Palestinians near the rock bottom of press freedom. Why is no one talking about this?

On May 3, Reporters Without Borders released their annual rankings of World Press Freedom.

No one seems to have noticed that the abysmal record of the freedom of media in the Palestinian territories plummeted even further.

In the 2021 rankings, "Palestine" came in as #132 out of 180 with a score of 56.82.

In 2022, it fell to #170 with a score of 28.98.

Here are the countries that it is comparable to:

166 Saudi Arabia 33.71

167 Bahrain 30.97

168 Egypt 30.23

169 Yemen 29.14

170 Palestine 28.98

171 Syria 28.94

172 Iraq 28.59

173 Cuba 27.32

174 Vietnam 26.11

175 China 25.17

The media generally regards any news that comes out from China or Yemen or Syria or Saudi Arabia as being automatically suspect because everyone knows that those countries have heavy control of the media, both direct and indirect. Their official statements are treated like the propaganda it is.

Yet statements from the Palestinian Authority - the organization that controls and limits the media - are still treated respectfully. Their media is quoted as if they are Western-style liberal outlets when in fact they are suppressed and threatened if they say the wrong thing. And the readers of these Western articles that quote Palestinian sources are never told that the media is suspect.

Even worse, the prevailing atmosphere under both Palestinian Authority and Hamas rule is that everyone knows there are certain things they simply cannot say, as a reporter or to a reporter. In recent days I showed that Palestinian journalists and eyewitnesses are well aware that there were other militants in Jenin near where Shireen Abu Akleh was - but they will never say that to CNN or AP. Once the official narrative is established, you won't find anyone to publicly contradict it. I've documented dozens of cases of "eyewitnesses" who know what they are allowed to say and what they are not. 

Also not mentioned in the report is that even foreign media is threatened to toe the government line, especially but not only in Gaza.

Perhaps the most absurd part is that the EU and UNESCO marked World Press Freedom Day with the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate in Ramallah this year, barely mentioning how terrible the situation is - but quick to blame Israel for the majority of issues with Palestinian press freedom.

The Palestinians have a narrative of blaming everything on Israel and downplaying the complete lack of freedoms under the Palestinian Authority and Hamas  - and the world happily plays along, even when they know the truth. 

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Amnesty and its Israeli Collaborators (Vic Rosenthal)

Weekly column by Vic Rosenthal

The recent Amnesty International report which accuses Israel of apartheid and crimes against humanity is demonstrably dishonest, tendentious, and so lacking in context to be unworthy of serious consideration. Indeed, it has even been called “a paradigmatic example of anti-semitism [sic].” But this will not prevent its use as a weapon in the ongoing diplomatic and legal war being waged against Israel in the UN. As Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor wrote,

These groups [Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, B’Tselem]—through their personal connections and singular influence at the U.N. Human Rights Council, and the acquiescence of Europe—instead will simply get U.N. Special Rapporteur Michael Lynk and the Navi Pillay-headed Commission of Inquiry [COI] to uncritically adopt their claims and mark them with the U.N. stamp of approval in the next few months. Unsurprisingly and in keeping with his history of anti-Israel activism (as well as in violation of U.N. rules), although he is ostensibly currently conducting an independent and objective investigation of apartheid, Lynk promoted the group’s report on Twitter. There is no doubt that the COI will act in a similar fashion.

Here are a few of Amnesty’s dozens of recommendations (p. 272ff.): Israel must repeal its nation-state law, “relocate” Jewish residents from areas outside 1949 armistice lines, cancel evictions of Arabs (for nonpayment of rent) and change the law so that “Palestinians” are not subject to “forced eviction,” grant recognition to all “unrecognized villages” in the Negev (i.e., legalize squatting on state land), remove all restrictions on freedom of movement of people and goods into and out of the Gaza strip, punish officials and military personnel for their “violations of international law” and “crimes against humanity,” and – last but not least:

Recognize the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes where they or their families once lived in Israel or the OPT, and to receive restitution and compensation and other effective remedies for the loss of their land and property.

It should be clear from the above that Amnesty’s objective is no less than the end of Israel as a Jewish state, and its replacement by an Arab-majority state. Nevertheless, we can expect in short order UN resolutions calling for sanctions on Israel and attempts to prosecute Israeli officials and IDF officers in accordance with Amnesty’s recommendations.

The accusations contained in the report constitute a große Lüge, a “big lie.” They are “supported,” in a parody of scholarship, by citations from their own previous reports, from anti-Israel UN agencies like the notorious Human Rights Commission, from documents provided by the so-called “State of Palestine,” from interviews with Palestinians, from the work of anti-Israel academics, and of course from numerous NGOs, including those that were recently outlawed in Israel because of their links with the terrorist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Amnesty is the largest player in the world-wide “human rights” industry. The organization operates in numerous countries and has an overall budget of close to $US 300 million. It started out in the 1960s with a pro-Western orientation, perhaps receiving funds secretly from the British government and the CIA. At some point it became more critical of the West; in 2011, it called for George Bush to be prosecuted over the treatment of 9/11 detainees. In recent years, it has focused disproportionately on alleged human rights abuses by Israel, perhaps as a result of hiring a number of anti-Israel activists for key positions. Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general since March 2021, recently had to disavow a tweet she made in 2013, idiotically accusing Israel of poisoning Yasser Arafat.

But Amnesty’s biased researchers had significant help on the ground. The Zionist group Im Tirtzu (disclosure: I’m a member and donor) analyzed the Amnesty report and found that 77% of the citations from various NGOs in the report came from 16 Israeli organizations, which are heavily funded by foreign money, mostly from the EU and its constituent governments. They are the usual suspects; B’Tselem, Adalah, Ir Amim, HaMoked, Peace Now, and others. Over the past 10 years, these groups have raked in more than half a billion shekels ($US 171 million) from the European Union and its constituent governments. B’Tselem alone got more than 62 million shekels ($US 19 million).

This is a huge sum and should be a scandal of major proportions. These organizations, despite having almost no support among Israel’s Jewish population, are able to exert great pressure in the legal and political realms. They have petitioned the Supreme Court to dismantle communities built over the Green Line, to prevent the demolition of the homes of convicted terrorists, to prevent the deportation of illegal residents, and so on. They seem to have good access to the Israeli media, as illustrated by the recent B’Tselem and Peace Now campaign to mainstream the idea that there is an outbreak of “settler violence.” But most importantly, they produce a steady flow of accusations against Israel to the international media and to foreign governments.

Whenever there is a military conflict, they swing into action to provide respectability to the propaganda from Israel’s enemies; and they provide the fodder for international condemnations of Israel, as happened in 2009 with the Goldstone Report. Much of the material they supply is simply a repetition of claims made by the PA and Hamas, which achieve credibility through the “halo effect” created by their passing through a supposedly disinterested NGO.

