Latest BDS joke

Let's say an international security company operates in such human-rights abusing states as Pakistan, China, Yemen, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

Would you be upset if that company provides security for the London Olympics?

Apparently not. No one has said a word about that.

But if that same company does work in Israel, then it must be boycotted!

From Al Arabiya:

In the upcoming next week session of the British parliament, the government will be grilled over its decision to allow a firm suspected of human rights abuses in Palestinian territories to provide security services for the London 2012 Olympic Games.

G4S, chosen as “official provider of security and cash services for the Olympics,” also operates in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The company, which describes itself as the “world’s leading international security solutions group” and as the “official provider of security and cash services for the Olympics,” has already taken on 10,400 new employees for the 2012 Games, the Independent reported on Thursday.

The parliament, however, will be quizzed by prominent businessman and Labor peer Lord Hollick, after he files a written question on Monday, on the steps the parliament has taken to ensure that G4S is not providing security services in illegal settlements in the West Bank.

Because Israel is uniquely horrid among all the states G4S operate in!

How much more proof do you need to see that BDS is motivated by anti-semitism, pure and simple? Only the Jewish state gets singled out as being the reason to attack this huge multinational security company that does work in scores of nations worldwide.  G4S also does work with the EU, most Scandinavian states, the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Belgium, and pretty much every major nation. And pretty much every Arab state as well, none of whom are boycotting it!

BDSers pretended to have gained a victory when the EU decided to change security companies at its parliament last year away fro G4S, in a move that was not in any way prompted by BDSers.

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Best EoZ posts of the past week

Here's a rundown of my best posts for last week, in no particular order:

Arab political cartoons on the eve of war, 1967
"The people of Jordan do not accept Jews entering their homeland"
Hilarious boycott of Israeli goods by tiny cafe in Olympia (updated)
Debunking the "Bride is beautiful, but she is married to another man" myth
Arabs are very nice to their refugees - unless they happen to be Palestinian
The Guardian publishes Hamas lies
A Palestinian Arab myth disproven yet again
Gaza power plant shuts down again, and no one can explain why
How things were when we had those wonderful "1967 lines"

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Short story for the weekend: Shtetl Days

Last week I posted a delightful science fiction story with a Jewish theme.

This week, quite by accident, I stumbled onto another - really, a dystopian alternate history - called Shtetl Days, by Harry Turtledove.

It is too long to post the entire story - 34 pages printed - but here is part of it:

Jakub Shlayfer opened the door and walked outside to go to work. Before he could shut it again, his wife called after him: “Alevai it should be a good day! We really need the gelt!”

“Alevai, Bertha. Omayn,” Jakub agreed. The door was already shut by then, but what difference did that make? It wasn’t as if he didn’t know they were poor. His lean frame, the rough edge on the brim of his broad, black hat, his threadbare long, black coat, and the many patches on his boot soles all told the same story.

But then, how many Jews in Wawolnice weren’t poor? The only one Jakub could think of was Shmuel Grynszpan, the undertaker. His business was as solid and certain as the laws of God. Everybody else’s? Groszy and zlotych always came in too slowly and went out too fast.

He stumped down the unpaved street, skirting puddles. Not all the boot patches were everything they might have been. He didn’t want to get his feet wet. He could have complained to Mottel Cohen, but what was the use? Mottel did what Mottel could do. And it wasn’t as if Wawolnice had—or needed—two cobblers. It you listened to Mottel’s kvetching, the village didn’t need one cobbler often enough.

The watery spring morning promised more than the day was likely to deliver. The sun was out, but clouds to the west warned it was liable to rain some more. Well, it wouldn’t snow again till fall. That was something. Jakub skidded on mud and almost fell. It might be something, but it wasn’t enough.

Two-story houses with steep, wood-shingled roofs crowded the street from both sides and caused it to twist here and turn there. They made it hard for the sun to get down to the street and dry up the mud. More Jews came out of the houses to go to their jobs. The men dressed pretty much like Jakub. Some of the younger ones wore cloth caps instead of broad-brimmed hats. Chasidim, by contrast, had fancy shtreimels, with the brims made from mink.

...

He closed up and locked the door. He’d done some tinkering with the lock. He didn’t think anybody not a locksmith could quietly pick it. Enough brute force, on the other hand . . . Jews in Poland understood all they needed to about brute force, and about who had enough of it. Jakub Shlayfer’s mobile mouth twisted. Polish Jews didn’t, never had, and never would.

He walked home through the gathering gloom. “Stinking Yid!” The shrei in Polish pursued him. His shoulders wanted to sag under its weight, and the weight of a million more like it. He didn’t, he wouldn’t, let them. If the mamzrim saw they’d hurt you, they won. As long as a rock didn’t follow, he was all right. And if one did, he could duck or dodge. He hoped.

