12/18 Links: Is The New York Times a ‘Strong Supporter’ of Israel?; Bibi must move early on Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine plan; Why the BDS campaign is futile

From Ian:

Is The New York Times a ‘Strong Supporter’ of Israel?

However, by focusing solely on Israel’s actions as the determining factor regarding the future of the two-state solution, the New York Times is effectively removing any responsibility from the Palestinian Authority.

Indeed, aside from a passing remark about Palestinian corruption dimming the hopes of a Palestinian state, this opinion piece makes no mention of the Palestinian Authority’s financial support for terrorists and their families, its twice rebuffing American attempts at peace negotiations over the past 10 years or its continued incitement against Israelis and Jews within its official media organs and schools.

The only mention of the word “terror” in the editorial is in reference to past convictions by incoming National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

All of these factors, which directly imperil the chance for a successful two-state solution, existed long before the incoming Israeli government was ever formed.

And yet, in the eyes of The New York Times, these factors do not warrant the same concern or admonishment as do the anticipated actions of Benjamin Netanyahu and his coalition partners.

Related Reading: Top Israeli Daily’s Exposé Paints Troubling Picture of New York Times’ Israel Coverage

Lastly, throughout this opinion piece, the editorial board seems to enjoin the current American administration to take an active role in opposing the actions of the incoming Israeli government.

The editorial board calls upon the American government to more vocally oppose Netanyahu’s coalition partners (as opposed to the administration’s current wait-and-see approach) and to also support Israeli civil society organizations in their fight against this new government’s legislation.

Thus, in extolling democratic principles, The New York Times editorial board is essentially calling on the American government to intervene in the political life of a stalwart ally and to actively support domestic organizations in their opposition to that country’s democratically elected government.

While it is common for the American government to comment on individual actions taken by foreign governments, it is quite another thing to endorse the active intervention of the United States in an ally’s domestic politics.

Tom Friedman’s Look at Israel
Two days before The New York Times editorial board published its opinion piece, longtime New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman published an essay entitled “What in the World Is Happening in Israel?”

Even though it is seemingly more balanced and nuanced than the editorial board’s piece (one critic of the New York Times’ Israel coverage referred to it as “more accurate and profound than anything I’ve read in NYT about Israel all year”), there are a number of concerning passages within Friedman’s work.

Similar to the editorial board, Friedman seemingly points his finger at Netanyahu and his allies for what he perceives to be the eventual failure of the two-state solution, discounting the above-mentioned actions taken by the Palestinian Authority that play a major role in the two-state solution’s demise.

Further on in his piece, Friedman is doubtful about a future Israel-Saudi Arabia peace deal under the incoming Israeli government as well as Netanyahu’s proposed role as a bridge-builder between the United States and Saudi Arabia, portraying the presumptive Israeli prime minister as someone who focuses solely on the political right and deeply religious at the expense of centrists and those who hold liberal values.

However, contrary to what Friedman suggests, Netanyahu has proven himself able to work with a wide variety of political actors, including Middle Eastern leaders (with whom he signed the initial Abraham Accords agreements), President Joe Biden and others who do not necessarily share his viewpoints on all Israel-related matters.

"NY Times Editorial Rant: Why Must Israel’s Right Wing Reject 2-State?"

All of the above rejections of the two-state solution are wasted on the NY Times editorial board that insists the Netanyahu “government’s posture could make it militarily and politically impossible for a two-state solution to ever emerge.”

It will also make it close to impossible for human beings to grow wings and fly from flower to flower suckling on nutritious nectar, but, thankfully, the Times board skipped that one rant.

Of course, now comes the part the Times board could have lifted from its affiliate, Ha’aretz, copy and paste fashion: “Ministers in the new government are set to include figures such as Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was convicted in Israel in 2007 for incitement to racism and supporting a Jewish terrorist organization. He will probably be minister of national security. Bezalel Smotrich, who has long supported outright annexation of the West Bank, is expected to be named the next finance minister, with additional authority over the administration of the West Bank. For the deputy in the prime minister’s office in charge of Jewish identity, Mr. Netanyahu is expected to name Avi Maoz, who once described himself as a ‘proud homophobe.’”

