Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 23, 2016

02/23 Links Pt2: Canada’s parliament rejects BDS movement; JPost interviews ICC Prosecutor

From Ian:

Exclusive: JPost speaks to ICC Prosecutor Bensouda about Israel's fate on war crimes

The 54-year-old Gambian Bensouda came out of the gates in her relationship with Israel mostly under attack by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for recognizing Palestine as a state for the purposes of her office deciding to open a preliminary examination into whether Israel and the Palestinians have committed war crimes.
Since her recognition on January 16, 2015 and her explanation that she felt compelled, in her own decision, to follow the UN General Assembly’s vote upgrading Palestine's status within the UN, Jerusalem has worried that she would follow the UNGA and what is viewed as a general anti-Israel atmosphere in future decisions as well.
On Monday, Ms. Bensouda, who spent almost a decade as deputy chief prosecutor before taking the top job, put those concerns to rest.
In one of the most intense exchanges of the interview that will be music to Israel’s ears, Ms. Bensouda said that “the UN General Assembly do not tell me what to do, that the prosecutor should act in this way or that way, unless of course it is in accordance with the statute.”
Asked if this meant that the UNGA is now out of the picture of her legal conclusions, Bensouda, in one of her rare emotional moments of the interview where she let down her guard, said forcefully, “Completely! I’m not even thinking of why they would tell me why I should take this case and not this case. That would be interfering with my independence.”
The ICC chief prosecutor was clear that Palestine's upgraded status within the UN by the UNGA in 2012 as “a non-member observer State” was relevant to her determination of whether it could accede to the Rome Statue, the Court’s founding treaty. This was for technical reasons, but she emphasized that she will never take directives from them, or any other institution, when deciding the central question of the war crimes debate: whether the IDF’s investigative apparatus for the 2014 Gaza war complies with international standards.
But Palestinians can take comfort in some of her other positions or non-positions (with Bensouda, like many legal officials, observers are sometimes left grasping at non-answers to shed light on issues which the official does not wish to discuss.) Israel tends to lose most battles in the international arena, with the exception being cases in which specific international figures are, from the start, ready to go against the grain and recognize the complex challenges it encounters in fighting its neighbors.
Bensouda is not ready to declare her acceptance of Israeli exceptionalism.

World Council of Churches Demonizes Israel - Again

Usually, in regular Lenten services, solemn memories of divine mercy on the sinners of the world take center stage for Christians. But not in this liturgy. Center stage was instead given to committing a sin of evil speech: launching a lie about an Israeli-made water shortage suffered by Palestinians. The lie is a sin in which all the member churches of the WCC are invited to participate.
Those leaders of Protestant churches, turned into political propagandists, used the pulpit of Jerusalem unjustly to call upon the Protestant faithful worldwide to listen to Palestinian water libels against the State of Israel.
This liturgy abused the biblical readings as a means of invigorating the equally false Kairos Palestine message, that Israel takes the Land of Palestine and has no right to be where it is.
A close look shows no scientific analysis, neither of water distribution nor of water politics for the territories of Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).
The Palestinians certainly are experiencing a water crisis; the question is to what extent are they themselves are responsible for it, and to what extent are their own leaders responsible for keeping them as victims for effective international "marketing."

Honest Reporting: Is Israel an Apartheid State?

As Israeli Apartheid Week organizers prepare a series of public events demonizing Israel, we examine whether anything they say is actually true. Like it or not, they’ll probably be on your (or your children’s) college campus within the month.

The 1952 UNRWA annual report includes sections on all areas where it had operations - Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

And Iraq.

And Libya.

And, for the last time, Israel.

We've discussed Israel before. In UNRWA's words, "Late in June, an agreement was concluded with Israel whereby that Government assumed responsibility for the care of the remaining 19,000 refugees in that country as of 1 July, 1952." Israel naturalized its Palestinian Arab refugees, unlike most Arab nations.

But why did UNRWA have operations in Iraq and Libya?

Because, back in its early days, UNRWA actually tried to help resettle refugees anywhere it could, much like UNHCR has done ever since.

