Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

PA Goldstone commission says Qassams do not violate int'l law

I just started going through the Palestinian Authority's second response to Goldstone as required by the UN. It is attached to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's second report to the General Assembly on the followup to the Goldstone recommendations.

It will take a while to go through, but this part shows pretty much where the PA is coming from. Practically the entire report is about alleged Israeli abuses of international law, of course, but it is forced to address Qassam rockets:

65...The PIC [Palestinian Independent Investigation Commission] affirms that, should it be acknowledged that the armed resistance groups in Gaza did intentionally target Israeli civilians, then such a practice would undoubtedly represent a violation of international
humanitarian law. The PNA has on many occasions condemned rocket firing and called on armed resistance groups in Gaza to respect international law and to exercise their right to self-defence in a manner that ensures that the Palestinian people maintain their moral high ground and does not harm their national cause and interests....

68. It is, however, important to understand that one of the salient features characterizing the dynamics between the Palestinian armed resistance groups in Gaza and the Government of Israel is their extremely asymmetric nature. The enormous disparity in military capabilities between the two sides is self - evident and need not be repeated. The Palestinian resistance’s capability to
respond to Israel’s full arsenal of weaponry, including fighter airplanes, helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery, as well as substantial ground forces, is limited to sporadic “crude rocket” firing and mortar shelling. Yet it is also imperative to recall that this is a situation of an occupying Power versus an occupied people, who constitute a defenceless civilian population entitled to protection under international law.

69. If and when civilian targets or populations have been affected by such “crude rocket” firing, it was essentially because of the crude nature of the weapon and the inability to control where the fired projectile lands. While this is in no way intended to justify any harm caused to innocent civilians, it cannot be considered a violation of international humanitarian law, per se. Furthermore, each alleged incident of harm to civilian persons or civilian property would have to be investigated on an individual basis, and the Palestinian Independent Commission is not in a position to do so without the cooperation of both the Government of Israel and the armed resistance groups in Gaza.

The PA's position is that the shooting of rockets at populated areas, aimed at towns in which there is no military objective, is not a violation of international law because you cannot prove that Hamas was deliberately aiming at civilians! This is even though Hamas brags about aiming at civilians!

But it gets better. In its conclusions, the PA commission says:

83. Admittedly, three Israeli civilians were killed during the period from 27 December 2008 to 18 January 2009 by misguided “crude rockets” fired by the armed resistance groups in Gaza, and that cannot be justified even though it was not intended.

The PIC, which initially claimed that the rockets would violate international humanitarian law if they could be proven to have been deliberate and then they go on to say that they cannot possibly determine whether they were deliberately aimed at civilians, now is saying that Hamas is right - and they flatly state that these hundreds of rockets were not intended to hurt civilians!

This is an astonishing display of mendacity, a blatant contradiction within a single document that proves that the PA has no interest in the truth, nor in acknowledging Hamas' violation of international law.

Too bad no one will notice it.

Bahraini human rights leaders disappear

From Bikya Masr:

There is increasing concern over a Bahraini human rights activist who was arrested after speaking at the House of Lords.

Abdul Jalil Al-Singace, the Chairman of the Human Rights Committee of the Haq Movement, which promotes human rights and democracy in Bahrain, was arrested at Manama Airport on the morning of 13 August, as he and his family returned to the country from London.

His arrest came the day after the ruler of Bahrain, Shaikh Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa, appealed for critics of the government to return to the country, promising them freedom of speech and action. It was also just days after he had attended a seminar at the House of Lords on 5 August, discussing the human rights situation in Bahrain. He had also had meetings with the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Amnesty International and other human rights groups.

Al-Singace’s arrest was followed by the arrests of several other senior activists. Abdul Ghani Al-Khanjar, the spokesman of the Committee of Martyrs and Victims of Torture, Sheikh Saeed Al-Nouri and Sheikh Mohammad Habib Al-Miqdad, who have campaigned against political repression in the country, were arrested in early morning raids on their homes on 16 August. Several other activists had already been arrested on 14 and 15 August, as protests against Al-Singace’s arrest spread around the country.

