Friday, December 18, 2015

US supports Saudi book fair that sells antisemitic literature

Jeddah, Rabi'I 01, 1437, December 12, 2015, SPA -- US Consul General in Jeddah Todd Holmstrom praised [the] Jeddah International Book Fair, which represents an opportunity to celebrate reading as an essential part of life.

He made the remarks during his visit today to the exhibition.

The US official highlighted Saudi-US relations in the field of cultural exchange.

In fact, the US Consulate had a booth at the fair, where they sold books like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, "I am Malala" and Barack Obama's autobiography along with a biography of the First Lady.

The ADL highlighted some other books at the fair:

The Jeddah International Book Fair in Saudi Arabia, which hosts more than 350 publishing houses from 21 countries, appears to feature anti-Semitic books for sale.

The book fair, taking place December 12–22, includes on its “Book Lists” works such as My Awakening: The Jewish Influence in the United States by the notorious anti-Semite David Duke. Duke’s book, classified as “Political Science” on the list from the Dar Alfiker Al Mua’sir publishing house in Lebanon, is listed for SAR53 (US$14).

Adolph Hitler’s Mein Kampf, which served as a blueprint for the extermination of six million Jews and millions of others in the Holocaust, is listed to be sold at the book fair for SAR45 (US$12). Classified as “History,” Mein Kampf, is on the list from Ibn Al Nafees publishing house in Egypt. A book titled Free Masons, The Jews and The Torahby Dr. Noman Al Samarayi, which promotes conspiratorial theories about a Jewish role in dominating the world, was listed for sale for SR8 (US$2).

This is only the tip of the iceberg.

I found books with titles like Psychological Study of the Jewish Faith with determines exactly why Jews are so racist, and the Jewish Sedition of History - and they were just from one exhibitor.

So why is the US supporting this book fair?

(h/t Shawarma News)

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Two weeks ago I asked readers to write to organizations known to have funded the Palestinian Commission for Refugees (sometimes called the Palestinian Commission for Refugees Rights Protection or PCRP) and ask about their apparent support for its head, Dr Gamal Abdel Nasser Mohammed Abu Nahel, who is a prolific author of virulent Jew-hatred, whose articles are linked to from the PCRP Facebook page.

I predicted that these organizations would distance themselves from Dr. Nahel rather than use their positions of influence to pressure the organization to fire him. And I was right.

The National Endowment for Democracy was the first to respond by saying that they have not funded the organization for several years.

Now, USAID has issued a similar response to several of my readers:

Thank you for your recent inquiry to the US Agency for International Development.

USAID does not currently fund the Palestinian Commission for Refugees (PCR). The organization last received funding from USAID in 2009-2010 to conduct community outreach in Gaza on women’s legal rights, through the USAID NETHAM Rule of Law Program, which ended in 2010.

PCR was subject to thorough anti-terrorism vetting prior to receiving funding from USAID, including the vetting of all board members. The statements in question were made by an individual who was not affiliated with PCR during the period that USAID funded the organization.

USAID is committed to supporting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, leading to the emergence of two states living side-by-side in peace and security.

Regards,
Michael Collins

_____________________________________________

Michael Collins | Public Affairs & Outreach Team LeadMiddle East Bureau | US Agency for International DevelopmentRRB 4.10-084 | 1300 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC, 20523 USAmcollins@usaid.gov @USAIDMiddleEast

And again, I encourage my reader to write back to USAID and tell them that while it is very nice that they have nothing to do with Dr. Nahel, they have an opportunity to pro-actively do something about endemic Arab antisemitism rather than wash their hands of the matter. By telling PCRP that they will never receive funding again as long as Dr. Nahel is leading the organization - and that this information will be shared with other funders of Palestinian NGOs - they can do a great deal of good without spending a dime.

The articles I linked to have been removed from the PCRP's Facebook page, so clearly one of the funders made a phone call and PCRP responded by slightly dissociating itself from the antisemitism of its leader. (Or Facebook responded to a complaint, but I doubt that.) NGOs are far more motivated by the fear of losing funding than anything else. The funders of NGOs from democratic countries have an obligation to use their influence to root out the hate, not just to fund a program here or there that might help women or children.

I have not heard anything back yet from the Anna Lindh Foundation or the UN Development Program who also partner with PCRP, and whose partnership appears to be ongoing.

Hundreds of children are sexually molested in Gaza every year

The Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution has issued a press release saying that some 700 children were sexually abused in each of the past two years in Gaza, and over a thousand were victims of similar crimes in 2013.

The abuse includes molestation and rape.

The victims tend to be male and were most often between the ages of 7 and 12.

The attacks happened in family homes, but also in schools and even in public places.

Out of these thousands of cases, only 27 of the attackers have been brought to justice, according to the center's director Said Makadmeh. He blamed existing customs and traditions which influenced the judges and parents' fears of scandal as the main reasons.

