Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Islamic Jihad leader: "There would be no resistance without Iran"

Islamic Jihad leader Ramadan Shallah is on a visit to Iran, where he spoke at a Conference for Youth and Islamic Awakening. (It appears that under the new Egyptian regime, terrorists are now freely allowed to travel through the Rafah crossing to go on world tours.)

The keynote speaker at the conference was none other than Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who explained why Israel was "created" by the West:

"Why did they created the Zionist regime? To gain control over oil, as well as the popular and revolutionary uprisings in the Middle East,” said President Ahmadinejad in his opening speech at the conference.

“It is clear that this was a historical scheme,” the Iranian president added.

Ahmadinejad also said that "the very existence of the Zionist regime is an insult to the dignity of human beings and a disrespect to nations."

Shallah, for his part, called for all Arab and Islamic nations to stand by Iran, saying that the Islamic Republic was and remains the "champion of the resistance," and warning of a Western plot characterize Iran as the enemy rather than Israel.

He said that Arab nations must reject this logic and they should understand that Iran is not the enemy but "a big brother, friend and patron, which harbors and supports the resistance and victory." He said that without their support there can be no "resistance."

Which is about as clear a line between Iran and terrorism as you can draw.

"Do the Burqa!" video elicits death threats

From Radio Netherlands:

Dutch satirist Johan Vlemmix has decided not to perform his latest hit Do the Burqa onstage following death threats.

The song, a carnival parody to the music of Van McCoy's Do the Hustle, is a huge success on YouTube, so much so that the video provider has switched off the comments facility. Too many people were posting angry reactions saying that they had been insulted.

The images show a woman wearing a T-shirt which can be instantly converted into a burqa, be it one that does not cover the breasts.

Mr Vlemmix said he had expected some commotion over his song: "I'm not exactly dumb." But he had failed to anticipate the virulence of the reactions: "I really meant it as a joke. Because the burqa is banned in the Netherlands I thought it was fun to offer a carnival alternative for it: the burqa shirt."

Carnival, a colourful, musical and noisy feast celebrated annually in the southern half of the Netherlands, is often used to mock authorities and make fun of social issues by people dressed up or disguised in humorous creations.

He has not only stopped performing the song onstage, Johan Vlemmix has also cancelled the option to order the shirts via his website. But he stops short at pulling the video from Youtube: "I made it because I was convinced it was right, and I refuse to take it down."

It's not the first time that a carnival song by Johan Vlemmix caused a stir. Four years ago people from Poland reacted angrily to his song A busload of Poles, about Polish plumbers flooding the Dutch labour market. But, Mr Vlemmix said, "that was caused by an incorrect translation". Another song of his, about the deadly bird flu virus, also failed to find universal approval. But none of his earlier songs ever led to death threats.

I'm offended too. Lousy green-screening, only one joke, and a dancer in a bikini who is not exactly star material.

But what is interesting to me is that the video does not make fun of Islam at all. It satirizes an article of clothing that some Muslim women wear, but it avoids any insult to Islam as a faith.

(h/t Jack)

3000 Muslims attack Christian homes in Egypt over rumor

From AINA:

A mob of over 3000 Muslims attacked Copts in the village of Kobry-el-Sharbat (el-Ameriya), Alexandria this afternoon. Coptic homes and shops were looted before being set ablaze. Two Copts and a Muslim were injured. The violence started after a rumor was spread that a Coptic man had an allegedly intimate photo of a Muslim woman on his mobile phone. The Coptic man, Mourad Samy Guirgis, surrendered to the police this morning morning for his protection.

According to eyewitnesses, the perpetrators were bearded men in white gowns. "They were Salafists, and some of were from the Muslim Brotherhood," according to one witness. It was reported that terrorized women and children who lost their homes were in the streets without any place to go.

According to Father Boktor Nashed from St. George's Church in el-Nahdah, a meeting between Muslim and Christian representatives was supposed to take place in the evening in Kobry-el-Sharbat. But, by 3 P.M. a Muslim mob looted and torched the home of Mourad Samy Guirgis, as well as the home of his family and three homes of Coptic neighbors. A number of Coptic-owned shops and businesses were also looted and torched. "We contacted security forces, but they arrived very, very late," Said Father Nashad. The fire brigade was prevented from going into the village by the Muslims and the fires were left to burn themselves out. "Those who lost their home, left the village," said Father Nashed.

