05/01 Links Pt1: Richard Kemp: The Fatah-Hamas Agreement; Iran becomes UNESCO's M.E. Rep.

From Ian:

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Richard Kemp: The Fatah-Hamas Agreement

Gaza terrorists have seized every available opportunity for other forms of attack against Israeli soldiers and civilians including kidnappings, shootings, suicide bombs, anti-tank missiles and Improvised Explosive Devices [IEDs].
Iran, sworn to Israel's destruction, as are its Gaza-based proxies, has funded, armed, energized and directed both Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. As we saw with the Israeli interdiction of the Iranian arms shipment aboard the Klos-C only last month, Iran's sponsorship of terrorism continues unabated -- even as the international community is rehabilitating its extremist regime.
Especially in a region and among neighbours that are becoming even more unstable, violent and unpredictable, Israel must ensure that in the event a Palestinian state should ever reach fruition, the West Bank does not become a second Gaza. The bloody consequences of that for the Israeli people would be far greater than from anything Hamas could hurl out of the Strip.
Kerry has proposed international troops to provide security against attacks on Israel from the West Bank. Few Israelis believe that they could rely on such a force to protect them. There are the historical precedents for the failure of peacekeeping forces in the region and beyond, especially when the going gets tough. And in the West Bank, the going would get very tough very soon and very often.
There is the criminal failure of the international community, as both accomplice and accessory before the fact, to make any meaningful effort to prevent endless salvoes of lethal terrorist rocket attacks against Israeli civilians for over nine years.
Worse still, when Israel has been forced to respond to protect its citizens, it has been stabbed in the back by the international community, who have accused it of war crimes.

Getting Rid of National Borders in the Middle East Won’t End Sectarian Warfare

Borders aren’t moving. Rather, populations are moving to accommodate borders. We all know about the exodus of Arab refugees from Israel in 1948 and 1967, as well as the often forced emigration of Jews from Arab lands to Israel in the years after the Jewish state was established—but Christians have been in flight from Lebanon since that country’s 15-year-long civil war, from 1975 to 1990, and the subsequent Syrian occupation, from 1990 to 2005, one of the aims of which was to disempower the Christian community. In Iraq, Assyrian Christians fled in large numbers after the fall of Saddam, largely to Syria, and then on to the West.
But the Christians’ trail of tears pales in comparison to the departure of Sunnis from Syria.
Conservative estimates show that there are more than half a million refugees now in Turkey and Jordan and nearly a million more in Lebanon, which is still home to another 450,000 Palestinian refugees from 1948 and 1967. It’s not difficult to imagine how this crisis may come to shape the region. Take Lebanon: With roughly one-third of Lebanon’s population now made up of Syrian refugees, the vast majority of whom are Sunnis, the country’s sectarian balance between Shiites, Christians and Sunnis is now tipped in favor of the Sunnis, perhaps irrevocably. That in turn may force Hezbollah to move in the other direction, from what is certain to be a Sunni-majority Lebanon to a Syria or Iraq ruled by Shiites.
Even if, or when, Assad falls, the Syrian conflict hasn’t erased borders. What it’s done is destroy homes and families—and confessional communities with longstanding and in some cases ancient ties to the lands they’re now leaving. The real Middle East crisis isn’t about the failure of democracy in its nation-states, but the private disasters its citizens are facing.

Brooke Goldstein: We're on the Path to a Palestinian Apartheid State

Human rights activist Brooke Goldstein appeared on The Kelly File with Megyn Kelly to blast Secretary of State John Kerry for his use of the word "apartheid" to describe Israel's potential future.
Goldstein asserted that Kerry's "facts are confused" and that real peace requires two interested parties. She noted that the only apartheid states in the region are Arab countries and that if a future Palestinian state functioned under Islamic law, it too would be apartheid.

J Street U Leader: 'It's Easy to Dwell on Israel's Violations'

Chad Kramer, a member of J Street U Tufts, penned an article for The Tufts Daily which included numerous assaults on Israel's human rights record and warned of future apartheid. J Street claims to be "pro-Israel, pro-peace."
Absent from the J Street U website were many questionable aspects of Kramer's article. He blames Israeli leaders for their inability to meet Palestinian requests:

J Street Rejected by American Jewish Umbrella Group in ‘Big Tent’ Litmus Test

In what many observers will see as the de facto expression of mainstream U.S. Jewry’s outlook on J Street, members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations on Wednesday voted 22-17 (with three abstentions) to reject the membership application of the self-labeled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby. J Street secured the votes of only about a third of the Conference’s 50 members.
The 42 Conference members in attendance in New York exceeded the 75-percent quorum needed to hold the vote, but J Street fell significantly short of the required threshold of a two-thirds affirmative vote from the Conference’s full membership. The result that 25 organizations either voted against J Street or abstained meant that half of the Conference’s members declined to support J Street’s application.