The same organization has previously done a study that blamed Israel for aggression in Gaza children. Among all of the ANOVA methods and Scheffe tests and other tools meant to make the study sound rigorous, the basic information came from asking parents if they thought that Israeli practices made their children more aggressive.

Who would a parent rather blame for their kids' violence - themselves or Israel?

So it may only be a matter of time before Israel is blamed for sexual molestation of children in Gaza, too.

12/17 Links Pt2: Breaking the Silence is a personal affront to every Israeli; Aliyah record high of 30,000

From Ian:

Rather than carry Israelis, Kuwait Airways drops NYC-London route

Kuwait Airways is eliminating service between New York and London after the US Department of Transportation ordered the carrier to stop refusing to sell tickets to Israelis.
Namrata Kolachalam, a spokeswoman for the Department of Transportation, announced the airline’s decision, USA Today reported Tuesday.
On September 30, the department announced that the airline had acted illegally when it refused to sell a ticket to Eldad Gatt, an Israeli citizen, in 2013. On October 29, the department ordered the airline to “cease and desist from refusing to transport Israeli citizens between the US and any third country where they are allowed to disembark,” USA Today reported, citing a letter from the department’s assistant general counsel for enforcement.
The newspaper reported that Kuwait Airways explained its refusal to sell Gatt a ticket by saying it needed to comply with a Kuwaiti law barring citizens from agreements “with entities or persons residing in Israel, or with Israeli citizenship.”

'Breaking the Silence is a personal affront to every Israeli'

Breaking the Silence (BTS) has justly been getting kicked around within the Israeli political system following a damning report published by Im Tirzu, that included the organization of former IDF soldiers among ‘foreign agents”. Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon has revoked any contact between the organization and the IDF, while Education Minister Naftali Bennett has stopped any and all contact between Breaking the Silence and any schools.
Dr. Yoaz Hendel, head of the Institute for Zionist Strategy, spoke to Arutz Sheva about the problems inherent in the organization.
“Firstly, I would like to say that I agree in theory with the fact that we all want the IDF to be a moral army. The issue with BTS is not the cases that they are bringing to light per se, but rather that they are creating a warped picture of the IDF. They take exceptional cases and make them out to be rules that apply across the board, and that simply isn’t true.”
Every army finds itself from time to time in difficult situations of a complex moral nature. The same holds true for the IDF. But what offends many in Israel and around the world, is when an army is vilified because of a handful of incidents. “BTS finds the one exceptional incident that happened, and claim that this is how the entire military behaves at all times. I find that insulting,” said Hendel.

Ex-ICC prosecutor praises, but doesn’t endorse, Israeli report on settlements’ legality

The former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court this week praised Israel’s Foreign Ministry for the recent publication of a report arguing that Jewish settlements in the West Bank are legal under international law.
While not endorsing the report’s content, Luis Moreno Ocampo, who was visiting Israel this week, said a thorough discussion about the settlements’ legality was sorely needed and could be beneficial to all sides involved.
Earlier this month, the Foreign Ministry, under the directive of Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely, published a report arguing that Israel has “valid property claims” to West Bank territory, as “Jewish affinity” with the region dates back thousands of years. The document, authored by the ministry’s legal adviser, also seeks to refute the claim that settlements violate the Geneva Conventions and thus constitute a war crime. The effort to portray Jewish settlements in the West Bank as illegal “ignores the complexity of this issue, the history of the land, and the unique legal circumstances of this case,” the report concludes.
Many Israelis scoffed at the report, doubting its effectiveness in a world where there is near-total consensus about settlements’ illegality. But Moreno Ocampo, who in 2003 became the ICC’s first chief prosecutor and held this role until 2012 when he was succeeded by Fatou Bensouda, praised the ministry’s attempt to present Israel’s point of view.
“That’s perfect. That’s exactly what they had to do,” he told The Times of Israel Tuesday in Jerusalem. “I never read the report. But I think that this is the way to do it: you explain your opinion.”

Hypocritical @UNRWA extends contract of "youth ambassador" who sings of violence

UNRWA's "youth ambassador," the 2013 Arab Idol winner Mohammad Assaf, has released music videos and posted on Instagram about his support of rock throwing, firebombs and other violence against Israeli Jews.

This has been reported by me, UN Watch and Fox News.

UNRWA, of course, claims to take all reports of incitement and lack of neutrality very seriously. In August, Chris Gunness said "Where we find credible allegations of neutrality violations among our staff, we investigate and where it's appropriate we take disciplinary action up to and including dismissal. And that process is audited by our major donors."

Chris Gunness is full of crap.

Because UNRWA just extended Mohammed Assaf's contract to be its "youth ambassador" to incite more teens to stab, stone and firebomb Jews.

And yet the US just pledged another $123 million to this corrupt, lying and terror-supporting organization.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Barack Obama seems to oppose intervention most everywhere. He is especially committed to minimizing the friction between America and the Muslim world – even trying to align America with Islamic objectives – and so continues to reduce the US footprint in Afghanistan and to take as little action as possible in Syria.

