Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 22, 2017

02/22 Links Pt1: A US embassy shift to Jerusalem would right a historic wrong; Netanyahu Needs To Expose PLO Hoax

From Ian:

A US embassy shift to Jerusalem would right a historic wrong

If Donald Trump fulfils his promise to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the decision would be a long-awaited recognition of Israel’s historic capital by its closest ally. And although the proposed relocation is accompanied by some risks, smart and co-operative diplomacy can mitigate the dangers.
David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s greatest and longest-serving prime minister, offers a guide for our current leaders. Responding to the 1949 resolution of the UN, which internationalised Jerusalem and thereby separated Israel from its capital, he conceded neither to the declaration nor to the gloomy predictions of the consequences of defying it. Instead, Ben-Gurion pronounced the city a vital element of the country’s history and immediately relocated the Knesset from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem: the move was defiant yet the repercussions were hardly catastrophic.
Opponents of the US president’s proposal note that it risks obstructing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, would cause the deterioration of Israel’s relations with its Arab neighbours and could incite Muslim terror groups worldwide.
All these warnings are overblown. Claims that the embassy move will derail a peace process comatose for nearly a decade ring hollow. The exact opposite might be true: the decision could prompt the Palestinians to re-evaluate their strategy of refusing direct negotiations, which has paralysed the peace process.

And now, Israeli fake news

We may be living in the age of instant communication but Haley's speech reached the Israeli audience three days after it was delivered – and that, too, appears to have happened only thanks to Hillel Neuer's UN Watch, which published it online in its entirety.
It was only after the video went viral and garnered over three million views that it broke through the iron curtain of ideological censorship and reached the Israelis. To the best of our knowledge, no news source in Israel published it before noon Tuesday, Israel time.
Moreover, Haley's heartwarming praise of Israel was actually spun as negative news. On Thursday, Israelis were told by their media that the UN Ambassador had thrown cold water on the President's remarks, a day earlier, in which he said that the US was open to other options beside the two-state solution.
Her remark about the two-state solution was presented as a backtracking and clarification of Trump's statement. In fact, she had simply repeated that statement, saying that "we support the two-state solution, but we support peace and stability even more".
The New York Times and the AP also spun her remarks in that fashion. It is only in the past 24 hours that media in the world have been waking up to what she really said, and some are even comparing it to former UN Ambassador's fiery rejection of the UN resolution equating Zionism and racism, in 1975.
In the end, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu uploaded a translated version of Haley's rousing words to his Facebook account. As of now, it has received close to 470,000 views. Fake news has been faked out.

David Singer: While in Australia, Netanyahu Needs To Expose PLO Hoax

Their signatures are a sad testament to their embrace of Security Council Resolution 2334 and to its claim that the Jewish Quarter, the Kotel and the Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem and the Machpelah in Hebron are “Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
If they did not understand that is what they were endorsing then they should withdraw their signatures immediately.
Interestingly they also signed up to “supporting the application of international law to Israel and Palestine”
International law indisputably establishes:
1. The right of the Jewish people to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in Jerusalem, Hebron and Judea and Samaria (West Bank) pursuant to the provisions of the 1922 League of Nations Mandate for Palestine
2. The preservation of such vested legal rights under article 80 of the United Nations Charter.
The Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) – Israel’s “partner for peace” has:
1. declared this established international law to be “deemed null and void” under its Charter
2. claimed in its 1964 Charter: "Article 24. This Organization does not exercise any regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, on the Gaza Strip or the Himmah Area. Its activities will be on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields."
This article remained unamended when UN Security Council Resolution 242 was passed after the Six Day War. Article 24 was removed from the Charter in 1968 but no claim to sovereignty replaced it.

Jordanian classroom

If you are an Egyptian student and you don't like your Christian teacher, it is easy to get rid of her.

A Coptic teacher employed at a state school was arrested for supposedly saying "Wipe this shit off the blackboard" referring to a Sura from the Quran from the previous Islamic Studies class.

The kids complained to their parents who went to officials in the education department. Eventually this reached the head of the Minya governate who contacted security authorities. An investigation is underway and apparently the teacher has been suspended, so far.

The accusation seems highly unlikely. Copts have a sense of self-preservation. No teacher is that dumb to insult the Koran in a Muslim-majority classroom.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

This story originally said that it happened in Jordan. I regret the error.

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A month ago, the news came out that Hamas is working on a new charter that would eliminate its antisemitic parts, while still calling for the destruction of Israel:

A senior Hamas official said on Wednesday that the terror group, which rules the Gaza Strip, is rewriting its charter in a way that will remove its anti-Semitic language, but also made plain the group’s ongoing rejection of the Jews’ right to statehood in Israel.

The charter, written in 1988, contains a cocktail of Nazi, communist and Islamist anti-Semitic tropes and conspiracy theories, including that Jews were behind the French and Russian revolutions and the two world wars, that they control the media and the UN, that they infiltrated the Freemasons and that they funded colonialism with their wealth.

“We will have a clear political document, which is supposed to be in the near future, clarifying all those points,” the official, Osama Hamdan, told Al-Jazeera on Wednesday.

“You will find in this document clear words that we [sic] against the Zionists, against the occupation of our lands and we will resist the occupiers, whoever they were. And we are not against anyone regarding to this religion or to his race,” he said.