Why does the EU pay to maintain subversive anti-state organizations in Israel? Some of the officials involved may actually believe that they are advancing the cause of human rights. On a few occasions, when the connection to terrorism has been blatant, the EU or a government has suspended funding for a particular group. But they appear to be fine with the idea of supporting the Palestinian cause, the dissolution of the Jewish state, at least when no guns or bombs are directly and immediately involved. I believe that there is a deep feeling in Europe, possibly going back long before there was a Palestinian cause (or even Palestinians), that the world would be better off without Jews or, even more so, their state. Antisemitism has somehow morphed into humanism.

And why does Israel permit her enemies to support a subversive fifth column inside the state? I don’t know. Big money corrupts. Maybe enough Israeli politicians have personal connections to these NGOs, and they or friends and family benefit from them, and that’s why the laws that have been passed to regulate foreign money are weak and toothless. Maybe now, after the damage has been done, the Knesset will take action.

The Amnesty report is just another libel against the Jewish people, like the medieval blood libels and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. There is little that the State of Israel can do to silence its external enemies. But it does not have to allow them to pay her home-grown quislings to do their dirty work.

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01/09 Links Pt1: Netanyahu: Israel thwarted 'major' terror attacks in Europe involving planes; Palestinian Authority paid terrorists nearly $350 million in 2017

From Ian:

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Netanyahu: Israel thwarted 'major' terror attacks in Europe involving planes

Israeli intelligence has thwarted mass terrorist attacks in Europe that “involve civil aviation,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday, in a possible reference to September 11-type attacks planned against European targets using hijacked aircraft.

Netanyahu, speaking in Jerusalem to ambassadors of NATO countries, said that the world is threatened by radical Sunni groups, initially led by al-Qaeda, but now by Islamic State, and radical Shi'ites led by Iran.

“When we talk about ISIS, it's important to understand that Israel helps Europe in two fundamental ways,” Netanyahu said.

“The first is that we have, through our intelligence services, provided information that has stopped several dozen major terrorist attacks, many of them in European countries. Some of these could have been mass attacks, of the worst kind that you have experienced on the soil of Europe and even worse, because they involve civil aviation. Israel has prevented that, and thereby helped save many European lives.”

He did not elaborate. Netanyahu has said numerous times in the past that Israeli intelligence has helped thwart numerous terrorist attacks in Europe.

JPost Editorial: Shut down UNRWA

The US under the leadership of President Donald Trump is rightly reconsidering the logic of funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine – at least as it operates presently.

Some $125 million, which makes up about a third of the United States’ annual support for the organization, has already been frozen.

Judging from a tweet by Trump that preceded the decision to freeze aid, it seems the US president wants to make funding conditional upon Palestinian cooperation in helping to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Trump’s concern is legitimate. UNRWA, which has been around since 1949, was supposed to be a temporary solution, until the “Palestinian refugee problem” was sorted out. But with the Palestinian Authority refusing to cooperate with the US in solving the problem, there is little reason for the US to continue footing the bill for the agency indefinitely.

We can think of a few additional reasons why UNRWA – which employs 11,500 employees in Gaza alone – should be radically revamped, if not disbanded altogether.

The first problem is that UNRWA perpetuates the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. While the original Palestinian refugees from 1948 – both those who left their homes willingly and those who were forced – might legitimately have deserved refugee status, why should their grandchildren or great-grandchildren share that status? Most other refugees are cared for by the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, and their status is not passed on to grandchildren or great-grandchildren. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have their own agency.

This leaves millions of Palestinians in a state of limbo. Instead of getting on with their lives, the Palestinians in places like Gaza continue to grasp a false dream of one day returning to Jaffa, Haifa or Jerusalem. This also allows the kind of apartheid that takes place in Lebanon, where more than one million Palestinians live without official status. They do not have Lebanese citizenship and are confined to dismal refugee camps where terrorism and crime thrive. But because they are refugees, the Lebanese government can wash its hands of having to integrate them into society.

All this can change if UNRWA is reformed or shut down. While UNRWA is an organization that nominally is dedicated to transforming refugees into fully self-sufficient individuals, it has allowed the myth of the “right of return” to persist. Within UNRWA it is heretical to say that repatriation to Israel is unrealistic.

Palestinian Authority paid terrorists nearly $350 million in 2017

The Palestinian Authority paid terrorists and their families over $347 million last year, according to its own records, the Defense Ministry reported to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Tuesday.

The average income of a Palestinian is $580 per month, which is what the PA pays terrorists who are sentenced to three to five years in prison.

The PA pays terrorists who are sentenced to 20 years or more in prison – in other words, those who committed more severe crimes, and likely were involved in killing Israelis – five times that each month for the rest of their lives.

Terrorists who are Israeli citizens receive a $145 bonus, which, when added to the amount PA pays for the most severe crimes, comes to over $2,900, more than the average Israeli income of around $2,700 per month. There are also increases in pay for being married and for each child a terrorist has.

Palestinian terrorists' income per month. (JPOST STAFF)Palestinian terrorists' income per month. (JPOST STAFF)

Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said, “The PA pays over a billion shekels a year to terrorists and their families, thus encouraging and perpetuating terror.”

“The minute the amount of the payment is decided according to the severity of the crime and the length of the sentence – in other words, whoever murders and is sentenced to life in prison gets much more – that is funding terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens. There is nothing that better illustrates the PA’s support for terror. We must stop this,” Liberman said.

Defense Ministry drafts bill to cut PA funds over terrorist stipends

The Defense Ministry on Tuesday publicized a draft bill that would deduct welfare payments paid out by the Palestinian Authority to Palestinian prisoners and their families from the tax revenues Israel transfers annually to the PA.

“The Palestinian Authority pays over a billion shekels a year to terrorists and their relatives, thereby encouraging and perpetuating terrorism,” Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said in a statement. “The moment the payments are set based on the severity of the crime and the prison sentence, namely that those who murder and are sentenced to life receive a lot more, this is [tantamount to] funding terror attacks against Israelis.”

The bill, which targets cash payments by the PA to jailed or injured terrorists and their relatives, will also apply to Palestinians who committed other crimes for which they are being compensated by the PA, the ministry said in a statement.

The Palestine Liberation Organization gives monthly payments to all Palestinian prisoners jailed in Israel, no matter the reason for their incarceration, and also to families of so-called “martyrs” — a term used by the PLO to refer to anyone killed by an Israeli, whether the person was killed attacking Israelis or an innocent bystander.

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Hillary Bids for Jewish Support (Mike Lumish)

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Hillary Clinton has a recent piece in The Forward entitled, How I Would Reaffirm Unbreakable Bond With Israel — and Benjamin Netanyahu.  Despite her role in the most anti-Israel administration in American history, Clinton wants us to believe that she cares about Israel, has an "enduring emotional connection" to the land and its people, and has done all sorts of good work in supporting the Jewish state.


She tells us:

I have stood with Israel my entire career. As a senator, I fought to get Magen David Adom accepted to the International Red Cross when other nations tried to exclude the organization. I wrote and co-sponsored bills that isolated terror groups, and pushed to crack down on incitement in Palestinian textbooks and schools. As secretary of state, I requested more assistance for Israel every year, and supported the lifesaving Iron Dome rocket defense system. I defended Israel from isolation and attacks at the United Nations and other international settings, including opposing the biased Goldstone report.