But one place in which he seems happy to meddle is Israel. He’s sent John Kerry to press for a Palestinian state yet again (and to blame Israel for the lack of ‘progress’ in this direction). Recently, the ‘V15’ (Victory 2015) organization which campaigned against Netanyahu in the February elections has come back to life with a new name  (‘darkeinu’, our way) and is setting itself up as a left-wing lobby in Israel’s Knesset. V15 got its funding primarily from American sources, and was considered close to the Obama Administration. Doubtless the lobby will be too.

Various Obama surrogates and allies have joined the “save Israel from herself” club. J Street, of course, has always taken this route, and at the Ha’aretz/New Israel Fund conference in New York last week, representatives of every imaginable left-wing group pushed for the US to apply pressure to Israel in one way or another.

“Can Americans save Israel from its own extremism?” wrote Ha’aretz editor Aluf Benn. Benn should know extremism when he sees it, presiding over  a staff that includes Gideon Levy, who caused hundreds of Israelis to cancel subscriptions when he viciouslyattacked the morality of Israeli pilots, and Amira Hass who asserted that throwing rocks at Jews is the “birthright and duty” of Palestinian Arabs. Both Levy and Hass spoke at the conference. Some people call Ha’aretz “the Palestinian newspaper published in Hebrew.”

In  his keynote address to its biennial convention in November, Union for Reform Judaism (URJ) President Rick Jacobs announcedthat his organization would not allow the fact that Israel is under assault by a wave of murderous terrorism to stop it from pushing its vision of “tikkun olam” in Israel, including everything from creating a Palestinian state to civil marriage to allowing egalitarian worship at the Western Wall to LGBT rights (although Israel is probably more LGBT-friendly than Jacobs’ Westchester County). Jacobs, too, spoke at the Ha’aretz conference.

Many of those who want to save Israel from itself like to say that the problem is that it is not ‘democratic’ enough, wheredemocracy means such things as giving more power to the Arab minority, allowing African migrants freer access to our country, changing budget priorities to make Israel more like a European welfare state, funding non-orthodox streams of Judaism, and allowing foreign interests free rein in supporting Israeli NGOs.

Although they would not admit it, their real problem is that Israel is too democratic, continuing to elect politicians who oppose the Left’s agenda, particularly in connection with its fantasy of withdrawing from Judea and Samaria and entering into a blissful era of peace.

The minority of Israeli leftists, who present themselves as the voice of responsibility and moderation to the North Americans and Europeans who are so anxious to save Israel from theocracy and fascism, have been incapable of gaining political power in Israel because the majority are scared to death that – as already happened with the Oslo Accords and the Gaza withdrawal – they will somehow implement their impossible dream, which will turn Judea and Samaria into Gaza (or worse) and Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport into battlefields.

The Israeli majority, which might be receptive to some of the social themes of the Left like religious pluralism or civil marriage, will not give those ideas the time of day as long as they are accompanied by the suicidal ‘peace’ agenda.

The Left maintained an effective one-party government from 1948 to 1977, and has never reconciled with its loss of political monopoly. It is absolutely convinced of its rightness, as well as its moral and cultural superiority. It is frantic to get back into power and to enact its policies, especially to ‘end the occupation’, which it believes will herald a messianic age of peace and prosperity.

Because for them the end justifies almost any means, the small group of extremist politicians, media people, academics, intellectuals and NGO operatives that suffer from this obsession, are making alliances with European and North American interests that are prepared to support them. This includes the European Union and the Obama Administration, but also foundations supported by George Soros, anti-Israel religious organizations like the Quakers and Mennonites, and liberal dupes like the URJ.

Even those on the Left who have not made the decision to join the Dark Side with Levy and Hass are corrupted by this bargain. The European governments, the EU and Obama Administration (regardless of public pronouncements) pursue a policy that is intended to lead to the end of the Jewish state. This is also true of the Soros-funded organizations and surrogates like J Street. They think they can keep their integrity, but the Devil always gets your soul in the end.

The corruption is most evident in the various foreign-funded NGOs, who receive tens of millions of shekels every year from sources whose interests are often diametrically opposed to those of Israel. The Israelis whose salaries and perks come from these NGOs have become in effect if not in fact agents of hostile foreign powers.

But even those who benefit more indirectly are corrupted – like Ha’aretz, which makes money from its anti-Israel English edition and website, and Israeli academics who enjoy lucrative visiting professorships at universities abroad in return for taking the ‘correct’ line.

And last, but definitely not least, there are the political parties that are aided by groups like V15 at election time.