If you look at the Al Jazeera interview where these claims were made - in English - Hamdan never said that the charter would be replaced, but that there would be a new "political document." Hamdan is allowing the listener to assume that they are one and the same - but they are not.

In Arabic, senior Hamas leader Salah al Bardawil said explicitly "This new document of the Hamas organization will never be considered to constitute an alternative to the organization's founding charter."

The media already got this wrong before the new manifesto is released. Get ready for more idiotic media claims that Hamas is "moderating" after it is released.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Hanan Ashrawi calls Israeli justice system a "travesty." Let's look at the PA courts, shall we?

Official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports:

Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), Tuesday described the 18 months jail sentence a court had earlier issued against an Israeli soldier who shot and killed a wounded and incapacitated Palestinian as a travesty.

“This is a travesty of justice,” said Ashrawi in a press release. “It is apparent that the Israeli judicial system has become compromised with the systemic racism, injustice and the culture of hate that is plaguing the Israeli occupation.”

Really? Ashrawi is casting aspersions on the Israeli justice system?

I was going to see if I could find any cases of Palestinian courts sentencing any Palestinian ever for attacking Jews, but then I realized - in over a decade of following Palestinian media, I can hardly remember a big court case in the Palestinian Authority.

Ever.

Hamas sometimes sentences people to death, but what does the Palestinian Authority court system do?

I went through Ma'an's English articles over the past year, and while there are dozens of articles about the Israeli justice system, I could only find a single mention of "Palestinian court" - in April 2016:

A Palestinian court on Tuesday found a 37-year-old Palestinian man guilty of murdering his wife in 2006 in Ramallah district and sentenced him to 15 years of hard labor.
In the years since the killing, the suspect was held in detention while the Palestinian public prosecution carried out investigations, eventually leading to his conviction 10 years later.

The term "Palestinian appeals court" also came up with exactly one case, in December, also for murders or women that occurred ten years prior:

A Palestinian appeals court in Ramallah on Monday sentenced a man to a lifetime of hard labor after he was found guilty of killing his two sisters in 2006 in Qalqiliya in the northern occupied West Bank, local sources told Ma'an Tuesday on the condition of anonymity.
The man had confessed to the murders, saying in his defense that his sisters "dishonored the family reputation."

The "High Court" suspended elections that were planned in a case that was almost certainly decided by the PA itself, not the court.

Finally, Haaretz reported on a fourth court case that was also rubber-stamping the desires of Mahmoud Abbas:

A Palestinian court sentenced on Wednesday Palestinian lawmaker Mohammed Dahlan to three years in prison after convicting him in absentia of stealing $16 million.
Dahlan left the West Bank for the United Arab Emirate in 2011 following a power struggle with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

I haven't found any other cases in the media, in English or Arabic.

From everything I can tell, the Palestinian justice system does next to nothing. The police hold people in custody for years (and torture them) without them going to trial. On the rare occasions when Abbas does need to the court to put a legal cover for his edicts, the courts are happy to do so.

It is a complete joke.

They have courts. They have judges. They open up new facilities. But unless every trial is done in secret, they hardly have any cases.

If you think about it, this utter lack of a functional justice system reveals a lot about the Palestinian Authority.

This dysfunctional and irrelevant system, 20 years after autonomy, shows that the Palestinian authority has no interest in real state building. A working justice system is an essential component of any legitimate state. The Palestinian Justice Ministry is, from everything we can see, a corrupt and do-nothing gravy train for political cronies. .

Maybe Hanan Ashrawi shouldn't talk too much about the Israeli court system, because if anyone really took a look at the Palestinian justice system - if there are any real reporters left in the region, that is - she might not like what is discovered.

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02/21 Links Pt2: University cancels Israel Apartheid Week event; Australian PM Rips UN And BDS

From Ian:

CAMERA: Analyzing Palestinian Propaganda on CNN: Rashid Khalidi on "Fareed Zakaria GPS"

On Feb. 12, 2017, Columbia University professor Rashid Khalidi was invited onto CNN's global affairs program hosted by Fareed Zakaria (Fareed Zakaria GPS) to defend and justify the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. This followed an interview on the same program a week earlier with French philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy where he charged the BDS campaign with being "an anti-Semitic campaign" which "takes its roots a long time ago, 60 years ago, in the fringes of dying Nazism." Lévy's words so enraged Khalidi and other proponents of the anti-Israel campaign that Khalidi complained to the host, then appeared himself on the show the following week.
Khalidi, an experienced propagandist, used classic propaganda tactics (name-calling, transfer/association, glittering generalities, logical fallacy, bandwagon, plain folks, and card stacking, as described by the The Institute for Propaganda Analysis) to defend BDS, and to delegitimize Jewish sovereignty over Jerusalem, much as he had done several weeks earlier on WBEZ's Worldview.
Fareed Zakaria, with a history of skewing the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, helped Khalidi along, not only providing him with an unfettered platform to disseminate his misinformation, but having photos and drawings televised to illustrate Khalidi's deceptive analogies, and in the case of Jerusalem, disseminating some half truths of his own.
Here are the facts on BDS and Jerusalem, followed by an analysis of the propaganda disseminated on Zakaria's CNN program.

