a bit unusual..

But even this literal peacemaker lets us know how even the most moderate, pragmatic Arabs think:

Check out this interchange with the host:
Al-Majali: There are millions of Jordanian Palestinians who have property in Israel. They have the right to get it back or get compensation for it.

Host: They will only get compensation?

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: I'm not getting into this. It's return or compensation: They will either give them back their land or compensate them. Some people go and collect… in Haifa, Jaffa, and elsewhere beyond the West Bank.

Host: Does this serve the Palestinian cause?

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Why not?

Host: What, to sell their land for a price?

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: [The Israelis] own that land. They live and build there, while you are not there, and you don't have an army or anything…

Host: In my view, if they don't sell it and the land remains occupied, it is better for the Palestinian cause.
The host says what most Arabs think - that all of Israel is "occupied" and that compensating Palestinians for any property they fled from would be disastrous for their "cause" - the cause of destroying Israel.

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Is it better for them to remain hungry?

Host: And selling their land is better?

Abdelsalam Al-Majali: Well, what can you do? You lost the land to a military force. You do not have any power. All you do is talk. The Arabs do not have any power. If we ever have military power, will we let them keep Haifa? We'll take it. If tomorrow, we become stronger and can take Haifa by force, will we really decline just because we have an agreement with them?

There we go. The most peaceful Jordanian one can find, an actual signatory to a peace agreement, admits that he would tear up the agreement if Jordan could destroy Israel militarily.

No one in the Western world wants to admit this but this is the way virtually all Arabs think. And there is nothing in their media that teaches true peace with Israel.

The best Israel can ever hope for is a detente that is backed up by superior military force. Israel's military strength is the only thing keeping the Arab Israeli conflict as low-key as it is now.





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  • Thursday, August 30, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Times of Israel:
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday said he believed a future Palestinian state should be demilitarized, offering rare backing for a key Israeli demand in any peace deal.

Abbas told a group of visiting Israeli academics that he preferred devoting funds to education and institutions than to an army, the Kan public broadcaster reported.
In what must be a complete coincidence, the Facebook page of Fatah, which is run by Abbas, just put up this photo:


 The caption:

Picture of members of the Iraqi force that prevented the occupation army from the occupation of Jenin in 1948, and rendered to them heavy losses.

As soon as Abbas said he was against Palestinians having an army to Israelis, his political party celebrated how a conventional  army managed to allegedly win a battle against the Jews.  They pointedly chose a picture that included an armored vehicle, something specifically "army like" that their own police wouldn't have.

Abbas' message, taken as a whole, is that it makes no sense for Palestinians to have an army when it has the entire Arab world it can invite to fight on its behalf.

I do not recall ever seeing an image of a conventional army fighting Israel on the Fatah Facebook page before. Usually its historic pictures would be of "martyrs" or of downtrodden Arabs.

Wikipedia summarizes that battle, saying that the Israeli forces were only there to draw Arab armies away from Jerusalem:

In the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, the city was defended by the Iraqi Army, then captured briefly by the forces from Israel's Carmeli Brigade during the "Ten Days' fighting" following the cancellation of the first cease-fire. Prior to the battle, the city's residents fled temporarily.The offensive was actually a feint designed to draw Arab forces away from the critical Siege of Jerusalem, and gains in that sector were quickly abandoned when Arab reinforcements arrived.
Even their victories are not victories.



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Wednesday, August 29, 2018

From Ian:

Palestinian Leaders Bet Future on Trump Impeachment
Palestinian leaders are betting their future on President Donald Trump being impeached by Democrats following the mid-term elections, according to Arabic language comments by a senior Palestinian government leader who praised Special Counsel Robert Mueller for targeting Trump and his top allies.

Palestinian government leaders, under pressure from the Trump administration as it slashes U.S. taxpayer aid to the embattled government, say they are betting on a Democratic takeover in Congress that will stall the administration's agenda and put the still languishing peace process on the back burner.

Muhammad Shtaya, a member of the Fatah government's Central Committee, said regional officials are counting on Democrats winning the midterms and seizing control of Congress, a scenario the Palestinians believe would work in their favor as the Trump administration pursues efforts to isolate regional governments for their support of terrorism.

The comments come amid a new push in Congress and the Trump administration to slash U.S. taxpayer aid to the Palestinian government as a result of it spending this money to pay the salaries of terrorists and their families. Parallel efforts in the United States also seek to redefine how Palestinian refugees are classified, a move that would change the calculus on peace talks.

Shtaya said in Arabic language comments that many are waiting with anticipation for Democrats to win the midterm elections.

November "is the midterm elections for Congress and the Senate," Shtaya said, according to an independent translation of his remarks provided to the Washington Free Beacon. "If the Democrats seize the majority in Congress and the Senate, I believe we will arrive at two results: First, the first result, a total paralysis of the Trump administration, as he will not be able to pass any bills in Congress. And second, and he spoke about this the other day, and he is the first American president to say, if I'm impeached, the world markets will collapse and everyone will pay a price for it."

