Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, December 12, 2014

Another Chris Gunness UNRWA talking point exploded

One of the criticisms of UNRWA is that it, uniquely among refugee agencies, confers refugee status on all descendants of refugees through the male line forever.

UNRWA has answered this by saying that the UNHCR has similar standards to give refugee status to children. That is what Chris Gunness said to Melanie Phillips in the Voice of Israel interview this past weekend that I had dissected (Part 1, part 2, part 3)

Phillips followed up on that in an article in the Jerusalem Post:

I interviewed UNRWA’s spokesman Chris Gunness for my show on Voice of Israel, the new English-language radio station. Wasn’t UNRWA’s definition of a refugee indefensible? Uniquely, it is extended to all descendants through the male line of those who were displaced by the Arab war against Israel between 1946 and 1948. More than 60 years on, many of these “refugees” are not only still in refugee camps but their number has accordingly multiplied by more than 600 percent.

Not unique at all, replied Gunness. The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, applied precisely the same definition which conferred refugee status on descendants while political conflict remained unresolved.

Really? I rang the UNHCR. Were there circumstances, I asked, in which it automatically transferred refugee status to the descendants of actual refugees? No, said the UNHCR spokesman. Refugee status was only granted when either governments or the UNHCR itself assessed a specific individual as a refugee. Refugee status might cover the applicant’s dependents, but not any descendants. “It’s not an inherited status as such,” she said. So much for what Gunness told me.

I decided to look into this a little more. Gunness has a detailed answer to this question on UNRWA's website in a page called "Exploding the Myths: UNRWA, UNHCR and the Palestine Refugees."

It is often said that UNRWA perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem by granting refugee status through the generations and that handing the refugees over to UNHCR would not allow this. Is this the case?

This is not the case. As I have already noted, Palestine refugees are entitled to a just and lasting solution to their plight. In the absence of -- and pending the realisation of -- such a solution, it stands to reason that their status as refugees will remain.

Questions raised about the passing of refugee status through generations stem from a lack of understanding of the international protection regime. These questions serve only to distract from the need to address the real reasons for the protracted Palestinian refugee situation, namely the absence of negotiated solution to the underlying political issues.

UNHCR‘s Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for determining Refugee Status provides in paragraph 184: "If the head of a family meets the criteria of the definition, [for refugee status] his dependants are normally granted refugee status according to the principle of family unity."

In effect, refugee families everywhere retain their status as refugees until they fall within the terms of a cessation clause or are able to avail themselves of one of three durable solutions already mentioned -- voluntary repatriation, local integration or resettlement in a third country.

Also, Chapter 5 of the UNHCR publication, Procedural Standards for Refugee Status Determination under UNHCR’s Mandate is very clear that in accordance with the refugee’s right to family unity, refugee status is transferred through the generations. According to Chapter 5.1.2 "the categories of persons who should be considered to be eligible for derivative status under the right to family unity include:" "all unmarried children of the Principal Applicant who are under 18 years."

Chapter 5.1.1 makes it clear that this status is retained after the age of 18. It states "individuals who obtain derivative refugee status enjoy the same rights and entitlements as other recognised refugees and should retain this status notwithstanding the subsequent dissolution of the family through separation, divorce, death, or the fact that the child reaches the age of majority."

While Gunness is quoting the UNHCR Handbook correctly, he is purposefully misinterpreting it.

UNHCR defines two classes of people eligible for help: refugees and derivative refugees. Derivative refugees can claim the same benefits as refugees - but they are not defined as refugees themselves. Which means that their own dependents cannot be considered derivative refugees as well. There is no concept of "twice derivative refugees*."

If a child is born as a refugee, then when he or she grows up and has kids they are considered derivative refugees (as long as the parent is still a refugee, which is not automatic either.) But for children born after the parent is a refugee, then the children have derivative refugee status and their children will not be considered refugees.

Amazingly, this gross misinterpretation of UNHCR rules is published on the official UNRWA site,

It appears that Gunness knows that he is lying about this, because he adds this caveat: "UNRWA is not in a position to speak for UNHCR and does not purport to speak for UNHCR. However, responses to your questions require reference to documents that are posted on UNHCR’s website and are available to the public. My responses are based on UNRWA’s understanding of the plain meaning of these documents as well as the Agency‘s own appreciation of its mission and its knowledge of the system of international law and practice that govern the protection of refugees globally."

So now that UNHCR itself has made it clear that Gunness' interpretation of its documentation is completely wrong, we can assume that UNRWA will correct that article, right?

*UPDATE: Rex Brynen, a professor at McGill, tweeted to me that there are some UNHCR third generation derivative refugees (he says Afghans in Pakistan, I think there may be from Somalia as well.) Even if true, it doesn't mean that they are considered full "refugees" under UNHCR's definition, as UNRWA's are, and by default UNHCR tries to remove their refugee status, while by default UNRWA tries to maintain it.

