Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 07, 2017

On The Palestinian "Option" -- Not Right -- Of Return (Daled Amos)

There are many aspects to the issue of Palestinian Arab refugees, a problem that persists nearly 70 years after the 1948 War that created the current situation. One question is whether Israel is actually obligated to allow those Arabs back in.

In other words, do the Palestinian Arabs have a legal "Right of Return"?

That is the argument made by pro-Arab advocate Hussein Ibish and Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah in The Palestinian Right of Return, an article they wrote together in 2001, using many of the basic arguments still being used to make the case.

They start with establishing a right according to international law -- and immediately run into a problem.

The first source is a quote by "prominent legal scholars" Mallison and Mallison that

"[h]istorically, the right of return was so universally accepted and practiced that it was not deemed necessary to prescribe or codify it in a formal manner.

Putting aside the possibility that the absence of such a codification could be because no such absolute right exists, the quote itself is problematic.

Tracing the origins of the quote -- the authors' paper provides no links or footnotes -- we find the full quote is a claim that the Palestinian Right of Return can be based on the Magna Carta:

Historically, the right of return was so universally accepted and practiced that it was not deemed necessary to prescribe or codify it in a formal manner. In 1215, at a time when rights were being questioned in England, the Magna Carta was agreed to by King John. It provided that: "It shall be lawful in the future for anyone... to leave our kingdom and to return, safe and secure by land and water..."

Mallison and Mallison then go on to connect the Magna Carta's guarantee of return "in armed conflict and belligerent occupation situations" with the Geneva Convention's protection of war victims and repatriation.

Noting that Now, Arabs claim the Magna Carta provides the "right to return" Elder of Ziyon gives the full quote to fill in the gap created by the ellipses:

In the future it shall be lawful for any man to leave and return to our kingdom unharmed and without fear, by land or water, preserving his allegiance to us, except in time of war, for some short period, for the common benefit of the realm. People that have been imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the land, people from a country that is at war with us, and merchants - who shall be dealt with as stated above - are excepted from this provision.

So contrary to Ibish and Abunimah, Mallison and Mallison have found a source for international law for a "universally accepted and practiced" right of return that

only applies to people who are citizens of the country they left
does not apply to members of an entity that is hostile to the country
does not apply to descendants (contrary to UNRWA policy).

John sealing the Magna Carta by Frank Wood, 1925
Photo: www.bridgemanimages.com. Source: The Telegraph

Another source they quote is The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically Article 13(2), "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country" and 15(2) "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality."

CAMERA, in a backgrounder on The Palestinian Claim to a “Right of Return”, notes the limitations on using the declaration as a source for the rights of refugees in international law.

Firstly, while granting its importance, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding -- see, for example, here. More to the point, while UDHR is the basis for
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, not one of these 3 documents actually mentions refugees.

Secondly, the reference to a "return to his country" would not include the Arabs who left then-Palestine, seeking entrance to Israel.

Ibish and Abunimah anticipate this argument and counter "It is a generally recognized principle of international law that when sovereignty or political control over an area changes hands, there is a concurrent transfer of responsibility for the population of that territory." -- but bring no source for their claim.

Thirdly, Article 29 of UDHR notes the rights of the citizens of the country itself, namely:

In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

Obviously the influx of millions of Palestinian Arabs would raise concerns about the "rights" and "general welfare" of the citizens of Israel.

Ibish and Abunimah claim that Israel particularly has a responsibility for Arab refugees because they were expelled from the land. That is a whole topic unto itself, but the fact remains that

the Jewish state was involved in a war of survival not of its own choosing. It was inevitable that some of the population would be forced out because of security issues
it is documented that many of the Arabs who left did so not only to get out of harms way but also at the encouragement of the surrounding Arab countries.

A key part of the argument for a right of return is of course UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which directly addresses the issue of Palestinian Arab refugees. According to paragraph 11, the resolution:

Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;

Key points to keep in mind:

First, General Assembly resolutions are not binding -- thus the UN is not establishing a right of return.

Second, the language of the resolution, "should" instead of "shall" again points to the lack of an actual right or legal obligation.

Lastly, left unmentioned by Ibish and Abunimah is the second paragraph of Article 11, indicating that the UN:

Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;

The UN is not establishing an absolute right of return. Instead it is establishing the options of either return (repatriation) or resettlement in another country.

CAMERA points out that is why the same language reflecting 2 options occurs in

UN Resolution 393: "either by repatriation or resettlement"
UN Resolution 394: "whether repatriated or resettled"
UN Resolution 513: “reintegration either by repatriation or resettlement”

Could it be that the lack of a guaranteed right of return in Resolution 194 would explain why the Arab countries at the time voted against the resolution?

Ibish and Abunimah finish off with an argument for rights based on a comparison between the Palestinian Arabs and the situation in Kosovo -- and with the Jewish rights following Holocaust.

Without going into a discussion of their examples, one can come up with another example -- quoting Benjamin Franklin. Mitchell Bard points out that during the American Revolution, many colonists loyal to England fled to Canada. After the war, the British wanted the loyalists to be allowed to return to claim their property. Benjamin Franklin rejected this suggestion, writing:

Your ministers require that we should receive again into our bosom those who have been our bitterest enemies and restore their properties who have destroyed ours: and this while the wounds they have given us are still bleeding!

Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Michael J. Dean

Based on continued Palestinian terrorism to this day, the comparison still holds.