The ongoing Mueller investigation also has provided a lifeline to Palestinian leaders who are hopeful it will erode Trump's presidency.

Barry Shaw: The happy Palestinians
The survey brought below dates back to 2015 - and the Palestinian condition has improved since then, despite the propaganda lies to the contrary. You will find it amazing.

Happiness - Palestinians are 3rd happiest in all Arab countries, and 30th globally.

Water Resources - Despite claims to the contrary, Palestinian per capita use of natural, fresh water is 140 cubic meters per annum against Israel's 150 cubic meters per annum. Almost the same.

Education - Palestinians were 63.5% satisfied as opposed to 50% average among Arab states. Netherlands 60.3%, Sweden 61.6%, Japan 54.5%.

Literacy - Literacy rate of Palestinians aged 15+ was 96.5%

Infant Mortality - Palestinian infant mortality stood at 13 per 1000 live births compared with 27 per 1000 in Arab states, and 36.58% global average.

Life Expectancy - Palestinian age 76, Arab states 71, Global average 70.

Poverty - West Bank 18%. Israel 21%.
NGO Monitor: French Funded Propaganda Film Exploits Palestinian Youth
In August 2018, the Platform of French NGOs for Palestine (PFP), a French funded anti-Israeli NGO,1 published a documentary titled “No Kidding, Games under control.” The video, which was made “available for free access,” was produced in 2010 with the support of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French Agency for Development (AFD).

The producers describe the film as “an assessment of Palestinian children’s rights, in particular, under the situation of the Israeli occupation.” The half-hour film features seven children and teenagers supposedly “chosen at random” from Gaza and the West Bank. According to PFP, the young interviewees “describe the Israeli military operations, the Wall, the settlements … they testify of the effects of the occupation on their daily life.”

The film systematically erases any notion of Israeli security concerns, including the context of violence and terrorism, and instead disseminates multiple unverified claims. The producers themselves state that the film is “slanted” in order to “let the children, without frame or constraint” tell their stories. As a result, the film whitewashes terror, promotes the demonization of Israel, and manipulates and exploits Palestinian children for political gain.


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

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

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



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

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

And it appears it never will.


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  • Wednesday, August 29, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Dr. Taher Hamdy Kanaan in Jordan's Al Rai: 

 Jews have a moral obligation to the Jews exclusively. As for the rest of the human race, the so-called "goyim" or "illiterate" in the language of the Torah, they have no moral responsibility for them, according to the teachings of the Talmud; In other words, the behavior of Jews toward others is dictated by selfish interest, which is devoid of any pretense or morality. For this benefit, Jews are not deterred from false representation and false pretenses.

This reality has governed the behavior of the Zionist movement and its state since the beginning. The Palestinians and the Arabs have always tried to expose the immoral nature of Zionism and Israel. However, they have always failed, because the Zionists have mastered the arts of lies and forgery supported by their overwhelming political influence in the West and their wide control over the international media. They succeeded in persuading a large part of the international community and world public opinion In the Israeli narrative, including the fact that Israel is an oasis of democracy in the desert of Arab tyranny, and that the Palestinians suffer from their own hands for their behavior, .rather than ways of peace.

 On the basis of that anti-moral Talmudic culture, Israel has succeeded in joining the United Nations, having succeeded in convincing the majority of its Member States that it is a peace-loving State...
 J-Street and the British Labour Party probably consider this to be all legitimate criticism of Israel.



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From Ian:

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Palestinian leaders are the worst enemy of ordinary Palestinians
And the U.N. itself should stop funding schools where the core curriculum is focused on teaching Palestinian children hatred of Jews and their state – along with training in hand-to-hand combat, firing guns, kidnapping and sending kites and large balloons into Israel carrying bombs.

With this kind of indoctrination going to children from the elementary school years onward, it’s no wonder that the fires of hatred against Jews and Israel burn in Palestinian hearts.

If I had the opportunity to see Guterres again, I would tell him this:

Mr. Secretary-General, Palestinians don’t need 14-page reports with action plans to “protect” them from Israel. They need you to summon up the courage to tell the truth.

Want peace? Get rid of the terrorists; stop brainwashing children into a culture of death; tell Mahmoud Abbas to start acting like a president who wants peace and not war; stop treating terrorists like rock stars; and stop rewarding murderers.

In the extraordinary unlikely event that Guterres made such a declaration, there could be hope that both Palestinian and Jewish children may actually have a peaceful future.

But sadly, the chances of the U.N. coming out for steps like this anytime soon are almost nonexistent. We can only pray and hope that at some point – with the help of strong leadership from the United States – the U.N. and more of its member states will come out for a just and equitable peace that will allow Israelis and Palestinians to live side-by-side in peace and security.
PMW: Hamas fighters torture 13-year Adham, because he hit son of Hamas military leader
In a rare broadcast on Palestinian Authority TV, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy and his parents openly criticized Hamas. They described how six Hamas fighters in Gaza beat and tortured the 13-year-old - simply because he had fought and hit the son of a commander from Hamas' military wing Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam.

