Latest peaceful PalArab poll

Highlights from the latest PSR public opinion poll in the territories show that both West Bank and Gaza Arabs think that their governments are corrupt, that there is only some or no press freedom, and an overwhelming majority say that they cannot criticize their respective governments without fear.

5)	Do you think that there is corruption in PA institutions under the control of President Abu Mazin?
	1) Yes	72.9%	73.1%	72.6%
	2) No	17.7%	15.8%	20.7%
	3) DK-NA	9.4%	11.1%	6.7%
		Total	West Bank	Gaza Strip
6)	Do you think that there is corruption in PA institutions under the control of the dismissed government in the Gaza Strip
	1) Yes	61.6%	57.3%	68.7%
	2) No	21.2%	19.3%	24.3%
	3) DK-NA	17.2%	23.5%	7.0%
		Total	West Bank	Gaza Strip
7)	In your view, is there a press freedom in the West Bank?
	1) Yes	23.0%	23.3%	22.5%
	2) To some extent	43.1%	40.0%	48.3%
	3) No	30.6%	33.0%	26.7%
	4) DK-NA	3.3%	3.7%	2.5%
		Total	West Bank	Gaza Strip
8)	In your view, is there a press freedom in the Gaza Strip?
	1) Yes	16.2%	16.5%	15.8%
	2) To some extent	33.8%	30.9%	38.6%
	3) No	40.4%	38.9%	43.0%
	4) DK-NA	9.5%	13.7%	2.6%
		Total	West Bank	Gaza Strip
9)	In your view, can people in the West Bank today criticize the authority without fear?
	1) Yes	30.2%	33.7%	24.5%
	2) No	66.0%	63.5%	70.0%
	3) DK-NA	3.8%	2.8%	5.4%
		Total	West Bank	Gaza Strip
10)	In your view, can people in the Gaza Strip today criticize the authority without fear?
	1) Yes	21.9%	25.2%	16.6%
	2) No	67.5%	60.5%	78.9%
	3) DK-NA	10.6%	14.3%	4.5%
		Total	West Bank	Gaza Strip

Other highlights:

72.6% said that the "right to return" (i.e., the destruction of Israel) is either the top or the second most important national goal.

In answer to the question "If you think there are other options to solve the financial crisis confronting the PA, which of the following you would choose?" 52$ say "Return to negotiations in order to obtain greater donor support" (i.e., get more free money from the West by pretending to want peace) and 27% said "Dissolve the PA."

Here's where years of propaganda pays off: 62% said Israel's long term plans are "Extending the borders of the state of Israel to cover all the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea and expelling its Arab citizens." 21% more said that Israel plans to annex the entire West Bank and keep the Arabs without any rights.

39% of all Palestinian Arabs, and 55% of Gazans, support a return to "armed resistance" (i.e., terrorism.)

47.5% of all Palestinian Arabs, and 62% of Gazans, support "armed attacks against Israeli civilians inside Israel."

(h.t Andreas)

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A victory over lawfare

From NGO Monitor:

In a key defeat for NGO “lawfare” in the Arab-Israeli conflict, the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) today decided that it does not have jurisdiction to begin an investigation over cases related to the 2008-09 Gaza War because “Palestine” is not a state. In January 2009, the Palestinian Authority (PA) filed a letter with the Court, purporting to accept the ICC’s jurisdiction in order to bring war crimes cases against Israeli officials, notes Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor, which was involved in the case from the outset.

“Throughout this process, the ICC – created to punish the worst perpetrators of war crimes and mass murder – was exploited by several EU- and European-government funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs), which intensively lobbied the OTP as part of their campaign to attack the legitimacy of the State of Israel,” says Anne Herzberg, legal advisor for NGO Monitor. “The NGOs Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, Al Haq, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l´Homme (FIDH), and Adalah campaigned at the ICC in support of the Palestinian Authority’s political goals. This clearly was contradictory to the spirit and substance of peace negotiations.”

On behalf of NGO Monitor, Herzberg submitted a legal brief on the case. The brief argued that the ICC’s jurisdiction is defined by the 1998 Rome Statute, which makes clear that only states can accept the Court’s jurisdiction. The Statute was adopted after years of careful diplomatic negotiations, and allowing the PA to fall under the Court’s jurisdiction would have essentially amounted to a re-writing of the Statute.  In addition, the brief argued that, contrary to claims by NGO proponents of the PA initiative, the ICC was not established as a court of universal jurisdiction, and NGO attempts to transform it into such would be legally improper. The OTP used similar arguments to support its decision.

“The fact that the case even proceeded this far was clear legal overreaching, but it shows the strength of NGOs that lead the de-legitimization and demonization campaigns against Israel,” adds Herzberg.  “The OTP’s decision today is a strong rebuke to these NGOs, their political agenda, and their campaign to isolate Israel from the international community,” notes Herzberg. “International arenas are routinely hijacked for political purposes, but today’s decision was markedly different.”
 

The original paperwork for this was filed over three years ago by the PA. It is amazing that it took three years for the ICC to determine the obvious fact that the PA does not represent a state. It is unfortunately not amazing that so many "human rights" organizations supported this attempt at lawfare.

NGO Monitor was not the only organization that submitted a paper opposing this instance of lawfare.  The European Center for Law and Justice filed a couple, including an answer to Al Haq's submission, as did Dore Gold, a group of American legal scholars, an association of Jewish lawyers, and others.