Although I do not distrust Hillary's intentions toward Israel, you know what they say about good intentions and the direction of its paving.  It is her foreign policy ideology that I do not trust.  It is her unwavering belief in the ongoing failed Oslo nonsense.

It is the likelihood that after eight years of Obama's antics we will get more of the same from Hillary.

She reminds us that "in 2012 I led negotiations for a cease-fire in Gaza to stop Hamas rockets from raining down on Israeli homes and communities."

The is sort-of true.  Clinton did lead the cease-fire effort at the time, but its primary effect, whatever its intention, was to save Hamas from Israeli retaliation.  If Clinton was interested in preventing Hamas rocketeers from ruining the lives of Israeli children then she might not have waited until the moment that Israel started shooting back before interfering.  Hamas sent thousands of rockets into southern Israel in the years preceding that engagement and if Hillary was so opposed she might have used her influence to see about de-funding the Jihadi organization.

She didn't.

Aside from outlining the various ways that she has been allegedly friendly to Israel in the past, she also assures us that she will be friendly to Israel in the future.

And while no solution can be imposed from outside, I believe the United States has a responsibility to help bring Israelis and Palestinians to the table and to encourage the difficult but necessary decisions that will lead to peace. As president I will never stop working to advance the goal of two states for two peoples living in peace, security and dignity.

This is the big problem.

And it is why no one who cares about the well-being of the Jewish State of Israel, or the well-being of Jewish people, in general, should support Hillary's campaign for president.  Hillary, like Barack Obama, is a devotee of the Oslo Delusion.  We already know how this movie is going to end because we have seen it many times before.

It looks something like this:

1) The US and the EU demand negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

2) The parties agree to talk and then the PA, the US, and the EU demand various concessions from Israel for the great privilege of sitting down with the PA's foremost undertaker.

3) Israel fails to meet all the concessions, thus causing the PA to flee negotiations, which they never had any intention of concluding to begin with.

4)  The PA and the EU and the left-leaning American administration place the blame for failure at Jewish feet.

5)  The EU and various European countries announce additional sanctions, thereby essentially joining the anti-Semitic anti-Zionist BDS movement.

6)  Jihadis seek to murder Jews.
We are in phase number six of the current round at this particular moment... as anyone who cocks their head out the car door window in Jerusalem, and listens to the screams, will attest.  Young Arab-Muslim men are running around Israel stabbing old Jewish ladies and young Jewish children and many in the West believe Israeli Jews richly deserve it.  Part of the reason that many in the West, particularly on the Left, think that Arabs have every right to kill Jews is because people like Barack Obama and his administration constantly blame Arab violence on their Jewish victims.

For years, Barack Obama - and people who think like him - have essentially told the world that the real problem is that Jews are so arrogant that they think that they should have the right to build housing for ourselves in Judea... not to mention Samaria.  Thus, suddenly, the word "settler" begins to gain evil connotations and the Jewish people are encouraged to split between those of us who oppose these evil settlers and those of us, being evil ourselves, support the evil settlers.

I support the evil settlers.

That land and those hills represent the very heartland of the Jewish people and no one is going to tell me that Judea belongs to the Arab conquerors of Jewish land.  Since at least the Peel Commission of 1937, the Jewish people in the Land of Israel have, over and over again, demonstrated their willingness to share what little bit of Jewish land there is with their hostile neighbors.

Time and again they were rebuked.

What Hillary Clinton needs to understand, and what Barack Obama never learned, is that this is not a war over land.  It is a centuries-long Arab-Muslim imposition of imperial supremacy upon all non-Muslims, most particularly those that they call the children of orangutans and swine, i.e., the Jewish people.

What Hillary Clinton needs to understand is that while Israeli-Jews are not victims, because they refuse to be victims, this does not mean that they are oppressors, either.  It is the Arabs, not the Jews, who have turned that particular human tendency into an art-form.

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Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

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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 11 years and over 22,000 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.

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Book Review: "Catch the Jew"

I mentioned recently that I was reading Tuvia Tenenbom's "Catch the Jew" and that it was great.

Tenenbom, who grew up Haredi in Bnei Brak and left Judaism and Israel, returned to Israel to write this book of his impressions as he met people around the country.. He goes where the wind (and his stomach) takes him, usually playing a German journalist, asking innocent and simple questions from people who aren't used to being questioned at all.

Arabs, upon hearing that he is German, often welcome him as a fellow antisemite. To an extent, so do some of the  never ending stream of Europeans who visit Israel and the territories to spend money against Israel. And that is exactly what they are doing - not trying to help Palestinians but to hurt Israel.

The book is amazing. It beautifully deconstructs the current culture of the Israel-hating crowd, from within and without Israel.

Every page has examples of malicious Europeans, lying Arabs and clueless (or self-hating) Israeli Jews. Here are only a tiny percentage of the many anecdotes that Tenenbom mentions - each of which would be worth an entire blog post or article.:

• An Al Quds University professor tells Tenenbom that Israel won't allow the university to paint a small spot on the ceiling, and hours later he sees that the Israel is allowing the EU to spend 2.4 million euros to refurbish a Turkish bathhouse in east Jerusalem. 
• As he walks from the Mount of Olives to Gethsemane, he sees the remains of thousands of Jewish gravestones lining the road, with Hebrew letters still visible.
• Hanan Ashrawi says that Palestinians have lived there for "hundreds of thousands of years." She also gets upset when Tenenbom asks her why the Christian population has diminished so quickly under PA control. 
• A PA spokesman, when asked for his definition of Palestinian culture, says "Tolerance and coherence." Tenenbom then asks him why he cannot smoke in public on Ramadan. "It is about respect." Tuvia then tells him that Ashrawi said that twenty years earlier, Christians could smoke on Ramadan in the daylight.
• A Palestinian woman describes how Israel oppresses her but then mentions that she got free university education in Israel.
• He relates to a Jewish liberal lady how intolerant the Arabs in Ramallah are, She insists that he is lying. He asks her how many times she's been in Ramallah and the answer is zero.
• An Israeli leftist professor says she has studied Judaism for years and years. He then asks her a basic Bible question that stumps her.
• Tenenbom sees multi-million dollar mansions in Hebron, with plaques outside saying that they are being paid for by the EU.
• Gideon Levy describes how wonderful Palestinians are and how terrible Israeli Jews are. But he admits when questioned that he does not have a single Palestinian friend.
• The Palestinian Antiquities Minister, when asked, makes it clear that she really wants all Jews to leave Israel even if she can't say it out loud.
• There is an  EU-funded trip to Yad Vashem hosted by an "ex-Jew" who tells his tourists that Israelis just as bad as the Nazis were - and that Herzl died of syphilis.
• Jibril Rajoub tells Tanenbom that the reason the EU funds "pro-Palestinian" NGOs is so that they won't get terror attacks like they did in the '70s.. (He backtracks when asked to clarify.)
• Rabbi Arik Asherman, of "Rabbis for Human Rights," is exposed as being ignorant of the basics of the Torah, lying about his organization being apolitical, and shown to simper as the Arabs he pretends to love mercilessly treat him like dirt.
• Tenenbom goes to Al Quds University to attend a "human rights competition" but finds out that it is a scam - the EU pays for competitions that are never held. (After this book was published, I saw that one was held the following year.)
• An ICRC spokeswoman gets caught in a lie when she says she saw Israeli soldiers beat up a diplomat with her own eyes, then admits she wasn't anywhere near the alleged event.(In fact, the diplomat attacked the IDF.)
• A movie house in Jenin is generously funded by Europeans, but has practically no customers.
• A highly educated Jewish couple are told by their Arab friends that soon the land will be free of Jews, one of them had been gang-raped by an Arab gang and an old Arab friend had sexually abused their granddaughter. But the husband insisted that they really wanted peace. (After prodding, the wife admitted that they were fools.)
• After much discouragement, Tenenbom visits.a run-down Bedouin shack in the Negev, and finds that while the outside is ugly, the inside is like paradise.

