Al-Omah, an Egypt-based pan-Muslim news site, has a most revealing op-ed about the Israel/UAE accord that shows how systemic Arab antisemitism is.
The article, by Dr. Abdul Latif, is so dripping with anger at the UAE for partnering with Jews that it doesn't even mention the UAE by name.
It is entitled, "Loyalty to the Jews is the epitome of hypocrisy." In this case, the word "hypocrisy" is not a mere value judgment but a specific Quranic term describing someone who appears on the outside to be a Muslim but who is actively working to destroy the Muslim world from the inside.
Latif employs two well-known Quranic verses:
Quran 5:51:
O you who have believed, do not take the Jews and the Christians as allies. They are [in fact] allies of one another. And whoever is an ally to them among you - then indeed, he is [one] of them. Indeed, Allah guides not the wrongdoing people.
Quran 4:145:
Indeed, the hypocrites will be in the lowest depths of the Fire - and never will you find for them a helper.
Dr. Latif is saying that UAE leaders who cooperate with Jews will go to the worst depths of Hell, beyond the spaces reserved for mere unbelievers.
Remarkably, Latif doesn't even pretend to care about Palestinians in his criticism of the Emiratis, which is the usual fig-leaf used by Arab critics of the deal. His enmity is based purely on old fashioned Muslim Jew-hatred. Cooperating with Jews on any level is a major sin and those who do it are condemned to hellfire.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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On Sunday, a group of Arab American organizations held a sparsely attended event in Chicago protesting normalization between Israel and the UAE.
Video of the event indicates that all of the speeches were in Arabic, which is probably why this rally received next to no attention. But the official Palestinian news agency Wafa covered this extensively, to give the impression that Palestinians are still a major issue for the larger Arab world.
The final joint statement, as translated by Wafa, is insane.
A joint statement, in the name of the participating Arab communities, was read by the Palestinian National Council member Ghassan Barakat, at the conclusion of the meeting held in Chicago. The institutions warned of the repercussions of this agreement on the stability of the region, saying: "The shameful agreement will pave the way [for Israel] to devour the entire Arab region, and the occupation has a new means of penetration into the Arab world.
Representatives of social, service, charitable and religious institutions representing the Palestinian, Egyptian, Yemeni, Iraqi, Libyan, Tunisian, Algerian, Syrian, Kuwaiti, Jordanian, Moroccan, and Lebanese communities participated in the meeting.
In the joint statement, they praised the steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of attempts at normalization and deception practiced by the occupation state, under the illusion of peace that targets all capitals of the Arab region, to bring them to their knees, humiliate them, and plunder their wealth.
The statement said: "The agreement rewards the occupation state by acknowledging its full control over the land of Palestine, and its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of the Jewish state, and paves the way for compromising the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Judaizing it, which is not and will not be accepted by any free Arab, especially since Jerusalem is the path of our honorable Messenger Muhammad, may peace and blessings be upon him."
Imagining that Israel is using peace as a means to take over the region is crazy enough. But the underlying assumption behind it is really interesting, if you think about it.
These Arab American self-declared leaders are saying that every single Arab nation is run by idiots who will be fooled by the brilliant, diabolical Jews into giving up all of their land and natural resources.
The more that the "pro-Palestinian" side insults every Arab nation, the more likely they are to throw the Palestinian issue under the bus and make peace with Israel.
Their self-destruction is really something to see.
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On May 14, 2018, the US embassy was officially inaugurated in Jerusalem, and a double standard applied to Israel in the US for 70 years finally came to an end.
The moving of the embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem not only recognized Israel’s capital as it had seen it since the establishment of the Jewish state in 1948, but also removed a myth from any future negotiating table. Jerusalem, the United States determined, was non-negotiable. It was Israel’s capital.
“We were applying [until then] a double standard to Israel, relative to every other country in the world,” US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told The Jerusalem Post last week. “We were telling Israel, you don’t have the right to choose your capital city.”
That changed with the moving of the embassy even as some critics claim that beyond the symbolism of the move, it didn’t achieve much more. Other countries did not follow suit and the fact is that peace negotiations seem no farther away today than they were before.
Friedman did not agree. Don’t, he said, underestimate the power of symbolism.
“Americans who support Israel understand the significance of Jerusalem,” he said. “It’s what the Statue of Liberty, the Lincoln Memorial, Plymouth Rock and Valley Forge are. We understand symbols are more than symbols. Every nation that made a mark on this world stood for something. Nations that stand for something stand for deep historic principles. Because America was founded on those types of principles, Americans profoundly understand the importance of Jerusalem to the State of Israel.”
We agree. The moving of the embassy not only put an end to a historic travesty but also made clear to the world something everyone anyhow already knew – Jerusalem is not for sale. While the Palestinians can still lay claim to parts of the eastern side of the city, Jerusalem is Israel’s capital as it was 3,000 years ago when designated so by King David.
With that said, peace is not made between Jerusalem and Washington DC. It needs to be made between Israeli and Palestinian leaders and sadly, for the last three years of the Trump administration, when it comes to direct talks, there has been no tangible progress.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to swear in his fifth government in a few days, has served as Israel’s prime minister for 14 years. The thought that in his 15th year as prime minister he will suddenly change his policies and engage with the Palestinians in ways he has not until now also seems unlikely.