Crying while he showed pictured of the many wounds on his body, the boy told how six Hamas fighters beat him up and tortured him in a room in a mosque:

13-year-old boy Muhammad Adham Abu Anzah: "They grabbed me and put me in a room. Then they started to hit me with daggers and a whip. He broke my finger. I demand justice. When one finished or tired out, another came and continued to hit me with a belt. They broke iron on my neck. Six people - they continued to hit me until the police came. Afterwards, the police arrested me. Later, my father came and started to shout at them, and then they released me." [Official PA TV News, Aug. 22, 2018]

The boy's father stated that the attackers are known to the family, adding that this is how Hamas treats anyone who voices criticism:


Caroline Glick: German-led E.U. Sides with Iran Against America
To a degree, this isn’t surprising. EU member states have only been able to coalesce around one common foreign policy: hostility to Israel.

Only last week, the EU issued an angry condemnation of Israel for announcing it was issuing permits for 382 new homes in its communities in Judea. The EU and European member states invest in excess of $125 million annually to support networks of anti-Israel NGOs in Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Europe. These NGOs delegitimize Israel’s right to exist, support economic boycotts of Israel, work to turn Israel’s Arab citizens against their state, and support Palestinian terror groups. At the UN, there are few anti-Israel initiatives that do not pass with European support.

Since the OPEC oil embargo in 1974, Western European countries have used their hostility towards Israel as a means to distinguish themselves from the U.S. It costs them nothing, since Israel is at a trade disadvantage with Europe. And it appeals to the antisemitic and anti-American sentiments held by a large percentage of Europeans.

Just two few days before Maas wrote his article calling for the EU to develop a new financial network to undermine U.S. sanctions and keep trading with Iran (and so enable the regime to survive, continue sponsoring terrorism and waging war while developing nuclear weapons), he visited the German death camp Auschwitz. While at the site of the largest death factory in human history, he said, “We need this place because our responsibility never ends.”

How odd, given the German government’s decision to pin its independence on its ability to help Iran’s regime overcome U.S. sanctions and develop the means to annihilate Israel and murder the six-and-a-half million Jews that live there.

  • Wednesday, August 29, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon


On Monday, the Gaza ministry of health warned that the hospitals and medical clinics in Gaza were in danger of closing because of lack of fuel.

The spokesman for the ministry, Ashraf Kedra, didn't blame Israel for the shortage of fuel. He said that donors haven't come through to pay for fuel for these medical facilities. If they would have the money, they could pay for the fuel to be transferred - from Israel.

The article in Palestine Today then gave some interesting statistics:

Gaza has 13 government hospitals and 54 primary health care centers, covering 95% of the medical services provided to more than 2 million Gazans, while the remaining services are covered by UNRWA clinics.

This means that UNRWA has built an entirely parallel medical care system - along with all the buildings, bureaucracy and overhead that this entails - to only cover 5% of the population.

According to UNRWA figures, about two thirds of all Gazans are "refugees" who can get services from the agency.

If that is true, then why do most of them use government medical facilities, and not UNRWA's?

If UNRWA's medical budget was redirected to the government then more people could be treated for less money.

Which applies to the clinics and schools in Gaza, the West Bank and Jordan as well. Since by definition none of the citizens of "Palestine" or Jordan are refugees, there is no reason to pour so much money into service provided by a "refugee agency" when it is the proper job of the government to provide those services, like anywhere else in the world.






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  • Wednesday, August 29, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said, in the same speech where he said that British "Zionists" didn't understand irony or history:

 I was brought up at school being told, um, that Israel was founded on a piece of empty space, and that they managed to make the desert bloom, and they built things when there was nothing there before. Anybody that studies the history of the region would know, at the end of the Second World War – 1945 to 1948 period – Palestine had media, had industry, had education, had universities, had a relatively high standard of living for the whole region, and was a coherent society and a coherent state. It was a denigration of that which enabled Western opinion to be, um, put together in support of Israel.




Palestine on the eve of Israel's independence was effectively a state, all right - a Jewish state. It was Jewish money, Jewish creativity, Jewish brains and Jewish sweat that built nearly all the institutions of Palestine that Corbyn is praising here.

And, yes, the Jews were the ones who made the desert bloom. And they did build cities like Tel Aviv on empty land. And they did drain the swamps. And they brought electricity to Palestine. And modern banking. And industry. And hospitals. And so on,

The British Mandate lasted 25 years, and the Jews - by themselves - built an entire state in that time period so it was ready to go as soon as it achieved independence. (Earlier in the full video Corbin talks about how much the British built in Jerusalem during the Mandate. They built some government buildings, but most of the interesting architecture came from Jewish, European and American sources.)

The Oslo process is now 25 years old, and the Palestinians - with billions of dollars of aid from the world - have not built a functioning state. The Palestinian Authority is barely a government - it is a fig leaf for Mahmoud Abbas' dictatorship. Nothing is decided without him. All the major hospitals and universities in the territories were built when they were under Israeli rule.