Coptic activist Mariam Ragy, who was covering the violence in Kobry-el-Sharbat , said it took the army 1 hour to drive 2 kilometers to the village. "This happens every time. They wait outside the village until the Muslims have had enough violence, then they appear." She said that she spoke to many Copts from the village this evening who said that although their homes were not attacked, Muslims stood in the street asking them to come to their homes to hide. "They believed that this was a new trick to make them leave, so that Muslims would loot and torch their homes while they were away," said Ragy.

The Gov of Alexandria visited al-Nahda, near Kobry-el-Sharbat, this evening and told elYoum 7 newspaper that the two Copts and one Muslim who were injured were transported to hospital. He said that the family of the Muslim girl whose image was on the Copt's mobile phone wanted revenge from the Coptic man. They broke into his home and torched a furniture factory located in the same building.

Joseph Malak, a lawyer for the Coptic Church in Alexandria, said it is too early to count injuries to Copts or losses to their property.

Mr. Mina Girguis, of the Maspero Youth Union in Alexandria, said that "collective punishment of Copts for someone else's mistake, which is yet to be determined, is completely unacceptable." He believes that the reason for this violence is fabricated, and the military is behind it. "They are trying to divert the attention from the second revolution which is taking place now."

Father Nashed denied that Islamists were present, only ordinary village Muslims, and could not give an explanation as why people who have lived together amicably for years could commit such violence. "Maybe because of lack of security, they think that they can do as they please."

He said that the nearly 65 Coptic families were ordered to stay indoors and not to open their shops and businesses tomorrow. He added that security forces did not arrest any of the perpetrators, "on the contrary, they were begging the mob to go home."

By midnight the violence had subsided.

I think that Jews who used to live in the Arab world might be able to answer the question of "why people who have lived together amicably for years could commit such violence." In the Muslim world, co-existence does not mean equality. As long as the Christians and Jews play their role as dhimmis, they will be sort-of "protected," but that is a far cry from being accepted.

See this, for example.

Staged photo of "injured" Arab makes headlines

Arabic news sites have been showing a series of photos of an Arab man supposedly deliberately run over by an Israeli truck near Hebron:

A Palestinian construction worker screamed in pain after an Israeli soldier drove a trailer hooked to a tractor over his legs near Yatta, West Bank, Wednesday. Israeli forces seized equipment because they said the workers were building in an unauthorized area. (Hazem Bader/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)

The last photo in particular has been reproduced all over the world last week as one of the Best Photos of the day, with similar captions to what I showed here.

Only one problem: It appears that the man in such torment was faking it.

From CAMERA:

After checking with both Palestinian and Israeli sources, it seems that the man was not at all injured, and there is no evidence that he was run over. On the Palestinian side, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), which provides comprehensive weekly reports about all injuries, fatalities, incursions, and other incidents in both the West Bank and Gaza, makes no mention of this alleged injury in its report for Jan. 19- 25. In addition, the Palestinian Ma'an News Agency did not cover the alleged injury, even though it does report on Israeli army activity that day nearby in Tel Rumeida. And Ma'an also reported a hit and run incident, in which a Palestinian teen was hit by an Israeli driver at a checkpoint this morning. Presumably, then had this worker actually been run over and injured on Wednesday, Ma'an would have carried the story. Nor does it appear that any English-language wire service or other media outlet covered the alleged injury.

On the Israeli side, Capt. Barak Raz, spokesman for the Judea and Samaria division who had spoken to soldiers at the scene, told CAMERA the following: IDF soldiers were on site to provide security for the Civil Administration, which was preventing Palestinian construction in an area not permitted for building. One Palestinian worker was lying on the ground next to the trailer when he started to scream that he had been run over. Nobody saw him get run over. First he complained that his left leg was injured. An army medic checked him and saw nothing. The medic did, nevertheless, wrap him in a bandage since the worker was carrying on that he had been run over. The man then subsequently claimed that it was his right leg which was injured. According to Raz, the Palestinian Red Crescent, which was also on the scene, checked him, and likewise found absolutely nothing wrong with him.

In short, at worst, this incident is staged, as Raz contends, and the man pretended to be run over and injured, while neither happened. At best, there is zero independent confirmation that he was injured. If neither AFP nor IHT can substantiate the claim, it ought to be immediately retracted.

But it is such a dramatic photo - why ruin it with finding out the truth?

