Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 27, 2009

Hamas accused of closing down another NGO

Palestine Press Agency is reporting that Hamas has shut down the Cooperative Housing Foundation NGO in the Gaza Strip.

According to the article, the CHF has been heavily involved in construction, reconstruction, food supplies, and micro-credit for Gazans in need, supporting some 150,000 Gazans with 200 employees.

The CHF suffered a break-in in Gaza a couple of weeks ago.

Nothing on the CHF website about this yet.

Hamas, as usual, seems to be prioritizing its own needs ahead of those of Gazans.

"Siege" update

From Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs:

Humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip has increased by close to 900 percent in 2009 compared to the previous year (Col. Moshe Levi, head of the IDF's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration, Nov. 16, 2009).

Since the beginning of 2009, the IDF has allowed over 4,000 Palestinians from Gaza, together with 3,600 escorts, to enter Israel (or via Israel to the West Bank) for medical treatment.The IDF has also issued over 18,500 permits for Palestinians to leave Gaza and enter Israel or travel overseas (statistics as of November 16, 2009).

The IDF permitted the transfer of building materials to the Gaza Strip to facilitate the construction of a covered corridor (which opened the first week of November) to shelter Palestinians walking from the outskirts of Gaza City to the Erez Crossing.

COGAT announces the successful transfer of six water desalination systems to the Gaza Strip: On Dec. 21, 2009, six advanced water desalination systems were transferred to the Gaza Strip. The transfer was coordinated by the Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA) in accordance with the civil state policy toward the Gaza Strip, which aims to give a continuous response to the humanitarian needs of the Gazan civilian population.

The systems are planned to supply good quality drinking water to 40,000 citizens, and were installed as part of a sewage water treatment project in the northern Gaza Strip, which is coordinated by the Gaza CLA in collaboration with the international bodies working in the Gaza Strip and the relevant Palestinian authorities.

Also, it was announced today that a shipment of strawberries will be exported from Gaza this week. In addition, a hundred truckfuls of window glass and water filters are going into Gaza this week.

This is exactly how Arabs would treat Jews if the situation was reversed, right? Like in 1948 (from Wikipedia):

Starting in early 1948, the Arab forces had severed the supply line supply line to Jewish Jerusalem (especially to the Old City). In response, the mayor of Jerusalem, Dov Yosef, introduced a draconian system of food rationing during the siege.^[10] The mallow plant played an important role in Jerusalem history at this time. When convoys bearing foodstuffs could not reach the city, the residents of Jerusalem went out to the fields to pick mallow leaves, which are rich in iron and vitamins. The Jerusalem radio station, Kol Hamagen, broadcast instructions for cooking mallow. When the broadcasts were picked up in Jordan, they sparked victory celebrations. Radio Amman announced that the fact that the Jews were eating leaves, food for donkeys and cattle, was a sign that they were dying of starvation and would soon surrender.^[11]

I would like to add, once again, that I have yet to see reports of a single Gazan starving to death, despite literally years of stern warnings of an imminent humanitarian crisis.

Upgrading comments, expect some problems

Haloscan is forcing me to upgrade to a new comment system called Echo (and to pay for it!) While the features look good, I fully expect that the transition will not be smooth. It is even possible that I will lose my entire archive of comments.

Let me know what you think.

Abbas doesn't want any Israeli Arabs in "Palestine"

In an interview in Asharq al-Awsat, Mahmoud Abbas says something interesting about his negotiations with Ehud Olmert:

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Would it have been possible to reach an agreement with Olmert alone?
[President Abbas] I believe it would have been possible that I go up a little, and he comes down a little. It was possible to find a solution. He said that he would give me 100 percent.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] This is important and fundamental?
[President Abbas] He said 100 percent. He would take from this side, and I would take from that side. He presented maps to me. The maps included that he would take the settlements blocs (in the West Bank) in exchange for territories in the north, west, and south of the West Bank, in addition to territories to the east of Gaza.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] To the north and west of the West Bank?
[President Abbas] Yes.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] In which region in the west?
[President Abbas] In a distant region (from the triangle region), because I explained from the beginning that I would not accept anyone (from the Palestinians of Israel). We were doing well. God is my witness, he was all right; he said to me: You will not find anyone other than me; and I said to him: But you will find someone other than me.
(The triangle region is at the border strip of the West Bank; it is a region that is populated by a majority of Palestinians within the green line.)