Seven Republicans in Congress warned Jordan that the United States was now in a position to sanction that country unless it extradites one of the terrorists who plotted the 2001 bombing of a Jerusalem pizzeria.
“The potential seriousness of these sanctions provisions reflect the deep concern of the Congress, the administration and the American people,” said the letter sent April 30 to Jordan’s ambassador and released this week by EMET, a pro-Israel group lobbying for the letter.
Why it matters: The letter was initiated by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., and signed by Congress members known for their closeness to the Trump administration. That signals an increase in pressure on Jordan to extradite Ahlam Al-Tamimi, who facilitated the bombing of the Sbarro restaurant that killed 15 people, including two Americans.
Jordan, a key ally to the United States and Israel, gets $1.7 billion in U.S. assistance.
The United States has sought Al-Tamimi’s extradition for years, but the law allowing the State Department to leverage aid to demand extradition did not go into effect until late last year.
Al-Tamimi was sentenced to life in Israel but released in a prisoner exchange with Israel in 2011. She has since become something of a celebrity in Jordan.
The parents of one of the victims, 15-year old Malki Roth, have led an effort to make Al-Tamimi face U.S. charges under American laws that allow the prosecution of terrorists who have harmed Americans overseas.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo confirmed on Friday he would travel to Israel to next week, in what will be his first overseas trip since the coronavirus crisis began.
Pompeo will be in Israel next Wednesday, May 13, and he will meet in Jerusalem with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Knesset Speaker Benny Gantz “to discuss US and Israeli efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as regional security issues related to Iran’s malign influence,” a State Department statement said.
“The US commitment to Israel has never been stronger than under President Trump’s leadership,” the statement added. “The United States and Israel will face threats to the security and prosperity of our peoples together.”
“In challenging times, we stand by our friends, and our friends stand by us,” it concluded.
One issue that could be on the agenda during Pompeo’s visit is the possible Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank in the near future.
Pompeo himself said last month that such a move was up to the Israeli government.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo next week will become the first senior foreign official to visit Israel since it put in place strict travel restrictions to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
Pompeo’s visit will require medical precautions to prevent infections, which were coordinated with Israeli officials, Israel’s Channel 13 reported Friday.
Dr. William Walters, the US State Department’s deputy chief medical officer, said Friday that everyone flying with Pompeo will be tested for the virus one or two days before the flight, will be checked for symptoms before boarding, and will wear face coverings during the trip.
Pompeo and his small traveling party will be exempt from Israel’s virus restrictions that bar foreign visitors from entering and require returning Israelis to self-quarantine for 14 days. Pompeo is currently undergoing daily checks by medical personnel, Walters said.
Pompeo will be on the ground in Israel for only several hours on Wednesday before returning to Washington from his first overseas trip since making an unannounced visit to Afghanistan in March.
Everyone who meets with the US team during the trip will be checked for COVID-19 symptoms. Pompeo’s movements will be strictly controlled and limited to working meetings and the airport, and he will not meet with anyone in public settings.
Diana Buttu
Yara Hawari
Yousef Munayyer – Moderator
Additional speakers to be announced
About the Event
Arab Center Washington DC’s upcoming webinar focuses on the threat of the coronavirus pandemic in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza Strip as well as for the Palestinian citizens of Israel. As Israel’s policies of occupation and settler colonialism continue in the midst of this global health crisis, what additional challenges are Palestinians facing under military occupation, apartheid, siege, and discriminatory policies?
Well, let's see.
The West Bank has less than 300 COVID-19 cases, two deaths.
Gaza has 17 COVID-19 cases, zero deaths.
Palestinians in Israeli prisons have zero cases, zero deaths.
Israel has over 15,000 cases and 204 deaths with 93 people on ventilators.
Where should the bulk of ventilators, PPEs and effort go? What evidence is there that Israel is not doing everything it can to keep the virus from spreading in the territories and prisons?
For two months now, Israel haters have been warning about an impending epidemic of the virus in the territories.
As is the case with wars, they want to see Palestinians die so they can have ammunition to attack Israel.
As is the case with wars, Israel has more incentive to protect Palestinian lives than to let them die.
As is the case with wars, Israel cares more about the lives of Palestinians than the entire "pro-Palestinian" community in the US and Europe together.
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About three years ago, I read an article in the Al Monitor newspaper titled "Black Palestinians Shrug Off Racism"… After I read the article, I was angered, thinking "What?! We don't have racism in Gaza!" So I decided to write an article that would refute the original article. Then I began to conduct interviews with some dark-skinned youth, and I was shocked to find that yes, indeed, we do have despicable racism in Gaza, and dark-skinned people suffer because of our racism.
After I published the article, I was surprised to see that it reached the (Ministry of) Interior, and the criticism began to pour down on me, as well as accusation of being a traitor, and (people said that) I am trying to distort Gaza's image… And no one thought or felt even once what the wronged people (i.e. the black Palestinians) feel because of our racism.