84 killed in Syria today

Al Arabiya is reporting that the death toll in Syria today is 84 people, most of them in Hama. There was also a car bomb attack and an ambush against Syrian forces, killing 12.

This is besides the massacre in Homs yesterday, where 14 members of a single family were shot or hacked to death, including 8 children.

Meanwhile, the Free Syrian Army says it captured five members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards in Homs:

A group of Syria’s opposition “Free Army” has released a video showing what it was said were seven Iranians, including five members of the Revolutionary Guards, captured in the city of Homs.

The video showed travel documents of the captives, some of whom appeared to be speaking Farsi.

“I am Sajjad Amirian, a member the Revolutionary Guards of the Iranian armed forces. I am a member of the team in charge of cracking down on protesters in Syria and we receive our orders directly from the security division of the Syrian air force in Homs,” one of the captives said.

“I urge Mr. Khamenei to work on securing our release and return to our homes,” he added.

Syria's official SANA news agency says that a group of Iranians captured, probably the same group, were just pilgrims on their way to visit holy sites.

Fayyad whines that the world isn't focused on Palestinian Arabs anymore

From Al Arabiya:

Fayyad and Peres at Davos

The Middle East peace process is at its lowest point in two decades and the events of the Arab Spring have forced it down the world agenda, the Palestinian prime minister complained Thursday as EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said that the end of informal talks between Palestinians and Israel does not mean the two sides have reached an “impasse.”

Salam Fayyad, a moderate whose remit does not extend beyond the West Bank, told delegates at the Davos forum of global business leaders that the peace process was desperately in need of outside help.

Fayyad told delegates that things had never been so bad since the start of the peace negotiations in 1991 that eventually led to the Oslo accord in 1993.

Oh, to return to those halcyon days of 2002-2005, when Fatah and Hamas terrorists worked together in blowing up Jewish babies and the peace process was still considered possible! Good times. Things are so much worse now.

“There must be hope, we have to maintain hope. If you are Palestinian, hope is something that must be part of conscious decision-making,” said Fayyad.

“But right now one would have to really work hard to be hopeful as to where the political process is.”

“Since the beginning of Oslo, the political process has never been so lacking in focus.”

“Obviously we need to sit down and negotiate but it’s recognized that we need a significant amount of international help and chaperoning in order to do this.”

No, all that is needed is a little flexibility on the part of the PLO, something that they brag about not having.

Fayyad said the Palestinian cause was taking a back seat in the region as Arab governments try and come to terms with the popular revolts which swept the region last year.

“There’s much better understanding of the need to have a responsible, responsive government” in the Arab world after the uprisings, said Fayyad.

“But it seems to me that an immediate consequence of the Arab Spring, our cause has been marginalized by it in a substantial way.

“I do not recall that the Palestinian cause has been as marginalized in the way that it has been for many decades.

“We must work out how do we deal with this marginalization... It may take quite a number of years before the region settles down with a better state of equilibrium.”

Aw, poor Palestinian Arabs. They are so used to being in the spotlight. Airplane hijackings, murder of Olympic athletes, triumphant speeches at the UN with a gun, uncountable front-page stories, terror sprees, allying with dictators, thousands of rockets, turning suicide bombing into an art - wasn't it wonderful when they were the big story? Now that nasty Arab Spring pops up, showing that in comparison with their brethren they have decent lives, self-governance, better education, a much better economy, and relative peace.

Not to mention an uncanny ability to shoot themselves in the foot every time real peace seems to be at hand.

For sixty years, their fellow Arabs have given them lip-service support, and for sixty years they have taken this all for granted in order to use them to pressure Western governments with threats of uprisings and riots and terror for their cause. Now, the Arabs have their own issues, and the Palestine topic is shown to be not important at all.

This is why they love stunts instead of substantive negotiations. Negotiations are hard and boring and under the radar. Stunts are easy and public and often get attention by the media.

So even their moderate, Western-educated leaders are whining about them no longer being the center of attention. Like spoiled children, they don't care about what else might be happening in the world - they cannot conceive of a reality where they are not the protagonists. They prefer the days of terror when they were in the headlines to the days of relative peace when they aren't. Arabs are being killed by the thousand, and they hate it - not because they care about their fellow Arabs, but because it diverts world attention from their own, comparatively picayune issues.

Whine, stunt, whine, stunt. Anything to avoid doing something constructive and lasting.

