Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, June 12, 2017

The UN retroactively declares "occupation" to be a 50 year "protection crisis"

The UN Coordinator for Humanitarian Aid and Development Activities, Robert Piper, gave a statement last week about the 50th anniversary of an unsuccessful war meant to murder millions of Jews. Here's how he framed it, though:

This week marks 50 years since the start of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. For humanitarians this is the most long-standing protection crisis in the UN’s history.

I had never noticed the term "protection crisis" before, and I looked in vain to find an official UN definition.

The only place I found any loose definition of the term was in a 2006 paper by the Humanitarian Policy Group entitled "The ‘protection crisis’: A review of field-based strategies for humanitarian
protection in Darfur":

The two main determinants of civilian (in)security in any violent conflict are the actions and motives of the parties to the conflict, and the steps that civilians take to protect themselves from the direct and indirect consequences of this (Darcy and Srinivasan, forthcoming). If the Sudanese government and the other warring parties were adhering to their obligations under international law, or if Darfuri civilians were able to find viable ways of remaining secure in their home environments or in a place of refuge, the need for third party intervention to protect civilians might not arise. Unfortunately, neither of those conditions applies in Darfur.

While the level of insecurity faced by civilians in Darfur is acute, the nature and scale of the violence are not without precedent, either within or outside Sudan. However, the way in which this situation has been characterised by the humanitarian community is different: Darfur is the first emergency to be labelled a ‘protection crisis’.

So the term "protection crisis" simply did not exist before 2006. Even this paper notes that there had been similar situations beforehand but Darfur was the first place that the international community mobilized specifically to protect a vulnerable community rather than in response to acute humanitarian needs from war or natural disaster.

The UN uses the term "protection crisis" now to apply to the Central African Republic (2011), famine in Somalia (2011), violence and persecution in Central America (2016), widespread wartime famine in Yemen (2017), and the Syrian crisis (2016) which is called "the world's largest protection crisis."

Yet the UN now says that the Palestinians suffer from a "the most long-standing protection crisis in the UN's history" - where no one is starving, no one is fleeing persecution (except for thousands fleeing from Hamas which the UN doesn't care about), and no civilians are being targeted. Where some 98% of Palestinians live under self-rule.

Not only has the UN elevated the Palestinian issue into a false crisis, but it has now retroactively declared that this crisis started in 1967, with "occupation." So Darfur is no longer the first protection crisis, but "Israeli occupation" is.

Yet the Palestinian Arabs who lived in much worse conditions in the territories before 1967 are not considered to have been in "crisis" by this UN definition. Similarly, the Palestinians who live in worse conditions in Syria and Lebanon and even in some Jordanian camps are not considered to be part of this "protection crisis." No, the only people who need "protection" are the ones for which Israel can be blamed. Apparently, taking a half hour to go through a checkpoint to get to a job in Israel is a "crisis."

Even the situation in Gaza, bad as it is under Hamas rule and with official Palestinian Authority policy to stop medicines and power to the sector, is far better than Syria and Somalia and Yemen and the CAR.

In 2009, as Operation Cast Lead was being waged, the UN said that "A humanitarian and protection crisis [is] unfolding," meaning that at the time the UN did not consider Gaza to be a "protection crisis" before the war. Now, Robert Piper is saying it was under a "protection crisis" for decades beforehand. Just no one noticed.

The use of this term "protection crisis" is the context of Israel is political, not factual. And to retroactively say that there was a crisis that started in 1967, when the lives of the people under Israeli control improved by every important health and human services metric compared to how they were beforehand - and having the same UN ignore the far worse situation of Palestinians under Arab rule - just proves yet again that the UN keep on finding new ways to target only Israel, and doesn't really give a damn about Palestinians.

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Astonishing ignorance from Luke Baker of Reuters (@LukeReuters)

One would assume that the bureau chief of a major wire news service dedicated to writing about Israel who has been in the region for years would have the slightest idea of what's going on.

If UN agency for Palestinian refugees were dismantled, would Israel take responsibility for those under occupation? https://t.co/P8aYrlEid9
— Luke Baker (@LukeReuters) June 11, 2017

Virtually all of the people UNRWA calls "Palestine refugees" live under PA control. Why should Israel have to take responsibility for people who claim to be refugees yet who have lived in "Palestine" all along?