Tenenbom sees all of this and is amazed, and eventually angry. He exposes diplomats who behave the exact opposite of how diplomats should act, journalists who don't ask the simplest questions, and NGOs who pretend that they care about oppressed people yet would never, ever give a dime to a poor or oppressed Jew (or Egyptian or Yemeni, for that matter.)

The entire situation is quite literally theater, where everyone plays their parts and everyone denies the obvious - because the truth would destroy the illusions that so many people have invested their lives in. Tenenbom's genius is to expose the obvious to the players themselves, who react with anger or denial. Their world is surrounded with like-minded unthinking drones and they cannot abide a truth-teller, often reacting by accusing Tuvia of being a Jew. It is very clear that they would not act the way they act  or say the things they do initially if they knew he was Jewish. (At one point, a Norwegian asks him "Are you a J-" and Tenenbom lets the question hang there for a minute before saying he is German. The man, who had claimed that he is there because of a long tradition of Norwegian care about the poor and downtrodden, then admits that his country collaborated with the Nazis and deported their Jews, who were presumably not poor or downtrodden.)

The author also exposes Jewish charlatans and extremists, but his main target remains the self-delusional (or knowingly deceptive) Leftists and Arabs.

In the end, Tenenbom is pessimistic about the long-term prospects of Israel, given that he has seen so many Jews who have aligned with their enemies. However, he does not seem to realize that his methods of research - while very entertaining - are not a representative sampling of Israelis (nor Arabs.) Most Israeli Jews who are proud of their country and work to make it successful are not the ones who are hanging around in areas Tenenbom frequents. Most Israelis are normal and see quite clearly what kind of neighborhood they are in; but they are not as entertaining as the hypocrites at Haaretz or the latte-drinkers in Tel Aviv, so there was less effort to reach them.

All in all, this book is a must-read.

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EU to build desalination plant in Gaza. Guess who is opposed?

AFP reports:

The European Union and UNICEF launched a project Thursday to build a desalination plant in the Gaza Strip to provide 75,000 Palestinians with drinking water.

A joint statement said the project will be implemented by UNICEF thanks to a 10-million-euro ($13.7-million) EU grant.

Just 5.8 percent of Gaza households have good quality water because of increased salinity caused by sewage infiltration of groundwater, according to a statement released Thursday by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics ahead of World Water Day on Saturday.

“Access to clean water is a fundamental human right for all. And yet many Gazans face acute water shortages on a day-to-day basis,” EU representative John Gatt-Rutter said as the first stone was laid for the project.

“Others can only access water of very poor quality,” he added, saying the new plant “offers the prospect of access to clean water for many thousands of families”.

The plant at Deir al-Balah in the center of the territory is expected to become operational in 2015, and will supply fresh water to 75,000 people in Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south.

Who could possibly be against this?

Well, a lot of organizations, actually - and all of them pretend that they care about Palestinian Arabs!
A couple of years ago, when UNICEF put out the bids for the desalination equipment, Gaza unions said they would boycott UNICEF if it allowed Israeli companies to bid on the project. It is unclear if UNICEF caved to their demands, but it shows that politics is more important than public health for Gaza unions.

But they are not alone.

As AIJAC pointed out recently, an entire consortium of Palestinian Arab NGOs have come out against the concept of desalination in Gaza.

Yes, you've read that right.

The consortium, EWASH, wrote:

...The undersigned organizations would like to voice their concerns regarding the implications of seawater desalination for Gaza as well as the challenges facing it:
1. Perpetuating the status quo while accommodating the occupation...
2. Increasing the isolation of Gaza whilst enabling Israel to ignore its obligations...
3. Increasing the vulnerability of the civilian population of Gaza...
4. Desalination plant requires significant amounts of electricity which Gaza does not have...
5. Seawater desalination plant is environmentally unsustainable, which will further deteriorate the already deplorable environmental situation in Gaza...
6. Further sustainable and right-based alternative solutions exist...

The "right" they are demanding is for Israel to provide the water to Gaza at a discount.

Isn't it fascinating that "pro-Palestinian" organizations are asking for Gaza to be more dependent on Israel, rather than more independent?

Instead of adding new freshwater to a region that is already in crisis, they want Israel to redistribute the water it has - to its own detriment.

And who are these brilliant NGOs who don't want Gaza to have new sources of fresh drinking water?

Endorsing organizations:

EWASH members:

1. DanChurchAid
2. Applied Research Institute Jerusalem (ARIJ)
3. Polish Humanitarian Action
4. Institute of Environmental and Water Studies - Birzeit University
5. Near East Council of Churches-Jerusalem
6. Middle East Children's Alliance
7. Palestinian Environment NGO Network (PENGON)
8. We Effect – Swedish Cooperative Centre
9. MAAN Development Centre
10. House for Water and Environment (HWE)
11. Palestinian Wastewater Engineers Group (PalWEG)
12. Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees (PARC)

Other civil society organizations:

13. Al-Mezan Centre for Human Rights
14. The Palestinian Centre for Human rights
15. Media Environmental Centre
16. Palestinian Farmers Union (PFU)
17. Earth and Human Centre for Research and Studies (EHCRS)
18. Palestinian Farmers Association
19. Land Research Centre
20. Institute for water and environment – Al-Azhar University
21. Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UWAC)
22. Palestinian Environment Friends (PEF)
23. Arab Centre for Agricultural Development

Keep this list in mind, because these orgsnizations - including so-called "human rights" organizations - are so obsessed with hurting Israel that they are willing to increase the suffering of Gazans to accomplish it.

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To the West, not all occupied territories are equal (UPDATE)

An interesting thing happened last week:

In today's meeting of EU Ambassadors, a majority of EU Member States indicated to favour the newly proposed EU-Morocco fisheries protocol, which opens for EU fishing in the waters of occupied Western Sahara.

