Thursday, June 25, 2015

06/25 Links Pt2: BHL: A yellow star for the Jewish state?; Fmr. Obama advisers warn against Iran deal

From Ian:

Bernard-Henri Levy: A yellow star for the Jewish state?

Is this just a detail that can be safely ignored on the grounds that BDS targets “only” the territories, the Jewish settlements being built there, and the goods that the settlers produce? This is another sucker trap.
Here, too, it is enough to read the movement’s founding declaration of July 9, 2005, which specifies that one of its “three objectives” is to “protect” the “rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.” In fact and in law, that would amount to establishing on those lands a new Arab country that could be counted on, in short order, to undergo an ethnic cleansing that would make it judenfrei.
And, finally, how can I refrain from reminding those whose memory is as full of holes as their thinking that the idea of boycotting Israel is not as new as it appears? In fact, it is older than the Jewish state, having emerged on December 2, 1945, from a decision by the Arab League, which then wasted no time in relying on that decision to reject the United Nations’ dual resolution to establish two states. Among the promoters of this brilliant idea were Nazi war criminals who had settled in Syria and Egypt, where they gave their new masters lessons in marking Jewish shops and businesses.
A comparison is not an argument. And the meaning of a slogan does not reside entirely in its genealogy. But words do have a history. As do debates. And it is better to know that history, if we wish to avoid repeating its ugliest scenes.
The truth is that the BDS movement is nothing more than a sinister caricature of the anti-totalitarian and anti-apartheid struggles. It is a campaign whose instigators have no aim other than to discriminate against, delegitimize, and vilify an Israel that in their mind never stopped wearing its yellow star.
To activists of good faith who may have been taken in by duplicitous representations of the movement, I would say only that there are too many noble causes in need of assistance to allow oneself to be enlisted in a dubious one. Those worthy causes include fighting the jihadist decapitators, saving the women and girls enslaved by Boko Haram, defending the Middle East’s imperiled Christians and Arab democrats, and, of course, striving for a just peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

Labour’s Hamas connection

Among the Labour mainstream, complacency about Corbyn has been replaced by a rising sense of anger. “He claims he is a socialist, yet the first principle of socialism is supposed to be equality,” says James Bloodworth, editor of the influential Labour website Left Foot Forward. “Is he deluded enough to think that anti-Semitic terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah care a jot for the human rights of women, of gay people and of Jews?”
Bloodworth continues: “He needs to clarify his past statements as a matter of urgency. If he still stands by the things he has said, anyone genuinely interested in human rights cannot support him.”
But he is not alone in his affection for hardline Islamists. A seam of similar feeling runs through the British political establishment, particularly on the left.
The Palestinian Return Centre (PRC) is a British campaign group that — according to the Tel Aviv-based Meir Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Center — is affiliated to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2009, it welcomed the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh as its guest speaker at its annual conference; and it has long enjoyed the patronage of MPs.
At a PRC event held at Parliament in 2013, Corbyn took the stage alongside Baroness Jenny Tonge, who was forced to resign from her position in the Liberal party after saying that if she were Palestinian, she “might just consider” becoming a suicide bomber; and Lord Nazir Ahmed, who after causing a deadly road accident by texting behind the wheel, blamed his prison sentence on a Jewish conspiracy.
A surprising number of other British politicians, including Andy Slaughter, Sir Gerald Kaufman and Crispin Blunt, have visited Hamas leaders in Gaza, and some — George Galloway included — have made sizable donations to the terror group. Now that Corbyn’s star is rising, this loose collective of pro-Islamist MPs may have a new representative at the top table. (h/t Yenta Press)

Landmark anti-BDS law passes final Senate legislative hurdle

After weeks of legislative drama, a trade bill containing provisions opposing the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel cleared its final legislative hurdle Wednesday afternoon. The anti-BDS language, passed as part of the controversial Trade Promotion Authority legislation, is expected to be signed into law by President Barack Obama, who had pushed Congress to pass the trade bill as soon as possible.
Two amendments opposing BDS in Europe – one sponsored by Democratic Sen. Ben Cardin and Republican Sen. Rob Portman and the other by Republican Representative Peter Roskam and Democratic Representative Juan Vargas – were included in a trade authorization package that was considered must-pass legislation for the administration.
The president needed Congress’s vote to authorize him to negotiate trade deals with so-called “fast-track authority,” but ten days ago House Democrats turned on the president and defeated a key portion of the trade deal package.
After quick legislative maneuvering last week, House Republicans passed the authorization part of the bill – the part that the president needed most urgently and that Republicans tend to support – and then passed the revised House version back to the Senate for approval. On Wednesday afternoon, the Senate gave the controversial legislation its final approval, sending trade authorization to the president’s desk to be signed into law.

Roskam: If you want free trade with the U.S., you can't boycott Israel

Summer appeal to support EoZ! (plus a mazel tov...)

(This post will remain on top for the next several hours, scroll down for newer posts)

This past Monday I achieved something that I highly doubt that any writer in any medium has ever accomplished.

My book review of Michael Oren's "Ally" was reproduced in The Jewish Press.

My original analysis of the UNHRC report was reproduced in The Algemeiner.