Moreover, why doesn't the PA dismantle the camps - today? Why on Earth are humans kept in these camps when they live under PA rule where there is nothing stopping their leaders from building new houses for them?

But it gets worse. Going back in history...(from a Christian Science Monitor article from 1992)

It actually was worse - the UN passed resolutions forbidding Israel from building decent homes for these Palestinians. Here's one of them, but there were a few:

Baker believes that Israel wants Palestinian "refugees" to rot away. On the contrary, Israel is virtually the only nation that wants them to stop being "refugees" and being treated like any other responsible people, not as welfare recipients forever.

But Baker's ignorance doesn't end there. After the 1948 war, UNRWA declared some of the Arabs in Israel to be "refugees" as well and wanted to "help" them. The new state of Israel informed UNRWA that not having the Arabs integrate into Israeli society as full citizens would be, and I quote, "repugnant." from UNRWA's 1950 report:

31. Recent discussions with the Israel Government indicate that the idea of relief distribution is repugnant to it, and the Agency was informed that already many of the 24,000 remaining refugees were employed and that all able-bodied refugees desiring employment could be absorbed on works projects if they would register at the government registry offices for that purpose. It was stated that they all have status as citizens of Israel and are entitled to treatment as such. It was claimed that after cessation of relief, aged and infirm refugees would be cared for under the normal social welfare machinery of Israel.

Since 1948, Israel is the only country in the Middle East to treat Palestinian refugees from 1948 as normal human beings and not as cannon fodder.

This is a story that Reuters' Middle East bureau has somehow missed for nearly 70 years.

Baker's snarky comment shows his utter ignorance around one of the most important issues in the region.

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06/11 Links: UN rights chief compares ‘Palestinian suffering’ with Holocaust; Is Ramallah afraid of Wonder Woman?

From Ian:

Hillel Neuer: UN rights chief compares ‘Palestinian suffering’ with Holocaust

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, a former Jordanian ambassador and member of the royal family, should apologize for profoundly offensive remarks (see below) in which he compared “Palestinian suffering” with the Holocaust, and Palestinian refugee camps with Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The odious analogy was immediately endorsed by Qatar.
While he disingenuously insisted that the two cases were different, and though he made a point of predicting that he would be criticized by those acting ‘mechanically almost’, the fact remains that Mr. Hussein not only unfairly singled out Israel by dedicating the opening part of a major UN speech to the Palestinian situation but repeatedly juxtaposed the alleged suffering of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis with Jewish suffering at the hands of the Nazis.
Hussein spoke on Tuesday to open the 35th session of the UN Human Rights Council. I took the floor to respond—see below.
While the high commissioner addressed the U.S. Holocaust Museum in 2015, his odious analogy — unless he fully apologizes — renders him unfit to be invited back.

Netanyahu urges UN refugee agency for Palestinians be shut down

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for the closing of UNRWA, the United Nations’ agency dealing with Palestinian refugees, saying he had already urged the US envoy to the world body to consider pushing for it to be shuttered.
On Sunday, two days after the announcement of a tunnel that was discovered June 1 underneath a UNRWA-run school in Gaza, Netanyahu said he told US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley during her visit to Israel last week that it was time to reconsider the agency’s existence.
“Hamas uses schoolchildren as human shields. This is an enemy we have been fighting for many years and committing a double war crime: On the one hand, they deliberately attack innocent civilians, and on the other hand they also hide behind children,” Netanyahu said at the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem.
Netanyahu, who is also foreign minister, said he instructed the Foreign Ministry’s director-general, Yuval Rotem, to file an official complaint at the UN Security Council. On Saturday, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon wrote a letter of complaint to the president of the Security Council.

IsraellyCool: UNRWA’s Terror Tunnel Condemnation Rings Hollow

Leaving aside my incredulity that UNRWA did not suspect anything beforehand – terror tunnel construction tends to make a lot of noise and it is not like UNRWA is not aware of their existence in general – the condemnation, like the tunnels themselves, rings hollow.
Look at the wording again. UNRWA is condemning the violation of their supposed neutrality – the fact the tunnels ran under their premises – and not the general existence of these terror tunnels.
This reminds me of their flacid condemnation when rockets were found on their premises. Again, the condemnation was for the “violation of the inviolability of its premises under international law” and not the existence and use of these rockets against Israeli civilians.
Why won’t UNRWA condemn Hamas for siphoning of money earmarked as aid and using it to construct these tunnels and manufacture the rockets? Surely as a so-called relief agency, they should be outraged the money is being wasted in this way.
Unless….they are not.