The US Navy storms the Al Aqsa Mosque! (1922 video)

If Jews peacefully strolling around the perimeter of the Temple Mount is called "storming to Al Aqsa Mosque," then US Navy sailors going into the mosque itself in 1922 must be a full scale invasion, right?

And the Muslim man is even helping them!

While we are at it, here we can see some British troops "storming the mosque:" without anyone objecting at 0:25:

Waqf again says Jewish Temples are fiction, contradicting what they said in 1950

Panet reports that the Al Aqsa Foundation has released yet another statement warning about dastardly Israeli schemes to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque.

It ended off by saying that "the myth of the alleged temple is only a figment of the imagination, which does not match the reason and religion; we stress that the entire Al-Aqsa Mosque area - including the Western Wall - is an Islamic Mosque and will remain so, and the Jews have no right to one speck of its soil."

This is as good a time as any to show the Waqf's Guide to Al Haram al Sharif of 1950, which is the last edition of that guide to flatly state that Jewish Temples were there before the Al Aqsa Mosque.

You can read it all here, with reference to King David on page 2 and Solomon's Temple as well as the temple during Josephus' time mentioned on page 3.

Saudi men caught in cybersex blackmail trap

From Saudi Gazette:

There is an increasing number of cases involving citizens from the African continent blackmailing young Saudi men for large sums of money by threatening to post footage of them performing cybersex, Al-Hayat newspaper reported.

The blackmailers, mostly from Morocco and Algeria, impersonate attractive women on Facebook and contact Saudi young men.

They then develop the relationship to include Skype chats and cybersex. The blackmailers save the video chats and use them to blackmail the victims for huge sums of money by threatening to post the videos on YouTube.

Some of the victims, who preferred to remain anonymous, said their intention was just to have fun and enjoy their time with what they thought to be women. Some even paid the ransom.

The article doesn't have any quotes from the Saudi religious police about what would happen if they report the blackmail to their local authorities.

But it does give advice on what to do if their Saudi readers find themselves in that predicament.

12/11 Links Pt2: Syrian vs Palestinian Refugees; Why a student switched to anti-BDS; Zohar Argov!

From Ian:

New York Times "Correction" Fails to Correct Blumenthal Error

After publishing Max Blumenthal's anti-Israel rant, The New York Times unsurprisingly had some errors to correct. But at least one of the corrections failed to redress the error, and only served to put the newspaper's own fingerprints on Blumenthal's misinformation.

3) After correspondence with CAMERA, a third "correction" was made to Blumenthal's article.

Original: Marzel is a leader of Lehava, a group funded in the past by the Israeli government that campaigns against romantic relationships between Jews and Arabs.

Amended: Marzel is a leader of Lehava, a group indirectly funded in the past by the Israeli government that campaigns against romantic relationships between Jews and Arabs.

Editors updated the correction line to note: "Correction: An earlier version indicated that the Prawer Plan had been fully implemented and that Lehava had been directly funded by the government."

But the Israeli government has never funded Lehava, either directly or "indirectly." It has funded Hemla, a separate organization with a separate mandate, and the funding was earmarked for a specific project at Hemla related to "treatment, support and personal and social rehabilitation" of at risk girls staying at the hostel.

MELANIE PHILLIPS: The ‘humanitarian’ weapon of war

The reality is that UNRWA simply could not operate in Gaza without mutual cooperation with the Hamas administration. And Gaza’s children are being indoctrinated into hatred and war by Hamas supporters teaching in UNRWA schools.
Mamoun Abunaser is a deputy principal at an UNRWA school in Syria. His profile picture on Facebook says: “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty.” Luay Shehab is a UNRWA school principal in Nablus.
He shows photographs of Israelis in burial shrouds and coffins on his Facebook page, with a caption reading: “Oh Allah, make the number of their dead as [every time a Muslim says] “Amen”! And several UNRWA teachers are known to be highly connected Hamas supporters.
Gunness says UNRWA guards its neutrality.
Yet enraged by an article in this paper by Bassam Eid, Gunness last week tweeted a call to boycott The Jerusalem Post. Clearly, he employs as creative an approach to the word “neutrality” as he does toward the word “refugee.”

Rising above personal attacks, the time has come to examine UNRWA policy

Gunness categorically states there is no evidence that Hamas terrorists are on the payroll of the UN. Yet successive reports of the US Congressional Research also show that UNRWA, which receives $300 million per year from the US government, reports that UNRWA has never vetted its staff to see if UNRWA employs members of Hamas.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament funded a study that documented Hamas’s takeover of the UNRWA unions in March 2009. The pro-Hamas al-Resala newspaper, right before the September 2012 UNRWA union elections stated that, “It is noteworthy that Hamas has controlled the UNRWA staff union in the elections since its inception....”
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.”
Gunness states 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.”
Yet in March 2013, in my presence, Gunness told staffers of the US Congress that Hamas leader Suhail Hindi, head of the UNRWA teachers’ union in Gaza, had been dismissed.
However, Hindi was suspended for less than a week. Hindi functions in his capacity to this day.
So much for removing Hamas on staff.

