Al Qaws is a gay rights group that is supposedly based in the Palestinian territories but that in fact stages all its events in Israel, where they are allowed to hold events without objection.
They just reportedly tried to set up a gathering in Nablus.
Police spokesperson Colonel Louay Arzaiqat wrote on his Facebook account that any such activities are "considered a blow to the ideals and values of the Palestinian society that our people have maintained throughout history."
Arzaiqat stressed that there are "suspicious parties trying to create sedition and prejudice the civil peace of the Palestinian society."
He said that the police will arrest and work to prosecute those in charge any gathering by Al Qaws in Nablus.
He called on citizens to report any person who they suspect is trying to create a pro-gay event in Palestinian Authority administered areas.
Al Qaws responded, "The Palestinian police statement on the prevention of Al Qaws activities in the West Bank is very unfortunate...Al-Qaws is a Palestinian organization that has been operating since 2001 in all parts of Occupied Palestine (in areas occupied in 1948 and 1967) and is doing educational and professional programs on sexual and gender pluralism with dozens of Palestinian civil society organizations. ... The police, as well as all authorities, must focus on and work to address the occupation and other forms of violence that undermine the values and sensitive fabric of our society, rather than pursuing our activists...".
I don't think Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar, those leftist darlings, will ever denounce the anti-gay stance of Palestinian officials. At best, if confronted, they will blame Israel, just like Al Qaws itself does.
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In the wake of Miftah's intention to sponsor Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar's trip to Israel, its history of antisemitism and support for terror is now being reported in the media.
This caused Miftah to issue a statement that screeches as if it is the victim, ignoring every single example of outrageous posts except the one it belatedly apologized for in 2013:
It has come to the attention of the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy, MIFTAH, that it is being targeted by extreme pro-Israeli hasbara groups and individuals who are propagating unfounded accusations and fabrications. We strongly condemn and reject these libelous allegations, which are nothing short of contemptible, against an organization that has been dedicated to global dialogue, good governance and democracy in Palestine for over 20 years. The example used as “evidence” of what is being called MIFTAH’s support for anti-Semitism was the result of a misstep by a junior staffer who inadvertently posted an outside article in Arabic on the organization’s website back in 2013 without having it reviewed. Once MIFTAH’s senior management became aware of the offensive article, they immediately removed it and issued an apology despite the fact that a disclaimer on its website clearly states that articles posted from other sources do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the organization. Nonetheless, a widespread smear campaign instigated and obsessively pursued by vicious hate-filled groups continued against MIFTAH and its founders. This hackneyed campaign is now being rehashed in an orchestrated manner with clear malicious intent.
MIFTAH is and has always been a respected organization both in Palestine and abroad and is known for its contributions to good governance, the empowerment of women and youth, to maintaining open, inclusive and democratic dialogue and to the exchange of ideas. We will not tolerate any attempts at the misrepresentation and defamation of MIFTAH’s good name.
Nothing is being misrepresented. Everything I have reported and is now being noticed is fully documented - and many of the posts are still on their site, today, including posts with fabricated quotes from Israeli leaders.
So, Miftah, if you want to defend your neo-Nazi post or your praise for terrorists like Dalal Mughrabi, at least have the guts to defend them and not to pretend that these accusations aren't true. And if you are going to call me and others liars for posting your own articles, it just proves that you are the liars.
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The Israel Defense Forces attacked Hamas targets in Gaza overnight Friday-Saturday in response to a rocket that was fired by Palestinian terror groups into Israel earlier Friday, the army said in a statement.
“A short time ago, IDF warplanes and aircraft attacked two underground terror structures of the Hamas terror group in the north and center of the Gaza Strip,” the IDF said.
“The attack was carried out in response to the rocket that was launched from Gaza earlier tonight. The IDF will continue to act against attempts to harm Israeli civilians and sees the Hamas terror group as responsible for all that is done in the Gaza strip,” the statement said.
The rocket that was fired into Israel earlier was intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system and caused no injuries or damage.
Rocket sirens wailed in southern Israel on Friday evening near the Gaza border and local residents reported hearing explosions.
The sirens sounded in the town of Sderot, and in the communities of Or Haner, Nir Am, Erez and Gevim.
The rocket fire came after several thousand Palestinians joined protests on the Gaza Strip border earlier Friday, with several hundred rioting and throwing stones and explosive devices at Israeli troops.