From Asharq al-Awsat:

Hamas has rejected a request by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to reveal the fate of Israeli soldiers that have gone missing in the movement-controlled Gaza Strip.

Hamas spokesman Abdul Latif al-Qanou said: “The case of Israeli soldier prisoners is in the hands of the movement and it alone takes decisions over this issue.”

“It will not comply with such demands from the Red Cross,” he added.

The ICRC had called on Hamas to respect it commitments to International Humanitarian Law in regards to its Israeli soldiers. It had demanded that the movement submit a report on their fate.

Head of the ICRC delegation in Israel Jacques de Maio said that regardless if the prisoners were civilians or soldiers, they are all protected by International Humanitarian Law.

The pan-Arab newspaper doesn't mention that the people Hamas are presumably holding alive are not soldiers. They are Israeli civilians Hisham al-Sayed and Avraham Mengistu, both of whom seems to be mentally ill and who sneaked into Gaza. A third man, Jumaa Abu Ghanima, entered Gaza in July 2016, "but there is no further information on him and it is unclear if he was arrested or joined a militant group" according to TOI.

Hamas also commented on the tunnel found under an UNRWA school:

UNRWA said that the existence of the tunnels violates all UN privileges and immunities that are granted to it by International Humanitarian Law.

Hamas for its part rejected the UNRWA statement, saying that the movement is not performing any “resistance operations” near the schools.

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There was a very troubling sentence in the middle of another Haaretz article trying to spin Netanyahu's concessions for peace with Palestinians as somehow being evil:

In the course of negotiations with the Palestinians over the framework document at the beginning of 2014, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that the Obama administration insert a provision stating that Israeli settlers and settlements in the West Bank would be allowed to remain in a future Palestinian state under Palestinian jurisdiction. This is according to a working draft of the document obtained by Haaretz and from conversations with senior Israeli and U.S. officials who were involved in the talks at the time.

The Americans were willing at one point to insert the provision into the document, but ultimately it was removed at Netanyahu’s request due to political pressure from Habayit Hayehudi Chairman Naftali Bennett, as well as from several senior members of the prime minister’s Likud party.

The senior Israeli officials noted that Netanyahu had asked the Americans to insert the provision into one of the principles provided in the framework agreement that Kerry was developing. In a draft of the document obtained by Haaretz from the beginning of February 2014, there was a provision stating that Israelis choosing to remain in the State of Palestine would live under Palestinian jurisdiction, without discrimination and with full rights and protections.

The prime minister’s position was the background for a notation in parenthesis stating: “[U.S.] negotiators need to check with PM [Netanyahu] on whether he wants to keep this section. They believe that if so he will push strongly for [keeping the Jewish residents] ‘in place.’ ‘In place’ is inconsistent with U.S. policy and therefore unacceptable to us as well as the Palestinians.”

That is an astonishing sentence. It says that allowing Jews to remain in their homes in Judea and Samaria, under Palestinian rule and jurisdiction, is against US policy!

There is a possibility that the US objections were to the specific term "in place" rather than explicitly saying "in the State of Palestine," but US officials quoted in the article said that the terms were practically the same thing and that Netanyahu wanted the "in-place" formulation for internal political reasons, not as a practical suggestion that the Jews would have any status besides being under Palestinian Arab rule.

If this is true, and the reporting seems sound, then this may be an incredible example where the US State Department policy is officially antisemitic, saying that Jews - not Israelis, but Jews - have no rights to live in the Biblical Jewish homeland.