Similarly, Bard notes that after WWII, 12.5, million Germans in Poland and then-Czechoslovakia were expelled, allowed to take only the possessions they could carry. World War II’s effects on Poland’s boundaries and population were considered a fait accompli that could not be undone after the war. Those expelled did not receive compensation for confiscated property and no one in Germany petitions for the right of the millions of deportees, and their children, to return to the countries from which they were expelled. This is in spite of the fact that they and their ancestors had lived in those countries for hundreds of years.

The bottom line is that while refugees in general, and Palestinian Arab refugees in particular, retain an option to return -- this is not considered an absolute right. Instead it is one option to measured against existing circumstances and the consequences of repatriation. This is established based on the resolutions of the UN itself, something that perhaps should be pointed out to UNRWA.

And what about UNRWA and their policy on the refugee status of Palestinian Arabs and a right of return? That is exactly the point -- it is an organizational policy as opposed to international law. As Elder of Ziyon pointed out yesterday, UNRWA has taken liberties with the legal definition of refugees, arbitrarily fabricating refugee status where none exists and granting refugee status to descendants in contradiction of international law.

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Maybe I just missed it, but of all the millions of words being written about Donald Trump over the past year, I never saw anyone in the media actually compare his views and actions against what Trump wrote in his 2012 book, "Time to Get Tough."

Trump wrote the book during the 2012 presidential race. It is written in his voice, almost certainly based on his recording his words and then editing them. There is no ghostwriter here.

Much of it is online.

The table of contents of the book is essentially a blueprint of the topics that Trump was to campaign on four years later:

Not Steve Bannon. This is all Trump. Which is a comfort, in a way - the analyses about Bannon secretly controlling the White House agenda do not appear to be based on any actual research.

There are a few differences between the book and what we are seeing, and I'll highlight a couple of those. But for the most part this book is an invaluable tool to understand Trump, whether you love him or loathe him. It is sort of pathetic that no one in the media seems to be willing to compare Trump's words today against what he was saying previously. Whatever happened to source material?

Trump mentions Israel essentially only in the context of Iran:

[W]e know Obama’s instincts on Iran are horrible. On May 18, 2008, during a campaign speech then-candidate Obama made this breathtakingly ignorant statement: “I mean, think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela—these countries are tiny, compared to the Soviet Union. They don’t pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. . . . You know, Iran, they spend one-one hundredth of what we spend on the military. If Iran ever tried to pose a serious threat to us, they wouldn’t stand a chance. And we should use that position of strength that we have, to be bold enough to go ahead and listen.” Then, after his advisors told him what a moronic statement he’d made, Obama went out two days later and reversed his stance: “Iran is a grave threat. It has an illicit nuclear program, it supports terrorism across the region and militias in Iraq, it threatens Israel’s existence, it denies the holocaust.”27 Once again, the guy’s initial instincts are always wrong. And in this case, they endangered America and our ally Israel.

Obviously we must listen to our intelligence experts to decide the best way to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But here’s the reality: because the clock is ticking down, the next president America elects will in all likelihood be the president who either stops Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon or who sits back and lets it happen. Given Obama’s track record of weakness, that’s not a risk America can afford to take.

The highlighted portion is of course of interest today, when it appears based on media reports that Trump disrespects the role of the intelligence agencies.

By the way, Trump's 2000 political book, The America We Deserve, had far more about Israel's importance as an ally for the US. It also has an entire chapter warning of the dangers of terrorism, more than a year before 9/11.

Here's an important section that is critical to understanding Trump's foreign policy philosophy in his own words:

If history teaches us anything, it’s that strong nations require strong leaders with clearly defined national security principles. Realities change at warp speed; international events can turn on a dime. The 9-11 terrorist attacks, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, the Arab Spring—all these happened in the blink of an eye. A president can’t always predict where the next national security “fire” will erupt, but he can and must have a steady and reliable compass to guide his decisions. Citizens need to know the values and principles their president will rely on to lead America through whatever unknown threats lie over the horizon. I believe that any credible American foreign policy doctrine should be defined by at least seven core principles:

1. American interests come first. Always. No apologies.

2. Maximum firepower and military preparedness.

3. Only go to war to win.

4. Stay loyal to your friends and suspicious of your enemies.

5. Keep the technological sword razor sharp.

6. See the unseen. Prepare for threats before they materialize.

7. Respect and support our present and past warriors.

Sadly, President Obama has undermined each of these core principles. First, no sooner had he been sworn into office than he went on an apology tour to the Arab world. Did you know that the very first interview Obama gave as president was with the Arabic news channel Al Arabiya? I’ve got news for President Obama: America is not what’s wrong with the world. I don’t believe we need to apologize for being hated by Islamic radical terrorists who hate our religion, hate our freedom, and hate that we extend human rights to women. Second, even as Obama’s blown trillions of our tax dollars on his “stimulus” schemes, he’s proposed cutting $400 billion from our defense budget. Third, by announcing the time and date for withdrawal in Afghanistan and not clearly defining our objectives in Libya’s civil war, Obama has completely blown it, making it virtually impossible for us to define what victory is and achieve it. Fourth, the president sold out our dear friend and ally Israel. He’s also thrown other allies, like Poland and the Czech Republic, under the bus by bowing to Russian demands that we not build missile defenses to protect our friends. Fifth, by slashing military budgets Obama has threatened our ability to keep our technological edge in weapons systems. Sixth, Obama has been caught flatfooted by China’s development of the J-20 fighter jet, something his administration didn’t think would happen for years to come. And finally, by raiding the defense budget to pay for his failed social programs, Obama continues to weaken our ability to honor our present and past warriors.

