Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: corruption

Showing posts with label corruption. Show all posts

Monday, October 23, 2023

A brief history of Gaza aid being stolen by Hamas

In 2018, Middle East Online reported:

Hamas is accused of deepening the crisis of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, after the criticism it has been exposed to regarding the seizure of international grant funds and aid from more than one party.
Hamas, as it controls the Gaza Strip, receives millions of dollars in support from countries and international organizations to build hospitals, schools, and roads for more than two million Palestinians stuck in the Gaza Strip.
Despite the harsh measures and siege imposed by Israel on Gaza under the pretext of preventing Hamas from arming, which further complicates the lives of Palestinians, the movement spends a lot of money to purchase and develop weapons and equip its military arm, the Al-Qassam Brigades.
Hamas is accused by the Palestinian National Authority of practicing a policy of blackmail by seizing international support, as the Palestinian government said in 2018 that Hamas “steals the money of the Palestinian people and seizes all of the sector’s revenues, refuses to transfer them to the public treasury, and imposes fees and taxes on citizens for its treasury.”

It is one of the great untold stories of Gaza: hundreds of millions of dollars worth of aid has been diverted by Hamas into its own terror operations.

Here are some examples:

In 2009, dozens of Hamas militants attacked a charity, Cooperative Housing Foundation International (CHF), arrested its workers, and confiscated aid meant for needy families.

In February 2009, UNRWA accused Hamas of stealing over 3,500 blankets and 406 food parcels meant for UNRWA "refugees." Days later, UNRWA said Hamas stole 200 tons of wheat and 100 tons of rice.

In 2010, French aid group Help Doctors accused Hamas on Wednesday of seizing computer equipment, telephones, chairs, office equipment and medical files.

Also in 2010, Hamas was accused of stealing medicine and medical equipment provided by the PA and putting them for sale in Hamas-owned pharmacies. People talked about seeing medicine clearly labeled "in support of the Palestinian people" or "donated by Charity X."

In 2014, Hamas was again accused of stealing medicine meant to be given for free to Palestinians.

In 2019, poor Gazans accused Hamas of stealing meat sent by Saudi Arabia during Ramadan and reselling it on the black market, along with medicines and other aid.

Meanwhile, Gaza stores could be seen selling UNRWA-marked food packages, saying in English "not for sale."

We don't know if Hamas stole than and then sold them to stores, but clearly aid to Gaza was not reaching its intended recipients.

With this history, why would anyone believe that current aid to Gaza will not be diverted to Hamas first? That's what they do. (And so does the Palestinian Authority.)

So as terrible as this sounds, aid should not be sent if Hamas is the primary beneficiary. All the controls in the world cannot stop that theft from happening, and Hamas threats keep the witnesses mostly silent.

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!

Hamas Has A History of Threatening Those Who Report The Truth From Gaza (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

These days, along with the rush to condemn Israel in its war to eliminate the Hamas terrorist threat, there are instances of retractions and deletions of hasty anti-Israel posts. One of the more unusual and unexpected examples is Ilhan Omar backtracking on her accusation that Israel bombed a hospital:

While Omar has reacted to pressure, Tlaib is still at it.

Another example of backtracking comes from Secretary of State Blinken. It's not that Blinken condemned any particular action of Israel, but rather that he came out with a suggestion that was so insulting and ill-timed that he soon deleted it. Just one day after the Hamas massacre of Israeli civilians, Blinken publicly recommended a cease-fire:

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken deleted a social media post Monday morning that expressed support for a "cease-fire" in Israel after Palestinian militants invaded the nation late last week.

The now-deleted post, which appeared on Blinken's X account late Sunday, described a conversation Blinken reportedly had with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan.

While the tweet was deleted, it did not go unnoticed -- and was saved for posterity:

Fernandez is a former US diplomat and vice-president of MEMRI.

Keep in mind that it is unlikely that Blinken would publicly suggest this and try to set the idea for a cease-fire in motion without Biden's approval. A friend suggested to me that this was a trial balloon, which was soon shot down.

But there is another example of deletion, one not intended to save face but intended instead to save the Hamas terrorists and save their own skin.

Here is the original tweet from UNRWA:

But it didn't take long for UNRWA to delete that post:

UNRWA then posted its "clarification":

Despite UNRWA's clarification, other sources confirmed the story:

There was a time when the UN openly confirmed that Hamas violated international law.

John Ging, Director of the Operational Division at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in 2014 admitted that Hamas was using both UN facilities and residential areas to fire rockets at Israel.

At the time, in 2014, there were a number of journalists who reported on Hamas using human shields. Maybe because Hamas was using them as the shields.