Here's what it said:

5. IRAQ

73. There are approximately 5,000 refugees under the care of the Government in Iraq. UNRWA has an office in Baghdad which serves as a placement centre and a point of contact with technical assistance experts working on Iraq's great schemes of economic development.

74. The Agency understands that the doors of the country are open to Palestinians with skills who wish to go there without prejudice to their political position. In fact, the Government advises that there has already been some movement of this nature. This opportunity for refugees to improve their living conditions is of special interest to the Agency in connexion with the new programme plans for large scale vocational training.

6. LIBYA

75. The Agency is advised that there are opportunities for refugees in Libya and has received many requests for help from Palestinians who wish to go there. The new Government of Libya has suggested that initially 1,200 families of agriculturists and artisans might be taken care of. The Agency has already made preliminary surveys and is now ready for active operations.

So what happened?

The 1953 report is not available online any more. The 1954 report added no new information but it stilll mentioned them.

The 1955 report shows that UNRWA still supported the idea of the refugees moving elsewhere, even if it was starting to give up on finding those places themselves:

A total of 221 refugees who had secured immigration visas through their own efforts had their fares paid by the Agency and received installation grants during the year under review. They went to Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Kuwait, Liberia, El Salvador, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Tanganyika, the United States of America and Venezuela.

The 1956 report showed that UNRWA similarly helped about a thousand refugees move to some 13 countries including the US, UK and Canada.

But by 1957, UNRWA gave up, as quoted here:

[I]n spite of the fact that many are establishing themselves in new lives, the refugees collectively remain opposed to certain types of self-support projects which they consider would mean permanent resettlement and the abandonment of hope of repatriation. They are, in general, supported in this stand by the Arab host Governments. On the other hand, the Government of Israel has taken no affirmative action in the matter of repatriation and compensation. It remains the Director's opinion that, unless the refugees are given the choice between repatriation and compensation provided for in resolution 194 (III), or unless some other solution acceptable to all parties is found, it would be unrealistic for the General Assembly to believe that decisive progress can be accomplished by UNRWA towards the "reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement" in line with General Assembly resolution 393 (V) of 2 December 1950.

The idea that the refugees themselves opposed resettlement in other countries is one of those factoids that UNRWA asserted from the beginning but without ever actually doing a survey. By 1957, the organization simply decided that the Arab world would never integrate the Palestinians, so all pressure would henceforth be directed at Israel for accepting the mythical "right of return."
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The "resettlement" that was envisioned by the UN and that was part of UNRWA's mandate was simply swept under the rug. And UNRWA silently stopped providing monetary support for refugees to move outside its areas of operations, a policy that remains in place today.

Nowadays, UNRWA actually tries to use the fear of more Arab refugees going to Europe as an excuse to raise money to keep them stateless and living in miserable camps in the Middle East - the exact opposite of what a proper refugee agency would do.

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Colonel George Gawler (1795-1865), a British soldier who served as governor of South Australia, 1838-41, was, as is well-known, a Christian Zionist. He wrote The Tranquillization of Syria and the East (1845) and in 1849 visited the Holy Land. With the Bohemian-born Anglo-Jewish scholar and editor Dr Abraham Benisch (1811-78) and others, he founded, in 1852, the Association for Promoting Jewish Settlement in Palestine. This body aimed at establishing a self-administering Jewish agricultural colony between the sacred cities of Safed and Tiberias, with cattle, sheep, horses, seeds, cuttings of useful vegetation, boats, fishing nets and building materials funded by public subscription. They hoped that the colony would eventually spread out to incorporate neighbouring lands, with "well-regulated rights of export at Acre and Haifa". In seeking public support, they remarked that “whilst Palestine has such significance in the eyes of the Christians, with how much greater interest must it be regarded by the Jew? … towards it he yet gravitates as to his natural centre”.

