Saturday, November 20, 2010

  • Saturday, November 20, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
The Israel Project commissioned a poll in the West Bank and Gaza last month surveying Palestinian Arab opinions about various topics.

The results are most enlightening.

This post is about one specific question:

Now, I'd like you to rate your feelings toward some people, countries, and organizations, with one hundred meaning a VERY WARM, FAVORABLE feeling; zero meaning a VERY COLD, UNFAVORABLE feeling; and fifty meaning not particularly warm or cold. You can use any number from zero to one hundred, the higher the number the more favorable your feelings are toward that person, country, or organization.

Here are the results, sorted from lowest score (coldest feelings) to the highest (warmest feelings), along with their respective mean scores:


Israelis3.3
Israel4
Benjamin Netanyahu4.4
American Jews7.8
Tony Blair9.2
Barack Obama10.7
The United States14.5
Hillary Clinton15.2
A one-state solution28.7
Two-state solution with an independent Palestinian state and Israel as a Jewish state30.2
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad40
Iran40.4
Two-state solution41.3
Hamas42.6
The peace process42.6
Ismail Haniyeh44.1
Hezbollah44.6
Palestinian Authority54.2
Salam Fayyad54.5
Mahmoud Abbas57
Fatah57.6
Marwan Bargouti64.5
Khalil Ibrahim al-Wazir ("Abu Jihad")71.2
Dalal Mughrabi74.5

By far, the winners of the popularity context (at least that were named) were three terrorists, and the top one could not credibly be called anything but a terrorist (the other two at least had some political activities outside of terrorism.)

And for some reason Barack Obama, the most pro-Palestinian Arab president in history, hasn't seemed to have gained much for his efforts at least in this part of the Arab world. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trounces him in popularity among the moderate, pragmatic, peace-loving Palestinian Arabs.

More analysis form this poll to come.

(h/t JoeSettler)

Friday, November 19, 2010

  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Veet sent me this picture he took at the Rami Levy supermarket in Gush Etzion, in the dreaded territories.

The Arab woman looks so oppressed as she is forced to find bargains while standing next to an evil, colonialist, land-grabbing, imperialist, Jewish settler.

 The very idea of Jews and Arabs living together in Judea and Samaria is self-evidently abhorrent. After all, every human rights activist on the planet thinks that this store shouldn't exist, that this woman should not be subjected to shopping with Jews, and segregation - not coexistence - between Jews and Arabs is the very definition of peace.

And it is easy to see why, when pictures like this of melancholy Arabs get published.

Meanwhile, in the parking lot, peace-loving Palestinian Authority spies are taking pictures of the cars at the store with PA license plates, so they can be subjected to, I am sure, proper professional therapy for their harrowing experience at being subjugated and humiliated by Jews.
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Pretty good one: the dire consequences of not implementing the freeze, a new episode of the Jihad boys, and a NIF moonbat trying to befriend a Palestinian Arab.

  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
When Dmitry Medvedev was first hand-picked to be president of Russia in 2008, there were a number of rumors that he was Jewish.
The rumors are based in part on the fact that his maternal grandfather's first name was Veniamin - similar to the Hebrew Binyamin (Benjamin) - while his family name, Shaposhnikov, is sometimes a Jewish name. But beyond that, accusing an electoral rival of being Jewish is a tactic that nationalist parties have employed in the past, both in Russia and in other former communist countries.

Even though he was baptized at 23, the rumors continued.

NRO translated (badly) a Dutch source from 2009:
A Russian journalist to RIA Novosti asked Russian President Dmitry Medvedev if he has Jewish ancestry?

