ARIKAT: I have a quick question on Mr. Netanyahu’s speech at the United Nations at UNGA last Friday. He showed a map that completely erases the Palestinians. I wonder if you saw the map and I wonder if you have any comment on it.
MR MILLER: I did see it. I’m not going to get into any discussion about the map that the prime minister chose to use. I will say that the President has been clear, this administration has been clear that the United States will continue to support a two-state solution.
QUESTION: So it doesn’t bother you at all that the map shows the Palestinians just evaporated and so on? I mean, isn’t that like a cause for concern, a cause for saying “that’s our position and we state it very strongly; there will be no normalization without it or anything of such” – or just maybe a mishap on part of the prime minister?
MR MILLER: I did just state what our position is. In addition to my just stating what our position is, that we support a two-state solution
Whether the US or Palestinians like it, Israel still claims that Judea and Samaria are disputed territories, not occupied, and as such there is nothing wrong with an Israeli map including them as part of Israel before there is a peace agreement. (Admittedly, Gaza should not have been included in this map.)
His map of 1948 that showed an Israel that included the entire British Mandate could arguably include all of the territories because of the legal concept of uti possidetis juriswhich gave Israel, as the only state that existed after the 1948 war, the presumed borders of the entire Mandate.
But the PLO and the Palestinian Authority have, since 1993, consistently claimed that they accept a two state solution with Israel within what they call the "1967 borders."
Yet their maps consistently show a "Palestine" with no Israel.
Looking through recent photographs on Mahmoud Abbas' Facebook page, we see his receiving a report from the Palestinian Lands Authority which has a logo that erases Israel:
Here's Abbas lighting a torch to commemorate the anniversary of the PLO's founding, with the PLO logo that erases Israel:
If they accept the two state solution, and insist that their borders are the "pre-1967" borders and nothing beyond, than what is their excuse for consistently erasing Israel from their maps?
I would say that their hypocrisy is stunning, but it isn't. It is business as usual.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
She was the last of the 16 victims of the Sbarro Massacre to die, the last victim of the Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi who masterminded that terrorist attack and lives today in Jordan, free and something of a celebrity.
If the US is frustrated by Jordan's refusal to honor its extradition treaty and hand over the terrorist, it is hiding it well. On May 25, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement on the 77th anniversary of Jordanian independence:
The United States and Jordan share an enduring, strategic relationship deeply rooted in shared interests and values. We appreciate the important role Jordan plays in promoting peace and security across the region and countering violent extremism. (emphasis added)
During her hearing a few weeks ago on her nomination as the next US Ambassador to Jordan, Yael Lempert resisted Sen. Ted Cruz's suggestion that every tool should be used in order to pressure Jordan into honoring its treaty, including withholding aid. Lempert replied:
I think that that would need to be weighed very carefully against the range of issues and priorities that we have with the Jordanians before considering such a step, which I think would be profound.
Of course, Lempert added the expected, "I think that what I can confirm to you is that I will do everything in my power to ensure that Ahlam Tamimi faces justice in the United States," but the impression remains that somehow in the interests of Middle East peace, the US has to be careful not to apply too much pressure, that special considerations need to be taken into account.
But it's not that Jordan is completely opposed to extraditing terrorists.
That is an interesting counterpoint to the case of Ahlam Tamimi, where the court also opposed extradition, yet despite a formal treaty, the court's decision stood, while in the case of UAE, the decision -- and authority -- of the Jordanian court was pushed aside. Arnold Roth, whose daughter was one of Tamimi's victims, pointed out the double standard:
Of course, the difference might be whether the victims were Arabs -- or Jews.
This inability of the US to pressure Arab countries on the issue of terrorism -- even when the US provides funding -- is evident in US relations with the Palestinian Authority as well.
“We are working to bring pay-to-slay to an end. Period,” Leaf said. Asked if the administration had succeeded, Leaf replied, “not yet.”
Is the Biden administration working as hard to end "pay-to-slay" as it is on getting Jordan to extradite Tamimi, who is responsible for the Americans who died in the Sbarro Massacre?
Putting aside the claim by the White House that they can bypass both the PA and the PLO and provide money directly to the Palestinian Arabs without violating the Taylor Force Act, why is the Biden Administration welcoming terrorists to the White House?
As Sen. Cruz put it:
You sent a report to Congress that officially certified that the Palestinian Authority and the PLO…have not met the legal requirements for ‘terminating payments for acts of terrorism against Israeli and US citizens. Now publicly, the administration defends engaging with terrorists, you claim things are going well, but when you file a statutorily mandated report with Congress, you admit the PLO is continuing what are called ‘pay-to-slay’ payments. They are paying for terrorists to murder Americans and to murder Israelis. And nonetheless, this administration is bringing those terrorist leaders to Washington, is bringing them to cocktail parties to wine and dine political leaders. [emphasis added]
Is this so different from King Abdullah II of Jordan being welcomed in the US and praised as a great friend of the US and ally in the fight against terrorism, while he refuses to honor his extradition treaty with the US and harbors the women who masterminded the Sbarro Massacre which killed Americans?