J Street loses bid to join Jewish leadership conference

We wrote the other day of the tensions between J Street and other pro-Israel groups, including on campuses, J Street issues media Fatwa against its toughest pro-Israel student opponent.
It was a no lose vote for J Street in reality. If it was admitted, it would be vindication for the relatively young group that it was a major player. If it lost, it could play victim, accuse others of smears (as it did to the Brandeis student who challenged it), and otherwise leverage its anti-establishment narrative.
Indeed, J Street lashed out at “right-wing” groups:

Did J Street Win by Losing?

Yet as I noted earlier, a negative vote is probably on balance a good thing for J Street. This rejection will give it material with which it can continue its already flagging efforts to delegitimize mainstream groups like AIPAC and to masquerade as the true voice of American Jewry. Gaining admission would have deprived it of that talking point and relegated it to being just one more among dozens of groups that call themselves “major” but are, in fact, nothing of the sort.
Nevertheless, no one should be under the impression that J Street is either a significant player in Washington or speaks for an under-represented constituency. J Street has failed in its effort to supplant or even significantly challenge AIPAC. That it is not even able to gain admission in what is one of American Jewry’s least exclusive clubs is one more indication that it is a dismal failure.

Democracy Is Only For People Who Agree With Me (satire)

I must say I’m disappointed that the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations voted against allowing J-Street to gain membership. It would have provided an opportunity to force our agenda onto an Israeli public that has repeatedly voted for governments opposed to our ideas. But since when has J-Street cared very much about the results of a vote? Democracy is only for those who agree with me.
President Obama and Secretary Kerry understand that. They realize that the actual will of the Israeli people is inconsequential in comparison to American political – and, I might add, personal – interests. You think Mr. Kerry doesn’t have his eye on a Nobel Peace Prize? Israeli democracy will just have to take a back seat, and we hope to be instrumental in forcing Israeli leaders into concessions they were specifically elected to prevent.

Bill Clinton: Israel offered Temple Mount to Palestinians in 2000

Former US president Bill Clinton said Wednesday that the Palestinians were offered the Temple Mount at the Camp David Summit in 2000, but the agreement fell through over a sliver of land near the Western Wall.
Clinton’s remarks revealed that a breakthrough in talks between Israel and the Palestinians, particularly on the controversial issue of the division of Jerusalem, was closer at hand in 2000, at the summit he called a “roaring success,” than previously thought.
Israel, he said, agreed to hand the Palestinians control of the Temple Mount, the holiest site in Judaism and the compound where al-Aqsa Mosque is situated, on the condition that the area around the Western Wall remain under Israel’s control.
Arafat agreed to leave Israel with control over the Western Wall, as well as over the Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, but insisted on keeping 16 meters, or 50 feet, of land leading up to an entrance to the Western Wall tunnels under Palestinian control.

PM to push Basic Law that will define Israel as 'Jewish state'

Speaking in Tel Aviv's Independence Hall, where David Ben-Gurion declared the country's independence some 66 years ago, Netanyahu said the Declaration of Independence placed the Jewish identity of the state as one of the foundations of the life of the country.
"Unfortunately," he said, "there are those who do not recognize this natural right. They seek to shake the historic, more and legal justification of Israel as the national home of our people."
Netanyahu, whose comments come five days before Independence Day, said that one of his primary aims as prime minister is to fortify the status of Israel as "the national homeland of our people." A Knesset basic law on this matter, he said, would provide it with an important legal anchor.

Algemeiner Editor Dovid Efune: Obama, Kerry Talk to Israel ‘Mafia Style’ (VIDEO)

Responding to Kerry’s remarks, Efune said, “What is really most troubling and damaging specifically about the use of the term apartheid is that it’s a term that is brandied about by some really, really bad people.”
“If you follow that thought all the way through, it’s a position that says that there is no Jewish right to self-determination and there cannot be a situation where Jews have a state of their own. So what Kerry has effectively done is aligned himself with people who are bigots, who are racists, who are anti-Semitic, by using a similar term in his reference to the situation there in Israel.”

Trend of US Israel policy is negative

For a top official of the US, supposedly Israel’s ally, to employ language more usually found in the sewers of Jew-hatred — sorry, I have to be accurate — is shocking, but indicative of the level to which US-Israel relations have fallen in the Age of Obama.
But there is also a practical significance. Kerry’s remarks constitute a threat. If Israel doesn’t roll over on command, suggests Kerry, it will get the South Africa treatment, boycotted and divested from by the so-moral ‘international community’ until its Zionist regime is forced to resign from the human race, like the National Party of apartheid South Africa. This isn’t the first threat from Kerry, who promised (and thus encouraged) a ‘third intifada’ if Israel didn’t hurry up and make a deal.

