Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, December 26, 2016

12/26 Links Pt2: The 2016 Dishonest Reporter of the Year; Bernard-Henri Lévy: The Shame of Aleppo

From Ian:

Op-ed: We can’t prevent what is happening in Syria or in Somalia, but we can prevent a similar future in Israel. This bloodbath is the outcome of placing hostile populations within ‘one state.’ If it won’t work between Muslims and Muslims, why does anyone think it can work between Jews and Arabs?
The world is hurting over the situation in Aleppo. Emotional articles and posts are being published here and there. Syrian President Bashar Assad and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah are extremely moved. They know that no one will lift a finger to help. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has asked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to turn to the United Nations. Oh, come on.
US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power delivered a firm and moving speech in a recent Security Council briefing. "Are you truly incapable of shame?” she asked. “Is there no execution of a child that gets under your skin?" She knows how to speak. There were even tears. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei were unmoved.
The massacre won’t stop without action. And those who are getting all emotional, might I remind you, usually lead the camp that is against action. They lauded and praised US President Barack Obama for not intervening, even when it may have been possible to stop the bloodbath.
These emotions are the result of exposure to information. Because there are much greater tragedies occurring in other places as we speak. On the border between Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon, there are 1.4 million children who have become refugees, and 75,000 of them are on the verge of starvation. In Somalia, 200,000 have already died because the local jihad organization, al-Shabaab, has halted food deliveries, and 38,000 children under the age of five are in danger of starving. The Nigerians and Somalis’ situation is much worse than the Syrians’ situation. But they don’t have any Internet access, and no one there has heard about social media. So no one is moved.

HonestReporting: The 2016 Dishonest Reporter of the Year: Why Headline Writers Won

The Dishonest Reporting Award typically goes to a clear-cut winner. Last year, the BBC won for a steady output of problematic coverage throughout the year. In 2014, the award went to Gaza war correspondents for their problematic handling of Operation Protective Edge. But 2016 didn’t have any comparable singular outrages like, say, journalist Donald Bostrom’s Swedish blood libel of 2009.
Since a wave of Palestinian stabbing, car-ramming and shooting attacks began in 2015, 36 Israelis, two Americans and an Eritrean national have been killed. According to AFP‘s count in mid-December, 238 Palestinians, a Jordanian and a Sudanese migrant were also killed — mostly while carrying out the attacks, in clashes with the IDF in the West Bank or along the Gaza border, or in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza. HonestReporting readers objected to the slow and steady drip of headlines which, at times, mangled facts, lacked context, used loaded language or — in some cases — were poorly revised after being published.
Headlines don’t just skew our sense of the world as we scroll through our social media feeds. They also impact the way we read and remember content. We elaborate on this issue, in Why Headlines Matter.
We took some of the worst headlines of 2016 and broke them down to four categories. The first three are associated with The Eight Categories of Media Bias. The fourth reflects that sometimes, a revised headline can actually be worse.
1. Distorting the truth
2. Lack of context
3. Loaded language
4. Regressive revisions
Here’s what we found from a range of papers in the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, and international wire services.

News Literacy: Why Headlines Matter

Headlines certainly deserve scrutiny. It’s well-known that we don’t read most of the articles in our daily papers; we skim the headlines before being drawn to whatever draws our attention. The same habits apply on social media, where we scroll through our Facebook or Twitter feeds and click on whatever catches our fancy.
An April, 2016 academic study of bit.ly links shared on Twitter to BBC, CNN, Fox News, New York Times and Huffington Post articles found that 59 percent of the links were never clicked. And another study of push-through news alerts to mobile phones found that “People click on the alert about half the time.”
So for many casual readers who don’t follow closely follow the Israeli-Arab conflict, all they know about the latest in the Mideast is from the headlines and alerts of articles they don’t read.
This Columbia Journalism Review observation about the mobile alerts would also apply to headlines:
But push notifications are not news stories. They are snippets often written on deadline, akin to headlines that deliver the jist [sic] of a complicated event but little more. Yet there’s growing anecdotal evidence to suggest that readers may view news alerts as standalone stories, taking them at face value without clicking through to read more.

Meet BDS fan Haj Amin al-Husseini – the ‘Hitler of the Holy Land’ (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

‘It is untrue that the world is siding with the Jews’: meet BDS fan Haj Amin al-Husseini – the ‘Hitler of the Holy Land’

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

In early December, the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) and the Harvard Law School Alliance for Israel held a conference entitled “War By Other Means – BDS, Israel and the Campus.” One of the speakers was Cornell Professor William Jacobson, whose presentation was on the history of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The presentation is now available at Legal Insurrection, and it is a must-read (or must-watch) because Jacobson shows that “BDS is a direct and provable continuation of the Arab anti-Jewish boycotts in the 1920s and 1930s and [the] subsequent Arab League Boycott, restructured through non-governmental entities to evade U.S. anti-boycott legislation and repackaged in the language of ‘social justice’ to appeal to Western liberals.”

