Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, December 09, 2014

Muslims to celebrate Chanukah on Temple Mount (in a fashion)

You can expect to see larger than usual crowds of Muslims visiting the Temple Mount on Chanukah.

Arab media are buzzing about calls from Jewish groups to visit the Temple Mount on the eve of Chanukah next Tuesday and during the holiday as well.

So the Al Aqsa Foundation is calling on all Muslims to show up and block the Jews from coming on those days.

It is always interesting to see that the biggest incentive they have to convince Muslims to visit their "holy site" is to prevent Jews from visiting their holy site.

Well, maybe I'm no being fair. Here is a video taken last weekend showing young devout followers of Islam taking classes in the Al Aqsa Mosque compound on how to show their devotion to Allah more keenly.

12/09 Links Pt1: Israeli Stabbed at Brooklyn Synagogue; Palestinian sought Obama assassin

From Ian:

US calls on UNRWA to ‘uphold neutrality’ after call to boycott ‘Post’

The State Department is calling on personnel at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East to “uphold its stated policy of neutrality,” after its spokesman, Chris Gunness, called for a boycott of The Jerusalem Post last week.
“Our position on UNRWA and its important humanitarian role is very clear,” State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez told the Post. “It is imperative that all sides respect the humanitarian and development role of UNRWA. And we expect UNRWA personnel to uphold its stated policy of neutrality so that it can carry out its critical mandate.”
Gunness claimed impartiality in an article published by the Post last week, reacting with a series of tweets critical of the newspaper and its staff. The article was an op-ed, written by Palestinian human rights activist Bassam Eid.
One of those tweets called for a “boycott of JPost,” interpreted by the newspaper as a breach of its commitment to neutrality.
“We have been in touch with Chris Gunness, who has made clear that, in his tweets, he was not calling for a boycott against any media outlet but instead was making his objections to a single article that we all find problematic,” one UN spokesman said, responding to the incident.

Jennifer Rubin: What is a U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees doing in D.C.?

The U.N. Transparency, Accountability, and Reform Act of 2011 included provisions to deal with longstanding concerns about UNRWA’s use of anti-Israel textbooks, anti-Israel rhetoric, association with Hamas members and employment of some 31,000 “refugees” (“presenting a clear conflict of interest”).
But a new issue is taking center stage. As Right Turn reported:
"Early last year it set up a D.C. “liaison” office. With whom is it liaisoning? Mostly Congress, it turns out. U.S. law forbids the United Nations from lobbying Congress, but as we learned with Newt Gingrich “lobbying” or a “lobbyist” is in the eye of the beholder. UNRWA employs two full-time staffers in D.C., both of whom have loads of experience on Capitol Hill. Chris McGrath is a former aide for Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.); his boss, Matthew Reynolds, worked in legislative affairs for the State Department. I was assured no “lobbying” goes on, but they do meet virtually nonstop with lawmakers — appropriators are key — to answer questions about how taxpayer dollars are spent, why UNRWA’s work is important and how it makes sure money isn’t going to terrorists.
It seems American tax dollars are going, in part, to fund this office that in effect makes sure Congress doesn’t get fed up and cut off the money flow."

Palestinian sought to recruit Texas man to kill Obama last year, Israel Police say

An unnamed Palestinian man sought to recruit a US citizen to assassinate Barack Obama when the US president visited Israel and the West Bank in March 2013, Israel police said on Tuesday.
The American, Adam Livix, was indicted in Tel Aviv on Tuesday on a separate matter, for charges that include an attempt to buy plastic explosives from Israeli soldiers with the apparent intention of harming Muslim holy sites.
Israel Police said that Livix, who lived in Hebron and Bethlehem in 2013, was asked at that time by a Palestinian operative if he could assassinate Obama with a sniper’s rifle during the president’s visit, but he refused to do so. No reference to this allegation was made in the charge sheet released Tuesday.
Livix, a Christian from Texas who pretended to be a Navy Seal, is wanted in the US for questioning regarding drug violations and has been in Israel Police custody since November 19, the police said.
The investigation of Livix in recent weeks was carried out in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In Amnesty's latest hack job on Israel, they describe their methodology:

Amnesty International has been unable to send a delegation of researchers to visit the Gaza Strip since the beginning of the conflict. The Israeli authorities have refused, up to the time of writing this report, to allow it and researchers from other international human rights organizations to enter the Gaza Strip through the Erez crossing with Israel, despite the organization’s repeated requests since the beginning of the conflict to do so. The Egyptian authorities have also not granted Amnesty International permission to enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah crossing with Egypt, again despite the organization’s repeated requests to do so.