In 1853 Gawler's lecture in the English Midlands town of Derby regarding the Association's vision was printed as a pamphlet, heartily recommended in an editorial in the local newspaper, the Derbyshire Advertiser (22 April 1853): "The great subject which is its theme must have interest alike for Jew and Gentile; for the politician and the student of prophecy; and demands at the present day ... attentive consideration. Commencing with some striking remarks on the past history of Syria, Colonel Gawler exhibits, in forcible and graphic language, the destinies of the country in the immediate future."

The paper printed extracts from the pamphlet that showed what Jews had already achieved in their ancient homeland, and how their return to Zion was beneficial not only to themselves but to Great Britain.

Thus, first, a letter from a happy and enthusiastic agriculturalist, written in the summer of 1852:

"This year we had delightful latter rain at the end of April and beginning of May, a thing unknown for years before. Some there are who believe Palestine to be an accursed land, incapable of producing any crop but stones and salt and sulphur. Let them come and see two crops a year produced by the poorest land we have. Let them behold quince trees groaning under the burden of 400 quinces, each one larger than the largest apples of England; vines with a hundred bunches of grapes, each bunch three feet long, each grape three-and-a-quarter inches in circumference; a citron tree bearing 510 ibs. weight of fruit; half-grown broad beans ... the pod thirteen inches long, and six clustering stems from each plant: Indian corn, eleven feet high, on ground from which, four weeks before, a similar crop had been taken; water melons, twenty, thirty, and forty pounds weight."

Thus, secondly, Colonel Gawler on the dovetailing of Jewish and British interests:

02/23 Links Pt1: Glick: The lie of pro-Palestinian activism; Israeli Self-Defense Isn’t Debatable

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The lie of pro-Palestinian activism

For them, the Palestinians whose rights they claim to champion are nothing more than means to another end.
Indeed, how dare he teach people who claim to care about the Palestinians about the Palestinians? How dare he say that Palestinians are people, and are not driven only by their collective hatred of Israel and rejection of its right to exist? How dare he mention that Palestinians have the right to work wherever they want and that Jews in Judea and Samaria aren’t inherently evil and actually provide livelihoods for thousands of Palestinians who work with them? How dare Eid come to University of Chicago and mention that neither Fatah nor Hamas have built governing institutions built on the notion that Palestinians have the right to freedom, but rather they have built institution geared toward forcing the Palestinians to seek Israel’s destruction, while trampling their human rights? How dare he not bow and scrape before SJP and accept its positions as a condition for speaking on campus? And so, once again, last Thursday we learned the big lie at the heart of the supposedly pro-Palestinian movement. None of its members – whether from SJP, J Street, or any of their comrades – care about the Palestinians or their rights.
All they care about is attacking Israel.
None of this is new information. It’s been obvious for several years now that the pro-Palestinian movement is merely a means to demonize Israel and its supporters. The only real question at this point is what is it going to take for US law enforcement bodies, legislatures and university administrations to finally take action against these hate groups, to the benefit of Palestinians, Israel and the cause of human rights?

Richard Millett: Israelis accused of rape and organ harvesting at SOAS.

Last night SOAS lecturer Rafeef Ziadah hosted SOAS’ first “Israel Apartheid Week” panel event in front of 300 students and it wasn’t long before the sickening propaganda started flying.
Sahar Francis of Addameer, a prisoner support group, said that Palestinian hunger striker Islam Hamed was threatened with rape by his guards and that Israel’s prison authorities hoped he would die so the courts would implement a “forced feeding bill”.
She continued that Israel has been rumoured to harvest organs from its own car accident victims and from dead Palestinians. However, she said, she couldn’t confirm this (search Israel Advocacy Movement on Facebook to see the video of Francis).
Steven Salaita, an American author, who was once hired and immediately fired by an American university was also on the panel. He claimed last night this was because his course, in which he would humanise indigenous Americans, was too emotional for Americans to cope with.
He spent most of his 20 minutes last night viciously attacking those who support Israel. He asked what a student should do when someone expresses a visceral attachment to Israel. He answered:
“Allow a Zionist’s internal conflict to exist. Exacerbate it!”
He said that “humanising Palestinians undermines the Zionist project” and so Zionists associate Palestinians with Hitler and “have a fear of binationalism which is actual democracy” (this drew huge applause and cheers).
He continued that “Israel directs so much of its violence at children and takes more Palestinian land for water and agriculture”.