This possibility of a double standard when it comes to Middle East terrorism that affects Americans was expressed out loud in 2016 during a hearing before the Subcommittee on National Security of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The subject was Seeking Justice for Victims of Palestinian Terrorism in Israel. Chairing the hearing was then-Congressman Ron DeSantis. The issue was the Office of Justice for Victims of Overseas Terrorism within the Department of Justice and whether it was fulfilling its function in obtaining justice for the families of the victims of Palestinian terrorism.
At one point, DeSantis addressed Brad Wiegmann, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the US Department of Justice. It became clear that there was a discrepancy between the number of terrorists being brought to justice who killed Americans in the Middle East as opposed to terrorists who killed Americans anywhere else in the world:
Mr. DeSantis: Mr. Wiegmann, the committee has counted that since '93, at
least 64 Americans have been killed, as well as two unborn
children, and 91 have been wounded by terrorists in Israel in
disputed territories.
How many terrorists who have killed or wounded Americans in
Israel or disputed territories has the United States indicted,
extradited, or prosecuted during this time period?
Mr. Wiegmann: I think the answer is--is none.
Mr. DeSantis: Okay. How many terrorists who have killed or
wounded Americans anywhere else overseas has the United States
indicted, extradited, or prosecuted?
Mr. Wiegmann: I don't have an exact figure for you.
Mr. DeSantis: But it would be a decent size number, though,
correct?
Mr. Wiegmann: It would be a significant number, yes.
Here is the video:
A little later, DeSantis looked for an explanation for this discrepancy:
Mr. DeSantis: Now, it's- been alleged that the reason that DOJ does not
prosecute the Palestinian terrorists who harm Americans in
Israel, the disputed territories, is that the Department of
Justice is concerned that such prosecutions will harm efforts
to promote the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, or that it
will actually harm the Palestinian Authority.
So let me ask you straight up, is that a consideration the
Department of Justice?
Mr. Wiegmann: I can assure that is absolutely not the case.
Mr. DeSantis: And has the State Department ever made
arguments to the Department of Justice to handle some of the
Palestinian terrorism cases differently than you may normally
handle, say, a terrorism case in Asia?
Mr. Wiegmann: Absolutely not.
Here is the video:
Wiegmann says flat out in his testimony that there is no consideration making the US pull their punches when it comes to bringing Palestinian terrorists to justice -- neither a concern for possible harm to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, nor a concern that extraditing Palestinian terrorists might harm the Palestinian Authority.
Yet those suspicions persist and now some believe that it is Jordan that the US is concerned might be harmed by insisting on extraditing the terrorist responsible for the deaths of Americans, even as we see that there are considerations that cause Jordan to extradite to a fellow Arab country but not to its US ally.
There is nothing to indicate that Wiegmann was not telling the truth. Yet the fact remains that American survivors of Palestinian terrorism, the families of the victims -- and the families who lost loved ones in the Sbarro Massacre are not getting the justice that was promised to them and that they deserve.
If this is not because of political reasons, then what is the reason?
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Amnesty’s definition of ‘Apartheid’ means ‘Jewish majority rule’
These are some of the problems in Israel inside Amnesty’s ‘Apartheid’ report:
The report makes clear that they have a problem with Israel’s ‘law of return’ which is the basis of the world having a refuge for Jewish people (page 82).
Amnesty has a problem with Hebrew being the dominant language (page 212).
They have a problem with Jewish majority state control (throughout the document).
Amnesty has a problem with the Jewish state ‘owning’ its own land (throughout the document).
It has a problem with urban renewal projects (throughout the document)
Amnesty has a problem with the Jewish state building towns to house Jewish refugees and immigrants (page 146)
It has a problem with a Jewish majority anywhere – referring to the impact of that majority as ”Judaization’ (example page 22)
Amnesty has a problem when the Jewish state embarks on social and economic development programs (page 153)
Amnesty has a problem with normal economic restraints (such as a state not having enough money to invest as much as it should – see investment on classrooms on page 213)
It has a problem with there being more ‘Jewish localities’ than non-Jewish ones (page 146).
Amnesty scream ‘Apartheid’ when they see a housing shortage (you know, like we have in the UK)
The bottom line is this: Amnesty International have a problem with a Jewish majority state – period.