Soldiers responded with tear gas and occasional live fire. The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry said 16 Palestinians had been injured.
Rocket Sirens Sound as Iron Dome Intercepts Gaza Projectile
Red alert sirens rang out in southern Israel near the border with Gaza once again. An Iron Dome missile intercepted the projectile from the Gaza Strip, as well. Our Daniel Tsemach reports.
Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip on Saturday night fired three rockets at southern Israel, two of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system, the military said.
Rocket fragments struck the yard of a home in the town of Sderot, causing damage.
There were no physical injuries caused by the shrapnel in Sderot. One woman received medical treatment after she suffered an acute anxiety attack because of the impact, medics said.
In addition, two people sustained minor injuries while running to bomb shelters, according to the Magen David Adom ambulance service. Elsewhere, three other people were treated for acute anxiety attacks brought on by the rockets. One of them, a 76-year-old woman, required hospitalization, medics said.
Shrapnel also landed inside a community in the Sha’ar Hanegev region of southern Israel, northeast of Gaza, causing no injuries, local officials said.
It was the second night in a row that sirens sounded in Sderot.
Israeli forces shot dead a group of armed Palestinians along the Gaza Strip’s security fence late Saturday night, hours after three rockets were fired at southern Israel from the restive coastal enclave.
The exact number of Palestinians killed during the suspected infiltration was not immediately known. Gaza-based news outlets reported four or five people killed in the strike.
Palestinian media reported that the men were members of the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s military wing, Saraya al-Quds. This could not be immediately confirmed.
The Israeli military said an attack helicopter and a tank were used to kill the suspected terrorists.
“A short while ago, IDF troops spotted armed suspects near the security fence around the northern Gaza Strip. An IDF attack helicopter and a tank fired at them,” the army said in a statement.
To the extent that I care at all about Israel blocking entry to two U.S. congresswomen who partner with anti-Semites who seek its destruction, I agree with critics who argue that Bibi Netanyahu should not appear to bow to Donald Trump’s tweeted demands and that blocking Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar from visiting Israel handed them a short-term propaganda victory. But that’s not the most important part of the story.
The most important element of the story is the fact that two American congresswomen shunned a bipartisan congressional delegation to Israel to go on an independent trip to Israel sponsored by vicious anti-Semites. Another important element of the story is that, as of today, the mainstream media have whitewashed Omar and Tlaib’s vile associations.
Writing yesterday, the Washington Post said that “Omar and Tlaib’s trip to Jerusalem and the West Bank was planned by Miftah, a nonprofit organization headed by Palestinian lawmaker and longtime peace negotiator Hanan Ashrawi.” The New York Times described it as an organization “headed by a longtime Palestinian lawmaker.” In its editorial, the New York Times editorial board identified it as a group “that promotes ‘global awareness and knowledge of Palestinian realities.’”
This is a whitewash. Thanks to a Twitter thread from the Washington Examiner’s Seth Mandel — who pointed to multiple additional sources — I started looking at the articles and views published on the Miftah website, and it was like peeling an onion of evil. There was layer upon layer of vile anti-Semitism.
First, the group actually published blood libel, posting an article that accused “the Jews [of using] the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover.” When pro-Israel bloggers condemned the article, Miftah first claimed that the attacks against the piece were part of a “smear campaign” and minimized the reference to blood libel as merely “briefly addressed.”
It was just a light sprinkling of blood libel. Move along, nothing to see here.
And without question, we all owe an immense debt of gratitude to @elderofziyon, who did the work from which the rest of our efforts grew. Yashar koach, chazak u'baruch, Elder. A gentleman and a scholar who also happens to be a great Shabbos host.
Again and again, in The Management of Savagery, Blumenthal insists that Assad’s enemies in Syria are at least as bad as he is; that those enemies have been funded and abetted by the West; that other tyrants in the region are, likewise, no better than Assad; and that Assad and his circle have long been the targets of “armed Sunni Islamist groups,” presumably because Assad does not share their backward theocratic views. It is interesting to observe that whereas Blumenthal, prior to his Moscow trip, almost invariably stood up for Islamic theocracies, he now sees things the other way around and is willing to speak critically about “Islamists.” He is willing to do this, that is, so long as he can cast them as the tools or allies of the U.S., or the West generally, against Assad and Putin. The one constant in his view of these matters is that he has always been more critical of the U.S. and other Western liberal democracies than of any tyrannical Middle Eastern regime, whether theocratic or secular.