A leftist talks about the "Israel-Firster" label (Tablet)

From Spencer Ackerman in Tablet:

At the risk of sounding like the shtetl police, there’s a right way and a wrong way for American Jews to argue with one another. The right way focuses on whose ideas are better—for America, for Israel, for the Jewish community, and for the world. The Jewish left should be right at home with this kind of substantive debate, since I believe those ideas are better than those of our cousins on the Jewish right. But the wrong way, regretfully, is now on the rise among Jewish progressives.

Some on the left have recently taken to using the term “Israel Firster” and similar rhetoric to suggest that some conservative American Jewish reporters, pundits, and policymakers are more concerned with the interests of the Jewish state than those of the United States. Last week, for example, Salon’s Glenn Greenwald asked Atlantic writer Jeffrey Goldberg about any loyalty oaths to Israel Goldberg took when he served in the IDF during the early 1990s. (On Tuesday, writer Max Blumenthal used a gross phrase to describe Goldberg: “former Israeli prison guard.”) The obvious implication is that Goldberg’s true loyalty is to Israel, not the United States. For months, M.J. Rosenberg of Media Matters, the progressive media watchdog group, has been throwing around the term “Israel Firster” to describe conservatives he disagrees with. One recent Tweet singled out my friend Eli Lake, a reporter for Newsweek: “Lake supports #Israel line 100% of the time, always Israel first over U.S.” That’s quite mild compared to some of the others.

“Israel Firster” has a nasty anti-Semitic pedigree, one that many Jews will intuitively understand without knowing its specific history. It turns out white supremacist Willis Carto was reportedly the first to use it, and David Duke popularized it through his propaganda network. And yet Rosenberg and others actually claim they’re using it to stimulate “debate,” rather than effectively mirroring the tactics of some of the people they criticize.

Throughout my career, I’ve been associated with the Jewish left—I was to the left of the New Republic staff when I worked there, moved on to Talking Points Memo, hosted my blog at Firedoglake for years, and so on. I’ve criticized the American Jewish right’s myopic, destructive, tribal conception of what it means to love Israel. But it doesn’t deserve to have its Americanness and patriotism questioned. By all means, get into it with people who interpret every disagreement Washington has with Tel Aviv as hostility to the Jewish state. But if you can’t do it without sounding like Pat Buchanan, who has nothing but antipathy and contempt for Jews, then you’ve lost the debate.

This is tiresome to point out. Many of the writers who are fond of the Israel Firster smear are—appropriately—very good at hearing and analyzing dog-whistles when they’re used todehumanize Arabs and Muslims. I can’t read anyone’s mind or judge anyone’s intention, but by the sound of it these writers are sending out comparable dog-whistles about Jews.

(h/t CHA)

Report: Hamas has already unofficially quit Syria

From Reuters:

The leader of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, has effectively abandoned his headquarters in the Syrian capital, Damascus, diplomatic and intelligence sources said on Friday.

“Meshaal is not staying in Syria as he used to do. He is almost out all the time,” said a diplomat in the region who spoke on condition on anonymity.

A regional intelligence source, who also did not wish to be identified, said: “He’s not going back to Syria. That’s the decision he’s made. There’s still a Hamas presence there, but it’s insignificant.”

The sources said Meshaal would not publicly shut down the political headquarters of Hamas in Syria, where it has long been hosted by Assad and by his father before him.

“In the past month he may have only stayed five days in Syria and the rest he spent in Qatar, Turkey and Egypt,” said the diplomat. “But he did not close the headquarters in Syria in full and there are some Hamas officials still there.”

“Our belief is that Hamas will not announce a departure from Syria even if it happened,” the diplomat added.

The sources said Meshaal was currently in Egypt. But “there was no agreement to open an office in Cairo. Not yet,” said the diplomat. “The expected residence for Meshaal is Qatar where he may stay most of the time until the Syria smoke has cleared.”

A YNet op-ed says that Hamas is in trouble, losing funding from Iran and its headquarters in Damascus.

But another Yediot article in Hebrew, quoted in Arabic sources, says that Turkey has agreed to give Hamas some $300 million annually.

Hamas radicals don't want "moderate" Meshal to step down

From YNet:

Hamas Politburo Chief Khaled Mashaal met with top Hamas military wing delegates in Cairo on Thursday.

According to the London-based Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat, the mission, headed by Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades Chief Ahmed Jabari and his deputy Marwan Issa, urged Mashaal not to step down.