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev replied that the rumors about his Jewish ancestry are inaccurate. He added that his ancestors are from Adana (Western Armenia in Turkey now) but he was born in Russia. He added in “I want everyone to be clear that I am Armenian, surname of my mother was Naxshikyan what the word Naxshik comes oudarmeens. The surname of my father was Bagratyan. This name is also purely Armenian. I was forced to change name to be head of Russian secret service (KGB) in France to work the cold war times. Since France had large Armenian community should not Arms Irish secret service agent working in France. That I have an Armenian surname changed to Russian. I am 100% Armenian.” Finally the Russian President says he is proud of his Armenian parents and ancestors.
Armenians, who had heard that claim earlier, weren't buying it:
The story has little, if any, credence. Medvedev who was born in 1965, lived and studied in Russia for most of his life. He received his Law Degree in 1987 from Leningrad State University. Three years later, he received his Ph.D. from the same university… and then the Cold War was over. Published biographies of Medvedev do not make any reference to his Armenian ancestry either.
Now, more fuel is being added to the fire.

Victor Shikhman, who is a talented blogger, writes almost as an aside in a recent post:
As a sidenote, Medvedev's [planned] visit [to Israel] is all the more interesting given that he is a Jew, the son of a Jewish mother and the first Jew to become President of Russia, much less enter the Kremlin in any capacity besides the following: doctor, scientist, military hero, foreigner.

I've personally confirmed Medvedev's Jewish identity with former Muscovites, who say that Medvedev's mother regularly attended the main synagogue in Moscow. The subject has not been broached much in Russian media, as Medvedev is Putin's man, and, well, Russian journalists know what's good for them, or they have an accident - there is freedom of choice in Russia. I wonder if anyone's bothered to tell the Arabs.
Ooooh...I will! I will!

It is mind-blowing that the president of one of the most anti-semitic nations in history could be a halachic Jew.

(h/t Silke)
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Turkey is such a friend to Palestinian Arabs, trying to help them improve their lives, sending aid ships, and so forth. Right?
Turkish authorities announced they arrested 25 Palestinian immigrants in northwestern Turkey who were trying to sneak into European countries in search of a better life.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet today reports that the Turkish security forces managed to arrest these illegal immigrants from Palestine while conducting inspections on the roads leading into the province of Edirne in north-west Turkey.

The paper said the investigation of the illegal immigrants who were detained is still ongoing.

The thousands of illegal immigrants each year pass through Turkey on their way to Greece and other European countries.
Why doesn't Turkey open its doors to all Palestinian Arabs, their fellow Muslims, who want to immigrate?

It seems Turkey's sympathy for the poor, oppressed Palestinian Arabs disappears when it is at Turkey's expense.

I wonder if they were they really from "Palestine" or from Lebanon. If Arabs from under PA rule are so desperate to leave their homeland when they are already living under PA autonomy, that would explode the myth of how Palestinian Arabs prefer unity over their own interests - the myth that has guided official Arab policy towards Palestinian Arabs for decades.
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Another example of heartless, bigoted Israelis, daring to empower Muslim women.

(h/t Israel Matzav)
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Richard Cravatts in Pajamas Media:

York University in Toronto, which has gained for itself the dubious distinction of being Canada’s epicenter of campus anti-Semitism and anti-Israelism, is displaying once again the moral inversion that seems to have infected its student body and administration when the issues of the Middle East are discussed.

The issue at hand is a November 16th visit to the York campus by British MP George Galloway, as the invited guest of the York Federation of Students. In 2009, Mr. Galloway had been barred from entering Canada due to his public support of and donations to Hamas, a group designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the U.S. State Department, Canada, and the EU, but a court has since overturned that decision and given Galloway access to Canada once again.

Not everyone was thrilled with the prospect of having Galloway, who, according to wry commentator Christopher Hitchens is “100 percent consistent in support for thugs and criminals,” arriving on the York campus to spew forth his rabid fulminations against Zionism, Israel, and the West. In particular, Toronto-based Rabbi Ahron Hoch took it upon himself to post an announcement on his Aish web site in which he urged readers to proactively protest Galloway’s appearance, and to take specific steps to inform the greater community about the noxious speaker, including emailing York’s president, calling the dean’s office to lodge a formal complaint, and participating in a rally to be held on the York campus.