More than any other American writer who has reached his level of notoriety, Blumenthal has proven consistently to be too hard-left even for some of the banner names of the hard left. “Pro-Assad, pro-Maduro, pro-Putin—literally nothing redeemable about this fellow and his moronic second-campism,” tweeted the British writer James Bloodworth, an old Trotskyite and longtime Guardian contributor, on June 9. The good news is that more and more respectable members of the journalistic profession have woken up to the fact that Blumenthal’s work is simply not to be trusted—that he is not a legitimate reporter but a propagandist. The bad news is that he is still able to get his books published and still has readers who, heaven help them, take his writings seriously.
Perhaps even more striking to contemplate are the emails released by WikiLeaks in which Sidney Blumenthal proudly shared his son’s writings with Hillary Clinton, who responded by praising them and even passing some of them around to her State Department colleagues. This included the epilogue to his Israel-bashing Gomorrah. “I loved the epilogue but it stopped abruptly and I can’t pull up the rest so I’m anxiously awaiting for the rest,” Hillary Clinton wrote to Sidney. “Pls congratulate Max for another impressive piece. He’s so good.”
How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a Max Blumenthal!
Anti-Zionism is thus anti-Semitism’s moral salvation, its perfect disguise, its route to legitimation,” writes Cary Nelson in Israel Denial, a book about the faculty campaign against the Jewish state. In a year that’s been rife with an old hatred rearing its ugly head in new and myriad ways, it’s profoundly refreshing to see an academic so clear-headed about the overlapping nature of anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. The past decade has seen an increasing number of Jews publicly expressing their internal conflicts over Israel, with a growing number of progressive Jews identifying as anti-Zionist, and using their own membership in the community to suggest that hatred toward Jews and hatred toward the Jewish state are in no way linked.
This is a lie. Nelson, a professor emeritus of English and Jewish culture and society at the University of Illinois, explains how. “Anti-Semitism,” he notes, “enables and underwrites castigation of Israel whenever it is based on practices typical of other countries, not different from them.” Thus when Israel acts in an entirely unremarkable fashion, Jew-hatred inspires critics to react as if the Jewish state has committed unspeakable horrors.
What’s noteworthy about Nelson’s full-throated defense of Israel is that he is decidedly not on a mission to represent the country as perennially innocent. Rather, Israel Denial serves up all the nuance that dovish groups like J Street promise but never quite deliver. Early on in the book, Nelson makes quite clear how anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism intersect with each other. But he doesn’t shrink from informing the reader that anti-Semitism is “certainly not the only motivation fueling opposition to Israel.” He states that “Israel discriminates against segments of those under its control,” and that “Israel’s human rights record in areas over which it exercises control is imperfect.” But his broader point is that no country could ever live up to the impossible standards of progressive perfection expected of Israel.
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Democratic Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib changed her mind Friday on visiting the West Bank, hours after Israel said it would allow her to visit relatives in the Palestinian territory on humanitarian grounds.
The about-face was the latest in a series of maneuvers by both Tlaib and Israel and came a day after Jerusalem announced it would bar her and fellow congresswoman Ilhan Omar from entering the country in their capacity as US lawmakers because of their backing for the boycotting of Israel.
Taking to Twitter, Tlaib posted a photo of her grandmother and said Israel’s agreement to allow her to visit only under certain terms was humiliating. She stated that she would not “bow down to their oppressive & racist policies.” Tlaib had been heavily criticized by Palestinian groups for initially agreeing to Israel’s terms for a family visit.
“Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what [my grandmother] wants for me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in — fighting against racism, oppression & injustice.”
Her comments came following Interior Minister Aryeh Deri’s decision to allow her to go to the West Bank, after she submitted a letter requesting to be allowed in despite the ban, citing her elderly grandmother, and promised not to promote boycotting Israel during her visit.
In response to Tlaib’s announcement that she would not coming after all, Deri tweeted: “Apparently [her request] was a provocation to make Israel look bad. Her hatred for Israel is greater than her love for her grandmother.” (h/t IsaacStorm)
There was nothing principled about it. The BDSers told her she shouldn't come so she caved to the haters - and blamed Israel.@RashidaTlaib threw her grandma under the bus to avoid criticism from harder-left BDSers.