The Al Monitor article mentions "According to Gaza Through History, a book by Ibrahim Sakik, wealthy families in the Gaza Strip participated in the slave trade hundreds of years ago." But there is not a single book about the history of black Palestinians.
The Israel haters say they are against racism, yet they know quite well that Arabs are racists - but that fact cannot be publicized because anyone who is brave enough to say a word is threatened by the Hamas or PA governments!
In fact, Palestinians learn when they are young that they are not allowed to criticize their own people or government at the risk of imprisonment and social stigma. The only people who can be insulted are Israelis and whatever Arab nations that seem to be aligned with Israel.
A society that cannot handle criticism can never grow. The Israel haters are doing their Palestinian pets no service when they censor any criticism of them - censorship that in the past has extended so far as to hush up stories of Western female "peace activists" being raped by Palestinians.
(h/t Ibn Boutros)
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There has been an interesting clash in the media between Jared Kushner and Saeb Erekat that, when analyzed, shows that Kushner is right.
Kushner went on Arab MBCTV to defend the plan. As usual, no one can argue with what he says so they are upset over his tone which they claim is condescending. This interview does not sound condescending to me:
During the interview Kushner also slammed Erekat for being part of the problem:
"He says a lot of things that have turned out not to be true," Kushner told Egyptian journalist Amr Adib on MBC Masr's Al Hikaya political program. "The guy has a perfect track record at failing at making peace deals."
Kushner riled up Erekat and anti-Israel activists last week when he said, accurately, that Palestinians like Erekat have screwed up every previous opportunity for peace:
Jared Kushner, senior adviser to the President, says the White House's Middle East plan is "a great deal" and if Palestinians reject it, “they’re going to screw up another opportunity, like they’ve screwed up every other opportunity that they’ve ever had in their existence.” pic.twitter.com/ABAI3gKjig
It is because of people like you who want to dictate rather than negotiate and who they thought could impose an apartheid Netanyahu plan on the Palestinian people forever. Ending the occupation, two states on the 1967 borders, otherwise is failure.
“I heard Olmert say that he offered 100% of the West Bank territory. This is true. I’ll testify to this. He [Olmert] presented a map [to Abbas], and said: ‘I want [Israel] to take 6.5% of the West Bank and I’ll give [the PA] 6.5% of the 1948 territory (i.e., land in Israel) in return.’ [Olmert] said to Abbas: ‘The area of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on the eve of June 4, 1967, was 6,235 sq. km. [I said to Abbas]: ‘There are 50 sq. km. of no man’s land in Jerusalem and Latrun.’ We’ll split them between us, so the territory will be 6,260 sq. km.” [I said to Abbas:] Olmert wants to give you 20 sq. km. more, so that you could say [to Palestinians]: ‘I got more than the 1967 territories.’ Regarding Jerusalem, [Olmert said]: ‘What’s Arab is Arab, and what’s Jewish is Jewish, and we’ll keep it an open city.’ Regarding the refugees, [Olmert] offered him [Abbas] 150,000 refugees … [Olmert] said: “The refugees’ right to return to the State of Palestine is your law. But regarding Israel, we will accept 150,000 refugees over 10 years. 15,000 [per year] over 10 years.”
So by denouncing all previous plans - which is in fact what many "pro-Palestinian" activists are doing in response to Kushner's CNN interview - Erekat is saying that his opposition isn't to Trump's plan but to every single previous plan as well for not going far enough.
The only possible interpretation is that Abbas' demands in 2008 were a lie, and he wanted to paint Olmert into a corner, not thinking he would (stupidly) agree to every demand for land and Israel taking responsibility for 1948 refugees and splitting Jerusalem. Abbas didn't want to end his claims on all of Israel down the line; he didn't want to stop at 150,000 Arabs "returning" - he didn't want to agree to anything that would leave Israel strong and viable.
Kushner is accurately pointing out that if Palestinians want a state, they can have one. In this plan, he notes, all the checkpoints will be gone - a Palestinian can travel through the entire state without seeing a single Israeli. Any Arab that wants to pray at Al Aqsa can do so. Details that were never dreamed of in previous plans are considered with the welfare of average Palestinians in the forefront of its philosophy.
Erekat's fuming response is, essentially, that nothing less than full Israeli surrender to the demands of those who claim they have nothing is acceptable - and that includes "return" to destroy the Jewish state. He is showing that his problem is not with Trump but with all previous plans, which fulfilled every ostensible Palestinian demand.
Erekat's words show that Palestinian leaders were never serious about peace or an independent state.And the Palestinian people are the ones who lose out because of the egos of Erekat and Abbas and all the rest.
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One of the biggest complaints by the anti-Israel crowd against the Trump plan is the supposed "bantustans" of Palestinian territory only connected by roads, bridges or tunnels. This is said to be intolerable for a sovereign nation
Yet if you look at Wikipedia, you can see that there are literally hundreds of examples where the territory or territories of one state is fully or functionally within the territory of another, known as enclaves, exclaves, or variants of those. The largest example in the world (which is really a semi-enclave) is Alaska, only accessible to the rest of the US via land through Canada.