My scoop that the UNHRC report lied about the definition of occupation was reproduced in The Tower.

Three different, original articles were each independently considered by three different news editors to be valuable enough to be reproduced in three separate media outlets in a single day.

On that same day I also published a graphic that succinctly describes the differences between UNHCR and UNRWA which has been shared hundreds of times on Twitter.

This would make any writer proud if it happened in the course of a month - yet it all happened on Monday.

While that day isn't typical, it gives you an idea of the astonishing amount of original, valuable information that gets created and published on EoZ every single day, six days a week.

Besides EoZ's original articles, posters, cartoons and videos, we have increased the number of columnists, now featuring Daphne Anson. Mike Lumish, PreOccupied Territory and Vic Rosenthal.

Not to mention Ian's daily linkdumps, which are the best single source for all important Israel-related news available - not to disrespect the excellent job done by JCPA.

Some of the funds raised here go to these contributors (for those who accept being remunerated.)

It takes a lot of time and money to keep things going. If you think that this work is valuable, please consider donating - or, better yet, becoming a monthly subscriber - using the PayPal buttons on the top-right column of my main webpage. Or, if you prefer, you can help by sending me an Amazon gift card.

Thanks again for your readership and for your support through the years. I do appreciate it.

By the way, Junior Elder is iy"h getting married next month. He has contributed to a number of posts through the years.

If you want to earmark your donation to be given to him and his lovely bride as a wedding present, please add 18 cents to the amount donated so I can distinguish it from other donations.

I haven't decided what to call the future Mrs. Junior Elder on the blog, but tentatively I'll call her Junior Elder Wife, or JEW for short. :)

Thanks again!

An absurd UNHRC commission story and the games that will result

The UNHRC report released this week includes some clearly ridiculous allegations from Gaza "eyewitnesses." Here is one of them:

An eyewitness, Raghad Qdeih, told the commission that, on 25 July around 1 p.m., Israeli forces occupied the home of her uncle, Mohamed Tawfiq Qdeih, in Khuza’a. At the time of the attack, the witness, together with her uncle’s extended family and friends were taking shelter on the ground floor. Most of the approximately 30 persons who had sought refuge in that house were women, children and elderly persons, including a man who was over 70 years old. Both witnesses interviewed by the commission in relation to this incident insisted that these people were all civilians, and that none of them were affiliated to armed groups. When the soldiers entered the house, Mohamed Tawfiq Qdeih was holding a white flag with one hand and his other hand was raised to show the soldiers that he was unarmed. He reportedly spoke to the soldiers in Hebrew, telling them that they were all civilians. Mohamed Tawfiq Qdeih was approaching the soldiers and, when he was about two meters away, the soldiers shot him twice and killed him. The women and children - among them the witness's daughter - were then ordered to leave the house, whereas all six men present were directed to stay in the building. The women and children went to the house of the witness’s father, Ramadan Qdeih, next door.

Ramadan Qdeih

The father of Raghad, Ramadan Qdeih, described to the commission that he witnessed the forces arriving at the house of his brother, Mohamed Qdeih, at around 1 p.m., in the process of which they demolished parts of it. About an hour later Israeli soldiers came to his own house. They ordered the people in the house to return to the place where they had previously sheltered, where the women stayed on the first floor. The owner of the house was taken to the second floor. From the window there, Ramadan Qdeih saw the men who had been held at his brother's house with Israeli soldiers standing behind them. The witness said that the men were naked with black plastic bags over their heads, handcuffed and positioned in front of the windows facing outwards. The soldiers then started shooting from behind the naked men, using them as human shields. This went on from about 1.30 to 6 pm. The men were later told by the soldiers that they were placed by the window in order to deter Hamas fighters from returning fire.

If things like these events happened, I would hope that IDF soldiers would be testifying about them.

But the stories are absurd.

The story about the IDF shooting a man at point blank range while he held a white flag and was speaking to them in Hebrew is just one version of the story, as the anti-Israel Euro-Mid Observer described this incident from the perspective of multiple "witnesses."

Ramadan Qdeih says that the soldiers first entered the house, and that Mohamed was shot afterwards.
Raghdad Qdeih says that he was shot on the steps leading to the house, not inside.
Mahmoud Mohammad Ahmad Al-Qara said that Mohammed was killed immediately upon opening the door to his house, not mentioning a conversation at all.

What about the IDF supposedly taking off the clothes of the Arab men and forcing them to stand in the window while they shot around them? It is even more absurd.

First of all, Hamas wouldn't be deterred from shooting at fellow Gazans.

Secondly, while the "witness" told the UNHRC that the "human shields" were "naked with black plastic bags over their heads," one told the Euro-Mid NGO that they were blindfolded. It is hard to mistake one for the other.

Thirdly, the most lurid detail from the UNHRC's "testimony" that the "human shields" were stripped naked is not corroborated by a single witness - or even "victim" - interviewed by Euro-Mid.

Even the Euro-Mid report acknowledges that the testimonies regarding this are inconsistent, but concludes "The contradictions were not important to lead the observers to doubt the truthfulness of statements in general."

But there is no downside to lying to the UNHRC. They will publish whatever people are willing to say. They won't try to corroborate it in the least.