The current whereabouts of Al-Singace, who is disabled and restricted to a wheelchair, is unknown. His lawyer, Muhammad Al Tajir, has said that he has not been able to locate him.

Massoud Shadjareh, Chair of the Islamic Human Rights Commission, said:

“The arrest of Abdul Jalil Al-Singace appears to be a deliberate slap in the face of those campaigning for human rights in Bahrain, especially coming so soon after the King of Bahrain promised activists the freedom to work in the country. Bahrain has a very poor human rights record, and it appears to be getting worse. ”

Amnesty is calling on Bahrain to reveal the wherabouts of these prisoners.

Turkey selling gasoline to Iran - at a nice profit

From Reuters:

Turkey's decision to sell gasoline to Iran despite U.S. sanctions, designed to squeeze the Tehran's supply of petroleum products, has shone a spotlight on the two countries' growing trade relationship.

Turkey already buys a third of its [natural] gas imports from Iran and is looking to expand its relationship to power sales and the transit of Iranian gas to Europe.

Iran is the second-largest crude oil producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) but relies on imports for up to 40 percent of its gasoline needs because it lacks refining capacity.

The U.S. sanctions, in addition to measures from the European Union and the United Nations, aim to pressure the Islamic Regime over its nuclear programme, which the West says may be a front for building nuclear weapons.

Iran has been forced to look to Turkey, Russia, China and even Venezuela for gasoline as a result of the sanctions, which have discouraged its traditional suppliers in Europe and Asia.

After not selling any gasoline to Iran in the previous 18 months, Turkey in June started to supply the equivalent of 10 percent of Iran's total monthly gasoline use, according to figures from the Turkish government and Iranian oil ministry.

The sale of 1.2 million barrels netted Turkey revenues of $121.8 million -- 25 percent above the normal market rate -- even before sanctions took effect.

Turkey's sales of gasoline to Iran nose-dived in July as sanctions took effect, but the Turkish Energy Minister said on Wednesday the government would support private firms that looked to trade refined petroleum products with Iran.

A source at state-owned oil refiner Tupras (TUPRS.IS: Quote), who did not wish to be identified, perhaps summed up the current mood in Turkey: "For us, Iran is more important than America, because we get crude oil from them. We don't get anything from America."

So why exactly is Turkey considered an ally again? Gasoline is Iran's Achilles' heel and of all the half-hearted and belated Western sanctions on Iran, this is the one that had the highest likelihood of working. Now it is being sabotaged by our Turkish friends.

And the window of using that as a pressure point is closing, according to Iran's Fars news agency:

Official data also said that Tehran has imported 1 mln tons of gasoline during the last two months and after the approval of the UN Security Council 1929 sanctions resolution against the country.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE), Turkey, Turkmenistan, the Netherlands, Singapore, Oman and Saudi Arabia have been Iran's main gasoline suppliers in the last four months.

Meantime, Iranian Oil Minister Masoud Mir-Kazzemi announced in July that the country will turn into a gasoline exporter with a production capacity of 170mln liters in 2013.

Saying that several petrol refining projects are underway in the country, Mir-Kazzemi reiterated that Iran will develop a daily production capacity of 170mln liters of gasoline in three years, while the country's daily domestic consumption will only amount to 66mln liters and it can, thus, export its excess production.

We're number...15!

I hadn't checked Technorati in a long time. But according to them, Elder of Ziyon is

#56 in Technorati Top Political Blogs
#15 in Technorati Top World Political Blogs

This means that, in the second category, my blog is ahead of The Corner in National Review, Foreign Policy's Passport blog, and some other big names. Even in the first category EoZ ends up ahead of such well-known names as Babylon and Beyond from the LA Times, Stephen Walt, and RealClearPolitics.

Neat!