The Politburo chief had recently announced that he will not seek another term as Hamas' political leader, sprouting a torrent of rumors as to his possible successor.

The al Qassam Brigades is Hamas' terrorist wing. they are not officially part of the Hamas government, although most of their members are also employed as "police" by Hamas. Of course, they draw salaries for their terrorist activities as well.

Within Hamas, there is no group more extreme than the Qassam Brigades.

So, if Meshal is so "moderate" as we are constantly told by Western analysts, why would the most hardline Hamas group want him to stay in power?

Apparently they aren't too worried that Meshal is so moderate as to do anything to cramp the masked terrorists' style. They are also not too worried about reports that Meshal would accept Israel's existence, even if only indirectly, something that is anathema to them.

While I have seen some veiled criticism of Meshal by Gaza Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar, I do not recall seeing anything negative about him in the al Qassam website. The terrorists are great fans of the so-called "moderate" Hamas leader.

Perhaps they know something that Western "experts" don't know about Meshal.

Meanwhile, there are rumors that, if true, will make both the hard-core Hamas terrorists and the Western "experts" happy:

Still, earlier in the week, London's Arabic newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that Masshal had a change of heart and the he will "definitely continue to serve as Hamas' politburo chief."

The report said that members of Hamas' Shura Council, who convened in Khartoum three weeks ago, refused Mashaal's request to step down.

The UN's sleight of hand in considering Gaza "occupied"

Recently, UN Watch asked the UN to comment on why it still considers Gaza to be "occupied territory" when even Hamas has said that there is no occupation there. The UN promised to get back with a rationale.

The UN has now answered:

Spokesperson: Under resolutions adopted by both the Security Council and the General Assembly on the Middle East peace process, the Gaza Strip continues to be regarded as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The United Nations will accordingly continue to refer to the Gaza Strip as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory until such time as either the General Assembly or the Security Council take a different view.

Question: Can I follow up on that? It is the legal definition of occupation and why is Gaza considered occupied?

Spokesperson: Well, as I have just said, there are Security Council and General Assembly resolutions that cover this. For example, there was a Security Council resolution adopted on 8 January 2009 — 1860 — and that stressed that the Gaza Strip constitutes an integral part of the territory occupied in 1967. And as you know, Security Council resolutions do have force in international law.

Furthermore, there is a resolution from the General Assembly from 20 December 2010, and while it noted the Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and parts of the northern West Bank, it also stressed, in quotes, “the need for respect and preservation of the territorial unity, contiguity and integrity of all of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”. So just to repeat that the United Nations will continue to refer to the Gaza Strip as part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory until either the General Assembly or the Security Council take a different view on the matter.

What the UN seems to be saying is that if part of the territory is occupied, then all of the territory is considered occupied, since there is are UN resolutions that declare the two territories are considered united.

This flies in the face of logic, and international law. The definition of "occupation" from the 1907 Hague Regulations - the only legal definition there is - says:

[T]erritory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised.

The wording shows that "occupation" exists only in areas where there is in fact a physical occupation. Obviously an army that occupies part of another nation cannot apply the laws of occupation on the portions of that nation that are not under physical occupation, and just as obviously the Hague allows occupation of a portion of territory, no matter whether that territory is contiguous or not with other territories not under occupation.

From the perspective of the Geneva Conventions, the laws of occupation are meant to protect the citizens actually under occupation. It is impossible for an "occupying army" to protect citizens when it is not physically there.

Amnesty International expands on this:

The sole criterion for deciding the applicability of the law on belligerent occupation is drawn from facts: the de factoeffective control of territory by foreign armed forces coupled with the possibility to enforce their decisions, and the de factoabsence of a national governmental authority in effective control. If these conditions are met for a given area, the law on belligerent occupation applies. Even though the objective of the military campaign may not be to control territory, the sole presence of such forces in a controlling position renders applicable the law protecting the inhabitants. The occupying power cannot avoid its responsibilities as long as a national government is not in a position to carry out its normal tasks.

For example, the US occupied part of Iraq - but not all of it.To say that all of Iraq was "Occupied Iraqi Territory" would be laughable.

What the UN is really saying here is that the name it has given to the territories is "Occupied Palestinian Territories." That name has nothing to do with the reality of whether they are legally occupied or not. (In fact, I would argue that the name has nothing to do with whether they are legally considered "Palestinian" or not.) It is a title, from which people may think that the territories are under occupation, but it is not a legal declaration that they are occupied.