Perhaps the most important section to read in the 2012 book is this, about Russia:

Obama’s popularity in America may be at rock bottom levels, but I know one place his ratings are likely sky high: the Kremlin. Russia’s leaders can hardly believe their luck. Never in a million years did they think America would elect a guy as ineffective as this. Obama’s pretty-please diplomacy and endless American apology tours have served Russian interests extremely well. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, of whom I often speak highly for his intelligence and no-nonsense way, is a former KGB officer. No sooner did Obama move into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue than he began making concessions and sacrificing American power on the altar of “improving relations” with Russia.

According to Barack Obama’s favorite newspaper, the New York Times, within weeks of being sworn in as president of the United States, Obama sent a top U.S. official to Moscow to hand deliver a secret letter to Russia’s then-President Dmitry Medvedev. According to the Times, the secret letter said that Obama “would back off deploying a new missile defense system in Eastern Europe if Moscow would help stop Iran from developing long-range weapons.” It’s so outrageous I hardly believed it until I read it myself. Obama had barely moved his stuff into the White House residence and already the guy was just itching to start degrading America’s power and undermining our allies.

Not surprisingly, Putin was ecstatic: “The latest decision by President Obama . . . has positive implications,” said Putin. “I very much hope that this very right and brave decision will be followed by others.”15

But it gets even worse. Incredibly, the Obama administration made the decision to throw our friends Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus and leave them naked to missile attacks “despite having no public guarantees” that Moscow would help crack down on Iran’s missile programs. 16 Many in the intelligence world were baffled by Obama’s reckless and foolish move. U.S. senators piped up too. “This is going to be seen as a capitulation to the Russians, who had no real basis to object to what we were doing,” warned Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “And at the end of the day you empowered the Russians, you made Iran happy and you made the people in Eastern Europe wonder who we are as Americans.”17 What was Barack Obama’s response? “If the byproduct of it is that the Russians feel a little less paranoid and are now willing to work more effectively with us to deal with threats like ballistic missiles from Iran or nuclear development in Iran, you know, then that’s a bonus.”

The results of Obama’s pandering to the Russians have been a total disaster. In 2010, the Russians outsmarted Obama by promising to play nice and not sell Iran anti-aircraft missiles. The administration proudly hailed the announcement as a big success and praised Medvedev for having “shown leadership in holding Iran accountable for its actions, from start to finish.” Then, even as Obama was busy cheerleading the Russians’ actions, the Los Angeles Times reported that “Russian diplomats were quietly recruiting other countries . . . to undercut tougher penalties imposed on the Islamic Republic.”18 It was an incredible coup for Russia: they got Obama to give up missile defense for absolutely nothing in return and stuck it to America by secretly convincing other nations to back Iran.

Putin has big plans for Russia. He wants to edge out its neighbors so that Russia can dominate oil supplies to all of Europe.19 Putin has also announced his grand vision: the creation of a “Eurasian Union” made up of former Soviet nations that can dominate the region. I respect Putin and the Russians but cannot believe our leader allows them to get away with so much—I am sure that Vladimir Putin is even more surprised than I am. Hats off to the Russians.

If Trump's opinion hasn't changed, then it seems like while his respect for Putin is quite real, his overtures towards Russia are meant to outfox Putin, not to blindly do his will as the media seems to imply.

Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but there is no better place to begin such an analysis than Trump's own words, especially when they align so well with practically everything else he is doing.

In this next section, Trump pretty much admits that he would divide the country to win a presidential campaign - because that is what he accused Obama of doing in 2012:

In all my years in business and participating in politics I’ve never seen the country as divided as it is right now—and I’ve seen bad times. Voters’ hatred of both Democrats and Republicans is beyond anything I have ever witnessed. A great leader can bring America together. But unfortunately for us, Barack Obama is not a leader.

...[T]he Republicans are going to have a very tough race. Obama is harnessing all of the negativity he created and flipping it back on the people—a very smart, if cynical, strategy. I’ve never seen anything like it. The guy is willing to rip the country in half to win. Sadly, it may prove to be a winning strategy. If I were doing as badly as he is, I would realize it is my only road to victory.

It is obvious that this was Trump's strategy on the campaign trail. Unfortunately we have seen very little of Trump's trying to bringing America together since then. Today's divisions are worse than they were under Obama, and that's saying something. I think that this division is far more dangerous and will cause far more long-term damage than any of Trump's policies might. From the point of view of Israel, Trump has managed to split the American Jewish and the American Zionist community far worse and far more starkly than eight years of Obama deliberately pushing J-Street for that very purpose.

What about Trump's thin skin? There is plenty of evidence of it in this book as well, and he rips many people who insult him (or who he simply thinks are useless.) . But he also says why he is so aggressive towards those who cross him. He says "I always believe when attacked, hit your opponent back harder and meaner and ideally right between the eyes." In a few cases, however, he admits respecting people he disagrees with.

It makes no difference if you support Trump or not. It is a much better use of your time to read this book (it really isn't that long) than to read any of a zillion half-baked analyses being published in the media about him.

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Video of this week's "Talmudic ritual" on the Temple Mount

The Arab headlines of Jews "performing Talmudic rituals" on the Temple Mount never go away.

But yesterday it appears that they finally caught one of them on video.

If you enlarge the video to full screen, you can almost make out that the offender is moving his lips.

Scandalously, the guards are not forcibly picking him up and throwing him off the Mount for this blatant violation of the Muslim sanctity of the Al Aqsa Mosque compound.

The Jewish violations of the sanctity of the site are so great and outrageous that the Muslim authorities a couple of years ago commissioned videos for children to explain exactly how heinous the Jewish crimes are. The videos include this character tearfully begging for Muslim rights to the holy site be respected.