(h/t Avi B)

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Oh, so THIS is the horrible thing Gal Gadot wrote about Palestinians

I am idly reading an absurd pseudo-intellectual Mondoweiss piece about how terrible and Zionist Wonder Woman is, where the author writes:

During Operation Protective Edge, Gadot, just cast as Wonder Woman, used her new platform to defend direct attacks on civilians, including women and children. Gadot celebrated Israeli propaganda that every such casualty was Hamas’ fault for storing weapons close to them in the most densely populated open-air prison camp on earth. The most frustrating thing to me is how obviously this invalidates Gadot as a feminist icon, and Wonder Woman as well, when the character is brought to life by Gadot. If gender is shared by all racial groups, feminism cannot be Zionist, just as it cannot be neo-Nazi—feminism that doesn’t have an understanding of how it intersects with racial and ethnic oppression is simply a diversification of white supremacy.

I've seen this claim before. But they include a screenshot:

Where, exactly, is Gadot supporting killing civilians? (Later in the essay, the author characterizes Gadot's posts as "openly call[ing] for the death of women in a neighboring state.")

On the contrary, Gadot is - like Wonder Woman - trying to save civilians, and only wants to fight the bad guys!

Furthermore, Gadot's critics are showing that they are the ones who conflate Hamas with ordinary Palestinians - to them, being anti-Hamas is being anti-Palestinian. They are the ones who are implying that all Palestinians are terrorists, not Gadot!

Yes, we live in a world where self-defined "liberals" and "feminists" are more pro-terror than the decidedly anti-liberal and anti-feminist Arabs who have come out strongly against Hamas as a terror group.

It takes a special kind of perversion to take this short Facebook post about defending Israel from terror rockets and to twist it into support for murdering innocent people.

But the anti-Israel side is nothing if not perverted.

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06/10 Links: Dershowitz: Bernie Sanders: Knave or Fool?; Vogue: Israel’s ‘Stunning Beaches’ Have ‘Something for Every Type of Sand Lover’

From Ian:

Alan Dershowitz: Bernie Sanders: Knave or Fool?

It is clear that if Corbyn were anti-black, anti-women, anti-Muslim or anti-gay, Sanders would not have campaigned for him. Does this make him a self-hating Jew? Or does he just not care about anti-Semitism? The answer to that question requires us to look broadly to trends among the hard left of which Sanders is a leader.
Increasingly, the "progressive wing" of the Democratic Party and other self-identifying "progressives," subscribe to the pseudo-academic theory of intersectionality, which holds that all forms of social oppression are inexorably linked. This type of "ideological packaging" has become code for anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bigotry. Indeed, those who consider themselves "progressives" – but who are actually repressives – tolerate anti-Semitism as long as it comes from those who espouse other views they approve of. This form of "identity politics" has forced artificial coalitions between causes that have nothing to do with each other except a hatred for those who are "privileged" because they are white, heterosexual, male and especially Jewish.
It is against this backdrop that Sanders's cozying up to bigots such as Corbyn can be understood. Throughout the presidential campaign and in its aftermath, Sanders has given a free pass to those who are anti-Israel – which is often a euphemism for anti-Jewish. Consider, for example Sanders's appointments to the Democratic National Committee (DNC) Platform Committee last summer. Seeking to satisfy his radical "Bernie or Bust" support base, Sanders appointed James Zogby and Cornell West -- both of whom have peddled anti-Semitic conspiracy theories throughout their careers. Professor Cornell West -- who was a Sanders surrogate on the campaign trail -- has said that the crimes of the genocidal terrorist group Hamas "pale in the face of the US-supported Israeli slaughters of innocent civilians," and is a strong advocate of trying to eradicate Israel through the vehicle a campaign of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions.
He has also repeatedly accused Israel of killing Palestinian babies -- an allegation that echoes historic attacks on Jews for "blood libel."
Mr. James Zogby of the Arab American Institute once described the motivations behind Israel's interventions in Gaza as "putting the natives back in their place," and has compared the "plight of Palestinians" to the experience of Jews during the Holocaust.

Sanders ‘delighted’ by Corbyn’s strong result in UK election

Former US presidential candidate Bernie Sanders has congratulated Jeremy Corbyn and his Labour Party for winning unexpected gains in Britain’s snap general election on Thursday.
“I am delighted to see Labour do so well,” the Independent senator from Vermont said in a Facebook post Saturday.
“All over the world, people are rising up against austerity and massive levels of income and wealth inequality. People in the UK, the US and elsewhere want governments that represent all the people, not just the 1 percent,” Sanders said. “I congratulate Jeremy Corbyn for running a very effective campaign.”
According to a report in the UK’s The Guardian, members of Sanders’ campaign team helped Corbyn in campaigning ahead of the June 8 vote.
A number of Sanders’ campaign aides held training sessions for Labour activists to teach them how to effectively campaign.