Though many Member States voiced their concerns on the protocol, a majority could be reached in today’s COREPER meeting. The decision to sign the EU’s most criticised fisheries protocol will be formalised at a Council meeting in the coming weeks.

Throwing its massive voting weight in the scale, Germany ended up supporting the controversial protocol that the Spanish government has lobbied so hard for. As far as WSRW understands, the German government will issue a statement that their endorsement should not be viewed as uncritical support.

Five Member States could not agree to the proposed protocol. Sweden and Denmark voted against, while the UK, the Netherlands and Finland abstained. These countries’ stances were underpinned by concerns relating to sustainable management of the available fish stocks and EU fishing in non-Moroccan waters through a deal with Morocco.

The provisional protocol still has to pass through the European Parliament, which is not expected to express its opinion before December.

Here is a more detailed description of how the previous version of the protocol worked, and this one does not change these key points:

According to the EU-Morocco Fisheries Agreement, to which the Protocol sets the terms and conditions, fishing can take place in “the waters under the sovereignty or jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Morocco”. This is the core of the problem.

While no state in the world recognises Morocco’s claims to Western Sahara, Morocco itself views the territory as its own. Since the Agreement fails to stipulate the southern coordinates of the fishing zones, it is left to Morocco to interpret where the European vessels can fish.

The EU is saying that they can directly exploit natural resources in illegally occupied territories.

Its not only Europe, though. Last month Canada decided it can take natural resources away from the occupied people of Western Sahara, by dealing with a Moroccan company that does business over the border:

On 24 October, the bulk carrier Ultra Bellambi is scheduled to arrive at Vancouver. On board of the freighter are 60.000 tonnes of phosphate rock from the Bou Craa mines in Western Sahara. The cargo is worth almost $10 million. That money however, will not end up with the Saharawi people of Western Sahara - the original and sole people of the territory - but with the Moroccan regime that has occupied large parts of their country since 1975.

The phosphate rock was purchased by Calgary based Agrium Inc, under the terms of an agreement it concluded earlier this year with Moroccan state owned company Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP). Agrium confirmed to Canadian newspaper The Tyee that it would import one million tonnes each year until 2020, and that part of the imports will be sourced in Western Sahara.

A UN Legal Opinion on exploitation of Western Sahara's natural resources is quite clear that such activity is illegal if not done in accordance with the wishes and the interests of the people of the territory - the Saharawi. The latter have unequivocally stated that they do not consent to Agrium's imports, through a letter by their political representation Frente Polisario to the company.

The EU made a big deal over saying that it had no choice but to adhere to guidelines restricting activity with Israeli companies that do business over the Green Line; international law demands it.

But it appears that it has no problem with such pesky legalities in the Western Sahara.

UPDATE: Eugene Kontorovich has more detail in a memo he wrote and sent me via email:

Differences With Israeli Agreements

1) Territorial Scope. The fisheries agreement applies not just to the “territory” of Morocco, but to all areas under its “jurisdiction,” which is understood to include Western Sahara. In agreements with Israel, however, the EU has only applied it to the “territory” of Israel, which is understood to exclude the West Bank, as well as Jerusalem. The new Funding Guidelines go further and exclude entities with operations in the territories. The guidelines claim that their approach is required by “international law” to avoid recognizing Israel sovereignty over the territories. The Moroccan case proves this concern false and pretextual.

2) Funding. The EU says that its “tax dollars” cannot be spent in occupied territory. Yet it pays Morocco specifically to exploit the scarce resources of occupied territory, against the wishes of its political representatives. This is much more severe than awarding science grants or prizes for, say, archeological research in the Golan. 

EU Parliament’s Formal Legal Opinion: Essential Resource for Israel.

The agreement was adopted despite massive opposition from the political representatives of the Western Saharan people, as well as some European nations. As a result of the controversy, the European Parliament obtained an opinion from its legal advisor.[1] The official opinion, in brief, says international law does not prevent Morocco from exploiting the natural resources of the occupied territory, let alone merely doing business there.  Despite the complete opposition of the Sawahari leadership, the incidental economic benefits of “development” (which the Sawahari deny exists) can be considered sufficient to satisfy Morocco’s obligation to them. Moreover, the opinion says it is legal for the EU to pay Morocco to exploit the resources of occupied territory.[2]

The Legal Opinion is consistent with all prior international law, including a 2002 opinion by the Security Council’s legal advisor, and a ruling of the French Court of Appeals. Indeed, the EU Parliament’s legal advisor may be a bit softer on the extent and nature of the benefit to the local population.

CONCLUSIONS

The positions adopted by the EU in its negotiations with Israel over grants and product labeling are inconsistent with those it has taken at the same time in its dealings with Morocco. While the EU does not recognize Israel’s control over the territories, and opposes it, the same is true of its policy towards Morocco in Western Sahara. Yet this policy does not require, nor does international law, the punitive measures adopted toward Israel. In particular, the EU has used entirely fabricated international law claims in its dealing with Israel, claims contradicted by its own legal advisors.

Perversely, the EU’s treatment of Morocco encourages Israel to conduct more economic activity in the territories. The EU was been under strong pressure to sign the deal with Morocco because of Spanish and French interests in the fish in the occupied territory. They simply did not want to lose an economic opportunity. Thus Israel’s problem may be not enough business in the territories, rather than too much. If significant Israeli defense, high-tech or biotech enterprises on which at least some European industries rely were relocated in eastern Jerusalem, the Golan or the West Bank, the Moroccan precedent suggests this would have the surprising effect of reducing diplomatic pressures on Israel.

---

[1] See Legal Opinion of Ricardo Passos, Director, Legal Service of the European Parliament, SJ-0665/13 (Nov. 4, 2013).

[2] The Opinion said international law would be satisfied if Morocco allocated “a certain amount of the financial contribution” fro Europe to the “population” of Western Sahara. Id. at Par. 31. By contrast, the EU settlement guidelines make a narrow exception for activities that “aim” at “benefiting protected persons,” an international law phrase intended to refer to Palestinians. Under the EU legal opinion, benefit to Moroccans in Western Sahara would suffice, and such benefit need not be the “aim,” but could be purely incidental.

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France, and the EU, cozying up to Hezbollah

Al Monitor has a very sobering article:

On July 22, 2013, all 28 European Union (EU) countries unanimously agreed to add Hezbollah’s military wing to the EU list of terrorist organizations. But less than three months later, Europe has opened its doors to Hezbollah as a special guest. On Oct. 12-14, the French Foreign Ministry received Hezbollah deputy Ali Fayyad of the Lebanese parliament as a guest lecturer for French diplomats, analysts and experts; he explained how Paris was wrong and Hezbollah was right.

...Once there, Fayyad met with officials of the Middle East department and the center of analysis and exploration in the ministry, where he gave a two-hour introduction and question-and-answer session.

According to Hezbollah sources, the French have decided to open up to Hezbollah, the most powerful Shiite organization in Lebanon, and are ready to start a new phase of French and European dialogue with the party, while the party asserts that it is adhering to all its positions and choices.