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Spot the difference (poster)

This seems accurate.

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02/06 Links Pt2: Linda Sarsour, The Left's Latest Star; NFL football stars to visit Israel

From Ian:

Daniel Pipes: Linda Sarsour, The Left's Latest Star

What to make of Linda Sarsour of Brooklyn, lead plaintiff in the lawsuit against President Trump's immigration order and the new, seemingly ubiquitous symbol of the hard Left-radical Islam alliance?
The Obama White House designated her a "champion of change." New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio sought her endorsement. Vermont's Senator Bernie Sanders used her as a surrogate in his presidential campaign. She served as a delegate to the 2016 Democratic National Convention.
She appeared on major television shows and the New York Times ran a long puff piece calling her "a Brooklyn homegirl in a hijab." David Brock's Media Matters for America advocates for her. She was one of four lead organizers of the anti-Trump Women's March on Washington. Actress Susan Sarandon and Rep. Keith Ellison endorse her. Sarsour, in brief, is "venerated by leftists," observes Muslim reformer Shireen Qudosi. And Islamists too: for example, Al-Jazeera celebrates her.
If Sarsour is the vaunted star of the leftist-Islamist alliance, conservatives can rest easy.
Sarsour plopped herself into my life in March 2010 when she confused me, Daniel Pipes, with PipeLineNews.org, a "boutique news service" that had run a critical article on her calling her a "Hamas sympathizer." She responded by showering me with mock gratitude for the attention ("THANK YOU Mr. Pipes!"). Noting her error, I wrote a sarcastic response ("Sarsour ought to shower PipeLineNews.org, not me, with her affections"). When she did not acknowledge her mistake, I took an interest in her career.
I learned that Sarsour frequently errs without later correcting herself. She wrongly portrayed the murder of Shaima Alawadi as resulting from hatred of Muslims when in fact Alawadi's Muslim husband, Kassim Alhimidi, honor-killed her. Worse, she faked a hate crime against herself, scoring political points nationally by portraying a mentally ill homeless man as a violent racist.
I learned about Sarsour's paranoid loathing for the U.S. government. She portrayed would-be underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a CIA agent, implying that the federal government murders Americans to frame Muslims. She also off-handedly claimed Muslim "kids [are] being executed" in the United States, presumably by the government.

IsraellyCool: WATCH: Bernard-Henri Levy: “BDS Is An Antisemitic Campaign”

Bernard-Henri Lévy, the French intellectual and author, was interviewed by Fareed Zakaria of CNN on the rising anti-semitism in the US.
The majority of the interview, he spends ripping BDS for antisemitism.

Tenenbom’s latest book demonstrates why a concerted effort should be made to encourage American Jews to emigrate to Israel

Tuvia Tenenbom’s book The Lies They Tell demonstrates why American Jews should move to Israel. The book is a seething indictment of the mindframe of the “progressive” American global melting pot and its “progressive” Jewish community, whose members deny their very essence and are at the forefront of the fight for the rights of every group in the world, with the exception of the Jews.
While travelling through the United States Tenenbom meets people who refuse to discuss politics and philosophy and are afraid to speek their minds unless their opinions are ‘politically correct’. The world is divided into good and bad, black and white, left or right. The politically-correct decultured global white progressive American is inevitably ‘pro-Palestinian’ and opposed to ‘global warming’. Needless to say, all who profess to be ‘pro-Palestinian’ and ‘progressive’ know — with the exception of slogans and for the most part slanted or incorrect facts — absolutely nothing about Israel.
The ‘progressive’ Jews are busy committing cultural suicide/genocide by denying their own culture and internalizing a melting pot without essence. They speak little if any Hebrew or Yiddish and with the exception of superficialities do not identify with Judaism and know hardly anything about it.
Political activists complain about Israeli ‘apartheid’ but are apparently unaware of the fact that nearly half the Israeli Jewish population have their origins in Muslim countries. Nearly all of these countries refuse to allow a single Jew into their country. Nor do they seem to be aware that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas do not allow Jews to live or study in ‘Palestine’ which, of course, opposes apartheid. That the Israeli apartheid state is 20 percent Palestinian while ‘Palestine’ is 0 percent Jewish seems perfectly logical to “progressive” Jews.

The Palestinian Attorney General's office has issued a ban on a crime thriller called "A Crime in Ramallah" on the grounds that it violates public morals.

Deputy general counsel Ahmed Barak said that a decision was made to pull all copies of the novel from all libraries and bookstores.

The ban is supposedly because the novel includes violations of "ethics and morals" and that it "would prejudice the citizen" who reads it - it would cause juvenile delinquency if the young should read it. He hides this censorship behind claims that the book violates the Press and publications Law, the Penal Code, the Law on the Protection of Juveniles, and the Law of the Child, which prohibits the publication or display or circulation of any books or audio or videos that might make a child act "contrary to public order and morals."

The book looks like a standard crime novel that is meant to illuminate the dark parts of society, with corrupt politicians and police. If I understand the plot correctly, it involves a murder of a young woman whose circumstances would embarrass prominent officials so the family is framed as if it was an honor killing.

Reviews have been generally positive although they note that the novel is bold.

It appears that the novel hit too close to home for the Palestinian Authority officials.

I'm sure that human rights groups will be very loud in their denunciation of this censorship. Right after the flying pigs invasion.