That Shifa hospital was -- and is -- exploited by Hamas as a headquarters as well:

Shifa has indeed “become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices,” the Washington Post reported on July 15. The Wall Street Journal‘s Middle East correspondent, Nick Casey, wrote on Twitter that Hamas uses Shifa “as a safe place to see media,” but removed the post afterwards.

Some journalists even tweeted about it -- even if they did delete those tweets later.

Here is a journalist tweeting about 9 children killed by Hamas -- once he was safely out of Gaza.

Italian journalist Gabriele Barbati said he was able to speak freely about witnessing a Hamas misfire that killed nine children at the Shati camp, confirming the Israel Defense Forces version of events, but only after leaving Gaza, “far from Hamas retaliation.”

Why did Barbati wait until after he was out of Gaza?
The answer has implications for the reporting by the journalists who stay in Gaza.

In 2021, when Israel destroyed a 12-story building in Gaza used by Hamas military intelligence and AP denied knowing that it shared a building with the terrorist group, a former AP journalist refuted their claim:

As to whether AP was aware of Hamas involvement with the building, Matti Friedman wrote in his 2014 Atlantic piece: “When Hamas’ leaders surveyed their assets before this summer’s round of fighting, they knew that among those assets was the international press. The AP staff in Gaza City would witness a rocket launch right beside their office, endangering reporters and other civilians nearby — and the AP wouldn’t report it.”

Friedman claimed the Hamas militants would regularly “burst into the AP’s Gaza bureau and threaten the staff — and the AP wouldn’t report it.”

UNRWA's deletion and subsequent "clarification" shows that the same fear exists. And the history of Hamas's massive violations of international law makes the indications of Hamas stealing humanitarian supplies from their own people very believable.

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!

UNRWA gives free services to 775,000 who aren't refugees even by its own definition!

This table is from the UNRWA Registered Population Dashboard, showing who receives UNRWA services.

We've discussed many times how the UNRWA definition of "refugee" is completely at odds with the official UN definition of refugee, drastically inflating the number of real refugees they raise funds for. They include descendants of refugees that UNHCR would never consider refugees, they include two million Jordanian citizens, they include well over two million Palestinians who are citizens of the Palestinian Authority.

We've seen how their "registered refugee" metric includes hundreds of thousands of people who no longer live in their areas of operation but whom UNRWA still counts as receiving services.

We've seen how hundreds of thousands of today's UNRWA "registered refugees" were not even refugees under their own definition when it started, but UNRWA registered them anyway and today hundreds of thousands of UNRWA's "Palestine refugees" didn't even descend from real refugees in 1948.

But this chart shows even more duplicity.

According to UNRWA, they provide services to over 770,000 people who aren't refugees even according to its own bizarre and counterfactual definition.

Doing some digging, I found the definition of "non-refugee" spouses and children.

UNRWA definition of “other eligible population” includes: (i) “Non-Refugee Wives” – women who are (or were) married to registered Palestine refugees, and as such are eligible to register to receive UNRWA services; (ii) “Non-Refugee Husbands” and “Non-Refugee Descendants” (including legally adopted children) – husbands and descendants of women who are Registered Refugees and are (or were) married to a non-refugee. They are also eligible to register to receive UNRWA services. Once they are registered with UNRWA, persons in this category are referred to as Married to Non-Refugee (MNR) Family Members.

So being married to a "refugee" makes one eligible to access free UNRWA health and housing. Which would have made Palestinian "refugees" very attractive marriage partners! According to this, some 450,000 non-refugees have married UNRWA aid recipients - an astonishing number.

Moreover, even if the spouses get divorced, he or she can keep getting those benefits forever - and so can their descendants! Not a bad deal!

What about "frontier villagers," "Jerusalem poor" and "Gaza poor"?

UNRWA’s Commissioner-General (then Director) stated in his annual report to the General Assembly in 1961: "The Agency’s definition of a refugee eligible for assistance is narrowly drawn and stipulates the loss of both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 hostilities. Substantial numbers of Palestine Arabs do not qualify for Agency relief on the technical grounds that they did not lose both home and means of livelihood, i.e. they may have lost their source of income and may be wholly destitute, but did not lose their home. This category has become known as 'economic refugees' and includes frontier villagers in Jordan, some destitute inhabitants of Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and certain Bedouin expelled after 1948. The General Assembly has more than once confirmed that, despite the undoubted need of these unfortunate people, the Agency’s mandate does not extend to them.

That was 1961. Since then, "The present Agency position is that, while registered for the purposes of receiving UNRWA services, these persons are not counted as part of the official registered Palestine refugee population. Except for descendants through the male line, UNRWA does not accept new applications from persons wishing to be registered in these categories.