And then, when the Military Advocate General is forced to investigate these obviously bogus claims and concludes after many months that almost all the stories are fiction, the headlines will be that the MAG cannot possibly be objective because of the high percentage of accusations that were dismissed. Even well-meaning Western observers will look at those statistics and conclude that something must be fishy, not even considering that Gazans are conditioned to - and instructed to - lie to NGOs. .

And NGOs like Euro-Mid are coaching their "witnesses" to say what they want to hear.

It is a win-win for the terrorists and their supporters, all because the UNHRC does not want to report what human rights groups know very well: that "eyewitnesses" often lie to Western NGOs. As a rare honest Amnesty researcher noted, "Players and interested parties go to extraordinary lengths to manipulate or manufacture 'evidence' for both internal and external consumption."

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

When I heard about the terrorist mass murder in the South Carolina church, I had a familiar feeling. It was the same feeling I had one morning last November, when I learned of the massacre at the Kehillat Bnei Torah Synagogue in Jerusalem. In fact, it was the same feeling I have had countless times in recent years, including twice more in the past week.

It is a combination of emotions. Sorrow, anger and a desire for justice, but also an assertion that “this time is enough. We won’t take it anymore.” Of course, most likely we won’t stop ‘taking it’, any more than blacks in America will be able to stop being the victims of racially-motivated hate crimes.

There are similarities and differences between our situation and theirs. One of the similarities is that incitement fuels the fury of the vicious or unstable individuals that become perpetrators of terrorism. In America, it’s underground. It isn’t socially acceptable to express race-hatred, but there is plenty of it in private discussions and, above all, on internet sites and social media. Among Palestinian Arabs, incitement to hate and kill Jews is taught in schools, broadcast on official PLO and Hamas media, and preached in mosques.

So when a Palestinian Arab speaks pleasantly to a Jew, smiles and shoots him dead (as happened last week), it isn’t a random act, even if the victim is chosen at random. The killer learned to hate in school in a carefully planned system of education set up by Yasser Arafat when he was allowed to return in 1993, and he heard murder glorified every day by his political and religious leaders.

Dylann Roof, who murdered nine people in Charleston, did not study to be a white supremacist in school, and he probably wasn’t told to go out and kill black people in church. He learned on the internet: Here is what he wrote in his manifesto:

The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?

The Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC) is the heir of the White Citizens’ Council of the 1960s, which in turn was the more polished version of the KKK. While the CofCC also espouses traditional conservative political positions, racist themes predominate.

The Charleston terrorist thus has his roots directly in the violent racist tradition that grew out of southern opposition to Reconstruction after the Civil War, which was expressed by segregation, lynching, denial of suffrage, etc., and spawned the KKK and similar organizations.

Reconstruction was in part an attempt to punish the South, but it also was intended to rebuild its shattered economy and obtain human and political rights for the newly freed southern blacks. It failed in these latter tasks, and ultimately what emerged was the poor, Democratic-dominated Jim Crow South that existed until the 1960s. The status quo was strictly enforced by the deadly violence of the KKK and other racist groups.

I am indebted to “Sar Shalom” for pointing out to me the analogy between the reactionary southern opposition to Reconstruction, one of whose goals was to keep freed blacks from realizing the rights they should have gained after the Civil War, and the reactionary ‘Palestinian’ movement, which aims to return the region to its pre-WWI Muslim-dominated condition — and to prevent the Jewish people from obtaining its legitimate rights.

Thus Dylann Roof and Arab terrorists are not only driven by similar racist incitement, their ideological goals are also similar: to oppose a progressive change that granted an oppressed people their rights.

Palestinian inversion of reality tries to make it appear that their struggle is intended to gain rights for Arabs. But this interpretation is belied by their rejection of offers of statehood on numerous occasions, their insistence on ‘right of return’ and their refusal to accept the definition of Israel as a Jewish state within any borders. Their movement is not about creating an Arab state, but rather opposing the Jewish one.

And the white supremacists? Their movement isn’t about the rights of “the white race” either. But I don’t think anyone needs to be told that.

06/25 Links Pt1: Kemp: The U.N.’s Gaza Report Is Flawed and Dangerous; Pal teams named after terrorists

From Ian:

Col. Richard Kemp: The U.N.’s Gaza Report Is Flawed and Dangerous

Judge Davis suggests that the I.D.F.’s use of air, tank and artillery fire in populated areas may constitute a war crime and recommends further international legal restrictions on their use. Yet these same systems were used extensively by American and British forces in similar circumstances in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are often vital in saving the lives of our own soldiers, and their curtailment would jeopardize military effectiveness while handing an advantage to our enemies.
The I.D.F. is not perfect. In the heat of battle and under stress its commanders and soldiers undoubtedly made mistakes. Weapons malfunctioned, intelligence was sometimes wrong and, as with all armies, it has some bad soldiers. Unnecessary deaths resulted, and these should be investigated and the individuals brought to trial if criminal culpability is suspected.
The reason so many civilians died in Gaza last summer was not Israeli tactics or policy. It was Hamas’s strategy. Hamas deliberately positioned its fighters and munitions in civilian areas, knowing that Israel would have no choice but to attack them and that civilian casualties would result. Unable to inflict existential harm on Israel by military means, Hamas sought to cause large numbers of casualties among its own people in order to bring international condemnation and unbearable diplomatic pressure against Israel.
Judge Davis’s report is rife with contradictions. She acknowledges that Israeli military precautions saved lives, yet without foundation accuses “decision makers at the highest levels of the government of Israel” of a policy of deliberately killing civilians. Incredibly, she “regrets” that her commission was unable to verify the use of civilian buildings by “Palestinian armed groups,” yet elsewhere acknowledges Hamas’s widespread use of protected locations, including United Nations schools.
Most worrying, Judge Davis claims to be “fully aware of the need for Israel to address its security concerns” while demanding that it “lift, immediately and unconditionally, the blockade on Gaza.” Along with the report’s endorsement of Hamas’s anti-Israel narrative, this dangerous recommendation would undoubtedly lead to further bloodshed in both Israel and Gaza.

Even when faced with criminal tactics, Israel abided by the laws of armed conflict

In fact, the IDF’s efforts to mitigate civilian casualties went beyond the legal requirements, as attested to by two separate reports of high ranking military experts from democratic countries around the globe, who came to Israel to investigate the last operation. For example, Israel surpassed the practices of militaries of democratic states, in warning Gaza citizens in the vicinity of military targets, and encouraging them to vacate the area prior to its attack. During the conflict, Israel also made extensive humanitarian efforts to alleviate hardship in Gaza, such as delivering humanitarian supplies (food and medical supplies, blankets, fuel and more) and providing medical treatment to wounded Gaza civilians.
The fact that military conflicts involve errors, as well as collateral damage (unintentional harm to civilians who were in the vicinity of legitimate military targets) is sad and regrettable, but nonetheless recognized and accepted in international law.
Israel has established an investigative mechanism in order to scrutinize its activities during the recent operation. As an open democracy, Israel is capable of investigating incidents of concern to determine whether they involved errors, collateral damage, or war crimes. Currently, Israel is examining over 100 incidents and the MAG has opened 19 criminal investigations.
It is important to illuminate the disparity between the reality, and what is often reported. The constant, biased treatment of Israel at the UN does not contribute toward a peaceful settlement of the conflict. It serves only to embolden Hamas and other terrorist groups to intensify their unlawful methods.

Richard Behar: Analysis: New York Times Editorial is Another Hit Job on Israel

Does the New York Times editorial board want Israel to take it seriously? Is the board’s distaste for the country so strong that it has no interest in using the newspaper’s well-earned power and influence to make a real impact on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict? Take Tuesday’s editorial, which is among the kinds of low-hanging fruit that Gary Weiss and I will be picking and exposing once the funds are in place for our Mideast Reporter—a multimedia, multilingual investigative reporting enterprise. For now, some batting practice…
The Times editorial concludes: “…Israel has a duty, and should have the desire, to adjust its military policies to avoid civilian casualties and hold those who failed to do so accountable.”
“Should have the desire… to adjust…” Think about that for a moment. What they are saying is that Israel does not have such a desire, and that Israel has not, and does not, adjust its policies.
The editorial was written in support of the recent UN Human Rights Council report that concluded that Israel and Hamas may have committed war crimes during their war last summer. But here is what the editors decided to omit from the editorial:

An article in Jordan's Ad-Dustour on Tuesday praised terror attacks against Israeli Jews and encourages Palestinian Arabs to do more of it.

The article, by Yaser Azaatreh, calls these "heroic operations." The author is especially enamored that the terrorists are incited to hate in schools and universities and mosques to act alone, so that the PA security forces aren't aware of them and might frustrate their desire to kill more Jews. He calls the people behind these attacks "the future Palestinian leadership."

Azaatreh encourages "all factions to make greater efforts in promoting a culture of resistance and uprising in the West Bank."

The Israel Embassy in Amman issued a condemnation, which was spurned by the newspaper and other Jordanian media:

Jordanian journalists angrily rebuked Israel’s enemy embassy in Amman on Thursday after the Israeli mission in the Hashemite kingdom protested the media’s praise of Palestinian attacks.

The row was triggered by a June 24 article in the daily newspaper Al-Dustur glorifying the Palestinian attacks which left one Israeli dead in the West Bank and another Border Police officer wounded by stabbing in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Israeli embassy protested the article, deeming it “ugly and shameful...incitement to kill Israelis.”

Al-Dustur rejected the embassy’s protestations, calling the Palestinian actions “martyrdom operations in heroic defense of their land and rights.”

This is what peace between Israel and Arab nations looks like, in case you were wondering.

Did Omar Barghouti add a clause to BDS rules to except himself?

Ma'an has an article by Anna Kokko that is, of course, very sympathetic to BDS while saying how difficult it is for Palestinian Arabs to adhere to the boycott fully.

One section, though, is notable:

According to [Omar] Barghouti, a full-scale boycott of everything Israeli is not possible under occupation -- much in the same way that Black South Africans were not able to completely boycott the apartheid regime themselves.

“We can still call on the world to fully isolate Israel,” he says.

Barghouti himself studied at Tel Aviv University, where he was also enrolled as a doctoral student.