US State Dept. Anti-Terrorism Report Focuses on 'Price Tagging'

The US State Department published inflammatory remarks about Israel and "settlers" on Wednesday, just days after US Secretary of State John Kerry said Israel could become an "apartheid state."
The 2013 anti-terrorism report investigated terror activity across the globe in 2013, and was published on its website. The "Israel, West Bank, and Gaza" section, however, focuses intensely on "extremist Israeli settlers" and subtly calls for them to be prosecuted by the UN.

Israeli flags vandalized on street in Jaffa

Unknown assailants vandalized dozens of Israeli flags along a street in Jaffa on Thursday morning. The vandals splashed colors across the flags.
The flags had been put up by the Tel Aviv Municipality for Independence Day next week and run along both sides of Yehuda Hayamit Street between Even Shoshan and Jerusalem Street.

'Handing Over David's Tomb Rewrites History in Israel'

Hotovely's letter surfaces following reports of an agreement between Israel and the Vatican which would transfer ownership of David's Tomb on Mount Zion in Jerusalem to the Church.
Hotovely noted that the Tomb is a sacred place for the Jewish people - and warned the Prime Minister not to make the same mistakes made regarding the Temple Mount, Judaism's holiest site, which is in the hands of the Jordanian Waqf.
"It is inconceivable that this place will be transferred to foreign hands, such the Torahs and the Star of David will be swallowed in a sea of crosses," the Deputy Minister wrote.
''Transferring the rights to the gravesite of David to Christian hands would be similar to Moshe Dayan's decision to entrust the keys to the Temple Mount to the Jordanian Waqf."

New Islamic Fatwa Permits Millions of Muslims to Pray at Temple Mount

The fatwa was issued during a two-day conference in Amman called the “Road to Jerusalem,” attended by more than 150 Islamic scholars as a way of to discuss “defending Islamic and Christian holy sites,” the Jordanian daily Ad-Dustour reported.
The fatwa called “Visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque Under the Occupation” encourages Palestinians who have foreign passports, as well as more than 450 Muslims who live in non-Islamic countries, to visit the Temple Mount. It cautioned that normalization of the Israeli “occupation” should be avoided, meaning that visitors should only use Palestinian-provided services such as lodging, food, and transportation.

PA Unity Gov’t to Leave Missiles with Terrorists?

Will a Palestinian Authority unity government leave thousands of missiles in the hands of terror groups in Gaza? So it would seem.
In the event the Fatah faction led by Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas actually manages to create a unity government with the Hamas terror organization, the two entities will need to integrate their security establishments.
In Ramallah, the PA paramilitary police force is armed with AK-47 assault weapons, among other things.
But not missiles.

Abbas advisor glorifies bus hijacker who murdered 37 civilians

PA minister: Terrorist prisoners "committed no crime"

Syria Again Misses Chemical Weapons Deadline, Raising Concerns about Deal

For months Syria lagged behind the necessary pace to destroy and remove its chemical arsenal. Even though the Assad regime has picked up the pace in recent months, questions about the deal persist. Some critics charged that the logistics of the chemical removal would effectively help the the Syrian government in its battle against the rebels. Recent reports of chemical attacks suggest that Syria, even if in compliance with the letter of the treaty, is violating its spirit by using dual use chemicals against civilians to incapacitate them.
In a statement Tuesday to a meeting of the OPCW, United States Ambassador Robert P. Mikulak broached other reasons to distrust Syria, including Syria’s refusal to destroy twelve facilities that had been used for producing chemical weapons.

Human Rights Groups Call for Syrian Arms Embargo Amid Barrel Bombing Massacres

Human Rights Watch on Tuesday called on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to impose an arms embargo on Damascus, generally citing a surge in the deployment of so-called “barrel bombs” by the Bashar al-Assad regime:
The use of the helicopter-deployed IEDs – which are packed with explosives and shrapnel, and can level entire buildings with a single hit – had long ago been condemned as “barbaric” by Secretary of State John Kerry and denounced by by British Foreign Secretary William Hague:

Jihadists Crucify Syrian Opponents, Begin Changing School Curricula

Islamist fighters in Syria took their barbarism to the next level with the publication of graphic photographs of two men said to have been executed and then crucified.
"The jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) announced it had executed seven prisoners in its bastion in northeastern Syria on Tuesday, two of them by crucifixion.
ISIL, which has been disavowed even by Al-Qaeda, said it held the seven responsible for a grenade attack on one of its fighters earlier this month in the Euphrates Valley city of Raqa, which it rules with an iron fist."
The Christian Assyrians of the Raqa region speak of torture, public executions and vanishings.