After all, the ICRC says "A transfer of authority to a local government re-establishing the full and free exercise of sovereignty will normally end the state of occupation." Any way you look at it, Hamas is the government of Gaza, and not subjected to any Israeli restrictions on how it governs. The UN can declare the territories to be a single entity all it wants, but the definition of occupation is at odds with the title "Occupied Palestinian Territories."

Similarly, Area A in the West Bank is not by any definition "occupied;" because Israel transferred authority over the administration of Area A to the PA, just as it did in Gaza. This is the textbook definition of how to end occupation of a territory.

The UN's answer is a contortion meant to obfuscate reality and international law.

(h/t CHA)

Salafists in Egypt are targeting Valentine's Day

We've seen how the religious police in Saudi Arabia crack down every year on people celebrating Valentine's Day.

We've seen Hamas arrest people celebrating Valentine's Day.

Guess who is targeting the holiday this year?

The Salafists in Egypt, flexing their new political muscles, are speaking out against the holiday, which in previous years was accepted by Egyptians. Religious spokesman Abu Hussam al-Bukhaari said:

The celebration of Valentine's is a heresy of heresies that has no basis in Islam. Islam calls for love as comprehensive in its legitimacy clarified by the Messenger of Allah peace be upon him, that the Muslim loves his Muslim brother... Valentine's is a Western tradition. According to the hadeeth: 'Whoever imitates a people is one of them, original and this is what follows the ceremony of evil and forbidden things, such as wasting time playing, singing and unveiling, wanton display, men mixing with women and the emergence of women without their 'mahram,' and so taboo, which are haraam.

Egyptians seemed to like the holiday, so we'll see what happens.

Israel congratulates Egyptians; MB says "shut up"

According to Palestine Today, Israel sent a message to "bless" the Egyptian people on their revolution.

The message actually said

On the occasion of the opening session of the Egyptian parliament, on January 23rd, Israel extends its congratulations to the people of Egypt for its efforts to achieve freedom, democracy and economic development.

We send the new parliament our wishes of constructive and fruitful work for the well-being of the Egyptian public.

We trust Egypt will continue to uphold the importance of peace and stability in our region.

Much of it is the standard diplomatic protocol that nations send greetings to other nations on the latter's state holidays (which yesterday was in Egypt.) The wording is interesting, though, even as it will be roundly ignored - or worse.

As JTA notes,

A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, which garnered nearly half the seats in the newly elected parliament, said Wednesday that the government would not hold any kind of dialogue with Israel.

“The [Muslim Brotherhood] group does not have any willingness to engage in dialogue with Israel," Mahmoud Ghazlan told the London-based Arabic Asharq Alawsat newspaper in an interview. "This decision has been taken and our position is consistent and clear, and is not currently open to discussion.

“It does not make sense to launch a dialogue, any form of dialogue, in light of Israel’s current practices against the Arab people,” he added.

Yesterday, I attended a talk by Professor Eugene Kontorovich on "Disputing Occupation: Israel's Borders and International Law" at NYU. Here is a synopsis, based on my memory.

Kontrovich started off by saying what international law is not. It is not UN General Assembly resolutions. It is not advisory opinions from the ICJ (which, he pointed out, was answering a loaded question that assumed illegality when it gave its opinion on the security fence.)

The first legally important act after the fall of the Ottoman Empire that is relevant to Israel's borders is the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, which noted the "historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country." After the British partitioned Western Palestine from Trans-Jordan, the implication is that all of the remaining Palestine would be the area of the Jewish nation.

If the Arabs had accepted the 1947 Partition Plan, then the further partition of Palestine into an Arab and Jewish state would have legal weight. But since they didn't, the Jewish claim on all of Palestine remained in force.

The 1949 Armistice Lines (mistakenly called the "1967 borders") are emphatically not national boundaries. They are explicitly stated in the armistice agreements as "not to be construed in any sense as a political or territorial boundary, and is delineated without prejudice to rights, claims and positions of either Party to the Armistice as regards ultimate settlement of the Palestine question" (from the Egyptian armistice,the Jordanian one says "without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.") Their position (generally) had no demographic, political or geographic significance; they were simply where the opposing armies ended up at the last truce, with some minor adjustments. From the perspective of international law, they are not borders.

Jordan's sovereign claims to the West Bank were not recognized by the international community.