In 2009, PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel) of whom Barghouti is a founding member, stated that Palestinian citizens of Israel or Palestinians carrying Israeli ID cards have no other possibility than to study in Israeli institutions and as such cannot be asked to join the academic boycott.

The activist declined to give further comments on his choice of university, saying that his personal life was “entirely irrelevant” for the interview.

Barghouti, born in Qatar and raised in Egypt, is no Israeli citizen. There are a number of universities in the West Bank (Al Quds, An Najah, Birzeit) that he could have attended. Of course he had a choice. But his desire to attend Tel Aviv University, despite his insistence that others boycott it, apparently made him put in an exception to the BDS rules just for himself!.

So principled!

I have a feeling that even other BDSers are unhappy at their leader's hypocrisy.

Confederate flag banned from Amazon - but Hamas and Nazi flags still for sale

CNN reported:

America's leading merchants have spoken: The Confederate flag is coming off the shelves.

Walmart, Amazon, eBay and Sears all announced bans on the sale of Confederate flag merchandise, amid an intensifying national debate over the use of the controversial flag.

The announcements are the latest indication that the flag, a symbol of the slave-holding South, has become toxic in the aftermath of a shooting last week at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina. Gov. Nikki Haley announced in a Monday afternoon news conference that she supports removing the Confederate flag from the state capitol grounds.

But guess what's still for sale on Amazon?

And this:

(h/t Reuben)

06/24 Links Pt2: UNRWA causes more damage than good; US ready to offer Iran nuclear equipment

From Ian:

Israeli NGO: ‘UNRWA causes more damage than good’

According to a position paper published recently by an Israeli non-partisan NGO, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA), is “actively being counterproductive to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
The paper which was published by the independent political think-tank, the Institute for Zionist Strategies (IZS), argues that UNRWA facilities have been used for terrorist activity against civilians, UNRWA employees often are members themselves in terrorist groups, raising sever doubt on UNRWA’s neutrality.
Additionally, the paper claims that UNRWA is financially and politically dependent on the continuation of the status-quo in the conflict and therefore is not motivated by an actual desire to solve the problems of refugees.
The paper was composed and researched by Lt. Col. Nir Naaman, currently a Doctoral Student at Bar-Illan University, for IZS. He cites news articles from the last decade, UN resolutions, national and governmental databases and related academic literature as resources.
Citing instances in which UNRWA was allegedly “caught” turning a blind eye to terrorist activities or even being fully involved in such activities, dating as far back as 1968, when an UNRWA camp was used as a training base for the PLO, then still an official terrorist organization.

US, allies ready to offer Iran nuclear equipment, document reveals

The United States and its allies are willing to offer Iran state-of-the-art nuclear equipment if Tehran agrees to pare down its atomic weapons program as part of a final nuclear agreement, a draft document has revealed.
The confidential paper, obtained by the Associated Press, has dozens of bracketed text where disagreements remain. Technical cooperation is the least controversial issue at the talks, and the number of brackets suggest the sides have a ways to go, not only on that topic but also more contentious disputes, with less than a week until the June 30 deadline for a deal.
However, the scope of the help now being offered in the draft may displease U.S. congressional critics who already argue that Washington has offered too many concessions at the negotiations.
The draft, titled "Civil Nuclear Cooperation," promises to supply Iran with light-water nuclear reactors instead of its nearly completed heavy-water facility at Arak, which would produce enough plutonium for several bombs a year if completed as planned.
Reducing the Arak reactor's plutonium output was one of the main aims of the U.S. and its negotiating partners, along with paring down Iran's ability to produce enriched uranium -- like plutonium, a potential pathway to nuclear arms.

WikiLeaks Saudi cable: Iran sent nuclear equipment to Sudan

Saudi diplomats in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, believed Iran shipped advanced nuclear equipment including centrifuges to Sudan in 2012, according to a document revealed last week by WikiLeaks and said to be a cable from the embassy.
"The embassy's sources advised that Iranian containers arrived this week at Khartoum airport containing sensitive technical equipment in the form of fast centrifuges for enriching uranium, and a second shipment is expected to arrive this week," said the document, dated February 2012 and marked "very secret."
WikiLeaks last week released more than 60,000 cables and documents which it says are official Saudi communications, and plans to release half a million in total. Saudi Arabia said the documents might be faked and has not commented on specific documents.
If the cable is authentic, it does not provide details on the source of the embassy's information or any further evidence of the shipment.
There have been no previous reports of Iran sending nuclear equipment to Sudan, which has no known nuclear program.

During last summer's Gaza war, Hamas took credit for attacking, and threatened to further attack, Israel's nuclear power plant in Dimona:

Hamas remained defiant Thursday, claiming rockets fired at the southern city of Dimona by its military wing the Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades showed Israel's weakness.

"It [the rockets fired at Dimona] shows the weakness and vulnerability of the Israeli occupation," Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in an early Thursday statement. "Our responses [to Israeli strikes] are still in their early stages."

The Israeli army said Wednesday that three rockets had been fired from the Gaza Strip at Dimona. No casualties were reported.