Amnesty International has consequently had to carry out research remotely, supported by two fieldworkers based in Gaza who were contracted to work with the organization for periods of several weeks. They travelled extensively within the Strip, visiting every site described in this briefing, interviewing victims and eyewitnesses of every case recorded and taking photos and videos of the sites. Amnesty International studied relevant documentation produced by UN agencies, Palestinian, Israeli and other non-governmental organizations, local officials, media, and others who monitored the conflict, and consulted with them as needed, before writing the report. The organization also consulted on the interpretation of photos and videoswith military experts and extensively reviewed relevant statements by the Israeli military and other official bodies.

Amnesty hired local Gazans - people who live under Hamas rule and who have witnessed Hamas executing "collaborators" in the street - to objectively investigate the circumstances of events during the war.

What a surprise that they couldn't not find any evidence of terrorist targets in these buildings!

All those interviewed by Amnesty International said that they did not expect the whole building and its contents to be destroyed. Riad al-Holi said:

“We thought they would hit a floor or two, without bringing down the whole building. I think Israel is targeting the infrastructure. There are no resistance fighters in this complex; there are no open spaces for them to fire anything from. If the tradespeople had suspected anything, they would not have kept such large stocks in their shops.”

I was unaware that the Al Qaassam Brigades and Al Quds Brigades put signs on the doors of their command and control centers with their logos so the surrounding businesses would know to evacuate the premises.

Amnesty lists the names of companies in that building, but has no idea what some of them are:

On the third floor, there was an engineering company belonging to someone called Tayseer Abu Jarad...On the fourth floor, there were several offices, including those of three companies named al-Ruwaq, al-Uthman and Abu Shamal.

If Hamas had a weapons manufacturing facility in the "engineering company," Fatah a communications hub in "al-Ruwaq" and Islamic Jihad a command center in "Abu Shamal," would Amnesty know that based on this incredible remote investigation?

Amnesty is the blind man next to the elephant, confidently announcing its conclusions on topics it doesn't even know enough to research properly to begin with.

I have said before that I am not happy with how long it takes Israel to respond to these charges and to explain the evidence that they have of why they target specific locations. But the idea that Israel was wantonly targeting civilian structures for no reason except to put "pressure" on Gazans to insist that Hamas stop the war - something which has never happened - is insane.

As usual, Amnesty knew what it was going to "report" ahead of time. The contractors were hired not to find facts but to find confirmation of Amnesty's pre-existing bias.

Even the title of the report, "Nothing is immune," is deceptive. Here is the section where Amnesty quotes it:

On the same day, Israeli news media reported that the Israeli security cabinet had decided to intensify the army’s operations by expanding their aerial attacks against a broader range of areas. An Israeli security official was quoted saying: “Areas from which rockets are being launched will be targeted in a severe and massive manner, even if this includes buildings with the assistance of which the attacks were being carried out.”9 Another security official reportedly stated: “Nothing is immune, even if a 14-story building has terrorist activity, the building will be damaged and will collapse.”
A senior military officer speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that Israel had adopted a “policy of striking at buildings containing Hamas operational centres or those from which military activities are launched. There is now a widening of locations that the military can target.” The official reportedly added: “Each strike requires prior approval from military lawyers and is carried out only after the local population is warned.”

What this means is that Israel was voluntarily holding back on hitting targets that were fully valid within international law up until that point, and decided to widen the scope - but still within the law. Amnesty cannot find any real evidence that Israel violated international law; instead it makes assumptions about proportionality and distinction that it is not in a position to make without mind-reading.

Notice how Amnesty uses the word "reportedly" here. In the original Independent article, the same official is quoted for all the things he says, none of his quotes are any less accurate than any other, but since he is saying something that exonerates Israel from the charge of violating international law, Amnesty has to add a qualifying statement that was not in the original.

If lawyers are consulted before each major airstrike - and there is no reason to assume they are not - then that means that the lawyers have far more information than Amnesty has in determining the value of the target and the methods allowed to hit it. Amnesty wants to cast doubt in the reader's mind about this very point, so it adds the dismissive "reportedly " (IDF lawyers also know international law far better than Amnesty does.)

And then, based on this highly skewed version of half-facts, Amnesty announces that Israel is guilty of war crimes.

In short, this shoddy, amateurish report is what we expect from Amnesty when reporting on Israel - bias over facts and slander over research.

On Friday, AP reported on a US document that listed the concessions that Iran supposedly gave to extend the nuclear negotiations:

The authenticity of the document was confirmed by three U.S. officials and congressional aides familiar with closed-doors discussions in recent days that have included top U.S. nuclear negotiator Wendy Sherman and Jake Sullivan, formerly Vice President Joe Biden's national security adviser.