It’s the newspaper of record’s right to voice its objections to the decision of a majority of Israeli voters who were easily as familiar with the above accusations and still went with Ben Gvir, Smotrich, and Maoz. They also chose a prime minister who is under three criminal indictments and a former interior minister who has recently been convicted of tax fraud. However, ballot boxes, by and large, don’t read editorials, and newspapers should know better than to attack voters for disagreeing with their world view.

The Times board is also unhappy with Israelis’ reproduction choices, stating: “Demographic change in Israel has also shifted the country’s politics. Religious families in Israel tend to have large families and to vote with the right. A recent analysis by the Israel Democracy Institute found that about 60 percent of Jewish Israelis identify as right-wing today; among people ages 18 to 24, the number rises to 70 percent. In the Nov. 1 election, the old Labor Party, once the liberal face of Israel’s founders, won only four seats, and the left-wing Meretz won none.”

Next, the editorial puts on paper the following sentence which is the culmination of the demise of its self-awareness. They actually wrote: “Moderating forces in Israeli politics and civil society are already planning energetic resistance…” See, when it’s right-wingers exercising their democratic rights, they’re called fascists; when they’re from the left, they’re “moderating forces.”

Finally, the editorial reiterates its archaic and tired mantra about 2-state, warning: “Anything that undermines Israel’s democratic ideals — whether outright annexation of Jewish settlements or legalization of illegal settlements and outposts — would undermine the possibility of a two-state solution.”

Amen?

The Times of London’s Undiplomatic Correspondent

The Times of London’s diplomatic correspondent Catherine Philp’s 15-year career at the newspaper has included postings in Israel and the Middle East. During this time, while HonestReporting critiqued Philp on a number of occasions, her reporting rarely matched that of many of her British colleagues who made little effort to hide their disdain for the Jewish state.

Now, the mask has most definitely slipped.

In response to popular British comedian Joe Lycett highlighting soccer World Cup host Qatar’s record on LGBTQ rights with several headline-grabbing stunts, Philp decided to make it all about Israel. She urged Lycett to do something similar “on the truly cynical pinkwashing Israel is undertaking to hide its real time apartheid.”

Dear @joelycett congratulations on what you do re Qatar and sport washing. I would please urge you to similar on the truly cynical pinkwashing Israel is undertaking to hide its real time apartheid..peace and love.

— Catherine Philp (@scribblercat) December 15, 2022

The so-called “pinkwashing” accusation is one that has been leveled at Israel on numerous occasions.

First coined by Sarah Schulman in an article for The New York Times in 2011, the term suggests Israel’s progressive stance on LGBT+ rights is a component of a “deliberate strategy to conceal the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.”

As HonestReporting has noted previously, the pinkwashing claim evokes historical antisemitic libels, specifically that anything Jews do that is good or beneficial must be a part of some nefarious ulterior motive — in Philp’s case, diverting attention from Israel’s “real time apartheid.”

David Singer: Bibi must move early on Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine plan

A new solution to achieve an Israeli-Palestinian peace authored by Ali Shihabi - a close confidant of Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and Prime Minister - Mohammed Bin Salman - was published by Al Arabiya news on 8 June 2022 – but has amazingly received virtually no mention or scrutiny in the international media or at the United Nations in the six months since its release.

The plan recognises:
“Israel is a reality firmly implanted on the ground that has to be accepted ...“

The plan calls for the merger of Jordan, Gaza and part of Judea and Samaria (West Bank) into one territorial entity to be called The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine with unrestricted citizenship being offered to the Arab populations of Jordan, Gaza, the 'West Bank' and the refugee camps located in Syria and Lebanon.

Netanyahu – significantly –told Al Arabiya viewers:
“I think coming to a solution with the Palestinians will require out of the box thinking, will require new thinking.”

The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine solution is certainly the most creative plan ever proposed to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – its author declaring:

“The Palestinian problem can only be solved today if it is redefined. The issue in this day and age for people should be not so much the ownership of ancestral land but more the critical need to have a legal identity—a globally respected citizenship that allows a person to operate in the modern world.”

Netanyahu is offering his potential coalition partners a choice: Drop demands Bibi cannot accept and back him in as Prime Minister or miss this best opportunity ever to end the unresolved 100 years-old Jewish-Arab conflict.