Syrian Refugees Get Resettled But Not Palestinians

Though UNRWA operates as if it is a humanitarian agency, its purpose has always been primarily political. The population of Arab refugees from the former Mandate of Palestine was created by the war waged by those acting in the name of those Arabs to strangle the State of Israel at its birth. Rather than accepting the UN partition of the land into what were explicitly called Jewish and Arab states, the Arab and Muslim world chose to wage war to prevent the creation of any Jewish state, no matter how small its territory. With a few exceptions, several hundred thousand refugees fled because of the spread of the war as well as the explicit instructions from some Arab leaders that they flee in order to ease the path of invading Arab armies. When the War of Independence ended with the new Jewish state alive, albeit existing in truncated and unsafe borders, the tactics of Israel’s opponents shifted. From that point on, their efforts sought to highlight the plight of Arabs who had fled in order to promote a military or diplomatic attempt to continue the war. Indeed, even as Syrian refugees in camps in neighboring nations are allowed to resettle elsewhere, Palestinians still stuck in Syrian refugee camps remain in place unable and unwilling to budge from the site of their misery.
The result of this policy was not merely to render all efforts to make peace between Israel and the Arab world impossible; it also ensured that the Palestinians would live in misery in increasing numbers and growing squalor. At the same time, a nearly equal number of Jews were forced to flee their homes in the Arab world as pogroms and discrimination made their plight intolerable. But while UNRWA kept the Palestinians in place to suffer, Jewish groups ensured that their refugees would not suffer in this manner and all were resettled in Israel or the West.

Earlier this week there was a dispute between the PA and Hamas about the price of cooking and domestic gas that Israel pumps into Gaza.

A dispute between Gaza's Ministry of Finance and the Palestinian Authority's General Directorate of Petroleum has led to a gas shortage in the coastal territory, local unions said Tuesday.

The petroleum directorate has allegedly refused to provide gas stations with fuel to protest a four-shekel ($1) tax imposed by the finance ministry on every 12-kilogram gas container, head of the union of gas station owners Mahmoud al-Shawwa said.

As a result, Gazans could not get cooking gas (which many also use for their converted cars and heaters.)

The crisis escalated until an agreement on Thursday.

Normally, Israel closes Kerem Shalom on Fridays, which would mean that the Fatah/Hamas dispute would hurt Gazans all winter weekend without domestic gas.

But on the same day that the PA announces that they will be stopping security coordination with Israel, Israel announced that it will open Kerem Shalom on Friday for the pumping of cooking gas and diesel.

Once again, Israel shows that it cares more about the welfare of people in Gaza than Hamas or the PA. An once again, a story like this will never be covered by the mainstream media.

(Yes, I hear the snickering, and I am serious.)

An amazing story from Arutz-7: (condensed version)

Among the many new Knesset hopefuls looking to run on the staunchly nationalist [Jewish Home] party's Knesset list is a somewhat surprising face: Anett Haskia identifies as proudly Zionist, pro-"settlements"... and a Muslim Arab.

Haskia realizes that her chances of running as a Jewish Home MK this time round are relatively slim; party members who wish to stand in the primaries have to have been members for at two and a half years, while Haskia herself is only now in the process of joining.

"But I'm still hoping for a Hanukkah miracle," she quips, and thinks there is an outside chance that Bennett - who as part of the new party rules can unilaterally select every fifth seat on the party list - could see in her precisely the kind of candidate to simultaneously reach out to new pools of support, while still remaining committed to the party's ideology.

Indeed, Haskia is an avowed Zionist, whose children enlisted voluntarily to the IDF with her encouragement (apart from the Druze, Israeli Arabs are not included in the mandatory military draft). She has long campaigned against extremism within the Israeli Arab community, while arguing for more Arab inclusion and participation in wider Israeli society. She says there are a growing number of Israeli Arabs who think like her - a phenomenon which has been making headlines periodically in recent years, particularly, though not exclusively, regarding Israel's Arab-Christian minority.

But there are plenty of Muslim Arabs who also support the state, serve in the army (like many Bedouins) and, most importantly for Annett, do not feel represented by any of the current Arab MKs. It is that part of the "Arab voting public" she says she is fighting for.

But still, why specifically join the Jewish Home? Why not one of the left-wing parties, or the Arab parties?

This clearly strikes a chord with Haskia, who has a bone to pick with the notion that "only the Left" or the existing Arab parties can look after the interests of the wider Arab-Israeli public. Instead, she describes an Arab community trapped between two camps claiming to have their best interests at heart, but who are really only interested in "using" them to serve particular ideological agendas.