So if a person was considered a "frontier villager" or "Jerusalem poor" in 1950, even though they weren't refugees and the UN consistently said they are not to receive UNRWA services during the 1950s, today their descendants can continue to receive UNRWA benefits as a poverty stricken Palestinian - even if they live in a mansion in Ramallah.

Do the UNRWA donors even know that UNRWA spends 11% of its budget on people who aren't "refugees" even under its own definitions?

The problem is, as we've mentioned before, that, unlike UNHCR, UNRWA has no means to remove anyone's "refugee" status. The vast majority of UNRWA's "Palestine refugees" are not refugees in any sense. And now we see that even non-refugees continue to receive UNRWA services forever.

There are more non-refugees under UNRWA's own definition receiving services today than there were real refugees in 1948. That shows, in a nutshell, why UNRWA must be abolished.

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!

Palestinians in an uproar over Abbas "shekel tax" on phones "to support Jerusalem"

Yesterday, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas announced that every Palestinian with a mobile or landline phone will have to pay an extra shekel every month "to support Jerusalem."

Palestinians received a message on their mobile phones saying, "In compliance with President Abbas' decision, one shekel will be added to your bill every month for a period of 12 months as part of an initiative to support the steadfastness of our people in Jerusalem."

The tax would raise about 60 million shekels ($18M) annually.

The reaction was immediate and fierce. Absolutely no one believes that the money would go to Jerusalem Arabs and nearly everyone assumes it would enrich Abbas and his Fatah friends.

Palestinians ridiculed the decision on social media, many saying that they refuse to pay or that they would rather cancel their phones. Some called in "theft in broad daylight."

Others noted that the earmarking of funds to "Jerusalem" was incredibly vague and could be used for anything.

Some Jerusalem Arabs said that they don't need any money, but rather an army to "liberate" them.

Still others pointed out that imposing such a tax without official approval from the Legislative Council is illegal under Palestinian law.

Many Palestinians recalled a previous fundraising initiative by Abbas. In 2016, he announced a project to build the "Khaled Al-Hassan" cancer hospital on 20 dunams of land in Ramallah, at an approximate cost of $140 million, not including medical equipment costs. Tens of millions of dollars were raised, but the hospital was never built, while the government claims that the money raised was put in a "special fund."

This prompted many to jokingly say that the phone tax will pay for the Jerusalem branch of the Khaled al-Hassan hospital.

This episode proves that there is absolutely no trust in Mahmoud Abbas' government. A majority of Palestinians consider both the PA and Hamas to be corrupt.

Beyond that, it shows how out of touch Abbas is from the people. The reaction was predictable, even as he probably thought that no one would care about such a small increase in their phone bill.

The story shows how precarious and corrupt the PA is.

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!

12/26 Links Pt2: It’s time for Jews to say, ‘Sorry, not sorry’; The American Jewish left’s endorsement of antisemitism; Glick: Jason Greenblatt: Two State Solution is meaningless

From Ian:

It’s time for Jews to say, ‘Sorry, not sorry’

There are many Jews out there who blame Israel for antisemitism:

“If only we didn’t ‘occupy’ the ‘Palestinians,’ there would be no antisemitism.”

“If only those ultra-Orthodox Jews wouldn’t dress like that and stick to their ‘primitive ways,’ people wouldn’t hate us so much.”

But they’ll never accept our apology, so it’s time we stop apologizing.

The new government is too right-wing for you? You must have confused me for someone who cares about your opinion.

Foreign aid? Go ahead, Biden, try to pull it. Try to boycott Israel, BDS. Go for it, let’s see how that goes for you.

We don’t need you any more than you need us.

Allow me to officially declare that the era of the apologetic Jew is dead. It should rest in peace.

Now let me introduce you to a new creature: the proud Jew.

We have a lot to be proud of.

20% of all Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews. We have the most moral army in the world. We are able to balance our military power with our unwavering need to behave morally and ethically, sometimes too ethically.

We lead the world in life-changing tech: Medicine, food, you name it, we are at the forefront of it all.

We took a desert that Mark Twain famously referred to as “a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land” and transformed it into one of the most flourishing societies in the Middle East and the world, and it only took us 75 years.

So, it’s time we all declared the apologetic Jew dead and introduced the world to a new breed of Jew, the proud Jew.

If we don’t respect ourselves, how can we expect the world to?

Our new government, despite its shortcomings, represents the proud Jew. There has never been more Torah learning than there is right now. We have never been stronger physically or economically. That’s something to be proud of.

This new government will support Torah. It will support the land of Israel—all of it. It will support our needs, not the needs of our enemies.

We have always talked about and prayed for the people of Israel, with the Torah of Israel, in the land of Israel. And now, we have arrived, not yet to the final destination, but we are well on the way.