When I read through Professor Jacobson’s presentation, I remembered that some time ago, I had come across an archived JTA article from September 24, 1929 that provides a perfect illustration of the conference theme that boycott campaigns should be understood as “war by other means.”

Published a month after the notorious Hebron massacre and the subsequent Arab violence, which left 133 Jews dead, the article is entitled “‘My Hands Are Clean,’ Grand Mufti Asserts in Interview;” and as the title suggests, it describes an interview with Haj Amin al-Husseini, who had incited the violence with the pernicious (and still popular) libel that “the Zionists” were plotting to damage or destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque in order to rebuild the Jewish Temple.

Shortly after the bloodbath he had incited, the man who would eventually become known as “Hitler’s Mufti” felt rather confident that the Jews would soon be forced to leave British Mandate Palestine. He asserted (rightly) that “it is untrue that the world is siding with the Jews” and then proceeded to explain:

“We are … assured of the solidarity of the entire Moslem world and have actually offers of armies to help us if necessary. Help is unnecessary. We will win through an economic boycott. The boycott in Moslem countries against Jewish industries is tight and daily growing tighter, until the industries will be broken and English friends, moved by pity, will remove the last remaining Jews [from British Mandate Palestine] on their battleships. Today there’s not a Jewish factory working in Palestine … (which happened to be entirely untrue) [and] as Jewish industry depends on the good will of the surrounding Moslem countries, the factories may as well remain closed. The Moslems will not buy.”

While the mufti’s hopes of driving out the Jews with a successful economic boycott didn’t work out in his lifetime, he would surely be pleased to know that there are still people who haven’t given up on his lofty goal; and he would surely be no less pleased to see that it remains indeed “untrue that the world is siding with the Jews.” (Congratulations to the UN Security Council for proving the mufti right once again!)

The mufti also said some other things that you can read any day at Ali Abunimah’s Electronic Intifada and similar sites: he complained about “the aid of rich American Jews for the Palestine upbuilding” and claimed that this aid “made the Palestine Jews so arrogant, they thought they could start expelling is [us].” And just like Palestinian leaders nowadays, al-Husseini denied having incited the murderous violence.

Another remarkable parallel to today’s news is that al-Husseini was rumored to have become quite rich by misappropriating funds he had collected for repairs of the Dome of the Rock. The article’s description of him is intriguing:

“The Mufti spoke in French and granted the interview in the presence of Jamal Effendi Husseini in the palatial office buildings located in the galleries of the Mosque of Omar. The 31 year old Amin El Husseini, with blond beard, sparkling blue eyes, ingratiating smile and pleasant mundane manners, sat in silken robes on a luxurious divan and smoked cigarettes taken from a gold beaten box, holding a morning levee like a mediaeval Turkish Pasha. The hall and corridors were filled with servants, ushers and courtiers. When politely told that world opinion is holding him personally responsible and partially guilty for the savagery and unspeakable assaults, the Mufti smiled and with a sweeping gesture, showing delicate manicured hands, he declared: ‘My hands are clean, I declare before God.’”

As it happens, when I researched this post, I came across another fascinating article about al-Husseini from June 1948. At first, I was not sure if the site that featured it, i.e. Old Magazine Articles, could be trusted. The article is entitled “Hitler of the Holy Land” and the sub header describes the mufti as “a master of terrorism.” But I found out that a ’48 Magazine indeed existed – in fact, it was apparently a relatively expensive highbrow magazine – and the author of the article, David W.Nussbaum, wrote at least two (but likely four) other articles on the mufti elsewhere in the immediate postwar years. According to the information given about Nussbaum, he was a “former Washington correspondent of Life, magazine writer and Navy air veteran” who in early 1948 had “just returned from an extended survey of conditions in the Middle East.” His article on the “Hitler of the Holy Land” is absolutely fascinating (it can also be downloaded as a pdf if you click the blue button “Read article for free” just above the space for comments).

In the almost two decades that had passed since the 1929 interview, the mufti had apparently lost his “pleasant mundane manners;” Nussbaum described him as “a man who has spent a lifetime fleeing justice” and who, “in his struggle for power, counts no man as a friend.” In Nussbaum’s view, the mufti was a crucial and cunning leader who ensured that the Arab conflict with the Jews would not be settled peaceably. Reportedly, al-Husseini told him: “What you see unsheathed in Palestine is the sword of Islam. Whenever they are beset, the Arabs will inevitably unsheathe it.” Asked if the Arabs had enough arms and men to win a war, the mufti responded: “Consequences do not disturb the Arab as they do the Westerner. The Jews do not reckon with this factor. If he is attacked, the Arab fights back regardless of the consequences. The fighting in Palestine has been inevitable since the first Jew set foot there.”