Feeling that the Galloway visit was one more contribution to the cesspool of anti-Semitic, pro-Palestinian activism that has punctuated the York campus for years now, Rabbi Hoch took York’s president, Mamdouh Shoukri, to task for allowing Galloway to speak “under the pretext of freedom of speech,” even though it “was never meant to be used as a vehicle to spread support for terror, murder and genocide.”

And more relevant to Rabbi Hoch was that York’s president had again failed to take a strong stand to rid his campus of anti-Israelism that frequently has morphed into anti-Semitism. “Mr. Shoukri has again showed his amazing tolerance for anti-Semitism and lack of vigilance regarding the feeling of safety for Jewish students on campus,” Hoch wrote.

Rabbi Hoch did receive a response from the university, but not the one he had probably hoped for. In fact, what he received was a formal letter from Harriet Lewis, York’s general counsel, who ordered the rabbi, in no uncertain terms, to remove the announcement “from [his] web site and to direct [his] supporters to cease and desist” any further distribution of the online poster. Why was the university demanding these steps? Because it believed that Hoch’s comment about President Shoukri was “untrue, harmful to [him] and his reputation, and to that of the university.” More ominously, the university considered the rabbi’s words “actionable,”( read: criminal), and expected “a retraction and apology forthwith.”

The letter also warned Hoch that his request for individuals to come to the York campus to protest Galloway’s appearance “might disturb and provoke others to disturb the peace” and “that this too is actionable and may constitute criminal behavior.”
The article goes on to detail specific, abhorrent incidents at York where misozionistic speech is allowed and pro-Israel speakers are protested and stopped from speaking by the Israel-hating mob.

I managed to find a cached copy of the entire message posted by Rabbi Hoch. See if you think it is beyond the pale, compared to the vitriol and protests that York allows against pro-Israel speakers:

Urgent Message! George Galloway at York University
It has been brought to my attention that the York Federation of Students is presenting George Galloway at York University, Tuesday, November 16 • 7:00pm - 9:00pm.

George Galloway is a known supporter of Hamas and an activist for terrorist organizations.

Using the language of a humanitarian and an anti-war activist, he openly supports Hamas and Hezbollah, who are utterly committed to the destruction of Israel. They are movements who target civilians, have no compunction to commit atrocities for the sake of their cause, and to whom life is cheap!

Mamdouh Shoukri, President of York, defends the decision to allow him to speak under the pretext of Freedom of Speech. The concept of Freedom of Speech was never meant to be used as a vehicle to spread support for terror, murder and genocide.

Mr. Shoukri has again showed his amazing tolerance for anti-Semitism and lack of vigilance regarding the feeling of safety for Jewish students on campus. This needs to be strongly protested.

Here are some things we can do:

1) Write to the Mamdouh Shoukri, office of the President and Vice-Chancellor, York University Research Tower, Room 1050, 74 York Blvd, ON, M3J 1P3 or email mshoukri@yorku.ca.

2) Call the Dean’s office and make an official complaint - 416 736 5200.

3) Attend the rally against the event. This will take place on the York campus

Tuesday Nov 16 6:30-9:00pm
Outside the Price Family Cinema, Accolade East 102

4) Get 10 of your friends to do one of the above.
It is important that not only students but members of the general public take part in protesting this outrage.

In the words of Prime Minister Stephen Harper "we are morally obligated to take a stand [against anti-Semitism and the forces that want to see Israel destroyed]. Demonization, double standards, delegitimization [of Israel], the 3 D’s, it is a responsibility, to stand up to them."

Rabbi Ahron Hoch
York University is a cesspool.

Here is a radio interview with Rabbi Hoch.
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
A couple of years ago I came up with Elder's First Rule of Arab Projection which states that "Whenever Arabs accuse Israel of doing some crime, they are doing that exact crime, usually on a far grander scale than their accusations."