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Remember Qaradawi when comparing Jewish and Muslim refugees (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

Nobody can know how the Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust would feel about the now so fashionable use of their despair and suffering for the benefit of today’s mostly Muslim refugees. I have repeatedly tried to explain why I think the comparison is inappropriate; but even though more influential writers have also adamantly opposed this facile “lesson of history,” it only seems to become more popular. One notable example for this trend is the Twitter account St. Louis Manifest: set up for the recent International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it quickly gained almost 74,000 followers by combining the commemoration of the Jewish refugees on board the St. Louis, who were denied entry to the US and later killed by the Nazis, with the message #RefugeesWelcome. In the same spirit, columnist Peter Beinart decreed on Twitter that it was completely unacceptable for Jewish organizations to commemorate the Holocaust without forcefully rejecting the Trump administration’s recent “Muslim ban” (which isn’t really a “Muslim ban”).

In a probably futile attempt to make the virtue-signalers think twice, Lee Smith argued in Tablet that if today’s Syrian refugees are the “new Jews,” we should urgently figure out who are the new Nazis. According to Smith, it is Iran and “its crack troops, the Quds Force,” as well as Iranian proxies like Hezbollah and Assad ally Russia “that hunted Sunni Arabs like animals and slaughtered them or sent them running for their lives. These are the Nazis. That’s who sent the Syrians running for their lives like Jews fleeing Hitler.”

Writing at The American Interest, Walter Russell Mead and Nicholas M. Gallagher make a similar argument:

“The refugee question is not the only uncomfortable parallel between the 1930s and our own time. The real problem in the 1930s wasn’t the lack of compassion for Jewish and other refugees; it was the feckless appeasement of Adolf Hitler and the unwillingness to confront him that empowered the Nazi persecution of the Jews and created hundreds of thousands of refugees. So today the true villain of the Syria story—aside from Syria, Russia, and Iran—is the feckless Obama foreign policy that allowed a cyst to metastasize into a cancer, just as Britain, France, and America once allowed Hitler to grow into the master of Europe.

The Obama officials and cheerleaders now guilt-tripping the country over ‘heartlessness’ toward Syria refugees are giving hypocrisy a bad name. Bad foreign policy is the cause of the heartbreak in Syria today, not bad immigration policy. The world does not need lectures from Susan Rice and Samantha Power on what we should do about Syrian refugees; the best way to deal with refugee flows is to prevent them from happening. The Holocaust was not caused by the Reed-Johnson Act [which sharply curtailed immigration since 1924]; it was caused by Nazi hatred, enabled by naive liberal illusions about the ‘arc of history’ that prevented the West from mobilizing against Hitler when he was weak and [could have been] easily defeated.”

But current controversies about Muslim immigration are of course not just about Syrian refugees, and arguably, everyone who is eager to cite “lessons” of the 1930s and 1940s should be confronted with the fact that the murderous Jew-hatred of this time remains not only fairly popular in the Muslim world, but is further fortified by ancient Islamic enmity to Jews. While there is plenty of evidence for these unfortunate facts, the perhaps best example is the popular Muslim leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi. It is crucial to understand how enormously influential Qaradawi is: A 2009 book entitled “The Global Mufti” asserts that “Qaradawi is unquestionably the most important Sunni religious figure in the world today,” and a Huffington Post/World Post list of Arab “thought leaders” ranks the now ninety-year old cleric as number three for 2016.

According to the Huffington Post, Qaradawi is best known for his program “Sharia and Life,” which is broadcast on Al Jazeera and has an estimated audience of 60 million worldwide; he has also published more than 120 books, and helped found the popular website IslamOnline, for which he has long served as “chief religious scholar.”

Interestingly, even the Huffington Post notes in its short biography on Qaradawi that due to some “controversial” views, he was refused entry to the UK (2008) and France (2012). One could add that also his US visa was revoked already in 1999, and he has even become controversial in the Arab world because many regard him “as the religious voice giving power to people in Arab countries to rise against their oppressive rulers.” Along with many Muslim Brotherhood members, an Egyptian court sentenced Qaradawi (in absentia) to death in 2015; Georgetown professor Abdullah Al-Arian denounced the sentence in his Al Jazeera column and praised Qaradawi as “possibly the most prominent religious authority in the Sunni Muslim world.”

Westerners who are eager to use the victims of the Holocaust for today’s political debates should be familiar with some of the relevant views of this highly influential Muslim scholar, who – as Al-Arian illustrates – has also well-placed admirers in the West.

In a speech broadcast on Al Jazeera TV on January 30, 2009, Qaradawi declared:

“Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers.”

So apparently, Qaradawi would prefer to see Muslims not as the new Jews, but rather as the new Nazis.

A few weeks before Qaradawi expressed his hope that Muslims would follow in Hitler’s footsteps, he also prayed in a Friday sermon that was aired by Al Jazeera TV:

“Oh Allah, take the Jews, the treacherous aggressors. Oh Allah, take this profligate, cunning, arrogant band of people. Oh Allah, they have spread much tyranny and corruption in the land. Pour Your wrath upon them, oh our God. Lie in wait for them. […] oh Allah, take this oppressive, tyrannical band of people. Oh Allah, take this oppressive, Jewish, Zionist band of people. Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one.”

These kind of fervent prayers calling on Allah to kill all the Jews are not uncommon – here is a selection: a Palestinian preacher (2010); a Hamas imam (2011); a Spanish imam (2014); an Italian preacher (2014); an imam in Berlin (2014); a Qatari sheikh (2014); a Palestinian sheikh (2016).

As far as Qaradawi is concerned, he had freely promoted his intense Jew-hatred already for years. In 2003, he published a book (in Arabic) explaining his “rulings” on Palestine; the book was translated to English in 2007. In this book Qaradawi warns Muslims not to be friends with “Jews, in general, and Israelis, in particular;” he describes Jews as “devourers of Riba (usury) and ill-gotten money” and as “true examples of miserliness and stinginess;” he also claims that Jews “have killed Prophet Zakariyya and Prophet Yahya and wove conspiracies against Jesus Christ.”