But Nussbaum believed that it was the mufti who worked hard to make war “inevitable”:

“War in Palestine is the goal that the Mufti set himself in the summer of 1946 [when he fled France], and it is the goal that is now being achieved. […] While he tightened his grip on Palestine, the Mufti waged a shrewd campaign within the Arab states. In Egypt, he made effective use of the extremist right-wing Moslem Brotherhood, which, supported by students, staged well-timed demonstrations in Cairo, shouting for revenge against the Jews. Fire-breathing statements began filling the Lebanon papers. In the lobbies of the Arab League conferences, the Mufti hammered away at the idea of jihad – the holy war.”

So it seems Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas knew what he was doing when he repeatedly paid homage to al-Husseini, praising him for having “sponsored the struggle from the beginning.”

But importantly, the “struggle” al-Husseini “sponsored … from the beginning” was not really about Palestine, but rather about Arab-Muslim rule. When Nussbaum asked him if he was looking forward to “an early return to his homeland,” al-Husseini “ruminated for a few moments and then said, ‘Palestine is not my home; it is only one of them. Cairo is home and so is Syria. Whenever I am among my own people, I am home.’”

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12/26 Links Pt1: Obama’s UN Legacy: Whitewashing Iran’s Nuclear Cheating; Outlawing Jewish History

From Ian:

JPost Editorial: Obama’s parting shot

What’s more, Resolution 2334 is absurd in that it makes no differentiation between places such as the Old City and the Kotel or consensus Jerusalem neighborhoods like Ramat Eshkol, and isolated settlements with a handful of residents in Judea and Samaria.
More pernicious, however, will be the ramifications of Resolution 2334. It will give new life to boycott, divestment and sanctions efforts, particularly article 5 of the resolution which calls upon the nations of the world “to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territories of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.” The distance is short from delegitimization of Jewish settlements, neighborhoods, towns, cities and institutions located beyond the 1967 armistice line to delegitimization of everything Israeli.
Even terrorist attacks directed against residents of the “territories” will be in some sense understandable, according to UN morality and legal principles, since every Jew living in these areas is considered, according to the Security Council, not only a criminal but an obstacle to peace.
We can only lament Obama's decision, made in the twilight of his term. It hurts chances for direct negotiations, strengthen BDS and sullies Israel’s name. For all the strengthening of Israel’s defense deterrence and unprecedented financial aid that his administration heaped on Israel, this is Obama’s legacy; this is his parting shot.

Rejecting the false notion that Israel is occupier

The UN Security Council’s passage of Resolution 2334, an outrageous act of hostility personally engineered by President Obama against the State of Israel, has rightly evoked great anger across all parts of the American political spectrum.
This past summer, the Republican Party’s platform section expressing our unequivocal support for Israel, included a key statement made in anticipation of President Obama’s betrayal of our great ally: “We reject the false notion that Israel is an occupier…” Given the anticipated effects of Resolution 2334, this policy statement is critical, as it represents the central tenet of what will now unquestionably be the policy of the Trump Administration and the pro-Israel community.
“Occupier” is nothing more than a polite way of calling Israel a thief, suggesting that Jewish invaders colonized territory belonging to the Arabs, and which therefore must be restored to its rightful, victimized owners. The term is intentionally misused against Israel in order to shape negative misperceptions of her history and legitimacy, while perpetuating a sense of Palestinian-Arab victimhood. To suggest that the Jews are occupiers in a region that has been known as Judea for over 3000-plus years is no less ridiculous than to suggest that Arabs are occupiers in Arabia.
“Occupier” is a legal term whose definition does not apply to Israel under the law. Israel’s legal title and rights to all of its present territory stem directly from an act of international law made in the post-WWI San Remo Agreement, which was then further recognized and incorporated in subsequent binding acts, from the Covenant of the League of Nations all the way through Article 80 of the United Nations’ charter. None of the national and political rights thereby recognized as inherit in the Jewish People have ever been revoked, nullified or superseded by a subsequent act of international law.

Amb. Alan Baker: A Scandalous UN Resolution

"The U.S. abstention on this recent resolution in the Security Council is irresponsible to the point of being scandalous, because this resolution reaffirms the fact that the territories occupied by Israel and east Jerusalem are Palestinian. Now this runs directly against American policy and against the obligations according to the Oslo Accords, that issues of Jerusalem, issues of borders, and issues of the final status of the territories are to be negotiated."
"The resolution repeats a lot of previous resolutions, a lot of previous determinations regarding the validity of settlements, regarding the status of the territories. But there are one or two paragraphs in here that seem to be direct quotes from [Vice President] Joe Biden, from [Secretary of State] John Kerry, from [President] Barack Obama, whether it refers to the 1967 lines or refers to the one-state solution or refers to the non-sustainability of the present situation - these are direct quotes from these people. So it shows that they have had direct involvement in actually drafting this resolution."
"Why would the Palestinians want to negotiate with Israel on these things if they've got a Security Council resolution that basically determines that east Jerusalem and all the territories belong to them? Why should they go and negotiate - and compromise, because negotiating includes compromising? Why should they do this when they know that they can run to the international community and get whatever they want?"

As if you had any doubt: Yes, Hamas is antisemitic

The fallout from the videos of Bahraini nationals dancing with Jews continues.