For that, we, the Jewish people, should be proud, not ashamed and apologetic.

Or, in other words: Sorry, not sorry.

The American Jewish left’s endorsement of antisemitism

Once upon a time, identifying an antisemite required the proverbial duck test. If it quacked like an antisemite, then it probably was an antisemite.

Back then, antisemites had ways to avoid responsibility, but this has changed in recent years due to the widespread adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s Working Definition of Antisemitism, which is now used by 38 countries, including the United States.

The IHRA definition, which includes examples of antisemitism directed against Israel, fits Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) perfectly.

For years, Omar has used the vocabulary of antisemitism delineated in the IHRA definition, such as tweeting “Israel has hypnotized the world” and that U.S. politicians’ support for Israel is “all about the benjamins”—a reference to hundred-dollar bills.

Even the Democratic House leadership, headed by outgoing speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that Omar “engaged in deeply offensive antisemitic tropes.”

One of the IHRA definition’s most important examples of antisemitism is “accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel.”

Omar did precisely that in Feb. 2019, when she angered fellow House Democrats Eliot Engel and Nita Lowey (both of New York) by saying in reference to Israel, “I want to talk about the political influence in this country that says it is OK for people to push for allegiance to a foreign country.”

Omar has also repeatedly applied double standards to Israel and singled out the world’s only Jewish state for her attacks, both of which are also included in the IHRA definition. She even equated Israel and the U.S. with Hamas, Afghanistan and the Taliban.

But despite all that quacking, several left-wing groups that label themselves “Jewish” and “pro-Israel” recently had the audacity to pretend that Omar is not a duck.

Who came to Omar’s defense when House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) pledged to remove Omar from the House Foreign Affairs Committee?

It was J Street, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, Habonim Dror North America, the New Israel Fund, T’ruah and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

12/13 Links Pt2: Landes on Why Leftists Embrace Islamist Ideas about the West; The history of the media intifada against Israel; Brandeis Center: FBI Report Grossly Understated Antisemitic Crimes

From Ian:

Richard Landes on Why Leftists Embrace Islamist Ideas about the West

Richard Landes, chair of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and author of Can the "Whole World" Be Wrong? Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism, and Global Jihad, was interviewed in a December 5th Middle East Forum Webinar (video) by Dexter Van Zile, editor of the Middle East Forum's Focus on Western Islamism (FWI), regarding the left's embrace of Islamist ideas about the West.

Landes said Edward Said's 1978 book, Orientalism, had "pretty much taken over academia" with its premise that any criticism of Islam was a form of "Western racism." By 2000, said Landes, Said's ideas had "crystallized into a basic feature of the Western public sphere." In 2001, a further significant watershed in this process was the U.N.-sponsored Durban conference, an international forum purportedly held to fight racism. At the conference, "You had the NGOs ... their sacred theme was human rights ... lining up with and joining forces with some of the most regressive groups on the planet. And so as a result ... And the key thing in that unification was the adoption by both sides .... They had already both more or less developed this thought, but they jointly targeted Israel and the United States as, in millennial terms, the Antichrist. Or in Muslim terms, the Dajjal."

Landes described the alliance formed at Durban, followed three days later by the jihad against America on 9/11, as a "red-green alliance" between the "progressive left and jihadis." He referred to it as a "marriage between post-modern sadism and post-modern masochism." The poisonous seeds of that merger account for the Islamists' marching in lockstep with the left, targeting both Israel and the U.S.

Landes said their joint strategy to undermine the West is "demopathy," i.e., using democracy to destroy democracy. Both groups used their platforms to channel their hostility, often publicized at anti-U.S. and anti-Israel protests in the form of symbolic imagery on placards linking swastikas with the American flag and the Jewish star. Landes noted that Islamist propagandists have grown "bolder and bolder. Initially, they didn't think they could get away with saying the things that they say now, so they couched it in human rights terms." He said that "what's happened over the last 20 years is that they've just seen how foolish Western leaders are and that they can get away with just about anything. But I think they still, by and large, don't openly say in English what they say in Arabic."

Phyllis Chesler: The history of the media intifada against Israel

From the moment Yasser Arafat launched his long-planned second intifada against Israel in 2000, the most brazen lies about both Jews and Israel were relentlessly told and widely believed. For years, master propagandists in cyberspace, the Western media and academia managed to diabolically invert reality. The entire world believed an utterly false narrative.

Richard Landes’s new work Can the Whole World Be Wrong?: Lethal Journalism, Antisemitism and Global Jihad fearlessly, carefully, relentlessly and brilliantly documents this history.

