Thursday, May 08, 2014
Palestinian Magical Thinking
The Palestinian elite and their children live comfortable and privileged lives in Ramallah and elsewhere in the region and beyond it. Combining this with diplomatic and political activity can be pleasant and rewarding. Combining it with military activity, by contrast, could be harmful and has already been proven not to work.Ex-ICC prosecutor warns Palestinians on anti-Israel war crimes effort
So expect more furious and pathos-filled denunciations of Israeli crimes from various UN committees largely staffed by the representatives of sundry dictatorships.
Expect Saeb Erekat and the others to come up with yet more inventive reasons as to why Islam and Arabic are “indigenous” to Jerusalem while Judaism and Hebrew represent foreign implants. And so on, and so forth.
And at the end of all this, expect more failure, more bewilderment and a pause until the next alternative to a negotiated peace is stumbled upon. This is the nature of the magical thinking that lies at the core of Palestinian Arab politics.
This politics, in its various manifestations, exists to reverse the verdict of the war of 1948. It has no other purpose.
The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, on a visit to Israel, urged the Palestinians to proceed with caution as they consider pursuing war crimes charges against Israel. He said it would be preferable for the two sides to work out their differences directly.White House Escalates Secret Media War Against Israel
Luis Moreno-Ocampo said the Palestinians should not rush ahead with a case against Israel, saying they could expose themselves to the same accusations.
Indyk, a longtime Middle East hand and peace negotiator, has for years personally disliked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to these sources.
“It’s been going on for many years,” said one former Israeli diplomat, referring to Indyk’s leaks to the press. “He was defending the Palestinians. That is a long time story. His antipathy to Netanyahu is also a very long story. It’s not recent. It goes back years.”
Indyk has enjoyed a long relationship with reporter Barnea and has used those ties to leak stories critical of Israel and Netanyahu, the source said.
Why Israel must legally define itself as a Jewish state
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent decision to promote a bill officially defining Israel as the Jewish nation's state may seem bizarre to outsiders. At home, it was immediately criticized by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, by Israel’s opposition, and by the Ha’aretz newspaper.‘Move on’ – but differently
The standard argument against the proposed bill is that Israel is both Jewish and democratic and that the bill would favor Jewish values over democratic ones. But why is this alleged contradiction between national identity and democracy only considered an issue in Israel's case? Does anyone question the fact that the Czech Republic is both Czech and democratic? All EU members (arguably with the exception of Belgium) are both nation states and democracies. They all belong to a dominant nation, yet all citizens are equal before the law. The fact that Jewish identity combines nationality with religion (to different degrees depending on one’s personal beliefs) is not particular to Israel, either. Japan’s national identity intertwines with Shinto; Catholicism is intrinsic to the Polish ethos;
Evangelical Lutheranism is the state religion of Denmark; the Queen of England is both head of state and head of the Anglican Church.
In order to justify their position, the Palestinians have brought up the red herring that a Jewish nation-state would discriminate against its Arab minority, ignoring the fact that most countries today are nation-states, many of which with sizable ethnic or religious minorities which – except in Arab and Muslim countries – enjoy full civil rights as would (and does) the non-Jewish minority in Israel.Poll: 68% of Israeli Jews Support End to Peace Talks
Netanyahu is determined to give peace a chance, and like prime minister Ehud Barak before him, he wants to achieve a final “end of conflict” resolution knowing full well that this would be predicated on difficult, often painful, Israeli concessions – not least giving up major parts of the land to a Palestinian state. The Palestinians, as the record shows, had no intention then and have no intention now of responding with parallel compromises and concessions on any of the “core” issues of the conflict – Jerusalem, refugees, security (the Jordan Valley) and, as mentioned above, Israel’s right to exist as the Jewish nation-state. Progress at the Clinton sponsored Camp-David talks in 2000 was aborted by Yasser Arafat’s pre-planned second intifada, and the current talks were undermined by Abbas’s UN gambit. The strategy is the same, only the tactics differ.
According to the poll, 68% of the Jewish public supported the State's decision to curtail talks with the PA, but the results were heavily polarized by political affiliation. Of respondents who answered that they supported the move, 82% identified as "right-wing," 59% identified as "moderates" and only 26% identified themselves as "left-wing."Why is the 1920 San Remo Resolution for Israel being Ignored?