In Israel there is beginning to be a reaction to the influence of foreign money. The Knesset passed a ‘transparency law’ which is responsible for the documentation of foreign grants to Israeli NGOs that I linked above. But there are loopholes in the law, and a new law has been proposed that will not only require disclosure of grants, but will also require documents produced by these NGOs to be labeled as such, and lobbyists to wear ‘tags’ identifying them. An even stronger proposal would prevent such lobbyists from being in contact with government or military personnel. Under this law, anti-state NGOs could be dissolved by court order.

I’m convinced that some voters were turned off in the last election by the heavy-handed attempts of the Obama Administration’s proxies to tilt the vote against Netanyahu. This is a good sign, but what really ought to happen is that both the Likud and the Labor Party finally divorce themselves from the Oslo fantasy. Security can and should be a non-partisan issue, and the parties can compete on the basis of their domestic visions, or even create a National Unity Government.

In the case of the Likud, it is a question of declaring independence from the mendacious Obama Administration, which has forced it to pay lip service to a Palestinian state that everyone knows must never arise. Now is the time, when the Arabs are murderously demonstrating the absurdity of the idea of giving them a state, to do so.

It will be harder for Labor, which pays homage to the ‘heroic’ Yitzhak Rabin for giving us Oslo, which in fact he was sandbagged into adopting against his better judgment.

I hope that this idea can be made to appeal to Labor –  if they understand nothing else, they should be able to see that this is their only chance to return to power!

12/17 Links Pt1: After 3 months of terror, survivors share fears; Is Hamas Becoming a Second ISIS?

From Ian:

More Lies from Abbas about The "Intifada"

We still have never encountered even one case where a terrorist complained about the absence of a two-state solution. Also, contrary to Abbas's claim, none of the terrorists has ever complained about checkpoints or settlements. This latest wave of terrorism is not about "despair," unemployment, poor living conditions or freedom of movement. Instead, it is another attempt by Palestinian "youths" to eliminate Israel, again using the false excuse that Jews are "desecrating" and "destroying" Islamic holy sites.
A review of the Facebook accounts of most of the terrorists shows that their main intention was to murder as many Jews as possible in order to become "martyrs" -- to impose a reign of terror Jews, to force them to leave Israel.
Abbas is well aware that the "youths" are not complaining about the "occupation." The "occupation" these " youths" have a problem with is the one that began with the creation of Israel in 1948.
A new generation of Palestinians has once again been deceived into believing that the Jews are plotting to destroy the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Al-Aqsa Mosque stands, as always, unharmed in its place.

UN Watch: Paris attacks: UN official blames US, West & Israel; “They came to us because we went to them”

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and the UN ambassadors of the U.S., UK, France, and Germany, must condemn a UN Human Rights Council official for his offensive and morally perverse essay blaming last month’s Paris attacks on the U.S., Western colonialism, capitalism, and “Israeli settlers” — and implicitly justifying them as “a response to grave injustices and ongoing abuses perpetrated by the dominant, primarily developed countries, against populations of less developed countries.”
Leading figures at the United Nations need to condemn the remarks. Indeed, the UN chief had done so in a virtually-identical case in 2013, when in a blog post former UN expert Richard Falk similarly blamed the Boston Marathon terror attacks on “American global domination” and “Tel Aviv.”
The UN Secretary-General must publicly reject Mr. De Zayas’ highly offensive comments, and clarify that no grievance, real or imagined, could ever justify the horrific terrorist attacks that killed 130 innocent people in Paris, wounding hundreds more. To grant even the slightest exoneration to the Islamic State and its criminal perpetrators is to insult the memory of the victims.
The UN Secretary-General must remind all special rapporteurs of the need to understand that while they have independent status, their public comments — when the so-called attempt to “understand” terrorism crosses the line into moral exoneration — can undermine the work and credibility of the United Nations.
Sadly, with the Human Rights Council’s democratic credentials about to sink to the lowest level ever — only 38% of the incoming 2016 membership will be free democracies — we fear more appointments of UN rights experts who will serve as apologists for dictators and terrorism, adding to existing figures like De Zayas, Jean Ziegler and Idriss Jazairy.

Saudi Shura Council Member Al-Buleihi: Arab Culture Immersed in Violence and Hatred of the Other

In a recent TV interview, Saudi Shura Council member Ibrahim Al-Buleihi said: "We produce this kind of people [who carried out the Paris attacks and 9/11], this kind of hostility." "We are immersed in this violence, because we are immersed in the hatred of the other," he said in the interview, which aired on December 5 on Al-Arabiya TV. While the West is not perfect, "the Westerners are apologizing today for what their forefathers did, whereas we are still praising the conquests and raids [of early Islam]," said Al-Buleihi.

Palestinian Media Watch reports:

As its contribution to the Christmas spirit at Birzeit University near Ramallah, Fatah’s student movement Shabiba decorated a Christmas tree with pictures of “Martyrs” - among them terrorist murderer Muhannad Halabi who recently stabbed and killed two Israeli civilians in Jerusalem.