The next important legal document is UN Security Resolution 242 at the end of the 1967 war. (While it is a Chapter 6 resolution, Kontotovich noted that it was referred to in some Chapter 7 resolutions, meaning it might have the strength of the stronger Chapter 7 resolutions itself with respect to international law.) He discussed the famous missing "the" from the phrase "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict" and noted that this was done deliberately to make the resolution purposefully ambiguous as to whether Israel must withdraw from all the territories. He noted that in the end, when Israel relinquished the Sinai and later Gaza, Israel had withdrawn from some 99% of the territories, so it cannot be accused of violating the spirit of the resolution.

He also noted that the legality of Israel's annexation of the Golan Heights is a completely different topic from a legal perspective, and he did not get into it.

Kontorovich said that there is a big question in international law about whether one can legally acquire territory via conquest in a defensive war. He looked up five sources written before 1967 on the question; 2 said yes, 2 said no and one didn't think about it. In the case of the 1967 war, as with many things about Israel, the legal issues are completely unique and anyone saying that international law says something definitively on something that never happened before is generally not to be trusted. (I asked him whether the preamble of 242 meant that the UN considered the war not to be defensive; he answered that besides the fact that preambles are not part of the law, it would not make sense to interpret it that way because in that case Jordan also couldn't lay claim on it. He concluded that it was placed there in order to encourage the parties to come up with a negotiated border, as 242 states, and not a border created by conquest.)

The next legally important event for determining Israel's borders was the 1993 Oslo Accords. This is where Israel is relinquishing part of its occupied land (he noted that from Israel's perspective the land is occupied since it was not annexed, although it is legally occupied) to give to an ultimate Palestinian Arab entity.

Here is where he said something new.

In Professor Kontorovich's opinion, at some time after Oslo, Palestine became a state under international law.

The definition of a state is given by the Montevideo Convention. I had argued, and so had others, that "Palestine" does not constitute a state under its definition:

The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.

Kontorovich didn't get into the issue of Gaza, which may seem to be a problem since it has a different government, but he argues that since Area A is unquestionably part of what is claimed to be Palestine, that West Bank entity is undoubtedly a state. Having defined territory is not the same as having defined borders, and "Palestine" has st least some territory that it can call its own.

Therefore, the professor says, the entire issue nowadays between Israel and the Palestinian Arab state is not an issue of occupation or legality - it is simply a border dispute that must be resolved the way all border disputes are resolved (or not.)

One other point, not dwelled on in his slides, is that the Fourth Geneva Conventions article 49 on transferring people to occupied territory does not apply because in Israel's case the people moved there voluntarily, and Geneva implies government organized mass transfers.

It was a very interesting and thought provoking talk, and I spoke to him afterwards; he's a really nice guy. He's doing a fellowship in Princeton now but he is based out of Northwestern University.

If you want to hear him talk, here are some upcoming presentations he is making:

Cherry Hill, NJ on Feb. 12, One State, Two State, Three State, Four: The PA Bid for UN Recognition, sponsored by the RJC Southern New Jersey Chapter:

Princeton, NJ Feb. 12: International Lawfare, BDS. and the Delegitimization of Israel, sponsored by Advocates for Israel.

University of Florida Law School, Feb 15 at 12:15, Disputing Occupation: Israel's Borders in International Law

East Windsor, NJ March 28th: Say It Enough, it Still Isn't True: Illegal Occupation, Settlement, and Apartheid, sponsored (and hosted) by Beth El synagogue and Speak Up for Israel.

The deceptions of the BDS movement (Avishai Don)

Here is an excellent op-ed in the Harvard Crimson by Avishai Don:

Next weekend, the University of Pennsylvania will host the second national BDS conference, an event that will advocate for the “growing global campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction (BDS) the State of Israel.” Last April, Omar Barghouti, a leader and spokesperson of this campaign, spoke at Harvard. He insisted that anyone wanting to learn more about the fundamental tenets of BDS should read his recently released book, aptly titled “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.”

So I followed his advice—I bought a copy of Barghouti’s book and read it from cover to cover. He writes some things in this work about the aims of BDS that lead me to believe that the movement is being far from forthright about its ultimate goals.