When we first met @RashidaTlaib's sity-grandma the tweet featured a happy, vivacious woman in a thriving Arab city. (OOPS! THAT IS NOT THE APARTHEID NARRATIVE!) The second, politically-posed photo, was more "Occupationy" - a broken old woman on an "ancestral" Middle East set. pic.twitter.com/iod9qBS6XV
— Yishai Fleisher 🕎 ישי פליישר (@YishaiFleisher) August 16, 2019
The Office of the Prime Minister of Israel revealed that Omar and Tlaib had also planned on meeting with organizations during their visit that have expressed support for terrorism against the nation.
"However, the itinerary of the two Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it," the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel tweeted. "In addition, the organization that is funding their trip is Miftah, which is an avid supporter of BDS, and among whose members are those who have expressed support for terrorism against Israel."
Omar and Tlaib had described their trip as a "Delegation to Palestine," even though Palestine does not exist legally, and they did not request to meet any Israeli officials.
A closer examination of Miftah, which Israel's PM noted was funding Omar and Tlaib's trip, reveals that the non-governmental organization (NGO) is extremely anti-Semitic, has ties to terrorist sympathizers, and has falsely accused Jews of using "the blood of Christians in the Jewish Passover." Miftah has also reportedly praised suicide bombers and deems terrorists as being national heroes.
One of the most stunning findings on the group is that they have, on their website, promoted content from a neo-Nazi organization which promotes anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that Jews control the media. The author of the article is "the Research Staff of National Vanguard Books," which the Southern Poverty Law Center notes is a neo-Nazi organization.
Worth emphasizing again: Miftah, who were meant to be the tour guides for @RashidaTlaib and @Ilhan, published a neo-Nazi article that complained about Jewish control of the media and how it portrays white racists negatively.
A closer look at the travel itinerary for Omar and Tlaib shows that they also planned on meeting with additional extremist organizations, including the Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCI-P), which has ties to terrorism.
BTW, Miftah STILL has their attack on me for exposing their antisemitism on their website - even after supposedly apologizing for publishing the article that Jews kill Christian children for Passover matzoh. https://t.co/Q0X5jsyUU2pic.twitter.com/5F3UNjSFAT
Question for reporters covering @IlhanMN@RashidaTlaib trip to "Palestine"--as their itinerary refers to all of Israel--have u noted that the organization sponsoring the trip, Miftah, has claimed that "Jews use the blood of Christians in Jewish passover"? https://t.co/KyRqim4DYQ
In politics, once can be an oversight. But twice is a pattern.
When U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., was photographed with an avowed Hizballah supporter in January – just after being sworn in to the U.S. House of Representatives – she claimed she didn't know the guy or what he stood for.
But just two months later, Tlaib did it again. In a March photograph just discovered by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, Tlaib poses with Nader Jalajel, a Palestinian activist who last year mourned the death of a terrorist who led a shooting attack that murdered a rabbi.
"Allah Yerhamo," or "May God have mercy on him," Jalajel wrote above an image of the terrorist, Ahmed Jarrar, brandishing a gun. He died "after a long battle resisting the brutal Israeli occupation and defending his people and his land," the image said. "We will never forget."
Jalajel offered similar condolences Sunday after Israel killed four Hamas terrorists who crossed the border from Gaza armed with assault rifles, grenades and anti-tank rockets. "LONG LIVE THE RESISTANCE!!!" Jalajel added.
If there is any more proof needed that the anti-Israel crowd will politicize everything - religion, liberalism, family relationships - for an opportunity to demonize Israel, here is Rashida Tlaib:
When I won, it gave the Palestinian people hope that someone will finally speak the truth about the inhumane conditions. I can't allow the State of Israel to take away that light by humiliating me & use my love for my sity to bow down to their oppressive & racist policies. https://t.co/OYIwExV0ga
Silencing me & treating me like a criminal is not what she wants for me. It would kill a piece of me. I have decided that visiting my grandmother under these oppressive conditions stands against everything I believe in--fighting against racism, oppression & injustice. https://t.co/z5t5j3qk4H
Yet this refusal to visit Israel came only hours after Tlaib wrote a letter saying that she did want to visit her "sity" and won't politicize the trip:
Tlaib is now saying that she'd rather never see her beloved grandmother again rather than accept visiting her without the right to call Israel an evil apartheid state.