IsraellyCool: Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull Rips UN And BDS

Following my previous post on The Australian editorial against recognition of a Palestinian state comes further positive signs from Australia – from none other than Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who has condemned the UN and BDS.
Malcolm Turnbull has strongly condemned the UN, accusing it of a prejudiced attack against Israel over a Security Council resolution that accused the Israeli government of violating international law with its settlement activity.
On the eve of a historic visit by Benjamin Netanyahu, who arrives in Sydney today as the first sitting Israeli leader to visit Australia, the Prime Minister also charged those who promoted or supported a boycott campaign with a deplorable attempt to de-legitimise the Jewish state.
In an exclusive commentary article published in The Australian today, Mr Turnbull denounces the UN for what he claims is bias, citing 20 resolutions between 2014 and 2015 that are critical of Israel when only a single resolution had been issued on the Syrian war.
While Mr Turnbull has been critical in the past of anti-Israeli resolutions, rarely has he been so forceful in his language. “My government will not support one-sided resolutions criticising Israel of the kind recently adopted by the Security Council and we deplore the boycott campaigns designed to delegitimise the Jewish state,” Mr Turnbull writes.

PMW: Kids jump for Jihad at European-funded dance competition

Like many western cultural centers, the Yafa Cultural Center in Nablus recently hosted a folk dance competition for youth. But unlike their western counterparts, children at this competition danced to calls for violence and waltzed to words of war:
“We replaced bracelets with weapons
We attacked the despicable [Zionists]...
Jihad is needed
Pull the trigger.”
The Yafa Cultural Center, which receives funding from the German development agency GIZ, Norway, and the European Union, recently posted to its website photos from the first Yafa Folk Dance Competition. The gold prize winner danced to the song Pull the Trigger. The following is a longer excerpt from the song's lyrics:
“The Zionists coveted [our] homeland,
compounding damage and enmity
But the popular revolution awaits [them]
The orchard called us to the struggle
We replaced bracelets with weapons
We attacked the despicable [Zionists]
We do not want [internal] strife or disputes
While this invading enemy is on the battlefield
This is the day that Jihad is needed
Pull the trigger.
We shall redeem Jerusalem, Nablus and the country.”
This song was previously broadcast on PA TV in 2010.

A few weeks ago there was news that Hamas was using social engineering techniques to fool IDF soldiers into downloading malicious software on their phones by pretending to be European women.

It turns out that the software is more sophisticated than previously thought, but still possible that Hamas could have possibly done.

Security firm Kaspersky, working with the IDF, analyzed the malware.

Israel HaYom reports:

The cybersecurity company engaged by the Israel Defense Forces to help crack the Hamas 'honey trap' plot exposed last month has released a report about the security breach that includes new information. Hamas operatives had used fake social media profiles of alluring young women in order to entice IDF soldiers into downloading malware onto their mobile devices that would allow Hamas to collect information.

According to the report by Kaspersky Lab, released Thursday, the cyber attack is still in its initial stages and apparently ongoing. The report noted that the Hamas operatives behind the cyber plot were focusing mainly on soldiers and officers serving in and around the Gaza Strip, and that over 100 soldiers of various ranks had fallen prey to the attack, which turned the soldiers' personal Android mobile phones into spy machines for Hamas. The report said that the malware soldiers were tricked into downloading gave Hamas access to information about location, conversations, correspondence and also access to the devices' microphones and cameras. The attackers also managed to send out updates to the malware that increased their abilities to manipulate the users' smartphones.

The report said that after a victim was identified on Facebook, a fictitious profile of a young woman would tempt him into downloading a fake app granting the attackers user access. One version of the malware package included an invite to a fake YouTube app, while others offered fake messaging apps. Once the user downloaded one of the apps, the malware code would be installed on the device. One malware pack titled WhatsApp Update has been identified as having the ability to both execute commands on demand and conduct automatic data mining activity. Most of the data mining took place while the soldiers were using a wireless Internet connection.

I find it interesting that the IDF is cooperating with Kspersky. Kaspersky is widely believed to be close to Russian intelligence.

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I can’t believe it’s been twenty years.

I remember it like it was yesterday. It’s not the day itself I remember, just one vivid scene that forever changed me.

I was in 10^th grade. Recess. Suddenly the school sound system was broadcasting the news.

They never did that. Sometimes they played music. Usually it was used just to sound the recess bell. Never the news.

Israeli schools are loud. Israelis in general are loud, boisterous, passionate, excitable… Younger Israelis are generally noisier than grown-ups. Israeli schools, because they are made from concrete and don’t have carpeting or furniture that absorbs sound, can be extremely noisy during recess.

Not this time.

There was dead silence. The moment the news began every student froze on the spot. A silent scattering of statues, everyone was listening intently to the report.

I had moved to Israel the year before. At first, I didn’t understand what was happening. I didn’t catch the beginning of the news flash.

And then I heard the names.

Name after name after name. Oh, my God. A wave of horror swept over me. When will the list stop? How many names will they read?

Everyone was utterly silent. Listening.

73 names.

There had been a terrible helicopter crash. Two IDF troop-carrying helicopters collided mid-air, causing them to crash and kill all the soldiers who had been on-board. 73 soldiers died in the blink of an eye.

I was the outsider, looking in on something I couldn’t completely comprehend. I didn’t have a brother, friend or father in the army. Everyone else did.