Hamas was upset with this video of Jews at a Chanukah candle lighting ceremony:

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas denounced the hosting a group of dignitaries and traders in the State of Bahrain. Dancing with the Israeli delegation of Jewish extremist racists is a humiliating and disgraceful appearance.

The movement in a press statement on Monday warned that this will hurt the reputation of the State of Bahrain at a time when there is growing international sympathy with the Palestinian cause and support the right of the Palestinian people, and the growing international boycott of the Zionist entity movements in all forms.

Hamas has demanded the State of Bahrain, Arab and Islamic countries all work to stop all forms of normalization and ending with the Israeli enemy in all fields.

Of course, this wasn't an Israeli delegation at all, but American businessmen, a European rabbinical leader and reportedly some Chabad emissaries.

Hamas is disgusted to see Jews being treated like normal people by Arabs. And judging from social media, they aren't alone.

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The US abstention on UNSCR 2334 is Jimmy Carter déjà vu

CAMERA has an excellent analysis of the UNSC resolution that passed last week, and it notes an episode from 1980 that was very similar.

In 1980, the UNSC passed Resolution 465, which was in fact very close - and in some ways worse - than the current UNSC 2334. It said:

Determines that all measures taken by Israel to change the physical character, demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem, or any part thereof, have no legal validity and that Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in those territories constitute a flagrant violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War and also constitute a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East;
Strongly deplores the continuation and persistence of Israel in pursuing those policies and practices and calls upon the Government and people of Israel to rescind those measures, to dismantle the existing settlements and in particular to cease, on an urgent basis, the establishment, construction and planning of settlements in the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem;
Calls upon all States not to provide Israel with any assistance to be used specifically in connexion with settlements in the occupied territories;

In that case Jimmy Carter's UN representative voted for the resolution - but then explained that it was a communications error, and the US meant to abstain, allowing the resolution to pass.

This sounds a lot like how Samantha Power justified the US abstention on the UN vote.

Carter did in fact believe that the settlements were illegal, a White House position that was changed by Ronald Reagan.

In many ways, Obama is simply copying the previous worst president of the United States.

However, there are some things that are worse with this resolution.

In 1980, there was no tacit agreement with Israel that the US would automatically veto anti-Israel resolutions relating to final status issues in exchange for Israeli concessions that led to the peace process. That has been a consistent position since Oslo (the other times that the US abstained from UNSC resolutions on Israel were about different topics, like a cease fire in Gaza that George W. Bush abstained on when he was a lame duck.)

This resolution, being post-Oslo, in many ways abrogates Oslo itself by having the UN position itself to impose a solution instead of having it come about as a result of negotiations. That's a huge departure from US policy over the past 20 years.

So while the US allowing this resolution to pass is not exactly unprecedented, but it is a departure from US policy - certainly since Oslo in 1993 and in reality since 1981.

It should be emphasized that the UN resolution was passed under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter, not Chapter 7, and therefore does not become international law.

Obama was always Carter-like. And just like Carter was succeeded by a president who radically changed US policy towards Israel, so is Obama.

You can also be certain that Obama will show his true anti-Israel venom even more after he is out of office, and he will use his prestige as a Nobel Prize winning former president to attack Israel for the rest of his life.

Exactly like Jimmy Carter.

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Parts of these remarks were widely reported, but it is worth reading them in full.

At the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Netanyahu said:

"I share ministers' feelings, anger and frustration vis-à-vis the unbalanced resolution that is very hostile to the State of Israel, and which the [UN] Security Council passed in an unworthy manner. From the information that we have, we have no doubt that the Obama administration initiated it, stood behind it, coordinated on the wording and demanded that it be passed. This is, of course, in complete contradiction of the traditional American policy that was committed to not trying to dictate terms for a permanent agreement, like any issue related to them in the Security Council, and, of course, the explicit commitment of President Obama himself, in 2011, to refrain from such steps.

We will do whatever is necessary so that Israel will not be damaged by this shameful resolution and I also tell the ministers here, we must act prudently, responsibly and calmly, in both actions and words. I ask ministers to act responsibly as per the directives that will be given today at the Security Cabinet meeting immediately following this meeting. I have also asked the Foreign Ministry to prepare an action plan regarding the UN and other international elements, which will be submitted to the Security Cabinet within one month. Until then, of course, we will consider our steps."

"Over decades, American administrations and Israeli governments had disagreed about settlements, but we agreed that the Security Council was not the place to resolve this issue. We knew that going there would make negotiations harder and drive peace further away.

And, as I told John Kerry on Thursday, friends don’t take friends to the Security Council. I'm encouraged by the statements of our friends in the United States, Republicans and Democrats alike. They understand how reckless and destructive this UN resolution was, they understand that the Western Wall isn't occupied territory.

I look forward to working with those friends and with the new administration when it takes office next month. And I take this opportunity to wish Israel's Christian citizens and our Christian friends around the world a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year."