"For 65 years the Arab parties have harmed the Arab sector," she laments, emphasizing that while discrimination does exist - a problem that is high on her list of priorities - the Arab parties are in fact largely to blame.

"They stigmatized us" by taking radical anti-Zionist positions and even supporting terrorism, she fires, while claiming to speak for the entire Arab public. At the same time, they spend most of their energy and resources engaging in political grandstanding, instead of actually tackling bread-and-butter issues facing the constituency they claim to represent.

In particular, she accuses Arab MKs of conniving with the Education Ministry to effectively abandon the Arab education system - leaving the curriculum open for extremists to indoctrinate young Arabs to perceive the state as their enemy. "The Education Ministry doesn't bother with the Arab sector - they don't even know what's going on in the schools... the children don't know anything about rights and obligations (to the state). They learn about the 'nakba' instead of Independence Day!"

"They have done a deal with the Arab MKs - at our expense. For how long should I pay the price for their actions?"

Many of her friends feel the same way, she says, and while a lot of them do not necessarily support the Jewish Home they have been supportive of her ambitions.

"Then there's the Left, Labor and Meretz, etc., who for many years have 'ruled' the Arab sector. They 'loved' the Arab sector the most, they were the 'good Jews'," she says sarcastically.

Yet she accuses that very same "Left" of presiding over a system which directly contributed towards the "widening gap" between Jewish and Arab Israelis. Through compromises with terrorists and a softly-softly approach towards the extremists within her own community, extremist elements have only become emboldened and more vocal, alarming many Jewish Israelis and drowning out moderate Arab voices like her own.

Instead, she calls for tougher anti-terror measures to target the bad apples, while addressing the grievances of ordinary Israeli Arabs.

"It can't be that a terrorist goes to jail and gets five-star treatment!" she exclaims. "It can't be that someone goes to join ISIS - an organization even more murderous than Hamas - and then when he comes back they give him just 22 months (in prison)! That says that the state allows them to do that, gives them the legitimacy to go."

"Why even let him come back?" she asks. "Remove his citizenship!"

"A terrorist who carries out an attack - destroy his house! Why just destroy a single room?" she continues, noticeably exasperated, listing the restraints placed on the IDF due to pressure from leftist groups.

"If when a terrorists goes to jail he gets five-star treatment, sits on his butt all day and can finance his family - do a degree, a masters, receive a salary from the Palestinian Authority - what's bad about that? Why shouldn't more people do it?

"Then people say: 'the Arabs are terrorists.' No! Stop blaming the Arabs of Israel. The Jews need to open their eyes; there is such a thing as law and order. Toughen the laws and things will change quickly."

Ironically, Haskia says the only serious negative reactions to her intentions to join the Jewish Home party have come from left-wing Jews, not her fellow Arabs. She cites that backlash as proof that left-wingers are only interested in giving Arabs freedom of expression when it suits their own ideological agenda.

"One of them told me: 'If Bennett comes to power, you'll be first to the gas chambers!' Is there anything more disgusting than that? And it was a Jew who told me that - that's the Left for you. Why can't I choose? I never shook hands with Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas), so they attack me.

"I remember when I was growing up they told us the Likud was racist, that they wanted to kill the Arabs. But then what happened? The Likud began accepting Arabs and has had Arab MKs and that stigma went away.

"There is no reason why I shouldn't join Bennett's party. It's not a party that says 'let's kick all the Arabs out'... I want to change this way of thinking."

Another perception she is looking to change is one held by many Israelis, and others around the world, regarding the Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria.

"Regarding the so-called 'settlers.' These are people, from all over the country, who live there (in Judea and Samaria) and are a human line of defense. They risk their lives to protect the state's borders, to cover our backs, because without them the terrorists will be at our front door. We saw after the Disengagement (from Gaza) what happened - so many attacks...

"I don't want another disengagement, so I stand with the 'settlements'. And it is my honor to do so."

Whenever there is a story like this, I always wonder how many other Arab Israelis really think like this. But her perspective is certainly fresh and welcome, and she is exactly right - if Israel cracks down on the terrorists the way they should, then the law-abiding Arabs will be better off.

12/11 Links Pt1: Bayefsky: UN marks Human Rights Day by promoting violation of human rights

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: 'Isolation' and the elections

European hostility to Israel, and sympathy for the Palestinians, has an internal logic and energy of its own. It will proceed at it is own face, largely indifferent to the internal details of Israeli political life. For example, even the great coup of the Left, the withdrawal from Gaza, has not changed the European view that Gaza remains occupied, and that Hamas should be a diplomatic partner.
The Europeans have come to believe that Israel has stolen land that "belonged" to Palestinians, that Jews have no rights in these lands, and thus the thieves must return them independent of any guarantees of security, worship, or an end to the conflict. These are not conditions that any Israeli government can or will accept, and thus the diplomatic unpleasantness will continue. Indeed, even if Israel were to withdraw from territories, it would only be the beginning of another unpleasantness, with Israeli retaliation for attacks across the long new border becoming then new pretext for boycott movements and the like.
One can just hope that whoever wins the elections will ignore baseless threats and theories about isolation and keep only Israel's real interests in mind.

