Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, February 14, 2017

How UNRWA Keeps Remaking Itself: Defining, Re-Defining and Re-Re-Defining Who Is a Palestinian Refugee (Daled Amos)

The Report of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA in 2007 indicates that

...The mission of UNRWA is to contribute to the human development of Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic until a durable and just solution is found to the refugee issue. The Agency fulfills this purpose by providing a variety of essential services within the framework of international standards...

The Agency’s vision is for every Palestine refugee to enjoy the best possible standards of human development, including attaining his or her full potential individually and as a family and community member; being an active and productive participant in socio-economic and cultural life; and feeling assured that his or her rights are being defended, protected and preserved.

UNRWA is a global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees. In humanitarian crisis and armed conflict, the Agency’s emergency interventions, and its presence, serve as tangible symbols of the international community’s concern and ultimately contribute to a stable environment.

This is UNRWA?

UNRWA is supposed to address the problem of Palestine Refugees and find them permanent homes in host countries. Yet, in the entire report, there is not a single mention of "repatriation", "reintegration" or "resettlement" of Palestine refugees. In fact, there is only one time the word "return" is even used -- and that is in a reference not to refugees going back to their homes but rather to "a return to normal Palestinian life" for Palestinian Arabs already living in the West Bank.

So why doesn't the report emphasize its primary mandate of finding a permanent home for refugees?
And since when is UNRWA a "global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees"?

UNRWA logo

What happened?

On December 11, 1948, the UN adopted Resolution 194 regarding the Arabs who fled during the war. Paragraph 11:

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...Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.

Clearly the original intent was to either repatriate the Arab refugees back to their original homes -- in Israel -- or to resettle them elsewhere in the area.

One year later, on December 9, 1949, UN Resolution 302 established UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) for that purpose:

without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.

We already saw that the provisions of paragraph 11 require either repatriation and resettlement, which becomes part of the UNRWA mandate. In fact, a year later, on December 2, 1950, Resolution 393 reviews a report by UNRWA and reiterates that "the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential."

Another point that Resolution 302 makes clear is that the creation of UNRWA is "with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief" -- clearly "global advocacy" for Palestinian rights was not intended to be part of UNRWA's job.

From the beginning, UNRWA was not intended to be a permanent agency of the UN.

But there is a bigger problem.

Who qualifies to be considered a Palestine Refugee?

Apparently, the answer must have been obvious -- because in defining UNRWA's job, Resolution 302 never actually defines who is a Palestine Refugee.

Yet UNRWA has defined -- and redefined -- who qualifies as a Palestine Refugee multiple times over the years.

Originally, in 1950 UNRWA based its definition of a refugee on need alone: the "agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."
In 1954, a refugee was specified in terms of a time frame: "one whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum period of two years preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, has lost both his home and means of livelihood.
In 1955, Arabs who were not necessarily displaced during the war -- for example, lived in Jordan -- but who lost some or all of their livelihood as a result of it were included as being qualified for aid.
In 1965, UNRWA extended refugee status to third generation Palestinian Arabs, i.e. grandchildren.
In 1971, because of the additional refugees as a result of the 1967 war, the definition was again redefined:

A Palestine refugee, by UNRWA's working definition, is a person whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum of two years preceding the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, lost both his home and means of livelihood and took refuge, in 1948, in one of the countries where UNRWA provides relief [limited to Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan]. Refugees within this definition or the children or grandchildren of such refugees are eligible for agency assistance if they are (a) registered with UNRWA, (b) living in the area of UNRWA's operations, and (c) in need.
In 1982, UNRWA went one step further, extending eligibility to all generations of descendants, as a result of a General Assembly resolution that

Requests the Secretary-General, in co-operation with the Commissioner- General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to issue identification cards to all Palestine refugees and their descendants, irrespective of whether they are recipients or not of rations and services from the Agency, as well as to all displaced persons and to those who have been prevented from returning to their home as a result of the 1967 hostilities, and their descendants;

Why the changes?