‘Corbyn surge’ in London faltered in ‘bagel belt’ suburbs with strong Jewish vote

Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has long been a bête noire for the British Jewish community. His anti-Israel activism, combined with the spate of allegations of anti-Semitism in the party on his watch, triggered a visceral reaction.
As the elections results Friday showed a drift back to Labour that cost Theresa May’s Conservative Party its parliamentary majority and left May battered and discredited, British Jews seemed to move sharply in the opposite direction. A poll last week for the Jewish Chronicle had indicated that 77 per cent planed to vote Tory and only 13 per cent Labour, and nothing in the results appeared to contradict those findings.
Corbyn’s surge in support during the campaign – evident as the results came in overnight – was powered by young people. Young Jews, however, remained largely immune to his appeal: the JC poll indicating that less than one-quarter of those aged 18-34 planning to vote Labour.
Given the closeness of the result, Jewish voters, who are concentrated in a small number of highly marginal seats, may potentially have helped preserve May’s premiership.
Early indications had predicted that – in line with its strong performance in the capital – Labour would pull off a number of upset victories in the north London “bagel belt”. Finchley and Golders Green, Hendon and Chipping Barnet were all slated to fall to Corbyn’s party. Finchley and Golders Green – where an estimated one in five voters are Jewish – and Hendon would have been particularly sweet victories for the party. Both were contested by leading lights in the Jewish Labour Movement who had faced criticism within the community for attempting to unseat pro-Israel Tory incumbents.

06/09 Links Pt2: Hamas tunnel discovered underneath UNRWA school; There Were Once Jews Here

From Ian:

UNRWA uncovers Hamas-dug tunnel under school in Gaza

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees uncovered a tunnel belonging to Hamas under a boys’ elementary school in the Gaza Strip, according to a statement released by the organization on Friday.
The tunnel was discovered by workers of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) on June 1 under the school, which is part of a compound comprising other schools in the Maghazi refugee camp in the Gaza Strip near the city of Deir al-Balah.
The tunnel, between two and three meters underground, passes under the Maghazi Elementary Boys A&B School and the Maghazi Preparatory Boys School, and was built both eastward into the Palestinian enclave and westward toward the security fence with Israel, according to UNRWA.
“The discovery was made during the summer vacation, at a time when the schools are empty, and in the course of work related to the construction of an extension of one of the buildings,” UNRWA said in a statement, adding that the tunnel “has no entry or exit points on the premises nor is it connected to the schools or other buildings in any way.
The agency said it condemns “the existence of such tunnels in the strongest possible terms,” adding that it was “unacceptable that students and staff are placed at risk in such a way.”
“We demand they desist from any activities or conduct that put beneficiaries and staff at risk and undermine the ability of UN staff to provide assistance to Palestine refugees in safety and security,” the agency said.

Hamas member killed, 6 wounded in clashes with IDF soldiers near Gaza border

A Hamas fighter was killed and six were wounded during clashes with IDF troops on Friday near the border between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
“Aeid Jumaa, 35, was killed and six other Palestinians were wounded during clashes along the Gaza border (with Israel) north of Jabalia,” the Hamas-run Interior Ministry’s spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.
The terror group issued a statement saying that Jumaa was one of its members.
The group said he was killed by Israeli gunfire, a charge the IDF could not confirm.
An Israeli army spokeswoman, contacted by AFP, said hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators had burned tires and been throwing stones the length of the security fence between Israel and Gaza.
“Our forces had to arrest suspects to prevent damage to the security fence,” she said, but was unable to confirm the casualties from gunfire.