Clearly, she is telling the world that doing her part to make everyone hate Israel is more important than a quiet visit with her grandmother for the last time.
For Israel haters, their hate is all consuming and more important than anything else - even their own families.
Chances are she thought Israel would not agree to let her in, which is the only reason she wrote the letter to begin with - to say that Israel was so evil and anti-Muslim that they wouldn't even let her see her old grandma one last time. When her bluff was called she showed the world what she is.
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Al Resalah reports that two main competing groups have emerged in Fatah that are fighting to take over when Mahmoud Abbas is gone.
The first is led by Jibril Rajoub, currently the secretary general of Fatah’s Central Committee and head of the Palestinian Olympic committee. Rajoub is supported by a number of prominent Central Committee members such as Jamal Muheisen and Rawhi Fattouh and a number of leaders of the Revolutionary Council.
The other group is led by Hussein Sheikh, head of the General Authority of Civil Affairs and previously minister for the coordination of civil affairs, the main contact with Israeli security. He is strongly supported by the Director of General Intelligence Major General Majed Faraj.
According to the report, the Sheikh team has been trying to sabotage Rajoub's reputation, especially around Hebron where he is from.
Meanwhile, Sheikh seems to have weathered a sexual harassment and coverup accusation from 2012. He is also supposedly trying to sideline others who want to succeed Abbas, including Mahmoud Aloul, deputy-chairman of Fatah’s Central Committee and apparently Abbas' choice as his heir.
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Despite dramatic video footage, yesterday's attack by two Palestinian minors on police at a gate to the Temple Mount is barely being covered in international media.
Two Palestinian youths attacked Israeli police with knives in Jerusalem's Old City on Thursday before being shot by officers, leaving one of the assailants dead, officials said.
Israeli police said an officer was moderately wounded and that the two assailants were shot.
The Palestinian health ministry said one was killed, while Israel's Shaare Tzedek hospital said the second was left in critical condition.
Another person in the area was injured in the leg, police said, without providing further details.
What practically none of the reports mention is that the two youths attacked the police from the Al Aqsa Mosque compound itself, as the video clearly shows.
Even the Jerusalem Post says the attack happened "at one of the walled Old City's gates," as if it was at the entrance to the Old City, not to the Temple Mount.
This is why the Israeli police closed the Temple Mount briefly. It was the source of the attack. But Arab media and Palestinian officials condemned the closure without noting this fact that it was where the knife-wielding youths came from.
Ironically, Electronic Intifada ended up showing better than anyone that Israeli forces only kill people who are direct threats:
Six Palestinians killed this weekEighty-one Palestinians have died by Israeli fire so far this year, and six since Saturday.
Israeli occupation forces killed four armed Palestinians as they allegedly attempted to breach the Gaza-Israel boundary on 10 August.
One of the men had crossed the boundary “and fired at troops and tossed a grenade,” the Israeli military said.
The following day, Israeli forces killed another Palestinian who shot at soldiers while he attempted to cross the Gaza boundary.
EI absurdly complains about yesterday's attack, "The officers immediately open fire on the boys, and do not appear to attempt to subdue them with nonlethal means." As if any police officer in the world would respond differently to himself or a colleague being stabbed repeatedly.
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The most popular theory to explain why Israel did an about-face and decide not to allow Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to visit is because President Trump tweeted that it would show "great weakness" on Israel's part:
It would show great weakness if Israel allowed Rep. Omar and Rep.Tlaib to visit. They hate Israel & all Jewish people, & there is nothing that can be said or done to change their minds. Minnesota and Michigan will have a hard time putting them back in office. They are a disgrace!
I think that was definitely a factor. It may be disrespectful for Israel to not allow two members of Congress to visit, but it is even more disrespectful to go against the President. For better or for worse, Israel has to engage in realpolitik, and Trump has been using Israel as a wedge issue for Democrats quite successfully.
But things sometimes have multiple reasons. It was only reported a day or two ago that Tlaib and Omar would visit the Al Aqsa Mosque/Temple Mount, and that could easily ignite riots where people could be hurt or killed. To turn away someone because of their extreme views is one thing; to keep security is a whole different ballgame.
Bibi Netanyahu gave his reasons for barring their entry, about 2 hours after Trump's tweet and while Trump probably was part of the equation, the itinerary was a factor:
No country in the world respects America and the American Congress more than the State of Israel.