The public is also heavily divided on what stalled peace talks mean for Israel's future. Of respondents, slightly more believe that the talks could be harmful to Israel in the short-term (36%-41%) rather than in the long term (34%-40%).
57.5% of the public believed that the Hamas-Fatah reconciliation pact endangers Israel security - the same percentage of people who disagree with the EU's notion that PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's involvement makes the agreement more inclusive and, therefore, more legitimate.
To make a long story short, the San Remo Resolution created a legal precedent for Palestine to be restored as the national Jewish homeland.What took place in 1947 at the United Nations General Assembly was really a recognition or validation of the San Remo Resolution of 1920. Palestine back in the 20s and even in 1947 was nothing but the name give to Eretz Yisrael at a time when all Arabs had various respective countries to live in, but Jews were without a land.Jordan is Eastern Palestine
I cannot help but think of the different outcome we would have witnessed if Israel had been reborn out of the San Remo Conference of 1920 instead of 1948. Israel’s right to self-determination was agreed upon 94 years ago and shouldn’t be put in question, yet G-d remains sovereign over all. Of course, much water has gone under that bridge since and history appears different today. But the reason why it appears different is because the agenda for Israel’s destruction has been pushed harder since the mid 60s. Palestine is no longer just the name of a geographical area to be restituted to the Jewish people but it has been made into a country with displaced people painted as the sole victims of the Middle East conflict.
This has been the Palestinian strategy all along; it’s called the “phased struggle”. First you establish a state west of the river, then you follow that with a second state east of the river. This is precisely why the PLO accepted the weird notion of a completely demilitarized Palestinian state on the West Bank. Arafat, Abbas and company knew that with the vast Palestinian majority population in Jordan, a West Bank state would act as a magnet for the potential overthrow of the Jordanian king. Then with two Palestinian states, the eastern state would become militarized and most likely linked with Iran and its Shiite Crescent. Remember, Arafat originally embraced the Iranian revolution in 1979. The “old man” was prescient. Arafat understood that sooner or later the regional tilt would go either to the Islamic Republic or the Sunni states. He didn’t care which side became the strongest, only that a West Bank state was achieved as the all-important first step toward the subsequent overthrow of the Jordanian king.No apartheid in Israel, lots of it in the Arab world
It is easy to illustrate the general behavior of denial of rights by Arabs by specific reference to racial, ethnic, religious, and gender discrimination against black Africans, the Kurds, Christians and Jews, and women. It is more potent to illustrate it by actions or non-actions regarding the Palestinians, the very people regarded as being “oppressed” by Israel.Top Egyptian official: Hamas must recognize Israel
One telling feature is the frequent refusal, usually for financial reasons, of Arab hospitals to provide medical treatment for Palestinians, compared with the hospitality of Israeli hospitals that have treated thousands of Palestinians every year, even wounded would-be suicide bombers, from the West Bank and Gaza.
The policy of Arab apartheid was made clear by the Arab League's Resolution 1457 of 1959. Though there is supposed to be an “Arab nation,” the Arab countries would not grant citizenship to applicants of Palestinian origin deliberately in order to prevent their assimilation into the host countries.
A statement by Mahmoud Abbas, published in the official PLO journal in March 1976, complains of this policy. The Arab armies that invaded Israel “forced [the Palestinians] to leave their homeland, imposed on them a political and ideological blockade and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live in Eastern Europe.”
Hamas must recognize the existence of Israel if the Palestinians are to move forward with their hopes of establishing their own state, former Egyptian foreign minister Amr Moussa said Wednesday.After ‘Apartheid’ Stir, Experts Question Perceived Demographic Threat to Israel
“It is normal for the Palestinians to reconcile,” Moussa said of a recent unity deal struck between the Hamas militants who run the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
However, “I believe that Hamas should declare its acceptance of the Arab initiative of 2002, which is the map of normalization and recognition of the state of Israel together with the establishing of the Palestinian state and the withdrawal of the occupied territory,” he insisted.