If Abbas wants a Palestinian Arab state to live side-by-side with Israel in peace, why would he not eagerly want to incorporate the majority of Israeli Arabs in his state? Notwithstanding the fact that most or all of them have no desire to become citizens of "Palestine," it is telling that Abbas specifically excludes the possibility of adding an already developed region that has a population of Palestinian Arabs that would strengthen his state.

This indicates, yet again, that Abbas is thinking long-term that Israel would also become another Arab state demographically, or at the very least he wants to keep a destabilizing force of Arabs in Israel who would follow the orders of the PalArab leadership . He'll take strategic land from within the 1949 armistice borders and keep a potential fifth column of Arabs in Israel.

If what he is saying is true, Olmert is an even bigger idiot than I thought.

One other salient point from the interview that shows yet again that elections do not a democracy make:

[Asharq Al-Awsat] Some people consider that the Salam Fayyad Government is exceeding its authority by announcing its project or program that includes declaring the Palestinian State within two years, i.e. by the middle of 2011. This is a program that is supposed to be the responsibility of the PLO, which is the political reference point of the Palestinian Authority and its government. Was this announcement made, as it is said, in coordination with you? What is the aim of this announcement at a time when you are trying to reach the UN Security Council in order to determine the borders of the Palestinian State?
[President Abbas] The government is the executive authority that works to build the institutions under our guidance in order that we become prepared for statehood. My executive authority is the government; it is the government that builds and brings in the money. This is the government program.
[Asharq Al-Awsat] But its project has a political aspect, and it talks about the establishment of the state within two years or a year and a half?
(Al-Ahmad [of the Fatah Centra Committee]: There is no political aspect for the government work).
[President Abbas] The government work has no political aspect. Politics and the negotiations, which are part of the political issue, are one of my responsibilities, together with the Negotiations Department and the PLO. From the day we started signing (agreements), I am the one who signed most of them in the name of the PLO.
(Al-Ahmad: Abu-Mazin is the one who brought Saeb to the Negotiations Department, and made us elect him to the PLO Executive Committee).
I am the one who brought Saeb to the Negotiations Department to replace me.

The real power is still the PLO, not the PA, and the PLO members are not elected in any real sense - Abbas even admits that he appointed Erekat to be his successor and "made" Fatah elect him.

Finally, Abbas again tries to play both sides in the "armed struggle" game. He tells Asharq Al Awsat:

As I said (in the opening address to the PLO Central Council) I am against aggression, violence, and terrorism...

Yet his Fatah platform explicitly says:

The right of resistance: stick to the Fatah movement against the Palestinian people to resist occupation by all legitimate means, including the exercise of their right to armed struggle, which is guaranteed by international law, as long as the occupation and settlement, and dispossession of the Palestinian people of their inalienable rights.

Forms of struggle in the current stage: adopting the Fatah movement of all forms of legitimate struggle, with the option of adhering to peace, but not limited to negotiations to achieve it, and it is this struggle between the forms of exercise that can be successful at the current stage of negotiations for the assignment and activated or alternatively that it did not achieve its goals:

Palestine Today calls terror attack a "heroic operation"

The drive-by shooting death of Rabbi Meir Avshalom Hai last Thursday is being hailed in the Palestine Today newspaper as a "heroic operation."

The paper reproduced photos of the scene of the terror attack, apparently from Israeli media, to celebrate the murder.

Palestinian Arabs call Jews "their dogs"

(reposted, I didn't realize that there was no sound in the original video.)

"ck" at Jewlicious posted a great find. In his words:

Every Friday, protesters have been gathering [in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in east Jerusalem] lately to protest the expulsion last August of two families from their apartments after the Israel Supreme Court ruled that the land upon which their homes were built belonged to the Sephardi Jewish community. The evacuated houses were built in the 1950s by the UNWRA in order to house Arab refugees who had fled from West Jerusalem during the 1948 war. In 1967, when Israel captured east Jerusalem from Jordan and reunited the city, the Palestinian families were permitted to stay on as tenants. Disputing the validity of the ownership of the land, they stopped paying rent. This led to the events that preceded the protests. As you can see, the bulk of the protesters are Jewish and Israeli. What really stood out though was at around 3:19 of the video [already edited here - EoZ.]