Netanyahu added the following remarks on the second night of Chanukah on Sunday night at the Kotel:

"I did not plan to be here this evening but in light of the UN resolution I thought that there was no better place to light the second Chanukah candle than the Western Wall. According to the UN resolution, the Maccabees did not liberate Jerusalem, they occupied Palestinian territory. According to the UN resolution, the villages that they started out from in the Modi'in area, those villages and that area were 'occupied Palestinian territory'.

Of course the Palestinians arrived much later. We were in these places. We will return to these places and I ask those same countries that wish us a Happy Chanukah how they could vote for a UN resolution which says that this place, in which we are now celebrating Chanukah, is occupied territory.

The Western Wall is not occupied. The Jewish Quarter is not occupied. The other places are not occupied either. Therefore, we do not accept, nor can we accept, this resolution. We are certain of our future just as we are certain of our past. And here I would like to light Chanukah candles on behalf of the Glory of Israel. Happy Chanukah."

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Uh-oh. Arabs freaking again over singing Jews.

In 2015, there was a viral video of chassidim dancing in an airport in Amman, presumably to celebrate an impending or recent marriage, based on the songs they were singing.

Members of Jordan's parliament were upset because, well, Jews. One said is was a disgusting display and another demanded that the songs be translated to they could tell if the Jews were mocking them.

History repeats itself, as farce.

The Jewish businessmen who are visiting Bahrain (in a story I broke and is now all over the place) were apparently videoed while dancing on their own somewhere in the kingdom.

"نبني البيت المُقَدَّس علي أنقاض الاقصى ونحن الان على الحائط الغربي"
👆
هذه ترجمة لبعض كلمات نشيد هؤلاء الصهاينة عند #باب_البحرين #ياللعار pic.twitter.com/of4no2ilXE
— ناصر الفضالة #الأقصى (@nsfadala) December 24, 2016

The Arabs tweeting about it and writing articles about it claim that the lyrics they are singing translate to, "We will build the Temple on the ruins of Al Aqsa, the Western Wall is already ours" adding the hashtag #shameful.

This is only 3/4 of a lie.

The lyrics of the song they are singing are:

יִבָּנֶה הַמִּקְדָּשׁ, עִיר צִיּוֹן תְּמַלֵּא,

וְשָׁם נָשִׁיר שִׁיר חָדָשׁ וּבִרְנָנָה נַעֲלֶה,

Which translate to

May the Temple be rebuilt, and Jerusalem repopulated.

We will sing a new song as we ascend [the Mount] in joy.

So the song is indeed about rebuilding the Temple, It says nothing about Al Aqsa or the kotel.

You just knew the antisemitism would pop up after the story broke. And these hateful Arabs, true to form, assume that Jews must be singing about them, when in Jewish liturgy and songs, Arabs are irrelevant.

The song itself is many centuries old, Here is a screenshot from a 1724 printing:

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Chanukah Night 2: A Hamilton Hanukkah (Maccabeats)

On the second night of Chanukah, the Maccabeats gave to me....

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1950s-era Chanukah album "Chanukah Song Parade"

If you want to play some good old fashioned, wholesome Chanukah music for the kids, here's Chanukah Song Parade, which looks like it was made in the mid-1950s.

Full audio here.

(h/t Daniel)

UPDATE: I originally thought the album looked like it was made in the 1960s, but further research indicates it was made in the 1950s. Corrected the title and post.

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12/25 Links: The US Just Made Middle East Peace Harder; Glick: Obama will be Jimmy Carter on steroids

From Ian:

Alan M. Dershowitz: UN Resolution Lets Palestinians Think They Can Bypass Israel Talks

The Palestinian leadership has refused to accept Prime Minister Netanyahu's offer to negotiate without preconditions, and this refusal has now been rewarded. The resolution neglects to mention that Israel offered the Palestinians a state, an end to the occupation and settlements, and peace in 2000 - 2001 as well as in 2008, but the Palestinian leadership did not accept either of these offers. They will continue in this rejectionist mode, fortified by this one sided resolution.
Why then did President Obama, in his parting days, tie the hands of his successor? He was certainly not reflecting the will of the people or of congress. Both the Senate and the House are strongly opposed to this resolution, as are many people within the Obama administration.
Nor is this an issue on which Israelis are divided. There is no Israeli leader who supports this resolution.
President Obama would never have allowed it to go forward before the recent presidential election, but now that he has nothing at stake he can place his personal interests above those of the country, his party and peace. He may believe that this action (or inaction) will burnish his legacy, but he is wrong. It will only solidify his reputation as one of the worst foreign policy presidents in modern history. A president who bears significant responsibility for the tragedy of Syria, the empowerment of Russia and Iran, and the weakening of America's standing in the world.

