Showing posts with label Area C. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Area C. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Israeli medics at the scene of a fatal Palestinian car crash in 2017



From The New York Review of Books:

Heading Toward a Second Nakba
David Shulman
Nathan Thrall argues that the accident in which Abed Salama’s son died was a predictable, even inevitable, outcome of the Israeli occupation in its quotidian forms.

On a stormy winter day in February 2012, a Palestinian bus carrying schoolchildren on an outing collided with an Israeli trailer truck on the notoriously dangerous Jaba‘ Road near the West Bank village of A-Ram, not far from Ramallah. The bus burst into flames; six young children and one teacher were killed and others were seriously injured. Among the dead was Milad, the five-year-old son of Abed Salama, from the town of Anata. Nathan Thrall has made the story of that accident and that family the thread that binds together A Day in the Life of Abed Salama, a penetrating, wide-ranging, heart-wrenching exploration of life in Palestine under Israeli occupation. I know of no other writing on Israel and Palestine that reaches this depth of perception and understanding.

There is indeed something emblematic about the accident. The Jaba‘ Road is entirely within Area C, the 62 percent of the occupied West Bank that is under full Israeli control, where today there are close to two hundred settlements and settler outposts. Because of the nightmarish maze of roads in the Ramallah area—some of them closed altogether to Palestinians, others blocked by army checkpoints to keep Palestinians without special permits from entering Israel—rescuers were slow in reaching the site of the accident. They were also slow in evacuating the injured, many of them badly burned, to hospitals in Ramallah or inside Israel. Fire trucks, army medics, and ambulances were only a mile or two away in nearby Jewish settlements but failed to arrive quickly. Israeli ambulances coming from Jerusalem were held up for critical minutes at the checkpoints. Moreover, Palestinian neighborhoods in the vicinity of the Separation Barrier had (and some still have) almost no emergency or police services. As one of the Palestinian rescuers at the site of the accident later formulated what had happened: “If it had been two Palestinian children throwing stones on the road, the army would have been there in no time. When Jews are in danger, Israel sends helicopters. But a burning bus full of Palestinian children….”

...No one wanted to kill those children along with one of their teachers. Israeli rescuers and soldiers who finally reached the accident site did their best to save the injured. But the central point of Thrall’s narrative is that this disaster, like today’s ongoing violence in the Palestinian territories in general, was a predictable, even inevitable, outcome of the occupation system in its quotidian forms. It is a regime of state terror whose raison d’être is the theft of Palestinian land and, whenever possible, the expulsion of its Palestinian owners. I have seen this system in operation over the course of the past twenty-odd years.
I did not read the book, and probably won't. But this review already shows the incredible bias and the desire by Thrall to bend any evidence towards his foregone conclusion.

First of all, the driver of the Israeli truck was an Arab

An average of two to three Palestinian Arabs are killed every week in road accidents. In 2022, there were 144 fatalities in over 16,000 accidents. 

Palestinians acknowledge the epidemic of car accidents, and when they are not speaking to Westerners they blame themselves, not Israel, for these deaths. Ten reasons for Palestinian car crashes are listed in this article:

1- Narrow roads
2- Drivers who ignore traffic laws and basic safety, tailgating, passing vehicles on the opposite side of the road.
3- Not maintaining their cars.
4- Using a mobile phone while driving .
5- Low traffic awareness .
6- Young people and teenagers driving vehicles .
7- Drivers showing off.
8- Buildings being built right up to the roads.
9- Drug users who park their cars on the roads away from home.
10-  Vehicles from Israel, often that would not pass Israeli inspections, being sold or stolen and used.

Even in Israel, the majority of car accidents involve young Arab drivers. 

But what about the supposed delay of help for Milad and the other children? Wasn't that Israel's fault?

It doesn't seem to be true. News reports from the time say:

Following the accident, Palestinian health minister Fathi Abu Mughli accused Israeli rescue services of failing to provide timely assistance, resulting in more casualties. Ma’ariv reported that eyewitness report contradict Abu Mughli’s claim.

Israeli and Palestinian rescue teams transferred at least 30 casualties to hospitals in Ramallah, Petah Tikva and Jerusalem, Israel Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Israel Radio reported that it took rescue forces seven minutes to reach the scene of the accident
Thrall believed the Palestinian health ministry, which has a track record of lying, over the Israeli authorities. Which tells you all you need to know about his interest in the facts. 

In other accidents involving Arabs in Area C, Israeli and "settler" ambulances rush to the scene to help, indicating who is telling the truth.. 

Earlier this year a 12-year old Palestinian Arab boy in the West Bank was internally decapitated when he was hit by an Arab car, and doctors in Israel performed an extremely rare and delicate surgery to save his life. 

A similar horrific accident as Milad's from 2017 where there was a 3-way collision between an armored Israeli bus, a Palestinian minibus and a Palestinian car saw a swarm of Magen David Adom ambulances and an IDF doctor on the scene within minutes trying to save lives. 

In 2017, in another fatal West Bank car accident, a nine month old Arab baby survived while his father was killed and his mother unconscious. The baby refused to drink from a bottle so the Israeli Jewish nurse volunteered to breastfeed him. She put out a call on Facebook asking for other volunteers and Jewish women from as far away as Haifa wanted to help.

The "Jewish supremacy" and "racism" that Thrall takes as a given is an anti-Israel paranoid fantasy. Jews, even "settlers," help Palestinian Arabs in trouble, all the time. 

In other words, the very basis of Nathan Thrall's book is built on lies. And that is how anti-Israel writers like Thrall and the reviewer work: not only will they only look at selected evidence that supports their thesis - they will twist counter-evidence to pretend it is evidence. 

This supposed microcosm of Israeli evil is anything but. The only malicious actors in this little drama are Nathan Thrall and David Shulman.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, September 13, 2023



Palestinian site Safa reports:
In the last five years, the demand of Palestinians from the occupied interior to buy land and real estate in the occupied West Bank has increased.

The western towns of Ramallah, some villages of Salfit, the city of Rawabi, and Jericho witnessed a great demand by internal Palestinians to buy lands, own homes and apartments, and reside in them.