But what has changed in these three months? Hezbollah circles confirmed to Al-Monitor that since the EU’s decision in July, it was clear to the party that the issue was not serious and did not reflect Europe’s actual convictions. Even before the decision was issued, three European ambassadors in Beirut visited Hezbollah officials and informed them that they were not personally convinced about the decision. They also noted that their governments were not convinced about the decision that was about to be issued. Even after the decision was issued, a record number of meetings were held between Hezbollah officials and European diplomats in the Lebanese capital. Even the EU ambassador to Lebanon, Angelina Eichhorst, visited Hezbollah’s international relations official Ammar Moussawi as well as Hezbollah cabinet ministers Mohammed Fneish and Hussein Hajj Hassan, within just one week of the decision.

[...]

Those watching the relationship between Paris and the southern suburbs of Beirut (Hezbollah’s stronghold) may note the various reasons behind the French and EU decision to invite Fayyad. Those reasons can be summarized as follows:

First, the French move came within the context of the recent American-Iranian openness. It is a factor that cannot be ignored with regard to the French initiative. It is as if those in Paris and Europe are trying to tell the Americans: “We are not mere followers or implementers of your policy. If Obama can contact President Hassan Rouhani, we too can host Hezbollah and hold dialogue with it directly.” Such French and European calculations don’t have to be read negatively. They can be interpreted positively: “Fine. You [the Americans] have decided to open up to Tehran. We too can help in this direction. And this is a small example of that.”

Second, Hezbollah’s visit to the French capital came in the context of the putative Russian-American agreement on Syria and the nearing of the Geneva II conference, in which Iran is likely to participate. It is clear that any settlement of the Syrian crisis will open up large horizons in the Levant, politically and especially economically. On the political level, there is the impression that the “Syrian solution” will be a model to be replicated to redraw the Levantine map as a whole and to resolve the wars and crises of most countries in the Arab region. That includes Lebanon, which France has historically cared about. Ending the Syrian war will also open up major investment opportunities in reconstruction and in energy sources and transportation routes in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean (Syria and Lebanon). Hezbollah is a key player in both countries and has a big impact on the developments there.

Third, those who are familiar with Hezbollah’s capabilities and its influence as a political force realize that the Shiite organization is present beyond Syria and Lebanon. It is present in Iraq, in all its detailed political composition. Some in Beirut say that representatives of the Iraqi political forces meet regularly in the cafes of Beirut’s southern suburb, where they discuss the outcome of their meetings with Hezbollah officials. Hezbollah is also present in Palestine, although to a lesser extent than before, given that its relations with Hamas have cooled somewhat. But Hezbollah still has contacts with Hamas and with other Palestinian factions. Hezbollah even has varying degrees of influence in Yemen, Bahrain, Kuwait and even Saudi Arabia and various Arab Gulf states, where Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah can influence public opinion in each of these countries....

(h/r Herb)

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Belgian Minister of Culture defends antisemitism on Facebook page

A Belgian professor wrote an opinion piece on the website of RTBF, Radio Télévision Belge Francophone, saying that Israel is a racist state. (He based this mostly from reading Ha'aretz.)

RTBF has a Facebook page as well, and this article was linked there as well.

Some of the comments, predictably, are insanely antisemitic.

You know, having killed Christ is not enough for them...the Jews in France are also racist! :)

Every Jew is racist to another human because for Jews they are like dogs ... they can kill a non-Jew and will not be condemned ...

Goldstein refused to do anything to save the life of a Gentile - this was not a personal quirk, but simply an command of the Talmud on which it is based.

These comments remain up on the page after moderation.

The Philosemitism blog reports that the person in charge of the page, Ms. Françoise De Their, answered that "Comments are moderated as soon as possible by the editorial departments concerned, in accordance with professional, legal and ethical requirements."

The French Community of Brussels Minister of Culture and Media, Fadila Laanan, responded that "I was assured that the comments are still on RTBF page of this social network are within the limits of the debate and are acceptable."

Incidentally, Laanan's parents were born in Morocco.

(h/t Rudi)

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Surprise! EU auditors find billions of euros missing in WB/Gaza

From the Sunday Times:

BILLIONS of euros in European aid to the Palestinians may have been misspent, squandered or lost to corruption, according to a damning report by the European Court of Auditors, the Luxembourg-based watchdog.

Brussels transferred more than £1.95bn to the occupied territories between 2008 and 2012 but had little control over how it was spent, the auditors say in an unpublished report seen by The Sunday Times.

EU investigators who visited sites in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank noted “significant shortcomings” in the management of funds sent to Gaza and the West Bank. Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organisation by the EU.

The auditors complained about the lack of measures to mitigate “high-level” risks, such as “corruption or of funds not being used for their intended purpose”.

A spokesman for the court declined to comment.

No way! You mean that the PA under super-PM Salam Fayyad hasn't shed its decades-long reputation of corruption and theft of international funds? You mean that the hundreds of NGOs in Gaza and the West Bank aren't responsible with all the money being sent to them?

But...but...they are so moderate! They wear ties! They are modern, Western-style institutions, only interested in building a nation! We've been told this dozens of times by politicians and pundits - what possible incentive do they have to downplay corruption and theft in the PA while they blame Israel for everything under the sun?

Say it ain't so!

In a completely unrelated story, France just pledged €24 million to the PA the day after the PA honored the murderer of a French tourist. I'm sure that money will go to good use - like paying the salaries of other terrorists and their families, which takes up 6% of the PA budget.

(h/t Arsen)

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Polish Mufti plans to slaughter sheep for Eid al Adha to challenge ban

The leader of Poland's Muslim community, Mufti Tomasz Miskiewicz, has been in the forefront of challenging the ban on kosher and halal slaughter that went into effect this year in Poland.

While Jewish groups in Europe have campaigned to overturn the ban, Miskiewicz has been more outspoken and innovative in his opposition. In June he noted that eastern European Catholics have a inhumane practice of bashing the heads of carp to kill them for traditional Christmas dishes, and no one is calling to ban that practice.

In September, the Mufti claimed that legal experts agree that EU law trumps domestic Polish law and that the ban was not legal. I cannot vouch for that legal argument, but he's giving it a shot.

Now, in the days before the major Muslim feast of Eid al Adha, where families traditionally slaughter sheep (in a more painful way than kosher slaughter), the Mufti has said that he will publicly slaughter a sheep himself to challenge the ban.
.

While experts have shown that kosher slaughter is far more humane than Muslim slaughter, in either case the religious requirements should not be trampled by people who often use "humanity" as a way to disguise their xenophobia (see the end of this post.) The focus should be on improving existing methods of ritual slaughter, not banning it.

Kudos to Mufti Miskiewicz for standing up to the haters.

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PFLP-GC claims 23,000 Syrian Palestinians have fled to Sweden

The PFLP-GC claims that some 23,000 Palestinian Arabs from the Yarmouk camp in Syria have fled to Sweden during the civil war.

Yarmouk camp

The group, which supports the Syrian regime, blames the opposition for setting up their forces in the camp.