Landes is a historian and a scholar of apocalyptic movements. He is the author of eight books and countless articles. He maintains a formidable website, The Augean Stables. He is also a consummate wordsmith. For example, he coined the phrase “Pallywood” (Palestinian Hollywood) to describe the Palestinians’ tactic of staging theatrical productions in war zones in order to create anti-Israel propaganda disguised as news.

In his book, Landes proceeds blood libel by blood libel, beginning with the iconic death of Mohammed al-Dura, a Gazan child allegedly murdered with malice aforethought by cruel Israeli soldiers. With his death caught on video and immediately blamed on Israel, even though the video proved no such thing, al-Dura became the boy whose image has graced a thousand mugs and t-shirts, inflamed the entire world and led to countless Muslim atrocities, including suicide bombings, shootings, knife attacks and car-rammings against Israeli civilians.

As Landes notes, the initial reporting on the incident was malicious and incendiary: “The (flawed) footage and its accompanying narrative immediately went viral, then mythical. The footage was spectacular, as emotionally powerful as the dogs attacking Black protesters in Birmingham (1963), and the terrified Vietnamese girl running down the road naked, aflame with napalm (1972). … Despite extensive problems with the footage … journalists piled on the story. … It became the icon of hatred for the 21st century. One cannot overestimate its impact.”

“The role of al-Dura as incitement is clear,” Landes writes, “and if the damage was less than the old European pogroms, it’s only because the Israelis could defend themselves as the Jews of Kishinev could not.”

Landes also reminds us that Osama bin Laden used al-Dura in a recruiting video for global jihad and that the first Palestinian suicide bombers featured al-Dura in the videos they left behind.

EU source says anti-Israel measure 'tainted' in wake of Qatar corruption scandal

A source that has been privy to the European Parliament's behind-the-scenes deliberations over an anti-Israel resolution has told Israel Hayom it was problematic to have this measure come up for a vote at this time in light of the recent revelation that Qatar allegedly bribed senior officials in the legislative body in exchange for treating it with kid gloves over human rights.

"This corruption case involving the parliament raises the question of whether this is the right time to vote on this [anti-Israel resolution]," the source said.

The parliament's subcommittee on human rights has been at the center of the scandal and its chair Maria Arena has had to step down due to possible involvement (it is unclear if she is among the four being charged, who include EU Parliament's Vice President Eva Kaili, who was arrested).

Arena, who has initiated the anti-Israel motion, has stepped aside as chairperson in the wake of the investigation and her office has been sealed off, but the subcommittee has continued working on the draft. "This is the same subcommittee that has initiated the effort to hold the vote on the Israel resolution," the source said. "Considering this, perhaps it would be inappropriate to have these measures stay on the subcommittee's docket; perhaps they should be shelved for the time being until the picture becomes clearer."

On Monday, the various elements in the parliament tried to reach an agreed language, but all the drafts currently being circulated are not good for Israel, with some outright hostile. All call for the adoption of the two-state solution. The most pro-Israel draft has been sponsored by the right-wing parties, as it condemns Palestinian terrorism and demands it come to an end. The other resolutions call on Israel to avoid approving new communities in Judea and Samaria and voice criticism over the Abraham Accords, while also coming out against the adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism.

NGO Monitor: Report: Potential Abuse of German Development Resources by Terror Affiliated Palestinian NGOs

Development and cooperation aid is seen as one of the most effective strategies for promoting democracy and fundamental rights, as well as building sustainable and inclusive societies, particularly in places where these processes are in their initial phases. To be sure, the path to building a democratic society is a political process, traversing existing ideological and social rifts, and subject to passionate debates between different political camps.

Especially in conflict ridden areas, politicization can result in development aid lending a platform to radical voices and amplifying inflammatory, hateful narratives. Such aid is particularly susceptible to abuse by groups that promote radical political narratives.

This is even more pronounced in the Palestinian-controlled areas, including Gaza, where many of the political factions are designated as terror groups by Europe (Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP]).

This paper provides a case study that examines the ways that political actors propagate and legitimize radicalized narratives – namely, local Palestinian civil society organizations affiliated with the PFLP terror group, which receive European and more specifically German development aid.

The PFLP is multifaceted, consisting of overlapping functions including militant operations, local partisan political activity, and international advocacy via a “human rights” NGO network. These aspects are complementary, all contributing to the broadening of the PFLP’s sphere of influence and to achieving its goals.

The overlapping character of PFLP activities was illustrated acutely when several senior NGO employees (including those in financial leadership positions) were arrested for a PFLP terror attack in 2019, in which Rina Shnerb, a 17-year-old Israeli, was murdered. A subsequent investigation run by the Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) concluded that six PFLP-affiliated NGOs had diverted public funds. Ultimately, all six were designated as terror entities.