Anne Bayefsky: UN marks Human Rights Day by promoting violation of human rights

Hiding in plain sight at the UN is the reason for the lack of peace between Israelis and Arabs – and it has nothing to do with 1967 and “occupation.” For Palestinians and Arabs across the Middle East, Israel is one big settlement.
As Palestinian representative Riyad Mansour openly told his U.N. audience on November 24, 2014: “Our people are suffering immense and growing hardships, all stemming from the grave injustice done to them in Al-Nakba of 1948 and thereafter.”
The month of November saw six full days at U.N. headquarters dedicated to dehumanizing Israelis, led by speakers from UNRWA, the Palestinian Authority and Iran. Israel was guilty of “an onslaught,” “ethnic cleansing,” “an inhumane blockade,” “torture,” “massacring civilians with a vengeance,” “virulent racism,” “barbarism,” “a policy of terrorism,” “genocide,” “apartheid,” “savagery,” “terror rampages,” “horrific abuse,” “supporting Al Qaeda,” “heinous crimes,” “beating and torturing juveniles,” and “crimes against humanity.”
That was in addition, to repeating “Zionism is racism” and analogizing Israelis to Nazis. Lebanon, for instance, said: “From 1948 until today, many Palestinian young girls and boys are just as determined as Anne Frank to conquer their fear of the occupier…”
How many more stabbings, rapes, and killings of Jews around the globe will it take to end American tolerance for incitement to racial and religious intolerance at the United Nations?
Eleanor Roosevelt would have had an answer.

Israel's Mission to the UN: UNbelievable

Wow! Look at the UN try to whitewash Chris Gunness' tweets!

As I mentioned last week, UNRWA's Chris Gunness had a Twitter meltdown over a reasoned, thoughtful op-ed piece by Bassam Eid in the Jerusalem Post, going on full attack mode by trying to smer the Post and calling to boycott the newspaper.

See how the UN spokesperson whitewashes this incident:

There was no "heated exchange" on Twitter, most of Gunness' tweets were unilateral and his call for boycott was way before anyone from the Jerusalem Post responded. He simply showed himself to be an unprofessional, spoiled whiner who lashes out when criticized.

And, of course, Gunness did call for a boycott. There is no other way to interpret his tweet.

Isn't it amazing that organizations like the UN that love to throw the word "impunity" around are the ones who always act with impunity with their holier-than-thou attitudes?

(h/t Ian)

PCHR lies about Ziad Abu Ain's death. What else do they lie about?

PCHR, a "human rights" organization that the media and the UN rely upon heavily, pretended to "investigate" the death of Ziad Abu Ain, and states without any qualification that Israeli forces killed him:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR and the testimony of Ansa Hosheih, the media official in the Commission against the Annexation Wall and Settlement Activity, at approximately 10:30, Ziad Abu ‘Ain (55), Director of the Commission against the Annexation Wall and Settlement Activity arrived at al-Dhohour area, east of Termis’ia village, north of Ramallah.... Upon their arrival, Israeli forces fired tear gas canisters and then a clash erupted between the protestors and the Israeli soldiers. Abu ‘Ain approached one of the soldiers and a serious discussion started between them. The soldier wearing [a helmet] rammed Abu Ain’s chest. He then held Abu Ain’s neck who fell on the floor and lost consciousness.

There is video that shows no such thing, except for perhaps a border policeman shoving him in the neck and shoulder area for less than half a second. Moreover, PCHR implies that Abu Zaid fell to the ground immediately after the altercation but it happened some time later; he was seen talking to reporters between the shove and his sitting down. There is no continuous footage to show exactly how much time elapses. He is never seen touching his neck as if in pain; on the contrary he wants to continue to attack the Israeli forces and is being held back.

This video includes an interview with Abu Ain, it is unclear if it is before or after the shoving but I believe before.. If it is before, then it looks like he was having labored breathing beforehand; if afterwards, it shows that there was a significant time lapse between the shove and the collapse.

It is clear that PCHR is stretching the truth as to the sequence of events by implying that he collapsed immediately after the shoving, and is flat-out lying when claiming that he was killed before the autopsy results are in.

The initial autopsy results show that he definitely suffered a stress-induced heart attack, although there are still some questions to be answered as to what caused it:

Israeli and Palestinian medical officials seemed to agree on the results of the autopsy of the Palestinian minister who died after being shoved and grabbed by the neck by an Israeli policeman at a West Bank protest, but issued conflicting interpretations Thursday.