Palestinian citizens of the interior told Safa Agency that they resorted to buying land in the West Bank, due to the insane increase in land prices inside, as the price of one dunum jumped to one million dollars, which is equivalent to buying 30 dunams in some areas of the West Bank.
We have discussed that Israeli Arabs are buying homes in Palestinian Authority - administered areas before, and the hypocrisy of the "human rights" community to only condemn Jewish Israelis from buying property in the West Bank, but not Arab Israelis. 

But this article adds another wrinkle to the story - some of these Israeli Arabs are building houses in Area C!
[One resident] says that he needs 20 years to be able to buy a house inside Israel, so he bought a small plot of land in Area C in the West Bank and built a modest house on it....

Ahmad Melhem, head of the Land and Housing Defense Committee in Aara, says: “The phenomenon of Arabs from inside [Israel] tending to live in the West Bank has been present for several years and is expanding and increasing.”

Melhem explains to Safa some of the reasons and motives that lead the people of the interior to move to the areas of the West Bank, specifically Area C, which are due to the housing shortage and that 60% of the people of the interior do not own land, even one square meter, for building, and if they do exist, they are very expensive.

Melhem added, "The widespread crime, the lack of personal security, and the escalating cases of murder created a psychological factor that forced a number of citizens to seek refuge in the West Bank."
The biggest argument of the "apartheid Israel" crowd is that Israel applies a different set of laws to Jews and Arabs in the territories. Jews can vote in Israeli elections, Arabs can't. Jews are tried in civil courts, Arabs in military courts. And so on.

But the Israeli Arabs in Area C are treated exactly the same as the Israeli Jews! 

It has nothing to do with religion or "Jewish supremacy" and everything to do with citizenship. Like all countries, Israel discriminates against non-citizens. Period. 

This article in a pro-terror Palestinian news site proves better than anyone that the "apartheid" slander is a lie. 




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, July 04, 2023




From the EUISS webpage:
The European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) is the Union’s Agency analysing foreign, security and defence policy issues. Its core mission is to assist the EU and its member states in the implementation of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP), including the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) as well as other external action of the Union.  

One would think that the EUISS' analyses would be in line with mainstream EU thinking.

Last year, Algeria hosted a forgettable Arab League summit. The EUISS used this as a springboard to evaluate how well and how poorly the League of Arab States (LAS) does what it was meant to do - avoid intra-Arab wars, for example.

But one of its threads of analysis was quite concerning:

The LAS has lost credibility in recent decades due to the weakness of its institutional mechanisms,and its failure to translate the lofty statements of its leaders into action. The inability to take a united stance on the Palestinian issue, when several Arab leaders decided to normalise relations with Israel, is probably its most profound failure, especially given that an overwhelming majority of 88% of Arab citizens disapprove of their governments’ recognition of Israel, and only 6% accept a formal diplomatic recognition.

 It sure sounds like the EUISS is saying that a unified Arab consensus against even recognizing Israel is far preferable to a situation where some Arab nations establish relations. 

An official EU organization that apparently considers  several Arab states making peace with Israel to be a "profound failure" seems to be a pretty big deal. Does this mean the EU considers earlier peace between Israel and Jordan and Egypt to have been a net negative as well?

In fact, the EUISS site does not have any analysis of the Abraham Accords at all. Even though these agreements have been perhaps the most far-reaching change in the Middle East since the Iranian revolution, they do not merit a single article. 

The longstanding EU position is that the Palestinian issue is the center of any Middle East peace (the "linkage" claim)  and the Abraham Accords showed that this assumption has never been true, and indeed the Arab League was the impediment to peace by pretending that its members were obligated to act as a single anti-Israel bloc instead of in their own self-interests.

In 2020, the EASS  - the diplomatic service of the EU - officially welcomed the normalization agreements  without using the name "Abraham Accords," but then spent more time discussing how a two state solution should be the main goal and blamed only Israel for the lack of progress on that front. Whether it is stated formally or not, the EU position seems to be that Israel has no rights or legitimate claims to the Old City, Area C or any historic Jewish sites outside the Green Line. It appears that the EU regards the Abraham Accords as a net negative because they reduced diplomatic pressure on Israel on ceding its claims and they took the focus away from the "Palestinians are virtuous, Israel is intransigent" mantra that has been its foreign policy towards the conflict since the Palestinian refusal for peace and the second intifada.

(h/t Irene) 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, June 29, 2023

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 16— Haj Amin el Husseini, the exiled Mufti of Jerusalem, and his Arab Higher Committee have started. a move to create a solid belt of Palestine Arab settlements around Israel and prevent-the moving of refugees away from Israel borders.

This change of front has come with the present evident collapse of the. former insistence by the Arab League, the Arab Higher Committee -and the Arab governments on the return of Palestine Arab refugees to their original homes under the terms of a 1948 United Nations resolution.,

The Arab Higher Committee was the last to demand that the refugees must return to the territory now under Israeli control. This demand not only has been abandoned. for practical, as opposed to political, purposes but the Arab Higher Committee and certain Arab statesmen now are opposed to. any return of Palestine Arabs to Israel territory. This change has been brought about by the fact that Israel will accept only a few Arabs into their old home, and that it is better to avoid the impression that the Palestine case has been settled. by agreement for a few to return.

...Strongly nationalist elements apparently are rallying around the Mufti and the Arab Higher Committee’s program for a belt of thickly settled Palestinians surrounding Israel.

...‘The shift in. the Mufti’s policy was apparently connected with the enthusiasm which Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria displayed for the preservation of the independent Kingdom of Jordan, and their strong opposition to its unification with Iraq. The Palestinian element is becoming increasingly predominant in Jordan in which it constitutes not only some two-thirds of the. population but is an educated and trained element that is pushing the original Jordanians, largely of Bedouin stock, into the background.
At the time, UNRWA was actually trying to solve the problem: it was pushing hard for Palestinian Arabs to be resettled in areas of Syria and Lebanon where they would be given plots of land and could become financially independent. And Israel had agreed to allow tens of thousands of Arabs to return but only in conjunction with the Arab world naturalizing the rest. 

But the Mufti did not care about what was best for the Palestinian Arabs. He wanted to destroy Israel. If he couldn't flood Israel with hundreds of thousands of refugees, he intended to turn Jordan into a temporary Palestinian state whose only purpose would be to destroy Israel - and that included building settlements surrounding Israel where they could be used as a means to attack Israel from a short distance. 

