Showing posts with label Martyrs Fund. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Martyrs Fund. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 28, 2022

From Ian:

The European Union's deceit and the Israeli response
The EU insists that Israel should abide by the Oslo Accords, as it still believes that within this area, a Palestinian state should be established within the framework of a comprehensive peace agreement. At the same time, according to the leaked document, it tries to strip Israel of its rights per that same agreement.

So that’s where humanitarian law comes in; the very set of laws that are supposed to help the EU circumvent Israel’s authority in Area C. This means that the EU has found a way to fund construction in Area C without violating the Oslo Accords, or so we are tricked to believe. The claim is that the construction is meant for humanitarian ends and is not politically motivated. Yet the EU construction takes place in locations that are highly sensitive, precisely for the sole purpose of creating new facts on the ground and preparing the area for a Palestinian takeover without any final peace agreement.

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

Moreover, the EU does not seem to consider building in Area A and Area B where all they would need is a permit from the Palestinian Authority. Apparently, in those areas, there is no need for humanitarian aid at all.

Needless to say, the news of the leaked document hit Israel really hard. Subsequently, a letter signed by 40 Knesset members was sent to EU leaders.

The letter, initiated by Likud MK Amichai Chikli, reminds the EU of Europe’s past when it used to taunt Jews to “go to Palestine,” and now, in essence, claims that Jews are foreigners in their own homeland.

The letter continues to state that the leaked document “completely ignores our people’s historical affinity to our homeland and completely ignores the status of the State of Israel in Area C.” Furthermore, the letter points out that no nation turns its back on its own heritage and reminds the EU that we have not forgotten our history.

Finally, the letter ends by calling upon the EU to immediately cease its illegal construction, halt the damage being caused to heritage sites and the nature in Judea and Samaria, and immediately desist from funding delegitimizing organizations that promote antisemitic propaganda, including Israeli organizations that serve EU interests.

The letter is, in fact, a fitting response to the leaked document and the reasons are twofold. For one, the EU has no jurisdiction in any of those areas and secondly, it has clearly misused humanitarian law and thus violated international law in broad daylight.

Now that the EU’s intentions are exposed, it should reconsider its positions, stop masking its political positions with laws and put its cards on the table for an honest discussion that is, in reality, a political and moral debate and not primarily about the law. They should do that before EU-Israel relations deteriorate any further.

As for Israel, it should invest more time and energy in defending its rights and preempt such initiatives, whether it comes from the EU, the United Nations or elsewhere.
Bezalel Smotrich (WSJ$): Israel’s New Government Isn’t What You’ve Heard
Our reforms are aimed at developing the area’s infrastructure, employment and economy for the benefit of all. This doesn’t entail changing the political or legal status of the area. If the Palestinian Authority decides to dedicate some of its time and energy to its citizens’ welfare rather than demonizing Jews and funding the murder of Israelis, it would find me a full partner in that endeavor.

Additionally, we seek to halt the execution of the Fayyad plan, a massive European Union-funded project to facilitate the Palestinian takeover of Area C, the one part of Judea and Samaria where Jews are currently permitted to live under the Oslo Accords. The authority is building housing, infrastructure and more in areas that are outside its jurisdiction to surround Jewish communities and other strategic locations in Area C in an attempt at de facto annexation. The EU contends its funding is purely humanitarian, but recent reporting has revealed this is not the case. This unrestrained usurpation poses mortal dangers to Israelis living there and risks significant damage to the natural environment and to historical sites. Among other measures, we will beef up enforcement of existing laws and agreements to stop this deliberate abuse.

Israel’s justice system also needs urgent reform to restore democratic balance, individual rights and public trust. In the U.S., elected politicians appoint federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, making the bench at least indirectly responsive to the people. In Israel, sitting Supreme Court justices have veto power over new appointments to the court.

Israel also lacks a written constitution, but in the 1990s the Supreme Court began striking down democratically enacted laws based on its own idea of what Israel’s constitution ought to be. This has created legal and economic uncertainty, precipitating a severe decline in the public’s trust in judicial and law-enforcement institutions. The Supreme Court ignores written law and, worse, invalidates government action even if it violates no law, but rather the court’s own notions of sound policy, or “reasonableness,” as it calls it. Moreover, the Israeli criminal-justice system also lacks basic procedural safeguards for defendants, such as the exclusionary rule, and there is no effective oversight on government prosecutors, who too often abuse their wide scope of authority.