Wanting to destroy Israel
Being in the majority comes with perks. Most people will speak the same language as you, worship the same god as you and celebrate the same holidays as you. A nation’s culture is shaped by the majority. Christmas day is a big holiday in the UK – not so much in Saudi Arabia. The UK’s flag and many of the state’s emblems carry a cross – which you won’t tend to find on the state emblems in Indonesia. Nothing of this is untoward. The UK is not an Apartheid state because Easter is celebrated with a public holiday – and Ramadan isn’t. And inside pre 1967 Israel – this is what Amnesty are calling ‘Apartheid’ – this is what they want to tear down. They want to destroy the Jewish state.
So remember, when you see Amnesty say ‘Apartheid’ – what they mean is democratic representation inside a Jewish majority state. And when they say they want to ‘end it’ be in no doubt that they are talking about the deliberate destruction of the only democratic nation in the MENA region.
Why are they doing it? – Simply because the Islamist / hard-left alliance have taken a firm grip of what was once Amnesty’s soul.
The report denies the State of Israel’s right to exist as the nation state of the Jewish people. Its extremist language and distortion of historical context were designed to demonize Israel and pour fuel onto the fire of antisemitism.
What the outside world heard: “Israel dismisses amnesty report as antisemitic.” For many this response offers proof of the “Livingstone formulation”: Jews use “antisemitism” to silence legitimate criticism of Israel.
What the accusers do not want, is that their audience see them spreading illegitimate anti-Jewish memes at a time when hostility to Jews is most decidedly on the rise even in Western countries formally wedded to Nie Weider. Like Freud, publishing Moses and Monotheism in German, in 1939, they throw fuel, refined fuel, on the flames of the often denied longest hatred. But don’t call them antisemitic. Freud wasn’t.
In order to frame the issue as Israeli apartheid and crimes against humanity, this report systematically projects malevolence – the racist desire to dominate – onto the Israelis, even as it conceals the patent malevolence of her enemies. As such, the report resembles the classic supersessionist projection of ill-will and dominion onto the Jews who allegedly take their “chosenness” as a warrant to dominate gentiles cruelly. This same hostile projection informed the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion; and like the denizens of the early 20th century, some in the early 21st century will take this report as a warrant for the destruction of the accused.
Indeed, an earlier draft of the report (sent to journalists to prepare for the official release) claimed that “This system of Apartheid originated with the creation of Israel in May 1948 and has been built and maintained for decades.” After much commotion (by the IHRA definition, this is antisemitism), the reference to 1948 was removed from the final English version. But the hasty and limited removal of this reference merely tried to conceal the driving force behind the report, the scaffolding upon which AI assembled it: Israel itself is a racist endeavor, an illegitimate nation. Israel delendus est. As such, like all supersessionists in pre-modern periods (Christians, Muslims), this allegedly civil-society discourse reveals itself incapable of tolerating the existence of an autonomous Jewish entity.
Is this antisemitism? You be the judge. Is it reasonable for Zionists to say that this report fans the flames of Jew-hatred? Yes. Does that mean that Jews are again suppressing legitimate criticism of Israel with the antisemitism charge? You be the judge. Does it mean that you owe it to yourself to read the devastating critiques of this malevolent report? Yes. Does it mean that if the charges against AI are accurate, this Report is a fire accelerant thrown into a combustive global community? You be the judge.
And if you so judge, then speak out. Words matter, especially when the words one opposes are weapons in a cruel war.
Clearly, when a report such as this refers to disputed territories—areas of Judea, Samaria, and sections of Jerusalem which have had a Jewish presence and identity since biblical times—as “Occupied Palestinian Territories” it has already revealed the political bias inherent in its view of the situation about which it has written this report.
In addition to a return, the AI report calls for full reparations for any Palestinian losses of wealth and property, something they never have considered, of course, for the more than 800,000 Jews whose businesses, wealth, and property was seized when they were expelled from Arab countries upon Israel’s birth. The fate of the Jews is never of concern to human rights activists or the virtue-signaling activists on campuses calling for an intifada to “free Palestine” from the current grip of Jews.
“Israel must grant equal and full human rights to all Palestinians in Israel and the OPT in line with principles of international human rights law . . ,” the report demands. “It must also recognize the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to homes where they or their families once lived in Israel or the OPT. In addition, Israel must provide . . . full reparations. These should include restitution of and compensation for all properties acquired on a racial basis,” meaning what, that any properties acquired by “white” Jews who appropriated them from “brown” Arabs during the War of Independence and in 1967?
AI should know that the demand for a right of return, a notion referred to by Palestinian Arabs and their supporters as “sacred” and an “enshrined” universal human right granted by UN resolutions and international law, in fact, has no legal standing at all, and is part of the propaganda campaign that is based on the thinking that if Israel cannot be eradicated by the Arabs though war, it can effectively be destroyed by forcing it to commit demographic suicide. AI, as an international organization that professes to be an authority on human rights and international law, should know the facts and the truth, but, apparently, it does not.