Corbyn, who claims Jews don't understand history, is literally making up history.

(h/t David B)





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  • Wednesday, August 29, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon


One of the more insidious ways that anti-Israel forces lie is to take an innocuous video or picture and make up an explanation to put Israel in a bad light.

The latest example appears to be a viral video of an Arab girl in Hebron climbing a fence.

One version on Twitter looks like this:




The original story on Twitter is a little different - the claim is not that Israel closed a gate to a road, but that Israel surrounded a single house with a fence:




All the video shows is a girl climbing a fence. Something that kids do every day. There are schools surrounded by fences that kids climb for fun when they can walk around. You've probably done this yourself when you were younger. 

In other words, without any further evidence, we cannot believe a word of these (conflicting) explanations of what happened. And there is reason to doubt them.

Because there are Arabs on both sides of the fence shown here. 

Clearly the original story that the house was surrounded and then the gate locked is absurd, because the story would be the people who are caught inside the fence, not the ones who are trying to go from outside in. And the people "inside" the fenced area don't seem to be acting like they have been jailed. When Israel does seal off a house, it certainly doesn't include a road.

So the story morphed into "Israel closed the gate." OK, where are the photos of the people waiting at the gate, or trying to break it open, or arguing with soldiers, or anything showing that the explanation offered by the Israel-haters is true? 

I don't know why the girl climbed the fence, but my guess is that she simply didn't want to walk around it. That's it. That's all we can guess without any evidence to the contrary. 

This is not "apartheid." This video shows nothing wrong. It is all the lies that people attribute to the video that causes the hate. And they do it quite knowingly.

UPDATE: An explanation was posted on Facebook by Amit Deri. The girl could have indeed walked around, there is an open section a little down the road with no gate at all. The fence she climbed was a gate that is normally open, and it was closed temporarily because Arabs were throwing stones from there. When the incident was over, the gate was opened soon after.

The reason the gate exists to begin with is because of a fatal stabbing attack a few years ago.







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Tuesday, August 28, 2018

From Ian:

Former UK chief rabbi Lord Sacks: Jeremy Corbyn is a dangerous anti-Semite
Britain’s former chief rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, branded the Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn a dangerous anti-Semite in an interview published Tuesday.

In a devastating critique of the opposition leader, Sacks accused Corbyn of giving “support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate, who want to kill Jews and remove Israel from the map.” The Labour leader, Sacks said, uses “the language of classic prewar European antisemitism.”

Corbyn has been under mounting attack for his own allegedly anti-Semitic positions and for failing to root anti-Semitism out of Labour, Britain’s main opposition party.

The comments that sparked Sacks’s denunciation were made by Corbyn in a 2013 speech at the Palestinian Return Centre in London, where Corbyn said of a group of British “Zionists”: “They clearly have two problems. One is they don’t want to study history and, secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either.”

In an interview with the New Statesman magazine, Sacks, who served as chief rabbi from 1991 to 2013, called those remarks the most offensive to have been made by a senior British politician for 50 years.

“The recently disclosed remarks by Jeremy Corbyn are the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech,” said Sacks. “It was divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.

“We can only judge Jeremy Corbyn by his words and his actions,” Sacks went on. “He has given support to racists, terrorists and dealers of hate who want to kill Jews and remove from Israel from the map.”

Eli Lake: Jeremy Corbyn’s Warped Worldview
Since becoming the leader of his party, Corbyn’s excuse-making has become more subtle. After Prime Minister Theresa May expelled Russian diplomats in response to the poisoning in March of a former Russian spy with a Soviet-era nerve agent, Corbyn was careful to say no one in his party supported Putin. Nonetheless, he urged caution and warned of a rush to judgment, despite his own government’s view that Russia was behind the attack. In 2017, following the terror attack at a rock concert in Manchester, Corbyn made sure to say the attackers should “forever be reviled” — while simultaneously asserting that government experts had linked such attacks in Britain to the country’s wars abroad.

Corbyn was not always this subtle. Daniel Finkelstein, a Conservative member of the House of Lords and columnist for the Times of London, has unearthed some of Corbyn’s more revealing views. For example, in 1989 Corbyn praised the Soviet Union for aiding socialist revolutions in the third world. Writing just four years ago in the Morning Star, the U.K.’s self-described socialist newspaper, Corbyn criticized NATO for its “colonial adventures” in the Middle East and called it “essentially a redundant force.”

Politicians like Corbyn are rare in mainstream American politics, but not in the U.K. In 2005 George Galloway, a member of Parliament who was eventually banished from the Labour Party, gave an infamous speech at Damascus University praising Syria’s dictator and rejoicing in the defeat of the U.S. army in Iraq. Ken Livingstone, the former mayor of London, earned the nickname “Red Ken” for his apologetics for Britain’s foes. He quit the Labour Party this year after he was suspended in 2016 for saying Adolf Hitler supported Zionism, a conspiracy theory popular in the Middle East.