Our emphasis on judicial reform is meant to bring Israel closer to the American political model with some limited checks to ensure the judicial system respects the law. We seek to appoint judges in Israel in a process similar to America’s; to define the attorney general’s scope of authority and relation to elected representatives in a manner similar to what’s set down in America; to develop effective oversight mechanisms for law enforcement to ensure they protect basic rights; and to restore the Knesset’s authority to define the fundamental values of the state and its emerging constitution.

All Americans should appreciate the wisdom and justice in these plans. They should shed their preconceptions and unite to support the resurgence of accountable government, prosperity, individual rights, and democracy in the Jewish homeland.
Why World Media Must Wait to Criticize New Israeli Government
Israel has a long legislative process. To become law, bills must be passed seven times, four in the plenum and three in committee. The controversial laws already passed by the new Knesset are – of course – fair game for criticism, but the rest will take their time.

Plenty of governments never get around to passing even their core goals. The outgoing government intended to pass legislation that could have limited Netanyahu from running again but never completed the process. Leaders of all its coalition parties were willing to make significant changes to the Western Wall prayer site, but for various reasons, they did not.

The previous coalition had an anti-LGBT party in Ra’am (United Arab List), which had four seats in a coalition of 61 that ended up taking unprecedented steps to help the LGBT community.

This coalition has an anti-LGBT party in Noam, which has one seat out of 64. It has Israel’s first gay Knesset speaker in Amir Ohana and a prime minister in Netanyahu who has repeatedly promised to prevent any harm to the community.

If the past two months of infighting inside Israel’s right-wing bloc are any indication, the new government will be less homogeneous than previously thought. It will likely have trouble passing bills that most of the parties in the coalition agree on, amid fights over credit and disputes over which party is more hawkish than another.

The new government has come to power with one clear mandate: To improve the security of Israeli citizens. This is a relatively uncontroversial goal, and its success would improve the lives of Jewish, Christian and Muslim Israelis as well as Palestinians.

According to official IDF figures, in the month prior to the election, there were 382 terror attacks in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) and Jerusalem alone. That number includes shootings, stabbings, explosives and Molotov cocktails.

There were three European countries where Far Right parties gained strength in recent elections. But in France, Italy and Sweden, there were nowhere near 382 terrorist attacks in the month prior to the election, so the rise of extremists there is arguably harder to justify.

But will those countries come under as much international scrutiny as Israel? Probably not.

To its credit, the Biden administration in the US has been careful to give the incoming Israeli government the benefit of the doubt until it takes steps it deems problematic and unacceptable.

The international media should consider following America’s lead.

Sunday, November 27, 2022




We've seen this before, and we'll see it again. And the West will continue to ignore this open incitement   to terror aimed at children from official Palestinian Authority TV:

Song: “Mother, in a new dress accompany me to [my] wedding. I came to you as a Martyr, O mother, O mother.”

Official PA TV host: “This song was spread on social media and shows one of the youths during the confrontations with the occupation soldiers in Hebron. Perhaps there is a message in it: That even the living youth will not return to their mothers alive, but will be married off in a procession as Martyrs.

The video from social media is shown.

Young Palestinian: “Mother, in a new dress accompany me to [my] wedding. I came to you as a Martyr, O mother, O mother.

[Official PA TV, A Tour of Social Media, Oct. 28, 2022]



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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

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Wednesday, August 31, 2022



Mahmoud Abbas told Wafa News Agency that he plans to tell the world how heroic the terrorists who are in Israeli prisons are in his address to the UN in September.

"The presidency affirmed that the Palestinian people and their leadership stand with the heroic prisoners in their battle in which they defend the dignity and sanctities of their people," the statement said.

The statement went on, "President Mahmoud Abbas is constantly following the suffering of the heroic prisoners in the prisons of the occupation, and that their issue is at the top of the agenda along with the right of return, the state and self-determination. ...These prisoners are heroes and symbols of the Palestinian people. We are proud of them and their steadfastness and adherence to the justice of their cause."

Palestinian immorality is so entrenched, so much a part of their ethos, that no one blinks at the demand that terrorists be released so they can attack Jews again. So much so that Abbas knows he can say this to the entire world without criticism.

Notice that releasing the prisoners and the fictional "right of return" to destroy the Jewish state are listed before statehood in his list of demands. Because killing Jews and destroying Israel are higher priorities for the "moderate" Abbas than actual statehood.




Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Don't tell me how to spend the money the West sends me!

The International Monetary Fund visited Israel and the territories this month to give advice on helping the Palestinian economy.

They issued a final statement with a summary of their findings. But there was something missing:

A single word about the Palestinian Authority Martyrs Fund or the other programs that pay terrorists and their families.

The PA spends about $270 million every year on prisoner salaries and "martyr" family payments, a significant chunk of the PA budget altogether (a few years ago, it was 8%, it has probably increased since then.) It is nearly 2% of the total Palestinian GDP! 

This is similar to the April World Bank report that also didn't mention "Pay for Slay" as a potential target for cost cutting.

Mahmoud Abbas has said many times that the top priority of spending for the Palestinians is on paying these terrorists - more than healthcare, more than education, more than retirement benefits. 

That appears to be the reason the IMF and World Bank don't bother making the recommendations to cut a program that throws hundreds of millions of dollars away annually to terrorists and their families - because they know that the PA will ignore them. But that is a profoundly bad reason - their job is to make the best recommendations they can, and then report if the PA refuses to comply. 

By hiding a huge source of the PA's financial woes, these world financial organizations are not doing anyone any favors. On the contrary - they become complicit in supporting terrorism. 

Say the truth, and let the PA defend the indefensible. 





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!

 

 

Sunday, July 31, 2022

Israeli media announced that Israel is deducting 600 million shekels from the tax revenues that it pays the Palestinian Authority because that is the amount that the PA pays terrorists in prison and their families this year.

As usual, the Palestinian leadership said that paying terrorists is sacred and nothing Israel does will stop them from making those payments.

Presidential spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh said in a press statement, "The Palestinian leadership, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, affirms its categorical rejection of this dangerous decision."

He stressed that the decision "will not lead to any result, because the rights of our heroic prisoners will not be affected, no matter what the pressures."

Abu Rudeineh added, "We will not accept a single penny reduction of the money of the heroes of the Palestinian people who carried the banner of freedom, for the sake of Jerusalem and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state."

The world media rarely reports that the top priority of Palestinian leaders is payments to terrorists.




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

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424. 

Read all about it here!

 

 

Monday, June 13, 2022

On May 10, the World Bank issued a report on the economy of the Palestinian territories, with suggestions and ideas to help it make ends meet.

This follows a similar report by the International Monetary Fund at the end of April. 

Both of them mention, as an issue, that Israel is withholding some tax revenue corresponding to the PA's payments to terrorist prisoners, their families, and families of "martyrs" - the so-called "Pay for Slay" program.

For example, the IMF notes:

A significant part of the fiscal problem is structural. The PA raises virtually no revenue from Gaza and East Jerusalem, while in 2021 it spent about a third of its budget in these two areas— particularly in Gaza—mainly comprising civil servant salaries and pensions, and net lending. Neither does it raise any significant revenue from Area C in the West Bank. Furthermore, the PA and Israel disagree on the amounts that the Government of Israel should transfer to the PA under the Paris Protocol, the so-called “fiscal leakages” (estimated at about 2 percent of GDP annually). In addition, the PA disagrees with unilateral Israeli deductions from clearance revenue for so-called “prisoner payments” (which amounted to 1.3 percent of GDP in 2021).
So while both groups mention the prisoner payments, neither of them suggest that the PA end the program.

They give plenty of other advice to the PA on how to reduce expenses and increase revenue. For example, the IMF recommends:

The way out of the current fiscal crisis will require wide-ranging Palestinian policy actions. Staff discussed the benefits of adopting a broad-based strategy to contain and rebalance public spending, while boosting growth. As the Palestinian authorities have fewer policy tools compared to peers, systematic reform to the key drivers of non-discretionary spending—i.e., civil service salaries and benefits, transfer payments, the public pension scheme, the health care system, and fuel subsidies—are key.    
But neither they nor the World Bank ever say that if the PA would just stop paying terrorist salaries, then a significant chunk of cash would immediately become available to them. 

Instead, they recommend negotiations with Israel on the topic, as if this is an expense that the PA has every right to spend even when they are being lent Western money.

It is telling that the world refuses to publicly condemn "pay for slay." And even those who are espousing responsible financial policies for the PA refuse to mention that lots of money can be saved if terrorists aren't rewarded for trying to murder Jews. 




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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