The U.S. says Iran will further limit its development of new technology for enriching uranium that could be used for energy generation, as Tehran says is its objective, or for use in a nuclear warhead, which Washington and its international partners fear may be Iran's ultimate intent. It also seems to patch up what critics of last year's interim nuclear agreement described as loopholes on Iran's research and development of advanced centrifuges.

For one centrifuge model Iran has been working on, the U.S. says Tehran won't be able to pursue the industrial-scale operation needed for any "breakout" effort toward producing enough material for a nuclear weapon. For other models in the pipeline, Iran won't be permitted to feed the centrifuges with uranium gas or begin testing on a cascade level, which are needed steps in their development.

Iran also has agreed to turn 35 kilograms of higher-enriched uranium oxide stocks into fuel, making it unusable in the event Iran tries to secretly reach nuclear weapons capacity. That amounts for almost half of Iran's remaining stockpile of material that could in theory be converted into a form that is close to weapons-grade uranium.

In addition, the administration says Iran will grant international inspectors expanded access to its centrifuge production facilities, allowing the U.N. nuclear agency to double the amount of visits it makes to sites and to undertake unannounced or "snap" inspections. The monitoring aims to deter Iran from producing centrifuges for any covert facility.

Lastly, Iran will refrain from any other forms of enrichment, including through the use of laser technology. Last year's agreement halted Iran's progress on its gas centrifuge program, but U.S. officials feared the Iranians could experiment with other technology designed to do the same thing. Iran has attempted laser enrichment in the past, the U.S. believes, but now has committed to refrain from exploring it any further.

One other point, though:

There is no proof Tehran has agreed to or will follow through on the steps outlined,

Now, Iran is denying everything in the report:

In response to the AP’s initial report about the White House’s claims, a top Iranian official said that no further concessions have been agreed to by Iran.

“The conditions for extending the nuclear negotiations to July 1, 2015, were like the conditions reining the extension of the previous deadlines and no new undertaking has been added to it,” Behrouz Kamalvandi, the spokesman for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (AEOI,), told the country’s state-run media over the weekend.

Other Iranian officials also rejected the terms of the deal as presented to Congress by the White House.

“A source close to the Tehran-powers negotiations said that ‘this is not true at all and the trend of R&D on enrichment is moving along its natural track at the AEOI,’” Iran’s Fars News Agency reported.

So, who do you believe?

NewsMax reports something that, if true, makes the answer pretty clear:

Reza Kahlili (pseudonym for a former CIA operative inside Iran’s Revolutionary Guards) wrote in The Daily Caller that Tehran has adopted a policy of "elongation" of talks with the United States and five other international powers (Russia, China, Britain, France, and Germany) in which it prolongs the talks "as it develops nuclear weapons."

He quoted Alireza Forghani, a prominent strategist with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who explained in his blog last week that the negotiations with the six nations were "never supposed to be brought to a successful conclusion … whether positive or negative."

Forghani warned that soon he will promote the slogan "nuclear weapon is [sic] our definite right," and that there will be people in the streets demanding a nuclear-armed Iran. He hinted that these events would lead to the destruction of Israel, adding that this "is exactly what Almighty God wants."

He declared that soon the world will face "a nuclear Iran that not only has nuclear power, but also is equipped with nuclear weapons. Hence, Tehran will not negotiate with Washington anymore."

(h/t TIP)

The first sentence of an article in Ma'an by Nora Lester Murad, the founder of Palestinian NGO "Dalia Foundation," , pretty much sums up how Palestinian Arabs feel they must be treated:

"Palestinians have a right to request international aid, and donors have an obligation to provide it."

See? The world is obligated to throw billions of dollars to Palestinians, without question. Why? Because they have a right to it!

One part of the aid that they get rankles these NGOs.

"The policy of non-confrontation with Israel regardless of its actions conveys international acquiescence and contributes to Israeli impunity."

What does that mean? Look at the Dalia Foundation's petition where it mentions a numbers of issues that they have with international aid, among of which are:

"Anti-terrorism certification is unacceptable."

Meaning, when Westerners give their billions, they must not demand that their money is not used to kill Israeli civilians. Killing Israeli women and children is a human right, and by limiting funding to worthless things like peace and women's rights and feeding children, these donors are violating the basic Palestinian human right to murder.

And don't think I'm exaggerating. The Palestinians truly believe that they have the right to murder Jews. Their major proof is UN General Assembly Resolution 33/24, which says it "Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle."

Oh, and by the way - these same people claim that Israel doesn't have the right to defend itself, a position echoed by this writer when she asserts that US funding for Iron Dome is a violation of international law.