No rocks tonight. Candles and kerosene lamps sent dim but warm glows out into the darkness. If you looked at the papers, electricity would come to the village soon. Then again, if you looked at the papers and believed everything you read in them, you were too dumb to live.

Bertha met him at the door. Sheitel, head scarf over it, long black dress . . . She still looked good to him. She greeted him with, “So what were you and Reb Eliezer going on about today?”

“Serpents,” Jakub answered.

“Pilpul.” His wife’s sigh said she’d hoped for better, even if she hadn’t expected it. “I don’t suppose he had any paying business.”

“He didn’t, no,” the grinder admitted.

...

Jakub walked over to the closet door. That the cramped space had room for a closet seemed something not far from miraculous. He wasn’t inclined to complain, though. Oh, no—on the contrary. Neither was Bertha, who came up smiling to stand beside him as he opened the door.

Then they walked into the closet. They could do that now. The day was over. Jakub shoved coats and dresses out of the way. They smelled of wool and old sweat. Bertha flicked a switch as she closed the closet door. A ceiling light came on.

“Thanks, sweetie,” Jakub said. “That helps.”

In back of the clothes stood another door, this one painted battleship gray. In German, large, neatly stenciled black letters on the hidden doorway warned AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. Being an authorized person, Jakub hit the numbers that opened that door. It showed a concrete stairway leading down. The walls to the descending corridor were also pale gray. Blue-tinged light from fluorescent tubes in ceiling fixtures streamed into the closet.

Jakub started down the stairs. Bertha was an authorized person, too. She followed him, pausing only to close the hidden door behind them. A click announced it had locked automatically, as it was designed to do. The grinder and his wife left Wawolnice behind.

Men and women in grimy Jewish costumes and about an equal number dressed as Poles from the time between the War of Humiliation and the triumphant War of Retribution ambled along an underground hallway. They chatted and chattered and laughed, as people who’ve worked together for a long time will at the end of a day.

Arrows on the walls guided them toward their next destination. Explaining the arrows were large words beside them: TO THE SHOWERS. The explanation was about as necessary as a second head, but Germans had a habit of overdesigning things.

Veit Harlan shook himself like a dog that had just scrambled out of a muddy creek. That was how he felt, too. Like any actor worth his salt, he immersed himself in the roles he played. When the curtain came down on another day, he always needed a little while to remember he wasn’t Jakub Shlayfer, a hungry Jew in a Polish village that had vanished from the map more than a hundred years ago.

He wasn’t the only one, either. He would have been amazed if he had been. People heading for the showers to clean up after their latest shift in Wawolnice went right on throwing around the front vowels and extra-harsh gutturals of Yiddish. Only little by little did they start using honest German again.

When they did, the fellow who played Reb Eliezer—his real name was Ferdinand Marian—and a pimply yeshiva-bukher (well, the pimply performer impersonating a young yeshiva-bukher) went right on with whatever disputation Eliezer had found after leaving Jakub’s shop. They went right on throwing Hebrew and Aramaic around, too. And the reb and the kid with zits both kept up a virtuoso display of finger-wagging.

“They’d better watch that,” Veit murmured to the woman who had been Bertha a moment before.

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Arabs are very nice to their refugees - unless they happen to be Palestinian

From Al Jazeera:

Hundreds of Syrians approach the agency daily to register for its services and protection, pushing the total number of registered Syrian refugees in Jordan to over 22,000, the UNHCR in Amman has said.

Andrew Harper, the UN refugee agency's country representative, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that 7,800 Syrian refugees had been registered in May 2012, marking the highest number of registrations in a single month since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government began 14 months ago.

Jordan now has more registered Syrian refugees than Turkey, Harper said.

The UNHCR expects this upward trend to continue with the agency's increased outreach efforts and recent dispatch of a mobile office to the border city of Ramtha.

Harper said that the number of registered refugees is unrepresentative of the total number of Syrians in need, which the government places at 120,000.

According to the UNHCR, around half of the registered refugees come from Homs, which has been pounded by the Syrian government, and just over a fourth originate from Deraa.

Harper maintains that the Jordanian government and people have been exemplary in opening their borders and communities to Syrians.

The UNHCR is trying to mobilise resources from the international community and Gulf Arab countries because it feels Syrians will be staying in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon for some time.

Local communities have absorbed the bulk of the burden and challenges that hosting Syrians poses for Jordan.

Syrians and Jordanians have connections and family ties and that is why community-based efforts to assist Syrians in Jordan have been extraordinary.

Sheikh Omar al-Zoubi, a Jordanian from the border town of Ramtha, has taken it upon himself to collect donations to fund the treatment of injured Syrian refugees who cross over.

He says people’s contributions have been exemplary. He mentions that he once managed to collect $17,000 in one day to pay a hospital bill for one Syrian patient.

Zoubi, a devout Muslim, says the volunteers and donors he works with do not belong to a certain group or political party, but are rather helping Syrians out of a religious motive.