21 December is Israel’s Judgement Day.

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ElderToons: They/them

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Francesca Albanese's "Jewish lobby" Facebook post also includes a blood libel (UPDATE)

There has been a lot of coverage of UNHRC Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese's antisemitic posts on social media, including one post where she said, "America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed — the Palestinians — who defend themselves with the only means they have."

But in that same post, Albanese also engaged in a blood libel - falsely accusing Israel of killing a baby.

She wrote (translated):

Meanwhile, Gaza needs help, medicine, food, water. Everything we can give is a small but essential help to save more innocent lives. Like that of little Shayman, who after being born by her dying mother due to bombings, was rescued and kept in an incubator by medical staff in Gaza. The miracle of his life went off when Israel bombed Gaza’s only power supply source, and the Shayman’s incubator stopped working.

I cannot find any mention of any child dying from an incubator losing power in 2014.

Human Rights Watch wrote about the effects of Israel's (unintentional) bombing of Gaza's power plant fuel supply after Albanese's post. Here is everything it said about how the power plant going offline affected hospitals in Gaza:

The shutdown of the Gaza Power Plant ...caused hospitals, already straining to handle the surge of war casualties, to increase their reliance on precarious generators.

Mahmoud Daher, head of the Gaza office of the UN World Health Organization, said that hospitals have been given priority for scarce electricity, with Shifa, the territory’s largest hospital, getting the most, at 16 hours a day. If the fuel required to run generators were to run out, or a generator to fail, a hospital could lose power.

An official at al-Quds Hospital in Gaza City told Human Rights Watch on August 7 that because of electricity interruptions:

We use a large generator for six to eight hours per day, then have to rely on three smaller ones, because the large one cannot be run full-time. If the large one goes, we don’t know how we would repair it, because of the lack of spare parts. It powers the oxygen station, the hospital’s two elevators, and the air conditioners – this amounts to 80 percent of the hospital’s total electricity consumption. When we use the smaller generators, they can only power one elevator, and none of the air conditioners, which makes it difficult for staff to work long hours in the August heat, and dangerous for patients.

 If the power outages had shut down incubators, HRW would have mentioned it. If anyone died as a result of such power outages, HRW would have made that the headline. So would have every media outlet.

Albanese's story about "Shayman" and his "dying mother" is a lie. It never happened. It is a blood libel.

Not only that, her relating that story that was not mentioned in any mainstream media proves that Albanese reads and trusts the most fringe, anti-Israel and antisemitic Arab media, and believes even the most outrageous lies about Jews and Israelis implicitly.

So this pattern holds: Francesca Albanese is an antisemite.

UPDATE: GnasherJew found the story that I couldn't find. There was a baby on a respirator, not an incubator. Other news stories say the doctors were watching her closely, and it seems unlikely to me that the oxygen wouldn't be a top priority for generators in a hospital. 

The six-day-old baby was born by emergency Caesarean section Friday after doctors at Deir al-Balah hospital in central Gaza managed to save her from the womb of her mother, who died when an Israeli tank shell hit her home.

The mother, 23-year-old Shayma al-Sheikh Qanan, had been eight months pregnant, and the baby was named after her.

But the baby was deprived of oxygen between her mother’s death and doctors being able to operate, which meant she had to be hooked up to a respirator at the maternity ward in Khan Yunis hospital in southern Gaza.

“The baby suffered an oxygen deficiency in the womb after her mother’s heart stopped,” Dr Abdel Karem al-Bawab, head of the maternity ward at Nasser hospital, told AFP Thursday.

“This deficiency caused the baby to asphyxiate unexpectedly, rendering her brain dead,” he said of the tragedy, which occurred Wednesday.

“The ongoing electricity shortages played a role because her oxygen tubes did not work properly and we had to resuscitate her more than once manually.”

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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!

 

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12/15 Links Pt1: Europe is waking up and seeing NGO corruption; Francesca Albanese: Special Rapporteur to Demonize Israel; Irish UNIFIL peacekeeper killed by gunfire in Lebanon

From Ian:

Seth Frantzman: Why Qatar’s involvement in EU scandal may impact Middle East

This kind of bargaining, using money to get influence, appears to have now brought Qatar into scandal in Europe. But Doha has seen this happen before with controversy over the World Cup and also other controversies in the US, and it has generally sailed on without much effect on its overall relations.