NYT, Lebanon and HRW hypocrisy

The New York Times mentions the new Lebanese law allowing Palestinian Arabs some new rights to employment - but notes that this supposed improvement is, in many way, only on paper:

The law lifts restrictions on Palestinians’ employment in the formal labor market, though they would still be officially treated as foreigners. They would be barred from working as engineers, lawyers and doctors, occupations that are regulated by professional syndicates limited to Lebanese citizens.

The NYT, of course, mostly avoids the main issue of full rights - which would include citizenship for those born in Lebanon. It also refers to them as "refugees," even though they are nothing of the sort. This section is telling:

“I am 51 years old, born and raised here, and this is the first time I feel like I am a human being,” said Abu Luay Issawi, who owns a grocery store in Mar Elias, a refugee camp in Beirut.

Electricity was out in the camp on Tuesday. No water was running, as is the case almost every day in Mar Elias, which is overcrowded and lacks basic infrastructure.

Mr. Issawi said he had graduated among the top of his class from Beirut Arab University more than two decades ago with a degree in engineering, but was never able to find a job here. “I don’t remember anything about engineering,” he said. “But it is nice to know that my son will have a better future.”

His neighbor interrupted him. “If I am going to live and die here, then I want all my rights,” Youssef Ahmad, 52, said.

The Times gratingly quotes a Human Rights Watch spokesman, who righteously claims that "This should be the start and not the finish line in the march toward achieving human rights for Palestinians."

In fact, Human Rights Watch does not want Lebanese Palestinians to have their full rights. For them to have full rights would involve the right to become full citizens of Lebanon if they so choose, and HRW is against that right.

HRW twists international law to make the "right of return" apply to descendants. In a remarkably convoluted argument, HRW says:

The right [to return] is held not only by those who fled a territory initially but also by their descendants, so long as they have maintained appropriate links with the relevant territory. The right persists even when sovereignty over the territory is contested or has changed hands. If a former home no longer exists or is occupied by an innocent third party, return should be permitted to the vicinity of the former home.

They link to their definition of "appropriate links". They first quote a UN committee comment on Article 12 of the International Covenant on civil and Political Rights:

Thus, the persons entitled to exercise this right can be identified only by interpreting the meaning of the phrase "his own country". The scope of "his own country" is broader than the concept "country of his nationality". It is not limited to nationality in a formal sense, that is, nationality acquired at birth or by conferral; it embraces, at the very least, an individual who, because of his or her special ties to or claims in relation to a given country, cannot be considered to be a mere alien. This would be the case, for example, for nationals of a country who have been stripped of their nationality in violation of international law, and of individuals whose country of nationality has been incorporated in or transferred to another national entity, whose nationality is being denied them.

Note that this in no way includes descendants.

HRW goes way beyond this:

In the view of Human Rights Watch, the clearest guidance in international law for defining the basis on which an individual can exercise a claim to return to his or her "own country" is provided by the convergence of the wording of the General Comments of the Human Rights Committee -- "an individual who, because of his or her special ties to or claims in relation to a given country, cannot be considered to be a mere alien"-- and the concept of a "genuine and effective link," which arose out of the International Court of Justice's Nottebohm case (2). While the Nottebohm case addressed the issue of nationality, the criteria that it sets forth are the most comprehensive, Human Rights Watch considers, for determining the existence of the right to return., it says :

"Different factors are taken into consideration, and their importance will vary from one case to the next: there is the habitual residence of the individual concerned but also the centre of his interests, his family ties, his participation in public life, attachment shown by him for a given country and inculcated in his children, etc."

The Nottebohm case did not in any way deal with the children of the person contesting his nationality.

Here is another case where HRW substitutes lex ferenda for lex lata - the law as they want it to be with the law as it is.

In their zeal to "protect" a non-existent "right of return" for Lebanese Palestinians who were born in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch is denying Palestinians in Lebanon their human rights to citizenship in the country of one's birth! Human rights are individual, not collective, but HRW is de facto adopting the Arab lie that "Palestinian unity" is more important than individual rights.