While his entire plan was not realized, during the 1950s and 1960s Israel suffered numerous terror attacks from Palestinian "fedayeen" who lived in nearby communities in Syria, Jordan and Gaza.

The Mufti's plan still lives, though. The PA, with the EU, are building their own settlements non-stop in Area C specifically to block Israel from controlling the land it is supposed to control in the Oslo Accords. Hundreds of illegal structures and ramshackle communities have been built, and Palestinians moved in from Areas A and B, daring Israel to tear them down in front of the cameras. 

It is an updated version of the Mufti's plan for settlements being built in Judea and Samaria not to benefit Palestinian Arabs but to hurt Israel. 

(h/t Charles)



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, May 01, 2023

Last week, Haaretz published a supposed expose of Regavim, an NGO that insists that the Israeli government adhere to its own laws in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

The article didn't dig up any dirt. Regavim is quite open about its aims. But now the government has some former Regavim officials, and that is scary to Haaretz:


Haaretz is upset.

The article shows Regavim members documenting the huge amount of illegal Palestinian construction and painting their activities as being immoral. Yet they are doing exactly the same thing that Peace Now does with Jewish construction, something Haaretz heartily approves.

Given these facts, it seems Regavim’s operations are a factor in the government’s agenda. One example is a document entitled “The Plow Line – A Plan to Halt the Palestinian Takeover of the Open Territories in Judea and Samaria,” which was distributed to politicians ahead of the most recent election and outlined the organization’s strategy in the West Bank.

The document included a range of recommendations for the next government, some of which found their way into Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition agreement with Smotrich’s Religious Zionism party, such as launching “the campaign for the open areas,” a euphemism for Area C, the roughly 60 percent of the West Bank that contains Israel’s settlements and a large Palestinian rural population.
Area C was created to ensure the vast majority of Palestinians would remain under PLO political control. Since then, tens of thousands of Palestinians have illegally moved into Area C, with the cooperation of the EU, specifically to frustrate any Jewish building there. This isn't natural growth of the Palestinians who lived in Area C - this is having them move deliberately into areas they weren't supposed to be. 

Regavim attempts to combat that. And it uses the law to do that. I don't have statistics, but usually the Supreme Court rules in Regavim's favor, and the "right wing" government under Netanyahu attempts to avoid implementing the Supreme Court rulings.

For example, just today, the Supreme Court heard arguments concerning Regavim's petition to implement demolition orders at the illegal Khan al-Ahmar outpost  -which the court had ruled must be evacuated back in 2009! The state has been dragging its feet for 14 years, and is now claiming that it really wants to demolish the illegal outpost but it wants to choose an unspecified time to do it. 

This one case shows that things in Israel are not the simplistic black and white that Haaretz and other media claim. Here, the very government that Haaretz is worried is overrun by Regavim veterans is arguing against Regavim, and the Supreme Court that the media says is the only opposition to the right-wing government is taking the right wing position while the government is arguing against it. 

There seems to be a distinct unease that a right-wing NGO is doing what hundreds of left-wing NGOs are doing - and it is being effective. 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, April 25, 2023




Something happened this week that completely contradicts everything you've been reading about the current Israeli government - and the High Court.

From Haaretz
:The Supreme Court should reject a petition demanding the eviction of residents of the Palestinian village of Khan al-Ahmar, because the eviction involves “diplomatic and security considerations” that should be made by the Israeli government, according to a brief filed on Monday by Israel.

The government explained that it does eventually plan to carry out the demolition orders issued against the village, but wants to decide for itself when and how to do so.

Hold on.  Isn't this the "most right wing government in Israeli history"? Isn't the Supreme Court the last liberal holdout against total right-wing dictatorship?

As far as I can tell, over the years the Supreme Court has upheld the legality and importance of evacuating the illegal squatters on Area C land that was part of a military firing zone. And the governments of Israel have been trying to avoid that evacuation.

In other words, the exact opposite of what the narrative is. Not once since this whole thing went to court over the past ten years has the Supreme Court ruled that the residents have the legal right to remain there or that the State of Israel does not have the right to evict them from their illegally built homes. 

And the State of Israel has always petitioned to delay the demolition, at least until a plan is agreed to for the residents to move  - knowing quite well that the illegal squatters will never agree to move anywhere.

Meaning that Netanyahu is more left wing than the Supreme Court, and those who support the Supreme Court's independence should be supporting the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar - if they are being consistent, that it. 

Reality is a lot different from the simplistic narratives in the media. And politics beats out supposed "principles" every time.

 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, April 04, 2023

From Haaretz:
The Israeli ministry that oversees settlements intends to double the budget allocated to settlers for drones and inspectors to monitor Palestinian construction. The National Missions Ministry intends to allocate a total of 40 million shekels ($11.1 million) for this purpose.

In 2020 the National Missions Ministry – then the Settlement Ministry, and headed by Likud lawmaker Tzachi Hanegbi – announced for the first time that it would allocate 20 million shekels ($5.5 million) to these departments, to be disbursed among the settlements. The funds were eventually transferred much later, under the Bennett-Lapid government.

Under the leadership of National Missions Minister Orit Strock, that budget is projected to double. A recently published call for tenders stresses that the budget will only be allocated after the state budget is approved.
Good!

There are lots of Western NGOs who put everything Israel does in Area C under a microscope - while they ignore, or encourage, Arabs to build in the same area. 

The EU even puts its own name and logos on these illegal settlements, built nowhere near any infrastructure, positioned specifically to stop Jews from building - or to stop the IDF from being able to use existing military zones.

In 2016, I created this animation of satellite images showing a bunch of illegal structures being built. I've gone on tours and seen these structures up close - often with EU logos. 



Masafer Yatta, which is a favorite topic among the anti-Israel woke, is likewise a new community built in Area C - not an ancient Palestinian village being threatened.

It is hard to describe how prevalent this illegal building is without seeing it yourself. So this modest increase of funding to help document the many, many illegal Palestinian structures is a welcome development. 