And this brings us back to Israel. For years Galloway and Livingstone were on the fringe of the Labour Party. Labour remained the party of Clement Attlee, who knew the difference between open and closed societies, between free nations and police states.

Today, that party is led by a foolish socialist who can’t seem to tell the difference. Is it any wonder that Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters have succumbed to the socialism of fools?
Jeremy Corbyn claims Israel controls speeches made by British MPs in Parliament, in bizarre remarks slammed as an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theory' that 'casts Jews as sinister manipulators'
Jeremy Corbyn claimed that Israeli officials control the speeches made by British MPs, in bizarre comments that have been called an 'anti-Semitic conspiracy theory' which ‘casts Jews as sinister manipulators’, MailOnline can reveal.

The remarks were captured on video in 2010, at a meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in London. In a speech about the shooting of Turkish activists at sea by the Israeli commandos, the Labour leader said:

‘[British MPs] all turned up [to the debating chamber] with a pre-prepared script. I’m sure our friend Ron Prosor (the Israeli ambassador) wrote it.

‘Because they all came up with the same key words. It was rather like reading a European document looking for buzz-words.

‘And the buzz-words were, “Israel’s need for security”. And then “the extremism of the people on one ship”. And “the existence of Turkish militants on the vessel”.

‘It came through in every single speech, this stuff came through.’

MailOnline has examined the transcript of the debate in question and could find no evidence that any of Mr Corbyn’s ‘buzz words’ were mentioned by MPs.

In addition, a number of parliamentarians who spoke during the session have confirmed to MailOnline that they received no such ‘pre-prepared script’ or ‘buzz-words’ from Israeli sources.


  • Tuesday, August 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon

A Mediterranean Theatre festival taking place in Tunisia is featuring what appears to be a thoughtful play on Jewish identity in the Arab world.

The piece seems to be titled "Joyev" and it deals with Jews in a fictional Jewish village during the Tunisian revolution. Parts of the plot include a Jewish law student who was expelled from university because of her religion, Jewish families who are too frightened to go out into the streets for fear of the Arab mobs, and a Jew who wants to smuggle out an ancient Torah to preserve it (presumably in Israel) while others want it to go to a Tunisian museum because Jewish heritage is an integral part of Tunisian history.

The piece is also predictably anti-Zionist, saying that Israel tries to sow and exploit divisions among Jews in Tunisia to prompt them to make aliyah.

But it asks basic questions of how to be a Jew in a country that has treated Jews badly even though they have lived there for years; how Jews grappled with the idea of emigrating to Europe when they were in danger, the Jewish struggle to defend their country of birth when they were marginalized. These are some serious topics and I have never seen them addressed in Arabic arts.

The description of the play makes it appear that the director took the subject matter very seriously and it is quite sympathetic to its Jewish characters. The director even took the actors to the Jewish community of Djerba to perfect their accents, as apparently there is a faint accent for the Jews that comes out when they are angry or upset. The director said that this is a subject that has been ignored in Arabic theater until now.

Altogether, this seems rather remarkable.





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I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. Hasbara is a dirty word. A really, really bad word.
As a writer I am sensitive to words, the way they are used (or misused) and how they shape reality. Words describe reality but they also create it, forming a perspective or mindset which influences behavior and as a result, forms our experiences. Athletes know this, psychologists know this and so do abusive people who use words to maintain power over others.

The word “hasbara” is a problem.

Hasbara is the word often used to describe the actions of the pro-Israel advocacy movement. Hasbara is a word in Hebrew and it comes from the root word “hesber,” explanation or “lehasbeer,” to explain.

The implication is that it is necessary to “explain” Israel or Israel’s actions.

Is it necessary to explain France? Or America? Or  Russia?

Even the English term “advocacy” is problematic. An advocate is a lawyer who defends someone in court - defending the person accused of a crime.

The demand for explanations or even the feeling that advocacy is necessary is a mindset of guilt, as if we have done something wrong and need to explain ourselves. The Jew, presumed guilty until proven innocent… like medieval witch trials – throw her in the river, if she floats she’s a witch (and as such must be killed), if she drowns she is “proven” innocent…

There are a number of examples of words others have deliberately chosen as part of the propaganda war, designed to delegitimize the Jewish people and undermine the future of the Nation of Israel (Palestine, West Bank, Wailing Wall….). The fact that so many have adopted this this terminology, bringing it legitimacy, without thinking or through the (in my opinion, mistaken) belief that there is no other option, exacerbates an existing problem. “Hasbara,” on the other hand, is a word we chose and a mindset we are perpetuating in the supposed effort to empower our people.
Have we gotten so used to the hate that we have accepted and adopted as our own, the idea that we are guilty until proven innocent? After centuries of proof to the contrary, do we still believe that a good enough explanation will get us out of “punishment”?

After 2000 years of exile and 70 years of statehood, the Nation of Israel, Jews around the world and even many Israeli Jews, are still trapped in galut mentality. This is the thought process of the weak, of those who must suffer in silence, hoping that the “civilized” will prevent our misery from becoming too terrible.  