In the first place, the right of return claim uses the fraud as its core notion that the Palestinians were “victimized” by the creation of Israel, that they were expelled from a fictive land of “Palestine” where they were the indigenous people. Except that when historian Joan Peters used the expression “from time immemorial,” in her book of the same name, she proved just the opposite.
As Professor Efraim Karsh, head of Mediterranean Studies at King’s College, University of London, and the author of Fabricating Israeli History: The New Historians, points out, “this claim of premeditated dispossession is itself not only baseless, but the inverse of the truth. Far from being the hapless victims of a predatory Zionist assault, the Palestinians were themselves the aggressors in the 1948-49 war, and it was they who attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to ‘cleanse’ a neighbouring [sic] ethnic community. Had the Palestinians and the Arab world accepted the United Nations resolution of November 29, 1947, calling for the establishment of two states in Palestine, and not sought to subvert it by force of arms, there would have been no refugee problem in the first place.”
Mansour Abbas, leader of the Islamist party in #Israel, in response to accusations of apartheid:
A number of rabbis met today (Wednesday) with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at his palace in Ankara, and discussed with him a number of issues related to Jewish life in the country and around the world. The meeting was attended by many rabbis, led by Russia’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Berl Lazar. The person who was supposed to arrive was also the Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who was eventually forced not to arrive because Turkey is a red state.
The rabbis discussed with Erdogan and then ate a sumptuous dinner. According to the organizers of the meeting, this is the first time that a strictly kosher meal is served in Erdogan’s palace.
Erdogan even surprised when he promised to approve the construction, for the first time ever, of a synagogue in northern Cyprus – a territory occupied by Turkey a few decades ago, unrecognized by world nations and having Chabad activities. The Turkish president even stepped in when he said he hoped the synagogue will be inaugurated in about a year. Today there is an improvised and semi-secret prayer house in the Chabad house in the Turkish half of the island, and now the Turkish president has promised to take active action to establish a synagogue there.
Turkey has been building settlements on occupied territory for decades, and it is met with a shrug from the same world leaders who say that Jews building houses in disputed territories are guilty of war crimes.
But now that Erdogan is saying that he is building a synagogue for Jews in occupied territory, that might be enough to get the world upset for the first time at Turkey.
I originally wrote this for publication in a major media site, but they do not publish from pseudonyms, so here it is.
____________________________________________
On December 4, Time magazine published an article partially entitled "Here’s What You Need to Know About BDS" by Sanya Mansoor.
BDS stands for the demand to Boycott, Divest from and Sanction Israel. The Time piece pretends to be an objective look at the controversial movement to treat Israel as a pariah state, but it is a one-sided and inaccurate, reading more like a press release for the BDS movement than an informative article.
It turns out that "all you need to know" leaves out a lot of important information.
Here is an accurate description of BDS' history, goals and philosophy.
How did BDS start?
BDS advocates claim that it was started in 2005 by a group of Palestinian civil society organizations and that it is a Palestinian-led movement.
In fact, the strategy was created in 2001 during the NGO Forum of the infamous Durban Conference, the United Nations World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance - an event that was so anti-Israel and antisemitic that even the conference secretary-general, Mary Robinson, said included "horrible anti-Semitism."
The NGO Forum published a lengthy statement, of which paragraphs 424 and 425 are the blueprint for the BDS movement that would be declared four years later:
424. Call for the launch of an international anti Israeli Apartheid movement as implemented against South African Apartheid through a global solidarity campaign network of international civil society, UN bodies and agencies, business communities...
425. Call upon the international community to impose a policy of complete and total isolation of Israel as an apartheid state as in the case of South Africa which means the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation and training) between all states and Israel.
However, even this was preceded and inspired by the League of Arab States boycott of Jewish-owned businesses in the Middle East that started in 1945 and is actually still in force today in Syria and Lebanon.
What are BDS' goals?
The movement claims not to care as to whether there is one state or two states in the area of what used to be British Mandate Palestine.
However, it demands the so-called "right to return" of the descendants of Palestinians displaced in the 1948 war, a right that simply doesn't exist anywhere else - there were between 10 and 20 million people displaced after World War II and no one seriously claims their descendants have the right to return to their ancestors' homes.
The so-called "right to return" has been used to keep Palestinians stateless and without protection for over seven decades. The reason, as Arab leaders have admitted candidly, is to use them as cannon fodder against Israel. It is one unyielding demand by the Palestinians - not to have the Palestinian diaspora come to build a Palestinian state but to have them "return" to Israel by the millions and ensure an Arab majority there.
In short, BDS does not and cannot accept the concept of a Jewish state. It would accept one Arab majority state or two Arab majority states, but it vehemently opposes the existence of any Jewish state - even as there are plenty of states that identify themselves as Arab states (and Muslim states) without anyone accusing them of apartheid or racism.
Is BDS antisemitic?