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, March 15, 2023



Yesterday, Palestinian prime minister Mohamed Shtayyeh spoke to a crowd of supposed Harvard students in Ramallah. (I find it hard to believe that 300 Harvard students traveled to Ramallah with no other articles about them.) 

In his speech, he claimed that "the occupation earns more than 50 billion dollars annually from our occupied lands."

I had never heard this number before, and I was curious as to where he got it from. 

The closest I could find was a study released last December by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development that claims that "the contribution to the economy of Israel of settlements in Area C and occupied East Jerusalem is estimated at an average of $30 billion per year."

If that is Shtayyeh's source, then he's exaggerating by only 67%, which is pretty good for a Palestinian official.

But how did the UNCTAD study come up with its estimates?  Pretty much by magic.

Since 2016, UNCTAD has prepared about one report a year on the cost of the "occupation" to the Palestinian economy, using different methods each time and trying to out-do previous reports using increasingly sketchy methods.  This one is a doozy.

It relies on a method of estimating economic activity based on satellite images of areas at nighttime, Night Time Luminosity (NTL), a method that economists use to estimate GDP in poor countries where there is little hard economic data. It looks at how well lit up an area is at night to estimate its economic activity.

UNCTAD is using this NTL method to estimate the GDP of the Jewish localities in Area C.

For all the fancy graphs in the UNCTAD paper, it has nothing to do with reality.

First of all, NTL has been shown to be accurate only with respect to large urban areas, not to rural areas. This makes sense because large urban areas have industries that would directly correlate with economic activity.

Anyone who has driven through Area C in Judea and Samaria can see that there is very little industry there. The Jewish towns and villages are mostly commuter neighborhoods where most people have jobs within the Green Line and travel there every day. 

NTL methodology works in urban areas because it assumes that people live near where they work. Most of the large Jewish "settlements" are suburbs of Jerusalem. They should be considered part of a municipal Jerusalem, but UNCTAD looks at them as a separate "West Bank" with a completely separate economy. 

It is probable that UNCTAD knows this because it shows this image of the territories to indicate "settlement" economic activity, but it doesn't show how the main light sources are all surrounding the Jerusalem metropolitan area.



Here's a nighttime satellite map of Israel, with Jerusalem the large area on the right.



UNCTAD, by pretending that the economy of the "West Bank" is independent from Israel, is basing its statistics on a false premise.

But it's mandate is to come up with new ways to demonize Israel and make it look like it is destroying the Palestinian economy, so this is consistent with its anti-Israel mission.

Moreover, the Jewish towns across the Green Line must be highly illuminated - because of security! Palestinians regularly try to enter those areas to kill Jews. UNCTAD now uses the lights that are necessary for Jews to avoid being slaughtered as a tool to attack Israel. 

Neat trick, huh?

A significant part of the Palestinian economy is dependent on jobs in Israel, which pay more than double the average salaries of Palestinians within Areas A and B. But UNCTAD has never done a study of how a Palestinian state, which would presumably be totally separated from Israel because it would almost certainly be considered an enemy state, would make it difficult for Palestinians to reach their jobs in Israel would affect their economy. Instead, it creates a pseudo-scientific metric that is a complete fantasy.





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 


Tuesday, February 14, 2023



The UN's antisemitic Special Rapporteur for Attacking Israel, Francesca Albanese, tweeted this:

The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements & systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians amounts to “domicide”. This is nothing but Israel’s attempt to curtail Palestinians’ self-determination & threaten their very existence.   
She links to a report from the viciously anti-Israel Human Rights Council which says:

The international community must take action to stop systematic and deliberate housing demolition and sealing, arbitrary displacement and forced evictions of Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, UN experts* said today.

In the month of January 2023 alone, Israeli authorities reportedly demolished 132 Palestinian structures across 38 communities in the occupied West Bank, including 34 residential and 15 donor-funded structures. This figure represents a 135 percent increase, compared to the same period in 2022, and includes five punitive demolitions.

“The systematic demolition of Palestinian homes, erection of illegal Israeli settlements and systematic denial of building permits for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank amounts to “domicide”.

Here's the interesting part. The word "domicide" was coined last year by Balakrishnan Rajagopal, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to adequate housing. 

In his report he defined the term this way:

“The attacking, bombing and shelling of civilian targets, the razing of entire cities and villages – displacing millions into homelessness – have continued unabated despite the development of modern human rights and humanitarian law,” the UN expert said.

While international law outlaws all forms of arbitrary housing destruction, deportation, displacement and forced eviction, the Special Rapporteur noted an alarming continuity of gross violations of the right to adequate housing in times of conflict.

In a path-breaking report, Rajagopal urged States to recognise “domicide” - the systematic or widespread violation of the right to adequate housing – as an international crime of its own standing.

Rajagopal created the term to describe a much bigger issue than just destroying houses here and there. He's discussing the systematic destruction of entire cities and making thousands of people homeless just to hurt people:
“How many more Aleppos, Saanas and Mariupols must we endure? We must not allow those responsible for such egregious crimes to remain in positions of power. They must face international justice,” Rajagopal said.

This scene in Aleppo is what he means by domicide:


In the 17 or so years I've been reading Palestinian media, I have not once seen an article about a homeless Palestinian in the West Bank. 

Those who are building illegal houses in Area C already have houses in Palestinian administered areas. They aren't homeless! They are building these illegal, dangerous shacks in order to grab land from Israel - with European support. It is a purely political move. But they have a place to sleep at night even after Israel demolishes their homes. No one is living in a tent or in a car that I have seen.

This is not at all what Balakrishnan Rajagopal had in mind when he created the term.

Once the UN describes a new crime, the modern antisemites must hijack the term to apply it to Israel, of course, and pretend that Israel's demolishing illegally built houses - which is an obligation under the laws of occupation! - is the worst possible example of this crime.

And, let's face it, saying that Israel is guilty of "domicide" sounds so much more dramatic than "enforcing zoning laws."

By hijacking the issue, the UN's "experts" and Albanese have now cheapened the actual crimes of Syria, Yemen and Russia. Because antisemites insist that Jews are the worst people on Earth. 





Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Wednesday, February 08, 2023

Yesterday, EU High Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell spoke at the EEAS Conference on Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference about the dangers of Russian disinformation campaigns:

 Russia is using information manipulation and interference as a crucial instrument of this war. This war is not only [about] using explosives, bombs, bullets, killing people. It is about the mind of the people. It is about how to conquer the spirit, the intelligence, the understanding of the people. 

It is not new. It started with the [COVID-19] pandemic. When the pandemic came, we started speaking about “the battle of narratives”. This is a sentence as important as “the Geopolitical Europe”. The battle of narratives started with the pandemic at the latest. 

And, today, that is clear: this war is not only conducted on the battlefield by the soldiers. It is also waged in the information space, trying to win the hearts and minds of people.  

...This is a major threat for the liberal democracies, which are based on information. Democracy is a system that is based on the information that people have, because they made their choices – their political choices – according to their own perceptions and information that they receive about what is happening in the rest of the world. 

If the information is toxic, democracy cannot work. If information is manipulated, people don’t have a clear idea of what is going on. So, their choices are biased, and the information is the oil of the engine of democracy. We have to take care of the quality of information because is the sap, the blood, the oil, the thing that makes democracy work.  
The EU created an "EU vs. DisInfo" organization, with at least 16 full time staff, all to fight disinformation. Yet it begins and ends with Russian disinformation.

What about anti-Israel disinformation? Where is the EU on that?

The EUvsDisInfo report released yesterday shows a great graphic of how Russians are manipulating information. But it doesn't mention that anti-Israel forces use exactly the same methods.


Pallywood manipulation of photos and videos? Check. Overwhelming social media with anti-Israel memes? Check. Changing the context to not allow pro-Israel voices to make a point? Triple check. Using diplomatic methods to attack Israel? Not only the PA but many of its allies, check. 

But does the EU even notice anti-Israel propaganda techniques? No, they agree with their messages. And when they agree, they don't think they are being manipulated. For example, when Defence for Children Palestine says that Israel killed a child earlier this week, they won't bother to check whether the "child" was a member of a terror group.  (Yes, there are some that are too extreme for the EU, so they can pretend that they are discriminating between truth and lies.) 

 Anti-Israel lies - that Jews visiting the holiest Jewish space are a threat to peace, that illegal Palestinian outposts in Area C are legal while legal Jewish towns are illegal, that Palestinian NGOs have no terror links, that Israel is attacking civilians, that Palestinian attacks are all in response to Israeli "crimes" and wouldn't happen if they weren't "provoked"  - those lies are accepted by both official EU bodies and their media, and therefore the public.

The fact that they happen to align perfectly with traditional European antisemitism is just a coincidence, I'm sure.  

The fight against disinformation assumes that there is an objective truth. I agree. Yet the progressive crowd emphasizes that there is no truth, that narratives are the only acceptable form of reporting, and only certain narratives are acceptable. The EU vs. DisInfo site seems to state that there is objective truth when it comes to Russia, but it doesn't seem to have an issue when its own intelligentsia seems to embrace a post-truth worldview where narratives rule - especially when it comes to Israel. It would be interesting if they use their own methodology against the "progressive" narratives.

But they won't. 

(h/t Irene)


Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, January 24, 2023

From Ian:

Palestinians are playing the long game on world stage – Israel could lose
The United Nations General Assembly recently approved a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to render an opinion on whether the continuing Israeli occupation of the territories has become permanent, and in fact an annexation of the territories. In principle, the Court’s opinions are not binding, and its decisions cannot be directly translated into steps against Israel. However, in practice, the petition of the case to the ICJ is part of a broader Palestinian strategy, and in the present international climate is liable to have significant implications.

In recent years, the Palestinians have adopted the practice of involving international institutions in their conflict with Israel. These efforts include their appeal to the ICJ on the legality of the separation fence, a push for the establishment of international commissions of inquiry after every military operation in Gaza, complaints to the International Criminal Court that led to a pending investigation of Israeli actions related to the conflict, and a drive to have Palestine admitted as a member state of various international organizations.

The Palestinian activity in international organizations is coordinated and aggregate. For example, the General Assembly’s recognition of the State of Palestine in 2012 provided the basis for the determination that the International Criminal Court has the authority to investigate Israeli actions related to the conflict. An ICJ decision that the Israeli occupation is illegal would serve as the basis for additional proceedings against Israel.

Developments in Israeli law are also liable to affect the legal ramifications of the ICJ proceeding. In 2004, it published an opinion that the construction of the separation fence in the territories was a violation of international law. In practice, no steps were taken against Israel as a result of that ruling. A significant factor in Israel’s ability to fend off the opinion was the fact that the Supreme Court had looked into the issue and concluded that the fence was legal under international law. In several places, the Supreme Court even intervened and ordered that its location be modified in order to comply with international law.

However, it seems that the Supreme Court’s willingness to impose international law on Israel’s activities in the territories is no longer as resolute as in the past. In recent years, the court has refrained from intervening in issues related to international law. If the Override Clause is enacted, the Court’s authority to review Israeli actions in the territories will be weakened even more, and the Knesset will be able to pass legislation such as the Settlement Regulation Law, which the Court struck down in 2020. In this situation, it is quite likely that international tribunals will pay no attention to proceedings in the Israeli Supreme Court and not view them as a reason to refrain from investigating the issues.
PMW: The continuing lie of the “Gaza blockade”
In 2022, United Nations officials and reports, many countries and their representatives, and the Palestinian Authority continued to perpetuate the lie alleging that Israel has applied a “blockade” on the “besieged Gaza Strip.”

While the lie was commonplace and even often embellished by claiming that “Gaza is the biggest prison in the world,” statistics released by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the so-called “occupied Palestinian territory” (OCHA) reveal the truth.

According to the OCHA statistics, in 2022 there were 424,417 exits via the Erez crossing from Gaza into Israel. 14,909 exits were for Gazan patients, who were accompanied by 10,930 people, entering Israel to receive medical treatment. There were also 573 entries into Israel to visit imprisoned terrorists.

Alongside the entry of the Gazans into Israel, OCHA also reported that 74,096 truckloads of commodities entered Gaza from Israel via the Kerem Shalom crossing in 2022. According to the statistics, only 5% of the truckloads were carrying humanitarian products.