Today’s demographers, according to Ettinger, are making the same mistakes—and worse—by adhering to intentionally inaccurate and misleading data provided by the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics on the number of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza.PA Issues Haj Warning as Saudi MERS virus reaches U.S., UK
Ettinger cites numerous statistical inconsistencies and double counting relating to birthrates and net emigration by Palestinians to Europe and other countries, as well as claims that some 300,000 Palestinians live in Jerusalem as Palestinian citizens even though they are Israeli citizens who are counted in Israel’s census.
“All in all there is a 1-million person gap, or 1 million artificial inflation of the number of Palestinian residents in Judea and Samaria, which is 1.7 million and not 2.7 million, as widely reported,” Ettinger said. “And there is a gap of roughly 250,000 Palestinians in Gaza.”
With the epicenter of the MERS outbreak seemingly in Saudi Arabia, regional governments have started issuing travel warnings for pilgrims wishing to embark on a haj to Saudi’s holy cities. Egypt and the Palestinian Authority are among those to have made the calls.Terror Group Hamas Executes 2 Gaza Men Accused of Spying for Israel
"The Palestinian Authority has advised those planning to travel to Saudi Arabia for the Haj pilgrimage in 2014 to postpone their trip due to the presence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in the country. Asaad Ramlawi, director-general of the primary healthcare department, said Friday that especially children under 12, pregnant woman, people over 65, and people with chronic diseases should avoid traveling to Saudi Arabia this year."
Terror group Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, said it executed two men who were allegedly spying for Israel, The Associated Press reported on Wednesday.Hamas MP in Friday Sermon: Jihad Is the Only Way to Liberate Palestine
The unidentified men, both in their 30s, supplied Israel with information about Gaza fighters for nine years, according to Hamas Interior Ministry spokesperson Iyad al-Bozum. He added that the two were killed Wednesday afternoon, one by firing squad and the other by hanging.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza said more than 150 people have been executed in Palestinian controlled territories over the past 20 years. The vast majority of the deaths took place in Gaza, particularly under Hamas rule.
Jordanian jihadists call for holy war against regime
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) released a video calling on the residents of the southern Jordanian city of Ma’an to wage jihad against the government.Sisi Commits to Eviscerating Brotherhood, Restoring Tourism
Clashes between security forces and residents have gone on for the past couple of weeks in Ma’an after a youth was killed in a search for wanted persons.
“[Take up] arms! Blood for blood, destruction for destruction! The only solution for this criminal regime is to fight it and wage jihad against it… what the criminal regime is doing in Ma’an is neither novel nor extraordinary for this regime. It is a regime of treachery, a regime of unbelief and apostasy,” said ISIL fighter Gharib al-Urduni in the video released Saturday, according to an exclusive report by the Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor of MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institute).
An interview with Abdel Fattah al-Sisi aired Monday – the first televised sit-down that the presumptive future president has done during the current campaign – saw Sisi declaring that the Muslim Brotherhood would not be allowed to operate as a national movement under his administration, accusing the Islamist movement of having fomented national instability both directly and by proxy:As Senator Blocks Security Aid, Fears Grow of Egyptian Pivot to Russia
Egyptian security forces have systematically moved to decapitate the Brotherhood’s leadership structure since a government led by the movement’s then-president Mohammed Morsi was overthrown by the military in mid-2013 amid mass protests calling for Morsi’s resignation.
Analysts from across political and ideological lines had criticized the administration for creating a vacuum that could be filled in by other powers or, more worryingly, by geopolitical rivals.Egypt Sets Limits On News Items Not Involving Conspiracy Theories (satire)
Tom Nichols and John R. Schindler, foreign policy scholars who by their own descriptions agree on almost nothing, described the freeze as undermining “nearly seven decades” of bipartisan American efforts aimed at “limiting Moscow’s influence” in the Middle East.