It appears that the anti-Israel groups were arguing that Palestine is a state and therefore any Israeli actions on its territory can be prosecuted by Palestine; if Palestine wishes it can give that authority to the ICC. Since they clearly cannot prosecute Israelis in Palestinian Arab courts, this is obviously a big stretch.

One point that still seems problematic is this paragraph from the ICC in an earlier letter to the UNHRC:

In accordance with Article 12 (2) (b) of the Statute, the Court may exercise its jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed by nationals of a State Party to the Statute. In this regard, South African lawyers have communicated to the Office information on alleged crimes committed in Gaza by individuals possessing South African nationality.

Does that mean that people can dual-citizens of Israel can be prosecuted by the ICC at the request of their other countries? I think it would have to be from a request from the nation itself, but that seems like something that people who wage lawfare would try to use next.

(Usual disclaimer - I am not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV.)

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Hamas claims great influence at WB Bir Zeit University

Hamas' Palestine Times newspaper has a photo essay and article bragging about how Hamas is making early gains in the campaigns for student leadership at Bir Zeit University, near Ramallah.

According to the article, for the last three semesters Fatah did not allow Hamas to run in these student elections, but now Hamas is back and doing well.  It notes that Hamas' green flag can now be seen all over the university.

Hamas caption: "Foreheads bowed to Allah, God willing, will not be defeated"

These are the best and the brightest of Palestinian Arab youth - university educated and dedicated to a genocidal death cult. 

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Abbas: New threats and old lies

From YNet:

The Palestinians plan to send [a letter to] Netanyahu next week which specifies the Palestinian Authority's conditions for jumpstarting the peace negotiations.

According to Abbas, the letter states that if Israel is not willing to return to the negotiating table, the Palestinian Authority will file a complaint with international bodies.

"Israel must accept international legitimacy and stop construction in the settlements," Abbas said in Cairo.

He said that in the letter, the PA leadership wrote to Netanyahu: "You have made the PA a non-authority. You have taken away from the PA all its commitments and what it was doing and supervising. Now we have been left with nothing."

Um, I forgot, who is refusing to go to the negotiating table again?

I also love "now we have been left with nothing." If Abbas had nothing, then he would have dissolved the government by now, or he would have pushed harder for "unity" with Hamas and elections.

In the end, the entire reason that Hamas and Fatah have kept their distance is the same reason they have been trying to keep things reasonably quiet with Israel. Both of them have something to lose.

Both the PA and Hamas are arresting members of the other camp, arresting journalists and others who say anything negative about them, and in general acting like dictators who will hold onto power for as long as they can.

And, as I've noted numerous times, Abbas himself has said "In the West Bank we have a good reality...the people are living a normal life." He only cries about how desperate he is when it suits him, but when it is politically expedient to say things are fine and time is on his side, he'll say that as well.

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Merah's lawyer says he was innocent; Jihadi forum says he was pious jihadist

What do you get when you cross a Jihadist sympathizer with a lawyer? You get a really bad liar:

An Algerian lawyer said Monday that she has evidence that the young man accused of killing seven people in attacks on French soldiers and a Jewish school claimed his innocence to police.

Mohamed Merah, 23, was killed after a more than 30-hour standoff with authorities, who have said that during negotiations he confessed to the killing spree in southwestern France and refused to surrender peacefully.

But Zahia Mokhtari, a lawyer for Merah's Algerian father, told BFM television on Monday that she had two identical videos of Merah that contradict the police narrative.

"In these videos, he says, 'I am innocent. Why are you killing me? I didn't do anything,'" she said.

Mokhtari would not detail how she got the videos, saying she would reveal more on their origin once she files a lawsuit in French courts against the elite police force, RAID, that killed Merah.

In case you have only short-term memory, the AP article helpfully reminds us:

A police official with knowledge of the investigation cast doubt on her claims Monday, noting that Merah led police to evidence that proved he was the perpetrator.

Prosecutors say Merah spoke at length with negotiators from the RAID force throughout the long standoff last month while he was holed up in a Toulouse apartment.

During these conversations, authorities say, Merah told them where to find a video he took of the crime spree. Al-Jazeera television has said it received a copy of the video, which shows the deaths of three paratroopers, three Jewish children and a rabbi from the killer's point of view.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of police rules, added that Merah had toyed with police during the standoff, initially agreeing to surrender but later vowing to "die with his weapons in his hands."

Tipster Samson notes that the lawyer, Zahia Mokhtari, resembled both Death in Bergman's "The Seventh Seal" as well as Igor in Mel Brooks' "Young Frankenstein."

In related news, MEMRI translates a posting in a jihadi forum that claims that, contrary to news reports, Merah was a pious Muslim and dedicated jihadist:

In the post, Abu Al-Qa'qa' gives details about Merah's travels to Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he allegedly heard from Merah himself. He strongly rejects the Western media's claims that Merah was a disturbed young man, describing him as a pious Muslim and praising his technological skills and his eagerness in training to be a mujahid. He adds that Merah was supposed to carry out a suicide bombing in Afghanistan, but that his plan was abandoned for reasons he is not at liberty to disclose.

According to Abu Al-Qa'qa', Muhammad Merah made two trips to the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. The first time, he traveled to Afghanistan through Egypt, Syria, the Palestinian Territories, Iraq and Tajikistan, but was arrested before he could join a jihad group. The second time he managed to obtain a visa to Pakistan, and while there, met with Taliban members who introduced him to Jund Al-Khilafa.

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