Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Elder of Ziyon
US secretary of state John Kerry on Wednesday laid out his “comprehensive vision” for the future of Middle East peacemaking, saying that a two-state solution was the “only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state,” but promising that the US would not seek further UN action on the conflict, days after President Barack Obama infuriated Israel’s for the decision not to veto a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s settlement activity.PM, ministers lay into Kerry’s ‘obsessive, skewed’ speech on conflict
In a speech that lasted well over an hour, Kerry described settlements as an important obstacle to achieving an agreement between the sides and that Israeli actions in the West Bank were putting the two-state solution, which he said was the sole path to peace, “in serious jeopardy.”
Kerry argued that settlement construction in the West Bank was being “strategically placed in locations that make two states impossible” and said the “the status quo is leading toward one state, or perpetual occupation.”
With less than a month as secretary of state, Kerry sought to champion the two-state outcome he worked to achieve throughout the last four years, saying it was the only path forward. Yet his address comes in the backdrop of incoming president Donald Trump signaling he may not be committed to the two-state framework.
“The two-state solution is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians,” Kerry said. “It is the only way to ensure Israel’s future as a Jewish and democratic state living in peace and security with its neighbors.”
“It is the only way to ensure a future of freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people and it is an important way of advancing United States interests in the region,” he added of the two-solution, which he said was “now in serious jeopardy.”
Israel’s leadership was quick to deride US Secretary of State John Kerry’s vision for a solution to the Middle East conflict Wednesday, shortly after the American diplomat once again championed the two-state solution and staunchly defended the Obama administration’s decision to allow the UN Security Council to declare Israeli settlements illegal.PMW: Support PMW: Look what we accomplished this year!
Responding to the speech, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement to the media that, “Like the Security Council resolution that Secretary Kerry advanced at the UN, his speech tonight was skewed against Israel.
“For over an hour, Kerry obsessively dealt with settlements and barely touched upon the root of the conflict — Palestinian opposition to a Jewish state in any boundaries.”
Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, said he had no intention of allowing Palestinians to set up a “terror state” alongside Israel.
“Kerry quoted me three times anonymously [in his speech] to show that we are opposed to a Palestinian state,” Bennett wrote in Hebrew on Twitter. “It’s true. If it’s up to me, we will not establish another terror state in the heart of the land [of Israel].”
"Palestinian Media Watch showed how the PA sought to deceive international donors..."
[MP Joan Ryan, Labour Party in UK Parliament, June 13, 2016]
"Anyone in this parliament who has been to the many sessions of Palestinian Media Watch that have taken place here over the last 15 years has seen some of the appalling material..."
[MP Michael Danby, Labour in Australian Parliament, Nov. 22, 2016]
"Antisemitic statements and incitement to violence by Palestinian leaders are documented by Palestinian Media Watch... Aid to Palestine should therefore be conditioned."
[MP Mikael Oscarsson, in Swedish Parliament, Jan. 19, 2016]
"The Norwegian Foreign Ministry confirms Palestinian Media Watch's claim." [TV news report, NRK TV (Norway), April 24, 2016]
"Itamar Marcus [PMW director]... has documented the flow of money to the [terrorist] prisoners... " German MP Volker Beck: "Supporting people who have committed terrorist acts against Israel or Israeli citizens cannot be funded under any circumstances by the PA, when Germany supports them financially." [TV news report, Channel 1 (Germany), Aug. 25, 2016]
"The donor community is helping the PA basically pay people to slay other people and then a stipend is given..."
[Congressman Ed Royce referring to PMW report
in House Foreign Affairs Committee, April 13, 2016]
nazis enacted anti jewish laws on the eve of jewish holidays-exactly as @POTUS has done on eve of Hanukkah. Don't light candles 2night, BHO!— Roseanne Barr (@therealroseanne) December 24, 2016
"The vote is not the real story here. The more damning action of the Security Council occurred after the voting, when all the members stood and clapped at the results."
"As a consequence of the Philistines’ ridicule and clapping, the Temple to Dagon was destroyed. The Security Council’s ridicule and clapping will bring about the obliteration of the institution that has lost its ability to discern between right and wrong."
May your home be filled with peace and joy. Merry Christmas! pic.twitter.com/ZfJKus2SsV— The First Lady (@FLOTUS) December 25, 2016
"Netanyahu’s anger was matched by more-militant voices in his right-wing coalition.What is it that makes either of these government figures "militant?" Is holding a news conference at the Western Wall "militant?" Are Netanyahu and Bennett militant because they think Jews should be able to live in Jerusalem? Pray in Jerusalem?
"Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the ultranationalist Jewish Home party, held a news conference at the Western Wall in Jerusalem, one of Judaism’s holiest sites, saying the city has been the capital of Jews for 3,000 years."
An Egyptian paper published what it claims are the transcripts of meetings between top US and Palestinian officials that, if true, would corroborate Israeli accusations that the Obama administration was behind last week’s UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements.White House: No coordination with Erekat, leaked transcript ‘total fabrication’
At the same time, a report in an Israeli daily Tuesday night pointed to Britain helping draft the resolution and high drama in the hours leading up to the vote, as Jerusalem tried to convince New Zealand to bury the Security Council measure.
In a meeting in early December with top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Palestinians that the US was prepared to cooperate with the Palestinians at the Security council, Israel’s Channel 1 TV said, quoting the Egyptian Al-Youm Al-Sabea newspaper.
Also present at the meeting according to the report were US National Security Adviser Susan Rice, and Majed Faraj, director of the Palestinian Authority’s General Intelligence Service.
The White House on Wednesday denied any coordination with the Palestinians over the formulation of Friday’s United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning Israeli settlements, and called recently leaked transcripts of conversations between top US and Palestinian officials, published by an Egyptian newspaper, a “total fabrication.”Phone Call From Biden Said to Precipitate Ukraine’s UN ‘Yes’ Vote
According to the report in Al-Youm Al-Sabea, a meeting took place earlier this month between Secretary of State John Kerry, national security adviser Susan Rice and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, during which the three strategized on how to push forward a resolution that would be acceptable to the US.
While Erekat did lead a Palestinian delegation to Washington this month, no such meeting between all three individuals took place, according to National Security Council spokesman Ned Price.
A State Department statement released at the time confirmed that Erekat met separately with Kerry and Rice, but no tripartite meeting between all of them occurred, said Price.
“This alleged meeting… never happened,” Price told The Times of Israel on Wednesday morning. “The ‘transcript’ is a total fabrication.”
The repercussions of Friday’s United Nations Security Council vote in favor of a resolution urging Israel to “immediately and completely cease all settlement activities in the occupied Palestinian territory” continue to reverberate. The resolution, which declared Jewish settlement anywhere in the West Bank including the Old City of Jerusalem to be in violation of international law, passed by 14-0, with the United States abstaining—a game-changing action that broke with decades of diplomatic guarantees to Israel and which enraged American Jewish political leaders in both parties.
A wealth of evidence is now emerging that, far from simply abstaining from a UN vote, which is how the Administration and its press circle at first sought to characterize its actions, the anti-Israel resolution was actively vetted at the highest levels of the U.S. Administration, which then led a pressure campaign—both directly and through Great Britain—to convince other countries to vote in favor of it.
Tablet has confirmed that one tangible consequence of the high-level U.S. campaign was a phone call from Vice President Joseph Biden to Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, which succeeded in changing Ukraine’s vote from an expected abstention to a “yes.” According to one U.S. national security source, the Obama Administration needed a 14-0 vote to justify what the source called “the optics” of its own abstention.
“Did Biden put pressure on the Ukrainians? Categorically yes,” said a highly-placed figure within the Israeli government with strong connections to Ukrainian government sources, who confirmed to Tablet that the Americans had put direct pressure on both the Ukrainian delegation—and on Poroshenko personally in Kiev. “That Biden told them to do it is 1000% true,” the source affirmed.
US President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday took to social media to rail against the Obama administration's treatment of Israel, criticizing the White House's foreign policy decisions and its most recent move at the United Nations.
"We cannot continue to let Israel be treated with such total disdain and disrespect," Trump wrote on Twitter hours before US Secretary of State John Kerry was scheduled to give a speech on Middle East peace.
He continued by stating: "[Israel] used to have a great friend in the U.S., but... not anymore. The beginning of the end was the horrible Iran deal, and now this (U.N.)!"
"Stay strong Israel, January 20th is fast approaching!," the president-elect added.
Shortly after Trump issued his remarks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked the incoming American commander-in-chief for backing Israel.