Why is the UN holding closed anti-Israel meetings under Chatham House rules?

From the UN:

The Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People (CEIRPP) held closed consultations with Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), titled “Advocating for Accountability in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”, on 8 November 2022, as a virtual meeting under the Chatham House Rule. Participants included CSO representatives from Palestine, Israel and the United States, as well as from members and observers of the Committee.

When a meeting is held under the Chatham House Rule, neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speakers or participants may be revealed. The purpose of the rule is to encourage open discussion since anything said is "off the record".

So we do not know the names of the "civil society organizations" who participated. They could include organizations linked with Islamic Jihad, the PFLP or other terror groups. The speakers could include convicted terrorists. There is no transparency.

The normal reason for Chatham House rules is to encourage discussion. In this case, though, the reason seems to be that the UN knows that some of the speakers and organizations have explicitly supported antisemitism, and they don't want that fact to be publicized which would distract from their higher calling of coming up with new ideas on how to destroy Israel.

One thing is certain, though: not a single pro-Israel CSO was invited.

The CSOs essentially set the agenda for the UN, rather than acting as consultants:

During the questions and answers session, one participating CSOs formulated several recommendations to the Committee, including the continuation of its advocacy to expose the abuses committed in the OPT. Participants stressed that additional suggestions for the Committee action could be drawn from the fight against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Seeking an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice was also mentioned, as a first step. Member States could take further action in the meantime. Furthermore, the international community needed to increase attention towards corporate responsibility as only a general backlash by Member States would have an impact. Among other measures, making public corporate lists available would provide tools for future advocacy against Israeli abuses. Speakers therefore called for an update of the OHCHR database of all enterprises making business in Israeli settlements in the OPT.
Committee members stressed the crucial role of the ongoing partnership with CSOs and mentioned how their inputs and recommendations added value to the work of the Committee.

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!

Dictator Abbas attempts to replace doctors' union with his own people

Mahmoud Abbas, the ruthless dictator who already controls the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the Palestinian government, is now going after....the unions.

On Tuesday, the Palestinian Authority president issued a presidential decree to dissolve the Doctors' Syndicate and to replace it with another union headed by his own pick, Shawki Sabha.

The Doctors Syndicate stated that Abbas's decision wants to replace the current elected council for the group with handpicked cronies.

Abbas consistently goes after any organization that does not toe his line. And he's been doing this for over 15 years.

Palestinian human rights groups Al Haq and the Independent commission for Human Rights denounced the decision. But outside of those, the media and major human rights organizations let Abbas do whatever he wants.

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!

Palestinians know their leaders are corrupt - but Western media keeps downplaying it

The full results of the latest PCPSR poll of Palestinians has been published, and it finds a consistent pattern.

86% of Palestinians say there is corruption in the Palestinian Authority and 73% say there is corruption in institutions under Hamas’ control in the Gaza Strip.

That is truly overwhelming majority - and it is a story that the Western media continuously downplays. After all, if the Palestinian leadership cannot be trusted to take care of their own people, how can anyone expect them to adhere to agreements with Israel?

Another telling statistic: A majority of Palestinians under both Hamas and PA rule say that they cannot criticize their leaders without fear. 58% of West Bankers think people in the West Bank cannot criticize the PA without fear and 54% of Gazans say they cannot criticize Hamas without fear.

Again, Western media will uncritically quote Palestinian media and citizens without mentioning that people are likely to self-censor to parrot what their corrupt leaders want them so say. This results in reporting on the region that is inherently inaccurate.

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!

Palestinian government giving ministers and extra $24K a year as "petty cash"

Safa reports:

Official documents obtained by the Palestinian Press Agency (Safa) revealed that the ministers of the current government have been receiving “petty cash” monthly, in the amount of $2,000, since late 2019.

This is despite the financial crisis that the PA is going through, and despite President Mahmoud Abbas' decision on August 18, 2019 to stop disbursing any additional funds to government ministers, after widespread controversy that followed [a raise of $2000 monthly that was approved)]during the first months of Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh's government.

The documents indicate that the government has created a mechanism to circumvent the Law on Remunerations and Salaries for Legislative Council Members, Government Members and Governors, which set the salary of the Prime Minister at $4,000 and the Minister’s at $3,000, by disbursing $2,000 to each minister in the form of “petty cash.”

Effectively, the PA government found a way to double minister salaries while pretending that they froze them.

They also added a "cost of living" increase of 70% for retired ministers.

This is the everyday corruption in the Palestinian Authority. And chances are this story will not be published at all in official Palestinian media.

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!