In short, Arabs have the right to kill Jews with impunity, and Jews have no human rights whatsoever, according to this NGO founder (who, of course, gets funded from European sources.)

The outrage is that these positions elicit no outrage.

UNRWA refuses to correct "2200 civilians killed" lie (UPDATE: Cover-up!)

On Friday, I noted that a speech given by UNRWA Deputy Commissioner-General Margot Ellis contained a major falsehood in a speech she gave.

Referring to the Gaza war, she said "This summer, around 2,200 civilians were killed in 50 days."

Perhaps she misspoke and she meant to say "people" instead of "civilians." Even that is problematic, because it would be equating the lives of the innocent and the terrorists in an attempt to inflate the seeming callousness of the IDF towards human life.

However, it is increasingly hard to give that benefit of the doubt. For one thing, this is the transcript of the speech as written, and one would expect that an official giving a major speech in front of a UN committee would be very careful with her words.

Moreover, UNRWA has refused to correct this.

I emailed to two UNRWA spokespeople on Friday. I tweeted spokesperson Chris Gunness multiple times as well.I know some of my readers also emailed about this. But the lie is still on the UNRWA webpage.

A newspaper would usually correct such an egregious error quickly, because newspapers want to appear to care about the truth.. If a UN organization refuses to issue such a clear correction, it appears as if they actually want to tell the world the lie that Israel only kills civilians.

When a UN organization is so willing to allow a anti-Israel lie be spread, and it does nothing to fix the lie, that goes a long way towards explaining why Israel can never trust the UN, and UNRWA specifically, to be fair.

UPDATE: In classic UNRWA fashion, they changed her remark to "people" it - but without admitting that they made a mistake to begin with.

Which means, of course, that they will never apologize for libeling Israel in the actual speech. Because why should a record of the speech reflect what was actually said to UN officials? Easier to change history and pretend that you never did anything wrong, just as UNRWA has done before.

This is the level of transparency that UNRWA has. And it is outrageous that an organization funded to the tune of over a billion dollars a year is allowed to act as if it has no obligation to truth and transparency.

(UNISPAL archives continue to include the offensive phrase.)

12/08 Links Pt2: Zionism, An Indigenous Struggle; JPost Responds to UNRWA’s Shocking Boycott Call

From Ian:

Zionism, An Indigenous Struggle: Aboriginal Americans and the Jewish State

In 1968, Palestinian terrorists hijacked an El-Al plane, and got away with it. They used the tactic repeatedly after that, with varying degrees of success. The most infamous incident was the forcing of Air France plane to Entebbe, Uganda, and Israel’s successful rescue of the hostages.
More such rescue operations are required these days, but not of aircraft. The Palestinians and their Islamist allies have taken to hijacking peoples and causes. For example, in nineteen seventy five Betty Friedan, a feminist trailblazer, led the American delegation to an International Woman’s Year World Conference. She was stunned by the conference’s anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. A 1980 Women’s Conference in Copenhagen had a huge portrait of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, a man at the forefront of the oppression of women, decorating the conference chamber.
Although Israel is the only place in the Middle East where homosexuals are legally protected from persecution, Toronto’s annual gay pride parade has frequently featured the participation of “Queers Against Israeli Apartheid.” That homosexuals would promote a movement that brutally oppresses them points to the effectiveness of Palestinian hijacking techniques.
The collection of articles in this publication examine the relation between Native American and Jewish issues, focusing on the perceived attempt to hijack the Native American struggle for rights and recognition into the framework of Palestinian suffering. Native Americans are viewed as the quintessential victims, having suffered genocide, theft of lands and consequent marginalization. This fits into the casting of the Palestinians as victims of colonialism and oppression.

Israeli Paper Responds to UNRWA’s Shocking Boycott Call

In a response which is now posted on his Facebook page, Linde wrote that Gunness’s campaign against the Post “represents an unacceptable breach of protocol and neutrality he is supposed to uphold.”
“An attack of this kind by a senior staff member of a UN body that employs as many as 30,000 people and provides aid to millions of Palestinians is unbecoming,” Linde said.
An op-ed is not a news article. It is an opinion piece written by someone with either expertise or other first-hand knowledge or is credible and has a view not widely covered elsewhere in the media.
The Post‘s op-ed editor, Seth Frantzman, shot back at the petulant claim that Gunness was boycotted simply because he was not quoted – in an op-ed.
“We have a long track record of publishing op-eds from diverse voices on a wide range of issues and will continue to subject all groups to robust critique, despite this intimidation,” Frantzman wrote. “UNRWA’s call for a boycott over an article published by a Palestinian activist who critiqued UNRWA contravenes the concept of open debate and has a chilling effect on free speech.”