BDS leaders insist that they are not antisemitic. However, their demand for "return" and their refusal to accept Jewish self-determination while insisting on Palestinian self-determination shows that they are the ones who are discriminating against Jews.
Beyond that, the BDS movement and their allies in the far Left insist that Jews are held to standards that no one else is held to. Jews who wish to become leaders in feminist, LGBTQ or other causes must renounce Zionism - the right of Jews to a homeland of their own. Jews who want to become student leaders are examined to see if they support Israel's existence, and saying they do makes them suspect at best, disqualified at worst. Israeli Jews who want to speak on campus are likewise subjected to litmus tests to have the simple right to speak.
BDS says that they want the world to boycott Israeli businesses, but in fact the entire list of businesses listed by BDS groups are owned by Jews. Even though there are Arab owned businesses in Israel and in the disputed territories, only Jewish businesses are targeted.
For all practical purposes, BDS is an ant-Jewish movement. Even the German parliament recognizes this fact, and they know a thing or two about what boycotting Jewish businesses looks like.
Is BDS pro-Palestinian?
The BDS Movement claims that it follows the will of the Palestinian people, listing some 170 "civil society" organizations - many of which had only one or two people - that signed on.
Ilan Pappe, a prominent BDS supporter and critic of Israel, has suggested that the international anti-Israel NGOs created BDS and part of the fiction was to pretend that it was a Palestinian-led movement - and it is important to maintain that fiction.
The BDS movement and its leaders have very little to say about improving Palestinian lives, whether in the territories or in places like Lebanon and Syria.
It goes without saying that most Palestinians do not boycott Israeli goods themselves, including luxuries like chocolates and ice cream.
The highest-paying Palestinians work for Israelis, with an average income of double what they can make domestically according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics. A significant part of the Palestinian economy is dependent on workers in Israel. BDS wants all of these people to lose their jobs with no plan on how new jobs could replace them.
In fact, when BDS pressure succeeded in getting Sodastream to move its factory from the West Bank to the Negev, hundreds of Palestinians lost their well-paying jobs. BDS leaders were happy at this "victory."
Given the assumption that Israel is not going to be destroyed in the foreseeable future, BDS advocates have a choice: work towards helping Palestinians within this reality, or working towards the destruction of Israel anyway, to the detriment of the people they claim to represent.
Invariably, BDS chooses the latter.
The BDS apathy towards actual Palestinian lives goes well beyond Israel and the territories. Palestinians in Lebanon who have lived there since the 1950s are banned, by law, from many jobs. They cannot buy land. They cannot build new housing even in overcrowded camps. Yet you would be hard pressed to find a BDS advocate that demands that Lebanon offer basic human rights protections to their Palestinian residents. On the contrary, Lebanese bigotry against Palestinians is ignored and silenced, since the BDS narrative is that Israel is the only evil that may be discussed.
Even more horribly, during the first months of the Syria civil war, Israel offered to allow Syrians of Palestinian heritage to move to the West Bank to save their lives, if only they would sign a paper saying that they forego the "right to return" to Israel proper. Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas angrily rejected the offer, saying that it was better for the Syrian Palestinians to die in Syria. He didn't offer the Palestinians of Syria a choice of their own, but made their choice for them. No BDS group objected to this decision that may have contributed to the deaths of thousands.
Does BDS support peace?
BDS advocates are emphatically against any peace initiatives that treat Israeli Jews as human beings. They denounce anyone who participates in peace initiatives, whether it is bereaved Israeli and Palestinian mothers speaking to each other or sports programs for Palestinian and Israeli youth.
The Muslim Leadership Initiative, which allows Muslims to learn Israel's point of view, had its participants boycotted by the BDS leaders.
Their intransigence extends even beyond that. When popular artists decide to perform in Israel, while the official BDS movement doesn't support threats, the effect is the same - some artists are bullied into canceling their shows, and the BDS movement celebrates these as victories.
Do American Jews support BDS?
BDS advocates claim that they have dozens of Jewish progressive organizations on their side, and use them as proof that they are not antisemitic. Yet every poll shows that the number of anti-Zionist Jews is minuscule in the US.
A 2018 Mellman poll of Jewish voters found that while plenty of Jewish Americans had plenty of criticisms of Israel, only 3% of them self-identified as "generally not pro-Israel." Although the question wasn't asked of that minority, but many or most of that 3% would not identify as an actively anti-Zionist subset. It can be assumed that only those very few who self-identify as anti-Zionist would wholeheartedly support BDS.
So while anti-Zionist Jewish groups like "Jewish Voice for Peace" and "IfNotNow" manage to get a large amount of press relative to their actual numbers, they are on the fringes of US Jewish life today, and their influence among Jews is similar to the all-but-forgotten anti-Zionist "American Council for Judaism," an anti-Zionist group that likewise gained publicity but very few adherents in the 1950s.