While an understandable position for a People with no state, guests in other people’s lands, this is not an acceptable position for a free and proud nation. Even our enemies do not explain themselves. They boldly claim victimhood, even when it is not true. They scream and accuse, with no shame - but they do not explain themselves. Their “rights,” in their minds, are obvious and need no explanation. Why should ours?

My right to life is not something that needs explaining, it is obvious. My country not only has to a right to defend her citizens but has an obligation to do so. No sovereign nation needs to explain this to anyone.

Hasbara is a dirty word because it is indicative of and helps perpetuate galut mentality. We are no longer a subservient people, after 2000 years of exile it is time to behave according to who we are and what we have achieved – the miraculous, what no other nation on earth has ever done before – sovereignty in our ancestral homeland for the third time. 

The strong do not explain themselves. No one respects the weak. While some might pity the victim, even pity is not empathy and we, thank God, are no longer at the mercy of the civilized.
Now it is only the prison of our own minds holding us back.






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From Ian:

Trump is busting the myths that prevent Middle East peace
Last week the State Department announced a $200 million cut in annual aid to the Palestinian Authority. Before that, America cut support to UNRWA, a body created in 1949 to tend to some 750,000 Arab refugees from the war Israel's neighbors launched to erase it off the map.

UNRWA now handles aid to over 5 million Palestinians, while another UN agency deals with refugees everywhere else on the globe.

Absurdly, Palestinian UNRWA clients living where the Palestinian Authority or Hamas has full control remain "refugees," despite Palestinian rule.

Former Knesset member Einat Wilf, a vocal advocate of peace negotiations with the Palestinians, nevertheless calls for dismantling UNRWA.

"UNRWA encourages radicalism. It keeps alive the dream that the pre-1948 status quo will return and that Israel as a Jewish state will be erased from the map. I'm not against aid to Palestinians, just against encouraging that dream," she said.

In the long run, peacemaking will succeed if it addresses 21st-century facts, rather than 1948 hopes.
Bypass Abbas and axe UNRWA
President Mahmoud Abbas reminded us once again last Saturday why he and his Palestinian demi-government may need be sidelined for sake of peace in the region. Because he and the so-called Palestinian “Authority” in the West Bank are corrupt, ossified and obstructionist in every way.

At a meeting of the PLO Central Council, Abbas called on Palestinians to “keep the ground aflame with popular resistance” against Israel – code words for violence, if not terrorism. Abbas’ main foreign policy deputy, PLO Secretary-General Saeb Erekat, went on to lead the Council in declaring support for “heroic” Hamas-led attacks against Israeli troops and civilians across the Gaza border, while condemning Hamas for negotiating a truce with Israel.

The resolution also savaged the Trump administration for seeking to “destroy the Palestinian national project” and of course called to ratchet-up BDS campaigns against Israel.

Abbas’ actions appear driven by his marginalization, with Israel and the Trump administration Mideast team clearly planning to bypass the PA altogether in favor of a plan to enhance security and economic prospects in the Gaza Strip. This marginalization is in turn driven by Abbas’ self-inflicted wounds; sourced in the fecklessness and growing radicalization of Abbas and his aging coterie.

Remember: Abbas has fled from real negotiation and compromise with Israel at every opportunity over the past 15 years. He has espoused maximalist positions, stoked hatred of Israelis and Jews, inculcated a culture that denies Jewish history and national identity, venerated terrorists, and pushed the criminalization of Israel internationally. He has driven most Israelis to the realization, alas, that there is no reasonable peace deal with the Palestinians to be had at this time.

'Trump was furious when he learned what UNRWA, PA were doing'
Bedein praised the reports that the Trump Administration would reject the 'right of return.'

"This is the conclusion of a process over the last two year: In December of 2016 I had the opportunity to meet with president-elect Trump's adviser, who was about to come to Washington. She was here in Jerusalem, and I showed her the [UNRWA] schoolbooks," he said.

"She told me who she was working for, and she asked if she could have all of the books. I gave the books to her, and for the last two years, our office, the Center for Near East Policy Research, has been in touch with the administration at the highest levels, giving them everything we could about the schoolbooks.

He said that the center's most recent report showed that "the right of return through the armed struggle become the most important and dominant theme of Palestinian Authority and UNRWA education."

"This got directly to the president of the United States, and he blew his stack, because he was told by the Peres Center for Peace ... that the Palestinian Authority has a peace curriculum. They just didn;t tell them that the Palestinian Authority and UNRWA had vetoed that peace curriculum.

He showed how a fifth grade textbook instructed students to model their lives after Dalal Mughrabi, one of the terrorists who carried out the Coastal Road Massacre in 1978, when 38 Israelis were murdered by terrorists.

According to Bedein, COGAT, the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories, is what is preventing reform of UNRWA. "They need feedback that an education system which teaches children to murder Jews is not appropriate for a peace process."





It is no secret that among the most influential countries in the world, the US stands apart in the strength of its friendship towards Israel.

