Goldstone report problems, part 21

Paragraph 1515 of the Goldstone report says:

1515. At the public hearing in Geneva on 6 July 2009, Mr. Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians today are subject to a travel ban imposed by Israel, preventing them from travelling abroad. Mr. Jabarin, whom the Mission heard in Geneva by way of videoconference, had been subject to such a travel ban since he became the director of Al-Haq, the West Bank’s oldest human rights organization. Mr Jabarin challenged his travel ban in the Israeli High Court after he was prevented from travelling to the Netherlands to receive a human rights prize, but the ban was upheld on the basis of ‘secret evidence’.864 Mr. Jabarin believed that the ban was imposed as punishment.

Footnote 864 says:

For the Israeli High Court decision of 10 March 2009 (Al-Haq translation), see www.alhaq.org/pdfs/Shawanabarin-v.pdf;

So since Goldstone used the testimony of Shawan Jabirin, and since the commission quotes from one of Al Haq's documents that translates an Israeli Supreme Court decision, let's look at what the document actually says:

1. The petitioner, a resident of the West Bank, requests to be permitted to leave for abroad – according to the petition – in order to participate in the award ceremony of a prestigious award for “human rights defenders”.

The state objects to the request due to the objections of security officials. In the public response submitted by the state, it is said that the petitioner is a senior activist in a terrorist organisation, and that his leaving for abroad may serve for the advancement of the terrorist organisation’s activity in the West Bank.

2. This is not the first time that the petitioner has submitted a petition regarding his desire to leave the country. In the framework of the previous petitions, the Supreme Court has reviewed secret material, presented ex parte, of behalf of the security authorities, and we have done the same today. The petitions were all rejected in the past. Thus, in its verdict of 20 June 2007, the Court found that:

“this petitioner is apparently active as a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, in part of his hours of activity he is the director of a human rights organisation, and in another part he is an activist in a terrorist organisation which does not shy away from acts of murder and attempted murder, which have nothing to do with rights, and, on the contrary, deny the most basic right of all, the most fundamental of fundamental rights, without which there are no other rights – the right to life.”

In its decision of 7 July 2008, the Court found that:

“we are dealing with reliable information according to which the petitioner is among the senior activists of the terrorist organisation, The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”

(h/t NGO Monitor)

Goldstone relied on testimony from someone who, if the commission read their own footnotes, was proven by the Israeli Supreme Court to be a senior member of the terrorist group PFLP!

And notice that the director of Al Haq, the "West Bank’s oldest human rights organization," is a PFLP terrorist - something that, as far as I can tell, Jabarin does not deny. In fact, in 2003, Israel allowed Jabarin to travel to Jordan - and Jordan refused to accept him presumably because of his terror links!

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Hamas steals aid, attacks wedding

Palestine Press Agency reports on two incidents in Gaza.

This morning, dozens of Hamas militants attacked a charity, Cooperative Housing Foundation International (CHF), arrested its workers, and confiscated aid meant for needy families. (CHF indeed feeds thousands of Gazans. Its website is silent on this matter.)

And on Saturday night, Hamas members attacked a wedding, arresting some guests and breaking chairs and sound equipment. [h/t Yerushalimey for spelling]

(PalPress is very anti-Hamas and has articles that none of the news agencies in Gaza would dare report, but its track record has been pretty good.)

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PalArab anthem parody causes freak-out

I finally found an English article about the controversy over the Palestinian Arab national anthem being played in a "distorted" way by Al Jazeera.

What happened is that a parody of the unofficial Palestinian Arab anthem had been going around various Arab websites over the past month, and Al Jazeera played part of it for guests belonging to Hamas and Fatah to ask their opinion. It was not Biladi, the official vengeful national anthem, but Mawtini, which was written in 1936 (and has more recently become the national anthem - of Iraq!)