Is BDS successful?
By the standards of actually harming Israel economically or diplomatically, the answer it clearly no. Israel's economic growth is the envy of the world and it has relations with more nations than ever before. Only in the UN is Israel still somewhat of a pariah.
Yet using the yardstick of whether BDS has managed to demonize Israel in the eyes of the world since 2001, the answer is certainly yes. After all, this very Time magazine article quoted BDS leaders, without comment, saying flatly that Israel is a racist and apartheid state - an absurd statement given that some 20% of Israeli citizens are non-Jews, mostly Arabs, and they have equal rights under the law and enjoy more freedom than anyone living under Arab rule. When major media parrots false or contested BDS claims as facts not worth checking, it shows huge inroads in BDS attempts to brainwash the world to hate Israel, especially youth.
Ironically, it is the same Arab world which started the idea of boycotting Jews in Israel to begin with that is the biggest threat to BDS today. Israel's treaties with the UAE and Bahrain, along with unofficial ties with Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states, has hurt BDS and its claims of being the only solution. Emiratis walking around Tel Aviv and enjoying the company of Zionist Jews - while still working to help Palestinians - reveal a model of peace and prosperity that is transforming the Middle East, a model where BDS is not only irrelevant but positively backwards.
BDS is not progressive, it does not support peace, and it is increasingly aligned only with Iran and its allies. This is the truth about BDS that its adherents don't want the world to know.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
Alan Solow, a member of the Executive Committee of Israel Policy Forum and former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, wrote a blog in Times of Israel arguing that Israel should not extend sovereignty on parts of Judea and Samaria for this reason:
No solution should be imposed on anyone or by anyone in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.
While American Jewish consensus around Israel policy has not always been easy to attain, this sentiment has stood for decades as the one universally accepted principle undergirding the quest for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – that it must be reached through bilateral negotiations between the parties. This precept allowed Jewish leadership to strongly urge American administrations of both parties not to attempt to implement their own vision of how to resolve longstanding differences between the two sides. Despite expressions of expected or preferred outcomes over the years, every President has endorsed this concept. This principle also allowed American Jewish leadership to credibly oppose unilateral attempts by the Palestinian Authority to declare a state or to otherwise take action without consent to change the status of disputed territories.
There is a fatal flaw in this logic: Palestinians have been acting unilaterally for decades.
They have called themselves the State of Palestine. They have joined numerous international conventions without any desire to actually enforce their words.
They have built illegally in Area C, with support from the European Union, creating facts on the ground and literally engaging in a “land grab.”
And, perhaps most importantly, they have taken the de facto veto power that the international community has given them, using exactly this logic, to make peace far more distant than it appeared to be in 2000. They’ve said “no” to every offer, not to negotiate but to wait for others to pressure Israel to give up more concessions without compromising their own intransigent, extremist positions.
Solow makes it sound like this status quo can go on forever:
The fact is that nobody is credibly threatening Israel’s control over major settlement blocs in the West Bank which are generally recognized as likely becoming Israeli territory as part of a final status agreement. Israel’s continued control of these Jewish population centers is, as a practical matter, uncontested. The only reason to acquiesce to Israel taking them unilaterally now is to abandon the position that solutions are to be negotiated, not imposed.
It can go on for a few years, but the situation is not frozen in amber. Palestinians will continue to build; they will continue to attempt to gain political legitimacy at Israel’s expense, they will continue to grow in population, they will continue to occasionally explode in violence.
Israel cannot play forever by these rules where Palestinians can do what they want and Israel has its hands tied by adhering to an artificial moral standard. Continuing to wait for Palestinians to come to the table means that Palestinians can continue to act with impunity.
Extending sovereignty is not a land grab. It is the beginning of a disengagement. It is finally choosing borders. It is solving the demographic problem. It is staking a legal claim. It is sending a message that Palestinian intransigence will not be rewarded anymore. It is recognition that the world has changed since Oslo and Israel cannot be tied to an agreement that the Palestinians have abrogated since at least 2001.
Solow shouldn’t be warning Israel against doing what it must. He should be explaining to American Jewry why Israel must do it. And it is a serious failure in American Jewish leadership that he, and other leaders, cannot even figure this out for themselves.
Al Jazeera and other outlets reported on Thursday:
The government of the Netherlands has stopped sending about $1.5m a year to the Palestinian Authority (PA) because of payments it makes to families of those killed, hurt, or imprisoned by Israel.
The Netherlands' decision came after a motion in parliament was pushed through on Wednesday by pro-Israeli groups who had lobbied the government for years to end its economic assistance to the PA.
The Dutch government's financial assistance paid the salaries of staff in the Palestinian justice ministry.
Israel accuses the Palestinian government of "supporting terrorists" because it provides financial assistance to the families of those jailed or killed by Israel.