NGO Monitor Accuses Amnesty of Faulty Data over Gaza War

Amnesty International's data on Operation Protective Edge in Gaza is "faulty and incomplete," the head of the Jerusalem-based NGO Monitor organization noted Monday - and organizations and journalists should not use Amnesty as a source.
"By Amnesty's own admission, its methodology in Gaza is faulty and incomplete," said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor. "The 'evidence' is internally contradictory, and cannot sustain the accusations of 'war crimes' and the recommendations of legal warfare and sanctions against Israel."
NGO Monitor adds that Amnesty has no direct access to Gaza, and is relying on data fed to them by anonymous sources with questionable credibility.
In addition, according to Steinberg, "The individuals who determine Amnesty's Israel activities reflect a highly ideological agenda, as demonstrated in our research."
NGO Monitor also notes that Amnesty's string of publications attacking Israel, including a similar report from November, reflects an intensification of activity before the Schabas Commission delivers its report in March 2015.

Standing athwart lies: Why I left Open Hillel

Those who lie about themselves are not in a position to judge others.
I used to serve as Campus Outreach Co-Coordinator for Open Hillel – an organization committed to abolishing the Hillel International’s Standards of Partnership. These standards preclude Hillel branches from partnering with groups that support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Besides that, Hillels typically welcome groups on both the left and right ends of the spectrum.
While Open Hillel’s stated aims are open dialogue and inclusiveness—worthy goals—the organization in actuality has something else in mind. The people who claim that Open Hillel’s main objective is to garner support for the BDS movement may not realize just how right they are.
Many Open Hillel leaders have no problem with advocating exclusion and alienation within Open Hillel, even as they preach the virtue of inclusiveness to the Jewish community. While demanding that the pro-Israel community tolerate pro-BDS groups that they find offensive, many Open Hillel leaders are intolerant of pro-Israel voices that they dislike.

Lebanon, without evidence, accuses Israel of stealing their natural gas

From Albawaba:

While political factions are distracted with the upcoming dialogue between Hezbollah and the Future Movement, and the Lebanese government is struggling to resolve the issue of the kidnapped soldiers and counter the threat of terrorist groups on the Syrian border, Israel is stealing Lebanese gas from the deep sea off the Lebanese southern coast, Al-Akhbar learned Monday.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri told Al-Akhbar that he received information a few days ago confirming that Israel has started stealing Lebanese gas, expressing his surprise over the government’s lack of interest in the matter.

Berri said “he will personally push the pressing issue early next year,” adding that the Israeli move will force Lebanon to sign two designated decrees that would allow it to start digging for gas and ensure new revenues for the Lebanese economy.

Lebanon is located in the heart of the Levant basin, where seismic surveys indicate the presence of huge oil and gas reserves, but has so far failed to impose itself as a regional player in this area, as neighboring states greedily fight for its resources.

In July 2013, an Israeli company found Karish, a gas field 75 kilometers from the coast of Haifa. The new field is sufficiently close to Lebanon’s maritime borders to allow Israel access to Lebanon’s own reserves. It is evident that Israel is pressing ahead with exploration and production while Lebanon’s own energy plans falter.

At the time, then-Energy and Water Minister Gebran Bassil addressed these concerns in a press conference. “Theoretically…Israel is now able to reach Lebanese gas and that is a very grave situation,” he said.

“We cannot yet say that a disaster has happened, but the new Israeli discovery may indeed lead to one, especially if Lebanon’s efforts continue to be plagued by delays.”

“If Israel drills horizontally in Karish – made possible thanks to US technology – it may be able to reach up to 10 kilometers north into Lebanon’s reservoirs. If Israel drills vertically, it would still be possible for Israel to syphon off Lebanese oil and gas, if the Israeli and Lebanese fields overlap,” Bassil added.

From what I can tell, there is nothing new here. Last year I reported on Gebran Bassil sounding the alarm that Israel could drill horizontally (even though the Karish field is 20 km south of the border that Lebanon claims.) As I noted at the time, quoting from a Now Lebanon article:

Enzo Zappaterra, a geologist with PetroServe International, noted that it would not make sense for a company to employ horizontal drilling to blindly move from one reserve in search of another.

Drilling companies, he said, “are capable of anything, but it wouldn’t be a practice, just sending a probe up for nothing.”

Noble, it should be noted, has not bought access to seismic surveying of Lebanon’s waters and therefore likely has very poor knowledge of where Lebanese reserves are potentially located.

It appears that this is an attempt by a Lebanese politician to get the country moving on offshore gas and oil exploration, but the government has been deadlocked because of Hezbollah.