Douglas Murray - Highlights 'Defeating ISIS'

Fatah logo designer dies. He was Syrian.

This is the logo of the peaceful, moderate Fatah movement:

It shows three weapons superimposed on the map of British Mandate Palestine, clearly indicating that the desire of this organization is to militarily destroy Israel.

This has remained the logo of Mahmoud Abbas' "moderate" Fatah party through the decades - even after Oslo, even after supposedly accepting Israel's right to exist, even after its former leader Yasir Arafat declared the end to armed attacks.

I have never seen a single Palestinian suggest that this logo be changed to reflect the new, peaceful nature of the supposedly former terror group. I haven't seen any Arabic articles about how offensive this logo is or how inappropriate it is to maintain a logo of destruction after accepting peace.

Keeping that logo says far more about the platform of Mahmoud Abbas' party than any number of interviews broadcast on CNN.

The designer of the logo was Nazir Nabaa. Nabaa died yesterday at the age of 78.

And he was from Syria.

This is appropriate, since the pioneer of fake Palestinian nationalism, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini, only came to that idea after his original intention of an Arab Palestine becoming part of Syria fell through by the Sykes-Picot agreement.

Just like the Palestinian flag - based on a design by the same British Colonel Sykes - even Palestinian symbols aren't Palestinian.

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Why can't the media even attempt to understand Israel's side? A former IDF soldier does what the media won't

Last week a viral video was released showing Israeli security forces violently prevent a wheelchair-bound man from approaching a woman who was shot trying to stab an officer.

The Daily Telegraph wrote:

An Israeli police officer was filmed tipping a disabled Palestinian man out of his wheelchair during a confrontation in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Mobile phone video shows the officer knocking Majed al-Fakhouri backwards and sending him sprawling into the street as a crowd looks on.

The incident took place moments after a 14-year-old Palestinian girl allegedly tried to stab an Israeli police officer on Sunday afternoon.

The girl was shot by Israeli forces and Mr al-Fakhouri, who lost his left leg in a car crash a decade ago, said he was trying to reach her to give her first aid.

"I saw blood coming out of her arm and side and I thought she was going to bleed to death," Mr al-Fakhouri told The Telegraph.

"I tried to help her but a police officer stopped me and ordered me to go back. Then he turned me over and my head hit the ground."

Mr al-Fakhouri, 53, was taken to hospital but was not badly injured. The girl, Yasmin Rashad al-Zarou, was seriously wounded and taken to hospital by Israeli forces.

Really? A man in a wheelchair was going to give first aid to a girl lying on the ground?

In fact, she is a 21 year old and her real last name is Tamimi - meaning that she is likely to be related to the "non-violent" darlings of Western media. Arab media reported that she was killed, but she was being treated for her injuries in an Israeli hospital.

There have been lots of angry articles in the Arab media, spilling into the mainstream media, about how Israeli security supposedly doesn't allow any medical help to approach in situations like this. But I have not once seen any media try to find out about what Israel's procedures are meant to be for terror attacks, whether they make sense, and whether they are violating their own procedures. Without that information, no one can evaluate what is really going on.

A former IDF soldier, Robert Stark, wrote up exactly how and why soldiers are supposed to act in situations like these:

This was not a "crime scene" this is the scene of a terror attack. A still active scene which began only seconds before. At the moment the woman was laying on the ground, alive but neutralized, her bag was identified nearby and hadn't been checked yet. By protocol, this bag is immediately suspected to contain a bomb.

The security perimeter is set up for a few different reasons:

A. The fact there is one terrorist gives reason to suspect another one, an attack that is not yet finished. So, the perimeter protects the soldiers, and the civilians they are guarding.

B. The possibility the female terrorist's bag is a bomb can't be checked until the bomb-disposal unit arrives to investigate. Hence, no one can enter the area lest they die. That includes Arab neighbors taping this on their phones. Its for their own protection.