However, as Mark Gardner and Dave Rich noted in their review (full pdf text), the “most striking part of the book” is Qaradawi’s discussion of a notorious hadith [i.e. records “of the traditions or sayings of the Prophet Muhammad” which are viewed “as a major source of religious law and moral guidance, second only to the authority of the Qurʾān”] that also appears prominently in the Hamas Charter and reads:

“The last day will not come unless you fight Jews. A Jew will hide himself behind stones and trees and stones and trees will say, O servant of Allah [or O Muslim] there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.””

Qaradawi describes this hadith as “one of the miracles of our Prophet” and elaborates:

“[W]e believe that the battle between us and the Jews is coming. Such a battle is not driven by nationalistic causes or patriotic belonging; it is rather driven by religious incentives. This battle is not going to happen between Arabs and Zionists, or between Jews and Palestinians, or between Jews or anybody else. It is between Muslims and Jews as is clearly stated in the hadith. This battle will occur between the collective body of Muslims and the collective body of Jews i.e. all Muslims and all Jews. (p. 77).”

Gardner and Rich argue that Qaradawi “personifies the combination of theological anti-Judaism, modern European antisemitism and conflict-driven Judeophobia that make up contemporary Islamist attitudes to Jews.” But given the fact that Qaradawi has long been recognized as “possibly the most prominent religious authority in the Sunni Muslim world” – to quote Georgetown professor Abdullah Al-Arian – it is by no means clear that only “Islamists” would share his views on Jews. And indeed, there is plenty of evidence that antisemitism is not only rampant in the Arab and Muslim world, but also prevalent in Muslim communities in the West.

I would have thought that if we want to draw “lessons” from the Holocaust, one of the most important would be to never again ignore incitement to murderous Jew-hatred. But the recent International Holocaust Remembrance Day was just one of many occasions to realize that I’m apparently wrong.

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02/06 Links Pt1: The Choices Palestinians Make; 'Hamas cell planned terror attacks at synagogue, train station in Israel'

From Ian:

The Choices Palestinians Make

The notion that the Israeli pilot is the only one who has any responsibility for the child's death is simply false. A lot of bad choices were made — by Palestinians — prior to the death of the young child and Atef Abu Saif knows it; he just can't — or will not — address these choices, at least not in this text.
The reality that Saif will not confront in his book [The Drone Eats With Me] is that Hamas, the terrorist organization that controls the Gaza Strip, bears a huge measure of responsibility for the suffering he documents. Hamas has repeatedly started wars that it cannot win against a country that cannot afford to lose.
During these conflicts, it has launched rockets from schoolyards and has used hospitals as command centers for its leaders, putting civilians on both sides of the conflict at risk. When children are killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza, Hamas puts their bodies on display to demonize Israel, and writers such as Saif assist in this tactic.
During the war in 2008–2009, Hamas... used cement and other building materials allowed into the Gaza Strip—ostensibly for the benefit of Palestinian civilians—in order to construct tunnels that could penetrate Israel and serve as a means to kidnap Israeli soldiers and civilians.
During its 2012 fight with Israel, Hamas leaders declared that killing Jews is a religious obligation. Hamas promotes a genocidal organization that seeks Israel's destruction and yet Saif does not speak a word about this lethal ideology or actions before or during the 2014 war.
Honesty requires that the deaths of these Palestinian children serve to drive — not obstruct — the conversation toward Palestinian abilities and responsibility.

PMW: Germany signs sports agreement with terror promoting PA official Rajoub

Last week, the head of the German representation in Ramallah, Peter Beerwerth, signed “the first bilateral cooperation agreement” in sports between the PA and Germany with Jibril Rajoub, the president of the Supreme Council for Sport and Youth Affairs in the Palestinian Authority.
In its recent report The Rajoub File, Palestinian Media Watch documented that Jibril Rajoub is an outspoken supporter of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis and prohibits peacebuilding sports activities between Palestinians and Israelis. During the latest wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis, Rajoub congratulated terrorist murderers, telling them that: “You are ‎heroes and we bless you... you are a ‎crown on our heads.” When a friendly football match took place between 11-year-old Israeli and Palestinian boys after the Gaza War in 2014, Rajoub called it a “crime against humanity.”
In addition, the Palestinian Football Association, which will be the beneficiary of a German football expert paid for by Germany, supervises an annual sporting event named after arch-terrorist Abu Jihad. According to the Palestinian Authority’s own documentation, terrorist Abu Jihad was responsible for the murder of 125 people.
The official PA daily reported that the new agreement between Germany and the PA is the result of “meetings between Rajoub and senior officials of the sports sector in Germany,” and that the German Olympic Committee and the German Football Association at these meetings had “demonstrated a willingness to contribute to the development of many sports branches in Palestine.” [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 1, 2017]

As everyone on the planet knows by now, an executive order by the new US administration regarding immigration has triggered tsunamis of controversy across the globe. Given that we’ve been chest deep in commentary regarding that decision since it was made, I’ll forgo talking about debate over that policy in order to focus on one specific reaction to it.

Over the last week, more than 4000 academics have signed a petition calling on scholars to boycott academic conferences in the US until the immigration ban is lifted. As far as I know, that boycott does not extend to refusing Americans access to conferences outside the US, nor have I yet heard calls for international academics to shun their US colleagues by, for example, refusing to review or publish their research, or rejecting graduate students or grants applications based on nationality.