He said “we collect donations to rent homes for them and treat them and we ask Allah to bring them victory and to get rid of their country’s tyrant".

Zoubi says Saudi and Qatari individuals have been approaching him to donate money to Syrians in Jordan.

Arabs are known for their hospitality and taking care of their own. The commendable efforts being made to take care of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees are not anomalous - Syria alone absorbed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees during the Gulf War. There have been other major population movements within the Arab world during times of war.

Although not an exact analogy, the difference between how Arabs are treating Syrian refugees in 2012 and how they have treated Palestinian Arab refugees from 1948 through today  is striking.

Just like today's Syrians, most of the 1948 Palestinian Arabs fled the fighting our of fear. Just like today's Syrians, one reason they left their homes was because they felt that life would be better for them in a friendly neighboring Arab country.

But Palestinian Arab refugees are treated differently.

One reason is because Israel's victory in 1948 shamed the Arabs so much that they didn't want to be reminded of their military loss to the weak Jews, and every Palestinian Arab was an human symbol of Arab defeat.

Another was that the Arabs blamed the West for Israel's existence and for the refugee plight. An oft-repeated Arab saying at the time was that the refugees were created by the UN with its partition resolution, so the UN should take care of them. They didn't want to take responsibility so they refused, and the West had no option but to step in or risk the deaths of thousands. Arabs didn't care. This is why the amount of money given to UNRWA from Arab states remains a mere pittance even today.

A third reason could be seen from another recent refugee population. During the Gulf war, Syria and other Arab nations were happy to accept Iraqi refugees - except for those of Palestinian lineage. They kept those thousands of Iraqi Palestinian refugees in horrible camps on the border between Syria and Iraq, and it took a couple of years for UNHCR to find them countries to move to, mostly in the West. Not only that, but Arabs publicly and bitterly complained at UNHCR's efforts to find them new homes and to make them lose their refugee status! They felt that for every refugee to be resettled in the West, that was one less who might identify as "Palestinian" and one less who would eventually help destroy Israel.

The Arabs might be charitable towards their own, but their desire to destroy Israel is much, much stronger. And every single "refugee" is worth more in the additional pressure he or she seems to add to eventually achieving that goal.

And if you don't believe this - then explain why Jordan wantis to segregate Syrian Palestinian refugees from other Syrian refugees, and stop them from coming into Jordan proper?

It is heartwarming to see extensive Arab efforts to help Syrian refugees, but it also shows by contrast how awful the Arab world continues to treat Palestinians.

(h/t Yoel)

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Friday links (Ian)

Six Day War anniversary coverage
The IDF Liberates Jerusalem: A Look Back - Video

The capture of Jerusalem, as never seen before
First part of a day by day series from CifWatch with videos.
The Six Day War Day One

Ukrainian Teens Arrested For Damaging Holocaust Memorial

'Dress like an Orthodox Jew' restaurant in Euro 2012 city Lviv, Ukraine
"Dr Zuroff said that the restaurant gives guests hats with peyot attached when they arrive, and avoids citing prices on the menu so that people have to "haggle" on payment.
At another restaurant, "Kryvika", customers are welcomed into a room that is reminiscent of a Nazi-era bunker, after greeting waiters with the password "Glory to the Ukraine."

Peddler of borderline anti-Semitism and fierce critic of Israel made several visits to White House, records show

Wiesenthal Center to YouTube: Take down ‘I love Israel’ video

A “Pinkwashing” roundup
The Crazy Lie of "Pinkwashing" and the Liberal Case for Israel

Exposing Queers against Israeli Apartheid – Video
“Martin Gladstone sits down with Michael Coren to discuss his documentary on Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, a fringe group causing a stir in both gay and Jewish communities alike.”
The website for the doco
Reclaiming Our Pride

---

Also, (not from Ian,) The Palestinian Money Pit at Aish.

Is Assad using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians?

The real "spring" is not Arab

(h/t Yoel)

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Sexual assaults on women in Tahrir Square increasing

Today there is a mass demonstration of thousands in Tahrir Square in Cairo against what many Egyptians felt was a light sentence for Hosni Mubarak in his trial.

The women in the protest better watch out.

From AP:

Her screams were not drowned out by the clamor of the crazed mob of nearly 200 men around her.

An endless number of hands reached toward the woman in the red shirt in an assault scene that lasted less than 15 minutes but felt more like an hour.

She was pushed by the sea of men for about a block into a side street from Tahrir Square. Many of the men were trying to break up the frenzy, but it was impossible to tell who was helping and who was assaulting.

Pushed against the wall, the unknown woman's head finally disappeared. Her screams grew fainter, then stopped. Her slender tall frame had clearly given way. She apparently had passed out. The helping hands finally splashed the attackers with bottles of water to chase them away.