Yes, there are political issues involved in allowing hundreds of thousands of Sunnis to become citizens of Lebanon. Yes, there are political issues in the Arab world against the concept of naturalization of millions of people. But since when should HRW twist international law in order to justify these ultimately political decisions?

The entire issue is one of individual choice. If Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon are afraid that by becoming citizens, they would compromise on the miniscule chance that they would eventually be allowed to move to Israel and rebuild a village destroyed in 1948, they can choose not to become naturalized. History shows that most Lebanese Palestinians would become citizens in a minute if they could, and when HRW parrots Arab lies about how the "right of return" is more important than their rights to citizenship, then HRW shows itself to be a mere parody of a human rights organization.

Another issue is simple realism. The fact is that the majority of Lebanese Palestinians will never immigrate to "Palestine" or to Israel even with a peace agreement. The Lebanese will still insist on restricting the PalArabs' rights even afterwards. HRW, evidently, prefers the Arab cop-out of an unrestricted "right of return" and its concomitant sentencing of an entire population to misery rather than working to help them attain truly equal rights.

If Human Rights Watch really wanted to protect the human rights of these people, it would call on Lebanon to allow people born in that country to become citizens of that country should they so choose. Their choice to misinterpret international law instead says volumes about how HRW is, effectively, a political pawn of the Arabs.

(h/t BC)

Anti-semitic sitcom on Arab TV during Ramadan

Here is a clip of an Arab TV show, being shown during Ramadan, showing a stereotypical representation of a religious Jew being too cheap to give a tip to a delivery person. From Israel's Channel 2.

(h/t Islamo-Nazism blog)

Iranians try to start a border incident between Israel and Lebanon

From The Daily Star

The Lebanese Army in coordination with the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) removed five trees on the border with Israel upon an Israeli request.

The trees were planted as part of an Iran-funded project to improve the landscape of the southern borders. The Israeli Army had requested that the five trees on the Fatima Gate be cut down, claiming that they touched the wire fence that separated the two borders.

UNIFIL was tasked with convincing the Lebanese troops to cut the trees, media reports said.

It sounds like a normal request by Israel and a normal response by Lebanon, the way things should be.

The more interesting part is where the trees came from. From Ya Libnan:

The Lebanese army and United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon went on high alert on noon Tuesday over an Israeli request to cut down five trees planted on Monday by the Iranians as part of aid to Lebanon, according to newspaper reports.

So, after the fatal border ambush involving trees, an Iranian quasi-charity decides to place five full grown trees right on the Lebanese border - in a spot that would upset Israel.

This is reminiscent of Iran's threats to send "aid" boats to Gaza after the Mavi Marmara. Iran is deliberately trying to provoke Israel into violence, and they are keen to repeat any situation that makes Israel look bad.

In more general terms, Iran is acting in a passive-aggressive manner, doing everything they can to create mayhem and then innocently saying, "Don't blame us! We didn't do anything!"

Google takes down my tip jar

I just got an email from Google saying that "Fund Solicitation" is a violation of the Terms of Use for Google Checkout.

Which surprised me because I had seen other blogs using Google Checkout as a tip jar.

I don't know yet if any of the tips I received will be transferred into my bank account, since that part wasn't fully set up yet. If they won't be, I'll see what I can do to make sure that you guys aren't charged or get refunds.

Now, my problem is finding another way to set up a tip jar. PayPal and GPal both gave out my name in the receipt and I prefer to remain anonymous. Amazon's donation system is only for non-profits, and the only way I could use that is to provide some sort of digital content for sale (assuming I can be anonymous there.)

I'll keep looking for a system that is easy and works.

Meanwhile, I do appreciate the donations that were sent! Thanks so much!

The 1978 event that turned Egypt against Palestinian Arabs

Oroub al-Abed has spent her career documenting the endemic and systematic discrimination against Palestinian Arabs in Egypt, writing numerous articles and a book on that topic. Yet it is practically unknown.