Fatah officials jockeying for position when Abbas dies, accusing each other of corruption. Pass the popcorn.

Elaph published details of a report showing that Fatah official "Major General" Tawfiq Al-Tirawi was guilty of corruption.

Al-Tirawi was the chair of the Board of Trustees for the Palestinian Military and Security Academy in Jericho, associated with Al Istiqlal University. Abbas recently removed him from that position.

The report accuses Tirawi of professional and financial abuse, and of appointments to close people and relatives.

The college initiated real estate projects that appear to have been created to line the pockets of Tirawi and his cronies. The university received none of the revenues from Jericho villas and an office building in Al Ram, ostensibly for Al Istiqlal University but that the university does not need.

An audio recording of Al Tirawi surfaced where he attacked Minister of Civil Affairs Hussein al-Sheikh and his family. Al-Sheikh is a rival of Tirawi to succeed Abbas and is widely considered to have the inside track.

There is an additional investigation into Al Tirawi on "very serious" charges that Elaph said it did not want to publish yet.

Apparently, all of those who want to succeed Mahmoud Abbas, who is 87, are now digging up dirt on their rivals and planting stories. Not that the stories aren't true! But Tirawi has a history of criticizing Mahmoud Abbas and it looks like some of these accusations are sourced at the top.

Meanwhile, others note that Al-Tirawi is the head of a special investigation committee set up by Mahmoud Abbas more than ten years ago to investigate the circumstances of Yasser Arafat's death. The committee receives a monthly budget but it has yet to issue any reports.

Al Tirawi responded to that accusation, saying the committee has not yet completed the investigation, and has not yet reached accurate, objective and conclusive results about the "assassination." But as soon as it does find the "irrefutable proof" it will set up trials of the supposed murderers.

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Palestinians angry at obvious nepotism in Palestinian Authority

Recently, a position as Palestinian "Minister of Local Government" was given to the daughter of another minister, causing Palestinian social media to erupt with anger and jeering for a history of nepotism and favored appointments to friends.

There's a history here. Last year several envoys to foreign countries were given to relatives of senior Fatah officials.

Palestinian officials defended the recent appointment, saying that the women was well qualified. Palestinians are responding with skepticism, to say the least, especially since unemployment is high and good jobs are perceived to be going to favored individuals.

On Twitter, the hashtag #عظام_الرقبة - an Palestinian euphemism for nepotism that literally means "neck bones" - is getting many posts, as people complain that in the West, you need a resume for a job, but for Palestinians you need to be related to someone.

Everyone knows about Palestinian Authority corruption - except, apparently, the hundreds of Western journalists whose jobs are to cover Palestinian topics.

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Israelis and Palestinians agree: Israel shouldn't secretly transfer money to the PA

Israel Hayom has a scoop:

The defense establishment and Finance Ministry are operating a secret, extra-budgetary fund, through which money is transferred to the Palestinian Authority.

The fund's existence was revealed in the state's answer to the Supreme Court in response to a petition filed by the Kohelet Policy Forum. State's attorney Yael Morag Yako-El wrote that Israel had committed to transferring the Palestinians a "loan" of NIS 100 million ($28.86 million). "The source of this amount is an extra-budgetary fund managed by the Civil Administration and Finance Ministry's Budgets Department," she wrote.

Attorney Ariel Erlich, who submitted the petition on behalf of the Kohelet Policy Forum, said..."Theoretically, this is a gross violation of the law. After all, if the law stipulates what and how you are permitted to transfer to the PA, the state cannot create extra-budgetary funds to bypass this prohibition."

He added: "This whole story reeks of a cover-up, breaking the law, and funding terror. We hope the court won't allow the Finance Ministry to continue obscuring and blowing smoke. The citizens of Israel need to know whether public funds are transferred to fund terror through the circumvention of the Knesset's laws."

The Finance Ministry said in response that the "fund is sourced from payments pertaining to the use of lands, including quarries, along with media bodies as well. The sums that are deposited in the fund are earmarked for such matters. It should be noted we have answered questions posed by various Knesset members before, within the relevant contexts, about the loan."

It turns out that Palestinians are also suspicious of money they are receiving from Israel.

Hassan Asfour, editor of Amad, thinks that this is evidence of Palestinian Authority corruption:

The Hebrew report, if true, reveals that Palestinian Authority officials agreed to accept money in exchange for “special services,” and that the authority has become like some countries that receive money in exchange for non-national services, provided to serve the national enemy, and not what is announced about explicit relations.

While Israelis are worried that the funds will go towards terrorism, Asfour is concerned that the funds will not go towards terror. His fear is that Israel is outsourcing some functions to the PA, like security, that would not be in the Palestinian national interest. And to him, as with most Palestinians with zero-sum mentalities, anything that benefits Israel is by definition against the Palestinian national interest.