"Although the talks with the Palestinian Authority were constructive about this, it did not lead to the desired result and, therefore, the Netherlands will no longer contribute to salaries in the justice sector," the Dutch government said in a statement.
The $1.5m represents only direct funding to the PA. The Netherlands still contributes millions of dollars - paid through European channels - in development assistance designed to help the Palestinian economy and refugees.
It appears that the $1.5 million is being redirected into other Palestinian institutions through european NGOs.
It is interesting that the Netherlands was paying the Justice Ministry. That ministry is perhaps the least transparent of all the PA's ministries - one cannot find any statistics or information on trials or number of people in Palestinian prison from their website. Specific trials are sometimes reported on in the press, but far less than in any free country. Perhaps part of the Netherlands' decision was from the realization that the PA Justice Ministry really just hides its own abuses of justice.
Another important decision out of the Netherlands this past week:
The Dutch parliament on Tuesday approved a motion pushing back against a European Court of Justice decision that ordered the labeling of Israeli goods made in West Bank settlements.
The motion, approved 82-68, calls on the government to object to the ruling, unless similar standards are applied to all disputed territories around the world. It deems the singling out of Israel in such regard unfair and discriminatory.
Israel has heavily criticized the the court’s ruling last week, calling it discriminatory and noting that there are more than 200 territorial disputes across the world, but that the European court had never ruled on any of them.
The Dutch vote, supported by Christian groups in parliament and backed by the governing coalition, does not compel the government to act and is largely symbolic. However, diplomatic officials told the Ynet news site that the strong support from the coalition indicated it would guide government policy to an extent.
Both of these moves are symbolic, but symbolism is extremely important in the Arab world. The EU consensus about supporting the PA is finally starting to break down.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
One of the keys to strategic thinking is to never ignore or
pretend away things that are objectively true, even if they represent a setback
for your cause.
With that in mind, there is no way to consider last week’s
decision by the European Union to uphold labeling of products originating in
disputed territories as anything other than a setback. While it is not clear how EU member nations
will respond to this latest outrage from regulators in Brussels, or whether
such a labeling process will have any actual economic impact on the Jewish
state, the notion that EU officials would bend their own rules in order to
enact something so manifestly unfair is not a good sign regarding Israel’s
relationship with the continent (currently its largest trading partner).
In many ways, the decision is quintessentially European,
illustrating the chasm between the principles its leaders profess and the ones elites
on the continent actually live by.
If you were to ask anyone who claims faith in multi-national
governance, they would no doubt wax poetic about how the EU has replaced rule
of force by rule of law, turning a continent that was once the focal point of
global mayhem into a set of states ready to negotiate, rather than go to war
over political differences. Yet by voting to label goods from one and only one
“occupied” territory (with those same bureaucrats determining what that words
means) and never even considering using that decision to establish a general
principle (which could get them into trouble with powerful nations like China
and Turkey – a country that occupies the soil of an EU member) the EU has
effectively walked away from the rule of law that is its reason to exist.
Taking action against the truly powerful usually brings
immediate consequences, which is why the “courageous” leaders of Europe tend to
avoid ticking off those who might respond in forceful or costly ways. China, after all, has far more economic clout
than does tiny Israel (regardless of the Jewish state’s recent economic
success) and has shown willingness to come down hard on anyone who criticizes
them. And Turkey not only continues to
occupy European territory in Cyprus but has already threatened to flood the
continent with refugees if their political behavior is punished in any way.
In contrast, Israel can only lodge complaints alongside
similar ones voiced by diaspora groups pointing out the hypocrisy of Europe’s
latest foray into Middle East politics.
Even with high levels of support in the White House and, at least for
now, Congress, it is unlikely the US will prioritize creating a price tag for
Europe’s latest outrage against both Israel and the rule of law. This leaves
Israel and her supporters relying on forceful arguments and moral suasion in a
fight against bureaucrats using those words to dress up a power play.
Now there are other cards Israel and her friends can play in
such a situation. For example, the recent
labeling attack on Israel might be a way to give European leaders cover as they
continue to reevaluate decades of investment in their Palestinian “partners”
through massive infusions of cash into organizations like UNWRA. In an era when the US and several European
countries have decided that corrupt organization no longer warrants support, we
might be reaching a moment when UNWRA’s long-overdue abolishment (or folding of
the organization into the other UN refugee agency UNHCR) might actually be on
the table.
For NGOs and others pushing such an agenda, the EU’s
labeling decision could be used as leverage to push the EU into investigating UNWRA
funding by claiming such an investigation would give the Union the opportunity
to demonstrate “balance” given their seemingly one-sided take on the labeling
issue.
Another strategy would be to present the recent labeling
decision not as an attack on Israel, but as an attack on the very principles
that underlie the credibility of the EU itself.