A book review summarizes the main points of their history up until 1978:

El-Abed notes that prior to Israel’s independence in 1948 there were approximately 75,000 Palestinians living in Egypt. Most had settled in Cairo and Alexandria and lived close to other Palestinians, and were from the middle and upper classes, and some had acquired Egyptian citizenship. Their residency was considered temporary, and many believed, with the encouragement from Arab governments, that they would return to Israel. However, after the first Arab-Israeli War in 1948, Egypt became responsible for the welfare of two separate Palestinian communities; the Palestinians living in Egypt proper, which numbered approximately 87,000 and the 200,000 Palestinians living in the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip, a small, densely populated territory seized by Egypt during the war. Palestinian living conditions in the Gaza Strip were harsh. They remained stateless, their travel was restricted, and an Egyptian governor ruled the territory with an iron fist.

President Gamal Abdel Nasser attempted to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by granting them free education in public schools and many worked as businessmen, merchants, mechanics, farmers, and fishermen. He also allocated subsidies for students to enter Egyptian universities and helped create the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1964, although the latter was more out of his desire to control Palestinian affairs than out of benevolence.

After the 1967 War, the Gaza Strip fell under Israeli control and approximately 13,000 additional Palestinians entered Egypt. Their stateless condition persisted after Nasser’s death in 1970, and new, harsh measures enacted by President Anwar Sadat sought to draw clearer distinctions between Palestinian and Egyptian identities. Sadat revoked some privileges Palestinians enjoyed under Nasser and in 1978, he enacted a law which banned Palestinian children from free public schools, forcing them to switch to costly private schools. He also imposed Law 48, which prohibited Palestinian workers from the public sector. Palestinians were also viewed with suspicion and persecuted, particularly after Egyptian Minister of Culture Yusuf al-Sibai’s assassination by the Palestinian terrorist group Abu Nidal in 1978.

That assassination is a hugely important event in Palestinian Arab history, as al-Abed writes in this fascinating section of her book. Essentially, in the course of only weeks after that assassination, Palestinian Arabs in Egypt turned into the Jews of the Arab world:

For the Palestinian population in Egypt, the turning point—repeatedly cited in our interviews—was the 18 February 1978 assassination in Nicosia, Cyprus, of Egyptian culture minister Yusif al-Siba‘i by the notorious Palestinian Abu Nidal faction. Though Abu Nidal had been expelled from Fatah and the PLO with much fanfare in the early 1970s and was widely known to be their sworn enemy, the Egyptian government and media did not hesitate to stigmatize the Palestinians in general for the assassination. At al-Siba‘i’s funeral, Egyptian prime minister Mustafa Riyad declared, “No more Palestine after today.” The fallout of the assassination was immediately felt within Egypt’s Palestinian community, with a flurry of arrests, surveillance, and detentions. Although the research for this book did not yield specific information on the number of Palestinians arrested after al-Siba‘i’s death, some interviewees reported that Palestinian houses were regularly searched for young men to bring in for questioning.

The police made intensive arrest campaigns against Palestinians after the death of al-Siba‘i. That day, the police came to the building where I live and asked about a Palestinian officer in the army, which was my rank then. My Egyptian neighbors spoke highly of me and I was lucky that they did not come again. (P1, Giza, Cairo, 10 May 2002)
---
After the killing of al-Siba‘i, Egyptians considered Palestinians as Jews [an allusion to Palestinian perceived economic power], although we are Arabs like them. One day the front window of my shop was broken. Of course, it was an Egyptian who did it. Why? What have I done to them? Is it only because I am Palestinian, like those who killed al-Siba‘i? (P9, Wailey, 24 June 2002)

The al-Siba‘i assassination triggered a spate of anti-Palestinian editorializing, which further inflamed popular opinion. “Disloyalty” became a trait frequently attributed to Palestinians. Another endlessly repeated charge—mentioned by a great number of our interviewees as a standard and deeply ingrained idea about Palestinians—is that they “sold their land to the Zionists” of their own accord and therefore got what they deserved. Not atypical is the following passage from the popular Egyptian daily al-Akhbar:

Each one of the thousands of people who participated in the funeral asked himself: Is this what we get for having waged four wars for those who killed him? For having deprived ourselves of bread in order to recover their lost land? . . . for having deprived our children of the places in the university that were their due so they [Palestinians] could have them? . . . for having tasted death so they could live? Are those the words we sacrificed ourselves for so that Gaza and the West Bank would be liberated before Sinai? Our people do not deserve such ingratitude. (Mustafa Amin, al-Akhbar, 20 February 1978)

It was also during the period following the assassination that reports of Palestinian wealth increased, which sharpened resentments among poor Egyptians and fueled the Palestinians’ reputation for having “taken over” the Egyptian economy. As an example of the kind of journalistic writing that encouraged such notions, a 13 May 1979 article headlined “All These Fortunes for Palestinians Living in Egypt!!!” appeared in Egyptian Weekly Magazine. Among the article’s claims were that 60 percent of the shops in Central Cairo and Port Said were Palestinian-owned and that 12,000 private import-export offices and 40 farms were run by Palestinians. Exaggerating Palestinian economic power in this way suggested to the local population that the Palestinians in their midst were vampires sucking the blood of the Egyptian people.

Of far more lasting practical consequence, however, were the legal changes that followed al-Siba‘i’s killing. On 28 February 1978, a mere ten days after the assassination, the authoritative al-Ahram reported the prime minister’s announcement that the government would “reconsider all procedures that treated Palestinians as nationals. The purpose [was] to rank Palestinians with other Arab nationals and to safeguard national rights for Egyptians.” Indeed, the threat was soon carried out, with President Sadat issuing administrative regulations 47 and 48 of 1978 decreeing that all regulations treating Palestinians as nationals were to be annulled. Ministries hastened to apply the regulations: “The Ministry of Labor warned against issuing foreigners, including Palestinians, permits for business or for creating offices for export/import. Exceptions [were] made for those who had been married to Egyptian women for the past five years” (al-Ahram, 7 August 1978). More specifically, Law 48 concerned work in the public sector. Section 1 of Article 16 of the law stipulated that employment of Arab nationals should be on a “reciprocal basis.” This meant that the government of Egypt would hire citizens only of countries that hired Egyptian nationals. Needless to say, the stateless Palestinians were excluded under this law.

The dismantling of Nasser’s legislation favoring the Palestinians continued for the remainder of Sadat’s regime, further tightening restrictions on employment and extending the restrictions to other spheres, especially education, where Palestinians saw themselves progressively deprived of their access to free education and to university study.

An often overlooked aspect of the cancellation of the regulations treating Palestinians as nationals is that it did not concern solely the Palestinians in Egypt. The measures had far-reaching consequences for Palestinians across the Arab world, at least with regard to education. For more than twenty years, Palestinians could be educated in Egyptian universities free of charge, and tens of thousands took advantage of the offer: From the mid-1960s until 1978, an average of 20,000 Palestinian students per year were enrolled in Egyptian universities.

In this sense, then, what ended with the legislation following the al-Siba‘i assassination was the lingering legacy of Nasser’s “sponsorship” of the Palestinian people. By enacting these measures, Sadat was signalling that Egypt was no longer the patron of the Palestinians nor the primary Arab defender of their cause.

Here we have explicit "anti-Palestinianism" that was enshrined as Egyptian policy - and most of it remains to this day, as can be seen in this shorter article on the same topic.

Palestinian Arabs in Egypt are discriminated against in terms of jobs, education, land ownership and (of course) citizenship. Yet this topic is essentially unknown.

Because, really, who cares about Palestinian Arabs when their troubles cannot be blamed on Israel?

Arabs freak over - an elevator

From the Jerusalem Post:

Two thousand years ago, stone bridges connected the Jewish Quarter directly to the Temple Mount, saving the high priests the long trek down and back up. By this time next year, visitors with baby carriages and the disabled could be saving themselves the same schlep if an elevator is approved by the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee.