I couldn't find verification of the numbers, but they are not unrealistic. In 2012 there were over 2000 Palestinian Arabs along with some 8000 Syrians who sought asylum in Sweden, and things have gotten far worse this year.

There is of course one additional factor: Arab nations have been treating the Palestinian Arab refugees from Syria like garbage, either turning them back at the border (Jordan, Egypt) or putting inhuman restrictions on them (Lebanon.) (I have been unable to determine if Iraq is letting any Palestinian Arab refugees into its camps.)

Oil-rich Gulf countries don't want any of them, either.

It is not surprising that the ones that make it successfully to Sweden will communicate with their relatives and friends and tell them that Europe is far more friendly to Palestinians than their Arab brothers are.

For some reason, "pro-Palestinian" groups are silent as to how their pets are being treated by Arab countries. No rallies, flotillas, or other campaigns against Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon.  And the last time there was a Palestinian Arab refugee crisis - when they were expelled from Iraq by the thousands - Arab leaders were dead-set against them becoming naturalized in the West, because happy European Palestinian Arabs are no longer useful as cannon fodder against Israel.

It is remarkable how much the very people who pretend to love the Palestinian Arabs the most are the ones who care about them the least. Even more remarkable is that the Western media and "human rights" organizations all but ignore the discrimination and hate by Arabs for their own. 

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French diplomats call terrorist Leila Khaled "an extraordinary woman"

Last summer, the French Consulate in Jerusalem held an event to mark the publication of a book.

On the occasion of the recent publication of the book Leila Khaled, an icon of Palestinian liberation, the author Sarah Irving and researcher Diana Butto, we will draw a portrait of this extraordinary woman.

Khaled is of course a notorious PFLP terrorist, involved in two airplane hijackings and hijack attempts. Now, apparently, the French consider her a heroine.

More details at JSSNews (French).

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Analysis finds EU guidelines on Judea and Samaria legally problematic

The Kohelet Policy Forum has released a paper showing that the proposed EU guidelines against funding "activities" in Judea and Samaria are problematic under international law, even if you regard the territories as occupied.

Here is the executive summary:

EU’s Israel Grants Guidelines: A Legal and Policy Analysis


The Israel Grants Guidelines adopted by the European Commission are singularly discriminatory against Israel. They contradict international law as established in U.N. documents and leading court cases, as well as the European Union’s own interpretations of international law. 

The EU provides aid and financial cooperation to numerous countries that maintain settlements in what Europe considers occupied territory, such as Morocco, Turkey, and Russia. In none of these cases has the Commission imposed limitations on the aid akin to the Guidelines for Israel.

The Commission’s position that the Guidelines are mandated by international law are further belied by EU programs that provide grants specifically for settlers in belligerently occupied territory, such as the EU’s programs in Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus.

Under international law, there are no prohibitions regarding organizations engaging in “activities” in occupied territories, yet the Guidelines bar funding solely on the basis of such “activities.”

In pretending that the Guidelines fulfill the requirements of international law, the Commission exposes the EU to legal challenge for EU funding of parallel activity in belligerently occupied territories around the world, such as Northern Cyprus, Abkhazia and Western Sahara, and exposes its businesses operating in such places to liability.

The Guidelines have no precedent in similar arrangements between the U.S. and Israel.

The Guidelines seek to undermine territorial arrangements that are established by existing Israeli-PLO agreements and foreclose issues that are preserved for negotiations.

The Guidelines do not advance the EU position on sovereignty because they do not relate to activities that legally establish sovereignty or constitute recognition of sovereignty.

The Guidelines are unlikely to be accepted by Israel in their present form. Non-discriminatory alternatives include borrowing language from scientific cooperation agreements with the U.S. and extending the Guidelines to all occupied territories with funding relationships with the EU.

Obviously the authors have forgotten the most important rule of modern international law: Israel is always guilty, and laws must be re-interpreted retroactively to ensure that result.

Once you understand that rule, then everything makes sense again!

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Anti-Israel NGOs keep on pumping out lies

A reader asked me to comment on an October report apparently being distributed to EU politicians by some 20 NGOs to pressure them into banning imports of goods from Jews - and only Jews - who work in Judea and Samaria.

These slick-looking reports are churned out with regularity by the anti-Israel crowd, complete with lots of footnotes that no one will ever check out for veracity. Beyond that, they engage in deception by framing issues in the most biased way possible.

I don't have the time to fisk this entire report, called "Trading away Peace: How Europe helps sustain illegal Israeli settlements," but I noticed one section, 2.2, that is emblematic of the deception throughout the document.

Ban on dual-use items: Israel bans Palestinians from importing a range of “dual-use” items, including chemicals and fertilisers used in factories and agriculture. While Israeli settlers have full access to these materials, Palestinians are forced to turn to more expensive or less effective alternatives that further increase the cost of production and often have greater negative long-term impact on the environment. It is estimated that the fertilizer restrictions lead to losses of between 20% and 33% in agricultural productivity.

It is simply unbelievable that such a paragraph could be written without even acknowledging the history of terror attacks - using home-made explosives - that have come from the West Bank. The demand that Israel ignore its own security imperatives is untenable an shows an alarming lack of concern about the lives of Israelis.

Any report such as this that doesn't even acknowledge Israel's very real security concerns - even if only to dismiss them - can be assumed ab initio to be biased against Israel no matter how many footnotes it has.

But here's the next paragraph:

Obstacles to movement of goods: While settlers enjoy easy and direct access to Israeli and international markets, all Palestinian goods destined for Israel or further export must pass through Israeli checkpoints where they are unloaded from Palestinian vehicles and extensively checked before they can be re-loaded onto an Israeli vehicle on the other side (the so-called ‘back-to-back’ system). This is extremely time-consuming and often damages the products. Palestinian goods destined for international markets then pass through Israeli port and airport terminals where they face further disadvantages, obstacles and excessive time delays. All these obstacles significantly reduce the competitiveness of Palestinian products and increase the unpredictability of their delivery times and quality.

This is a bit silly; if there were an independent Palestinian Arab state declared on the 1949 armistice lines today, access to the European markets of Arab goods would have the exact same restrictions. In fact, goods exported to Jordan from the PA have more onerous restrictions than those going through Israel! (This recent post of mine addresses the issue.)

In other words, they are objecting to Israel behaving like a sovereign nation.

More deception follows:

Gaza closure: Compared to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been subject to even more stringent restrictions, especially since the takeover by Hamas in 2007. Exports from Gaza, a territory inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians, have been banned almost entirely, contributing to the low volume of overall Palestinian exports. Despite the easing of some restrictions by Israel since 2010, the volume of exports from Gaza is still less than 2% of the pre-2007 levels. EU imports from Gaza over the five years of blockade have been limited to a few shipments of agricultural produce to the Netherlands and two trucks of garments to the UK.