Still, this measured approach is grounded in the assumption that punishing American academics for actions taken by the US government is an appropriate choice of action. I’ve not yet heard that this assumption is based on alleged culpability of American academics (or academic institutions) for US policy. We’ve heard people make that case in other academic boycott debates by applying a principle that says any college or university taking government money or performing research that contributes to government decision-making is automatically complicit in the actions of that government. So far, however, the only direct criticisms I’ve heard are complaints that some academic associations have not taken official stands protesting Trump’s controversial immigration policy quickly enough.

Absent the assignment of blame, it might be that international academics – lacking other ways to protest US immigration policy – are doing what they can, regardless of whether it will have any impact on those setting that policy. In which case, American scholars are being asked to serve as “mere means” towards the protestor’s political ends.

Regardless of motivation, a principled stance against any academic boycott of any kind says that research, scholarship, and the free flow of ideas should transcend politics. Cary Nelson – former leader of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) – sums up this argument [behind a paywall, unfortunately], which should be read alongside his masterful work which provides the historic backstory to our society’s choice to grant one profession – academia – special privileges which fall under the category of “Academic Freedom.”

Given that it is academics who benefit most directly from special considerations granted to no other profession, one wonders why some of those academics seem so trigger-happy to act in ways that undermine this global societal compact by trying to punish or exclude one another on political grounds. As ever, the dynamite that has been laid which undermines an important principle of civil society is labeled BDS.

Recall that the only significant academic boycott over the last decade is the one directed at the Jewish state. And in this debate, none of the aforementioned cautions or qualifications are in place. One can argue whether a French academic refusing to attend a conference in Chicago is punishing someone else, or just making a personal choice. The same argument cannot be made, however, by those pushing academic institutions, associations and individuals to shun their Israeli colleagues in every possible way.

So if a conference boycott does take hold targeting American academic meetings, the gate is already wide open to escalate it to include all the things the BDSers want done to Israeli scholars (refusal to cooperate, rejection of papers, etc.). And as the construct of academic freedom unravels, what will keep others (including supporters of the current President) from calling for boycotts of other academic institutions or associations based on a different set of political gripes?

While we’re on the subject of BDS talking points, what about the argument that the proposed sweeping academic boycotts only target Israeli institutions and thus in no way should be seen as an attempt to punish individual scholars? Well academic conferences and the organizations that run them are also institutions, yet it’s hard to imagine that one can harm an institution that consists solely of people talking to each other without harming the participants in those conversations. This case study that describes the personal suffering caused by an “institutional boycott” of University of Illinois also provides an empirical nail for the coffin of the “intuitional-boycotts-don’t-harm-individuals” argument.

Finally, one of the reasons I described that argument made by AAUP’s Cary Nelson argument against all academic boycotts as “principled” is that it is universal, which allows him to consistently fight against academic boycotts of Israel and the US, Trumps immigration ban, and other issues that stand in the way of scholarly discourse.

In contrast, look at how much the boycotters must tie themselves into knots trying to jibe their claims to stand for universal principle (like human rights and academic freedom) with the narrowness of their target list (currently standing at one, maybe two, with the greatest abusers of scholars, students and free inquiry permanently off their agenda).

As noted previously, academic freedom is not a natural phenomenon like gravity or even a natural corollary of the Rights of Man, but remains a relatively recent social invention that benefits scholars by preventing the vagaries of politics from impacting their work. To throw all that away in the name of “Israel Must Go” seems a pretty big sacrifice for such ugly and immoral ends.

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The entire reason that UNRWA has different definitions of "refugee" than the rest of the world is because UNRWA existed for a year before the UN Refugee Convention was drafted, and the Refugee Convention included an exception in its definition of refugee to accommodate UNRWA's somewhat different definition. The UNHRC, when it was created, understandably didn't want to leave hundreds of thousands of needy people who were already defined as refugees by the UN without protection, so the Refugee Convention allowed for this differing definition of UNRWA's to be allowed for very specific circumstances.

Here is the wording of the UNRWA exception (it also applied to an agency that was meant to help Korean refugees, UNKRA), in Article 1, paragraph D, "Definition of the term'refugee'":

This Convention shall not apply to persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection or assistance.

When such protection or assistance has ceased for any reason, without the position of such persons being definitively settled in accordance with the relevant resolutions adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, these persons shall ipso facto be entitled to the benefits of this Convention.

The wording makes it sound like UNRWA's definition is only valid under this exception provided by UNHCR. In other words, the UNHCR definition of "refugee" is the only operative definition, and UNRWA's exception is part of the Refugee Convention. It isn't an independent definition but is dependent on the conditions that the Refugee Convention allows it.

Those conditions include a crucial phrase, "persons who are at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection or assistance. "

"At present" seems to me to mean that only those UNRWA refugees who were alive in 1951 are granted the exception to be defined as refugees by UNRWA.

UNRWA only officially added descendants to its definition of refugees later in the 1950s, after the Refugee Convention. But if I am reading this correctly, UNRWA never had that right to begin with. It could not redefine "refugees" outside of the Refugee Convention framework to include unborn people who were not receiving protection at the time of the drafting of the Convention. The writers of the Refugee Convention certainly did not intend for the UNRWA exception to last for decades and to have an entire class of millions of "refugees" created under the narrow exception they granted to UNRWA-protected refugees. The UNRWA exception was meant to be a stopgap until there were no longer any refugees being supported by UNRWA; the drafters did not intend for UNRWA to create new definitions that would increase, rather than decrease, the number of refugees under its purview.