This goes beyond politics.

video screenshot
Trump and Netanyahu at Press Conference. Screenshot of YouTube video
Even before the Trump administration, the US has supported Israel not only in terms of financial aid but also in terms of political backing in the UN.

Beyond that, polls have consistently shown a popular level of support for Israel among Americans that contrasts with the level of antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred increasingly evident throughout Europe.

One of the reasons for this bond may be the issue of terrorism. Both countries have been targeted by terrorists and continue to engage in "the war on terror." And both have turned to the law in order to engage more effectively in defending themselves from terrorist threats -- showing a willingness to go beyond International Humanitarian Law.

Two Categories in International Humanitarian Law: Civilians and Combatants


As far as IHL is concerned, there are 2 basic categories in war: combatants and civilians, with civilians getting special protection as non-combatants. This parallels the "conduct of hostilities paradigm" for dealing with combatants and the "law enforcement paradigm" for dealing with civilians during an armed conflict that we discussed in a previous post.

That "blur" between civilians and combatants in the case of the Gaza protests/riots gave rise to the disagreement in the report covered in that post as to what the appropriate response should be.

It also gives rise to the discussion of the possibility of a 3rd category, one not covered in the Geneva and Hague Convention nor recognized in International Law.

A Third Category: Unlawful Combatants


The concept of a third category, Unlawful Combatant, does not exist, strictly speaking, in IHL, but has been used by both the US and Israel. Neither the US nor Israel is a party to Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which does not recognize the status of unlawful combatant.

In the US, the term "unlawful combatants" was first used in a 1942 US Supreme Court decision in the case Ex parte Quirin, where the Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of a US military tribunal in the trial of 8 German saboteurs in the US during World War II:
By universal agreement and practice, the law of war draws a distinction between the armed forces and the peaceful populations of belligerent nations, and also between those who are lawful and unlawful combatants. Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but, in addition, they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful. The spy who secretly and without uniform passes the military lines of a belligerent in time of war, seeking to gather military information and communicate it to the enemy, or an enemy combatant who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property, are familiar examples of belligerents who are generally deemed not to be entitled to the status of prisoners of war, but to be offenders against the law of war subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals. [emphasis added]
That definition of an unlawful combatant as someone "who without uniform comes secretly through the lines for the purpose of waging war by destruction of life or property" would seem to apply to today's terrorists in general and Palestinian terrorists in particular.

In a 2004 article, Judge Amnon Straschnov, a former IDF Military Advocate General writes that the distinction between punishment by a military tribunal as opposed to POW status is not the only difference between unlawful and lawful combatants:
Israel classifies terrorists the same way the Americans classify terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq - as unlawful combatants. They are combatants but they do not have the privilege to be under the umbrella of international law because they do not adhere to the laws of war. They are not entitled to its protection since they have violated every possible provision of the laws of war and humanitarian law. They don't wear uniforms or abide by the conditions that entitle them to be POWS.

What measures are we taking against these unlawful combatants? If we have evidence and manage to bring them into custody, we bring them to trial before a court of law, a military court.

One new measure employed by Israel in the war against terror involves targeted interceptions, a subject of extensive debate. Once we define the terrorist as an unlawful combatant, he is a legitimate military target. It is allowed both legally and morally to fight and kill any terrorists for their notorious and ruthless terrorist activities, and we should not deal with them as protected persons. They are unlawful combatants, they want to come and kill us, and there is no question regarding the evidence. They've manifestly and openly declared their intentions. [Hat tip: Elder of Ziyon]
That is going beyond what International Humanitarian Law recognizes - as summarized by the ICRC:
That is the law regarding unlawful combatants. As long as he preserves his status as a civilian – that is, as long as he does not become part of the army – but takes part in combat, he ceases to enjoy the protection granted to the civilian, and is subject to the risks of attack just like a combatant without enjoying the rights of a combatant as a prisoner of war.
According to IHL, a civilian who takes part in hostilities, but not as part of the army,  loses his civilian status as far as protection and is not entitled to be treated as a POW if he is captured, but that is as far as it goes.

The issue of such a person seeking to deliberately target non-military targets and the lives of unarmed civilians is not singled out or addressed as justification for special action.

Unlawful Combatant vs International Law


The status of "unlawful combatants" under US law has been hotly debated, especially following 9/11 and has been challenged in terms of the detention and treatment of unlawful combatants in Guantanamo and the type of trial they are entitled to. Wikipedia traces the history and legal debate of the term "unlawful combatant."

There has been debate in Israel as well.

In 2004, The High Court of Justice in Israel decided in the case of Judgment on Preventative Strikes Against Terrorists.