We mentioned one example in passing, that of the border between the Netherlands and Belgium at Baarle-Hertog:
This is the possibly the most complicated one but there are a huge number of others. Up until 2015, the border between India and Bangladesh had not only over a hundred enclaves but enclaves within enclaves (and one parcel of land that was a piece of India within Bangladesh, within India, within Bangladesh.)
There are even some small Canadian land parcels that are only accessible through the United States.
If there are hundreds of examples of such arrangements working perfectly well, then why is there such an uproar over a pathway to peace that would do the same for Palestine?
The answer is in the question. The Israel-haters have no desire for peace.
It is no coincidence that the Trump plan is named "peace to prosperity." Unlike every single previous plan, this is the first one that is focused on peace, not land.
If there is real peace, then no one would care about the enclaves of Palestinian lands in Israel and Israeli lands within Palestine (i.e., "settlements.")
The ideal, which the plan envisions, is that Israel and Palestine would be like Belgium and the Netherlands - two partners in peace. Any Arab can visit the Temple Mount, any Jew can visit the synagogues in Jericho and Joseph's Tomb in Nablus, without the need of heavily armed security protecting the visitors.
When there is real peace, the borders are not important.
This is the fundamental reason why Israel supports the plan and the Palestinians are so dead-set against it. Only Israel has ever desired real peace, just as Israel has thirsted for real peace with Jordan and Egypt and the rest of the Arab world.
The "pro-Palestinian" activists, although many belong to groups with "peace" in their names, do not want peace with Israel. They want Israel to be destroyed one way or another, and they - as well as Palestinian leaders - look at an independent Palestine as a weapon to end Israel, not as a goal in itself.
If Palestinians wanted a state, they would have had one in 2000, 2001 and 2008. If they wanted peace, they could have a state tomorrow.
It has been 26 years since Oslo, but in all that time no Palestinian school - not one - has taught students that they should thirst for peace with Israel. On the contrary, Israel is always the enemy and it must one day be reclaimed as "Palestine."
For some reason, the world thinks that the existence of two states would automatically bring peace. Everyone has it backwards. It is peace that would bring two states, because Israel would happily give the responsibility of governance to a Palestinian state that was friendly, where the borders are as open as those between EU states.
The Trump plan is a true peace plan - a vision of how peace and prosperity can bring about a political solution. The reason it is unrealistic is because Palestinians are taught hate from birth.
And that is the real obstacle to peace.
The world seems to have forgotten that peace is the goal.
(h/t Ian)
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I was pretty busy on Twitter over the past 24 hours...Here are my most popular tweets on the "Deal of the Century." Many of them could be expanded into posts, but there are only so many hours in the day.
Palestinian leaders: "We Palestinians would rather stay in misery than have a chance to improve our lives - because we have principles!" Palestinian people: "Ummm...you guys live in mansions. We've been suffering for 71 years." Leaders: "Anyone who disagrees goes to prison!"
One thing's for sure: The #DealOfTheCentury would do more to help improve ordinary Palestinians' lives than the past fifty years of NGO and EU aid combined.
The fact that no "pro-Palestinian" activist is willing to even discuss it shows what hypocrites they are.
"Let's reward Palestinians for acting like spoiled brats when they rejected multiple peace plans that included everything we are complaining the Trump plan doesn't have." pic.twitter.com/17aT61jc7f
In other news, extremist right-wing hawk Benjamin Netanyahu offered large swaths of land from within Israel to become part of a potential Palestinian state, tripling the size of Gaza.
As was utterly predictable, a plan that would improve Palestinian lives immeasurably is rejected by fake "human rights" expert @KenRoth who (in only one world conflict) feels that "fairness" is a human right that trumps the right to live in peace, security and prosperity. https://t.co/LWVRHPpKQB
And exactly how does the Palestinian Authority, the violent dictatorship that shuts down any dissent, rewards terrorists and receives billions from the EU, have any legitimacy to speak on behalf of the Palestinians they oppress, @sarahleah1? https://t.co/QMB6f7jO9s
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Settlements will not be evacuated in any peace plan while Benjamin Netanyahu is prime minister, he vowed on Wednesday amid talk that the Trump administration may present its peace plan within weeks.
“I will not let any settlements be uprooted in any diplomatic plan. This idea of ethnic cleansing...It won’t happen,” Netanyahu said at the Kohelet Forum’s conference on the US decision that settlements are not illegal.
His remarks came as diplomatic sources say the Trump administration is strongly considering releasing its plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians in the coming weeks, before the March 2 Knesset election.
“There is a window of opportunity. It opened, but it could close,” Netanyahu added, warning of “weak leadership” that will “hit rewind,” in an apparent reference to his election rival Blue and White leader Benny Gantz.
Netanyahu expounded on Jewish rights to live in Judea and Samaria, pointing to its anchoring in legal documents from the San Remo Conference and the League of Nations.
“There was no West Bank separate from the rest of the land. It was seen as the heart of the land. We never lost our right to live in Judea and Samaria. The only thing we lost temporarily was the ability to exercise the right,” Netanyahu explained.