UK Board of Deputies' '10 Commitments' include Palestinian State

British Jewish leaders urged both candidates for British premiership to support Palestinian statehood and get Jewish votes in return, Israel National News has learned. Israeli members of government, most of whom strongly oppose this request have expressed their displeasure privately.
The Board of Deputies is considered the main representative body of British Jews. Yesterday, the Board distributed an email linking to videos sent to the Jewish community by the two prime-ministerial candidates, Conservative candidate Theresa May and Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The Board’s email explains the video messages were “sent in response to the Board of Deputies'...10 Commitments we have asked all prospective parliamentary candidates to sign up to” - that is, before trying to get the Jewish community's vote.
The “10 commitments” drafted by the Board of Deputies were obtained by Israel National News. They mainly relate to “issues of concern to Jewish voters” such as kashrut, Shabbat observance, anti-Semitism, Holocaust remembrance, faith schools and culturally sensitive youth and social care services.
However, “Commitment 5” insists that the British leaders accommodate their Jewish constituents by advocating for a “viable” Palestinian state.

From Arutz-7:

A Hamas terrorist tunnel was discovered under a school in Gaza run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine (UNRWA), Israeli media reported on Friday.

The tunnel was discovered a week and a half ago, according to the reports.

The Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, confirmed the discovery of the tunnel in a post on his Facebook page in Arabic.

“The tunnel was discovered underneath a school for boys in Al-Maazi...It is clear that the entire Arab world understands that it is the Hamas terror organization that destroys Gaza and eliminates any chance of a good future for Gazans,” wrote Mordechai.

Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon reacted harshly to the revelation of the existence of the terror tunnel.

“This tunnel verifies what we have always know, that the cruelty of Hamas knows no bounds as they use the children of Gaza as human shields. Instead of UN schools serving as centers of learning and education, Hamas has turned them into terror bases for attacks on Israel,” said Ambassador Danon.

COGAT points to the Facebook page of the Maghazi Boys Prep School B in Gaza. The page hasn't been updated since 2014.

The school also had its own UNRWA school webpage, but UNRWA took all of those down after I discovered that they sometime posted antisemitism.

I don't know if UNRWA discovered this or it was discovered some other way. Waiting to hear the statement from UNRWA about this.

UPDATE: UNRWA condemned it, and the condemnation was not bad, mentioning Hamas by name.

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Fatah official admits that Palestinians never abandoned violence

From MEMRI:

Top Fatah Official Nabil Shaath: No Problem with Engaging Simultaneously in Armed Struggle and Diplomatic Efforts

Former chief Palestinian negotiator Nabil Shaath, who is the Commissioner for International Relations for the Fatah movement and Advisor to President Abbas on Foreign Affairs, said in an interview that he had "never thought that there was any problem with engaging in armed struggle, and at the same time, engaging in political and diplomatic efforts in support of your cause." Speaking on the Palestinian Awda TV channel on May 29, Shaath said that the Palestinians’ right to engage in armed struggle is "indisputable."

Nabil Shaath: "Our cause is just, and our right to engage in armed struggle is indisputable. The Israelis have not come here through negotiations. It is not that they got our permission to come here. They are plunderers who have come here through weapons and killing, attempting to banish… and they succeeded in banishing a large part of our people by force. So our right to engage in armed struggle is indisputable.

Everyone that follows Fatah knows this. But no one reports it.

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06/09 Links Pt1: Palestinians: Crocodile Tears and Terrorism; Glick: Qatar, Trump and double games

From Ian:

Palestinians: Crocodile Tears and Terrorism

Adding to the hypocrisy, Abbas and his PA leadership often point an accusing finger at Israel for killing the terrorists who are carrying out attacks. Instead of condemning the perpetrators, Abbas and the Palestinians regularly accuse Israel of carrying out "extra-judicial killings" of the terrorists. In other words, Palestinian leaders save their condemnation for Israeli soldiers and policemen, for defending themselves and firing at those who come to stab them with knives and axes or try to run them over with their cars.
How would the British or French governments react if someone condemned them for killing the terrorists on the streets of Paris and London?
Has anyone in the West noticed Abbas's double standards in dealing with terrorism against civilians?
But Abbas not only stays silent when his own people mow down Israelis: he names streets and squares after such "heroes." Moreover, he rewards them and their families financially, with the help of American and European taxpayer money.
Perhaps it is time for Westerners to realize that there is no difference between a terrorist who sets out to kill Jews and a terrorist who kills British, French and German nationals. In fact, it has become clear that the terrorists in Europe have copied the tactics of the Palestinians in carrying out stabbings and vehicular and suicide-bombing attacks.
Abbas's crocodile tears are intended to disguise tears of joy that terrorism is alive and well -- certainly when it comes to the Israeli blood that his own people spill in the name of Allah.