I was listening to news that was happening to people I did not know. Everyone else was petrified, listening, praying not to hear the name of someone they knew and loved.

No one moved until the list was completed. Near the end of the recitation one girl burst in to tears and ran to the school’s pay-phone (no one had cell phones then, it was 1997). I remember watching her crying in to the phone and not knowing what to do with myself. What could I do?

That was the moment I understood the interconnectivity of Israelis. There is a bond unlike anywhere else in the world. Everyone knows someone who knows someone. If in America there are six degrees of separation, in Israel there are three (at most). Often this is a good thing. At other times, it is painful beyond belief.

In Israel, there is no such thing as someone else’s pain. It always comes back to us, it’s always connected.

This is what it means to be a family.

That moment, 20 years ago, changed my life. In my childhood, in America, I learned the image of the “rugged individual.” I didn’t truly understand the idea of belonging to a Nation. Until that moment I understood with my head but not with my heart.

The idea of “E pluribus unum” became real to me only after living in Israel.

We are the many who have gathered from the four corners of the earth to live our oneness. One family, each member strikingly different from the other but all connected by an unbreakable bond.

This is Israel.

***************

These are the names of the soldiers who died in the 1997 helicopter disaster.

73 families ripped apart. Parents who grew older without their children, watching the friends of their children grow up and create families where they are left with only memories. Siblings missing their brother. Friends missing that special person who understood them so well. Women who had to find other men to love… Each death is not the death of one but the death of a world.