In addition to the 74,096 truckloads of commodities, thousands of trucks entered Gaza from Israel carrying fuel:

While statistics released by the Israeli Defense Ministry showed that from 2017-2021 Israel - incredibly - allowed 11,499 new vehicles into Gaza, the number of new cars that entered Gaza from Israel in 2022 has not yet been released.

The OCHA website further revealed that in 2022, in addition to the 424,417 exits from Gaza into Israel, there were an additional 245,145 exits from Gaza, via the Rafah crossing, into Egypt.

In addition to the movement of people, 32,353 truckloads of commodities also entered Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing. All the commodities that entered Gaza from Egypt were for commercial use. No humanitarian goods entered Gaza from Egypt.
A child of Oslo watches the Tel Aviv protests
Yet as a child of Oslo, born and raised in the dark years of rampant terror in which parents lost friends and friends lost parents, in which the obituary sections drove home realities that were decades premature, I have to ask myself: Does the Supreme Court really fulfill these functions in the name of protecting democracy and civil liberties? If so, shouldn't its decisions to rein in government policies be devoid of political bias?

In Oct. 1995, then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's government pushed the Oslo B agreement through the Knesset by a 61-59 majority. It did so by promising members of Knesset, from a right-wing party, positions in the government in exchange for their votes. Where were the calls for reining in majority rule back then?

At the time, the left was perfectly happy to win by the slimmest of majorities, however it was achieved. This was the case even though the ramifications of the vote were severe. They did not only threaten civil rights but the physical lives and safety of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Israelis.

Ten years later, I spent the summer of 2005 in Gush Katif in the Gaza Strip. I witnessed firsthand what it was like for the people there when Ariel Sharon turned his back on everyone who voted for him and rammed the disengagement plan through, firing anyone in his government who dissented.

Yet for some reason, the Supreme Court, sans Justice Edmond Levy, decided that it was not its place to interfere. It stood by as the government sent soldiers to expel citizens from their homes, crushing any semblance of their civil liberties.

Sadly, we are still paying for this decision to this day, with Hamas now ruling the dunes where once our hothouses bloomed.

This two-faced approach proves that we should not blindly accept the rhetoric employed by the protestors. This controversy is not really about civil rights or the strength of Israel's democracy. It's about power. Political power and judicial power. It is about people who want influence over the future of the State of Israel even when the majority of the people chose not to elect them.

It's hard to contain the feelings that bubble up when I hear friends on the left who supported Oslo and then the disengagement talk about how the Supreme Court is the defender of civil rights in this country. The Supreme Court proved otherwise when it abandoned the people of Gush Katif. They proved that their own politics supersede their supposed commitment to upholding the civil rights of all Israelis, making this argument against the reform null and void.

Wednesday, January 11, 2023



The classic definition of chutzpah is someone murdering his parents and then throwing himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan.

The European Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, said this weekend that Israel must pay reparations for structures it demolishes in the West Bank that were built with EU funding.

Lenarcic's remarks were in response to 24 European Parliament members who contacted the commission following Israel's intention to demolish dozens of houses in the West Bank villages of the Masafer Yatta area that were built with financial aid from the European Union or its member states.

"The European Union has repeatedly requested that Israel compensate for the loss of European taxpayers' money," members of parliament wrote to Lenarcic, adding that the commission itself confessed that its diplomatic requests to Israel were ineffective.

Lenarcic responded that "in a number of incidents, Israel has been asked to return or compensate for assets financed by the Union that that were destroyed, dismantled, or confiscated," and that the European Union is continuing to work in this regard through a range of diplomatic and political channels.
This is like demanding compensation from the police for confiscating the car you stole.

The EU-funded buildings are built illegally. Not only under Israeli law - but under international law!

Even if you call Area C "occupied," the occupier is mandated by the Geneva Conventions to maintain a system of laws in the territory. These buildings are built in violation of planning and zoning laws, haphazardly, almost always on public/state lands, with no roads and often stealing water. It is like deciding to build a house in the middle of Yellowstone National Park. 

I've seen these structures first-hand, proudly displaying the EU flag. 

The EU deliberately builds them in Area C, in areas that no Arabs or Bedoun have ever lived, in order to steal land from use by Israel. They move Arabs from Areas A and B, and bus students from those areas to schools they build in Area C. It is land theft.

And these illegal buildings are popping all over.

I once made an animation showing one brand new village in the Judean desert, funded by the EU and NGOs, and how it has been growing based on satellite images.


There is no infrastructure. With full EU support, the Arabs grab land, build shacks, and then claim that these are their ancient homesteads. 


Alan Baker, an international lawyer who took part in drafting the Oslo Accords in the Nineties, said that the EU’s actions were illegal.

‘The EU is a signatory to the Oslo Accords, so they cannot pick and choose when they recognise it,’ he said.

‘According to international law, all building in Area C must have permission from Israel, whether it is temporary or permanent.

‘The same principle applies anywhere in the world. If you want to build, you need planning permission.

‘The EU is ignoring international law and taking concrete steps to influence the facts on the ground.’

If there is any problem here, it is that Israel has not been pro-active enough in destroying the illegal buildings, empowering the Palestinians and the EU to keep building against international law.



Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Tuesday, January 10, 2023

From Ian:

Bassem Eid: The perpetual dictator and the missing peace: The story of Mahmoud Abbas
During these long 18-plus years, peace has eluded the region primarily through Abbas’s personal obstinance. In 2008, Abbas walked away from a third Israeli peace offer that would have relinquished Israeli control over the Old City, location of the holiest site in the Jewish faith, the Temple Mount. Under his rule, Palestinian public education and news media fully normalized and are even saturated in antisemitism, often featuring explicit calls for violence against Jews. Abbas’s public statements and speeches place all of the onus for peace on Israel, as the Anti-Defamation League’s Jonathan Greenblatt succinctly wrote: “The Abbas approach should be rejected by the international community, not merely because of its bias against Israel, but also because it recycled the same-old ideas that have pushed Palestinians down the pointless loop of delegitimizing Israel rather than the hard climb of reaching compromise.”