Some of the changes, like the original definition itself, were the result of purely humanitarian grounds.

Joan Peters, in her book From Time Immemorial, suggests that the two-year minimum initiated in 1954 could have been in order to include the Arabs who were recent arrivals to the coastal areas from where many had fled. (p.398)

According to political scientist Benjamin Schiff, the reason for extending refugee status to 3 generations was actually because of budgetary problems caused by the inflated rolls of refugees. UNRWA's Commissioner-general, Laurence Michelmore, wanted to "enlist the host-states' assistance in cutting the rolls ... he had offered a trade: If the governments would help rectify the rolls, he would be willing to ... add third-generation refugees to the rolls."

But extending aid to third-generation Palestinians created a unique dilemma for UNRWA:

With regard to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the names of the refugees in its army should be struck from UNRWA's rolls; the Palestine Liberation Organization was committed to renewed military struggle and thus confronted the Agency with the paradox of United Nations funds being used to provide rations for refugees recruited for armed action against a Member State. Israel, however, supported the extension of the Mandate of UNRWA and was in full agreement with the imperative need to rectify the relief rolls.

This seems to be part of an ongoing problem for the agency. We saw in the last Israel-Hamas war that UNRWA has difficulty staying out of the ongoing conflict and Hamas weapons were found being stored in UNRWA schools.

With all of these changing definitions, is there really any limit to how UNRWA can define a Palestine refugee under its jurisdiction? Apparently not. In 1991, when Kuwait expelled thousands of Palestinian Arabs who supported Saddam during the war, UNRWA claimed jurisdiction:

During a meeting of the agency's major donors in June 1991, its commissioner general, Ilter Turkmen, affirmed that UNRWA did have an obligation toward Palestinians who were being "persecuted, hounded, and expelled by the Kuwaiti government for supposed support of the Iraqi occupation … I consider that the responsibility of UNRWA extends to Palestinians in all parts of the Middle East [including Kuwait]." Despite UNRWA's supposedly restricted fields of operation, Lance Bartholomeusz, former chief of the agency's International Law Division, noted that "General Assembly resolutions do not explicitly exclude UNRWA from operating in other areas."

Somewhere along the way, humanitarian concerns have become infected with political interests that have created an agency that has rejected the fact that it was meant to be temporary and has given itself an unlimited, global sphere of influence among Palestine refugees.

The full extent of the politics of UNRWA become more evident when we examine the change and redefinition of the actual role of UNRWA and how the agency views itself.

That will be examined in the next post.

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Palestinians officially celebrate terrorists at Cairo embassy

Last month an exhibition called "Martyrs for Palestine" opened at the "Palestine embassy" in Cairo.

It includes propaganda art like this, contributed by professional and amateur artists throughout the Arab world.

But, as the name of the exhibition indicates, its main purpose was to celebrate murderers.

Tribute photos include mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi, founder of Islamic Jihad Fathi Shaqiqi, founder of Hamas Sheikh Yassin and master Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash. Along with, of course, the Nazi-sympathizing antisemite Mufti Amin al-Husseini.

Awards were given out with the terrorists as a backdrop.

Official state support for murder doesn't get more explicit than this. Yet this story was not reported anywhere in the West.

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Tunnel accident!

Another Hamas member was killed from a tunnel collapse.

Ahmed Boraim was killed Monday afternoon from the "collapse of a resistance tunnel" according to the Qassam Brigades website.

Here is he surrounded by his seventy virgins.

By my count, this is the 20th Hamas terrorist to die in a tunnel collapse since January 2016.

This is what happens when the evil Jews restrict cement shipments to Gaza - Hamas terrorists die from substandard tunnel excavations.

I expect Human Rights Watch to issue a report condemning Israel about this any day now.

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UCLA newspaper publishes, then apologizes for, antisemitic cartoon

From Ha'am News:

Jewish groups condemned the Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, Monday morning for publishing what they said is an anti-Semitic cartoon.