Additional “Martyrs” who the Fatah students apparently think express the message of love, benevolence and goodwill generally associated with Christmas and Christianity, were founder of the terror organization Hamas Ahmed Yassin, founder of the terror organization Islamic Jihad Fathi Shaqaqi, and Secretary-General of the terror organization PFLP Abu Ali Mustafa - all responsible for numerous terror attacks and the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians. Crowning the top of the tree was a picture of former PA and Fatah Chairman Yasser Arafat, who throughout his rule endorsed and encouraged terror attacks against Israelis.

Abbas’ Fatah movement posted pictures of the tree along with members of its student movement on its official Facebook page. Behind the group of Fatah Shabiba students is a sign with the text:

"The way to freedom
is a bullet and a Martyr,
a pen and a prisoner,
an olive tree and a wounded,
a crescent and a cross
Merry Christmas
[Fatah] Shabiba student movement
Birzeit University"

Simon Wiesenthal Center calls on US to stop funding Miftah and other anti-peace NGOs

It's always nice when my research gets recognized.

From Algemeiner:

Rabbi Cooper

A leading US-based Jewish human rights organization cautioned the US government on Tuesday against donating funds to Palestinian NGOs with a history of antisemitism.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was responding to a report by pro-Israel blogger Elder of Ziyon that Miftah, a Ramallah-based non-profit organization founded and headed by long-time Yasser Arafat loyalist, Palestinian Legislative Council member and former peace process spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi, has been receiving a hefty annual sum from the US Consulate in Jerusalem.

“The question that needs to be asked is: Where should US diplomatic and funding efforts be concentrated when it comes to the ideas and values propagated in Palestinian society? The answer is: It should go to those NGOs committed and contributing to the idea of two peoples living side by side in peace and tolerance,” Cooper told The Algemeiner.

Miftah was forced to remove an antisemitic blood libel from its Arabic website two years ago, following exposure by Elder of Ziyon. In March 2013, the watchdog noted Miftah’s publication of an article claiming that Jews use the blood of Christian children for their Passover matzah.

This caused Miftah first to defend itself — accusing critics of conducting a “smear campaign” — and then days later to take down the piece and issue an apology in English, part of which was devoted to distancing Ashrawi from its author and his ideology.

Elder of Ziyon’s current report — based on Miftah’s financial statements and the US Congressional Research Service – shows that in 2013 and 2014, the US Consulate was added to the NGO’s list of donors, among them Oxfam, NED, Norway, Austria and the Anna Lindh Foundation.

The annual sum given by the US to Miftah, according to the financial records, is $175,000.

Rabbi Cooper posited that a litmus test has to be applied to any Palestinian organization receiving funds from the US and Europe. “There should be no automatic checks signed over,” he told The Algemeiner. “The bottom line is, don’t tell me that [Miftah] hasn’t spread blood libels lately, and therefore it’s okay to give it money. The point is to examine whether, as a voice in the Palestinian Authority, it is contributing to civil society or not. If so, maybe $175,000 is too little a sum. If not, we shouldn’t be giving it a nickel.”

...This is a good time, he concluded, to revise the criteria for the allocation of American aid where the Palestinians are concerned.

“Our tax dollars should only go to efforts against violence,” he said. “That’s where we should be investing our money.”

How many recipients of Western aid in the territories have explicitly condemned the current wave of knifing and car ramming attacks?

I am not aware of a single one, but I'm more than willing to be corrected.

.@UNRWA doesn't want Syrian Palestinians to be resettled. But it does want money to keep them stateless. (update)

UNRWA has never done a poll or survey of the "refugees" under its mandate. But since the 1950s, it has claimed with great certainty that Palestinian refugees later, "refugees" had no desire to become citizens of other countries but would rather wait forever for a "political solution" which would mean that they all move to where Israel is now.

The reality is that stateless Palestinians would much prefer to become full citizens anywhere than remain in limbo forever. Their actions when such a possibility emerges proves this to be the case.

Yet UNRWA has always pushed the lie of how Palestinians do not want to become citizens of any state except Israel, which cruelly enforces the policies of every other state on earth to determine who is allowed to immigrate.

The Globe and Mail (Canada) writes about the situation of Syrian refugees whose ancestors once lived in British Mandate Palestine and shows that UNRWA continues to tell Palestinians under their mandate that they prefer cash to perpetuate the problem to a permanent solution:

None of the war-weary Palestinians are likely to come to Canada under the Liberal government’s program to resettle 25,000 Syrian refugees. Canada is relying on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – which doesn’t deal with Palestinians – to help identify those most eligible for resettlement. UNRWA has no role in the program.

UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness declined to comment on Canada’s resettlement program, but he said he hoped that Canada would resume the funding of the agency, which the previous Conservative government halted in 2012. Canada was long a leading donor to UNRWA – providing $32.4-million in assistance in 2007 and another $28-million in 2008 – but sharply reduced that aid over the next few years to $14.6-million in 2012, before making no contribution at all over the three years since.