The EU scandal seems to reveal that Qatar targeted members of the European Parliament from southern Europe and also people who are involved in human-rights and other left-leaning causes. This means that someone decided that the best people to target in influence peddling were left-leaning voices, those connected to socialist or other similar parties.

But why would these voices be open to dealing with Qatar, a state that openly suppresses gay rights and is authoritarian? This is one of the perplexing aspects of how Doha has portrayed itself over the last two decades, via media such as Al Jazeera, as being different than it is.

Even though Qatar is an authoritarian monarchy that not only backs far-right extremists in the Middle East, but also theocracy and suppresses workers’ rights, it is able to sell itself to left-leaning voices in the West through a complex blend of preying on Orientalist ideas and pretending that its suppression of rights is merely its “culture.”

Once Doha has pretended that its authoritarianism and support for extremists is “culture,” then it claims that any critique of its policies is “Islamophobia.” This tends to buy quiet from critics and also enables its influence to continue.

On the one hand, accusations that Qatar was involved in another corruption scandal are not unique. Many countries try to exploit Western democracy through media influence-peddling and corruption. For instance, for many years, countries sought to influence Washington’s foreign policy by plowing money into think tanks in and around DC. Then those countries would get the think tanks to hire former government officials and get the officials to help lobby for them. This would be passed off as merely “policy” discussions, but the discussions would always have an agenda.

For instance, when it came to Qatar, the goal would be to get think tanks to critique other Gulf states but never critique Qatar. This kind of lobbying isn’t always corruption, because sometimes it can be done openly. A country can plow money into a think tank, or it can have its supporters do this for it. It can also register its lobbyists.

NGO Monitor: Europe is waking up and seeing NGO corruption

What would've happened if they checked?

Had the EU officials checked (i.e., NGO due diligence), the officials and Brussels-based journalists, who also completely missed this story, would have found that the Sekunjalo Development Foundation (SDF) is based in South Africa, and has considerable baggage, including reports of Qatari funding. SDF is the “philanthropic division” of the powerful Sekunjalo Group’s investments and business deals, and related involvement should have raised numerous red flags in Brussels.

Among other entanglements, the group has worked with the Gupta family, which has been deeply implicated in the corruption cases against former South African president Jacob Zuma. And as the owner of Independent Newspapers & Media SA, Sekunjalo was accused of agreeing to Chinese censorship demands on reporting the mass internment of ethnic Uighurs. China is reportedly involved in numerous business arrangements with the South African firm.

ALL OF this information was readily available to the European officials involved with the NGO Fight Impunity, had they bothered to examine the details.

In contrast, as long as NGOs and their funder-enablers view “civil society” as a religion, complete with a halo effect protecting these groups and the funding process from critical analysis, the doors to corruption and abuse will continue to be wide open.

Perhaps this high-level scandal in the EU will finally result in a fundamental and overdue policy change, including regarding the wholesale funding of the small network of Palestinian and Israeli political NGOs, some of which are linked to terror groups. This change should begin with opening up the documents and meeting protocols in which NGO funding is decided, allowing for analysis of possible insider influence and corruption in the grant-making process involving tens of millions of euros.

In parallel, Europe needs to create mechanisms for NGO oversight, ending the free pass that allows these groups to exert political influence without accountability.

Like other major crises, the EU’s corruption scandal linking Qatar funding and the NGO facade is also an opportunity for repairing broken and dysfunctional mechanisms. The “weaponization of NGOs” is not limited to autocratic regimes far from Europe.

German ambassador to Israel praises anti-Israel NGO

In a series of tweets, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, and its envoy to Ramallah, Oliver Owcza, lauded the anti-Israel NGO Ir Amim in comments regarding their tour with the group on Tuesday.

According to a 2021 report by the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, Ir Amim slammed Israel’s security barrier while “omit[ing] the context of Palestinian terror attacks and Israeli national security concerns.”

NGO Monitor noted that Ir Amim argues that the security barrier “extracts neighborhoods from the city [Jerusalem] with the goal of reducing the portion of Palestinians” and that the “barrier’s demographic rationale therefore outweighs its security rationale.”

“Ir Amim frequently accuses Israel of attempting to ‘Judaize’ Jerusalem and promotes the Palestinian narrative on the city, including claims that ‘government powers are being handed over to the settler organizations’ and archeological digs have become an important ‘tool in the fight for control’ over Jerusalem,” NGO Monitor said.