"President-elect Trump, thank you for your warm friendship and your clear-cut support for Israel!" Netanyahu wrote on Twitter.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016Elder of ZiyonIt's been called the world's oldest hatred. In back-to-back debates in this UpFront special, we discuss anti-Semitism.So five leftists discuss modern antisemitism. Not surprisingly, they are enthusiastic to discuss rightist antisemitism and link it to Trump - and to discount leftist antisemitism as really justified anti-Zionism. There is a little disagreement about whether the Jewish attachment to the Land of Israel can be conflated with Zionism, but all agree that Jews can hate Israel's government.
In the first debate, a panel explores the rise - or return - of anti-Semitism among the far right, and discusses if Donald Trump's election has emboldened those attitudes.
And in the second debate, we discuss anti-Semitism among the left, and the conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.
Part 1: Anti-Semitism on the political right
Since Donald Trump's election victory in November, anti-Semitic attacks have been on the rise in the US, with swastikas and other Nazi imagery increasingly popping up.
Has far-right anti-Semitism been energised by Trump's election win?
"It's not so much that this anti-Semitism didn't exist before; it probably did exist but it was under the radar," says Haaretz senior columnist Chemi Shalev. "The candidacy of Donald Trump brought forth or emboldened all sorts of anti-Semitic and anti-Jewish groups who nobody paid attention to any more."
Hadas Gold, a media reporter for Politico magazine, says: "Some of my colleagues got actual letters to their personal addresses at home - it was rather frightening. I mean, it's never pleasant to see your face with a bullet hole through it. These direct threats were something new, and they were almost always directly connected to Donald Trump."
In the first part of this UpFront special, Chemi Shalev and Hadas Gold discuss the troubling resurgence of anti-Semitism among the hard right.
Part 2: Anti-Semitism on the political left
With anti-Semitism on the rise across parts of Europe, is it something the left and supporters of the Palestinians need to tackle urgently, or is anti-Semitism being used and abused by supporters of Israel?
"Just because sometimes not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic or anti-Jewish, doesn't mean that it never is," says Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland, who also writes for The Jewish Chronicle. "Sometimes it is, the way it's expressed. If it borrows from or draws on the language or imagery of old style anti-Jewish prejudice, then it is."
Israeli-Canadian Lisa Goldman, cofounder of the left-wing Israeli journal 972, says: "I do see it on the rise in Europe on the left, but the crude anti-Semitism I'm seeing comes from the radical right."
Palestinian-American human rights lawyer Noura Erakat, who is also an author and academic, says: "I think that obviously there is a misunderstanding that's constructed. But at the end of the day, those who are part of a movement against Zionism are part of a liberatory movement not only for Palestinians, but it has an emancipator potential for Jewish people as well."
In the second part of this UpFront special, Jonathan Freedland, Lisa Goldman and Noura Erakat debate anti-Semitism among the political left.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016Elder of Ziyon
For various reasons – refusing to NGO-ify ICAHD and turn it into a domesticated organization doing the donors’ bidding; losing young Israeli activists who prefer limited and reactive actions on the ground to strategic and systematic (but, granted, less adrenaline-generating) work within an organization; and, perhaps primarily, the inability of our critical Palestinian and Israeli partners to formulate our version of a just solution and develop the mechanisms for effectively advocating for it – we closed our office in Jerusalem and shifted our advocacy efforts to our chapters abroad: the UK, Germany, Finland, the US and Australia.But before they disappear from the Israeli scene, they proved that they are hypocrites in the purest sense of the word.
The vote has no immediate repercussions. It doesn't contain sanctions on Israel for ignoring and violating it -- which the Israeli government has already says [sic] it will. The only genuinely effective way to end settlement construction and all other Israeli attempts to make the Occupation permanent is to enforce the the Geneva Convention, which would dismantle Israeli settlements.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016Elder of Ziyon
Called once again upon the administering Power to take into consideration the expressed will of the Chamorro people as supported by Guam voters in the referendum of 1987 and as subsequently provided for in Guam law regarding Chamorro self-determination efforts, encouraged the administering Power and the territorial Government to enter into negotiations on the matter, and stressed the need for continued close monitoring of the overall situation in the Territory;
In a letter dated 2 November 2006 addressed to the delegate of American Samoa to the United States House of Representatives, the Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs elaborated on the position of the Government of the United States. He indicated that the status of the insular areas regarding their political relations with the federal Government was an internal United States issue, and not one that came within the purview of the Special Committee on the Situation with regard to the Implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples. He also noted that the Special Committee had no authority to alter in any way the relationship between the United States and those territories and had no mandate to engage the United States in negotiations on their status.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016Elder of Ziyon
Tuesday, December 27, 2016Elder of Ziyon
The US abstention from a recent vote against Israeli settlements at the UN Security Council topped the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s annual list released Tuesday of the 10 worst outbreaks of Jew-hatred and anti-Israel incidents.Special Report Fox News Trump Dec 26 - 'This Was a US Operation All the Way' - Krauthammer on UN Israel Resolution
The Jewish human rights organization ranked the Obama administration’s move as the top case, charging that it erased Jewish history.