Lt. Shai Abukasis, 22, of Mikhmoret

Sgt. Itai Adler, 19, of Ra'anana

St.-Sgt. Avraham Afner, 21, of Kiryat Tiv'on

St.-Sgt. Idan Alper, 20, of Bat Yam

St.-Sgt. Avner Alter, 20, of Ashdot Ya'akov Ihud

St.-Sgt. Yonatan Amadi, 20, of Ma'ale Adumim

Sgt. 1st Cl. Saguy Arazi, 22, of Kfar Yona

St.-Sgt. Ran Arman, 20, of Ra'anana

St.-Sgt. Emil Azoulai, 20, of Ashkelon

Lt. Alon Babayan, 21, of Givat Ze'ev

St.-Sgt. Rafi Balalti, 20, of Migdal HaEmek

1st Sgt. Hussein Bashir, 28, of Beit Zarzir

St.-Sgt. Nir Ben-Haim, 20, of Yifat

Lt. Kobi Ben-Shem, 20, of Ramat HaSharon

Lt. Saguy Berkovitz, 21, of Alfei Menashe

1st Sgt. Maj. Paul Bivas, 26, of Ashdod

Lt. Dotan Cohen, 21, of Hadera

Maj. Yirmi Cohen, 23, of Rosh Ha'ayin

St.-Sgt. Assaf Dahan, 19, of Jerusalem

Maj. (Res.) Yasys Eden, 44, of Ramat HaSharon

Lt. Gil Eisen, 21, of Ness Ziona

Sgt. Noam Etzioni, 20, of Megadim

Sgt. Menachem Feldman, 20, of Haifa

Sgt. Moleto Gideon, 21, of Lod

Sgt. Avishai Gidron, 19, of Kiryat Motzkin

Sgt. 1st Cl. Tamir Glazer, 24, of Holon

St.-Sgt. Aviv Golan, 24, of Beit Yosef

Sgt. Tomer Goldberg, 19, of Dishon

St.-Sgt. Aviv Gonen, 20, of Petah Tikva

St.-Sgt. Micha Gottlieb, 20, of Tel Aviv

Maj. Ronen Halfon, 35, of Tiberias

Sgt. Alejandro Hoffman, 19, of Misgav Am

Maj. Yisrael Hushni, 34, of Tel Aviv

St.-Sgt. Shahar Kasus, 20, of Alfei Menashe

St.-Sgt. Michael Katz, 20, of Mitzpe Netofa

Sgt. Fadi Kazamel, 19, of Beit Jann

Sgt. Tomer Kedar, 21, of Negba

St.-Sgt. Tom Kita'in, 20, of Neve Shalom

St.-Sgt. Ilan Lanchitski, 20, of Haifa

Lt. Dvir Lanir, 21, of Moledet

Capt. Avishai Levy, 27, of Tel Aviv

St.-Sgt. Shilo Levy, 21, Karnei Shomron

St.-Sgt. Nadav Lishinski, 20, of Sde Avraham

Sgt. 1st Cl. Eitan Maman, 25, of Beersheba

Sgt. 1st Cl. Gal Meisels, 24, of Kiryat Ata

Sgt. Yaakov Melamed, 20, of Petah Tikva

Capt. Dr. Vadim Melnick, 34, of Safed

Sgt. Vladislav Michaelov, 22, Tel Aviv

Sgt. Idan Minker, 20, of Nir Yitzhak

St.-Sgt. Gilad Mishaiker, 20, of Jerusalem

St.-Sgt. Gilad Moshel, 20, of Tel Aviv

Lt.-Col. Moshe Mualem, 31, of Beersheba

St.-Sgt. Haran Eliezer Parnas, 20, Herzliya

Lt. Eren Hai Peretz, 21, of Deganya Alef

Sgt. Vitali Pesahov, 19, of Acre

Cpl. Shlomo Pizuati, 19, of Tiberias

Sgt. Gidon Posner, 22, of Tel Aviv

Capt. Dr. Vitaly Radinsky, 33, of Or Akiva

Sgt. 1st Cl. Kamal Rahal, 27, of Beit Zarzir

Sgt. Shahar Rosenberg, 19, of Ness Ziona

St.-Sgt. Assaf Rotenberg, 20, of Tel Aviv

Sgt. Moshe Saban, 19, of Hod HaSharon

Lt. Nir Schreibman, 20 of Kfar Saba

St.-Sgt. Itamar Shai, 20, of Jerusalem

St.-Sgt. Omer Shalit, 19, of Jerusalem

Sgt. Yiftach Shlapobersky, 20, Hod HaSharon

St.-Sgt. Gil Sharabi, 20, of Rehovot

St.-Sgt. Tsafrir Sharoni, 22, of Netanya

St.-Sgt. Tsafrir Shoval, 22, of Bar'am

Lt. Erez Shtark, 21, of Kiryat Ata

St.-Sgt. Assaf Siboni, 20, Nir Am

Sgt. Yaron Tsofiof, 20, of Tel Aviv

Sgt. Dani Zahavi, 19, of Haifa

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.

02/21 Links Pt1: The Impossible Deal: Establishing a Peaceful Palestinian-Arab State; Trump says antisemitism is 'horrible' and has to stop

From Ian:

The Impossible Deal: Establishing a Peaceful Palestinian-Arab State

Similarly, as Netanyahu explained in 2009 during his speech at Bar-Ilan University, any Palestinian-Arab state needs to be “demilitarized” – meaning that it cannot have an army, control its airspace, forge military pacts with the likes of Hezbollah and Iran, and import weapons, and must be subject to strong measures to prevent weapons smuggling. The PA opposes all of these Israeli security requirements.
Still another irreconcilable issue is that because a Palestinian state deal asks Israel to give up irreversible tangibles (i.e., land) for intangible peace promises, Israel needs partners who keep their promises. But the PA broke its repeated Oslo and other agreements to combat and stop inciting terror, collect illegal weapons, outlaw terrorist groups and preserve and provide Jews access to Jewish holy sites in PA territory.
Finally, the PA’s unrelenting goal is to destroy and replace all of Israel with a Palestinian-Arab state that no Jews can step foot in. This goal is clearly laid out in the PA ruling party Fatah Charter and in PA President Abbas’ speeches condemning the Israeli “occupation” since 1948 – and in the PA maps, stationery, official emblems, stamps, media and atlases showing all of Israel as Palestine. The PA leadership assures its people that any concessions it obtains are “stages” towards their final goal of destroying the Jewish state. Additionally, the PA is politically aligned with Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel’s destruction and the murder of every Jew.
Israel cannot agree to commit suicide – or give the PA a stronger base for advancing the Palestinian-Arab “struggle” for Israel’s total annihilation.

Caroline Glick: Senator Menendez and the Pollard effect

During his meeting with Trump, Netanyahu chose not to bring up Pollard and Pollard’s scandalous parole terms. Instead, Netanyahu sufficed with discussing Pollard’s plight at his meeting with Vice President Mike Pence. According to media reports, the two men agreed that Ambassador Ron Dermer will work with the administration on the issue. What that means was left open to interpretation.
Given the devastating role the Pollard affair has played in US-Israel relations, it is understandable that Netanyahu wouldn’t want to bring up Pollard at his first meeting with Trump. Who wants to bring up unpleasant subjects when you’re trying to build a new relationship with a new US president?
But while understandable, Netanyahu’s decision to minimize his discussions of Pollard’s plight and then delegate the issue to his ambassador was the wrong way to build that relationship.
Every day Pollard is subjected to prejudicial treatment by the US justice system is another day that the US is officially persecuting an American Jew, not because he breached his oath to protect US secrets, but because he did so as a Jew.
And as Menendez’s bigotry toward Friedman made clear, every day that this continues is a day when it is acceptable to slander loyal American Jews simply because they passionately support Israel. Every day that Pollard languishes under effective house arrest is another day when it is acceptable to question the good intentions of America’s greatest ally in the Middle East.
In other words, to rebuild its alliance with the US, Israel needs more than a warm embrace at the White House. It needs to receive Pollard at Ben Gurion Airport.

Shmuley Boteach: Cory Booker Condemned David Friedman While Giving Iran a Pass

And for too long, our ambassadors have blamed Israel for the ongoing dispute with the Palestinians rather than acknowledge that the obstacle to peace is the Palestinians’ refusal to accept the idea of a Jewish state coexisting next to a Palestinian state.
J Street has every right to its harsh opinions about Israel. But sitting in the comfort of homes 6,000 miles away may not give them the same perspective as Israelis who face threats of genocide from Hamas to the West, Hezbollah to the North and Iran to the East. J Street does not believe Jews have a legitimate claim to Judea and Samaria or the right to live in all of their homeland. The group is also out of step with Congress and mainstream Jews who support moving the US embassy and recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Prodded by J Street, Friedman has been challenged about his past support for Jews in the community of Beit El. The world may villainize the families there as settlers, but in my view, they have every right to live in the land of Israel.
The Palestinians have been offered the possibility of statehood no fewer than seven times going back to 1937, and missed every opportunity because of their refusal to accept a Jewish state.
While Democrats have united in opposition to Trump’s cabinet nominations, support for Israel has always been bipartisan — because Republicans and Democrats recognize that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, the only reliable US ally in the region and a nation that shares American values and interests. President Obama undermined that bipartisan tradition, which is why staunch Democratic supporters of Israel like Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York, Ben Cardin of Maryland and Robert Menendez of New Jersey had the wisdom to vote against the Iran nuclear deal.
Cory supported the deal. He had that right. But he must show consistency. If you’re going to criticize an ambassador-designate, then at least condemn the Iranian regime that has pledged death to America, and its foremost ally, Israel.