Netanyahu's Chanukah Speech Blasts Obama, Salutes Soldiers

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made the following remarks on the first night of Chanukah this evening (Saturday, 24 December 2016) at an event in salute of wounded IDF and security forces veterans and victims of terrorism:
“Citizens of Israel, I would like to reassure you. The resolution that was adopted yesterday at the United Nations is distorted and shameful but we will overcome it. The resolution determines that the Jewish Quarter [in the Old City of Jerusalem] is ‘occupied territory’. This is delusional. The resolution determines that the Western Wall is ‘occupied territory’. This too is delusional. There is nothing more absurd than calling the Western Wall and the Jewish Quarter occupied territory. There is also an attempt here, which will not succeed, to impose permanent settlement terms on Israel. You might recall that the last one who tried to do this was Carter, an extremely hostile president to Israel, and who just recently said that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Carter passed sweeping decisions against us at the UN of a similar kind, and this was also unsuccessful. We opposed this and nothing happened.
“All American presidents since Carter upheld the American commitment not to try to dictate permanent settlement terms to Israel at the Security Council. And yesterday, in complete contradiction of this commitment, including an explicit commitment by President Obama himself in 2011, the Obama administration carried out a shameful anti-Israel ploy at the UN. I would like to tell you that the resolution that was adopted, not only doesn’t bring peace closer, it drives it further away. It hurts justice; it hurts the truth. Think about this absurdity, half a million human beings are being slaughtered in Syria. Tens of thousands are being butchered in Sudan. The entire Middle East is going up in flames and the Obama administration and the Security Council choose to gang up on the only democracy in the Middle East – the State of Israel. What a disgrace.
My friends, I would like to tell you on the first night of Chanukah that this will not avail them. We reject this resolution outright, just as we rejected the UN resolution that determined that Zionism was racism. It took time but that resolution was rescinded; it will take time but this one will also be rescinded. Now I will tell you how it will be rescinded. It will be rescinded not because of our retreats but because of our steadfastness and that of our allies. I remind you that we withdrew from Gaza, uprooted communities and took people out of their graves. Did this help us at all at the UN? Did this improve our relations at the UN? We were hit with thousands of rockets and at the UN we were hit with the Goldstone report!

PMW: Fatah: UN vote means Fatah will kill Israelis

Three days ago Fatah’s official Facebook page posted a drawing of its map of “Palestine,” which includes all of Israel and painted like the Palestinian flag, being used to stab the word “settlement.” The text above the image: “#Palestine will defeat the settlement ” (Above left)
Yesterday in response to the UN Security Council resolution declaring Israeli settlements illegal, Fatah republished the identical image but added a pool of blood at the bottom, and the words “Thank You” above the image, and the names of the 14 countries that voted in favor of the UN resolution. (Above right)
Is Fatah thanking the 14 countries for their UN vote because they interpret the UN as granting Fatah permission to kill Israelis? Or is Fatah thanking them because now that the UN declared settlements “illegal” it sees itself free to kill more Israelis?
Either way Fatah is saying more Israelis will pay with their lives as a result of the UN vote.
The 14 countries thanked by Fatah are:
Russia, Angola, Ukraine, Japan, Spain, Egypt, Malaysia, Venezuela, New Zealand, Senegal, Uruguay, France, China, and Britain.
The United States, whose abstention actually enabled the resolution to pass, is not mentioned.

After UN vote, Kerry suggests Israel's West Bank foray spawning 'terrorism'

Kerry said Israel’s continued and stepped-up attempts to build more settlements, or communities, in the region, which includes East Jerusalem, risks the so-called “two-state” solution between Israelis and the Palestinians, who also lay claim to the region.
“The United States acted with one primary objective in mind: to preserve the possibility of the two state solution, which every U.S. administration for decades has agreed is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians," Kerry said Friday. “Two states is the only way to ensure Israel's future as a Jewish and democratic state, living in peace and security with its neighbors, and freedom and dignity for the Palestinian people.”
He also said the administration does not agree with “every aspect” of the resolution but that it “rightly condemns violence” and calls on both sides to take constructive steps to reverse current trends and advance the prospects for a two-state solution.
The resolution was put forward by four nations a day after Egypt withdrew it Thursday under pressure from Israel and Trump.
The U.S. not vetoing the measure is being considered a snub to the country’s key Middle East ally and attributed to outgoing Democratic President Obama, who has had chilly relations with Israel throughout his eight-year tenure.
Reaction from U.S. Republicans and Jewish leaders around the world was swift and sharp.

The "status quo" of 60 years ago: "Old Jerusalem like a dead city" (1956 NYT) "Jews not allowed" (1955)

This is the status quo that the world wants to return Jerusalem to.

Here were Jordan's rules for tourists reported in the NYT in May 1955:

This is what the UN is trying to do, today.

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The 1994 Israel-Jordan peace agreement shows that the UN resolution is based on fantasy, not law

The anti-Israel UN resolution passed on Friday refers to the "1967 lines" a number of times:

Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem,...

Expressing grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines...

Reaffirms that the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity

Underlines that it will not recognize any changes to the 4 June 1967 lines. including with regard to Jerusalem, other than those agreed by the parties through negotiations;

Calls upon all States, bearing in mind paragraph 1 of this resolution, to distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967;

Clearly the UN is putting legal weight on the so-called "1967 lines." It is basing its entire criticism of Israel on Israel's actions in "Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967."