“Palestinians are finding it increasingly hard to sustain life for themselves and their children in the Middle East,” Mr. Gunness said in an e-mail interview. “It costs seven times more to deal with Palestinian refugees once they get to Europe and beyond than for UNRWA to deliver services to them in the region – which is where they would prefer to be. We are seeing a growing acceptance of this argument among our larger donors and we hope it resonates in Ottawa.”

Gunness is lying, and he knows it. Palestinians are no different from the other Syrian refugees, and they want to have the chance to live normal lives anywhere rather than remain stuck in the limbo that UNRWA and Arab leaders keep them in.

But notice how Gunness is using the idea that paying UNRWA will keep a small percentage of refugees from Syria out of Western countries as a means to scare Western governments into spending a much higher percentage of their aid funds on Palestinians than on the 90% of refugees who aren't.

And it is a lie, too. As the article mentions, Lebanon (and Jordan) have shut their doors to Syrian Palestinian refugees altogether. Lebanon does not allow anyone to build new houses in the camps. So UNRWA's aid is not helping any Palestinians outside of basic medical and social services. Of course many of them would still prefer to take their chances in Europe rather than live in Syria with UNRWA help.

If UNRWA cared about Palestinians, it would welcome the possibility of Palestinians finally finding a home in Canada. It would be lobbying Gulf states to take them in.

But when Palestinians move out of Lebanon, Syria or Jordan, UNRWA loses a little bit of leverage to ask for funding. It prefers that they remain second-class citizens in areas of UNRWA's mandate than to allow them the possibility of living happy lives outside.

UPDATE: A relevant incident:

The commitment of anti-Zionists to maintaining Palestinians as refugees was highlighted when Prime Minister Jean Chrétien in April 2000 and Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley in January 2001 offered to resettle Palestinian refugees in Canada. PLO spokesman Ahmed Abdel Rahman rejected the Prime Minister's offer. He said: "We reject any kind of settlement of refugees in Arab countries, or in Canada." John Manley, in response to his offer, was burned in effigy near the West Bank city of Nablus. Hussum Khader, head of the largest Palestinian Fatah militia in Nablus, "If Canada is serious about resettlement you could expect military attacks in Ottawa or Montreal"

(h/t Max)

UAW International overturns local union's BDS vote

Last year, BDS supporters went crazy when a local student workers union at University of California voted to support BDS:

Student workers at the University of California have voted by a landslide to support the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

The votes, which were cast on 4 December by members of UAW Local 2865, resulted in 65 percent, or 1,411 members voting in support of a BDS resolution against 35 percent, or 749 members, voting against.

UAW Local 2865 has thus become the first labor union in the US to join the BDS movement.

The union represents 13,000 student workers in the University of California system. It joins a growing number of student governments, academic associations and activist organizations in the US which have pledged to hold Israel accountable for violations of human rights and to end the complicity by corporations and universities which profit from such violations.

The ballots asked union members to cast their vote to call on the University of California and UAW International to divest their holdings from Israeli state institutions and international companies “complicit in severe and ongoing human rights violations as part of the Israeli oppression of the Palestinian people.”

UAW International is the central body of the United Auto Workers union, to which UAW Local 2865 is affiliated.

The grown-ups at UAW International apparently didn't think much of a bunch of student workers telling them what to do. In fact, while that resolution was being debated, UAW International told UAW Local 2865 explicitly that their position was always against BDS.

So it is no surprise that on Wednesday, UAW International overturned the student worker union's attempt to boycott Israel..

In a landmark decision yesterday, United Auto Workers (UAW) International Union granted an appeal filed by a member of the University of California student group Informed Grads, thereby striking down a Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) resolution adopted by UAW Local 2865 last year. UAW 2865 represents graduate student workers at all of the University of California campuses. UAW International, the body that oversees all UAW locals in the United States, set national precedent by denying the local organization the right to adopt such a divisive and alienating measure.

Over the past year, certain members of UAW 2865 championed a one-sided, counterproductive BDS referendum that limits academic freedom and promotes discrimination based on national origin. Rather than focusing on the needs of the student workers they were elected to represent, these activists promoted an effort that seeks to undermine peaceful dialogue and coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians.

A victory for sanity.

Israel's enemies are fixated on symbolic victories, like voting for a resolution that is meaningless or refusing to be in the same building as an Israeli flag. Meanwhile, Israel quietly works on real things like scientific and medical breakthroughs.

So let's recognize the symbolic state of Palestine, which takes up no land and has only symbolic citizens. It can have a symbolic Olympic team and symbolic currency and symbolic passports.

The plan would work, too, if this symbolic people weren't so supportive of killing real Jews.