In short, the Refugee Convention does not give UNRWA the right to further expand its definitions of "refugee" beyond the exception explicitly allowed in its language - applying only to those living UNRWA refugees receiving assistance in 1951 and no one else.

Beyond that, there is another contradiction between UNHCR's exception and UNRWA's definitions that seem to indicate that there are far fewer "refugees" than UNRWA claims. UNWRA's definition of refugee includes anyone descended patrilineally from people who lived in Palestine from 1946 to 1948. But that includes people who left the five areas of UNRWA control (Gaza, West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria) who returned. But the UNHCR says explicitly that if anyone loses that protection - for example, by moving to a Gulf country or Europe - they are no longer allowed to return to become protected by UNRWA, but rather their status becomes defined by UNHCR. Meaning that for them to be considered refugees, they must adhere to the much more stringent definition of UNHCR's. UNHCR does not allow people who left UNRWA's places of operation to return and claim refugee status from UNRWA.

Moreover, the phrase "When such protection or assistance has ceased for any reason" says that anyone who ceased to be under UNRWA protection cannot regain that protection - and this would include a fortiori those who never had such protection to begin with, namely those who weren't born.

I cannot find any language in the 1967 Refugee Protocol (which extends the definition of refugee beyond the specific World War II refugees that were the subjects of the 1951 Convention) to contradict what I am saying here. In fact, it would seem to strengthen my argument a bit, in the absence of any clarifying language.

UNHCR certainly interprets the 1951 Convention to exclude any Palestinian in the areas of UNRWA operation. It says in its 2011 interpretation of the Refugee Convention:

143. With regard to refugees from Palestine, it will be noted that UNRWA operates only in certain areas of the Middle East, and it is only there that its protection or assistance are given. Thus, a refugee from Palestine who finds himself outside that area does not enjoy the assistance mentioned and may be considered for determination of his refugee status under the criteria of the 1951 Convention. It should normally be sufficient to establish that the circumstances which originally made him qualify for protection or assistance from UNRWA still persist and that he has neither ceased to be a refugee under one of the cessation clauses nor is excluded from the application of the Convention under one of the exclusion clauses.

But this may be more convenient than legal. UNRWA has no cessation clauses, and the "circumstances which originally made him qualify for protection" do not seem to apply. They should not apply to those who are descendants of original Palestine refugees who didn't exist when the Refugee Convention was written. And they certainly should not apply for Palestinians who are citizens of Jordan (Jordan gave them citizenship after UNRWA was created) nor for those who live in the areas of British Mandate Palestine - which the UN itself now calls "the State of Palestine." All of these are conditions that did not exist when UNRWA originally created its criteria for eligibility and therefore should not be applicable to continue to define these people as refugees after the Refugee Convention and 1967 Protocol have become international law.

I once again emphasize that I am not a lawyer, but perhaps some international lawyers can shed light on this. Because it sure looks to me that UNRWA's ability to expand its definition of refugees is a violation of the terms given for the exception grandfathered in by the Refugee Convention.

Which would mean that the legal refugees under UNRWA's definition (which cannot exist outside the Refugee Convention framework) would only include people who are now over 66 years old, never having lived anywhere outside the five areas of UNRWA's operations.

UNRWA can give services to non-refugees if it wants to, of course. But unless I'm missing something, it does not seem to have the right to refer to those people as refugees under international law, it cannot fund-raise by referring to them as refugees, and UNHCR should be the agency that provides services to Palestinians who have fled from Syria, not UNRWA, since their refugee status is not determined by events of 1948 but by events of recent years.

Any legal experts are invited to comment, of course.

(h/t Daled Amos)

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From Iran's FARS News Agency:

A senior member of the Iranian parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission and former Islamic Revolution Guards Corps official warned that the slightest aggression by Washington against Iran will be responded by razing to the ground the US military base in Bahrain.

"The US army's fifth fleet has occupied a part of Bahrain, and the enemy's farthest military base is in the Indian Ocean but these points are all within the range of Iran's missile systems and they will be razed to the ground if the enemy makes a mistake," Mojtaba Zonour, a former advisor to the Iranian Supreme Leader's Representative at the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), said on Saturday evening.

Stressing that Tehran has prepared its forces for asymmetric war and attained great achievements in the missile field, he said if the enemy fires a missile against Iran, the country will immediately retaliate it with firing a missile at Tel Aviv.

"And only 7 minutes is needed for the Iranian missile to hit Tel Aviv," Zonour said.

His remarks came after US officials repeated threats to Iran in the last few days.

Yesterday, Commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh played down the recent allegations by the US officials against Iran's defense program, but meantime warned Washington to avoid hostile action or wait for a harsh response.

"If the enemy makes a mistake our roaring missiles will hit their targets," General Hajizadeh told reporters on the sidelines of massive military drills dubbed 'Modafe'an Harim-e Aseman Velayat' (Defenders of the Velayat Skies) in Semnan province in Northern Iran on Saturday.

No one seems to ask why Iran would attack Israel if they are responding to perceived US actions.

Saudi Arabia is also an ally of the US, and they aren't threatening to hit their much closer neighbor in the event of the US doing something they don't like.

The reason that they choose to threaten Israel is because the West is worried that Israel would fight back and it would escalate into a major conflict rather than a regional one. Iran knows that the West, especially Europe, is frightened of war, so the threat against Israel is meant to be heard not so much by the White House or Israel, but by Europe to beg the US to keep on Iran's good side.

There is also a subtle threat of terrorism here. When it mentions "asymmetric war" that is not a war of missiles against missiles - it is a threat of terrorism, via Hezbollah.

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