Someone who was clearly sick and tired of how Palestinian Arab leaders act (of course, he wants them to embrace their terror roots far more) made fun of Mawtini, and the PalArabs directed their anger at Al Jazeera for playing it. Here are the parody lyrics that were played on the air and the original English translations:

My homeland, My homeland
Curse and perversity, Plague and hypocrisy
Are in your hills, Are in your hills
Tyrants and oppressors, Cunning not fidelity
Are in your sanctuary, Are in your sanctuary
Will I see you? Nothing else

Original:

My homeland, My homeland
Glory and beauty, Sublimity and splendor
Are in your hills, Are in your hills
Life and deliverance, Pleasure and hope
Are in your air, Are in your Air
Will I see you? Will I see you?

The original parody had more scathing lines:

My homeland, My homeland / My homeland, My homeland
The youth will not tire, 'till your independence / Agreement will never emerge
Or they die / No, its star will not appear
We will drink from death / Again
And will not be to our enemies / All kinds of parties have appeared
Like slaves, Like slaves / With one worry in mind
We do not want, We do not want / Which is to enslaved to our enemies
An eternal humiliation / And that you perish, you perish
Nor a miserable life / They don’t want, they don’t want
We do not want / Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock
But we will bring back / Al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock
Our storied glory, Our storied glory / Instead, they want, instead, they want
My homeland, My homeland / To live like slaves
The sword and the pen / Which is certain shame for us
Not the talk nor the quarrel / My homeland, My homeland

The video of the parody, showing various PalArab leaders who are considered traitors, can be seen here. It already has about 50,000 views on YouTube.

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The Resurrection of ZOG!

One might think that in the wake of Walt/Mearsheimer, Obama's seeming pandering towards "moderate" Arabs, the growth of "J Street" and other issues, that the storied Zionist Occupied Government controlled by a secret cabal of Joos was on the ropes.

But the enemies of the Elders never counted on...Astro Boy!


According to the movie synopsis,

ZOG (voiced by Samuel L. Jackson) - Most of the old robots that are dropped to the Surface from Metro City are in pretty bad shape. Astro Boy manages to resurrect Zog and gain a powerful ally who is bigger and stronger than any other robot on the Surface.

We're back, baby! And the Nazis at Stormfront are nervous! (http://www.stormfront.org/forum/showthread.php?t=646266)

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Daily Goldstone 10/18

Yaacov Lozowick picks up on another of those really reliable Gaza eyewitnesses:

On page 200 of the Goldstone Report we find this sentence:

706. The Israeli ground offensive from the east reached al-Samouni neighbourhood around 4 a.m. on 4 January 2009. In addition to the ground forces moving in from the east, there were, in all likelihood, heliborne398 troops that landed on the roofs of several houses in the area.

Should you wonder what that means, heliborne troops (and how would the Commission members have known?), you can follow footnote 398:

One witness told the Mission that on 5 January 2009, walking on Salah ad-Din Street towards Gaza, he saw by the roadside parachutes Israeli troops had used to land in the area.

Israel has not used parachutes in battle since 1956. I've never heard of parachutists in any army jumping from helicopters, because the two methods contradict one another. Parachutists jump from mid-altitude airplanes, and aim at large areas since they cannot be guided to precise points. Helicopters land troops on precise points; the troops jump out from a height of a foot, or three.

I haven't heard of Israeli troops being flown by helicopter into battle in Gaza, but who knows? Maybe it happened. If so, eyewitnesses would be able to tell about it in one, very clear case: if they saw the helicopters coming in, effectively landing, and then leaving troops behind them. It's that simple.

The story told by the witness is straight from some Arabian tall tale. I am totally at loss for an explanation as to why the fact finders would have wished to cast themselves as giving the time of day to such fabulists, but I'm at loss for an explanation about lots of things in their report. Keep in mind, however, that one of the four members was chosen for being a military man, and some of their staff were hired for their military expertize, so it's not that they didn't know better.

h/t Tzvi

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"Honor killing" in Jordan

From Arab News:

A Jordanian man was charged on Sunday with premeditated murder after allegedly stabbing to death his 22-year-old daughter because she became pregnant outside wedlock, police said.
“The father and his brother took the girl on Saturday to a doctor because she suffered stomach pains, and everybody was surprised to learn that she was six months pregnant,” a police spokesman told AFP. “On their way home, the father stabbed the girl with a sword 25 times in her stomach, killing her immediately as well as her unborn baby boy.” The source said the suspect has confessed to the crime following the murder, which took place in the Jordan Valley.
“His brother was also charged with premeditated murder, while the victim’s boyfriend is being held in custody for his own protection,” he added.