PM Netanyahu: "Israel is Completely Beside the United States"
Israel's caretaker Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised US President Donald Trump for authorizing the drone strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran's Quds force. In his speech at a summit in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Soleimani was behind deaths of "countless" innocents and sowed "fear, and misery, and anguish" -- and was planning to do even worse.
The US rejects a 1978 memo determining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday in a video statement to the Kohelet Forum’s conference on his settlement policy.
Pompeo said the US is “disavowing the deeply flawed" the Carter-era memorandum, written by then-State Department Legal Adviser Herbert Hansell, which called all Israeli settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines to be illegal.
This goes a step further than Pompeo’s statement in November that the US “no longer recognize Israeli settlements as per se inconsistent with international law.”
“It’s important to speak the truth that the facts lead us to, and that is what we have done,” Pompeo said in his video message. “We are recognizing that settlements do not inherently violate international law.”
As such, he added, the US is returning to a more “balanced” policy, “advancing the cause of peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”
Professor Eugene Kontorovich of the Kohelet Forum said: “For decades, the obscure Carter-era memo was used as justification for anti-Israel policies...Secretary Pompeo’s statement makes clear the US’s wholesale rejection of the legal theory that holds that international law restricts Israeli Jews from moving into areas from which Jordan had ethnically cleansed them in 1949.”
Israel is waging a “real battle” against the Palestinians for control of Area C of the West Bank, Defense Minister Naftali Bennett said on Wednesday, as he declared “officially" that the territory belongs to Israel.
“Our objective is that within a short amount of time, and we will work for it, we will apply [Israeli] sovereignty to all of Area C, not just the settlements, not just this bloc or another,” Bennett told the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem.
Bennett, who heads the New Right party, added that he intended to make that demand part of his coalition agreement to enter the new government after the elections.
The second goal, Bennett said, was to ensure through the promotion of settlement construction to ensure that within a decade a million Jews will live in Judea and Samaria.
In the interim, Bennett said, “We are embarking on a real and immediate battle for the future of the Land of Israel and the future of Area C. It started a month ago and I am announcing it here today.”
Last year, then MK Tzipi Livni convened senior officials from the Justice Ministry and Military Advocate General’s international affairs departments at the Knesset for a conference. The purpose of the conclave was to provide the officials with the opportunity to justify their interference with security decisions that by law are the exclusive purview of the IDF’s field commanders and Israel’s elected leaders.
As is their wont, the officials used the opportunity to proclaim, “the legal system is the IDF's legal Iron Dome against accusations of war crimes in foreign and international forums.”
Following International Criminal Court Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s decision over the weekend to prosecute Israel – including its armed forces and elected leaders – on phony war crimes allegations, we see that their conceit was a lie. The idea that Israel’s legal fraternity is Israel’s protection against the likes of Bensouda and the lawfare gang she runs with was first concocted in the 1990s by then Chief Justice Aharon Barak. The purpose of this fantasy was and remains to justify interference by the various components of the legal fraternity – the High Court, the Justice Ministry, the Attorney General and the Military Advocate General and others – in the decisions of IDF commanders and elected officials.
As Prof. Avi Bell of Bar Ilan University Law School explained in Israel Hayom earlier this week, Bensouda’s decision exposed the colossal failure of the legal fraternity’s strategy for protecting the country from the lawfare gang. Bensouda’s decision is a horrible, strategic blow for Israel. It endangers the very lives of IDF soldiers, commanders and elected officials.
Members of the legal fraternity asserted their competence to direct Israel’s responses by presenting the ICC as a legal body. But as the Rome Statute of 1998, which founded the ICC made clear, the institution’s political nature was evident from the outset, as was its inherent hostility to Israel. Now that Bensouda’s biased ruling has exposed this state of affairs, Israel must replace the lawyers’ failed legal strategy with a political one.
The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, announced last week that at the request of the Palestinian Authority, she is opening a probe into alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the 2014 Gaza war, as well as crimes in the disputed territories of the West Bank.
Alan Baker, director of the international law program at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, told JNS: "There is no legal basis to such requests since only sovereign states may appeal to the court, and there exists no sovereign Palestinian state with sovereign territory over which the court could extend its jurisdiction. If the court accepts the Palestinian requests and opens a formal investigation, it will damage its own juridical credibility and become politicized like other UN bodies."
Eugene Kontorovich, a professor at the George Mason University Law School, told JNS that the ICC "ignores international law by inventing a Palestinian state that does not exist and creates a crime that no one in international law has ever been charged with before: the crime of people living in places. To say it is a war crime for a Jew to live in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City [of Jerusalem] is absurd. It is quite clear that the crime of people living somewhere is a crime for which one must be Jewish to be eligible."
Kontorovich noted that Bensouda "pretended, in the interest of evenhandedness, to investigate 150,000 Russians being moved into Crimea and concluded without any fanfare that is not a war crime." He noted her refusal to investigate Turkish settlers in Cyprus.
ICC to Probe 'Israeli War Crimes' in West Bank, Gaza
The chief International Criminal Court prosecutor announced Friday a probe into suspected war crimes on Palestinian territories. 'I am satisfied that there is a reasonable basis to proceed with an investigation into the situation in Palestine,' prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said without specifying who was committing the alleged crimes as the Court wrapped up its preliminary assessment of the situation.