The cartoon, drawn by Felipe Abejón, depicts Israeli Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in front of the two pillars of the Ten Commandments. In the cartoon, the sixth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal” is written with the word “not” crossed out in red. Underneath, the seventh commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” is written with Netanyahu shrugging in front of it saying “number 7 is next.”

“The point of the cartoon is that the Jewish faith does not have tenets of stealing, theft or murder and that the State of Israel is creating laws and has created a law that goes against that,” said Abejón, the cartoon’s creator. Abejón stated that the cartoon has no connection to Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), although he was a board member for the group last year. Late Monday afternoon, the SJP board, in a submission to the Daily Bruin, condemned the cartoon and confirmed that it had nothing to do with the illustration.

“I didn’t intend to offend anyone,” Abejón said. “I stand by what the cartoon represents, I also stand against anti-Semitism and against intolerance against [sic] the Jewish people. I apologize to anyone who has been offended, but I still stand behind what this cartoon says politically.”

According to Jewish students, the religious undertones made the cartoon more than an anti-Zionist political statement — they made it anti-Semitic

Danny Siegel, President of USAC, UCLA’s student body government, released a statement on Facebook saying, “As a Jewish student at UCLA I am disgusted by the anti-Semitic claim in my school newspaper (Daily Bruin) that the Israeli government is purposefully using my Jewish faith to justify a policy matter.” He followed by writing that he, too, would be willing to criticize Israel’s government, but that stereotyping is unacceptable.

Rabbi Aaron Lerner, Executive Director of Hillel at UCLA, created a petition online and posted on Facebook, calling the cartoon an “Anti-Semitic form of Anti-Zionism in today’s Daily Bruin.” Many other student leaders and groups took to Facebook, outraged.

The Anti Defamation League (ADL) wrote in a response to the cartoon, calling it “deeply offensive, not to mention incorrect, to suggest that the Israeli government is willfully changing the tenets of the Jewish faith to reflect a policy matter.” They expressed a clear difference between criticizing Netanyahu’s government and “impugn[ing] core Jewish beliefs,” and that the types of stereotypes targeting “a specific religion should not be condoned.”

Tanner Walters, Editor-in-Chief of the Daily Bruin, cited a lapse of judgement in the editorial process that allowed the publication of the cartoon. “This was a mistake that should have been caught at any point in the process, and it didn’t get caught,” he said. Walters said that the Daily Bruin has no formalized training process for religious, ethnic and cultural sensitivity training, and that editing teams rely on common sense to avoid mistakes of this nature.

The Daily Bruin released a letter of apology late Monday. “We strive to understand the community that we cover. So as part of our ongoing education, we are reaching out to local religious leaders to help our staff understand the historical context behind these kinds of hurtful images.”

One student at UCLA, Mati Geula Cohen, wrote;

Today the UCLA school newspaper, Daily Bruin, published an editorial cartoon which used the Jewish faith to criticize Israeli policy.
Not only is the claim against this policy blatant misinformation, (since the law in question does not legalize the seizing of land), but the use of the Ten Commandments to criticize this policy, and the suggestion that Israel is not only trying to legalize seizures of land but also seeking to legalize the murder of Palestinians (which is ridiculous), in relation to their Jewish faith, make this cartoon not only for anti-Israel propaganda, but also an anti-Semitic caricature.

California Assembly member Richard Bloom issued this statement:

Here is the Daily Bruin's apology.

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Hamas demolishes mosque under construction by Islamic Jihad

Trouble in the Gaza paradise!

According to (mostly Fatah-sourced) reports, Hamas security demolished a mosque under construction by Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip.

Islamic Jihad was building the foundations for the mosque in the Karama region in the north-west of the Gaza Strip. A large number of Hamas members came and declared the site closed.

According to sources, Islamic Jihad tried to come up with a solution and they discussed it for hours without reaching a solution. with Hamas.

The land for the mosque was donated by a philanthropist and, according to these reports, had all of its paperwork and approvals in order.