I guess the first stabbing wasn't "honorable" enough; he had to add 24 more.

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Hamas gaining popularity?

Ma'an reports on a JMCC poll that shows contradictory results from the last one I looked at from AWRAD.

According to this poll, Mahmoud Abbas' popularity has gone down a lot as a result of his Goldstone fiasco; Haniyeh's held steady:

The survey released on Sunday by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre (JMCC) indicates that if an election were held today, Abbas would receive just 16.8 percent of the vote, and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh 16 percent. A similar percentage said they would vote for Fatah leader Marwan Barghouthi, who is currently in prison in Israel.

Public confidence in Abbas dropped to 12.1% from 17.8% in another JMCC poll in June. Confidence in Haniyeh held steady at 14.2%.

JMCC also reports that while Abbas’ popularity took a hit, “it seems that the approach of Fatah Leadership to distance itself from the PNA with regards to the Goldstone report helped Fatah in keeping its popularity ahead and more than Hamas’ popularity among the Palestinian public.”

The current poll shows that a 34.6% of the public still trusts Fatah compared with a 17.9% who said they trust Hamas, followed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) which received 3.7%, while Islamic Jihad received 2.3%.

(Google reports that the JMCC site is filled with malware, so I could not check the poll results directly; perhaps the wording of the questions is responsible for the diverse results.)

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Egyptians upset over translations of poetry to Hebrew

Al Quds has a story about a new controversy in Egypt.

An Israeli publishing house is attempting to translate the works of famed Egyptian poet Iman Mersal, specifically her 2006 work Jughrafiya Badila (Alternative Geography). Egyptian intellectuals and authors are upset, because this implies some sort of normalization with Israel, which is of course a terrible thing for a country that signed a peace agreement with Israel thirty years ago.

Early reports that there was a direct agreement between her Egyptian publisher and an Israeli publisher seem to have been proven wrong.

As the article states, there seems to be a solution:

However, the National Center for Translation of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture found a solution, as stated by the President and university professor critic Gaber Asfour, who explained that he "will not be dealing with any Israeli publisher, because this is a kind of normalization, but we will seek the approval of publishers in English or French in countries other than Israel to get the right translation of it."

Interestingly, the Imad Mersal webpage on ArabWorldBooks.com mentions translations of some of her individual poems into Hebrew.

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War is peace, day is night, Syria supports "human rights"

From Syria's news agency SANA:

Syria welcomes the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council's adoption of the Fact-Finding Mission's report on the war on Gaza, a Syrian Foreign Ministry official source said Sunday.

"Hailing the stances of the countries which voted in favor of the resolution, Syria expresses regret over stances of some countries which voted against it and the abstention of other countries which have long claimed that they respect and care for human rights," the source added.

The source said that the double standards of these countries regarding several issues, on top of them the human rights, denies them credibility and objectivity, which should exist when dealing with what they raise regarding the human rights issues.

Meanwhile, Syria imprisoned a blogger for his views:

Consider the case of Kareem Arabji, a 31 year old business consultant who helps manage the online youth forum www.akhawia.net. Kareem supervised Al Mabar Al Hur, a section within akhawia.net dedicated to free ideas, and wrote numerous articles under a pseudonym criticizing corruption and dictatorship in Syria. On June 7, 2007 Arabji was arrested by Syrian security forces and held incommunicado at the Palestine Branch of Military Intelligence in Damascus. He was charged with, "broadcasting false or exaggerated news which would affect the morale of the country.”

Just what outrageous, unforgivable words did Kareem utter that so threatened the Syrian nation? "The press is a very important mechanism to struggle against the corruption, there should not be any restrictions or obstacles to it," he wrote in Akhawia. Or perhaps it was his skepticism of the Syria-Hamas alliance: "Since I was a kid in school we were always taught that the Muslim Brotherhood is a criminal gang, and I agree. And now we proudly consider Hamas, which is a Muslim Brotherhood proxy, as an ally!!!?"

On September 13, 2009, Arabji was sentenced by a Syrian court to three years in prison.