[T]he reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential in preparation for the timewhen international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization ofconditions of peace and stability in the areaUnited Nations General Assembly Resolution 393 (V), December 2, 1950

The goal and purpose of UNRWA is simple and straightforward -- if not immensely challenging: to either repatriate Palestine refugees into what is now Israel or to resettle them elsewhere, while recognizing the obvious reality that there will come a time "when international assistance is no longer available."

Yet here we are, 67 years later. Those Palestine refugees have not been either repatriated nor resettled.

And that international assistance? Lo and behold: its being offered and provided. So what happened to the whole purpose of UNRWA?

It changed.

First of all -- in case you didn't get the memo -- UNRWA is no longer dedicating its resources towards reintegrating those Palestine refugees. Just ask the people who should know:

Former UNRWA general counsel James G. Lindsay: "neither the donors nor the General Assembly has pressed UNRWA on 'reintegration' in quite some time."

Lance Bartholomeusz, former head of the International Law Division of UNRWA: "Thispart of the mandate probably ended by 1960 when reference to 'reintegration' wasdropped from General Assembly resolutions relating to UNRWA, reflecting some acknowledgment that this objective had been defeated."

Peter Hansen, former commissioner-general of UNRWA: "The agency's mandate has repeatedly been refined andshaped by other General Assembly resolutions, which have allowed it to shift itsfocus from reintegration efforts in its early years to human development projects through to this very day."

Basically, there was an admission that UNRWA failed in its mandate to find hosts for the Palestine refugees. But instead of replacing UNRWA with an agency that would deal with the new reality, UNRWA just replaced its mandate instead.It was able to do this because of its much-vaunted flexibility.In his article, The Mandate of UNRWA at Sixty Lance Bartholomeusz writes

As stated at the outset, in broad terms, UNRWA's "mandate" means what the Agency may or must do. We have seen that UNRWA's mandate is rarely expressed in terms of what UNRWA may not do. Even though the language used in some resolutions such as "directs", "instructs", "essential", and "necessary" might indicate a compulsory nature, considering the context - in particular that UNRWA is almost entirely voluntarily funded and its actual income has generally fallen far short of budgeted income - most of the Agency's operational mandate can be seen to be permissive, albeit strongly encouraged in parts....For almost sixty years, in response to developments in the region, the General Assembly has mandated the Agency to engage in a rich and evolving variety of activities, for many purposes and for several classes of beneficiaries. The Assembly has provided UNRWA with a flexible mandate designed to facilitate, rather than restrict, the Agency's ability to act as and when the Commissioner-General [of UNRWA], in consultation with the Advisory Commission as appropriate, sees fit. [emphasis added]

So, according to Bartholomeusz:

Its mandate gives UNRWA a lot of leeway.

Even when the language implies a "compulsory" obligation for UNRWA, most of the "operational mandate" is actually "permissive" (read: optional).

UNRWA's mandate is "rich" and "flexible"

UNRWA's Commissioner-General and the Advisory Commission are the final arbiter of what UNRWA's mandate actually is.

How has UNRWA exercised this flexibility?According to UN General Assembly Resolution 302, part of the UNRWA mandate is for "direct relief and works programmes." Yet 10 years later, the incoming UNRWA directorJohn Davis suggested a new focus, which emphasized a shift to education:

providing general education, both elementary and secondary

teaching vocational skills, and awarding university scholarships

offering small loans and grants to individual refugees who have skills and want to become self-employed

The new focus allowed UNRWA to increase from 64 schools, with 800 teachers instructing 41,000 students in 1950 -- to 699 schools, with 19,217 instructors and 486,754 students in the 2011-2012 school year.For all the good this may have done over the years, there are major concerns over the abuse this has led to, as documented by UN Watch in its latest report Poisoning Palestinian Children: A Report UNRWA teachers' incitement to jihadist terrorism and antisemitism:

This report exposes more than 40 Facebook pages operated by school teachers, principals, and other employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which incite to terrorism or antisemitism. The report is divided by region, and includes UNRWA staffers in Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and Syria. These cases are additional to the 30 cases of incitement revealed at the end of 2015 by UN Watch.The examples of incitement in this report include UNRWA teachers and staffers celebrating the terrorist kidnapping of Israeli teenagers, cheering rockets being fired at Israeli civilian centers, endorsing various forms of violence, erasing Israel from the map, praising Hitler and posting his photo, and posting overtly antisemitic videos, caricatures, and statements.