Raymond Ibrahim, writing in Hudson-NY, extends that rule onto Muslims as well:
...On September 7, Egyptian cleric Abdallah Samak made the following remarks on Al Rahma TV: "The Jews are known for their merciless, murderous, and bloodthirsty nature… The number one characteristic of the Jews – which appears in the Bible – is that they are always prepared for combat. They believe that it is their fate and destiny to be in a state of perpetual war. This is not what we want. We are seekers of peace and security. We seek to spread love. But we are dealing with a people, a society, that believes that its destiny is linked to war. The number one characteristic of the Jews is that they are a people that believes that its destiny is linked to war. They cannot live without war. They can only live if they attack others. They can only live through annihilation, revenge, and mercilessness."
The notion of "perpetual war," in fact, is straight out of Muslim doctrine and history — best recognized by the word "jihad"— and has no corollary in Judaism or any other religion. Even temporary truces are permissible only when Muslims are weak and incapable of going on the offensive: according to sharia, once Muslims are strong enough and have proper leadership (e.g., a caliph), they are obligated to expand the realm of Islam through offensive jihad until, in the words of the Koran, "all religion belongs to Allah" (8:39). History unequivocally attests to this approach. Moreover, while the Old Testament certainly contains many allusions to violence, these are of a historical, as opposed to doctrinal, nature. Conversely, Koranic verses dealing with violence have been codified in sharia law, and thus have a juridical and perpetual quality (note the word "until" in the most violent passages of the Koran, e.g., 9:5 and 9:29; see here for more on the differences between Judeo-Christian and Muslim violence). Finally, by quickly adding that Muslims "do not want" perpetual war, but instead seek "to spread love," Samak belies the fact that Muslims naturally came to his mind immediately after he evoked "perpetual war," evincing a rather telling train of thought.
...On October 10, Egyptian cleric Galal Al-Khatib, while comparing the Shi'as to the Jews, made the following comments on Al-Rahma TV: "Jews accuse all their enemies of being infidels… The Jews believe that all non-Jews will end up in the Hellfire for all eternity… Both the Jews and the Shiites sanction the killing of those who disagree with them. Like the Jews, the Shiites employ treachery and deception to kill those who disagree with them. They use the same methods to get rid of their opponents. The Jews allow the plundering of their opponents' property…"
First, few religions are as keen on dividing the world between believers and infidels as Islam is, which divides the world into the Abode of Islam (where sharia is enforced) and the Abode of War (where it is not), holding that the armies of the former must wage war upon the latter — as we have seen, whenever they can. Moreover, through the doctrine of "loyalty and enmity," Muslims are commanded to disassociate themselves from non-Muslims. As for the Jews "employ[ing] treachery and deception to kill those who disagree with them," as mentioned, this is straight out of Muslim doctrine: Muhammad himself ordered the assassination of several poets for simply offending him; more to the point, he permitted the assassins to lie to their victims -- in order to win their trust and get close enough to them to murder them. Finally, Islam unequivocally legitimizes plundering the infidel — a longtime source of motivation for the soldiers of Islam.
Read the whole thing.

(h/t Serious Black)
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Who knew that our favorite moderate Arabs were also being peaceful in Egypt?
A number of Palestinian officers affiliated to Fatah movement living in the Egyptian town of El-Arish clashed with Egyptian citizens from the Al-Fawakhriyeh tribe in a northern Sinai brawl Thursday night.

The severity of the clash led to a closure of the road between the city and Rafah, the border town split between Egypt and Gaza, for more than two hours overnight. Police said several cars were damaged and one man injured before police and security forces arrived on the scene.

According to the Egyptian newspaper Al-Masri, a Palestinian officer renting an apartment from one of the sons of the tribe in El-Arish got into a fight with his landlord, and was told to get out of the apartment immediately.