Despite a sustained public relations campaign in the West, Syria remains one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East. Those who voice dissent are regularly intimidated, arrested, tortured and imprisoned. In September 2009 the Jordanian Business Magazine reported that Syria blocks at least "160 web sites, including Facebook, Amazon, YouTube, and the popular online-telephone service, Skype." Cyberdissidents such as Arabji face regular harassment from security forces. Ironically, article 38 of the Syrian constitution allows "the right to freely express one's opinions by spoken word, in writing or in any other medium." But this is little more than hollow rhetoric. The same article also states that expression must be in a "manner that safeguards the soundness of the domestic and nationalist structure and strengthens the socialist system." This clause effectively guts any true form of freedom of expression in Syria.

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Abbas admits no one really read Goldstone, anyway

In an internal Fatah meeting where Mahmoud Abbas admits he postponed the Goldstone debate, he reveals something interesting:

President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday defended his decision to postpone debate on South African jurist Richard Goldstone's fact-finding mission on Gaza at the UN Human Rights Council last month.

Defending the PLO's deferment of the report last month, Abbas added, "When the Goldstone report was released, we agreed on it and welcomed it. Arab countries proposed a high-level resolution be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council that protects our rights, and it was opposed by Europe, the US, China, and Russia.

"Then, the US suggested a very low-level resolution which holds us responsible for the war on Gaza. Neither resolution was passed," he said. "It was necessary to find a compromise. We found that it would be better to defer discussion of the report."

The president added that the PA is not a full member of the council, "and we can't submit, or withdraw, or delay a proposal. Everybody was silenced. Then some began accusing us of erring. Who read the report, anyway? Those who were in Geneva didn't read the report, because it needed to be translated."

Abbas added, "Let’s assume we saw the report. Where did we err? Why do we say that? Everybody says we erred. Unfortunately, the fuss about the report started here in Palestine," referring to widespread Palestinian anger at the PA and PLO for what some, including high-ranking Hamas members, termed treasonous. "They said, this is your opportunity to attack them fiercely."

Although he didn't mean to, Abbas admits that the contents of the Goldstone report aren't what matters to Palestinian Arabs. The only important thing is that it can be used as a weapon against Israel, as both the PA and Hamas seized on it...before anyone read it.

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Up is down, black is white, Hezbollah supports "human rights"

From M&C:

The Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah condemned Sunday the countries that voted against the UN Human Rights Council's endorsement of the Goldstone report on the Hamas-Israel conflict in the Gaza Strip last December and January.

Hezbollah criticized countries that voted against the decision, specifically the United States, saying that their position clearly shows the 'moral degradation which some countries have reached.'

The party called for all international bodies, human rights associations and judicial institutions to take all proper measures 'to punish Zionist war criminals.'

How Orwellian can the world get?

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PalArabs upset that Al Jazeera distorted their national anthem

I am not quite sure exactly what happened, but Al Jazeera ended a report about Hamas with a rendition of the Palestinian Arab "national" anthem that was somehow distorted, causing much gnashing of teeth and claims that it was "perverted."

The lyrics of the anthem are, as one would expect, filled with violence and promises of vengeance:

CHORUS
My country, my country
My country, my land, land of my ancestors
My country, my country
My country, my people, people of perpetuity

With my determination, my fire and the volcano of my revenge
With the longing in my blood for my land and my home
I have climbed the mountains and fought the wars
I have conquered the impossible, and crossed the frontiers
Chorus

With the resolve of the winds and the fire of the guns
And the determination of my nation in the land of struggle
Palestine is my home, Palestine is my fire,
Palestine is my revenge and the land of endurance
Chorus

By the oath under the shade of the flag
By my land and nation, and the fire of pain
I will live as a fida'i*, I will remain a fida'i,
I will end as a fida'i - until my country returns
Chorus

• fida'i = one who risks his life voluntarily; one who sacrifices himself; hence the word fedayeen.

Now, who could possibly be the objects of this "revenge"?

I guess that Jews are major characters in more than one "national" anthem!

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Open thread - special weekend edition!

Now twice as open!

Enjoy while I try to catch up on my sleep....Shabbat Shalom!