The assault late Tuesday was witnessed by an Associated Press reporter who was almost overwhelmed by the crowd herself and had to be pulled to safety by men who ferried her out of the melee in an open Jeep.

Reports of assaults on women in Tahrir, the epicentre of the uprising that forced Hosni Mubarak to step down last year, have been on the rise with a new round of mass protests to denounce a mixed verdict against the ousted leader and his sons in a trial last week.

No official numbers exist for attacks on women in the square because police do not go near the area, and women rarely report such incidents.

But activists and protesters have reported a number of particularly violent assaults on women in the past week. Many suspect such assaults are organised by opponents of the protests to weaken the spirit of the protesters and drive people away.

Mahmoud said two of his female friends were cornered Monday and pushed into a small passageway by a group of men in the same area where the woman in the red shirt was assaulted.

One was groped while the other was seriously assaulted, Mahmoud said, refusing to divulge specifics other than to insist she wasn't raped.

Mona Seif, a well-known activist who has been trying to promote awareness about the problem, said Wednesday she was told about three different incidents in the past five days, including two that were violent.

In one incident, the attackers ripped the woman's clothes off and trampled on her companions, she said.

Women, who participated in the 18-day uprising that ended with Mubarak's 11 February 2011 ouster as leading activists, protesters, medics and even fighters to ward off attacks by security agents or affiliated thugs on Tahrir, have found themselves facing the same groping and assaults that have long plagued Egypt's streets during subsequent protests in the square.

Women also have been targeted in recent crackdowns on protesters by military and security troops, a practice commonly used by Mubarak security that grew even more aggressive in the days following his ouster.

In a defining image of the post-Mubarak state violence against women, troops were captured on video stomping with their boots on the bare chest of a woman, with only her blue bra showing, as other troops pulled her by the arms across the ground.

A 2008 report by the Egyptian Center for Women's Rights says two-thirds of women in Egypt experienced sexual harassment on a daily basis.

It isn't only political protests that  have men attacking women. They do it on religious holidays, too.

And if you think that women who cover their bodies and hair are less likely to be attacked, think again.

The article does say that some Egyptians are fed up, and organizing patrols to protect women in Tahrir Square.

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The silence Abbas wants you to hear (Lori Lowenthal Marcus)

From The Algemeiner, by Lori Lowenthal Marcus:

...Under the Palestinian Authority’s Penal Code, a holdover from when Jordan illegally occupied the territories, defamation suspects can be arrested and held in detention for up to six months before they are charged with a crime. Esmat Abdul-Khalik, an al Quds University lecturer and single mother of two, was arrested in late March and held in solitary confinement and denied the possibility of any visits because someone else criticized PA President Mahmoud Abbas on her Facebook page, calling him a traitor and suggesting he resign. Abdul-Khalik is not the only Arab arrested recently for Facebook page activity, at least three others have recently been picked up for daring to criticize members of the government.

In September, the director of Radio Bethlehem 2000, George Canawati, was arrested for posting on his Facebook page criticism of the Bethlehem Health Department. Last month the PA judicial and executive authorities determined Canawati will be tried for defamation – a crime punishable by up to two years in prison – in the Magistrate Court of Bethlehem City. The trial was recently adjourned until September.

Altogether, nine journalists have been arrested in recent weeks for exposing corruption or making critical remarks about the PA leadership on Facebook, and many others have been summoned for interrogation. When Facebook postings expose government critics to censure, you can be sure that no one will risk filing bona fide media reports about the topic.

But just as frightening as Arab Palestinian bloggers and journalists being arrested for posting on their Facebook pages is the steady drumbeat of pressure that is leading to a decrease in coverage by western journalists who, presumably, are not as vulnerable to the capricious selections for punishment designed to suppress criticism of the ruling regime.

In addition to whispered discussions being heard in Ramallah about the “Facebook Police” are the directives issued to western journalists to focus their reporting on “Israel’s ‘occupation’” and refrain from prying into alleged corruption committed by PA officials, because “nothing else is newsworthy and nothing else should be reported.”

Some western journalists have been warned not to work with Arabic speaking reporters who fail to toe the “All-Occupation, All The Time” reporting. This is how the PA controls not only their own media outlets, but those western outlets. All too many simply play along rather than stand up for press and speech freedoms and possibly risk losing access.

...Khaled abu Toameh finds that the path he took away from censorship seems to have doubled back on itself. Rather than walking firmly on the precious path of western iconic freedoms of an unfettered press and uncensored speech, abu Toameh is finding that that road is rotting out beneath his feet. This rare truth-telling journalist is finding it increasingly harder to report the corruption and lack of freedoms in the PA, and as a result our news world is becoming a quieter, but certainly not a better, place. On his own Facebook Page abu Toameh posted this silent cri de coeur: “A campaign of intimidation, harassment, pressure, threats and boycotts has made it impossible for an Arab journalist to work in the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories.”