During the ensuing clash, which fellow Fatah-affiliates living in the region soon joined, the two sides exchanged gunfire, injuring one man from the Al-Fawakhriyeh tribe, who was evacuated to hospital for treatment, officers told Ma'an.
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Last June, during "World Refugee Day," Al Jazeera commemorated the occasion with an interview with what they called a "Palestinian refugee."

Here's the video:


A woman who lived her whole life under the generous rule of Saddam Hussein lost her protector. Her neighbors chased her out of the country where she lived comfortably - Iraq. Finally, she got the opportunity to move to the US where she hopes to become a citizen.

And she is referred to as a "Palestinian refugee."
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ha'aretz:
Dutch media this month published articles accusing Ariel Sharon of murdering Palestinian children in Lebanon. Former officials who worked with Sharon said the publications were false. The Israeli foreign ministry called the claim "a modern blood libel."

The claim first appeared in the Volkskrant, the third largest paper in the Netherlands, in an interview with the well-known Dutch-Jewish director George Sluizer. According to Sluizer, 78, he witnessed Sharon killing two Palestinian toddlers with a pistol in 1982 near the refugee camp Sabra-Shatilla while filming a documentary there.

“I met Sharon and saw him kill two children before my eyes,” said Sluizer, who lives in Amsterdam.

Sluizer repeated the accusation in an interview for Vrij Nederland, an intellectual magazine, published on November 13 ahead of a screening of his film at the prestigious International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. “Sharon shot two children like you shoot rabbits, in front of my eyes,” he said.

The children, according to Sluizer, “were toddlers, two or three years old. He shot them from a distance of 10 meters with a pistol that he carried. I was very close to him.” Sluizer added he thought this happened in November, when Sharon was Israel’s minister of defense, but he was not sure of the month.

His account was published in a special Volkskrant supplement for the film festival, which opened on Wednesday. The festival featured Sluizer’s fourth and most recent film about Israel, in which he is filmed telling a Sharon effigy that he wished Sharon would have died at Auschwitz.
Ariel Sharon, of course, was born in what is now central Israel, not Europe. He is more Palestinian than Yasir Arafat or Ezzedeen Al-Qassam were.

Now, imagine a prominent film director coming forward in, say, 1965, saying that they witnessed Adolf Hitler personally shoot two Jewish toddlers at point blank range in public.

That claim would have met with a lot more skepticism than this one was by the Dutch press.

Luckily, Ha'aretz actually spent the time to show he is a liar:
Sharon’s successor as defense minister, Moshe Arens, said Sluizer’s account was “a lie.” According to Arens, “Sharon would never shoot a child and he was not in Lebanon in November of 1982. Thirdly, protocol prohibits ministers from wearing weapons. As civilians they are not allowed to carry firearms.”

In an interview for Haaretz, Sluizer said his cameraman Fred van Kuyk, who died a few years ago, also witnessed the shooting. Sluizer also said he had personally filed two complaints against Sharon in 1983, with the International Court of Justice in the Hague and the European Court of Human Right in Strasbourg.

Mr. Andrey Poskakukhin, head of the ICJ’s information department, said the court had no registration of a complaint by Sluizer. An administrator for the court in Strasbourg said his institution had no record of such a complaint either.

By the time my complaints arrived at their destination and should have been processed, minister of defense Sharon had become prime minister and therefore he was free of prosecution,” Sluizer said. Sharon became prime minister in 2001, 18 years after Sluizer said he filed his complaints.

He added he began thinking more about the shooting after surviving a near-fatal aneurysm in 2007.
The most charitable explanation is that his hatred for Sharon caused him to create a false memory, or that his aneurysm messed up his brain. More likely - he is just a liar.

(h/t Elder of Lobby and Joel)
  • Friday, November 19, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
This photo shows the limitations of taking a photo with a low-quality camera phone. It is nearly impossible to take a good shot where the lighting is drastically uneven. 