Berlin’s ambassador wrote on Twitter on Tuesday: “Accompanying @GerRepRamallah Oliver Owcza on an insightful tour with @IrArmin’s Judith Oppenheimer to focal points like [the eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods of] Silwan & Givat Hamatos.”

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UN Human Rights Council claims to have a Code of Conduct -- and Francesca Albanese claims to follow it. They are both lying. (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Francesca Albanese, the "UN Special Rapporteur Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territory Occupied Since 1967" observes the strictest standards of objectivity and impartiality.

We know this because Albanese tells us so herself on her Twitter account:

And this makes sense.

After all, that august body -- the UN Human Rights Council -- has a code of conduct that says explicitly that mandate-holders are expected to:

Uphold the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity, meaning, in particular, though not exclusively, probity, impartiality, equity, honesty and good faith; [emphasis added]

Going a step further, just take a look at Albanese's actual job application for the position of Special Rapporteur, helpfully dug up by Times of Israel (whose article is the basis of this post)

Case closed.

So what are we supposed to do when she herself openly admits that contrary to what she wrote on her application form, Albanese actually does hold prejudiced views:

10/ On her application, Albanese denied holding “any views or opinions that could prejudice the manner in which [she'd] discharge the mandate.”

Yet last year she said the opposite: that her “deeply held personal views” on the Palestinian issue “could compromise my objectivity.” pic.twitter.com/pseqLOYkoE

— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) April 1, 2022

So, what are these prejudiced views that Albanese now admits to having before applying to be UN Special Rapporteur?

In 2014, Albanese posted to her Facebook account, decrying the "Israel Lobby" "Jewish Lobby":

America and Europe, one of them subjugated by the Jewish lobby, and the other by the sense of guilt about the Holocaust, remain on the sidelines and continue to condemn the oppressed — the Palestinians — who defend themselves with the only means they have (deranged missiles), instead of making Israel face its international law responsibilities

In another post in 2014, Albanese wrote to the BBC that

The Israeli lobby is clearly inside your veins and system and you will be remembered to have been on the big brother's side of this orwellian nightmare caused once again by Israel's greed. [emphasis added]

She hid that last post after Times of Israel asked her about it.

Just last year, Albanese attacked both Jewish and Israel lobbies

It’s not so much the Jewish lobbies that influence the policies of European and North American states towards Israel. Rather it is the existence of pro-Israeli political-economic lobbies in France, England, Germany, Italy and the United States that defend the international business of security and arms sales to allow better explain the silence of Western governments during the last war in Gaza (as in the previous ones). [emphasis added]

Also, Albanese is a big fan of Hamas:

All this preceded her claiming on her application that she held no prejudices that would hamper her in fulfilling her position. 

Clearly, Albanese was less than truthful when she denied her prejudice -- and she clearly is not abiding by the strictest levels of objectivity and impartiality.

This, of course, makes her the ideal Special Rapporteur for the UN.

And her lack of objectivity combined with her support for Hamas terrorists who murder innocent civilians has led her to claim that Israel has no legal claim to self-defense:

Israel cannot claim self-defense while illegally occupying and while directing an act of aggression against another country,” she said. “Those who have the right to self-defense are the Palestinians."

Here is the video:

On another occasion, she said:

There is a right to oppose this occupation....The occupier cannot say he is defending himself

We can expect Albanese to push these ideas -- that terrorist attacks on civilians are lawful and that Israel does not have the right to defend itself from terrorist attacks -- during her term as Special Rapporteur.

After all, as we have already seen, objectivity and impartiality will not stop Albanese from pushing her personal agenda.

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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!

 

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12/08 Links Pt1: Lies, libels and the justification of terror; 12% of Gazans Have Fled Gaza Since Hamas Took Over; The UN envoy to Hamas; Far-Left Groups Accused of Campaign to Delegitimize IDF Soldiers

From Ian:

Lies, libels and the justification of terror

Nov. 29 marked the 75th anniversary of United Nations Resolution 181, which called for the creation of two states, a Jewish state of Israel and an Arab state of Palestine. The Jewish community accepted those terms, and declared the State of Israel, while the Arab community refused, and launched a war that they then lost. Over time, however, Palestinians developed their own version of the “big lie” in the form of the “nakba” myth, a retelling of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war in which the would-be genocidal Arab armies that failed in their mission to eliminate the Jewish state are reimagined as the helpless victims of a horrible catastrophe (or “nakba,” in Arabic) of destruction and displacement. The legend of the nakba is at the heart of much of modern anti-Zionism.