12/16 Links Pt2: EU undermines its own arguments against Israel; Adam Sandler: “I’m very pro-Israel”

From Ian:

'The EU just undermined its own arguments against Israel'

In marked contrast to its decision to label Jewish "settlement" goods, the European Union (EU) on Monday announced it will fight a decision by its own courts to stop trade in the Moroccan occupied Western Sahara.
To make sense of the state of affairs, Arutz Sheva spoke with Professor Eugene Kontorovich, a renowned legal expert at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and head of the International Law Department at the Kohelet Policy Forum.
The law professor explained how the EU has tried to justify its double-standards regarding Western Sahara, a region Morocco has occupied since 1976 when it was handed to its troops by Spain as it ended its colony there. The area is under a territorial dispute, with the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) that holds a government-in-exile in Algeria claiming rights to rule.
"The EU's defense of their discriminatory labeling rules - which for example they do not require for Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara - has been based on a remarkable claim that Western Sahara is not actually occupied, but rather a 'special case,'" he said.
That status quo was ruptured last Thursday, when the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided to strike down a 2012 trade agreement between the EU and Morocco in Western Sahara, ruling in favor of the Algerian-backed Polisario Front that fights for independence in the region.
"The ECJ rejected this view, saying Western Sahara is occupied," emphasized Kontorovich.

Adam Sandler: “I’m very pro-Israel”

On today’s Howard Stern Show, the funny filmmaker went off on the Pink Floyd front man who is the most famous, and most wizened, supporter of BDS, the movement that seeks to Boycott, Divest and Sanction Israel.
“I’m disgusted they single out Israel,” Sandler told Stern, who himself has ranted against Waters on his Sirius satellite radio show many times.
Stern then probed—as only Stern can—into Sandler’s Jewish identity. The creator of “The Hanuka Song”—arguably the best contribution to the holiday songbook since “White Christmas” — was out and proud.
“I’m proud of being a Jew and that’s what I am,” Sandler said.
“I get that from my father and mother,” Sandler said. “I’m very pro-Israel and when someone says sh_t about Israel, and I know people say sh_t about Israel and they f__king won’t play there… and when you go off on Roger Waters I love that you do that. I’m disgusted that they single out Israel that [they say], ‘We can’t play Israel.’ All these f__king nice Israeli people are getting a ‘f__k you’ from Roger Waters.”

IsraellyCool: Australian Delegation To Israel Infuriates PA With Stance Against Their Terror-Support

An Australian delegation led by Chris Pyne, Australian Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, has visited Israel to launch a new “landing pad” initiative that will help Australian start-ups get a foot in the door to the Israeli tech industry.
As part of this trip, the delegation went to Ramallah – and well and truly pissed off their PA hosts by standing firmly against terrorism and the PA’s support of it!
An Australian-led delegation to the West Bank featuring Minister Christopher Pyne, former speaker Bronwyn Bishop, Labor MP Tim Watts and Human Rights Commissioner Tim Wilson has been criticised by a minister in the Palestinian Authority, who said the group had “false information” and were “not well educated”.
Mr Pyne, the Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science, led the delegation — which also included British MPs — to Ramallah on Sunday.
All the delegates were visiting Jerusalem for two days as part of an annual Australia-UK-Israel leadership dialogue to discuss the challenges facing Israel and how attendees can best support the Jewish state.
Mr Wilson said the group “quizzed” the Palestinian Prime Minister and Education Minister about a range of topics.
Palestinian Education Minister Dr Sabri Saidam described the meeting as “very explosive and very challenging” and said the group had asked “rude and blunt” questions.
“The delegation had false information and twisted facts,” Dr Saidam told the ABC.
“So it was clear the delegation was not well educated.
“Obviously the delegation was under impressions, wrong impressions accumulated after the visit to Israel.
“Coming blindfolded to realities, bypassing the pain of Palestinians in terms of daily happenings is not going to solve the conflict.”
Dr Saidam said the group repeatedly asked questions about Palestinians naming schools and venues after people who had killed Israeli civilians.
“I said that one man’s hero is another man’s terrorist.”
When asked about Dr Saidam’s comments, Mr Pyne said he believed he was very diplomatic, but admitted that some members of the delegation were potentially “too robust”.
“I very diplomatically asked the Prime Minister and the Higher Education Minister questions which I thought would be useful for understanding the Palestinian attitudes to the peace process,” Mr Pyne told the ABC.
“Other members of the dialogue were slightly more robust and could be accused of quizzing them.

Swedish MP Kent Ekeroth uses PMW documentation to refute Foreign Minister defense of PA

.@UNRWA doctor: "Death to you, O sons of Zion"

Here's another peaceful message from an UNRWA employee on Facebook, from the first days of the 2014 Gaza war:

The message of "Death to you, oh sons of Zion" is helpfully translated into Hebrew.

Interestingly, this doctor says that he worked at Shifa Hospital, which was Hamas headquarters during the war.