IMHO, it is still an interesting looking shot. What makes it more interesting is that it was taken at exactly the same latitude and longitude as my previous open-thread photo, on the same day, facing the same direction.

In other news, I had almost forgotten that I have a video page on the blog. I updated it this morning with my newest video (which I was hoping would be much more popular, but you never know) as well as some recent efforts as well as two videos made by others that I had subtitled.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

  • Thursday, November 18, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
From Ya Libnan:
Michael Williams, UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said that Hezbollah militia is smuggling large amounts of weaponry to south of the Litani river and stocking them there and warned ” this is a violation of UN resolution 1701″

On September 3, a suspected weapons cache exploded in the south Lebanon town of Shehabiyeh, a Hezbollah stronghold.

Williams said there were concerns at the delay in which the UN peacekeeping force, UNIFIL, was given access to the site of the Shehabiyeh explosion.

Many times the secretary general of Hezbollah has referred openly to the Hezbollah’s considerable armaments, sometimes in some detail, and has referred also to the replenishment of those armaments since the war of 2006, so I have to assume that this weaponry was smuggled into the country,” Williams said.
Gee, ya think?

The UN was only informed about that in March - 2008.

Much more from Daled Amos.
  • Thursday, November 18, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
UN Watch published the full version of a speech given by Robert Bernstein, founder of Human Rights Watch, at the University of Nebraska at Omaha on November 10 on the subject of Human Rights in the Middle East.

It is long but it is a must-read.

Here are some parts:

You may wonder why a man just shy of his 88th birthday would get up at 5 in the morning to fly to Omaha to give a speech. Frankly, since accepting this kind offer, I’ve wondered myself. Here’s why. Having devoted much of my life to trying to make the Universal Declaration of Human Rights come alive in many places in the world, I have become alarmed at how some human rights organizations, including the one I founded, are reporting on human rights in the Middle East.


In reading about the discussions and actions of students on American campuses, I learned, of course, that the Israel-Palestine issues were very polarized, sometimes hostile, and that a lot of the hostility was by students angered over Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and the endless process of trying to establish a second state.

I know we all believe in free speech. We believe in equality for women. We believe in tolerance of each other’s religious beliefs and in an open campus. When I go back to New York, tomorrow night, I will be attending the 150th anniversary of Bard College, a college very involved in the Middle East, as it has a combined degree program with Al-Quds, the Palestinian university in Ramallah. Here is what Leon Botstein, Bard’s President, says about education: “Education is a safeguard against the disappearance of liberty, but only if it invites rigorous inquiry, scrutiny, and the open discussion of issues.”

Believing in all these values and the others of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, what is taking place on American campuses puzzles me. It seems to me that the State of Israel has all the values we just outlined. It is surrounded by 22 Arab states occupying 99-1/2% of the land in the Middle East and these states do not share these values. Israel, which occupies less than ½ of 1%, does share these values. There is a battle about two things: First, the size of the 23rd state, the new Palestinian state, which at present has many of the same values as the other 22 states. Secondly, the claims of many Arab states, Iran and its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas, about the very legitimacy of the State of Israel. I don’t think human rights organizations alone can solve this mess but I do wonder about the discussions on many campuses, particularly about Israeli abuses, regardless of what you believe about them, and whether they are constructive. I don’t see how discussions of Israeli abuses can take such precedence over the kind of state that will be next to Israel. That is, not only internally, although human rights advocates should care about that more than they do, but in its foreign policy toward its neighbor Israel.

During my twenty years at Human Rights Watch, I had spent little time on Israel. It was an open society. It had 80 human rights organizations like B’Tselem, ACRI, Adalah, and Sikkuy. It had more newspaper reporters in Jerusalem than any city in the world except New York and London. Hence, I tried to get the organization to work on getting some of the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly free speech, into closed societies – among them, the 22 Arab states surrounding Israel. The faults of democratic countries were much less of a priority not because there were no faults, obviously, but because they had so many indigenous human rights groups and other organizations openly criticizing them.