C. The scene has a wounded woman in danger of losing her life, the last thing she needs is a crowd of Arabs around her, who could try to "help" her which would interfere with the trained professionals including the near by medic from administering life saving first aid treatment.

D. The entry of any civilians, even just 1 unauthorized person, and especially the agitated Arabs, would defeat the purpose of A, B, and C, as well as create danger for the soldiers who would soon either have to be separated by the crowd of people who would likely also be tempted to storm in as well like a wave, or the soldiers would have to restore the integrity of the perimeter by shooting the Arabs who could be part of the terrorist attack. And then you would be bitching here about a video of IDF soldiers shooting at Arabs at close range with a death toll of who knows how many.

(After all, they are storming/confronting a security perimeter during an already started attack)

Now on top of all that, all of these suspicions and dangers, comes brazenly strolling in this man on a wheel chair. Of all times and of all places and of all scenarios, its THIS ONE, he decides to confront soldiers. He becomes the biggest suspect for "here is terrorist 2", simply because of how out of place he is at this moment. It would be crazy even for a man with fully functioning appendages to approach a security perimeter like this one, yet this guy has no qualms about it at all. In fact, he refuses to obey any kind of commands from men with guns, and is very adamant about getting inside.

So, worst case scenario, he has a bomb strapped under him or under his chair. Best case scenario, he is an idiot, and if he gets through, the perimeter is compromised -which means everyone is in danger and especially the woman on the ground who needs treatment. -because the other Arabs could follow him in.

I don't know any other country in the world where people feel brazen enough to stroll up to the face of soldiers and violate simple rules like "this is a crime scene, you can't enter" let alone "this is the scene of a terrorist attack". That in itself is evidence of how confident the Palestinian-Arabs are of NOT having their rights abused by Israeli soldiers.

Yet, here you are, talking about these soldiers corroded by "occupation" as if what happened was a man in a wheel chair was just strolling along not causing any trouble when an IDF soldier deliberately approached him and shoved him until the man fell.

I'm offended. Mostly because, it is common sense, that in any other country it is likely this man in the wheel chair would have been shot on approach by any other security force. Just like anyone who approached a closed security perimeter around an already commenced terror attack.

While it is true that tipping over the man might not have been necessary, the need to keep the scene empty was. And that basic fact is what was missing from coverage of this and similar stories.

It is true that the Telegraph asked for an official response from the Israeli police, but none of the media even considers the simple fact that their readers (and reporters) are completely clueless about military matters, and attempt to judge based on pure ignorance. Israeli officials don't help matters by not making this information easily available.

Even so, the lack of interest in balance by the media shows that this is just another form of anti-Israel bias.

(h/t Barbara)

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There were many new checkpoints set up today that severely restricted Palestinian movement - but they weren't set up by Israel:

Palestinian security forces set up checkpoints outside major West Bank cities early on Tuesday to prevent public school teachers from attending a major demonstration in Ramallah.

Palestinian security checkpoints were installed on all roads outside the cities of Ramallah and al-Bireh. Officers at the checkpoints stopped all vehicles travelling to Ramallah for inspection and turned back buses carrying teachers to the city.

A large numbers of security officers were deployed around government buildings in Ramallah, where teachers were planning on protesting.

An estimated 20,000 Palestinian teachers demonstrated in Ramallah last week to call for the implementation of a 2013 agreement guaranteeing teachers' rights.

Near the southern West Bank city of Bethlehem, Palestinian security checkpoints near the Beit Jala junction and the town of Dar Salah on the main road towards Ramallah, turning back vehicles carrying several hundreds of teachers who were heading to the demonstration.

Palestinian security checkpoints were also erected outside Tulkarem in the northern West Bank for the same purpose.

“We are not opposing a policy or a regime; all we want is to be able to eat our bread in dignity,” a representative of Bethlehem-area teachers told Ma’an, adding that Palestinian security officers seized the driving licenses and identity documents of bus drivers.

Teachers in Bethlehem say that after security officers stopped their buses and ordered them to turn back, many teachers tried to travel in private vehicles, only to encounter more checkpoints further along the road.