Who says Palestinians and Israelis cannot agree on something?

Any way you look at it, there should be no room for secret money transfers to the PA. The chances that the money will go towards terrorism are too high, and anything that is not transparent is almost invariably ripe for misuse. And, as Kohelet says, it is very possibly illegal.

Not only do we need to know what this money is used for, but also under which government this fund was started.

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Used to be, Palestinian terror leaders could get automatic throngs for demonstrations.No more.

Not too long ago, whenever Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Fatah wanted to fire up their people, they would put together a massive rally where tens of thousands could be summoned at seemingly the snap of a finger.

Here's a Hamas rally from 2017:

An Islamic Jihad rally from 2016:

But on Thursday, The Palestinian Authority and Islamic Jihad held a rally to protest President Biden's visit to Israel.

And the turnout was pathetic.

Here was Islamic Jihad's rally:

And here is another demonstration in Ramallah:

In Gaza, with a captive audience, a couple hundred people came to a rally organized by several socialist groups.

It looks like it is not only other Arab nations who are sick of Palestinian leadership.

Palestinians are, too.

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Travel delays are Israel's fault, too, according to an award winning journalist

Dalia Hatuqa is a well-regarded and award-winning Palestinian journalist, who has published in Time, the Washington Post, The Economist and elsewhere.

She wrote a Twitter thread yesterday about her frustrations at the delay of crossing the border between Jordan and Israel - blaming Israel for the delay.

There is currently a three hour wait at the Jordanian side of Allenby Bridge. Many of the people here are American citizens. Now tell me why the US is busy working on a visa waiver for Israel while we rot in literal hell at the border crossing

Still waiting. Been here since 11. Just been told by the Jordanian side that the number system they have doesn’t apply to people whose names are put on the list by a “minister” or someone “high up”. Some guy just told me he didn’t get a number and he already left for the Israeli side.

Everyone is feeding off Palestinian misery and desperation. We pay $110 a person just to get on a shared bus to go through the bridge. And wait for three hours just so the Israelis can fuck with you. This is the quintessential Palestinian travel experience.

To anyone following my bridge drama— I’ve finally made it home. What’s supposed to take 3 hours max took me 7 hours. That’s basically half way from Amman to Washington DC. I’m tired, hungry, thirsty but mostly angry and sad that this is what it takes to come home.

I haven’t tasted this kind of humiliation since the second intifada. I am so emotionally and physically exhausted I slept from 9pm last night and woke up at noon today. Friends are on the bridge as we speak and they waited 5 hrs at the Jordanian side. The whole thing breaks you.

You see, the evil Israelis are intent on humiliating Palestinians, and that's the reason for the delay, according to this award-winning journalist.

When someone commented to her, "Chill lady. I queued 3 hours at Heathrow yesterday." she responded, "Shut up. Queuing at Heathrow is a whole other ball game. You have no idea what you’re talking about. I don’t usually respond to nobodys but it’s obvious you’re privileged and have never tasted humiliation like this."

For Palestinians, every slight is a "humiliation" that is directed at them. No one else has problems, no one else suffers, and every Palestinian who is inconvenienced is a victim of a direct attack on their Palestinianism.

The problems at the Allenby Bridge crossing have nothing to do with "humiliation." It is very simple: the number of travelers is too high for the facilities to handle at peak times. (Ironically, Arabs call the crossing "Karama" - which means "dignity.")

UltraPal has an article about the delays at the crossing. It mentions that this is an issue every year during summer vacation - a crossing that normally takes one hour now take more than 8 (more than Hatuqa's journey.) It is worse this year as people want to be with their families for the upcoming Eid al Adha holiday.

The article highlights something that Hatuqa only alludes to: the delays prompt people to bribe Jordanian officials, who let some people go through first, and this exacerbates the problem for the rest.

UltraPal is not a pro-Israel publication but at no point does it claim that Israel is the reason for the delays. It does mention that Palestinian officials who are also at the crossing add to the delays themselves by searching travelers for smuggled cigarettes before they go on buses to the PA-controlled areas.

To Palestinians, Israel is the yin and yang of all evil, therefore all their troubles are Israel's fault. This has the benefit of not allowing them to take responsibility for their own problems.

Hatuqa could use her platforms to publicize the bribery and favoritism on the Jordanian side of the crossing. She could mention how inadequate the facilities are. That could shame Jordan into cracking down on the problem. But instead she does what Palestinians are conditioned to do: blame Israel, which can do little to solve the problem on its own, and therefore ensure that Palestinians will be perpetual victims.

That is the role they have chosen, and it is a role that they relish.

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