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The Guardian publishes Hamas lies

Once again, Hamas is given a platform to spew nice sounding words in English - this time by Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniyeh:

We as a people want to live in our homeland, the land of our ancestors, in freedom, dignity and democracy, and with a just peace that restores our rights. We do not want to attack anyone and do not accept anyone attacking us. As we have said on more than one occasion, the key to security is the end of occupation....I would like to reiterate on behalf of my people our sincere desire to live in security and stability, without wars and bloodshed; we hope that the world will help us in this venture. We extend our hand to all those who seek a just peace to work seriously to end the occupation and help us establish our state, which the world has already recognised....We do not want more blood.

The first deception for the English-language audience is the definition of "occupation." According to Hamas, all of Israel is on occupied territory, as I have proven a number of times.

Hamas has made it crystal clear that it wants to destroy Israel in stages, as Mahmoud Zahar said on video in 2010:

"We have liberated Gaza, but have we recognized Israel? Have we given up our lands occupied in 1948? We demand the liberation of the West Bank, and the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza, with Jerusalem as its capital – but without recognizing [Israel]. This is the key – without recognizing the Israeli enemy on a single inch of land.

"This is our plan for this stage – to liberate the West Bank and Gaza, without recognizing Israel’s right to a single inch of land, and without giving up the Right of Return for a single Palestinian refugee.

[...]
"Our plan for this stage is to liberate any inch of Palestinian land, and to establish a state on it. Our ultimate plan is [to have] Palestine in its entirety. I say this loud and clear so that nobody will accuse me of employing political tactics. We will not recognize the Israeli enemy. "

Hamas' charter also makes it clear it does not seek a democratic Palestinian Arab state, but a pan-Muslim 'umma where Palestine is swallowed up by a new large Islamic nation. Democracy is not the goal, but a tactic.

Now, as far as Hamas' desire for "peace" and "no bloodshed," here are some recent Hamas statements:

March 30:

Hamas confirmed that the Al-Aqsa Intifada "will continue to be present at the heart of every Arab and Muslim, and that they address the Palestinian issue." and the Islamic movement stressed in a statement that the resistance will continue in all its forms in the liberation of Palestinian land ....Hamas stressed that the intifada "will remain a landmark inspired by the Palestinian people the meanings of resilience, stability, and the challenge against the crimes of the Zionist enemy."

May 16:

The entire [Hamas] Palestinian Legislative Council confirmed that the armed resistance is the only option to restore the rights and Palestinian rights.

Here is the illustration of that article from the Hamas newspaper Palestine Times:

May 26:

Hamas political leader Khaled Meshaal confirmed that resistance is a right for all peoples and every nation, and no nation in history has terminated occupation voluntarily, but it only happens by the use of force.

Even though the Guardian's "Comment is Free" column is meant to showcase a variety of views and opinions, it seems ridiculous that it is meant to be a platform for baldfaced lies.

Yet it is.

UPDATE: Here is my comment in The Guardian:

Do Guardian readers know that when Haniyeh says he wants and "end to occupation" he means an "end to Israel?" Hamas media in Arabic define all of Israel as "occupied" and all Israeli towns as "settlements."

Do Guardian readers know that at the exact same time that Haniyeh claims to not want bloodshed, Hamas leaders are saying the exact opposite? Just in the past month Khaled Meshal and the Hamss legislative council confirmed in very clear terms that "armed resistance" is the ONLY method to "liberate Palestine," and that they praised the suicide bombing spree known as the second intifada.

Do Guardian readers know that only last week Hamas leaders praised suicide bombers and other terrorists, and their media lovingly went over the details of how their "martyrs" blew up innocent Israeli women and children to bits?

Or is it better to ignore everything Hamas says daily in Arabic and believe the baldfaced lies that they say in English to credulous Westerners?

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CNN gives Erekat a pass (Honest Reporting)

From Honest Reporting:

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The Independent notices that Arabs treat Pals like dirt (updated)

You don't see this every day in the mainstream media:

It is a cynical but time-honoured practice in Middle Eastern politics: the statesmen who decry the political and humanitarian crisis of the approximately 3.9 million Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and in Gaza ignore the plight of an estimated 4.6 million Palestinians who live in Arab countries. For decades, Arab governments have justified their decision to maintain millions of stateless Palestinians as refugees in squalid camps as a means of applying pressure to Israel. The refugee problem will be solved, they say, when Israel agrees to let the Palestinians have their own state.

Yet in the two decades since the end of the Cold War, after two Gulf wars, and the rise and fall of the Oslo peace process, not a single Palestinian refugee has returned to Israel – and only a handful of ageing political functionaries have returned from neighbouring Arab countries to the West Bank and Gaza. Instead, failed peace plans and shifting political priorities have resulted in a second Palestinian "Nakba", or catastrophe – this one at hands of the Arab governments. "Marginalised, deprived of basic political and economic rights, trapped in the camps, bereft of realistic prospects, heavily armed and standing atop multiple fault lines," a report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) in Lebanon recently observed, "the refugee population constitutes a time bomb."