Ezzeddin al-Qassam Brigades claimed responsibility for striking Dimona, which houses Israel's nuclear reactor, for the first time.

In a statement, the group said it had fired three M75 rockets at Dimona, which is located nearly 65 kilometers from Gaza.

This is nuclear terrorism.

The 2005 UN International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism defines acts that fall under that designation, Article 2:

1. Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person unlawfully and intentionally:
...
(b) Uses in any way radioactive material or a device, or uses or damages a nuclear facility in a manner which releases or risks the release of radioactive material:
(i) With the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury; or
(ii) With the intent to cause substantial damage to property or to the environment; or
(iii) With the intent to compel a natural or legal person, an international organization or a State to do or refrain from doing an act.
2. Any person also commits an offence if that person:
(a) Threatens, under circumstances which indicate the credibility of the threat, to commit an offence as set forth in paragraph 1 (b) of the present article...

Just another international law that Hamas violated that the UNHRC couldn't mention.

UPDATE: Here's Hamas' video of the rockets aimed at Dimona:

(h/t Bob K)

Next UN Probe Of Israel To Save Time By Just Reprinting Der Stürmer (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Geneva, June 24 - The research team that released a report of its investigation into Israeli and Palestinian combat conduct during last summer's war in and around the Gaza Strip is now saying that although they found the work gratifying and important, next time they are called upon to produce such a report they will save significant time, effort, and money by simply reprinting old issues of the Nazi tabloid Der Stürmer.

The tabloid, which was published more or less regularly between 1923 and 1945, except when wartime paper shortages disrupted production, helped the Nazi Party cement its hold on the sensibilities of the working class by reinvigorating and cultivating the crudest antisemitic tropes of medieval Europe. With hundreds of issues available, the all-but-inevitable report on any upcoming renewal of Israel-Hamas hostilities will thus prove much easier to prepare, says Schabas-Davis Commission head Mary McGowan Davis.

"With the fighting erupting again every couple of years, Human Rights Council research teams charged with finding evidence of Israeli war crimes are going to have their work cut out for them," said Davis. "Interviewing thousands of Palestinians, collating reams of Hamas-provided casualty statistics, finding just the right emotive excerpts to include in a report, dismissing Israeli efforts to minimize civilian casualties - all that takes a lot of time and energy. While it feels worthwhile to undermine the legitimacy of Jewish self-defense, our team realized only belatedly that we were reinventing the wheel."

Davis pointed to several archived issues of the Nazi tabloid as illustration. "It's all there: wholesale libel, ignoring context, misusing Jewish sources, accepting outlandish, uncorroborated anecdotes as fact, and just repeating the Big Lie, all in service of justifying attacks on Jews and promoting an atmosphere that questions any Jewish right to exist, let alone to defend themselves. We spent months and months conducting biased interviews, selectively quoting various sources, and uncritically recording propaganda for later parroting, when all we had to do to achieve the same result was take the existing Nazi, er, literature and adapt it to the Gaza context. Would have taken half the time."

"Some people think of the UN as big jobs racket," said former commission head William Schabas. "But that's not really the case. Select agencies of the organization fit that description, such as UNRWA. But in general it's important to apply budgetary sensitivity to our work, and recycling the antisemitic content of Der Stürmer instead of duplicating Julius Striecher's tireless efforts against international Jewry would go a long way toward streamlining the Human Rights Council's operations."

Schabas also noted some concerns over use of the Nazi material, but does not anticipate any unresolvable difficulties. "Striecher was convicted of crimes against humanity at Nüremberg for his role in fostering the atmosphere in which the Final Solution was possible, so some of our colleagues have expressed reservations at this idea," he explained. "But international law has changed, and there is no serious worry that this could come back to haunt us."

06/24 Links Pt1: UN report denies Israel's right of self-defense, advocates arrest of Israelis instead

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: UN report denies Israel's right of self-defense, advocates arrest of Israelis instead

Arrest Benjamin Netanyahu and any other “suspected” Israeli war criminals wherever and whenever you can get your hands on them. That is the shocking bottom line of a scandalous report released today from the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The report emanates from a board of inquiry the Council created in the midst of the 2014 Gaza war. In legalese, the call to arrest Israelis either for trial before the International Criminal Court (ICC), or before any court in any country that the U.N. labels “fair,” reads like this:
The board “calls upon the international community … to support actively the work of the International Criminal Court in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory; to exercise universal jurisdiction to try international crimes in national courts; and to comply with extradition requests pertaining to suspects of such crimes to countries where they would face a fair trial.”
To be fair, the U.N. report says this could apply to both parties. In other words, the democratic state of Israel, with a moral and legal obligation to defend its citizens, and the Palestinian attackers bent on genocide are moral equals. Throughout the 183-page tome, the U.N. council “experts” play the old “cycle of violence” trick, otherwise known as “it all started when you hit me back.”
An infamous photo from the Third Reich shows eminent Jewish lawyer Michael Siegel, beaten and bloodied after going to police headquarters on behalf of a Jewish client who had been sent to Dachau, forced to walk through the streets of Munich with a sign around his neck saying: “I am a Jew, but I will never again complain to the police.”

Lawfare Blog: What to Make of the UN's Special Commission Report on Gaza?