In laying out the position of the Government of Israel, the court made clear that what was at stake was more than just a question of what to do in the event the terrorist was captured:
the State asked us to recognize a third category of persons, that of unlawful combatants. These are people who take active and continuous part in an armed conflict, and therefore should be treated as combatants, in the sense that they are legitimate targets of attack, and they do not enjoy the protections granted to civilians. However, they are not entitled to the rights and privileges of combatants, since they do not differentiate themselves from the civilian population, and since they do not obey the laws of war. Thus, for example, they are not entitled to the status of prisoners of war. The State's position is that the terrorists who participate in the armed conflict between and the terrorist organizations fall under this category of unlawful combatants. [emphasis added]
In relaying his decision, Justice Aharon Barak quotes from a decision in the case of interrogation:
We are aware that this judgment of ours does not make confronting that reality any easier. That is the fate of democracy, in whose eyes not all means are permitted, and to whom not all the methods used by her enemies are open. At times democracy fights with one hand tied behind her back. Despite that, democracy has the upper hand, since preserving the rule of law and recognition of individual liberties constitute an important component of her security stance. At the end of the day, they strengthen her and her spirit, and allow her to overcome her difficulties. 
photo
Aharon Barak. Source: Wiki Commons. Credit: Jonathan Klinger

Repurcussions


In the US, criticism has led to using the criminal justice system, instead of military tribunals, for trying unlawful combatants.

In 2007, James Taranto wrote that this was a mockery of International Law, not a defense of it:
By granting constitutional protections to detainees, Mr. Powell’s proposal would endanger the lives of American civilians. It would also afford preferential treatment to enemy fighters who defy the rules of war. This would make a mockery of international humanitarian law.

In the long run, it could also imperil the civil liberties of Americans. Leniency toward detainees is on the table today only because al Qaeda has so far failed to strike America since 9/11. If it succeeded again, public pressure for harsher measures would be hard for politicians to resist. And if enemy combatants had been transferred to the criminal justice system, those measures would be much more likely to diminish the rights of citizens who have nothing to do with terrorism.

By keeping terrorists out of America, Guantanamo protects Americans’ physical safety. By keeping them out of our justice system, it also protects our freedom.
In Israel, it is also not clear that limiting Israel's options in defending itself against terrorism will have the desired effect.

The admission that the court is knowingly limiting Israel's options in its own war on terror is not made less disturbing by the claim that Israel - as a democracy - gains some kind of moral victory "at the end of the day" by "preserving the rule of law."

Neither is it clear that this argument would have any compelling influence on those terrorist groups who plot to kill Israeli civilians.

The wisdom of releasing terrorists in return for Israeli hostages has been fairly well debunked.
The wisdom using WWII definitions of warfare over 70 years later is becoming increasingly questionable, especially when we see Europe in denial over the terrorist attacks directed against it.




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  • Tuesday, August 28, 2018
  • Elder of Ziyon
I had a ridiculous Twitter war with a NYC radio host yesterday.

In response to a pretty absurd tweet by Katie Halper,  who says she is a history teacher (God help us), I wrote:


To which she answered sarcastically:




So I dutifully responded that it was Sarsour herself who says that she could change her racial identity by changing her clothing, not me:


The first tweet I linked to is not embedded, so here it is from last year, where Sarsour says she used to be white and now she isn't:



But meanwhile Halper decided to branch the thread off to say that I was clearly the idiot:



To which I responded that if anyone is showing a lack of integrity, it is Halper:



Halper is a nobody but she represents the moronic ultra-Left of today (she calls herself a "Bernie-bro.") It is sort of idiotic that she actually cannot fathom that in today's environment, claiming to be a person of color is indeed a way to make yourself appear as a perpetual victim and therefore above criticism, which is exactly what Sarsour is doing. It is a political move, just like Salazar's pretense to be Jewish.

The bizarre thing is that nowadays, claiming to be a person of color is more important than one's actual color. 

If Sarsour can pass as white - which she admits she has - then how is she possibly being disadvantaged as a New Yorker who looks white? She chooses to wear the hijab for whatever reason (apparently more for identity politics than religion). I choose to wear a yarmulka. Which of us is more disadvantaged by a public display of our religion? And why does her hijab make her a person of color, and my headcovering does not do the same for me?

Moreover, according to the modern racists who feel that color is something one can choose rather than something objective, a Jewish member of Likud who is undeniably black does not get the "victim" brownie points of being a PoC, but a blonde Palestinian girl who punches a soldier does. 

There is discrimination in the world based on skin pigment. That is not in question. What is bizarre is that the people who pretend to care about racism are creating a funhouse mirror environment where they want to define the people on their side as people of color, and the people they disagree with  are automatically considered white. To them, the world really is black and white, and they want to ensure that all people they consider victims are also considered non-white while those they consider oppressors must be call white.

The formula seems to be that a Muslim is always considered a person of color and a Jew is always considered a white person, no matter how light or dark they are. And that completely arbitrary definition of race is what is proving that those who pretend to be against racism nowadays are too often the real racists.

Many of the people who really are being discriminated against cannot be considered victims because they are the wrong religion. The new "anti-racist" Left is institutionalizing antisemitism with their bizarre thinking that Israeli Jews are white, Palestinians are of color,  there is only room for one good side in this world and the white side must be bad.





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