Caroline Glick: Qatar, Trump and double games

US President Donald Trump has been attacked by his ubiquitous critics for his apparent about-face on the crisis surrounding Qatar.
In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Trump sided firmly with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and the other Sunni states that cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and instituted an air and land blockade of the sheikhdom on Monday.
On Wednesday, Trump said that he hopes to mediate the dispute, more or less parroting the lines adopted by the State Department and the Pentagon which his Twitter posts disputed the day before.
To understand the apparent turnaround and why it is both understandable and probably not an about-face, it is important to understand the forces at play and the stakes involved in the Sunni Arab world’s showdown with Doha.
Arguably, Qatar’s role in undermining the stability of the Islamic world has been second only to Iran’s.
Beginning in the 1995, after the Pars gas field was discovered and quickly rendered Qatar the wealthiest state in the world, the Qatari regime set about undermining the Sunni regimes of the Arab world by among other things, waging a propaganda war against them and against their US ally and by massively funding terrorism.
The Qatari regime established Al Jazeera in 1996.
Despite its frequent denials, the regime has kept tight control on Al Jazeera’s messaging. That messaging has been unchanging since the network’s founding. The pan-Arab satellite station which reaches hundreds of millions of households in the region and worldwide, opposes the US’s allies in the Sunni Arab world. It supports the Muslim Brotherhood and every terrorist group spawned by it. It supports Iran and Hezbollah.
Al Jazeera is viciously anti-Israel and anti-Jewish.

Melanie Phillips: The West’s most fundamental and lethal divide

The Jewish community is not exempt from this madness. The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jonathan Arkush, this week called on British Muslims to “stand up and be counted.” “Every British mosque should be holding its own protest against terrorism, proclaiming ‘Not in our Name,’” he wrote.
More than 80 people from synagogues and communal organizations as well as unaffiliated individuals promptly signed an open letter accusing Arkush of “fanning the flames of intercommunity hatred.” This despite the fact that he also said the terrorists were “not representative of British Muslims” and that the attacks were “a perversion of Islam.”
“We particularly reject the assertion,” wrote the signatories, “that members of a religious or ethnic group must quickly and publicly denounce any members of that group who act repugnantly. We hope you will remember that this has been used to persecute Jews in living memory. Just as we as Jews have no responsibility for the actions of Jewish terrorist groups, Muslims are not personally responsible for the actions of groups such as ISIS.”
Presumably, this was a reference to the Jewish terrorists of the Irgun and Lehi (the Stern Group) in pre-Israel Palestine. If so, the analogy was singularly inappropriate. The mainstream Zionist leadership at that time not only denounced these Jewish terrorists but actively helped the British hunt them down to kill or jail them.
By contrast, Islamist terrorists are at the extreme end of a continuum of attitudes that themselves pose a threat to Britain. In a 2015 poll of British Muslims, nearly a quarter said Islamic Shari’a law should replace British law in areas with large Muslim populations; 4% – equivalent to more than 100,000 British Muslims – sympathized with suicide bombers; and only one in three would contact the police if that person believed a close contact was involved with jihadists.
While most British Muslims are against violent extremism, their community therefore helps swell the sea in which terrorism swims.
More and more Muslims are now saying they have to tackle this. Yet the Jewish signatories wrote: “We stand with all our Muslim sisters and brothers, and all people of faith and no faith, in love and healing from these atrocities – together.”

From Hamas' Qassam website:

Ezzedeen Al Qassam Brigades mourned, on Wednesday evening, one of its field leaders from Rafah city southern Gaza Strip, who was martyred in an accidental explosion during preparation work for resistance.

The Brigades said in a statement that the Qassam leader Ibrahim Hussein Abu Naja, 51 years, from Rafah, martyred, on Wednesday evening, 07/06/2017 in an accidental explosion.

The Brigades added: "Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades mourns the death of the mujahed, reaffirms the commitment and determination to continue the resistance against the belligerent occupation forces".

Haaretz reports that this was no ordinary Hamas terrorist, but "a senior figure in Hamas' explosives division" who had survive three Israeli assassination attempts.

His funeral was attended by hundreds:

May there be many more such martyrs.

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