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Daily Goldstone 10/16

Testifying on behalf of UN Watch in Geneva at the special session called to condemn Israel, Col. Richard Kemp says

I am the former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan. I served with NATO and the United Nations; commanded troops in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Macedonia; and participated in the Gulf War. I spent considerable time in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, and worked on international terrorism for the UK Government’s Joint Intelligence Committee.

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defence Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.


Hamas, like Hizballah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents.

The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas’ way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets.

And I say this again: the IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.

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UN votes to bar Jews from their holiest spot

UPDATE: The resolution passed.

The current UNHRC Special Session is not only about the Goldstone report, but also a wide-ranging condemnation of Israel (alone) that intends to, ironically, bar Jews from the Temple Mount.

Here is part of the draft resolution being considered in this session (A/HRC/S-12/L.1):

The Human Rights Council,

Recalling the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights,

Affirming the responsibility of the international community to promote human rights and ensure respect for international law,

Emphasizing the particularity of The Occupied East Jerusalem in its rich religious and cultural heritage,

Recalling all relevant United Nations resolutions including Security Council resolutions on Occupied East Jerusalem,

Deeply concerned at the Israeli actions undermining the sanctity and inviolability of religious sites in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including East Jerusalem,

Deeply concerned also at the Israeli policy of closure and severe restrictions, including the permit regime, that continue to be imposed on the movement of Palestinians hindering their free access to their Christian and Muslim holy sites, including Al Aqsa Mosque,

1. Strongly condemns all policies and measures taken by Israel, the occupying power, including those limiting access of Palestinians to their properties and holy sites particularly in Occupied East Jerusalem, on the basis of national origin, religion, sex, age or any other discriminatory ground, which are in grave violation of the Palestinian People's civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights;

2. Condemns further the recent Israeli violations of human rights in Occupied East Jerusalem, particularly the confiscation of lands and properties, the demolishing of houses and private properties, the construction and expansion of settlements, the continuous construction of the separation Wall, changing the demographic and geographic character of East Jerusalem, the restrictions on the freedom of movement of the Palestinian citizens of East Jerusalem, as well as the continuous digging and excavation works in and around Al-Aqsa mosque and its vicinity;

3. Demands Israel, the occupying power, to respect the religious and cultural rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as provided for in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the core International Human Rights instruments, the Hague Conventions, and the Geneva Conventions, and to allow Palestinian citizens and worshippers unhindered access to their properties and religious sites therein;

4. Demands also Israel, the occupying power to immediately cease all digging and excavation works and activities beneath and around Al Aqsa Mosque and its vicinity, and refrain from any acts or operations that may endanger the structure or foundations or change the nature of holy sites both Christian and Islamic in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem;

5. Requests the High Commissioner for Human Rights, pursuant to resolution S-9/L.1 and in the context of her periodic reports, to monitor, document and report on the state of implementation by Israel, the occupying power, of its Human Rights obligations in and around East Jerusalem.

Unlike the sponsors of this resolution, Israel is the only party that is trying to allow equal access to religious places. The rights of Jews to visit their holy spots would be eliminated should this resolution pass (the goal of paragraph 4.)

Not only that, the resolution itself includes outright lies:

Israel does not dig "in" or "beneath" the Temple Mount (although the Islamic Waqf does, destroying priceless archaeological treasures.)

There has never been a place called "East Jerusalem" as distinct from Jerusalem itself. The only people who ever divided Jerusalem were Arabs in 1948.

The implication that Jews have no right to any part of the Old City and no historical ties to Jerusalem.

The implication that archaeological digging and normal construction anywhere in the Old City is endangering the Al Aqsa mosque. (The Arab press always refers to the incredibly important City of David excavations as being "tens of meters" from Al Aqsa for this reason. Also, this is a veiled way to stop Jews from ever building new synagogues in the Old City.)

Urge world leaders to vote "no" to this sickening and, frankly, anti-semitic resolution by clicking here and personalizing the text to emphasize these lies.

UPDATE 2 : Goldstone says he is "saddened" that Hamas violations of human rights law wasn't mentioned by the UNHRC. Extraordinary naivete or trying to save face? 90% of his report slams Israel, what did he expect?

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