Yiftah Shapir, Zvi Magen, and Gal Perel – researchers from Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies – last week described a recently announced a deal under which Egypt would purchase Russian Mig-29s as “an alarm for decision makers in Washington” regarding a potential Egyptian pivot toward Moscow:
Egypt’s government issued new guidelines for media outlets today, capping the number of articles not invoking anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. Newspapers, websites, and other news and commentary media will all be subject to the limit.Opponents Grow Angry as Hezbollah Ices Presidential Election
The country’s Protocol Regulation and Order of Press Activity Guideline Auditing and News Dissemination Authority (PROPAGANDA) informed Egyptian media organizations this morning that as of 15 May, no more than four news items, opinion pieces, analyses, or other content per month will be allowed to remain conspiracy-theory-free.
The new guidelines specify the various types of conspiracy theories that must be invoked, mandating that no fewer than half of an organization’s monthly article output must make reference to the Holocaust as a Zionist or Jewish hoax, and must treat as factual every accusation of war crimes leveled against Israel’s armed forces.
A Hezbollah-linked member of Lebanon’s parliament took to Voice of Lebanon radio to declare that lawmakers from his Loyalty to the Resistance bloc would exercise what he described as their “constitutional right not to enter parliament,” setting up a deadlock in what will be that body’s third attempt to elect a president on Wednesday.Jpost Editorial: Iran's plans
The March 8 alliance, which Hezbollah anchors, had previously been blasted by Lebanese President Michel Suleiman for boycotting such sessions:
“It is unacceptable to apply democracy by obstructing the election process through not providing a quorum,” Suleiman said on Sunday, during the opening of the President Michel Suleiman Sports Village in his hometown of Amchit.
“Do the concerned [parties] not know that… the continuity of the [Lebanese] entity depends on the election of a president?”
Grudgingly, we must admit that Iran is doing quite well. Tehran’s ayatollahs have effectively managed to hoodwink the US, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, whose representatives are now trying to reach a final deal in New York on Iran’s nuclear ambitions before the July 20 deadline.Jennifer Rubin: Can a nuclear Iran and war be stopped?
But in actual fact, more than Iran has managed to pull the wool over the eyes of the international coterie, the nations of the world desperately wish to be fooled.
Iran’s interlocutors prefer to believe that by a miraculous happenstance the country has transformed itself overnight from a ruthless theocracy – whose agenda inter alia includes wiping Israel off the map – to an agreeable member of the international community.
The world’s attention is focused on Russia, but a critical deadline in the nuclear talks with Iran is fast approaching. On July 20, time will be up — or will it? — for a final deal on Iran’s illicit nuclear program.Irwin Cotler: 12 ways Rouhani is no human rights moderate
There is no chance that Iran will agree to dismantle its program, send out its nuclear materials and come into full compliance with United Nations resolutions. For one thing, the Obama administration is no longer demanding it do so. Instead of dismantling the heavy-water Arak plant, now there’s talk about “re-purposing” it. Instead of eliminating the potential for a bomb, Secretary of State John F. Kerry speaks about allowing a break-out period of six to 12 months.
Observing President Obama’s aversion to strong action (e.g. tolerating Syria’s chemical weapons, failing to stop Russia’s takeover of Crimea), the mullahs no doubt are confident that there is little downside for them if they don’t make a deal that would impair their nuclear weapons capability. With President Obama, Sen. Harry Reid (R-Nev.) and others ready to run interference on sanctions and the Iranian economy on the rebound, Iran is in the catbird seat. Iran, by being allowed to retain its centrifuges, advance its ballistic weapons program and continue with advanced research, has given up nothing while securing relief from sanctions and certainty that the United States will take no military action.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani repeatedly touts his commitment to “constructive engagement” with the international community, particularly as he negotiates a comprehensive nuclear agreement. Yet, with resumption of nuclear talks this week, the systematic and widespread violations of human rights in Iran continue unabated, overshadowed – if not sanitized – by the myopic international focus on the nuclear issue.Iranian Officials Push for Deal to Allow Plutonium Buildup
It should be recalled that when the US negotiated an arms control agreement with the Soviet Union in 1975, it did not turn a blind eye to the USSR’s human rights abuses. Instead, the Helsinki Final Act linked the security, economic, and human rights “baskets,” with human rights emerging as the most transformative of the three. Negotiations with Iran should replicate this approach.