But what is the actual legal status of those lines in international law?

There are two issues here.

-Is there any legal validity to the "1967 lines" today?

- Is there any legal basis to refer to the lands captured by Israel in 1967 as "Palestinian territory"?

If the answer to either of these questions is "no," then the resolution itself is literally based on nonsense.

What is the legal status of the so-called "1967 lines"?

Those lines are defined in the 1949 armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan, UN document S/1302/Rev.1 3 April 1949. The agreement includes these provisions:

It is also recognized that no provision of this Agreement shall in any way prejudice the rights, claims and positions of either Party hereto in the ultimate peaceful settlement of the Palestine question, the provisions of this Agreement being dictated exclusively by military considerations.

No warlike act or act of hostility shall be conducted from territory controlled by one of the Parties to this Agreement against the other Party.

The provisions of this article shall not be interpreted as prejudicing, in any sense, an ultimate political settlement between the Parties to this Agreement.

The Armistice Demarcation Lines defined in articles V and VI of this Agreement are agreed upon by the Parties without prejudice to future territorial settlements or boundary lines or to claims of either Party relating thereto.

The lines were never meant to be political boundaries, they were meant to be temporary until a final peace agreement, and anyone who violated the cease fire would be violating and possibly abrogating this armistice agreement.

In 1967, Jordan attacked Israel across these armistice lines, and therefore abrogated the armistice agreement.

Thereafter, the border between Israel and Jordan was legally unclear. Israel didn't annex the territory, but it did control it. Jordan still claimed it (until 1988, as will be seen.)

The only legally binding definition of the border - not "lines," but border - between Israel and Jordan came in 1994 with the Israel -Jordan peace agreement.

Here's what it says:

The international boundary between Jordan and Israel is delimited with reference to the boundary definition under the Mandate as is shown in Annex I (a), on the mapping materials attached thereto and coordinates specified therein.
The boundary, as set out in Annex I (a), is the permanent, secure and recognized international boundary between Jordan and Israel, without prejudice to the status of any territories that came under Israeli military government control in 1967.

While the agreement leaves open the possibility of a Palestinian state or entity on the Israeli side of the border, it says explicitly that the border between Israel and Jordan is essentially the border between the areas Israel controls in Judea and Samaria and Jordan - the Jordan River, the Dead Sea and so on. It is not the border between "Palestine" and Jordan.

In fact, the agreement between Israel and Jordan doesn't mention "Palestinian territory" at all.

Even if you believe that the 1949 armistice agreement was not abrogated by Jordan in 1967, this 1994 agreement completely supersedes the 1949 armistice agreement (and the concept of "1967 lines") in every legal sense. It is exactly what the 1949 agreement means when it refers to the "ultimate political settlement between the Parties."

So by any definition, the "1967 lines" has no legal validity.

What about the legal issues behind calling the territories "Palestinian territories"?

There is no legal basis for that as well, except for the areas that Israel agreed to cede as part of the Oslo process.

While Jordan claimed the territory of the west bank of the river for itself until 1988, it was basing that claim on territory that was never accepted by the world as Jordanian to begin with. The 1988 decision to eliminate all legal ties from those territories was ostensibly "to enhance Palestinian national orientation and highlight Palestinian identity" but it did not transfer any legal rights whatsoever to the Palestinians. In no way could these areas be considered "Palestinian territory" since that was a legally meaningless term in 1988 - there was no "Palestine" and the area called "Palestine" before 1948 was completely superseded by the legal claims of Israel and Jordan (and Egypt.) The PLO had no legal validity as a state in 1988 as well; even though it declared "independence" that year, it was simply an organization, not a state in any legal sense.

Israel, by signing the Oslo accords, gave the Palestinians their first legal standing in international law, and the subsequent agreements giving territory to the PLO are the only legal instruments that can give a portion of the area - specifically, Area A and to an extent, Area B - to the Palestinians.

The phrase "1967 lines" has zero legal validity. The phrase "Palestinian territories" only has validity in the portions of Judea and Samaria that Israel gave away for peace.

This UN resolution, like many others, is based on terms that are literally nonsense from a legal and semantic perspective.

Referring to "1967 lines" in this resolution holds as much legal meaning as referring to the route that Santa Claus flies.

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The difference between anti-Israel Republicans and anti-Israel Democrats (posters)

I am finding that my anger at the betrayal of Israel by the world is easier expressed through graphics than essays.

(Baker's widely disseminated quote, usually cited as "they didn't vote for us," was never verified, but the sentiments were undoubtedly there during the first Bush presidency.)

I also tweeted this graphic:

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The UN is consistent (cartoon)

I tweeted this cartoon on Friday, changing the caption from the original WWI-era version to one that seems highly appropriate today.

I didn't caption the pile of bodies "Syria" which would be highly appropriate, as it is conceivable that Israeli housing in "settlements" literally could be seen from a high enough vantage point in Syria.