I continued to follow the work of Human Rights Watch and about six years ago became a member of the Middle East North Africa Advisory Committee because I had become concerned about what had appeared to me to be questionable attacks on the State of Israel. These were not violations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but of the laws of war, Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. There has been an asymmetrical war – you might call it a war of attrition in different ways involving Israel – not only with Palestinians but sometimes involving other Arab states, but of course, involving Iran and its non-state proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. In reporting on this conflict, Human Rights Watch – frequently joined by the UN – faulted Israel as the principal offender.

It seemed to me that if you talked about freedom of speech, the rights of women, an open education and freedom of religion – that there was only one state in the Middle East that was concerned with those issues. In changing the public debate to issues of war, Human Rights Watch and others in what they described as being evenhanded, described Israel far from being an advocate of human rights, but instead as one of its principal offenders. Like many others, I knew little about the laws of war, Geneva Conventions and international law, and in my high regard for Human Rights Watch, I was certainly inclined to believe what Human Rights Watch was reporting. However, as I saw Human Rights Watch’s attacks on almost every issue become more and more hostile, I wondered if their new focus on war was accurate.

In one such small incident, the UN Human Rights Commission, so critical of Israel that any fair-minded person would disqualify them from participating in attempts to settle issues involving Israel, got the idea that they could get prominent Jews known for their anti-Israel views to head their investigations. Even before Richard Goldstone, they appointed Richard Falk, professor at Princeton, to be the UN rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza. Richard Falk had written an article comparing Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza to Hitler’s treatment of the Jews in the Holocaust. Israel, believing this should have disqualified him for the job, would not allow him into the country. Human Rights Watch leapt to his defense, putting out a press release comparing Israel with North Korea and Burma in not cooperating with the UN. I think you might be surprised to learn the release was written by Joe Stork – Deputy Director of Human Rights Watch Middle East Division – whose previous job for many, many years, was as an editor of a pro-Palestinian newsletter.

Following this, Richard Goldstone resigned as a Board member of Human Rights Watch and Chair of its Policy Committee to head the UN Human Rights Council investigation of Gaza. Human Rights Watch has been, by far, the biggest supporter of the UN Council, urging them to bring war crimes allegations against Israel – based on this report. I don’t believe Human Rights Watch has responded to many responsible analyses challenging the war crimes accusations made by Goldstone and also challenging Human Rights Watch’s own reports – one on the use of phosphorous, one on the use of drones and one on shooting people almost in cold blood. A military expert working for Human Rights Watch, who seemed to wish to contest these reports, was dismissed and I believe is under a gag order. This is antithetical to the transparency that Human Rights Watch asks of others.

After five years of attending the Middle East Advisory Committee meetings, seeing the one board member who shared my views leave the organization, another supporter on the Middle East Advisory Committee who had joined at my request being summarily dismissed, and having great doubts about not only the shift in focus to war issues but also the way they were being reported, I wrote an op-ed in The New York Times questioning these policies. To me, the most important point in my op-ed was the following: “They (Human Rights Watch) know that more and better arms are flowing into Gaza and Lebanon and are poised to strike again. And they know that this militancy continues to deprive Palestinians of any chance for the peaceful and productive life they deserve. Yet, Israel, the repeated victim of aggression, faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism.”

A Human Rights Watch Board member told The New Republic that they go after Israel because it is like “low-hanging fruit.” By that, I think he means that they have a lot of information fed to them by Israel’s own human rights organizations and the press, that they have easy access to Israel to hold their press conferences, and that the press is eager to accept their reports. The organization, most would agree, was founded to go after what I guess you would call “high-hanging fruit” – that is, closed societies, where it is hard to get in. Nations that will not allow you to hold press conferences in their country. Nations where there are no other human rights organizations to give you the information.