In the northern West Bank city of Nablus, witnesses told Ma'an that Palestinian police officers threatened to revoke the licenses of taxi drivers who carried teachers to Ramallah.

Another source, who requested anonymity for safety reasons, told Ma'an that Palestinian security in Nablus also threatened to punish bus companies if they took teachers to Ramallah for the demonstration.

This is a good indication of how liberal and free an independent "Palestine" would be when there are no Israelis in the area at all. The PA went to extraordinary lengths to limit the number of teachers that could attend a protest - what other repressive things would they do? It's not as if the teachers are throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at the police - from all indications the only thing that the protesters were doing that irritated the PA is that they were protesting against the PA.

Hamas, of course, is much worse that even the PA, violently breaking up any anti-government demonstrations.

Anyone who thinks that a Palestinian state would be a wonderful place for Palestinians to live is fooling themselves.

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02/22 Links Pt2: An Open Letter to the Anti-Israel Left; Stop using apartheid for your own agenda

From Ian:

ECAJ [Australia]: An Open Letter to the Anti-Israel Left

This letter is addressed to that small fraction of the political Left which not only criticises Israeli government policies or practices but also demonises and denigrates Israel at every opportunity and thus denies its legitimacy.
We see you, we hear you, day after day, making your ignorant, bigoted and malicious accusations against Jews and Israel. You claim to be speaking for human rights and for justice, but your words and actions betray you. You are haters, liars and bullies.
You presume to define our Jewish identity to suit your own sensibilities and convenience. You assert that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism. You say we are only a religious group and deny our 3,500 year old history as both a national and a faith community. In short, you presume to tell us who we are – a liberty you would not dare to take with any other group – and you are wrong.
You say you have nothing against Jews. You say you are only against Zionists. You categorise us into “good Jews” who oppose Israel and “bad Jews” who support Israel. This is your cynical, sinister way of offering acceptance only to those Jews who are so lacking in knowledge or moral fibre that they are willing to embrace your hollow caricature of what it means to be Jewish. You are against the millions of Jews, the overwhelming majority, who are proudly Jewish and support Israel’s right to exist as the State of the Jewish people.

Stop using apartheid for your own agenda

There is a difference between somebody who is exposed and someone who is informed. I recently took part in an educational tour to Israel and Palestine. This was a remarkable exposure trip, co-ordinated by South African Israel Forum.
I am now in a good space to distinguish between the Israeli and Palestinian narratives and I realize that the aim was not to make me (and fellow young leaders) pro-Israel, but rather for us to be more exposed to a narrative that is not often heard in South Africa.
Like many other colonized countries, Israel was liberated in 1948 from the British system. However, from the year of liberation onwards, there have been severe conflicts between Israel and its neighboring countries, and in later years, between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. I was surprised to find that Israel has made peace with most of its former adversaries; however, the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations have proven to be very challenging and complex for both parties.
In summary, “variety is the spice of life,” thus I believe that people should not rely on what is portrayed and projected by the media, because, when it comes to Israel, it presents one-sided information and propaganda. I recommend that other South Africans take the time and make the effort to ensure that they visit Israel and Palestine, or at least make the effort to investigate both sides, before making decisions about Israel.
I decided to write this article because I, personally, will no longer allow other people to use our tragedy, as the survivors of apartheid, for their own agenda.
Knowledge is power and instead of being a victim of misinformation, I intend to be an ambassador of peace in this very complex and difficult conflict.
Your sense of solidarity should be informed. And the problems between Israel and Palestine should never be compared to South African Apartheid; the current conflict is completely different: it is not a racial conflict and from my perspective, it is far more religious than it is political.