The "Adalah Justice Project," an influential American group that claims to be "pro-Palestinian," tweets:
The Executive Order was against antisemitism, which includes treating the Jewish state as a proxy for traditional antisemitism (by subjecting it to double standards, false accusations and analogies meant to hurt the feelings of Jews such as comparing it to Nazis).
In no way does it cover "advocacy for Palestinian rights."
But Adalah, as well as any so-called "pro-Palestinian" organization you can name, cannot even imagine advocating for Palestinian rights - which no one is against - and attacking the Jewish state. The two are one and the same.
Well-meaning people are saying that the IHRA definition of antisemitism may be used to chill free speech. There is no proof for this. There is also no proof that existing Title VI legislation, which could be used to attack free speech that could be descried as racist or xenophobic, is problematic. But for some reason the Adalah-style argument - that antisemitic speech must be protected on campus while anti-racist and anti-immigrant speech cannot be - has resonated with the liberal media and organizations.
This is quite worrying for those who actually care about antisemitism.
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My home town of Fresno, California has a tiny Jewish community. The metropolitan area of about a million people, in almost the geographical center of the state, has only about 1000 Jewish families. There are three congregations: a Reform temple with several hundred members, a much smaller Conservative shul, and a Chabad house.
I haven’t been to the US since moving back to Israel more than five years ago. But I keep in touch. So recently I noticed an announcement on the Facebook page of the Reform congregation for a talk by a Rabbi John Rosove on the subject “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, an American Zionist Perspective.” I thought that was interesting, since I, too, am a Zionist and (you can tell by my accent) will always be an American.
Rabbi Rosove went to Berkeley (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and Hebrew Union College, and is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel in Hollywood. Investigating further, I found that the talk would be about “… the destructive impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinians, Israelis and the future of Israel’s democracy.” And I noted that Rabbi Rosove is a national co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, and is associated with several “Reform Zionism” groups.
This is not my kind of Zionism – it demands a suicidal “two-state solution,” and wrongly analogizes our conflict with the Palestinians to the American civil rights struggle, two things that couldn’t be more different.
Let’s assume that Rabbi Rosove is one of these. His talk is being held at Clovis Community College, next door to Fresno, and is free. But who paid Rosove’s expenses? The announcement for the talk indicates that it is sponsored by GV Wire, a local progressive news website. GV Wire is a very slick production, with a professional staff including Bill McEwen, a former Fresno Bee columnist and editorial page editor.
The “GV” in GV Wire stands for Granville Homes, one of the biggest real estate developers and homebuilders in the Fresno area. And Granville Homes is owned by the Assemi family, who came to California from Iran just before the revolution. Among the founders of the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno, the Assemis are among the biggest philanthropists in the Central Valley of California. Granville has done some projects in the downtown area which have improved parts of town that many people thought were lost forever. They donate large amounts to numerous causes and organizations, especially “progressive” ones.
The publisher of GV Wire is Darius Assemi, Granville’s President and CEO. He is deeply involved in local politics, and is probably one of the most powerful people in the area. And of course, he’s no friend of Israel. He’s described Israel’s shooting terrorists climbing its border fence as a “massacre.”
So why would he bring a self-described “Zionist” speaker to the area (even if he’s as much a Zionist as I am Queen of England)?
The explanation is the reaction to Assemi’s previous speaker, Alison Weir, who appeared on September 18 (her presentation can be viewed here). Weir is viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic, to the point that even pro-BDS groups like Jewish Voice for Peace have disavowed her. Her position is that the Israel/Jewish lobby dominates the US government, causing it to act against American interests in order to help Israel oppress, exploit, and murder Palestinians, which it does in the most sadistic way possible. She asserts that US media, controlled by Jewish interests, is biased in favor of Israel, and that any criticism of Israel is derailed by accusations of antisemitism. She is a low-key, persuasive speaker, and if you don’t recognize the lies, lack of context, and distortions, she will convince you.
Weir was originally invited by the college, which canceled the event following complaints by the ADL and other Jewish organizations.
But Assemi thought that she should be heard, so he had GV Wire sponsor the event and rent the hall, absolving the college of responsibility. ADL and the others protested again, but rather than cancel the event, Assemi decided to also invite “a speaker who will explain the deadly realities in this region from the Jewish perspective.” Balance. That would be Rabbi Rosove.
So now we will get a “Jewish perspective” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Jew who says he is a Zionist, but represents an organization that is actually anti-Zionist, and is even supported financially by Israel’s enemies. And a Jewish house of worship is advertising it.
Welcome to the highest level of useful idiocy!
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She was going to participate in a few sessions in a conference on "Racism and Antisemitism" at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard. One of them were about how to work with people with different opinions on President Trump, and another was about "Racism and Zionism: Black-Jewish relations."
Her first session, though, was called "Who Needs Antisemitism?" with Ruth Wisse and Shany Mor. This session wasn't about Israel or Zionism, but purely about antisemitism today. It was the only session where Jews discussed antisemitism.
That was the only session that was targeted by protesters from Students for Justice in Palestine.