Right on cue, on Nov. 30 the United Nations General Assembly voted to officially commemorate the founding of the State of Israel as a nakba. U.N. resolutions are not legally or morally binding, and they obviously cannot create truths. But they do lend a sheen of credibility to an otherwise ridiculous claim. Such a resolution makes it easier for the big lie to spread, because people can rely on and appeal to the GA’s “authority” on the matter without having to defend or even care about the details of such a heinous accusation. And once a lie has become officially acceptable to speak in the halls of power, it is only a matter of time before it gets picked up and amplified by popular culture. This one certainly did not take long.

On Thursday, Netflix began streaming the Jordanian film “Farha,” which purports to focus on the experiences of a young girl during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The hero watches as Israeli soldiers, portrayed as inhumanly cruel, brutally and graphically murder innocent Palestinian families, including children. While the film claims to be “based on” true events, the director has admitted that it is not factual, and that these scenes did not actually occur. But that does not mean they will not have a very real-world effect on anti-Jewish hate and violence, because many will watch the movie, and few will read the disclaimer.

There are two reasons to publicly correct the record on the nakba. First, it is simply not true. There are primary sources, from the Jordanian side, attesting to the fact that the vast majority of Arabs who left their homes did so voluntarily, or under orders from the invading Arab armies, not the invaded Israelis. Many left confident that the combined armies of Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Egypt would quickly overwhelm the tiny Jewish state. As the Jordanian newspaper Filastin reported, “The Arab States encouraged the Palestine Arabs to leave their homes temporarily in order to be out of the way of the Arab invasion armies.” But as another refugee quoted in another Jordanian newspaper, Ad Difaa, explained that “The Arab government told us: Get out so that we can get in. So we got out, but they did not get in.”

Second, it is incredibly dangerous. In 1976, Mahmoud Abbas said that “The Arab armies entered Palestine to protect the Palestinians from the Zionist tyranny but, instead, they abandoned them, forced them to emigrate and to leave their homeland, and threw them into prisons similar to the ghettos in which the Jews used to live” (emphasis added).

Israeli Ambassador to Ireland Lironne Bar Sadeh (Irish Times): Israel Is Not an "Apartheid" State

The letter in the Irish Times, "Israel and the Palestinian people" (Nov. 30), signed by various Irish luminaries, repeats the usual canard that Israel is an "apartheid" state.

This is an outrageous falsehood. Israel is in fact the only long-lasting liberal democracy in the entire Middle East. It is the only country in the region with freedom of speech, party, press, and association and judicial transparency.

It has equality under the law for all its citizens, a fifth of whom by the way are Israeli Arabs, both Muslim and Christian. It is also the only country in the region with rights and equality for the LGBTQ+ community. In terms of its legal and political systems, its vibrant press and rich civil society, Israel is remarkably similar to Ireland.

Those who signed the letter think they are helping in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, but in fact they are not. By constantly demonizing Israel and ignoring the deep flaws on the Palestinian side, such as the Islamic fundamentalism of Hamas, and the squalid corruption of the Palestinian Authority, they make themselves morally and intellectually bankrupt.

People who genuinely want to help the Palestinians should encourage democratic, moderate forces within Palestinian society and those who will eventually realize that peace with Israel can only come about through dialogue and mutual compromise, not by demonization and intransigence. It is tragic that some people in Ireland, instead of supporting Israel and the moderate Arab forces in the region, prefer to demonize Israel as much as possible and fail to condemn Iran and the forces of extremism which blight the region.

12% of Gazans Have Fled Gaza Since Hamas Took Over

In the 15 years since Hamas seized control of Gaza, 12 percent of the Strip’s population has fled, according to a study released by an organization associated with the terror group. The report appears to mark the first time Hamas is acknowledging — indirectly — widespread Gazan emigration since it violently seized control of the Strip in 2007.