Perhaps most frustratingly, even the IDF’s efforts to protect civilians are apparently grounds for incrimination. On page 63, the Commission notes that “according to official Israeli sources, the IDF abandoned air strikes when the presence of civilians was detected.” This Israeli claim is taken at face value, but not for the purposes one might think. Rather than reflecting a policy of minimizing civilian casualties, for the Commission, this information simply demonstrates that “the IDF had the capacity to determine the civilian nature” of its targets and victims. And given the number of civilian deaths, the Commission’s conclusion was that Israel had frequently and unjustifiably failed to deploy this capacity—thus violating its obligation to use all “feasible” means to reduce civilian damage.
Our point here is not to defend Israeli conduct in any of these specific situations. It is merely to suggest that the commission has drawn a set of conclusions it cannot possibly draw with rigor, and it has done so using standards that are very difficult to defend.
But don’t take our word for it. The commission all but admits that it lacked the information to draw the conclusions it drew. In an interview with Haaretz’s Barak Ravid, the Commission’s chairperson Mary McGowan Davis had this to say:
I certainly think it would have been different if Israel had cooperated… We could have met with Israeli victims and seen where rockets landed, talked with commanders, watched videos and visited Gaza. We talked to a lot of witnesses but of course an investigation needs to be as close to the scene as possible and it would have looked different.
McGowan Davis clearly intended this comment as a criticism of the Israeli government’s non-cooperation with the investigation. But she’s actually admitting, apparently unawares, that the material with which the Commission was working was simply insufficient to its task.
What does one say about a report whose author forthrightly admits that, had she had real information, “it would have looked different”?

Volokh Conspiracy: Is it “OK to drop a one-ton bomb in the middle of a neighborhood” if you’re at war and that’s where enemy forces are located?

Mary McGowan Davis, who headed the U.N. commission that investigated last summer’s Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza, tells Ha’aretz (paywall): “We wanted to make a strong stand that the whole use of explosive weapons in densely populated neighborhoods is problematic and that the policy needs to change…. Because it is not OK to drop a one-ton bomb in the middle of a neighborhood.”
Of course, one shouldn’t gratuitously drop a one-ton bomb or any bomb in the middle of a neighborhood. But Davis’s critique doesn’t seem limited to gratuitous bombings, but includes the bombing of military targets located in civilian neighborhoods.
If the rule was “you may never bomb [use “explosive weapons”] in a residential neighborhood if civilian casualties may result, regardless of the value of the military target,” it’s pretty obvious what would happen — enemy forces would simply plant themselves in residential neighborhoods knowing they would be immune from attack.
So, for example, Hamas could launch all the missiles it wanted at Israel from the middle of Gaza City, and use apartment buildings, schools, etc. as staging grounds and headquarters, and Israel would be helpless to respond.

Chairman of Joint Chiefs: "Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit civilian casualties"

Israel went to "extraordinary lengths" to limit civilian casualties during the conflict in Gaza earlier this year, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday.
Israel dropped leaflets and did "roof-knocking, to have something knock on the roof" to warn civilians to move out of the area, Army Gen. Martin E. Dempsey said during a forum at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs in New York.

Peter Beinart has joined the chorus of hysterical voices slamming Michael Oren for his recent interviews and book.

Beinart says that it is Oren, not President Obama, who is naive.

Let's fact-check Beinart:

Let’s start with a few quotes from Oren’s recent media blitz. In a recent interview at New York’s 92nd Street Y, Oren declared that American Jews must oppose an Iran deal that “everybody in the Knesset agrees is emphatically bad.”

Everybody? Thirteen of the Knesset’s 120 seats are held by Palestinian citizens of Israel (often called “Arab Israelis” by American and Israeli Jews). Earlier this year, they were elected on a platform calling “for nuclear disarmament in the Middle East, including Israel.”

These Palestinian Knesset members, in other words, don’t think Obama’s nuclear diplomacy is too soft on Iran. They think it’s too soft on Israel, whose hundreds of nuclear weapons they consider as grave a threat to regional peace as Iran’s nuclear program. With a single phrase, Oren makes them disappear.

If the 13 Arab Knesset members are against nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, how does Beinart conclude that they support a deal which from all indications will give Iran a path to nuclear weapons?

I don't know if Oren's statement is 100% true, but Beinart has no proof for his dismissal of it, and his supposed proof is knowingly deceptive since it doesn't prove anything one way or the other.

Let’s take another example. In an interview with the Jewish Journal’s Shmuel Rosner, Oren recently called Israel “one of the few democracies in the world that have never known a second of non-democratic governance.” This statement makes sense only if Palestinians didn't exist. If they do, then Israel’s Palestinian citizens lived under military law until 1966. And to this day, millions of West Bank Palestinians live under Israeli control but lack citizenship and the right to vote for the government that dominates their existence. In other words, they’ve been living under “non-democratic governance” every second of their lives.

It is true that Arabs in Israel were under military rule until 1966. It is also true that they could vote. So while there was discrimination, it was still democracy.

No state in the world allows non-citizens to vote. If Israel is not a democracy, then neither is the US, where millions of actual citizens cannot vote.

Oren is correct, Beinart is wrong.