Given the mayhem caused by one nation (Britain) deciding that it no
longer wants to have its affairs managed by Brussels, getting more European countries
to question the legitimacy of EU dictates would be a consequence even the most
anti-Israel bureaucrats would find hard to ignore.
At the end of the day, there is but one Jewish state and a
mere twelve-million Jews worldwide, most of whom are not mobilized for war
against even those who have declared war against us. This means we should not
fantasize about having options only available to the more numerous, rich,
powerful, and highly mobilized enemies.
We will not be able to get the UN to pass dozens of resolutions
condemning our foes on an annual basis, nor are we likely to get Europe to
start using our vocabulary (such as “disputed” vs. “occupied”) by leveraging
our numbers or our power, both of which are highly limited. Nor should we ever expect those institutions
to fess up to, much less act to reverse, their hypocrisy.
But we can use what influence we have strategically, just as
the Israeli military has combined its military power with creative precision to
defeat far more numerous and powerful enemies for generations. For victory goes not to those who win every
battle, but to the those who wins the most important ones (including the last
one).
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
We've seen many, especially UN Watch, categorize how obsessed the UN is with Israel. But this short WSJ piece by Eugene Kontorovich and Penny Grunseid lays it out, in my opinion, in an even more devastating fashion.
The United Nations began its annual session this week, and Israel will be prominent on the agenda. Many fear the Security Council may consider a resolution setting definite territorial parameters, and a deadline, for the creation of a Palestinian state.
President Obama has hinted that in the final months of his term, he may reverse the traditional U.S. policy of vetoing such resolutions. The General Assembly, meanwhile, is likely to act as the chorus in this drama, reciting its yearly litany of resolutions criticizing Israel.
If Mr. Obama is seeking to leave his mark on the Israeli-Arab conflict—and outside the negotiated peace process that began in Oslo—there is no worse place to do it than the U.N. New research we have conducted shows that the U.N.’s focus on Israel not only undermines the organization’s legitimacy regarding the Jewish state. It also has apparently made the U.N. blind to the world’s many situations of occupation and settlements.
Our research shows that the U.N. uses an entirely different rhetoric and set of legal concepts when dealing with Israel compared with situations of occupation or settlements world-wide. For example, Israel is referred to as the “Occupying Power” 530 times in General Assembly resolutions. Yet in seven major instances of past or present prolonged military occupation—Indonesia in East Timor, Turkey in northern Cyprus, Russia in areas of Georgia, Morocco in Western Sahara, Vietnam in Cambodia, Armenia in areas of Azerbaijan, and Russia in Ukraine’s Crimea—the number is zero. The U.N. has not called any of these countries an “Occupying Power.” Not even once.
It gets worse. Since 1967, General Assembly resolutions have referred to Israeli-held territories as “occupied” 2,342 times, while the territories mentioned above are referred to as “occupied” a mere 16 times combined. The term appears in 90% of resolutions dealing with Israel, and only in 14% of the much smaller number of resolutions dealing with the all the other situations, a difference that vastly surpasses the threshold of statistical significance. Similarly, Security Council resolutions refer to the disputed territories in the Israeli-Arab conflict as “occupied” 31 times, but only a total of five times in reference to all seven other conflicts combined.
General Assembly resolutions employ the term “grave” to describe Israel’s actions 513 times, as opposed to 14 total for all the other conflicts, which involve the full gamut of human-rights abuses, including allegations of ethnic cleansing and torture. Verbs such as “condemn” and “deplore” are sprinkled into Israel-related resolutions tens more times than they are in resolutions about other conflicts, setting a unique tone of disdain.
Israel has been reminded by resolutions against it of the country’s obligations under the Geneva Conventions about 500 times since 1967—as opposed to two times for the other situations.
In particular, the resolutions refer to Article 49(6), which states that the “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” This is the provision that the entire legal case against Israel settlements is based upon. Yet no U.N. body has ever invoked Article 49(6) in relation to any of the occupations mentioned above.
This even though, as Mr. Kontorovich shows in a new research article, “Unsettled: A Global Study of Settlements in Occupied Territories,” all these situations have seen settlement activity, typically on a scale that eclipses Israel’s. However, the U.N. has only used the legally loaded word “settlements” to describe Israeli civilian communities (256 times by the GA and 17 by the Security Council). Neither body has ever used that word in relation to any other country with settlers in occupied territory.
Our findings don’t merely quantify the U.N.’s double standard. The evidence shows that the organization’s claim to represent the interest of international justice is hollow, because the U.N. has no interest in battling injustice unless Israel is the country accused.
At a time of serious global crises—from a disintegrating Middle East to a land war and belligerent occupation in Europe—the leaders of the free world cannot afford to tempt the U.N. into indulging its obsessions. Especially when the apparent consequence of such scapegoating is that the organization ignores other situations and people in desperate need of attention.
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Elder of Ziyon