One of the middle aged Palestinian women started chanting what sounds like the following: “Falasteene Bladna, al-Yahud klabna” – that would translate into “Palestine is our country! The Jews are our dogs!” – which is kind of odd – I mean the people walking by her in handcuffs were the aforementioned “Jew Dogs” who had been arrested whilst protesting in favor of the Palestinians. Maybe that’s why she was shushed? I mean am I hearing this right?
Sheikh Jarrah is located on the road to Mount Scopus. In 1948, during the War of Independence, local Arabs butchered like dogs 78 doctors, nurses and others who were riding in a convoy on that road on their way to Hadassah hospital. Maybe old habits die hard?

The best part is that this video came from a moonbat site that didn't even realize what the Palestinian Arab heroes were chanting.

This chant is well-known. An example of it can be heard at this rally from 2006 - in San Francisco:

And at 4:05 on this video from January, 2009 in Montreal:

As well as in San Francisco at the end of 2008.

Gaza Islamist group criticizes Hamas over rappers

Ma'an reported:

Seven Palestinian rap groups battled for the top spot in a Norwegian-funded competition in Gaza City on Monday night.

Screaming, fans crammed into a concert hall in the Red Crescent complex for the show, applauding each group on stage. The Norwegian sponsors joined via videoconference.

The competition (titled Riasalatna - Our Message) was organized by young Gazan women as the end product of a number of workshops in Gaza and the Norwegian city of Tromso. The workshops were about how to execute a project supervised by Norwegian specialists.

Norwegian judges were supposed to choose the winner of the rap contest on Monday, but the decision was delayed due to problems with the video link.

Judges said they were thrilled to participate in the event, saying it was an expression of support for the Palestinian people.

The competition’s Gazan coordinator, Nour Afana said she chose to focus on hip hop for her project because it was a point of cultural intersection between Gaza and Norway.

Now, the fundamentalist Hizb ut-Tahrir group is strongly criticizing Hamas for allowing such an event to take place. They consider rap to be a purely Western genre with no Islamic application, and says that such a competition

aims to remove the roots of Islam gradually from the hearts of our sons, and dilute Islamic values and concepts, sometimes with dancing, sometimes with mixed sessions between the sexes, and sometimes advocating the slogans of democracy, freedom and human rights that are meant to replace the legislative source of the Islamic faith.

Even though Hamas didn't sponsor the competition, it will be interesting to see if Islamist Hamas will try to defend itself.

Egypt forces Galloway to re-route

From Ma'an:

Egypt refused permission on Thursday for a Gaza-bound aid convoy in led by British MP George Galloway to enter the country through the Red Sea port of Nuweiba.

There will be "no entry from Nuweiba. Entry can only be through Al-Arish," on the Mediterranean coast, Hossam Zaki told the French news agency AFP.

The Viva Palestina convoy of 250 trucks and ambulances laden with European, Turkish and Arab donations of food and medical supplies arrived in Jordan from Syria on Wednesday and was headed to the Red Sea port of Aqaba for the ferry journey across to the Egyptian Sinai port of Nuweiba.

Entering through the port of Al-Arish would mean going around the Sinai Peninsula and through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean.

British MP George Galloway, said the convoy would not be deterred by the Egyptian decision.

“We feel very sad that Egypt has turned us away on Christmas Day, but we hope they will reconsider. This is a very determined convoy and we’re not going anywhere except to Gaza.”

Egypt didn't turn them away. They just told Galloway that he must follow established procedures.

People like Galloway think that they are above the law and then they pretend to be victims when the world doesn't agree.

In March, Galloway handed over thousands of dollars and dozens of vehicles to the Hamas-run government in Gaza after arriving on an aid convoy.

Can't someone in Great Britain sue Galloway, or call for his arrest, for directly supporting a terror group?