But UNRWA would say that his message has mellowed since then, as this post from October only implies throwing rocks:

Frustrated By Israeli Restraint, Hamas To Provoke Russia Instead (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Gaza City, December 16 - Stymied in its efforts to undermine enemy legitimacy by engineering large numbers of civilian casualties, the militant group Hamas is considering shifting its sights from Israel to Russia, a country deemed more likely to respond with devastating, indiscriminate force that would produce the desired noncombatant deaths, organization representatives reported today.

The Russian military's unrestrained use of ordnance against targets in Syria regardless of the resulting toll in civilian lives has prompted the Islamist group to examine whether Putin might make a more suitable foe for the military-political strategy Hamas has developed over the years. Israel's insistence on avoiding unnecessary harm to noncombatants has complicated the organization's attempts to paint the Jewish State as dismissive of human life and disdainful of the laws of war, an objective at the center of Hamas's approach to asymmetrical warfare. If Israel will not cooperate as expected, say officials, Hamas will simply have to find an enemy prepared to inflict more damage on the people of the Gaza Strip.

Organization spokesman Fawzi Barhoum told journalists that while the destruction of the Zionist Entity remains the chief goal, the path to that destination may have to run through Moscow. "It is important to play to our strengths," he explained. "Russia is much better-positioned than the Zionists to play into our hands, and we believe Putin would cause much more destruction and death in Gaza than the Israeli military, if provoked properly. We must still determine both the feasibility of the shift in focus and the ways in which to make it happen."

Working to Hamas's advantage in that regard is a break with Russia's ally Basher Assad of Syria that happened early in that country's civil war. During the upheaval that followed the Arab Spring, Hamas openly sided with the Syrian rebels in a move that prompted their former patron Assad to ban them from the country. Russia, one of Assad's chief supporters, has already demonstrated its readiness to kill in defense of his regime, with a disregard for accuracy and human life that has not only claimed large numbers of civilian casualties, but resulted in one cruise missile hitting faraway Iran by mistake, and another hitting a house in Russia itself.

"Putin has shown he is more interested in attacking Assad's foes than in weakening the Islamic State, the ostensible reason for Russia's involvement," noted Mideast political analyst Kluss Terfuq. "Being on Assad's bad list puts Hamas in a good position to exploit that. On top of that, Hamas considers Turkey an ally, and with the current state of Russian-Turkish relations, that's awfully important."

Terfuq refrained from speculating what specific sort of provocation Hamas could use to target Russia. The group lacks missiles with the range to hit Russia, or even its facilities in Syria. "But now that Israel and Russia are coordinating air operations over Syria to avoid complications, Hamas can just consider an attack on Israel an attack on Russian interests, and continue pretty much as before."

12/16 Links Pt1: Palestinians in Plot to bomb Israeli Embassy in Berlin; Palestinian Lies Kill

From Ian:

2 Palestinians accused of bomb plot on Israeli Embassy in Berlin

Two Muslim Germans, both reportedly Palestinian, who were arrested on suspicion of planning an attack on the Israeli Embassy in Berlin were brought before a German court on Wednesday.
The men, both aged 21, were arrested in June while trying to prepare an explosive device from firecrackers. The police found a large quantity of supplies for building a powerful explosive device in their possession, Israeli news site Ynet reported.
The suspects have been identified only by their first names — Muhammad and Ali — as per German law.
Officials said they made preparations between December 2014 and July 2015 to carry out an attack on the Israeli Embassy or some other Israeli or Jewish institution, having possibly been inspired by the Islamic State.
They were accused of “preparation of an act of violence that would gravely endanger the security of the state,” according to the charge sheet.

PMW: Official PA TV to kids: Israel will cease to exist

In two recent broadcasts, official Palestinian Authority TV emphasized the PA message to children that Israel's existence is only temporary and will eventually cease to exist. The host of the program Children's Talk stated that Israel is "all ours" and that it "will return to us."
The host explained that Israeli towns like Haifa, Jaffa, Acre and Nazareth are in "the '48 lands" - a PA reference to all of Israel. Following general PA education policies, she instructed a young boy that "this information should be inside of us all the time."
Official PA TV host: "My friend, do you know what the '48 lands are?"
Boy: "Yes, the occupation of lands by the Israelis in the year 1948."
Official PA TV host: "These are the lands that are under the occupation's [Israel's] rule at the moment. Do you know cities from among them, can you remind me - the '48 lands?"
Boy: "In the diaspora?"
Official PA TV host: "No, the '48 lands: Haifa -"
Boy: "Haifa, Jaffa, Acre."
Official PA TV host: "Correct, and Nazareth and many more cities in these lands. We will mention them in the coming episodes, Allah willing. I apologize Yazan, I do not mean to embarrass you, I mean that this information should be inside of us all the time. The occupation must know that we fully believe and are confident that all of this land belongs to us, the '48 [lands] (i.e., all of Israel) are all ours and will return to us, right?"
Boy: "Yes, of course." [Official PA TV, Nov. 13, 2015]