Over 2 million Palestinians live under the tyrannical power of Abbas’s PA in the West Bank, including me and many of the people I care most about. Abbas is the real occupier of our cities and our homeland, not our future partner Israel, which has consistently had a majority in favor of peace and not Benjamin Netanyahu, a leader who has explicitly supported the idea of a Palestinian state so long as Israel maintains the necessary security controls.

Abbas has offered us neither democracy nor independence, but we remain a free people. It is time for the Palestinian nation to reach a new agreement with Israel and the international community, abolishing the dictatorial rule of Abbas and the PLO and instead granting our people what we truly deserve: peace with dignity alongside our neighbor, the Jewish State of Israel.
Netanyahu government breaks sharply with predecessor in dealings with PA
On Jan. 5, Israel’s Security Cabinet approved a series of retaliatory measures against the Palestinian Authority. These included sanctions against senior Palestinian officials, the withholding of Palestinian funds collected by Israel and a halt to illegal Palestinian construction in Area C of Judea and Samaria.

The measures were swiftly implemented: Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki, on returning from a trip to Europe, found himself waiting in line at the Allenby Bridge crossing after Israel stripped him of his VIP pass. On Sunday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the transfer of $40 million in confiscated Palestinian funds to Israeli victims of terrorism, money that would have gone to support terrorists had it reached P.A. hands.

“The difference that we’re seeing, the actions of the government on all fronts, is really quite substantial,” IDF Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch, director of legal strategies for Palestinian Media Watch, told JNS.

The measures, coming less than two weeks into the tenure of the country’s new government, are partly a response to the P.A.’s orchestration of a vote at the United Nations on Dec. 30 calling on the International Court of Justice to render an opinion on the legal status of Judea and Samaria. (Al-Maliki’s VIP pass was reportedly confiscated because of a meeting he had at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.)

“What the government did is focus on punishing the P.A. leadership. The government is saying that there’s a cost and a consequence for these actions,” said Hirsch. “P.A. subversion at the United Nations is a complete and utter breach of the Oslo Accords. The VIP permits are a function of the Accords. There’s no reason why we should have to continue as if nothing happened. They have to pay the price,” he added.

Israel’s move to freeze taxes and tariffs it collects on behalf of the P.A.—and which the P.A. uses to award terrorists and their families as part of its “pay-for-slay” program—is also a welcome decision, according to Hirsch. An Israeli law to withhold the funds has been on the books since 2017, but only half-heartedly enforced, he noted. “This will be particularly effective and forceful with the P.A.,” he said, as it will cost them 100 million shekels ($28 million) a month.


US: Israel’s Withholding of Funds over Palestinian Terrorism ‘Exacerbates Tensions’
US State Department spokesman Ned Price on Monday described a series of Israeli measures meant to curb and punish Palestinian terrorism as a “unilateral move” that “exacerbates tensions.”

Israel’s Security Cabinet last week approved the measures in response to what it described as the Palestinian Authority’s ongoing “political and legal war” against the Jewish state. The previous week, the U.N. General Assembly, at the urging of the P.A., passed a resolution calling on the International Court of Justice to “render urgently an advisory opinion” on Israel’s “prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of Palestinian territory.”

“We have continued to make the point that unilateral actions that threaten the viability of a two-state solution, unilateral actions that only exacerbate tensions—those are not in the interests of a negotiated two-state solution,” said Price.

He added that Washington has “been consistent in our own strong opposition to the request for an ICJ advisory opinion concerning Israel…. We believe this action was counterproductive.”

As part of the measures, Israel on Sunday transferred $39.5 million of taxes and tariffs collected for the P.A. to the victims of terrorism and their families.

At a press conference, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “We promised to fix this, and today we are correcting an injustice. This is an important day for morality, for justice and for the fight against terrorism. There is no greater justice than offsetting the funds of the Authority, which acts to support terrorism, and transferring them to the families of the victims of terrorism.”
Palestinian Prime Minister calls new Israeli sanctions 'final nail in the coffin'

Monday, January 02, 2023

Bulldozers demolishing Jewish vineyard with illegally built mosque nearby, untouched


Here's a story that you won't ever see in the media. 

From a press release by Regavim (received via email):
This morning, the Civil Administration uprooted a Jewish vineyard near Yitzhar, only 300 meters away from an illegal mosque for which demolition orders were issued 15 years ago

The Civil Administration – under the auspices of the Ministry of Defense - uprooted a vineyard near the Yitzhar community this morning, following a petition submitted by Palestinian Arabs to Israel’s High Court of Justice. Despite the fact that no Arab ownership of the land on which the vineyard was planted, some four years ago, has ever been proven, the Jewish owners of the vineyard received a “Disruptive Land-Use Order.” This unique military order allows removal of agriculture, even when no conflicting claim of ownership is submitted or proven – and is used by the Civil Administration exclusively against Jews.  

Only 300 meters away from the uprooted orchard, in Area C on the outskirts of the nearby Arab town Burin, stands an illegal mosque for which the Civil Administration issued a demolition order over 15 years ago. The Regavim Movement appealed to the High Court of Justice to force the Civil Administration to enforce the demolition order, and the government gave its solemn commitment to uphold the law – but the illegal mosque stands, undisturbed, to this very day - and dozens of additional illegal structures have been built around it in the interim.  

Regavim’s spokesperson called upon Minister Betzalel Smotrich to tackle this absurdity on his very first full day in office: “The Disruptive Land-Use  Order is a draconian measure that has been applied in a wildly discriminatory fashion, and should be struck down without delay. This was the conclusion reached years ago by the Special Commission headed by Justice Edmond Levy, and we call upon Minister Smotrich to take this long-overdue step.”   

Moshe Shmueli, Regavim’s Field Coordinator for Judea and Samaria, added: “For 15 years, the Civil Administration has failed to enforce the law against nearby illegal Palestinian construction – despite its commitment to the High Court of Justice. On the other hand, it has taken swift, even brutal enforcement action and uprooted a Jewish vineyard, costing the owners hundreds of thousands of shekels in losses. The rule of law must be equal, or it cannot be called the rule of law. This morning’s demolition is one more example of how far off track the Civil Administration has strayed.”  
Arabs will take over whatever non-claimed land they can find in Area C, often with EU support. But often when Jews try to do the exact same thing, the Israeli Civil Administration steps in.