The source for this, Gisha, does not note what percentage of goods exported from Gaza before 2007 went to Israel. My understanding is that a significant majority of all goods exported from Gaza before the blockade did go to Israel. Surely Israel has the right to limit its imports from Gaza if it chooses. So the 2% figure, while probably accurate, does not give any indication of how many goods were exported from Gaza to the EU before 2007, which I would venture to say was negligible. But if, say, 85% of Gaza's goods used to go to Israel  then Gisha should note that before putting out the 2% number.

It might just be that Israel doesn't want to buy goods from a sector that is still shooting rockets at it. Just a wild guess. Do these NGOs think that Israel should be allowed to say where it imports its tomatoes from?

Besides, Israel is indeed working to increase the number of exports from Gaza to the West Bank, as I've reported. One question to ask is what demand there is for Gaza goods in the West Bank today and if that is not being met.  Another question is whether any of these NGOs are complaining that Egypt is not importing goods from Gaza, which Israel could not limit if it tried. These are questions that this report does not ask - because the truth is not the goal of reports like these.

This is an indication of the bias that pervades this - and similar - reports. People who are not well-versed in the issues, those who do not have the time or inclination to research it themselves, those who don't have the necessary skepticism and those who are already sympathetic to the anti-Israel cause will swallow this garbage without thinking.

Which is exactly what the Israel-haters want.

The organizations behind this exercise in demonization are:

1. Aprodev
2. Broederlijk delen (Belgium)
3. Caabu (UK)
4. CCFd - Terre Solidaire (France)
5. Christian Aid (UK and Ireland)
6. Church of Sweden
7. Cordaid (Netherlands)
8. danChurchAid (denmark)
9. diakonia (Sweden)
10. FinnChurchAid (Finland)
11. ICCo (Netherlands)
12. IKv pax Christi (Netherlands)
13. International Federation for Human rights (FIdH)
14. Medical Aid for palestinians (UK)
15. medico international (Germany)
16. medico international switzerland
17. The Methodist Church in Britain
18. Norwegian people’s Aid
19. Norwegian Church Aid
20. Quaker Council for european Affairs
21. Quaker peace and Social Witness (UK)
22. Trocaire (Ireland)

Truth and fairness are obviously not part of these organizations' agenda.

By the way, if you object to my characterization in the first paragraph of these organizations' goals as banning imports of goods from only Jews who work in Judea and Samaria, I am being entirely accurate.

There are a number of industrial zones across the Green Line - Barkan, Atarot and Adumim - whose companies get targeted regularly by the anti-Israel crowd. Richard Falk relies heavily on the "Who Profits" website when he insists that certain American and Israeli companies be universally boycotted, and this "Trading Away peace" report quotes "Who Profits" some 26 times.

I looked through the Who Profits site, and I was unable to identify a single Israel-Arab-owned company that they propose boycotting.

Yet, according to this Globes article that discussed the success of these industrial parks, the Atarot park was quoted as having "a nice combination between Arabs and Jews, both in terms of employment and business ownership."

So there are definitely Arab-owned companies in these industrial zones - but not one of them are targeted for boycott!

One probable example is Al Mada'ain Food Products, formerly Slava Food Company, in Atarot, owned by Abu Ghazala Haitham. Assuming that Mr. Haitham is an Israeli citizen, then why isn't his company being tracked for being boycotted by Who Profits or other similar "pro-Palestinian" initiatives? Is he not Palestinian? [If he isn't an Israeli citizen, then presumably the PA will arrest him any hour now.)

When you go beyond the rhetoric and fine print in the volumes of invective released by these NGOs, you uncover the fact that they really are discriminating against Jews, and only Jews.

I think there is a name for that, but these "humanitarian" organizations get very upset when you say it.

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BDSers - and the PA - furious over increased Israel/EU ties

On Tuesday, the European Union put out a document detailing ongoing ties between Israel and Europe and an increased set of initiatives. Here are excerpts from the document:

The European Union (EU) warmly welcomes this 11th meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council as a demonstration of the significance the EU attaches to its relations with the State of Israel. The EU reiterates the importance of further developing our broad bilateral partnership and looks forward to a comprehensive dialogue and cooperation with our Israeli counterparts.

The EU takes note of the efforts of both parties to develop bilateral relations in the period since the previous meeting of the EU-Israel Association Council. These efforts were framed by the general EU position, as it was established on the occasion of the June 2009 Association Council, that the 2008 decision to upgrade our relations in the framework of the ENP clearly stemmed from common awareness of the traditional links, the cultural and human values, and the economic and security interests that the EU and Israel share.

On exploring the opportunities of the current Action Plan, the EU recalls the exhaustive discussions on the issue, which resulted in a comprehensive list of up to 60 concrete activities in over 15 specific fields, including cooperation with a number of EU agencies within the current policy framework.... The EU welcomes the approval of these activities by the Association Committee and encourages the two parties to actively and urgently implement them, so as to fully demonstrate the capacity of the current EU-Israel Action Plan to deliver more benefits to the EU-Israel partnership.

Israel continued to benefit from a yearly allocation through the European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) in the form of institutional cooperation (twinning projects). The EU takes note with satisfaction of the successful completion in the past year of twinning projects with the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission and the Ministry of Communications.

The EU reiterates its fundamental commitment to Israel’s security, including with regard to vital threats in the region, which is best guaranteed through peace between Israel and its neighbours. The EU is appalled by recurring rocket attacks from Gaza and condemns in the strongest terms violence deliberately targeting civilians. The EU reiterates its call on all partners in the region for the effective prevention of arms smuggling into Gaza.

The EU and Israel signed an agreement on trade in agricultural, processed agricultural, fish and fishery products in November 2009, which entered into force on 1 January 2010. The implementation of this agreement has already led to a visible increase in overall bilateral trade in these sectors.

In the field of environmental protection, the EU finds the intensification of bilateral cooperation of the highest importance.

Predictably, the BDS crowd which has been pretending that they have been making progress into turning Isrsel into a pariah state is incensed:

The Palestinian Council of Human Rights Organizations (PCHRO), a coalition of 11 Palestinian rights groups, Thursday strongly denounced European Union decision to upgrade its cooperation with Israel, accusing the EU of betraying its own principles.

So is the PA, which still subscribes to the zero-sum game mentality that holds that anything that helps Israel hurts Palestinian Arabs (and vice versa):

Palestinian lawmaker Mustafa Bargouthi joined a coalition of rights groups on Thursday expressing outrage at the European Union's expansion of cooperation with Israel.

Bargouthi said the upgrading of bilateral ties was granted in contradiction to the EU's political position criticizing Israel's illegal settlement expansion, occupation and violations of international human rights laws.

Europe's decision will encourage Israel to continue its aggression toward Palestinians and breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the Palestinian National Initiative leader said in a statement.

It seems beyond comprehension of the "pro-Palestinian" crowd that Israel's feelings of security, helped by announcements like these, make it more likely to make concessions to Palestinian Arabs, not less.

But then again, if their real objective is not to help build a Palestinian Arab state but to destroy the Palestinian Jewish state, then their statements and actions are perfectly consistent with their goals.

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