The results of this report were summarized in a video:

The report and video point to the growing problem of the unchecked influence that Palestinian Arabs have on the very agency that is supposed to be aiding them. In an email correspondence, Dr. Alexander Joffe, who has written extensively on various aspects of UNRWA, expanded on this issue and the growing threat it poses:

UNRWA basically shifted its entire operation towards education by the end of the1950s, ending any hopes of repatriation or resettlement. It then rode the anti-colonialism wave at the UN through the 1960s and 1970s (which saw the growth of the UN's immense pro-Palestinian infrastructure) and by the 1980s had become a full service health and welfare provider. But during the 1990s, especially the Oslo years, the concept of promoting Palestinian 'rights' and 'protections' grew, partially in response to Oslo and also as part of the global trend towards casting all claims in terms of legalisms and human rights. This advocacy role makes UNRWA a kind of competitor to the PA or at least a shadow foreign ministry. In short, the organization adapts to changing conditions. Because it is basically run by and for Palestinians (we've called this an example of 'regulatory capture') it reacts to its own needs, those of the Palestinian street which it serves and cultivates, especially through the educational system, and to changes in the rhetorical ecosystem of international organizations. Its promotion of the 'right of return' is a recent adaptation from the last decade or so. And everything it does is against the background of 'financial emergency,' which has been its stock response since the 1950s.

Currently, UNRWA is still remaking itself. In line with the advocacy role that Dr. Joffe describes, as early as 2007 UNRWA described itself in a report, UNRWA in 2006, as

a global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees. In circumstances of humanitarian crisis and armed conflict, the Agency's emergency interventions - as well as its presence - serve as tangible symbols of the international community's concern, helping to create a stable environment. [emphasis added]

This is a far cry from the temporary agency with a mandate to help Palestine refugees resettle.The claim that UNRWA protects as well as cares for the refugees seems something of a stretch. In 2002, when US Representative Tom Lantos complained to then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that "UNRWA officials have not only failed to prevent their camps from becoming centers of terrorist activity, but have also failed to report these developments to you," Annan responded:

the United Nations has no responsibility for security matters in refugee camps, or indeed anywhere else in the occupied territory

UNRWA will have to make up its mind just how global -- or how limited -- their protection is going to be, and who they intend to protect from whom.Just how UNRWA intends to be a stable influence when it assumes a responsibilitythat overlaps with the Palestinian Authority on the one hand, while it encourages antisemitism on the other, remains to be seen.

And if it can't -- no problem.UNRWA can always remake its mandate.

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Human Rights Watch praises Iran for "allowing" women to attend a volleyball match under specific restrictions

Human Rights Watch is not known for praising the human rights of any country. Which makes this tweet and article on their site all the more jarring:

Positive step for women's rights as women are allowed to attend male volleyball tournament in #Iran. #Watch4Women https://t.co/L6pL1oowmn pic.twitter.com/pCHEyNCyNf
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) February 17, 2017

The more you read in the article, the worse it gets:

The apparent decision by Iranian authorities to allow women to attend the Kish Island Open volleyball tournament is a positive, if small, step in the right direction, Human Rights Watch said today. Recent media reports said that female spectators will be allowed to attend the four-day beach volleyball competition, from February 15 through 18, 2017. Women had been barred from attending volleyball tournaments under a 2012 decree, in violation of international rules.

“From now on women can watch beach volleyball matches in Kish if they observe Islamic rules,” said Kasra Ghafouri, acting director of Iran’s Beach Volleyball Organization.

The Kish Island Open is a premier international men’s tournament organized by the International Volleyball Federation (FIVB) as part of the FIVB Beach Volleyball World Tour. Women were not allowed to attend the first Kish Island Open, in February 2016, in spite of previous assurances to the FIVB by Iranian officials, prompting renewed calls for reform and a reversal of the discriminatory 2012 ban.

HRW has no idea what specific restrictions the women must be under to "observe Islamic rules." No cheering? No standing? Watching the game on an old black and white TV in the bowels of the stadium? We don't know, and neither does HRW, even as it is lavish in its praise.

Worse, this policy is one time for one tournament in one sport. Iran didn't suddenly say that women can attend sporting events; it was responding to pressure for one event only. There has been no change in Iran's no-women policy altogether; this is the exception, not the rule.

And HRW celebrates.

The reason that HRW chooses to compliment Iran for its ultra-progressive position of possibly allowing women to attend a single tournament in a single sport one time is because HRW believes that, unlike Western countries, Iran will be more amenable to human rights issues if they are treated with kid gloves. After all, it was reported this weekend:

"Iran doesn't respond well to threats," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif told the Munich Security Conference, an annual gathering of top diplomats and defense officials. "We don't respond well to coercion. We don't respond well to sanctions, but we respond very well to mutual respect. We respond very well to arrangements to reach mutually acceptable scenarios."

HRW is afraid that Iran might give back this huge concession if they criticize the country for doing too little, too late.

But the fact is that the only reason Iran did as little as it did in allowing women to attend this tournament is exactly because of pressure and threats - the FIVB threatened to drop the tournament altogether days before it was to start unless Iran followed its rules.

HRW has the calculus exactly backwards. Iran is susceptible to pressure because Iran is sensitive to being shamed. Iran cares more about how it appears than how it acts. This is honor/shame in action. The ones who scream the most about how awful it is if they are humiliated are the ones who are the most frightened of being humiliated - and the ones who respond to pressure. The shame culture only pretends to accept others' ideas of what is right and wrong when it is forced to.