Today is the anniversary of "Operation Oil Stain"

One of the problems with NGOs is that they create a framework around a topic that makes Israel appear like the aggressor. The Gaza war is a perfect example.

On December 24th, 2008, Hamas declared war on Israel. As Ma'an reported at the time,

The military wing affiliated to Hamas, Al-Qassam Brigades released a statement on Thursday morning briefing the group's military activities over the first twenty four hours of an operation they called "Oil Stain" which started Wednesday morning.

According to the statement, a total of 87 shells have been fired at Israeli targets bordering the Gaza Strip including 54 mortar shells, 31 homemade projectiles which Hamas calls "Qassam", and two Soviet-made Grad missiles.

Al-Qassa Brigades threatened to enlarge the "Oil Stain" to get more thousands of Israelis "under fire". The group asserted that its fighters are "far greater than surrendering to Israeli threats and that they became much more prepared to counter Israeli aggression and to defend themselves than in the past."

Indeed, Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades website still has the original announcement of Operation Oil Stain (autotranslated as Oil Slick.)

However, in their reports about the war, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Goldstone Report all consider December 27th the first day of the war - the day that Israel struck back heavily.

Normally, if one party attacks another and even names the operation, that would be considered, objectively, the beginning of the war. Hamas continued calling the war "Oil Stain" for a full week before it abandoned the term.

When NGOs decide that the war began three days later than it really did, they are establishing a framework that damns Israel before they even write a word about the issues. It is a false framework. It makes Israel appear to be the aggressor and not as if it is reacting to deliberate and planned Hamas actions.

And those Hamas actions would be considered grave war crimes, as they targeted civilians. (Hamas press releases even brag about how Israelis are forced to go to bomb shelters!)

Israel didn't start the war, and every NGO report that says it did on December 27th is guilty of bias.

77% of Gaza women subjected to violence

A new study by the Palestine Women's Information and Media Center is saying that some 77.1% of Gaza women are subjected to violence.

The abstract is published only in Arabic so far, and the full survey results are not out yet. I do not know the definitions of the terms "verbal violence" and "psychological violence."

67% of women are subject to verbal violence
71% to psychological violence
52% to physical violence
15% to sexual violence
45% to more than one form of violence

If you combine the victims of physical and sexual violence, we see that more than half of Gaza women are physically abused or sexually assaulted, and perhaps as many as two-thirds.

Hamas loves Qaddafi

Hamas polical leader Khaled Meshal is in Libya and meeting with crazy president, and inexplicably still Colonel, Maommar Qgaddhaffphi (I think I need to spell it differently every time.

Meshal said that he would have preferred if Gaza bordered Libya instead of Egypt, as no one would be building a giant iron wall between Libya and Gaza.

I think that this is a wonderful idea. It could easily be accomplished if all Gazans would move to Tunisia, the country that already hosted the PLO leaders for a while. They can take a tiny piece of that country on the border, and see if Libya is as magnanimous as it claims.

Better yet, why not ask Qaddaphy if he would welcome all Palestinian Arabs to become full citizens of his country if they so desire. Immediately, a couple of hundred thousand would take him up on that offer. That would prove his love and loyalty.

Unfortunately, Libyan law does not allow Palestinian Arabs to become citizens, like most Arab League countries. But don't call that discrimination.

Israel allows third flower export from Gaza this month

Palestine Today reports that Israel will allow Gaza farmers to export flowers for the third time this month.

Don't expect the Free Gaza or Code Pink websites to mention this news.

Traveling open thread

Another nice thing about my trip is that I didn't have to be assaulted with Christmas music for the last two weeks!

I'll be traveling all day, so have at it.

UPDATE: I am putting a couple of posts in the queue as I fly.

Richard Falk shows his hypocrisy again

From YNet:

In Geneva, the UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, urged Israel's European and North American allies to press for the immediate end of the blockade "backed up by a credible threat of economic sanctions."

Isn't that "collective punishment" against the entire population of Israel, something that Falk considers unacceptable in the extreme?

(Links to other examples of Falk's lies, hypocrisy, support for terror and purposeful twisting of international law can be seen here.)