Abu Ein, a Palestinian Authority cabinet minister, collapsed and died in the afternoon hours of Wednesday. Now a Palestinian-led autopsy claims his cause of death was a stress-induced heart attack.

The report, being led by Palestinian, Jordanian and Israeli pathologists, said the death was caused by blockage in the coronary artery, and said there were signs of light internal bleeding and localized pressure on the neck, at least according to the Israeli version of the report published by the Health Minixtry

The deceased suffered from heart disease, and there was evidence that plaque buildup were clogging more than 80% of his blood vessels, as well as signs that he had suffered heart attacks in the past.

Dr. Hen Kugel, the Israeli doctor who took part in the autopsy, told Ynet that the report was not final and that they were awaiting on the return of some tests, however "we know what happened there – he died from a heart attack. He had significant blockage of the arteries and his heart was in bad shape. When they grabbed his neck it caused massive stress which led to bleeding and then full blockage which is what killed him."

"There is no disagreement with the Palestinians about this, the only thing we still need to find out about is wounding to his front teeth, tongue and windpipe. These could be a result of resuscitation attempts or an attack as the Palestinians claim, but it doesn’t matter, he died because of his heart and stress," Dr. Kugel said.

UNRWA propaganda for Human Rights Day

For this year's Human Rights Day, UNRWA has been pushing the idea that it teaches human rights in all its schools on social media and in this HuffPo article:

UNRWA works to empower students to advocate and promote a culture of human rights despite the challenges they face. This very day, in 687 United Nations-run schools in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, children will advocate for human rights principles. Human Rights Education in UNRWA schools enables students to critically reflect on ways they can contribute to the realization of rights and contribute directly to their society and global community in positive ways....[W]e in UNRWA remain committed to the ideal of human rights for all. We teach it in our classrooms. We encourage our children to live it in their lives.

Well, not quite.

A 2011 study showed that UNRWA's human rights curriculum didn't teach anything about tolerance of religions and does not contribute one bit to Middle East peace.

The actual human rights curriculum materials on what used to be UNRWA's Arabic "human rights" website teaches anti-Israel lies.

A document on that same site said that Jews do not know anything about human rights.

A poem, also found on the UNRWA human rights website, said this:

Palestine should know I adore madness
Jaffa, I should know I'll come back to it
Let him know it's the crazy sons of Zion
With their thought of raping Palestine
The land of Canaan will be only to those who love her
Those who are occupied by people who do not
The land of Isra and Mi'raj cradle of the prophets
The land of jihad and martyrdom

I'm not talking about the normal hate being taught at UNRWA schools as part of history classes, for example. This hate was part of the very human rights curriculum that UNRWA so proudly trumpets to the West!

An idea floated by UNRWA to mention the Holocaust in its human rights curriculum was vehemently opposed by teachers, and ultimately shelved a couple of years ago. In fact, the teachers union itself officially denies the Holocaust - even while other teachers groups say they support Hitler's aims.

So while the US State Department compliments UNRWA on how well it teaches human rights with US funds, UNRWA is taking that same money and teaching the exact opposite of human rights when it comes to Jews.

Jordan parliament debate degenerates into antisemitism. There's a lesson there.

Jordan's House of Representatives had a debate Wednesday on whether it should buy natural gas from Israel.

Many of them complained about the prospect of being dependent on Israel for their energy needs. One called on Algeria and other Arab states to provide fuel for reasonabl eprices so they don't have the shame of buying from Israel.

Attorney Tariq Khouri asked "why the government is resorting to the Zionist enemy." MP Khalil Attia asked whether Israel respects agreements and contaminated the water of the Sea of Galilee.

Yes, he is saying that the Jews were poisoning the wells.

MP Aataiwi Majali said that this agreement is political victory for Israel, which is of course unacceptable. Attorney Assaf Shobaki said any agreement rewards the Israeli enemy and provides a service to the Jewish state.

MP Mohammed al-Abadi called on the government the need to search for alternatives, refusing to deal with the "enemy" in any way. He also called to expel any Israeli tourists in Jordan.

Attorney Khaireddin Hakouz pointed out that the negative reactions of the agreement is the result of the crimes the Jews in Palestine are doing in the holy places.

MP Mohammed Saud said that the government is able to solve the energy situation without resorting to the Jews, who don't respect agreements.

MP Atef Kawar said: "Israel aggressively usurped lands, and the Arabs can subdue the Jews only through the demolition of the Israeli economy."

MP Mohammad al-Riyati read verses from the Koran and said: "These Jews attacked the prophets."

And so it went, with the vast majority of the MPs trying to outdo the next in their public expressions of hate. One of the few exceptions was MP Kamal Zghoul who said, "Jordan's sovereign national interest is above all other considerations, and Jordan signed a peace agreement." He pointed out that Jordan would deal with the "devil" to meet the interests of Jordan.