Roger Waters in Stable Condition after Gaza Tunnel Collapse (satire)

Famed singer/songwriter/activist/dick Roger Waters is in serious but stable condition after getting caught in the collapse of a tunnel southeast of Gaza City earlier today. The Daily Freier was at the scene when a representative from the Palestinian Red Crescent briefed the assembled press. “It was approximately 3:00 PM when the Zionist Entity and its Egyptian lackeys triggered a cave-in of the tunnel, trapping 3 of our pious and motivated young tunnelers, as well as our bizarre but helpful friend Mister Roger Waters.”
When asked by MSNBC how rescue workers were able to find Mr. Waters, the spokesperson explained. “The tunnel was impassable to humans at this point, so we brought in Farfour the Mouse. He was able to find our friend by homing in on the intense scent of bitter self-righteousness that emanated from his body even when he was unconscious. Incidentally, this was exactly how we found Jimmy Carter after he accidentally wandered into the Sand Dunes last year during Ramadan.”
For his part, Roger Waters was insistent that he had done nothing wrong. “I know that the Zionists and their friends in the press will try to spin this in some negative light, but I was merely in the tunnel for its acoustics. You see, I’m recording a new single “Indigenous Olive Oil Can Flow Through Any Wall”, and I really needed just the right sound. But I think the vibrations from the snare drum may have set off a tremor and destroyed the tunnel.”
When the Daily Freier pointed out that since the tunnels go under the border, that he may have inadvertently stepped into Israel, he got really upset and his catheter fell out.

(h/t Bob K)

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According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Palestinians working in Israeli settlements jumped significantly in the fourth quarter of 2015, with 26,300 workers compared to 22,100 in the third quarter, or an increase of 19%.

Even more interesting is that the number of Palestinians working for Israelis altogether only increased by 2,000 in the quarter, indicating that the numbers of workers within "Green Line" Israel actually decreased by about 2,200 and the shortfall was more than made up by an increase of workers in the settlements.

This means that about 2.5% of all Palestinian workers are working for and paid by Israeli settlers. Given that the average daily wage for those working for Israelis is more than double those who work domestically in the West Bank (200.6 shekels vs. 93.6 shekels) it means that over 5% of total Palestinian wages are dependent on the settlements!

My back of the envelope calculation is that Palestinians working in settlements contribute $300 million annually to the Palestinian economy.

In other words, if somehow the PA would make good on its promises to crack down on people working in the settlements, the loss of income would cause an immediate recession and unemployment in the West Bank would soar from 18.5% to 21%.

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02/22 Links Pt1: BDS illegally put Anti-Israel propaganda in 500 London trains; Kerry and the Game of Obfuscation

From Ian:

Hundreds of London tube trains plastered with anti-Israel ads

Millions of Londoners were exposed Monday to a series of anti-Israel posters on the underground network to mark the beginning of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement’s 12th annual Israeli Apartheid Week.
Transport for London, which is responsible for the tube service, said this was “an act of vandalism,” the ads were not authorized and staff members were working to take them down, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
The posters, designed in the style of BBC reports, attacked the UK broadcasting organization [which is frequently criticized for pro-Palestinian leanings] for biased pro-Israel reporting and claimed Israel used British arms to “massacre Palestinians” during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza.
A third poster criticized the global security company G4S for working in Israel, while a fourth, titled “Apartheid is Great….Britain,” alleged that more than 100 UK companies continue to supply military equipment to the Jewish State.
The Jewish Chronicle estimated that the ads appeared in some 500 trains.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: Kerry and the Game of Obfuscation

This "intifada" is simply a further phase in a larger plan to destroy Israel. When the plan began officially, with the establishment of the PLO in 1964, there were no "settlements" -- not until after the June 1967 War -- so what exactly were the Palestinians planning to "liberate"?
The current conflict is not about "defending" any mosque from being contaminated by the "filthy feet" of Jews: it is about seeing Israel forced to its knees. Abbas and others seek to reap delicious political fruits from this "intifada."
Here is a novel idea: Kerry could put pressure on the Palestinian and Jordanian leadership to cease anti-Israeli incitement and indoctrination. Now that would be pressure well applied.
Abbas is expected to become a partner in the fight against ISIS and radical Islamist groups. All well and good. Why then is he not expected to stop cheering on and glorifying young Palestinians who attack Jewish Israelis?