The Khomeinist Dome: Iran’s True Nuclear Intentions

Over the last few years, the United States and its Western allies have been led to focus on the visible part of the Iranian buildup, missing the much greater construct undertaken over several generations of rulers of the same Iranian regime. Since the so-called “Iran nuclear deal” was inked last fall, Washington acts as if it has somewhat halted (or at least slowed) the strategic program of Tehran and thus has been rewarding the Ayatollahs, but the reality flies in the face of this assumption and agreement.
Iran’s regime is employing a much larger strategy in order to reach the level of an armed nuclear power, and – perhaps ironically – one of the regime’s strategic policies is to mislead the international community, particularly the U.S., in its campaign to irreversibly transform itself into a nuclear power.
The Iranian global construct can be perceived as a “Khomeinist Dome.” Iran’s strategy has been twofold – and sustained over decades, not simply implemented over the past few years and months.

Series of Moves by Tehran Aim to Drive Wedge Between U.S. and Europe

Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani this week urged European leaders to chart an “independent” foreign policy course, the latest in what has become a string of statements from top Iranian leaders suggesting that Washington’s European allies should split from the U.S. in their approach to the Islamic republic:
Meanwhile an article published by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Foreign Affairs‘s May/June edition – titled “What Iran Really Wants: Iranian Foreign Policy in the Rouhani Era” – declared that the “top priority” of the government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani was “to diffuse and ultimately defeat the international anti-Iranian campaign, spearheaded by Israel and its American benefactors”:

U.S. to Give Gulf Allies Anti-Missile Shield, Raising Questions about Nuke Talk Effectiveness

Despite the longstanding concerns of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and contrary to related UN Security Council resolutions, Iran has insisted that the development of its ballistic missile program is outside the purview of the ongoing P5+1 talks regarding Iran’s nuclear program. Earlier this week Iran announced the development of a new solid fuel ballistic missile with “with high destructive power.” Iran’s continued aggressive military stance is leading to a potentially destabilizing arms race in the Persian Gulf region. Iran’s nuclear weapons development program has prompted an interest in its Sunni neighbors to gain the “nuclear know-how” to counteract the Islamic Republic’s future nuclear threat.

Iran terror network prolific, US report says

Iran continues to arm and finance a terrorist network that extends from South Asia to the Horn of Africa, from Iraq to Yemen, and across the Palestinian territories, the US State Department reported on Wednesday, acknowledging US willingness to nevertheless engage directly in talks with the state over its nuclear program.
Much of the report, released annually by the State Department to outline threats of terrorism around the world, focuses on Iran’s expansive efforts to fund and funnel arms to Islamist organizations, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah, which is based in Lebanon but operates worldwide.

Iran Displays Its New S-300 Equivalent Missile

The Iranian army is poised to display it's new "Bavar (Belief) 373" air-defense missile launcher and carrier at its annual military parade, which will be held at the end of the month.
The missile is an Iranian version of the Russian S-300 missile. After a 2007 Russian deal to supply Iran with the advanced missiles was shot down by Western opposition, Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei decided to develop a domestic alternative.

Iran to target decoy US carrier in drills

An Iranian newspaper reported that the country’s military plans to target a mock-up American aircraft carrier during upcoming war games.
The Sunday report by independent Haft-e Sobh daily quoted Adm. Ali Fadavi, navy chief of the powerful Revolutionary Guards as saying Iranian forces should “target the carrier in the trainings, after it is completed.”

Iran says it’ll be UNESCO’s regional representative

Masoud Soltanifar, Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism Organization head, told reporters that the issue had already been discussed with UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova during a meeting in Tehran on Tuesday, according to the Iranian Tasnim news agency.
Soltanifar went on to acknowledge the fact that becoming the UN body’s regional representative would require Iran to assist in the restoration, preservation, and protection of cultural heritage in other countries throughout the Middle East, adding that his country was up for the task.

Saudi Arabia Demands Norway Make Criticizing The “Prophet” Mohammed Illegal…

Saudi Arabia has criticised Norway’s human rights record, accusing the country of failing to protect its Muslim citizens and not doing enough to counter criticism of the prophet Mohammed.
The gulf state called for all criticism of religion and of prophet Mohammed to be made illegal in Norway. It also expressed concern at “increasing cases of domestic violence, rape crimes and inequality in riches” and noted a continuation of hate crimes against Muslims in the country.