The elevator, proposed by the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter, would start at Misgav Ledach Street and descend 21 meters to a new pedestrian tunnel. It would greatly improve access for visitors in wheelchairs or those with other disabilities, who now have to contend with several flights of stairs. The pedestrian tunnel would be 60-70 meters in length and pass underneath the stairs near the Aish HaTorah Yeshiva.

At present, the only way for visitors in wheelchairs to reach the Kotel is through the road leading to Dung Gate, which is very steep and has no sidewalks.

“The idea is to make a simple connection between the Jewish Quarter and the Kotel. We want to make the Kotel more accessible to people with disabilities, or even large families with baby carriages,” Daniel Shukuron, the project director from the Company for the Reconstruction and Development of the Jewish Quarter, told The Jerusalem Post on Monday.

As night follows day, so do outraged statements from the Al Aqsa Heritage Foundation warning that every innocuous project in Jerusalem is a precursor to the destruction of the Al Aqsa Mosque.

From Ma'an:

The Al-Aqsa Foundation says the plans are a threat to the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which is adjacent to the Western Wall.

In a statement, the foundation said the project intended to divide the mosque and prevent worshipers from reaching it, citing the plan as an attempt by Israeli forces to increase the presence of Jews in the area.

The statement warned that the square in front of the wall could be used as a base to attack the compound.

Misgav Ledach Street is not very near the Kotel or the Temple Mount at all.

Lebanese pass law to allow Palestinians to have jobs

From Naharnet:

Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Abdullah Abdullah on Tuesday lauded as "a progressive step forward" Lebanese parliament's adoption of a law granting full employment rights to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, but said in a statement that the step "does not meet all of our demands."

He said Palestinians would continue to push for their rights, "primarily the right to own property."

The Lebanese constitution prohibits the naturalization of the refugees, but Palestinian officials have consistently said they refuse permanent resettlement in Lebanon.

Note that last paragraph: Palestinian "officials" say they refuse permanent settlement, but Lebanese Palestinians themselves would disagree strongly. As I have mentioned before, in the 1950s, Lebanon offered citizenship to many Christian Palestinians as well as Muslims who could prove Lebanese ancestry, and some 50,000 people jumped at the offer. A loophole that opened up in 1994 that offered citizenship was equally pounced upon and tens of thousands more became Lebanese citizens - many even falsifying papers - before that loophole was closed.

In other words, the Palestinian "officials" in Lebanon are totally at odds with what a great percentage of Lebanese Palestinians really want.

Note also that the idea of Palestinian Lebanese owning land was taken out of the proposed bill.

Shiny happy Israelis (Brian Henry)

From the National Post:

Canada and Israel have much in common. We’re both big believers in democracy and in fairness, we’re both highly diverse multicultural societies and both of us have dynamic economies.

But I was tickled to learn this summer that Canada and Israel have yet one more thing in common: We’re tied for eighth place among the happiest people on Earth.

Some people might be surprised to find Israelis at the top of the happiness charts. After all, Gallup conducted this poll from 2005 to 2009, and during that time, Israel fought two wars.

On top of that, Israel is often protrayed as a monstrous apartheid state. Surely Israeli Arabs must live in utter misery — and since they make up 20% of the population, their despair ought to pop the happiness bubble, right? Apparently not. It seems Israeli Arabs are pretty happy, too.

Arab-Israeli soccer star Beram Kayal has an easy explanation for misconceptions about Israel. “People watch too much television,” he recently told Scotland’s Sunday Herald.

“What the television shows about Israel is totally different [from] what happens. The life between the Jews and the Arabs is very good. I’m an Arab and my agent is Jewish but we’re like family … Maccabi Haifa has seven or eight Arab players and that’s normal. The only difference is their religion, but there’s no conflict.”

Read the whole thing.

The Other Side, part 6

A bit more religious/idealistic than most of the others. Then again, he has a sign outside his winery that points to a prophecy in Amos that sure looks like it applies to him very well!