Scaremongering about the Jews is a time honored way for Arab nations to provide incentive to get things done.

(Part 1, part 2)

Continuing on the phenomenally dishonest performance of UNRWA's Chris Gunness when interviewed by Melanie Phillips on Voice of Israel, Melanie asked Gunness about the UNRWA workers' union being controlled by Hamas as proof that Hamas is exerting influence in UNRWA schools.

Gunness disputed the idea that most UNRWA workers are Islamists, and his response (which was quite condescending towards Phillips) is pretty much that the claim that Hamas dominated the last union elections in 2012 is a myth created by anti-UNRWA people. He claimed, without providing proof, that whenever there are allegations of UNRWA employees violating UNRWA's neutrality policy, "they are always investigated and disciplinary action is taken up to and including dismissal."

In regards to the union elections, Gunness asserted, "I hear this bandied around, and let me tell you, I have seen the ballot papers for staff union elections, and there is nothing whatsoever on that that has any indication of party affiliation...We police the union process and there is nothing on the ballot paper that gives any indication of political affiliation."

Let me quote from the pro-Hamas al-Resala newspaper right before the September 2012 UNRWA union elections: "It is noteworthy that Hamas has controlled the UNRWA staff union in the elections since its inception, particularly the teachers sector in [the union], but the electoral system cannot list it to prevent [official] partisan affiliations of UNRWA employees."

Al Quds, a Fatah-leaning paper, wrote after the elections "According to multiple sources within the Election Commission..., that the "Professional" slate of Hamas won 25 seats out of 27, divided by 11 seats out of 11 in the teachers' sector and 6 out of 7 in the labor sector elections, and 8 seats out of 9 in the services sector election."

Everyone knows quite well that the "Professional" slate of candidates is Hamas, period. Hamas calls itself "Professional" in order to skirt the letter of the law where UNRWA does not allow "partisan" parties. It is a sham that every Palestinian, and every UNRWA employee, and UNRWA itself - including Chris Gunness - knows quite well and accepts.

Chris Gunness is invoking this legal fiction to argue that Hamas really doesn't dominate the union!

Is there any more evidence necessary of how little Gunness cares about the truth, and how much he tries to twist the facts in his interviews, by assuming that no one will check him on it?

12/08 Links Pt1: Two Hezbollah members killed in airstrikes on Syria, anti-aircraft missiles destroyed

From Ian:

PA Minister of Religious Affairs ‎continues to fuel conflict in Jerusalem

Contrary to remarks by Palestinian Authority officials that Abbas wants to calm the atmosphere in Jerusalem and prevent violence, Abbas' own Minister of Religious Affairs Sheikh Yusuf Ida'is continues to fuel the conflict by repeating the libel that Israel plans to "take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque,destroy it and build the alleged Temple":
"All that Israel wants is to Judaize the Holy City, take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque, destroy it and build the alleged Temple. Under Jerusalem there is a city of tunnels belonging to Israel. Yesterday, I was told that Israel has an underground market beneath the Jaffa Gate, which draws many [Palestinian] residents who shop there." [Official PA TV, Dec. 3, 2014]

PA Minister voices libel that Israel seeks to destroy Al-Aqsa Mosque and build "alleged Temple"

Hezbollah drones, anti-aircraft missiles destroyed in alleged IAF attack, says Syrian opposition

Syrian opposition sources told Arab media on Monday that the airstrikes near Damascus that were alleged to have been carried out by Israeli warplanes destroyed a storage facility housing anti-aircraft missiles as well as drones belonging to Hezbollah.
While the Lebanese Shi’ite group has yet to officially comment on the attack, Channel 2 is citing a report in the Hezbollah-affiliated newspaper Al-Akhbar which said that “the Israeli action was intended to preserve the rules of the game.”
The newspaper claimed that the IAF struck weapons caches “that belonged to Hezbollah.” These arms are considered to be “capable of tilting the strategic balance,” namely threaten Israel’s ability to act freely in the skies above Lebanon.
The IAF has struck Syria several times since the start of the three-year conflict, mostly destroying weaponry such as missiles that Israeli officials said were destined for their longtime foe Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Last week, the Lebanese Daily Star reported the army said it had fired anti-aircraft guns at an IDF drone flying low over the eastern part of the country.
“The Israeli enemy committed aggression against Syria by targeting two safe areas in Damascus province, in all of Dimas and near the Damascus International Airport,” state television said, adding that there were no casualties.