The Penn conference states that the purpose of the global BDS campaign is to isolate Israel economically “until it complies with its obligations under international and human rights law.” Understanding this to mean ending the Israeli occupation and fostering a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, a number of Zionists—that is, individuals who believe in the Jewish state’s right to exist—have either joined the BDS Call or implicitly sanctioned it. Two years ago in the Los Angeles Times, for example, an Israeli professor insisted that he supports BDS because it is “the only way to save his country.” Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization composed of both “Zionists [and] anti-Zionists,” considers itself “proud to be a part of the BDS movement.” Last year, J Street, an American liberal Zionist organization, held a panel at their national conference on the efficacy of this movement’s tactics “as a means to end the occupation.” Although J Street does not endorse the BDS movement, J Street’s presidentdescribes it in his book as a group of “activists who seek to raise pressure…against Israel to end the occupation.”

Clearly, these individuals have not read Barghouti’s work.

“A few Israeli and international activists have a tendency to make the [BDS] struggle Israel-centric, arguing that ending the occupation is good for Israel, above everything else,” Barghouti writes. “We totally reject that ‘save Israeli apartheid’ view.” He goes on to say that although BDS should coalesce with diverse political forces, “caution should be exercised in alliances with ‘soft’ Zionists, lest they assume the leadership of the BDS movement in the West, lowering the ceiling of its demands beyond recognition.”

So what, then, are BDS’s demands? Although Barghouti insists that BDS is neutral on the debate about a one-state versus two-state solution, even a cursory glance at Barghouti’s book reveals that this movement considers the existence of a Jewish state in the region patently unacceptable. For example, Barghouti explains that his movement cannot ally with Israeli peace groups, because even “the most radical Israeli ‘Zionist-left’ figures and groups are still Zionist, adhering to the racist principles of Zionism” that “maintain Israel’s character as a colonial, ethnocentric, apartheid state,” which BDS seeks to dismantle.

If the BDS movement were more open about its aims to purge the Jewish state from the Middle East—rather than just end some of its policies—I could have written an op-ed decrying the movement for its distortion of international law rather than its duplicity. I could have asked, for example, how the movement could possibly believe that a liberal democracy cannot have an ethnic identity when democracies across Eastern Europe—including members of the European Union like Finland, Slovenia and Germany—explicitly privilege one ethnicity over others in areas like immigration and culture. I could have also noted how odd it is that the movement vocally opposes the ethnic nature of the Jewish state, yet says nothing about the myriad Arab states that surround it.

But the BDS movement hides its ultimate goal of dismantling the Jewish state behind its public rhetoric. As a result, it has co-opted numerous individuals—and quite possibly donors—who desire to see both a Jewish and Palestinian state flourish into supporting its campaign. Although some members of the movement might actually support the Jewish state’s continued existence, as Barghouti makes abundantly clear, the Palestinian BDS National Committee—the “reference and guiding force for the global BDS movement”—cannot do so under any circumstances.

So because this movement will not broadcast its ultimate aims loud enough, I will do it for them. If you support the BDS movement, you are supporting an organization that is actively working to undermine the Jewish state. Utilizing the vocabulary of international norms, the movement actually systematically attempts to undermine the international consensus that recognizes Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. And if you support this right—regardless of your politics, regardless of your stance on the occupation, and regardless of your feelings towards the current Israeli right-wing government—then there is only one moral option. Boycott the BDS movement.

Hackers apologize for taking down Ha'aretz website

Yesterday, the Ha'aretz Hebrew website (and maybe the English one as well) was taken down by a denial of service attack in the tit-for-tat attacks that anti-Israel and pro-Israeli hacker groups have been launching.

The group AnonPS that claimed the attack, and tweeted:

@AnonPSFree Anonymous

haaretz.co.il Tango Down :) #Palestine #anonymous #Israel

I tweeted in response:

Pro-Palestinian hackers aren't too bright if their target is Haaretz: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/pro-palestinian-hackers-bring-down-haaretz-hebrew-website-1.409198

Apparently, the hackers ended up agreeing with me! They apologized:

@haaretzprint we are sorry , we didn't know that haaretz is a good newspaper,we sorry about this , and be sure no one will attack u again .

Nice to know that Israel haters know who their friends are!

Meanwhile, the anti-Israel hackers attacked a couple of Israeli hospital websites. So moral!

In case you don't know, it takes zero skill to perform a denial of service attack. It is the cyber equivalent of having a hundred phones calling up the same phone number over and over again so that legitimate callers get busy signals. Calling this a "cyber war" is absurd; it is cyber-graffiti at worst.

(h/t Honest Reporting media cheat sheet)