That's what a Jordanian "moderate" sounds like; Israel is the devil but we need them.

In the end, they will almost certainly end up buying the gas from Israel, and Israel will be a far more reliable partner with Jordan than any Arab state has been. And that will make them hate Israel even more.

Because as this debate proves, it isn't about Israel's actions - it is about he dreaded, hated, feared Jews. Not Zionists, not Israelis, not Westerners - Jews. .

This is a lesson for all those starry eyed people who believe that somehow Israel and "Palestine" would live side by side in peace. The Palestinian mentality mirrors that of Jordan. The absolute best that anyone can ever hope for is for their relationship to be as warm as Israel's relationship with Jordan, where practical considerations drive what both sides do while at the same time the Arab political leaders will posture and openly incite more hate.

UPDATE: The English version of this article didn't mention any of the times the MPs blamed Jews.

12/10 Links Pt2: Rinsing Israel Out of Europe: The Zionistfrei Movement; Journalists Vs Jerusalem

From Ian:

Brendan O’Neill: Rinsing Israel Out of Europe: The Zionistfrei Movement

The Zionistfrei movement isn’t really about effecting any change in the Middle East. As Leicester Councillor Mohammed Dawood admits, Israel is hardly going to be “trembling in its shoes” over the city’s boycott. Rather, the movement is about making the chattering classes in Europe feel pure and righteous, unsullied by the poisonousness of the state it’s now so fashionable to hate.
Where yesteryear’s creators of Judenfrei zones saw the Jewish people as a corrupting presence, today’s lobbyists for Zionistfrei territories see the Jewish state as corrupting, as a toxic entity whose fruit and technology and books must be shunned.
No, Jews aren’t being physically expelled from Europe, but they are being made to feel unwelcome. Given that most Jews feel affinity with the state of Israel, what must they think when they see parts of Europe being cleansed of all things Israeli? They must think: “My culture and my people are not wanted here.” And European Jews are voting with their feet. In the first eight months of this year, 4,566 Jews left France for Israel, more than the total number that left in 2013 (3,228). Last year a European Union survey found that 29% of Europe’s Jews had considered emigrating because they no longer feel safe.
BDS is one of the ugliest political movements of our time. It is shot through with double standards, treating Israel as more wicked than any other state. It is shrill and censorious, too. Its members boo and jeer and seek to expel from apparently civilized Europe not only Israeli military leaders and politicians but even Israeli violinists and actors. Now, the demand for Zionistfrei zones is taking BDS to its terrifying conclusion, that Israel and everyone associated with it (you know who) should be shunned by respectable communities everywhere.

On the False Parallel Between Gaza and Northern Ireland

One thing is certain, however: The fairy tale version of the conflict in Northern Ireland offers no useful guidance to any party in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Quite the opposite, in fact.
To the Israelis, it offers only the illusion that spontaneous concessions to their enemies will bring them something better than their enemies’ contempt followed by further demands.
In regard to the Palestinians, it misrepresents the nature of Hamas’ ideology and whitewashes the organization’s dedication to violence and even genocide. In effect, it reduces the Palestinians to colorful Orientals incapable of meaning what they actually say.
Most importantly, however, the fairy tale actually makes peace less likely by recommending capitulation to terrorism rather than a determined and patient fight against it. In fact, that determined fight was the only thing that ultimately brought the IRA to the negotiating table.
There can be no doubt that the last thing the people of the Middle East need is anything that makes peace less likely. For their sake, let us hear no more of the Northern Ireland fairy tale.

New York Teens Teach a Lesson in Helping Terror Victims

They don’t have plush offices or secretaries or gala dinners, but a group of 15 year-olds on Long Island are providing an inspiring model of leadership for the rest of the American Jewish community.
Tenth graders at the Rambam Mesivta High School in Lawrence, New York, recently initiated an online crowd sourcing campaign, which has raised an astonishing $2.4-million for the families of the four American-Israeli rabbis, and the Druze police officer, who were murdered in a Jerusalem synagogue last month.
We were all horrified and saddened by the news of the Har Nof massacre. But most people quickly returned to their usual daily affairs. The grim reality of what the widows and orphans will endure for the rest of their lives didn’t attract much attention.
When the Rambam students heard about the massacre, they asked: What can we do? And then they did something – something that will make a real difference in the lives of the victims’ families. They can’t bring back the innocents who were massacred by Palestinian terrorists. But they can ease the pain of their widows and orphans, just a little.

2015 US spending bill limitations on funding a Palestinian government - full text

This comes from the latest version of the US budget proposal.

It is painful to read, mostly because it is written in bureaucratese. But from what I can gather, it looks like some members of Congress really tried to put into law different controls to ensure that US funds do not go towards terrorist groups - and other members (or the White House) pushed back to have veto power over almost every one of these controls.