The report, written by the Hamas-affiliated Council on International Relations, was published in September and recently seen by the Tazpit Press Service. It claims that over 60,000 Gazan residents have migrated from the Gaza Strip in recent years to escape poverty and war.

The CIR report blamed Israel’s blockade of Gaza for the Strip’s poverty driving Gazans to flee. Israel and Egypt imposed a blockade on Gaza in 2007 to prevent weapons smuggling.

The Strip has seen several waves of immigration due to dire unemployment rates, growing poverty, sanctions imposed by the Palestinian Authority, and rounds of conflict with Israel. The CIR did not acknowledge Hamas’s authoritarian rule as a contributing factor.

“Gaza is being emptied of its residents,” the authors of the report said.

The Palestinian Authority has no data on the scope of migration from the Gaza under Hamas rule. Till now, Hamas hid the data, making accurate numbers difficult for human rights organizations to gather. The CIR’s chairman of the board is Basem Naim, who is also a senior figure in Hamas.

Various estimates in the past year shed some light on the Gaza exodus.

Between 2007-2021, approximately 236,000 Gazans left the Strip, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, WAFA, reported during the summer. That number is also about 12 percent of the total residents of the Strip.

Based on those numbers, it appears that an average of around 17,000 Palestinians have left Gaza every year since 2007.

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12/03 Links: Happy Nakba Day; Bibi Could Upend Biden’s Weak Foreign Policy; More media excuses for Palestinians and terror; US Jews battle ‘mainstreaming’ and normalization of antisemitism

From Ian:

Happy Nakba Day

The Jewish/Arab conflict in the Middle East is not about the relative merits of Jew or Arab to live on the Land; there is enough land in what was formerly known as “Palestine” for all without Israel giving up any of the area it now possesses. The ongoing war in Israel is the fulcrum of the intellectual/spiritual conflict between the worldviews that oppose G-d’s rule on earth, and its manifestation through the return of the Jews to the Land.

They say: "Come, let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel will be remembered no more. The consult together with a united purpose; against Hashem do they make a covenant. The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites, Moab and the Hagrites. Gival, Ammon and Amalek; Philistine and the residents of Tyre. Assyria is also joined with them; they have become an appendage of the children of Lot, selah. (Psalm 83)

A sovereign Israel is an existential threat to the adherents of Christian & Moslem replacement theologies; it shakes their worldviews to the foundations. A thriving Jewish Commonwealth puts the lie to their system of beliefs. The destruction of the State of Israel and the re-expulsion of the Jews are critical to Christian and Moslem worldviews, in order to correct the “aberration” of the Ingathering of the Exiles, kibutz galuyot. All efforts to hobble and constrict the State of Israel, to push her back to indefensible borders, to murder Jewish women and children, especially new immigrants, are important milestones toward their ultimate goal of rolling back history to the good old days when the Jews were scattered to the four corners of the globe, easy prey for the Jew haters.

So the UN passes yet more Jew hating resolutions. Pish Tush, as Gilbert & Sullivan would say.. Should they ever succeed in uprooting the People of Israel from the Land of Israel, you can rest assured they would trip over themselves building elaborate memorials to the failed Jewish enterprise.

However, Israel and the settlement enterprise will endure because it is the mitzvah she’kol ha’mitzvot t’luyin bah (i.e., living in the Land of Israel is the mitzvah upon which every other mitzvah is predicated). Witness the open miracles in the battles of 1948, 1967, 1973. Nowhere in Biblical Prophecy does it suggest that Hashem will return us to our land only to be expelled again.

In a certain sense, Theodore Herzl was wrong: the establishment of Der Judenstaat has failed to solve the problem of Jew hatred. Israel is now reckoned as the Jew among the nations. But their strenuous objections to the Jewish State serve merely to reinforce the fundamental integrity of our worldview, our mission, and our hopeful vision for humanity.

So let’s celebrate Nakba Day! The proper response to the exasperated last gasps of our detractors is to build, build, build. Build up the Land. Build more houses in Yehuda, Shomron and the periphery.

And finally: let us extend our hand in brotherhood to those gentiles who see the Hand of G-d in historical events, and who wish to join with us to bring us closer to the day when G-d is One and His Name is One in the world.

How did Kohelet Forum become Israel's dynamic think tank?