Ungar-Sargon was mystified, and spoke to the protesters: "I told them that I respected their passion and commitment to what they thought was right, but asked why they had picked this panel.
"'Come to my panel tomorrow,' I said. 'Come protest my comments on Zionism. I’ll be talking about the occupation. Bring your signs.'"
Ungar-Sargon tried to explain to them that they can come and protest at her session on Zionism the next day, that she would let them ask all the questions they want. She tried to explain to them that they were undercutting their own cause by targeting a session on antisemitism when they always claim that they are merely anti-Zionist.
She kept trying logic on people who were animated by hate not for Israel but for Jews. Yet she couldn't quite believe it - these were people she often agrees with about Israel, couldn't they see that protesting three Jews talking about Jew-hatred was antisemitic?
Her biggest shock, though, came from her fellow speakers and other academics who defended the obviously antisemitic protest.
“I disagree with what she is saying,” Shahanna McKinney-Baldon, who was to be part of Batya's panel on racism and Zionism the next day, told the SJPers. “I support what you’re doing. I think you should protest.”
When the session began, students started their planned interruption when Ruth Wisse spoke. Ungar-Sargon noticed that several of the conference speakers were applauding the students.
Not one person apologized to her for these interruptions. No one from the conference denounced the attempts to shut down a session on antisemitism by antisemite. Academics seemed to welcome the explanation given by one of the protesters that any discussion of antisemitism is really about supporting Israel.
Worse yet, at a party afterwards for conference speakers, Etienne Balibar, a French philosopher at Columbia University, told Batya he supported the protesters. “Why are you silencing Palestinians?” he demanded. “There should have been a Palestinian discussing anti-Semitism. They have many thoughts about it!”
This was a session about antisemitism in America.
To Batya's credit, she had enough. At her planned session on Black-Jewish relations the next day, she gave a short speech about what she had experienced. She noted her bona-fides at publishing more Palestnian voices in her opinion pages than all major media combined, how she convinced Jews to vote for the Arab parties in Israel - but that what she experienced wasn't anti-Zionism but antisemitism, and her fellow panelists who she used to idolize as luminaries were cowards who egged on pure antisemitism when it appeared right in front of them.
And she walked off the stage.
If anyone claims that there is no such thing as leftist antisemitism, this proves they are just as craven and complicit as the academics that applauded the supposedly "pro-Palestinian" SJP when they interrupted a session on antisemitism - just because talking about antisemitism might get people to be more sympathetic to Jews.
Will Ungar-Sargon be more aware that a lot of the people she proudly publishes in The Forward are also antisemites in "anti-Zionist" clothing, no better than the academics she called out? I don't know, but at least here she recognized antisemitism when she saw it, and she acted in the most effective way she could.
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One of the more disingenuous parts of groups like IfNotNow demnding that Zionist organizations like Birthright include an anti-Zionist point of view is that no one - and I mean no one - ever even considers politely requesting so-called "pro-Palestinian" groups include the Zionist narrative in their discussions.
The reason this comes up is a small article in the PLO website. A delegation of students and professors from Glasgow University and from a university in California attended an "educational program on history, the Palestinian cause and Israeli violations against our people and their violation of international law" this summer.
Is anyone demanding that the PLO allow these students and professors to speak to Israelis, let alone Jewish settlers?
The very idea is absurd. Because absolutely no one expects Palestinians to be even-handed, or fair, or unbiased. No one demands that they consider Israeli positions as having any validity, or even that they have the right to be spoken out loud.
Birthright does give students an opportunity to ask about and learn about the Palestinian perspective. Do the anti-Israel tours - whether from the PLO or from Breaking the Silence or International Solidarity Movement - allow similar opportunities in their tours?
We all know the answer. According to these so-called progressives, Zionist groups must include an anti-Zionist narrative and anti-Zionist groups must also teach an anti-Zionist narrative. Pro-Zionist voices must be shut down or drowned out, because only one side has any legitimacy according to these people who congratulate themselves on how open-minded they are - in one direction.
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Seeing Palestinian flags at rallies for liberal causes like LGBTQ rights, women's rights and Black Lives Matter is always jarring, because Palestinians are among the least liberal people on Earth.
But the sight of the flag associates the "pro-Palestinian" (really anti-Israel) cause with liberalism and that is something that happens subconsciously.
If we are to fight the anti-Israel side we have to sometimes play by their rules. Let's associate the Palestinian flag with the anti-liberal causes that are their actual positions.
Here's a start:
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Israel is again being vilified, this time for revealing last week that it has been working to find ways for Gazans to voluntarily move to Europe.
Israel is actively promoting the emigration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, and is working to find other countries who may be willing to absorb them, a senior Israeli official said Monday.
Israel is ready to carry the costs of helping Gazans emigrate, and would even be willing to consider allowing them to use an Israeli air field close to Gaza to allow them to leave for their new host countries, the official said, apparently referring to air force bases deep inside Israel.
The senior official, in Ukraine as part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s delegation to Kiev, spoke on condition of anonymity.
It was not very wise to publicize this plan, given that Israel found no country in Europe willing to take Gazans voluntarily.