“The most stunning 2016 UN attack on Israel was facilitated by President [Barack] Obama when the US abstained on a UN Security Council resolution condemning Israel for settlement construction. It reversed decades-long US policy of vetoing such diplomatic moves against the Jewish State,” wrote the center.
The organization added: “It also urges UN members ‘to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967,’ effectively endorsing BDS.”
UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn along with former British politician Baroness Jenny Tonge ranked second.
According to the ranking, “antisemitism in the [Labour] party has greatly escalated. Corbyn, who previously called Hamas and Hezbollah his ‘friends,’ also promoted his strategy adviser Seumas Milne, a Hamas proponent.”
The United Nations Gets KRAUTHAMMERED: Trump Should ‘Turn It Into Condos
By what argument can regressives claim to stand for universal human rights when they honestly do not care that women are treated like chattel throughout the Islamic world and forced to hide themselves in black potato sacks?
By what argument can regressives claim to stand for universal human rights when they think that the Christian genocide under Arab-Muslim imperial rule is just dandy?
If the regressive-left does not stand for universal human rights than it stands for nothing and is, therefore, undeserving of support.
And, needless to say, no Jew with even the slightest whit of self-respect would support a political movement that is more than happy to undermine the well-being of Jews everywhere, through its willingness - if not eagerness - to throw Israel to the wolves, as we just saw with the recent UNSC resolution.
The so-called "progressive-left" has thrown its alleged values into the garbage entirely and, thereby, transmogrified itself into the regressive-left.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016Elder of Ziyon
Forest Rain, Opinion
Hanukah is a reminder:
In 1989, following her tenure as President Ronald Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Jeane Kirkpatrick described how the Palestinians have used the UN to destroy Israel.Omri Ceren Breaks Down the Diplomatic Fallout of UNSC’s Condemnation of Israel
Following outgoing US President Barack Obama’s assault on Israel at the UN Security Council last Friday, longtime UN observer Claudia Rossett wrote an important article at PJMedia where she recalled Kirkpatrick’s words.
In “How the PLO was legitimized,” published in Commentary, Kirkpatrick said that Yasser Arafat and the PLO worked “to come to power through international diplomacy – reinforced by murder.”
Kirkpatrick explained, “The long march through the UN has produced many benefits for the PLO. It has created a people where there was none; a claim where there was none. Now the PLO is seeking to create a state where there already is one. That will take more than resolutions and more than an ‘international peace conference.’ But having succeeded so well over the years in its campaign to delegitimize Israel, the PLO might yet also succeed in bringing the campaign to a triumphant conclusion, with consequences for the Jewish state that would be nothing short of catastrophic.”
As Rossett noted, in falsely arguing that Obama’s support for Friday’s UN Security Council Resolution 2334 is in line with Reagan’s policies, Obama’s UN Ambassador Samantha Power deliberately distorted the historical record of US policy toward Israel and the PLO-led UN onslaught against the Jewish state.
As Rosett noted, in stark contrast to Power’s self-serving lie, neither Reagan nor George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton nor George W. Bush would have ever countenanced a resolution like 2334.
Omri Ceren (@CerenOmri) is the Managing Director for Press and Strategy at The Israel Project (TIP) and he had this to say on Twitter about how unprecedented UNSCR 2334 is, what a major break it represents from long-term American policy, and how it treats “international law.” (Scare quotes because it’s a made-up term that now means what ever we can use to bash Jews and protect real human rights abusers.)