Regavim is not an anti-Arab organization. They just want the laws to be applied equally. 

Interestingly, Regavim has a decent chance to be heard in the new government - because its founder was Betzalel Smotrich. (h/t YMedad)




Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism  today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Thursday, December 29, 2022

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: Why Does the EU Disproportionately Fixate on Israel?
As part of its "Joint Strategy in support of Palestine," the European Union recently circulated a confidential document that proposes various measures to finance and advance monitoring, undercutting and undermining Israel's policies in Area C of the West Bank, including providing support and legal assistance to Palestinian residents prosecuting land claims in Israeli courts.

Under the 1993-1995 Oslo Accords, signed and witnessed by the EU, Israel and the Palestinian leadership (PLO) agreed to divide the West Bank areas of Judea and Samaria into three distinct areas of control and administration, pending the completion of negotiation on the permanent status of the territories. It was agreed that Area C would remain under Israel's full control, jurisdiction and administration.

In attempting to undermine and to intervene in Israel's legitimate and agreed-upon jurisdiction and governance in Area C, and in supporting Palestinian attempts to violate the Oslo Accords, the EU is in fact violating the terms of the very agreement to which it attached its signature as witness.

The EU claim that Area C is "to be preserved as part of a future Palestinian state in line with the Oslo Accords" is simply a mistaken and misleading interpretation of the Oslo Accords. They made no reference whatsoever to any "future Palestinian state" or "two-state solution." On the contrary, the Palestinian leadership and Israel agreed that the ultimate fate of the territories will be agreed upon in permanent status negotiations. No determination was made as to the outcome of such negotiations.

The EU document notes the EU's commitment to "contribute to building a Palestinian state within the 1967 borders." However, the Oslo Accords made no mention whatsoever of the 1967 borders. On the contrary, there has never been any 1967 border but an Armistice Demarcation Line established in the 1949 Armistice Agreements. These agreements stated specifically that the Armistice Demarcation line was not intended to constitute a border but rather a temporary line separating the forces pending negotiation of peace agreements.

It is high time that Israel's government take a far more assertive role in clarifying to the EU and its member states that the anti-Israel fixation of its staff and its actions in undermining Israel's legitimate authority and jurisdiction in Area C will no longer be tolerated.
Face it, the United Nations Is Antisemitic
The UN General Assembly passed 15 resolutions critical of Israel in 2022, compared to 13 resolutions for all other countries. Since 2015, the UN General Assembly has passed 136 resolutions critical of Israel, compared to 58 against all other nations combined. Selectively holding Israel to a higher moral standard than all other nations is classic antisemitism because its real purpose is to delegitimize the world's only Jewish state.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said, "The UN's automatic majority has no interest in truly helping the Palestinians, nor in protecting anyone's human rights. The goal of these ritual, one-sided resolutions is to scapegoat Israel."


How the EU Is Undermining International Law in the West Bank
The 1995 agreement known as Oslo II divided the West Bank into three parts: Area A, to be administered directly by the Palestinian Authority (PA); Area B, to be administered jointly by the PA and Israel; and Area C, to be controlled directly by Israel pending further negotiations. In July, the European Union’s mission in eastern Jerusalem produced a document, recently leaked to the press, stating the EU’s commitment “to contribute to building a Palestinian State within 1967 borders,” and outlining a program to build Palestinian settlements in Area C even where not authorized to do so by Israeli law. Jenny Aharon writes:

The EU . . . insists that its positions are based on meticulous compliance with international law, its own laws and charter, and also the Oslo Accords. This claim is surely [belied] by the leaked document in which we can see an activist EU striving to help the Palestinians take over Area C, the very area that is designated to Israel’s control per the Oslo Accords preliminary agreement which the EU claims to uphold.

The claim [made by the EU] is that the construction is meant for humanitarian ends and is not politically motivated. Yet the EU construction takes place in locations that are highly sensitive, precisely for the purpose of creating new facts on the ground and preparing the area for a Palestinian takeover without any final peace agreement.

Oftentimes the political motivation [of EU-funded construction projects] is obvious, as it is conducted without permits and in such places where Israel has no choice but to demolish it—for example, a school adjacent to a dangerous highway or in places where there are no facilities and thus are not considered habitable environments. The political motivation becomes even more obvious as the document explicitly states the EU’s plan to curb Israel’s archeological activities in order to minimize the Jewish connection to the land.

Moreover, the EU does not seem to consider building in Area A and Area B where all they would need is a permit from the Palestinian Authority. Apparently, in those areas, there is no need for humanitarian aid at all.
Palestinian Authority Paved Illegal Highway in Gush Etzion with Foreign Funding
The Gush Etzion Regional Council and local residents recently discovered the construction of a highway starting at Za’atara village, 11 km southeast of Bethlehem in Gush Etzion, north of the Herodion site, and reaching into the Judean Desert. At the start of the new road stands a sign in Arabic saying it was paved with foreign funding and assistance from the Palestinian Authority.

Mind you, the new highway is built in an agreed upon safeguarded reserve area, where roads and buildings are not allowed to be constructed per the Oslo Accords.

According to the Gush Etzion Regional Council, the road is another part of the ongoing effort to damage the contiguous Jewish territory in Gush Etzion. It provides access to new, illegal Arab neighborhoods in the Gush Etzion area, facilitating faster development.

Back in 2009, Salam Fayyad, then prime minister of the Palestinian Authority and its finance minister, issued the “Fayyad Plan,” aimed at creating facts on the ground, especially in Area C, with major international support, to transform international recognition of a de facto Palestinian state into a de jure state should Israel fail to deliver on its Oslo promises. Over the past 13 years, with increasing speed, the PA has been pursuing Fayyad’s policy, often with the tacit approval of the IDF civil administration and most defense ministers in Netanyahu’s and Lapid’s governments.

The Gush Etzion Regional Council says the paved road was built on preserved territories which the Palestinian Authority undertook in the Oslo Accords not to build homes or roads. Naturally, they had no intention of keeping their commitment, and Area C, especially near the robust Gush Etzion Jewish community, is flooded with illegally built PA homes and roads.

AddToAny

EoZ Book:"Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism"

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



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.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

subscribe via email

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Blog Archive