The fact that the divided Palestinian political leadership is silent about the mistreatment of the refugees by Arab states does not make such behaviour any less reprehensible – or less dangerous. Some 250,000 Palestinians were chased out of Kuwait and other Gulf States to punish the Palestinian political leadership for supporting Saddam Hussein. Tens of thousands of Palestinian residents of Iraq were similarly dispossessed after the second Gulf war.

In 2001, Palestinians in Lebanon were stripped of the right to own property, or to pass on the property that they already owned to their children – and banned from working as doctors, lawyers, pharmacists or in 20 other professions. Even the Palestinian refugee community in Jordan, historically the most welcoming Arab state, has reason to feel insecure in the face of official threats to revoke their citizenship. The systematic refusal of Arab governments to grant basic human rights to Palestinians who are born and die in their countries – combined with periodic mass expulsions of entire Palestinian communities – recalls the treatment of Jews in medieval Europe. Along with dispossession and marginalisation has come a new and frightening turn away from the traditional forms of nationalism that once dominated the refugee camps towards the radical pan-Islamic ideology of al-Qa'ida.

The comparison to Jews is offensive, of course. The Jews of medieval Europe didn't have the political voice that the Palestinian Arabs enjoy; they didn't have the ability to turn international pressure on their enemies at will, and they didn't have an international agency with billions of dollars at their disposal to help them out and provide a security blanket no matter what they did.

...
The inclusion of the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees in UNRWA's mandate has no parallel in international humanitarian law and is responsible for the growth of the official numbers of Palestinian refugees in foreign countries from 711,000 to 4.6 million during decades when the number of ageing refugees from the 1948 Israeli war of independence in was in fact declining. UNRWA's grant of refugee status to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees according to the principle of patrilineal descent, with no limit on the generations that can obtain refugee status, has made it easy for host countries to flout their obligations under international law. According to Article 34 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, "The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees," and must "make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings" – the opposite of what happened to the Palestinians in every Arab country in which they settled, save Jordan. For all the easy criticism that can be levelled at UNRWA, it is hard to see how many Palestinian refugees would have survived without the agency's help.

...
After 60 years of failed wars, and failed peace, it is time to put politics aside and to insist that the basic rights of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries be respected – whether or not their children's children return to Haifa anytime soon. While Saudi Arabia may not wish to host Israeli tourists, it can easily afford to integrate the estimated 240,000 Palestinian refugees who already live in the kingdom – just as Egypt, which has received close to $60bn in US aid, and has a population of 81 million, can grant legal rights to an estimated 70,000 Palestinian refugees and their descendants. One can only imagine the outrage that the world community would rightly visit upon Israel if Israeli Arabs were subject to the vile discriminatory laws applied to Palestinians living in Arab countries. Surely, Palestinian Arabs can keep their own national dream alive in the countries where they were born, while also enjoying the freedom to work, vote and own property?

A practical solution to the crisis of the Palestinian refugees in Arab countries will focus on Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, which together play host to approximately 3 million of the estimated 4.6 million Palestinian refugees living outside the West Bank and Gaza. While each of these countries has chosen different legal and political approaches to the 1948 refugees and their descendants, they share a political desire to sublimate the rights of Palestinian residents, treating them as unwanted guests or as tools to be used in pursuing wider political interests – but rarely as fully-fledged members of society. Lebanon, where Palestinians led by Yasser Arafat are widely blamed for having sparked the 1975 civil war, is the worst offender against international norms. Yet even in Jordan, which is in many ways a model for the humane treatment of a large refugee population, Palestinians today feel markedly less secure than they did two decades ago, or even five years ago.

...The fact that the living standard of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon has been deemed "catastrophic" by both UNRWA and by the Lebanese government can therefore be understood as a deliberate result of official state policy that is supported by all parties across Lebanon's divided confessional spectrum. As a member of the Lebanese parliament, Ghassan Moukheiber, explained in an interview with the ICG, "our official policy is to maintain Palestinians in a vulnerable, precarious situation to diminish prospects for their naturalisation or permanent settlement".


...For many of these refugees at the bottom of Jordan's social and economic pecking order, life without papers means hiding from the police who constantly patrol their camp's streets, being too poor to send any of your eight to 10 children to college, a lifetime of menial labour, and only a threadbare dream of returning to a homeland that most of them have never seen. There is strong suspicion of the state, but also of their neighbours, who are divided into "'48 people" and "'67 people". "Some of the newcomers would give away Al Aqsa for a Jordanian identity card," says Heba, a mother of eight, mentioning Islam's celebrated mosque in Jerusalem, one of its holiest shrines.