But the fact is that the UN has minimized dozens of far deadlier conflicts while remaining fixated on Israel for decades, so Syria is perhaps the most egregious example of how the UN's priorities are screwed up, it is far from the only one.

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12/24 Links: Trump on UN Anti-Israel Vote: 'Things Will Be Different After Jan. 20'; Five Ways Trump Could Avenge the Anti-Israel UN Vote

From Ian:

Obama’s Betrayal

Today’s resolution brands the Jewish presence in any part of the West Bank or in parts of Jerusalem that were occupied by Jordan from 1949 to 1967 as illegal. And it makes the hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in those parts of the ancient Jewish homeland international outlaws. The excuse given by the U.S. was that increased building in the territories and Jerusalem is endangering the chances of a two-state solution. But, as I noted yesterday when the vote on the resolution was postponed, this is a canard. The reason why a two-state solution has not been implemented to date is because the Palestinians have repeatedly refused offers of statehood even when such offers would put them in possession of almost all of the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem. The building of more homes in places even Obama admitted that Israel would keep in the event of a peace treaty is no obstacle to peace if the Palestinians wanted a state. Rather than encourage peace, this vote will merely encourage more Palestinian intransigence and their continued refusal to negotiate directly with Israel. It will also accelerate support for efforts to wage economic war on Israel via the BDS movement.
This lame duck stab in the back of America’s only democratic ally in the Middle East should only further encourage President-elect Donald Trump to make good on his promise to move the U.S. embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and let the world know that the new administration not only repudiates his predecessor’s betrayal but that the alliance is as strong as ever.
That will have to wait until January 20th and Obama’s exit from the White House. In the meantime, this is a moment for Democratic friends of Israel to apologize for eight years of excusing and rationalizing Obama’s growing hostility to the Jewish state. Though some will disingenuously argue that the president is trying to save Israel from itself, today’s vote must be seen for what it is. Freed of political constraints, the president finally showed his true colors by throwing Israel to the wolves at a United Nations where anti-Semitism and anti-Israel bias is integral to the culture of the world body.
This is a moment when those who have been in denial about the harm the president has done to the U.S.-Israel alliance should admit their mistake. But for the pro-Israel community as a whole, a bipartisan coalition of Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and liberals, this is a moment of anger that will hopefully be followed by a determination to work with the next president to repair the grave damage Obama has caused.

Trump on UN Anti-Israel Vote: 'Things Will Be Different After Jan. 20'

President-elect Donald Trump o the UN Security Council’s passage of an anti-Israel resolution Friday — thanks to U.S. abstention by President Barack Obama — by Tweeting: “As to the U.N., things will be different after Jan. 20th.”
It was not immediately apparent what Trump meant, but senior members of Congress — including several in the Senate — have called openly for defunding the United Nations in response to the vote, which declares Israeli settlements illegal.
The vote, which Israel argues mistakes both historical fact and international law, breaks with five decades of precedent in U.S. policy. The Obama administration had vetoed an earlier resolution substantially similar to the one that it allowed to pass.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) issued a statement in advance of the vote:
As the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations of the Senate Appropriations Committee, I oversee the United States assistance to the United Nations. The United States is currently responsible for approximately 22 percent of the United Nations total budget.
If the United Nations moves forward with the ill-conceived resolution, I will work to form a bipartisan coalition to suspend or significantly reduce United States assistance to the United Nations.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) agreed, in a statement after the vote: “The United States provides considerable financial assistance to the United Nations and Security Council members. The UN and nations supporting this resolution have now imperiled all forms of U.S. assistance. I look forward to working with President-elect Trump and members of both parties in Congress to decide what the consequences for this action will be.”

YES: Trump BLASTS Obama's Anti-Israel Resolution: Change Is Coming To The UN

Late on Friday, the Obama administration demonstrated before the world just how morally perverse they are, and why so many Americans can’t wait for their benighted perspective on foreign policy to become a relic of the past. With Obama’s silent urging and acquiescence, the United Nations passed a resolution essentially declaring the holiest spot in Judaism, the Temple Mount, sovereign Muslim territory, and determining that all Jews living outside of pre-1967 lines are illegal residents on sovereign Muslim territory. Obama did this on behalf of a unity government comprised of three terrorist groups – Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Authority – and to the cheers of terror-sponsors like Iran.
Meanwhile, the Obama administration spoke words of empty nonsense as the Russian-backed Syrian regime continued its slaughter of hundreds of thousands just to Israel’s northeast.
Obama’s presidency has been a blot on the moral record of the United States with regard to world affairs, but his parting shot at Israel demonstrates his total animus for the Jewish state as a whole and his warmth toward the world’s leading terror-sponsors in Iran.
Thankfully, someone new arrives on January 20.
President-elect Donald Trump attempted stop the Obama UN atrocity before it began by publicly urging a veto, then working behind the scenes to scuttle Egypt’s sponsorship of the draft resolution. Obama then worked with the Palestinians to push it through with help from socialist dictatorship Venezuela and Senegal, which is currently threatening to invade Gambia.