But these factual errors only hint at Oren’s true detachment. His deepest naivete stems from his assumption that Israel can maintain the status quo indefinitely because Palestinians will submit indefinitely to their lack of basic rights.

Beinart does not give a source for this statement. Certainly nothing in Oren's book even hinted at this. Beinart is wrong.

Oren rests this contention on two assumptions. The first is that Palestinians don’t have it so bad. In the West Bank, he wrote in February, “More than 90% of the Palestinian population enjoys de facto sovereignty. Israeli soldiers don’t patrol the major Palestinian cities of Ramallah, Nablus, Jenin, Jericho and Bethlehem, and are largely absent from other towns.”

De facto sovereignty? West Bank Palestinians live as permanent non-citizens under military law. The government of Israel – a government for which they cannot vote – controls the air space above them, the borders around them and the natural resources below. They are crammed into an archipelago of cities and towns, which cannot expand because Israel controls virtually all the land in between, land it doles out to settlers who, unlike Palestinians, enjoy full citizenship rights.

What makes sovereignty? There are different definitions. Wikipedia lists four:

domestic sovereignty – actual control over a state exercised by an authority organized within this state,[6]

interdependence sovereignty – actual control of movement across state's borders, assuming the borders exist,[6]

international legal sovereignty – formal recognition by other sovereign states,[6]

Westphalian sovereignty – lack of other authority over state than the domestic authority (examples of such other authorities could be a non-domestic church, a non-domestic political organization, or any other external agent).[6]

The PA fits under three of these definitions. Hamas has three as well, although a different set. Beinart's assertions that control of airspace, for example, is a prerequisite to sovereignty is fiction.

Oren is right, Beinart is wrong.

The second assumption is that Palestinians will submit because if they don’t, Israel will respond with overwhelming force.

Beinart again does not give a quote where Oren says this, and again Oren says no such thing in his book or interviews. Beinart is making it up.

For Netanyahu and Oren, this is what passes for realism: Pretend that Palestinians will be happy living under occupation, and bludgeon into submission those who aren’t. It’s the same kind of “realism” that people throughout history have used to justify denying others basic rights. And it rests on the contention that the oppressed will accept forms of servitude that we never would, either because their aspirations are lower or because their spirits can be more easily crushed.

Again, fiction. However, it is notable that Mahmoud Abbas has said explicitly that Palestinians don't have such bad lives:

" I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life."

Beinart claims that Oren is naive, but it si Beinart who is proven in this article alone not only to be naive but knowingly deceptive and even a liar.

Iran issues new list of nuclear "red lines"

Iran's Supreme Leader has published a convenient list of his "red lines" for a nuclear deal.

They include:

No long-term restrictions
Continuation of R&D and construction during limits
Immediate removal of economic, financial and banking sanctions with signing of deal and other sanctions gradually by a reasonable timetable
Not stipulating for implementation of Iran commitments in lifting sanctions
IAEA verification for any step is not accepted
No unconventional inspection, interrogation or military site inspections
Time frames of 15 or 25 years for some topics not accepted

Will the White House push back, or spin this as if it doesn't contradict what they have been saying for years?

I think we have already seen the answer to that question.

I can't wait to see how J-Street will try to spin this, though, in light of their new website. Someone should ask Jeremy Ben mi what he considers a red line beyond which the US must not accept a deal. His evasion should be funny to watch.

UNHRC report didn't mention Hamas threatening Israeli civilians - a war crime

Rule 2 of ICRC's Customary IHL is "Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." It quotes Article 51(2) of Additional Protocol I prohibits “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.”

During last summer's Gaza war, Hamas explicitly threatened Israelis. They sent a SMS message to many Israeli phones:

Your government claimed yesterday that it stopped the battle, but without our consent and meeting our conditions - and it thought we were rash enough to [agree to a] cease-fire. On the contrary, we hurried to strike anywhere in Israel - from Dimona to Haifa - and we made you hide in shelters like mice. . .

Again, we warn you - if your government does not agree to all of our conditions, then all of Israel will legally remain open to our weapons fire.

Izz - Eddine al-Qassam Brigades

Hamas also released Hebrew langiage videos explicitly threatening Israeli civilians.

But the UNHRC Davis report doesn't mention any of this. The only messages that they mention from Hamas to Israel are those that they interpret as possible "warnings" to Israeli civilians to seek shelter:

Airlines were warned in advance of the possible targeting of the airport, providing them with the time to suspend flights. Warning civilians in Tel Aviv that a rocket would be fired in the direction of the city at 9 p.m. provided the opportunity for residents to seek shelter. Warning civilians to evacuate communities located in the vicinity of the Green Line could also realistically be acted upon because -- unlike in Gaza -- residents could flee to other areas of Israel less exposed to threats, in great part due to the existence of the Iron Dome system.

Of course, these warnings were threats. When Hamas said they would shoot rockets at the airport, their intent was to shut down Ben Gurion and isolate Israel from the world, not to save lives.

Other "warnings" of theirs never materialized, so the purpose was to terrorize, not to save lives.

In other words, Hamas' threats that are violations of international law were, when noted, regarded as possible mitigation to violations of international law by the David commission!