Can’t believe this has to be done, but here’s why anyone who compares Obama knifing Israel to previous US diplomacy is a hack or an idiot 1/
UNSCR 2334 existential not political. Past UN res’s about Israel doing X. 2334 ex post facto rewrites intl law about what Jewish state is 2/
First let’s do intl: 2334 flips intl precedents. So (a) it’s diplo assault on Israel (b) shows in principle goalposts can always shift 3/
(a): 2334 flips West Bank legal status: Jewish state had great claim (mandate, San Remo, Sevres) vs weak Arab claim (bc 1948 rejection) 4/
(b): 2334 shows hostile anti-Israel diplomats cant move goalposts any time. If 1948 lines can be imposed, why not 1947 lines? Or earlier? 5/
Now let’s do domestic: 2334 flips US policy, which has never said settlements “illegal.” ALL past resolutions were in line with US policy 6/
2334 also nukes 25 years of US diplo assurances to Israel, bought with Israeli concessions, that US would prevent EXACTLY ALL THIS 7/
Specifically it nukes core Oslo assurance that West Bank status would be decided bilat – so dissolves peace process. Which ALSO means… 8/
… that it sets 25 years of US Middle East diplomacy to 0. Now this part gets very specific: For US diplomats Mideast WAS LITERALLY Oslo 9/
Dissolving Olso, which 2334 did, is (sorry) ontological issue for US 10/
Other procedural diffs inside UNSC room, but details. NEVER EVER did US approve UN res reversing US policy and intl law. Obama just did 11/
If you read someone saying or tweeting that any Pres ever did anything comparable to what Obama just did, that person is hack or idiot 12/12
Analysis
- While the resolution does not replace Security Council Resolution 242, which is the accepted and agreed basis for the Israel-Arab peace process, it nevertheless contains elements that attempt to modify Resolution 242 and to sway the negotiating process in a particular direction.
- The resolution cannot, in and of itself, serve as grounds for legal proceedings in the International Criminal Court (ICC) or other international tribunals. But clearly, it will be used by the Palestinian leadership as a political tool to buttress existing complaints.
- The United States, through its decision not to veto the resolution, enabled acceptance of a Security Council resolution referring to “occupied Palestinian territory including East Jerusalem.” This indicates U.S. acceptance of the fact that the territories and east Jerusalem belong to the Palestinians.
- This represents a serious, and even irresponsible departure from U.S. policy which has consistently advocated negotiated settlement of the issues of permanent status, Jerusalem, and borders.
- This position taken by the United States (as well as the other members of the Security Council) also undermines the basic obligation of the Oslo Accords, signed by the PLO and witnessed by the United States (as well as the EU, Russia, Egypt and others), that the permanent status of the territories, the issues of Jerusalem, and borders are to be negotiated.
- While the United States and Israel have entertained basic disagreements on settlement policy, the United States has consistently rejected, as a matter of basic policy, any attempt by the international community to prejudge this or the other permanent status negotiating issues.
- The outrage voiced by Israel with both the resolution itself and the Obama administration’s enabling it to pass stems from five basic components:
- The text of the resolution, which is unprecedented in the extent of the condemnatory language used.
- Israel’s frustration at the irresponsible behavior by the Obama administration.
- The evident irreversibility of the resolution and the potential for future damage.
- The imbalance between accusations of Israeli violations of the Oslo Accords and the Palestinians’ blatant violations of international law in their incitement and payment to terrorists.
- The issue of settlements is not the core of the conflict. It remains the Palestinians’ refusal to recognize the Jewish State and its right to any part of the land west of the Jordan River.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016Elder of ZiyonElderToons
Tuesday, December 27, 2016Elder of Ziyon
Tuesday, December 27, 2016Elder of Ziyoninternational law
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.The original intention of this paragraph was described by the International Committee of the Red Cross in 1958 this way:
This clause was adopted after some hesitation, by the XVIIth International Red Cross Conference (13). It is intended to prevent a practice adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred portions of their own population to occupied territory for political and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those territories. Such transfers worsened the economic situation of the native population and endangered their separate existence as a race.They are referring in part to the German Generalplan Ost, a far reaching plan to colonize most of Europe and to expel (or murder) anyone who the Germans felt were inferior - and replace them, forcibly if necessary, with Aryans.
4. In addition to the grave breaches defined in the preceding paragraphs and in the Conventions, the following shall be regarded as grave breaches of this Protocol, when committed wilfully and in violation of the Conventions or the Protocol:
(a) the transfer by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies, or the deportation or transfer of all or parts of the population of the occupied territory within or outside this territory, in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Convention;
The transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.Arab states insisted on adding the "directly or indirectly" terminology and the drafting committee caved to pressure. The only target of this was, again, Israel, which would now be considered criminal for not stopping Jews from moving to their historic lands.
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