Why Israeli Rule of Golan Is Lawful -- and Wise

Israel’s territorial claim arises in part from the principle of “effective occupation,” which provides that territory can be acquired through the exercise of sovereign power on a peaceful and extended basis. Israeli law has applied to the Golan for almost 35 years and Israel has exercised authority in a manner that suits all the residents of the territory.
Moreover, public international law favors stability, order, and peace; it aims to avoid resolutions that expose individuals to death or injury. Accordingly, it should prefer Israeli sovereignty over the Golan to the grim alternatives for the Golan Druze: the tyrannical rule of Shiite Islamist Iran’s puppet Assad, or the tyrannical rule of Islamic State Sunnis.
The international consensus that the Golan belongs to Syria no longer fits the facts and the law. Nor does it coincide with America’s interest in checking the spread of Islamist violence throughout the Middle East and in bolstering a democratic ally. At the first opportunity—unlikely to come before the next president’s inauguration in January 2017—the United States should affirm Israel’s lawful and just exercise of sovereignty over the Golan Heights and urge the international community, particularly U.S. allies in Europe and the Middle East, to do the same.

There have been meetings recently between the Israeli and Palestinian finance ministers. But that it about all that the Israeli and PA media agree on.

Times of Israel reports it this way:

Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon has met several times with his Palestinian counterpart Shukri Bishara in recent weeks to hammer out a plan for boosting economic assistance to the Palestinians, according to a Sunday report.

Kahlon is now slated to bring a raft of new initiatives to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for approval in the coming days, Channel 10 reported.

The plan is the result of a series of meetings between senior officials in the Israeli and Palestinian finance ministries, over the last several months, despite spiraling street violence. The last bilateral meeting of the finance officials took place last week.

The proposal focuses on both knowledge-intensive industries such as healthcare and high-tech, as well as expanding Israeli-Palestinian economic integration in the construction sector.

Officials in Israel said the measure is intended in part as a gesture to the Obama administration, after Netanyahu promised US President Barack Obama last November to expand efforts to reinvigorate the Palestinian economy.

But it is also seen in Israel as key to tackling lowering tensions in recent months amid the collapse of peace talks and a wave of Palestinian terror attacks since October.

Under the new plan, Palestinian doctors will reportedly be invited to train in Israeli hospitals, especially in medical fields relevant to the recent wave of violence, which has claimed 166 Palestinian lives, about two-thirds of them attackers attempting to kill Israelis at the time of their deaths, and 31 on the Israeli side, including three foreign nationals.

In what may be a significant boost to the Palestinian tech sector, Kahlon is also expected to propose new study and internship opportunities for Palestinian tech entrepreneurs and engineers in Israel’s world-leading high-tech industry.

Palestinian construction companies and contractors will also be allowed to operate in Israel, expanding access to the Israeli market from the current situation in which only Palestinian day laborers are allowed into Israel to work for Israeli companies.

There was no immediate Palestinian confirmation of the initiative.

The Palestinian media reported this completely differently. It says that Bishara denies the report about any discussion of cooperation in high-tech or allowing Palestinian construction companies to work in Israel. He claimed that the meetings were entirely about Israel paying money that is reportedly owed to the PA and adjustments to the costs of energy and tariffs that Israel charges the PA.

The idea of cooperation and normalization with Israel is kryptonite to the Palestinian leadership even as they know that their power and their people's livelihoods depend on such cooperation. But instead of telling their people the truth that Israel is here to stay and they need to work together, they tell them that Israel is their implacable foe and the only thing that is worth negotiating with Israel is its capitulation to their demands and eventual surrender. But under the radar they work together. (Which mirrors how much of the Arab world deals with Israel.)

The divergence between what Palestinians are being told by their leaders and the truth is getting only wider, and that is a major reason for the current wave of attacks. When the only information the people get about Israel is incitement, all they will want to do is kill Jews. Which means that any economic cooperation must be tied to a significant reduction in incitement in official PA and Fatah media. Otherwise, bringing in workers who have been fed a steady diet of antisemitism is going to result in more terror attacks, not less.

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