Human Rights Watch learned the exact wrong lesson from this volleyball incident. Instead of using the same tactics to build on to the next win, it caved and pretended that it can lay off the pressure for now because Iran is showing signs of acting 0.01% normally.

Which is, when you think of it, the exact same logic that drove the P5+1 to give in to Iranian demands as well.

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Palestinian civil society leaders are lamenting the fact that their "popular resistance" movements are not attracting much support within Palestinian society.

According to a new article in Ma'an, the number of participants in the weekly protests in Bil'in have gone down. Also, foreign activists are having a harder time coming to the area because of Israeli restrictions.

Palestinian National Initiative leader Mustafa Barghouti says, "Popular Resistance needs a strong push to awaken again, Recently, its weakness is evident in recent activities, and we need to find how viable it is to awaken this option.

Barghouti noted that the amount of money pouring in to help the "popular resistance" in a way weakens and spoils it, saying that they do not need material support, but the active participation of people.

Walid Assaf, head of a group that opposed the security barrier, acknowledged that everyone is falling short in supporting the popular resistance.

Observers believe that the "knife intifada" that erupted in late 2015 also hurt the "popular resistance" movement because Palestinians were more enthusiastic over using more violent options.

The photos accompanying the article show the more entertaining "popular resistance" activities, which make it fairly obvious that most Palestinians don't want to look like clowns just to get some extra media exposure.

The weekly Bil'in protests definitely seem to have lost their steam. While last Friday's attracted hundreds as the 12th anniversary of the protests, in recent months the weekly events have been attracting only a couple dozen lethargic people (and some enthusiastic fire-burners and slingshotters) as this video from January shows.

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02/20 Links Pt2: New wave of bomb threats at Jewish centers across US; 2016. A year of BDS fails

From Ian:

NGO Monitor: The need to regulate the lucrative ‘war crimes’ industry

Israeli military and political officials are also subject to campaigns seeking to criminalize counter-terrorism. In 2010, Judge Richard Goldstone acknowledged that an inquiry into the 2008-2009 Gaza conflict that he chaired under the auspices of the United Nations Human Rights Council, was based on invented allegations. After putting his name on a 500-page report that recycled rumors and unverified “testimony,” Goldstone wrote that there was no evidence to support claims of deliberate killing. His reputation and career were destroyed.
Goldstone’s bogus report, like the UK scandal, was the product of the lucrative and well-funded “war crimes” industry, led by dozens of powerful non-governmental organizations (NGOs) claiming to promote human rights. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) are among the main culprits. Founded to campaign for political prisoners, neither had any knowledge of the complexities of counter-terrorism when they reinvented themselves as experts on war crimes and interpreters of the law of armed conflict.
This agenda is the basis for large grants from government officials and private foundations, and also fits the radical anti-Western and anti-democratic ideologies of NGO leaders. The ranks of Amnesty, HRW and the numerous local groups that focus on the Arab-Israel conflict are filled with individuals who fervently believe that the world is divided automatically into colonialists and “victims,” with the democratic West as the former, and everyone else as the latter. NGO “research reports,” often based on rumors or lies, as in the case of the UK soldiers in Iraq, are taken at face value. Since few journalists and government officials understand international humanitarian law, and even fewer are able to verify any of the “war crimes” claims related to anti-terror operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, and elsewhere, the NGO version of events is generally repeated without challenge.
In order to prevent abuses, the leaders of the “war crimes” industry, and government funds they receive, must be subject to much closer regulation and oversight. Journalists have the professional obligation to independently examine evidence before giving the allegations and reports credence. Similarly, diplomats and members of parliaments would be well advised to examine the accusations closely, and ensure that international legal structures, created for exceptional cases of bringing murderous dictators to justice, are not exploited and trivialized.

New wave of bomb threats at Jewish centers across US

At least 10 Jewish community centers across the United States were targeted with bomb threats on Monday, for the fourth time in five weeks.
The threats have been called in to JCCs across the country, according to Paul Goldenberg, the director of Secure Community Network — an affiliate of the Jewish Federations of North America that advises Jewish groups and institutions on security.
News reports indicated that threats were received by JCCs in St. Paul, Minnesota; Houston, Texas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Birmingham, Alabama.
The threats were called in on Monday morning. It is not known if they were live calls or recorded.

Israel's Public Relations: The Problem and the Solution

It is worth noting that the Jewish State was effectively created through the efforts of the countries of the world in San Remo and Geneva years prior to the Holocaust.
Jerusalem, except for fewer than 200 years in the 11th and 12th Centuries, when it was the capital of a short-lived Crusader State, has only been a capital city under Jewish rule. At other times since the Roman conquest it was not even considered by Muslims, or anyone else, a provincial city of consequence.
In the War of 1948-49, Jordan illegally seized Jerusalem, ethnically cleansed its Jewish inhabitants, destroyed all the synagogues and on top of the ancient sacred Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, after taking ancient Jewish headstones to use as the floor of latrines, Jordan built a hotel.
The aggression by Egypt, Syria and Jordan in June 1967 was overturned by Israel. Israel liberated Jerusalem, took control of the Golan Heights, from which Syrians had been shooting down at Israeli farmers, and entered the West Bank, which was under illegal Jordanian occupation.
Anti-Apartheid movements in South Africa wanted equal political and other democratic rights for all -- irrespective of race -- but never advocated the destruction of South Africa.