So for example, in the first section quoted here, there are lots of limitations on funding any "State of Palestine" - and then there is a waiver for the President to determine that national security trumps it all.

(This may be standard with all foreign policy issues, but still...it seems to be, for example, the official reason why the US embassy is not moved to Jerusalem every year despite Congress passing the law mandating it.)

It looks like many of the controls are riddled with similar loopholes. For example, at the very end it seems to say that the US will not fund the PLO, This is silly because the PA reports to the PLO, even though it is not "part" of the PLO.

At the end there is a very interesting section on reducing aid by the amount that it is determined that the PA is paying terrorists in prison (or employees before they were killed while trying to kill Israelis.) But even that seems to have lots of wiggle room.

Anyway, here it is:

PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD
2 SEC. 7036. (a) LIMITATION ON ASSISTANCE.—None
3 of the funds appropriated under titles III through VI of
4 this Act may be provided to support a Palestinian state
5 unless the Secretary of State determines and certifies to
6 the appropriate congressional committees that—
7 (1) the governing entity of a new Palestinian
8 state—
9 (A) has demonstrated a firm commitment
10 to peaceful co-existence with the State of Israel;
11 and
12 (B) is taking appropriate measures to
13 counter terrorism and terrorist financing in the
14 West Bank and Gaza, including the dismantling
15 of terrorist infrastructures, and is cooperating
16 with appropriate Israeli and other appropriate
17 security organizations; and
18 (2) the Palestinian Authority (or the governing
19 entity of a new Palestinian state) is working with
20 other countries in the region to vigorously pursue ef-
21 forts to establish a just, lasting, and comprehensive
22 peace in the Middle East that will enable Israel and
23 an independent Palestinian state to exist within the
24 context of full and normal relationships, which
25 should include—
1 (A) termination of all claims or states of
2 belligerency;
3 (B) respect for and acknowledgment of the
4 sovereignty, territorial integrity, and political
5 independence of every state in the area through
6 measures including the establishment of demili-
7 tarized zones;
8 (C) their right to live in peace within se-
9 cure and recognized boundaries free from
10 threats or acts of force;
11 (D) freedom of navigation through inter-
12 national waterways in the area; and
13 (E) a framework for achieving a just set-
14 tlement of the refugee problem.
15 (b) SENSE OF CONGRESS.—It is the sense of Con-
16 gress that the governing entity should enact a constitution
17 assuring the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and
18 respect for human rights for its citizens, and should enact
19 other laws and regulations assuring transparent and ac-
20 countable governance.
21 (c) WAIVER.—The President may waive subsection
22 (a) if the President determines that it is important to the
23 national security interest of the United States to do so.

Lots more....

Palestinians To Pay Family Of Crown Heights Stabber (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Ramallah, December 10 - The Palestinian Authority announced today that it had added the name of the man who stabbed a Lubavicher Hasid in Brooklyn early Tuesday morning to its roster of martyrs whose families receive pensions.

Late last night a 40-year-old man entered the Chabad Lubavich world headquarters building on Eastern Parkway with a knife. He attacked a 22-year-old Israeli student in the head and was shot by police after refusing to put his weapon down. The attacker later died at a local hospital. In keeping with longstanding Palestinian policy, President Mahmoud Abbas ordered officials to begin sending payments to the family of the slain attacker.

President Abbas stressed that the location of the attack on Jews should in no way prejudice the payment policy against the martyr who dies as a result of the act, and that he will ensure that such an exception is specifically negated in the regulations governing those payments. "It would be a disservice to our brave martyrs and their families to exclude such deeds from eligibility simply because they take place overseas," he said.

Even before the release of the stabber's identity by the New York Police Department, Abbas instructed his financial officials to discover the relevant information regarding the man's family so that payment could be arranged as soon as possible. The fact that the stabber was not Palestinian, stressed Abbas, or even knew his victim was Israeli, should not be factor in his family's eligibility for a pension. "The fact that this brave man died because he wielded a knife and yelled, 'Kill the Jew!' is enough," he stated.

Observers initially thought the stabbing was directly germane to the ongoing protests and violence surrounding the deaths of black men at the hands of police officers across the US. However, no direct connection has yet been made, and video of the shooting in this case includes clear footage of the stabber refusing to put down his knife and getting shot as a result. Abbas welcomed the invocation of the Palestinian cause in the demonstrations, as some activists have done, and the way in which they obscure or ignore the cases of clear justification for certain such killings on the part of police. "We urge our supporters and spiritual brothers in urban America to adopt our practice of hailing every single person who dies at the hand of better-armed authorities as a martyr whose blood must be avenged, regardless of the circumstances of that death," he continued.

Palestinian officials refused to comment on whether they would also begin formal incitement to murder Jews beyond the Middle East, or whether only post facto rewarding of such acts would be instituted.