"We're Jordanians," says her son, Mustapha, a slender, 20-year-old in a bright orange T-shirt emblazoned with meaningless words in unknown languages. "This is the best place in the world," he says, pointing around the bare living room whose worn rugs and threadbare pillows cover the floor on which he and all his siblings sleep. "We would never leave here. But I'm loyal to my country, and I would like to visit it one day."

He seems perplexed when asked which is his country – Jordan or Palestine. "We have no security here, but we are Jordanians," replies Mustapha, who lounges on a mattress in a two-storey cement house down the road while one of his five daughters offers tiny glasses of steaming herbal tea and cardamom-scented coffee. "Everything I have is here. This house. My car. My job. What would I have in Nablus or Be'ersheba?" he declares. "My children know nothing but Jordan. And we will stay here."

That determination, echoed repeatedly through the dilapidated cement homes that line Baqa'a's gravelly streets and dust-filled shops, is precisely what terrifies Jordan's East Bank establishment. Jordanians have reason to fear their Palestinian guests. Many Jordanians have not forgotten "Black September", the civil war launched by Arafat's Fatah organisation in 1970 which nearly toppled King Hussein's kingdom.

Read the whole thing.

I don't know how long the authors worked on this article, but I would suspect that it would never have seen the light of day had not American senators brought up the issue of redefining Palestinian Arab refugees. That is all it takes to allow the world to start seeing the truth, or at least being informed about basic facts of the Middle East that have been suppressed - overtly or covertly - by so many for so long for their own selfish political purposes.

(h/t @avimayer)

UPDATE: I didn't realize that this article was from October, 2009. (h/t Brad)

More embarrassingly -  I had blogged it then.

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How things were when we had those wonderful "1967 lines"

Today is the 45th anniversary of the liberation of Jerusalem from its illegal Jordanian occupation. But to the world, it was the day that Israel started its "illegal occupation" of part of the city.

Here's an article from December 1959, from Elmore Philpott of the Vancouver Sun, describing Jerusalem, in those wonderful days before it was "occupied":

This is the "status quo" that lasted for a mere 19 years that the entire world wants things to return to.

Oh, they won't say it - they'll say that there will be continue to be free access to both sides, especially  to the holy places.

Just like the Arabs agreed in 1949.

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Links from Ian, and more links from me

EI (not linked) are whining about Finkelstein’s “broken clock” moment again, this time he’s talked too much about Jews and called BDS a pointless “historically criminal” cult.

The Democracy Now interview. Norman Finkelstein Waning Jewish American Support for Israel Boosts Chances for Middle East Peace

“You read the last sentence of the 2004 International Court of Justice opinion on the wall that Israel has been building in the West Bank, and the last sentence says, "We look forward to two states: a Palestinian state alongside Israel and at peace with its neighbors." That’s the law.
And if you want to go past that law or ignore the Israel part, you’ll never reach a broad public. And then it’s a cult. Then it’s pointless, in my opinion. We’re wasting time. And it’s only a wasting of time. It becomes—and I know it’s a strong word, and I hope I won’t be faulted for it, but it becomes historically criminal, because there was a time where whatever we said, it made no difference.”

The West should condition aid to the Palestinian Authority on cessation of terror-promotion
After two decades of policy failure, is it not about time the West tried a more demanding approach toward the Palestinian Authority?

Most Arabs prefer living in Israel, accept Jewish character of the state

"A full 68.3 percent of Arabs prefer to live in Israel over any other country in the world, according to a survey carried out by Professor Sammy Smooha of the University of Haifa. The survey, held annually, was conducted among a representative sample of 1,400 Israelis, about half of whom were Arabs."

German Government in Hot Water for Supporting Israel’s Right to Exist
Re Israel’s new submarines

"The right-leaning government is being accused of actively participating in Israeli nuclear deterrence, and is being asked to justify its positions. Isn’t it curious that the same parties will not condemn Iran uranium enrichment, even though they are livid about the German civil nuclear program? Or that the socialist party will not speak out about human rights in Iran? It appears that when it comes to politics there is only one easy target everybody can agree on: Israel, and anyone who aids it."

FBI Probes Leaks on Iran Cyberattack
Democrats Join GOP in Condemning Leaks on Military, Intelligence

Israel and pro-Israel forces across the world must think up ways to mitigate the damage should the Hashemite regime fall.

Arafat moneyman gets 15 years for corruption

Two suspects arrested in anti-Semitic attacks in France
New French Socialist Government Does Little about Rising Antisemitic Violence

OECD Israeli technology can alleviate global water crisis

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Also:

Jonathan Shcnzer in FP on Mahmoud Abbas' sons' remarkable business success. I'm sure it's all legit.

A reporter goes undercover as an African migrant in Tel Aviv.

The Netherlands came up with a compromise plan on kosher and halal slaughter that makes everyone happy.

More from Jennifer Rubin on the refugee racket.

A huge treasure trove from Roman times found near Kiryat Gat.