What is the function of the Kohelet Policy Forum?
The Kohelet Policy Forum promotes Israeli national sovereignty and individual liberty. This makes it a “small c” conservative center. It was founded in 2012 by Prof. Moshe (“Moish”) Koppel, an American-born oleh and a true polymath. A specialist in machine learning and artificial intelligence (specifically, natural language processing), he also has written on the metalogic of Halacha and on constitutional law.

He recently wrote a witty book about Jewish identity in the modern age, Judaism Straight Up, which examines the differences between traditional societies and contemporary cosmopolitan ones.

Kohelet is basically a “libertarian” shop. This means that it seeks to broaden individual liberty and promote free-market principles in Israel. Much of its efforts have been aimed at driving deregulation, cutting government bureaucracy, reforming local and national government bodies, and eliminating impediments to free and fair trade (like tariffs, quotas, cumbersome product standards, and licensing requirements). In this it has been enormously effective.

Kohelet has tackled the (mis-)management of government corporations and pension funds, land use and housing policies, labor and social welfare policies, food cartels, the regulation of cannabis cultivation and export, policies meant to better integrate Arab women and haredi (ultra-Orthodox) men in higher education and the productive workforce, and more.

Kohelet also singlehandedly has put on the national agenda the demand for reform of the legal system and the need to re-balance the anchors of Israel’s democratic system – the Knesset and the courts.

In many ways, legal or constitutional reform is the hottest and most acute partisan issue on the domestic agenda, something akin to abortion as the most piercing issue in American politics. And Kohelet put it there (correctly so, in my view). I am sure that Kohelet’s thinkers and legal experts will play a sizeable role in the coming debate over the contours of judicial reform.

If then-justice minister Ayelet Shaked gets credit for appointing approximately 300 judges largely in a conservative and libertarian mold (out of a grand total of some 800 judges in the entire judicial system), then Kohelet shares part of that credit. Kohelet specialists raised national consciousness about the importance of who gets appointed to the bench and how, and helped Shaked make wise choices.

Kohelet also emphasizes “national sovereignty.” Indeed, Prof. Koppel wrote the very first draft of Israel’s so-called nation-state bill. Working with Avi Dichter MK and then many other parliamentarians on both sides of the Left-Right divide in Knesset, the Forum successfully drove passage of the Basic Law: Israel as the Nation-State of the Jewish People.

More media excuses for Palestinians and terror

As could be expected, the media is having a field day criticizing Israel for allowing citizens in a democratic election to choose some despicable characters to represent them in the next government. Outside of those who voted for them, you do not hear much support from Israelis for the views of Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Nevertheless, their inclusion in the government is being portrayed in apocalyptic terms. The media has no such concern for the state of the U.S. government, with antisemites like Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Minn.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in Congress.

The Washington Post devoted nearly an entire page in its “The World” section to the article, “Palestinians fear for their children after Israeli vote.” Several Palestinians are quoted about their fears to give the impression that Israelis are targeting children. One says he tells his children to be careful around soldiers “because any kind of movement, and they will shoot them.” Similarly, another Palestinian says she won’t let her young children walk to school for fear they will be targeted by soldiers.

Claire Parker mentions Ben-Gvir’s position on giving security forces greater latitude to use live ammunition but provides zero evidence that Palestinian children are in any danger following the election, or that soldiers are shooting children on their way to school or by simply moving in an unthreatening way.

The article references a “spate of Palestinian attacks” but does not label the perpetrators terrorists or mention the number of Israeli civilians who have been murdered this year by terrorists. It does refer to the number of Palestinians killed and injured without any explanation of the circumstances.

What made the article especially galling, and just one more example of anti-Israel bias, was that a short article appeared below it about the protests in Iran. This merited four short paragraphs and did not mention that as many as 63 children have been murdered by Iranian security forces. So, while Iranian children are being killed, the Post devotes most of its attention to the parents of Palestinian children who have not been harmed.

The coverage of the twin bombings in Jerusalem by the Post and others was also problematic. In keeping with past practice, reporters could not bring themselves to use the word “terrorist” to refer to the attacks or the perpetrators. Some stories mentioned that Israelis have been victims of violence numerous times this year but, again, refused to label them as victims of terror. Many also could not simply report the facts about the bombings and were compelled to mention the number of Palestinians who have died in clashes with Israeli forces.

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