Reuters reported on Monday that a delegation from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the U.N.’s atomic watchdog – would be holding talks until Tuesday on among other things “how the U.N. agency would monitor a planned heavy-water reactor near the town of Arak,” which the West has long demanded Tehran either fully dismantle or at a minimum downgrade to a light water version.Tehran Denies Access to Parchin Base, Increasing Fears of “Possible Military Dimensions” of Nuke Program
The discovery in early 2013 that Iran had resumed progress on the Arak facility, which contains a heavy water production facility and the reactor, was described at the time as the Islamic republic’s “Plan B” for acquiring a nuclear weapon. The current IR-40 reactor would allow Iran to produce at least one bomb’s worth of plutonium per year.
Top Western diplomats and analysts, including those linked to the U.S. government and the IAEA, have for years rejected Iranian pretexts for operating any heavy water reactor:
Tehran is reportedly continuing to deny international nuclear inspectors access to the country’s Parchin military base, a site that Western diplomats and U.N. inspectors have long emphasized – per a 2011 report by the the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – shows “strong indicators” of having been used for explosives tests related to “possible nuclear weapon development.”Iranian Naval Commander: Operational Goal to Destroy U.S. Naval Force
Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI) on Saturday asserted that the inspectors, who are in the country for a two-day visit, were not legally entitled to visit the Parchin base because it is not directly linked to Iran’s nuclear program:
Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy, said that the realistic looking mockup of a Nimitz class carrier seen in recent satellite images was part of an intensive training program wherein his forces attack replicas of American naval vessels they are likely to encounter. In an interview with the Iranian news agency, Fars, he said his forces could sink an American carrier “in less than a minute”. One of the operational goals of the IRGC Navy, said the admiral, “is destruction of the U.S. naval force.”Obama's plan for Iran
Fadavi said his navy has built replicas of American destroyers, frigates, and other warships for training purposes. “We have been making and sinking these replicas for many years”. In these exercises, replicas have been sunk in as little as 50 seconds “through a series of operational measures,” said Fadavi. It is not clear if the replicas could actually sail or whether they were merely towed for target practice.
Subsequently, of course, Obama not only bluffed -- he had his bluff called by Iran's client, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. Obama had warned Assad not to use chemical weapons against his own people -- if he did, he would cross a "red line" that would bring swift and painful punishment.Reuters: Iran Used “Golden Loophole” to Bust Sanctions Via Turkey
But, Doran wrote, after an August 2013 chemical attack that killed some 1,500 Syrians, "instead of ordering military action, the president decided to seek congressional authorization for the use of force, knowing full well that such a bill had little chance of passing."
By declaring himself "war-weary," by insisting -- against the evidence -- that al-Qaida is "on the path to defeat," and "the tide of war is receding," by shrinking the U.S. military, punting on Syria and responding fecklessly to Russian incursions in Ukraine, Obama has diminished his own credibility. That increases the likelihood that he will be left with a binary choice: war or capitulation. And capitulation, albeit wrapped in fancy diplomatic language, looks increasingly likely in regards to Iran.
The slowly unwinding plot – details of the investigation began to leak months ago in the context of a political war between Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and political rivals linked to U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen – has rebounded into policy debates regarding the continuing robustness of the international sanctions regime targeting Iran. Western diplomats agreed in the interim Joint Place of Action (JPA) to erode that regime in exchange for a partial Iranian freeze on various parts of its atomic program.'Saudi Liberals' website founder sentenced to 10 years jail, thousand lashes
The Turkish-Iranian gas-for-gold scheme – in which billions of dollars managed to slip through the sanctions net at the height of Western efforts to impose restrictions – has been variously taken as evidence that the Obama administration is either unwilling or unable to rigorously enforce financial restrictions on the Islamic republic:
His lawyers said Wednesday's sentence was too harsh although the prosecutor had demanded a harsher penalty, Sabq reported. The ruling is subject to appeal.
The prosecution had demanded that Badawi be tried for apostasy, a charge which carries the death penalty in Saudi Arabia. The judge in last year's trial had dismissed the apostasy charges.
Badawi was arrested in June 2012 and charged with cyber crime and disobeying his father - a crime in Saudi Arabia.
His website included articles that were critical of senior religious figures such as Saudi Arabia's Grand Mufti, according to Human Rights Watch.
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