As a free and vibrant democracy, Israel is open to critics and criticism with one exception: Israeli law prohibits the entry into Israel of those who call for and work to impose boycotts on Israel, as do other democracies that prohibit the entry of people who seek to harm the country.
In fact, in the past the US did this to an Israeli member of Knesset, as well as to other public figures from around the world.
Congresswomen Tlaib and Omar are leading activists in promoting the legislation of boycotts against Israel in the American Congress.
Only a few days ago, we received their itinerary for their visit in Israel, which revealed that they planned a visit whose sole objective is to strengthen the boycott against us and deny Israel’s legitimacy.
For instance: they listed the destination of their trip as Palestine and not Israel, and unlike all Democratic and Republican members of Congress who have visited Israel, they did not request to meet any Israeli officials, either from the government or the opposition.
A week ago, Israel warmly welcomed some 70 Democratic and Republican members of Congress, who expressed broad bipartisan support for Israel, which was also demonstrated a month ago in a resounding bipartisan vote against BDS in Congress.
However, the itinerary of the two Congresswomen reveals that the sole purpose of their visit is to harm Israel and increase incitement against it.
In addition, the organization that is funding their trip is Miftah, which is an avid supporter of BDS, and among whose members are those who have expressed support for terrorism against Israel.
Therefore, the minister of interior has decided not to allow their visit, and I, as prime minister, support his decision.
Nonetheless, if Congresswoman Tlaib submits a humanitarian request to visit her relatives, the minister of interior has announced that he will consider her request on the condition that she pledges not to act to promote boycotts against Israel during her visit.
The reasons I gave last month to allow the pair to visit was contingent on Israel setting up an itinerary and pushing it ahead of time, letting them reject it. This itinerary which doesn't even mention Israel shows that the opportunity was lost. Israel looks bad either way, but this way it only looks bad for a day instead of four days of incitement. And the Miftah angle is big: Miftah has been so bad over the years, and my tweets about it have been so popular, that there will probably be some media attention given to the organization tomorrow (if something similar happened on the Right it would be wall to wall coverage, of course.)
The itinerary is interesting for another reason. The pair weren't even planning to visit the PA president or prime minister. Terrorist supporters and BDS advocates consider the PA to be collaborators with Israel - and these two members of Congress are so extreme, they not only don't recognize Israel but also the Palestinian Authority. Even the AIPAC congressional group visited PA government officials.
That, by itself, shows how extreme and hateful Tlaib and Omar are.
Meanwhile, I love the irony that BDSers are now advocating that these two should visit Israel.
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Hanan Ashwari, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, recently restated one of her favorite falsehoods about the creation of Israel. This falsehood — ironically often advanced by both Israel’s supporters and its enemies — holds that Israel was created by the United Nations in its Palestine Partition Resolution 181, passed on November 29, 1947, and implemented by Great Britain’s withdrawal on May 14, 1948.
This is a pernicious lie that portrays Israel as existing simply as a result of “the kindness of strangers” and as a foreign body imposed on the region by outside forces.
In fact, Jews have yearned and struggled to return to their ancestral homeland for three millennia. Zionism began as a movement in 1897, when Jews began to resettle in what was then called Palestine, culminating in Israel’s Declaration of Independence in 1948 on the same day that Great Britain left.
Those dates in 1947 and 1948 were momentous events in the Zionist effort to create a Jewish nation in its indigenous land, and are celebrated annually in Israel and among most Diaspora Jews. But November 29 — the date of the UN General Assembly vote to recommend the partition of Palestine — is, appropriately, not an Israeli holiday. But May 14 — or its equivalent date on the Jewish calendar — is feted as Israel’s Independence Day.
In any event, the UN Palestine partition is of merely symbolic value in explaining Israel’s creation.
On 3 July 2019, we submitted a communication to the Office of the Prosecutor (“OTP”) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) (summarised here) which argued that Palestine’s objective legal status as a non-State entity, as well as Palestine’s indeterminate sovereign territorial claim, operate as barriers to the exercise of ICC jurisdiction in potential cases. On 9 August, Victor Kattan responded on these pages (here and here) by suggesting that our communication constitutes an attempt to “muddy the waters” and that Palestine’s objective legal status as a State is clear, as is its sovereign territory. Mr Kattan’s suggestion of bad faith is regrettable. Rather than demonstrate the clarity of Palestine’s status or territory, his posts further demonstrate their uncertainty.