People like Haaretz' Amira Hass are clucking about how terrible Israel is for considering such a thing.
While no one doubts it is in Israel's interest to encourage Palestinian migration, these critics who claim to care so much about Palestinians are ignoring the fact that many Palestinians desperately want to leave Gaza and the West Bank - and some are willing to risk their lives to do so.
A month ago, two boats capsized off of Libya's coast, filled with 300 would-be refugees to Europe - including many Palestinians.
Nearly 1400 Palestinians managed to reach Greece in ramshackle boats so far this year alone.
If the "pro-Palestinian" side actually cared about Palestinians, wouldn't they want a safe means that Palestinians could leave if they choose?
"Voluntary transfer" is phrased as if it is a means of ethnic cleansing, but it is voluntary. No one is forced to leave. Going through Israel, subsidized, to go to Europe - even though the plan has not worked out - is far more humane than forcing thousands of Palestinians to resort to going on rickety and dangerous boats. Even if Israel has ulterior motives, the plan is still more humane than any alternative.
For members of the supposedly progressive crowd, Israel's support for a plan that can save Palestinian lives is enough reason to oppose it. Think about that.
These critics don't actually care about Palestinians but only want more excuses to use them to attack Israel.
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Dr. Rosena Allin-Khan is a Labour MP for Tooting and a physician.
She recently traveled to Gaza and reported back on the issues she saw with Israel's permit system for patients to leave Gaza. She is obviously not a Zionist and some of the resulting articles have been called out for major inaccuracies. Nevertheless, she is someone who cares deeply about the people of Gaza.
What happened to her when she tried to help the children of Gaza shows that the purported "pro-Palestinian" crowd really don't give a shit about Palestinians.
From her Twitter thread which she titled, simply, Anti-Semitism:
I travelled to Israel and Palestine earlier this year, working as a doctor, with the aim of finding out what issues Palestinians (especially from Gaza) currently face with accessing hospital treatment.
I saw some truly horrific cases inc. of Palestinian babies being born prematurely, but because of permit issues mothers were sent back to Gaza shortly after birth, with some babies dying alone in hospital.
I spoke at length with many news outlets, the Guardian and the Today Prog did good pieces on this. Kids undergoing chemotherapy can’t travel with parents because they’re deemed a security risk. But the issue has many sides to the story and is not simple.
This caused a stir. I was called a liar, some people tried to discredit what I was saying. I held firm, I have proof of these horrific cases - it’s a fact that many Palestinians are not treated with dignity.
So, in my quest to improve the permit system, I had a very lively radio discussion with the Deputy Israeli Ambassador - something which continued in the green room at the BBC. Weeks later, she invited me to meet with her to discuss it further.
So last week, I went to the Israeli Embassy to discuss it, in the hope to get some traction, to improve the permit system - which will benefit thousands of Palestinians waiting for hospital treatment.
Instead of supporting my work, those purporting to support the Palestinian cause have spouted horrible anti-Semitic abuse. See some examples here - it’s disgusting, these views are abhorrent - but also misguided and ill-informed.
This behaviour does nothing to help the Palestinian cause. I have been there, called out what I’ve seen and spoken in the press. Am I now not meant to work to improve this dreadful situation?
I’ve worked with Palestinians across the Middle East for 10 years - but these racists think they can sit behind a keyboard here in the U.K and troll someone genuinely trying to help. It’s revolting - it’s wrong.
People claim that Zionists call all critics of Israel "antisemites." It was never true; legitimate criticism of Israel is not antisemitic in the least.
Dr. Allin-Khan's criticisms are clearly legitimate.
Her story shows that Israeli officials have no interest in hurting Palestinians. Their main concern, as with any country, is the security of their citizens. But there is no desire to hurt Palestinians, and if solutions can be found to help even the children of their enemies without endangering Israelis, the Israeli government not only wants to find them but has implemented hundreds of such ideas, big and small, every year.
The BDS crowd doesn't care about Palestinians. As these tweets show, including from some prominent BDS leaders, they are all about hate for Israel, not support for Palestinians. They are hypocritical. And, as even Dr. Allin-Khan notes, their hate is based on antisemitism.
BDSers assume that all Israeli Jews are murderers and racists and therefore must never even be treated as human beings. People who care about Palestinians know that Israelis must be their partners in helping mitigate the dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza. (They also know that Hamas and Fatah are responsible to a large extent on the problems in Gaza.)
Honestly, I respect Qatar more than the BDS crowd. Qatar, even with its support for Hamas, actually works with Israel to bring aid to Gaza - thereby violating the "BDS call" that so many idiots treat as sacred.
This episode is just one more that proves that BDS is nothing more than a hate group. And while they claim they are supporting Palestinians, when it comes down to it the only thing they love about Palestinians is to see them suffer - Palestinians are only useful when they can be used as PR weapons against Israel.
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 19 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
Fatwa: No, Pepsi Is NOT OK
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A new bottle design features blue and white, identified with Zionism.
The post Fatwa: No, Pepsi Is NOT OK first appeared on PreOccupied Territory.
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Thursday, September 03, 2020
Elder of Ziyon