Daily Goldstone 12/24

From the University of Pittsburgh Law School website:

The Goldstone Commission Report on the January 2009 Israel-Palestinian conflict in Gaza — which comes before the United Nations today, November 4, 2009 — has been accused of failure on various levels. Many commentators argue that the Report fails the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Some say it reflects a failure to understand the deeper historical realities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Still others say it fails the originally conceived purpose of the United Nations Human Rights Council and fails the search for objective truth. Its most glaring failure, though, has gone unnoticed. The Report fails the law.

It does so by striking out in applying the law in three key areas. Strike One: the Report incorrectly claims Israel disproportionately attacked civilians. Strike Two: the Report unjustly accuses Israel of a disproportionate response to Hamas's attacks. Strike Three: the Report treats Israel and Hamas disproportionately by holding them to different standards.

Strike One

Jus in bello is the law governing conduct during war. One of its key principles is proportionality, which requires military personnel to take precautions in targeting the enemy to ensure that the expected civilian losses are not excessive compared to the anticipated military advantage. The commander's perspective at the time of the attack is the central focus. The law assesses whether his actions were reasonable given the information he had access to, taking into account the "fog of war." Proportionality is not measured after the fact by looking at actual civilian casualties or actual military advantages. If it were, no military could ever engage in any operations.

The Report turns proportionality's bedrock premise on its head. It relies substantively on information gathered after the fact and discounts contemporaneous Israeli intentions or actions and the surrounding circumstances. The Report also undermines its own legitimacy by automatically verifying one side's statements and impugning the other's. Israel's real-time information consists of mere "allegations," but retrospective information collected months later in Gaza consists of definitive "statements." Israel admittedly did not cooperate (given the commission's biased conception), but that cannot justify reliance on the wrong information.

Strike Two

Jus ad bellum is the law governing decisions to go to war. Article 2(4) of the U.N. Charter forbids the use of force without Security Council enforcement (Article 2(7)). One exception: Article 51 preserves the right to use force in self-defense. Jus ad bellum mandates that any act in self-defense constitute a proportionate response, meaning a necessary and reasonable means to counter the attack and eliminate future threats.

The Report confuses jus in bello proportionality (as explained above) with this jus ad bellum requirement of a proportionate response. Israel acted legitimately in self-defense to destroy Hamas's tunnels and rocket launchers. Hamas indiscriminately fired thousands of rockets at Israeli civilians for eight years. And yet, the Report does not even mention Article 51. More egregiously, it uses the incorrect assessment that particular Israeli attacks violated jus in bello proportionality to unfairly package Operation Cast Lead as disproportionate overall, a clear misapplication of jus in bello principles in a jus ad bellum framework.

Strike Three

The Report's (unfounded) legal conclusions disproportionately hold Israel and Hamas to different standards. It states unequivocally (but without factual substantiation) that Israeli forces committed grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, such as willful killing and torture.

Article 85 of Additional Protocol I states that "making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack" and launching indiscriminate attacks—the very crimes Hamas committed, according to the Report—are indeed grave breaches. But the Report never considers that Palestinian armed groups committed grave breaches. Accusing Israel of "grave breaches" while failing to similarly identify Hamas' violations exposes the commission's bias to the core.

This uneven treatment pervades the entire report. For example, Hamas and Israel both had obligations to protect civilians in Gaza. The Report's single-minded focus on Israel, however, leads to absurd statements regarding Hamas's breach of those obligations when it used civilian buildings as command centers, munitions storage and rocket launch sites. While quick to condemn Israel flat out for violations, the Report merely suggests that Hamas's actions "would constitute" legal violations.

Reading the Report in an uncritical vacuum suggests that Israel abrogated its obligations under the laws of war. In reality, the main failure lies in the Report itself. The Report fails the law. Why does this matter? Because in maintaining a delicate balance between destruction of enemy capabilities and protection of innocent civilians, the law reinforces our basic dignity and humanity in the face of the horrors of war. We cannot afford to abandon it.

Laurie R. Blank is the Acting Director of Emory Law's International Humanitarian Law Clinic. Gregory S. Gordon is an assistant professor at the University of North Dakota School of Law and Director of the UND Center for Human Rights and Genocide Studies.