And a 13-year old kid with a yarmulka wows the judges on America's Got Talent.

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A Palestinian Arab myth disproven yet again

Yesterday, another 925 Palestinian Arabs with Egyptian mothers became Egyptian citizens.

This demonstrates yet again that Palestinian Arabs would prefer to be citizens of Arab countries rather than be used as pawns by their leaders promising them "return" to a land most never lived in.

And it proves that all the Arab leaders (and Western NGOs) that declare that "return" is the only solution are acting against the wishes of many or most of the Palestinian people they pretend to care about.

The "human rights" organizations and Arab leaders who do not pressure Arab host nations to naturalize their stateless "guests" are hypocrites when they say they are doing it for Palestinians.

More details from this previous post.

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Did Obama say that Abbas may not want peace?

Yesterday, in YNet, it was reported that in a meeting with Jewish leaders, President Obama said that he feared that the Palestinian Authority was no longer interested in advancing the peace process with Israel.

The article has since been changed and it no longer says that, even though the headline yesterday was "Obama: Abbas may not want peace":

The new article says "US President Barack Obama told Orthodox Jewish leaders on Tuesday that PA President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority may be too politically weak to deliver a peace agreement and that he fears that the window of opportunity for a deal is closing."

There is a bit of a difference between not wanting peace and being too weak to achieve peace.

The Times of Israel confirms YNet's original account:

He said peace was critical as the Arab democracy movement swept the region, but worried that the Palestinian leadership was no longer as interested in advancing toward peace.

Arab media were upset over the report, and Palestine Press Agency reports today that, according to PA resident liar in chief Saeb Erekat, The White House denied the statement:

Negotiations Affairs Department in the Palestine Liberation Organization leader Saeb Erekat said on Wednesday that the White House provided clarification on the remarks of President Barack Obama, about the commitment of President Mahmoud Abbas to the peace process, which stated 'that what was attributed to President Obama was disgraceful, and President Obama did not question the intentions of President Abbas and his commitment to the peace process'.

President Obama re-confirmed his commitment to continue to make every possible effort to push the peace process forward.

There is no such clarification on the White House website.

On the other hand, I can see some of the Jewish leaders misquoting or misunderstanding the president in an off-the-record meeting.

The fact that Abbas and the Palestinian Arab leadership are not interested in peace is not in doubt, as I have documented countless times. It would be very interesting if President Obama realized this and stated it, though. Not the same as doing it publicly - which is what is really necessary - but interesting nonetheless.

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EU expands definition of PalArab "refugees" beyond UNRWA's

From the EU Commission Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection website:

Palestinians in Lebanon: In 2012 ECHO continues its assistance to around 100,000 Palestinian refugees, which is almost 40% of the Palestinian refugee population living in Lebanon. With €5 million, the aid ensures shelter, safe water and sanitation, access to secondary health care, psychosocial support, protection and legal aid. Particular attention is paid to those refugees who do not receive aid from UNRWA and other organizations, especially those living in the 42 unofficial 'gatherings', and those lacking the legal status to benefit from UNRWA's aid programme.

Who are these Palestinian Arab "refugees" who do not receive aid from UNRWA?

From their 2012 report:

Refugees non registered and with no IDs: In addition to the registered refugees, an estimated 35,000 non-UNRWA registered and 3,000 non-identified Palestinians live in Lebanon without any official means of identification. The absence of an appropriate legal status and protection has put these refugees in a situation of extreme vulnerability.

This means that, according to the EU, there are some 38,000 Palestinians who do not qualify for aid by UNRWA, but are considered "refugees."

But the very definition of a Palestinian refugee is one who falls under UNRWA's mandate!

The only reason that Palestinian Arab "refugees" retain their anomalous status of being defined as refugees even though they do not fit the criteria listed by the 1951 Convention on Refugees is because of the loophole written specifically for them in article 1, paragraph D:

This Convention shall not apply to persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection or assistance.

That meant that those receiving aid from UNRWA in 1951 were considered refugees even if they did not meet the other criteria listed in the Convention. That disconnect has gotten orders of magnitude worse as UNRWA's "working definition" of refugees expanded to include descendants and did not establish any criteria for losing refugee status.

These 35,000-38,000 people do not fit even under UNRWA's expanded definition of "Palestinian refugee," therefore they are not refugees.

They are stateless, however, because of Lebanese bigotry against Palestinian Arabs and refusal to allow people born on Lebanese territory to become citizens, but they are not refugees by any legal or UN definition of the term.

No doubt they need help and the EC is doing a service by providing it to them, but the EU is doing them a disservice by referring to them as "refugees". If it cared about them more than about the fear of Arabs complaining to them, the EU would be pressuring Lebanon to give citizenship to these stateless people - people who are in their current situation because of Lebanese actions.

But to this humanitarian organization, politics is more important than finding a true solution.

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