Two Hezbollah members said killed in airstrikes on Syria

One of the slain was a senior official from the Lebanese group, the report said.
Syrian state TV, which accused Israel of carrying out airstrikes on the Damascus International Airport and an airfield near the town of Dimas on the Syrian-Lebanese border, had maintained that there were no casualties in the attacks.
The power supply to the airport has been cut off since the attack, the report said, citing Syrian rebel sources.

After Syria Strikes, Israel Reiterates: No Arms for Terrorists

Israel stressed on Monday that it has a policy of preventing arms transfers to terrorist groups, a day after Syria accused the Jewish state of bombing two targets near the Syrian capital, including Damascus airport.
Israel has launched a series of strikes inside Syria since the armed uprising erupted there in 2011, including raids reportedly targeting weapons bound for Damascus ally Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz refused to comment directly on Sunday's incident, as was also the case with Israeli officials questioned in the aftermath of previous strikes.
"We have a firm policy of preventing all possible transfers of sophisticated weapons to terrorist organisations," Steinitz told public radio in response to a question about the strikes, and apparently referring to Hezbollah.

(Part 1)

The second major topic that Melanie Phillips brought up in her audio interview with UNRWA's Chris Gunness is about the curriculum being taught at UNRWA schools, and she brought some examples of where students are taught jihad and martyrdom.

Gunness neatly sidetracked the discussion away from the things UNRWA is teaching its students and he only addressed the textbooks. He said (correctly) that UNRWA must use the textbooks of the host country and therefore any problematic material must be dealt with from that angle. Furthermore he claims that UNRWA works with the host countries to eliminate any problematic materials from their official curricula.

However, he didn't address what I discovered: that UNRWA teachers (certainly in Gaza) are teaching hate outside the textbooks. Official UNRWA school websites included essays and poems praising jihad and martyrdom. That cannot happen unless the topics are being taught within the schools.

As I showed last week, Arab teachers in Jerusalem are bragging that they teach their students to hate Israel and to seek its destruction. This is even though the schoolbooks are approved by Israel.

Teachers impart a lot of information to students that are not in the textbooks. I once showed that even UNRWA's website showed that their schools were decorated on the outside with pictures of famous terrorists, like this one of master bombmaker Yahya Ayyash.
.

And it is not only individual schools, because I revealed that the Gaza-wide "human rights" UNRWA website included antisemitism.

In this case Gunness didn't lie, but he obfuscated the issue by concentrating on one aspect of UNRWA's curriculum without mentioning that schoolbooks aren't the whole story.

UPDATE: I found more proof that UNRWA schools have their own curricula separate from the host country's textbooks. From an independent 2010 study of UNRWA schools in Jordan:

Despite the fact that UNRWA schools, similar to other public and private schools, apply the Jordanian curricula that is imposed on them by the ministry of education, it was noticed that they heavily value their “hidden curricula”. These curricula are based on enrichment plans prepared by teachers to emphasize the Palestinian identity, whether by celebrating national occasions such as Al-Nakhba (1948) and Al-Naksa (1967) or by opening discussions about key political issues.

And it turns out that the authors of the study didn't make up this term - it was referred to as such by the UNRWA head teachers themselves!

Finally, it can be concluded that all stakeholders are involved in the process of enriching the curricula. However, since the core subjects are imposed on them by the Ministry of education, their role in that regard becomes limited to developing what was referred to by head teachers as “The Hidden Curricula”.

So when the UNRWA Human Rights website included a document that said that Jews have no concept of human rights, or when their "respect and discipline" site says to students that they should keep clean unlike the Jews, this was part of UNRWA's "hidden curricula." Even though these sites have now been taken down after I exposed them, there is no indication that the "hidden curricula" behind them has been changed one iota.

Preacher at Al Aqsa calls to slaughter all Jews, "most evil of Allah's creations"

Even among all the crazy, antisemitic stuff that MEMRI finds being promulgated in the Arab world, this is something:

Highlights:

I wonder if Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International would consider this to be "incitement."

Notice also that there is no fear of pushback from his audience against praying for a new Caliphate.

Melanie Phillips has an audio interview with Chris Gunness of UNRWA on Voice of Israel where Gunness spouts his usual disinformation.

His first point is that UNRWA's considering generations of people to be "refugees" is completely consistent with what the UNHCR does. When Melanie pushes back, and says that according to that definition, since her grandparents were refugees from Poland and Russia, she should be considered a refugee as well, to which Gunness replies that she is presumably a British citizen and therefore she cannot be considered a refugee.

But, Phillips pushes him to admit, there are nearly 2 million Palestinian "refugees" by the UNRWA definition who are full citizens of Jordan, so he is contradicting himself. Gunness' answer is to change the subject and say that that UNRWA's mandate comes from the General Assembly and that is where the UNRWA definition of "refugee" comes from.