Mr Kattan asserts that “only Palestine has sovereign legal title to the territories occupied by Israel in June 1967” and argues that to assert an Israeli claim in this territory makes “a complete mockery of the law of occupation”. Yet Mr Kattan’s argument relies on inconsistent and unsustainable legal and historical claims. Mr Kattan firstly claims that General Assembly Resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947 is of dispositive effect. Secondly, he asserts that Israel waived its territorial claim to West Bank territory between 1949 and 1967. Thirdly, he appears to claim that following Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank between 1949 and 1967, a Palestinian State seceded from Jordan in the West Bank. This rebuttal considers these three dubious claims in more detail.
The effect of General Assembly Resolution 181(II)
Mr Kattan argues that the 1947 UN Partition Plan contained in Resolution 181(II)“represented a special agreement between the United Nations and the Mandatory Power” which was of dispositive effect. Yet it is trite that General Assembly resolutions are generally not binding and, in its own terms, Resolution 181(II) “recommended”its adoption and implementation to the UK (as Mandatory Power) and to UN Member States. It was not an agreement between them. Resolution 181(II) was, of course, vigorously rejected by Arab States who stated an objective to create a “United State of Palestine” throughout the former Mandate territory.
Mr Kattan nevertheless relies on Lausanne Protocol of 1949 to support his argument with respect to Resolution 181(II)’s supposedly dispositive effect, as well as to Israel’s supposed waiver of claims to West Bank territory in 1949. Yet the Lausanne Protocol, in its own terms, was a “working document… to be taken as a basis for discussions.” It was a “proposal” which would “bear upon the territorial adjustments necessary” for its “objectives” to be satisfied. At the Lausanne negotiations, Israel contemplated a land for peace formula and expressly excluded Jerusalem from the negotiations (see UN doc. A/927, 21 June 1949, paras. 28, 30). It is plainly wrong for Mr Kattan to suggest that the Protocol conferred a binding effect through agreement on the 1947 UN plan.
Historically, before the Arabs fabricated the concept of Palestinian peoplehood as an exclusively Arab phenomenon, no such group existed. This is substantiated in countless official British Mandate-vintage documents that speak of the Jews and the Arabs of Palestine – not Jews and Palestinians.
In fact, before local Jews began calling themselves Israelis in 1948 (when the name “Israel” was chosen for the newly-established Jewish State), the term “Palestine” applied almost exclusively to Jews and the institutions founded by new Jewish immigrants in the first half of the 20th century, before the state’s independence.
Some examples include:
- The Jerusalem Post, founded in 1932, was called The Palestine Post until 1948.
- Bank Leumi L’Israel, incorporated in 1902, was called the Anglo-Palestine Company until 1948.
- The Jewish Agency, an arm of the Zionist movement engaged in Jewish settlement since 1929, was initially called the Jewish Agency for Palestine.
- Today’s Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, founded in 1936 by German Jewish refugees who fled Nazi Germany, was originally called the Palestine Symphony Orchestra, composed of some 70 Palestinian Jews.
- The United Jewish Appeal (UJA) was established in 1939 as a merger of the United Palestine Appeal and the fund-raising arm of the Joint Distribution Committee.
Arabs are not satisfied with one Palestinian political entity (Jordan) where they are the uncontested majority and have the political machinery and the territory for self-determination. Instead, they want an additional state because twenty-one Arab states are not enough (and one Jewish state is one too many).
A pan-Arab news site has an article on what they say was the beginning of the events that led to the massacres of Jews throughout the Land of Israel in 1929.
The article says, "In the following days, clashes intensified and spread to other cities, where Arabs in the city of Hebron killed 67 Jews from the city. A number of Jews enjoyed the protection of some Arab residents who opposed violence but were forced to abandon Hebron for fear of continuing clashes. In Gaza, there was a small Jewish community who had abandoned the city with the help of British troops. Safed's Jews were also subjected to violence by the Arab population."
There doesn't seem to be any regret. The article says that the riots were a major stage in the Palestinian national movement.
It mentions previous deadly riots against Jews, including one in 1924 I had never heard of where they claim that Jews dressed up in "the clothing of Islamic clerics, and made a mockery of them." They said it was around Easter time but perhaps it was Purim, which was a month before.
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Sunday, August 18, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