Interesting coincidence in Iran's airplane crash

From Fox News:

An Iranian fighter jet crashed Tuesday in southern Iran near the country's nuclear power plant that is to start up over the weekend, a semi-official news agency reported. The two pilots ejected safely.

The Fars agency quoted local government official Gholam Reza Keshtkar as saying one of Iranian airforce's F-4 planes crashed about four miles (six kilometers) north of the city of Bushehr. The city is located 745 miles (1,200 kilometers) south of the capital, Tehran.

What the media is not reporting, as far as I can tell, is that this is the second plane crash near Bushehr this month. The first was a drone that crashed nearby, causing much panic among people who live near there, already antsy about an Israeli or US strike.

If I was a conspiracy theorist, I would be wondering if there is any software on board these planes that can be remotely controlled by, say, someone over the border. Although if there was, this would not be the time to show your hand.

UNRWA's long term problem

UNRWA has again warned that it is running with a large deficit and will be forced to close schools or other programs if it does not get some cash quickly.

Filippo Grandi, the Commissioner General of UNRWA, said that a deficit of $84 million needs to be covered this month or else services will be affected.

Given that the real or imagined population of "refugees" that UNRWA takes responsibility for is increasing at a high rate, UNRWA has done surprisingly little planning on how to reduce the problem. In 2005, UNRWA came out with a five year plan that pretended "to create conditions for the human development and sustainable self reliance for Palestine refugees." Yet the only concrete tactics were a microfinance plan and vocational training - important but largely symbolic initiatives that are not designed to make a real dent in reducing Palestinian Arab dependence a UN welfare agency.

I have yet to see a real, long-term strategy by UNRWA to continue its operations for the next decade. It is obvious that they cannot continue to receive more and more money from the West (Arab nations pay only a small part of the UNRWA budget, and often renege on their pledges.)

Even if there was a peace plan tomorrow and a Palestinian Arab state the day after that, there would still be nearly five million officially registered "refugees", a continuously growing population. The PA cannot afford to keep its own economy going; they sure couldn't absorb millions of Arabs kept stateless by their host countries, many of them radicalized by being stuck in miserable conditions for so many years.

And nobody is thinking about how to solve this issue.

Arab states are more than happy to keep the status quo - it costs them nothing to give these squalid camps to UNRWA and they have no responsibility. The millions of pseudo-refugees are being kept in limbo for Phase 2 of the plan to destroy Israel, namely, the non-existent "right of return." No matter what agreement Israel signs that says that it will never happen, that issue will come up as a legitimate issue within a few years.

There is only one solution: The Arab states need to assume responsibility for their role in keeping the Palestinian Arabs stateless, discriminated against and in misery. They need to start implementing plans to integrate their "guests" into their own societies, the way every other refugee population in history has been integrated in their host countries.

The only way this can happen is by shaming them.

Publicize the endemic discrimination that the Palestinian Arabs have been subject to since 1948. Tell the world how desperate these people are to become a normal part of society. Show how Palestinian Arabs, alone among all Arabs, cannot become citizens of other Arab countries - at the urging of the Arab League itself.

UNRWA could actually do something positive for once. They can tell the world a simple fact: Even if the events in 1948 were a catastrophe for Palestinian Arabs, the problems that they have 62 years later are squarely the responsibility of the Arab states that have treated them like subhuman pawns. If UNRWA would publish a single, simple press release laying out these facts that everybody knows, they could do more to help the population of "refugees" than they have accomplished in six decades.

Human rights organizations that pretend to care about Palestinian Arabs should also be in the forefront of this initiative. The time to use Palestinian Arabs as pawns needs to end, and they should be given the choice of becoming citizens in any Arab country they want, under the same naturalization laws that any other Arab citizen would go through.

Everyone has their heads in the sand pretending that a "peace plan" can solve the problem. But this fact is clear: The status quo is unsustainable and something needs to be done to reduce and eliminate the scourge of stateless people being cynically used solely as a weapon to hurt Israel.