This is a lie.

UNGA 302, which created UNRWA and from which UNRWA gets its mandate, did not define what a "refugee" is.

UNRWA needed to make up a working definition of "refugee" in 1950 in order to determine who should get its services and who should not. That definition is not from the General Assembly, but from UNRWA itself. The original definition was "For working purposes, the Agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."

UNRWA decided on who is a refugee - not the UN.

UNRWA changed that definition over time, including around 1965 to accommodate children and grandchildren through the male line, and at a later date to make it all descendants.

So when Gunness says that this was a UN General Assembly decision, he is not telling the truth. Even UNRWA's current documents admit "UNRWA’s Palestine Refugee criteria are formulated for the Agency’s operational purposes."

Two other points about how UNRWA's definition of "refugee" is much different from that of UNHCR. For one thing, UNRWA allows "refugees" to live in the area they were born in; UNHCR calls them "internally displaced persons" and the rules for those people are quite different. No one living in the West Bank or Gaza would be considered a refugee by UNHCR's definition.

Secondly, and most importantly, the UNHCR has very specific ways for refugees to exit their refugee status. UNRWA allows only two ways: for the "refugee" to die or for it to be proven that the "refugee" doesn't exist because of fraud. As it says in UNRWA's current Consolidated Eligibility and Registration Instructions (CERI):

The names of registered persons may be removed from UNRWA’s Registration System in the following circumstances:

1. Upon the death of a Registered Person...
2. Names of persons or families who have been falsely registered or whose registration has been duplicated shall be removed from the Registration System.

This has not always been the case. In the 1950s, UNRWA went to some effort to remove people from its rolls when they gained enough self-sufficiency to be able to live without UNRWA services, as one can see from their annual reports, when they used to list the (relatively small) number of people they managed to remove from their rolls because they had jobs that made too much money. Indeed, refugees in the 1950s would refuse to work or hide their jobs, because they didn't want to lose their UNRWA benefits as registered refugees.

Note the definition above from 1950: "a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."

Compare that to today's definition: "Any person whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict, and descendants of such persons, including legally adopted children, through the male line. "

Note what is missing: UNRWA no longer has a criterion of "needy." It changed its definition from "needy person" to "any person."

So it is nonsense for Gunness to claim that UNRWA has no power to define who is or who is not a refugee. UNRWA is the organization that made up these definitions to begin with, not the General Assembly.

Naftali Bennett at Saban Forum (video)

A long video but worth viewing.

If you don't have the time or patience to watch the whole thing, here is a pretty good 4-minute highlight version.

There are thousands of Israeli "settlers" that NO ONE condemns!

Reuters has an article saying that some Arabs are moving into Jewish "settlements" (meaning, neighborhoods) in Jerusalem:

Little noticed amid the furor over one of Israel's most contentious policies, a small but growing number of Arabs are moving into Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem, drawn by cheaper rent and better services.

For decades, Israel has encouraged Jews to settle in East Jerusalem, changing the population balance, provoking Palestinian anger and drawing international condemnation.

But in one such settlement, around Mount Scopus where the Hebrew University is based and many Palestinians study, about 16 percent of residents are either Arab citizens of Israel or Palestinians, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics.

While the high proportion of Arab residents in French Hill and Mount Scopus is probably exceptional, the trend is visible in other East Jerusalem settlements too.

In the working-class areas of Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaacov to the northeast of Jerusalem's Old City, 1 to 2 percent of residents are now Israeli Arab or Palestinian, figures show.

The Jerusalem municipality does not collect ethnic data, but Uzi Chen, the City Hall representative for northern districts, said "several hundred" Arab families live in Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaakov, which have a combined population of 63,000.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of Arab Israelis are moving across the "Green Line" and into "settlements."

So are they considered settlers? Are they "breaking international law"? Are they "illegal"?

Or is it only that Jews can be "illegal settlers?" Is it only Jews who are castigated as fanatics hell-bent on ruining the peace process when they move into certain Jerusalem neighborhoods, but Arab Israelis doing the same thing are fine?

We already know the answer to that. The former EU High Representative Catherine Ashton, during one of her condemnations of Israeli plans for building in Jerusalem, mentioned Givat Hamatos and Ramat Shlomo, but didn't say a word about Israeli plans to add units to Beit Safafa announced at the same time. The reason? Because Beit Safafa is an Arab neighborhood, and if Israeli Arabs move across the Green Line to the southern part of Beit Safafa, no Western leader would dare condemn them.

So what's that word when Jews and Arabs - both citizens of Israel - do the exact same thing but the Jews are demonized while the Arabs are applauded?