It has been over one year since the op-ed appeared. Little has changed. For example, within hours of the flotilla incident, Human Rights Watch was calling for an international investigation pointing out that any information coming from the Israeli Army was unreliable. That was before any of the facts were known. I spent the first week of October in Israel seeking out as many different views as I could. I was privileged to meet Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. I spent a day at Al-Quds, the Palestinian university in the West Bank, with the university’s President Sari Nusseibeh, his staff, and students. I also met with NGOs including Jessica Montell of B’Tselem, passed an evening with my dear friends Natan and Avital Sharansky, and spoke with many journalists and government officials. I visited S’derot, the town most shelled by Hamas and other terrorist groups in Gaza. I came back convinced more than ever that Human Rights Watch’s attacks on Israel as the country tried to defend itself were badly distorting the issues – because Human Rights Watch had little expertise about modern asymmetrical war. I was particularly concerned that the wars were stopped but not ended – so they became wars of attrition.

...When I was in Israel, I went to the Gaza border and I learned that since the beginning of 2010, more than 11,000 patients with their escorts exited the Gaza Strip for medical treatment in Israel. Surprisingly and sadly, this policy has risks. I was told the Israelis make the Palestinians change cars at the border because cars had been rigged to explode. A woman on crutches was changing cars. She fell down. Three Israeli soldiers ran to help her get up. She blew herself up, killing the four of them. The Hamas government is preaching genocide of Israel, yet Israel is treating Gaza’s sick. It struck me as bizarre that in an asymmetric war of attrition, which we’re still learning about how to fight, a nation cares for the sick of a neighbor that is preaching genocide to its people and the only human rights comment has been that they are not doing it well enough.

This is only a small sample. Read the whole thing, now.
  • Thursday, November 18, 2010
  • Elder of Ziyon
Soccer Dad, one of the early "J-Bloggers" who has spent years building up the Jewish and Zionist blogosphere, has just announced his retirement from blogging.

He is best known for having founded and maintained the Haveil Havalim Jewish/Zionist blog carnival, through which he promoted and publicized many new blogs.

His blog was fantastic. One of his specialties was skewering the NYT's Thomas Friedman,  a long time before Latma . His posts were always thoughtful and intelligent. Soccer Dad was quoted with respect by general political blogs, not just Zionist ones. His political sense is excellent, and his blog had recently gotten its millionth pageview.

I have been amazed at his prodigious memory and recall of old articles and posts from all over. Today, for example, he reminded me of a post of my own from 2007 that I had forgotten about that was relevant to the video I posted earlier today.

Soccer Dad would tirelessly work to expand the JBlogosphere, cajoling people to make sure that they use links effectively to spread the wealth. He is also a mensch, always thanking me when I linked to him.

In addition, he is the JBlogosphere's "Alfred," knowing the secret identity of many anonymous bloggers, including myself.

More recently, he had been the Watcher and administrator for the weekly Watcher of Weasels list of the best, generally conservative, blog posts of the week.

I am much indebted to him for his many links to this blog and email support, especially in my early years. I felt that he was my champion, but indeed he was the personal champion for many blogs and we would not be as successful without him.

His online presence will be sorely missed.

UPDATE: How could I forget that he inspired one of my better videos, Hello Martyr, Hello Fatah:

AddToAny

EoZ Book:"Protocols: Exposing Modern Antisemitism"

Printfriendly

EoZTV Podcast

Podcast URL

Subscribe in podnovaSubscribe with FeedlyAdd to netvibes
addtomyyahoo4Subscribe with SubToMe

search eoz

comments

Speaking

translate

E-Book

For $18 donation








Sample Text

EoZ's Most Popular Posts in recent years

Hasbys!

Elder of Ziyon - حـكـيـم صـهـيـون



This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Donate!

Donate to fight for Israel!

Monthly subscription:
Payment options


One time donation:

Follow EoZ on Twitter!

Interesting Blogs

Blog Archive