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02/13 Links Pt2: Foreign governments fund terrorists' legal defense; Israel releases 1967 war recordings

From Ian:

Soundtrack to a legendary victory: Israel releases 1967 war recordings

Fifty years after the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel’s military archives on Sunday released a partial soundtrack — the IAF’s realtime communications — of the opening, decisive airstrikes in which the Israeli air force destroyed over 400 Egyptian and Syrian planes on the ground, and put 20 Arab airfields out of action. Almost the entire Israeli air force was involved, with just 12 Mirage jets kept back to protect the country.
Operation Focus began at 7.45 on the morning of June 5, 1967; by noon that same day, the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian air forces had been destroyed, the IAF had almost complete control of the skies in Israel’s pre-emptive resort to force, and the war was essentially won.
The operation is regarded as one of the most successful air strikes in military history. In all, Israel lost 24 pilots in the war, seven were injured and 11 were taken captive.
In the Hebrew recordings, made public by the IDF archive, the IAF’s command and control officers are heard overseeing a series of critical developments in those opening hours.
One recording begins with complete air silence as the pilots head to their first targets, flying low to evade enemy radar, in the first wave of attacks on the Egyptian air fields. The silence is broken by reports of the initial successful attacks: Eleven Egyptian air fields are targeted in these first strikes, and 101 minutes and 183 bombing runs later, some 200 planes, half of the Egyptian air force, is destroyed on the ground.

Seth Frantzman: The Iron Lady and the Jewish state

On June 7, 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak. Israel was worried the reactor was about to “go hot” and bombing it after that date could lead to more deaths and contamination. UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher was outraged. The Jewish state’s actions were a “grave breach of international law,” and an “unprovoked attack.” Iraq was a peaceful country seeking peaceful nuclear energy in line with international obligations. Thatcher supported condemning Israel at the United Nations Security Council.
The 1981 controversy is one of many highlighted in a new book, Margaret Thatcher and the Middle East, by Azriel Bermant. A historian and lecturer in international relations at Tel Aviv University, Bermant brings an incisive analysis to Thatcher’s relations with Israel, and examines how she also balanced ties with the US and the Arab states in this period.
As prime minister from 1979 to 1990, she faced many of the key crises in the region, including the Israeli withdrawal from Egypt, the Lebanon invasion of 1982, the breakout of the intifada, Iraq’s attack on Kuwait and the first tentative steps toward peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Bermant argues that Thatcher was “instinctively sympathetic toward Israel,” an image that history has inherited. However, the declassified archival material revealed in the book paints a much more nuanced picture. Thatcher inherited a Foreign Office that was inimical to Israel. Many viewed the UK as responsible for the problems in the Middle East let loose by the 1917 Balfour Declaration and the creation of Israel. The Jewish state was a burden that harmed relations with the Arab states which many Foreign Office leaders felt an affinity for.

Report: Foreign governments fund terrorists' legal defense

HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, which has provided legal aid to 48 terrorists who killed 50 people, received $4.13 million from EU, U.N., and 11 European governments, says Im Tirtzu report • "This is a danger to democracy," CEO says.
Foreign donations are largely sponsoring the legal defenses given to terrorists and their families, a new report by the right-wing organization Im Tirtzu claimed Sunday.
According to the report, by funding various human rights groups that operate in Israel, such as HaMoked Center for the Defense of the Individual, European nations are essentially funding terrorists' efforts to avoid being held accountable for their actions.
The data showed that over the past two and a half years, HaMoked has provided legal aid to the families of 48 terrorists who filed over 58 High Court petitions against orders to raze their homes.
Those terrorists had killed a combined total of 50 people, Im Tirtzu said.
The group found that between 2012 and 2016, HaMoked received 15.5 million shekels ($4.13 million) from the European Union, the United Nations, and 11 European governments -- Sweden, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Britain, Spain and Norway -- for the legal defense of terrorists and their families.

Remember the "sex gum" that Israel supposedly spreads among Gazans to corrupt youth?

There have also been regular accusations of Israel sending poor Palestinians materials that make them impotent.

But there are constant accusations of Israel spreading drugs among Palestinian youth.

Al Jazeera added to that this weekend, claiming that Jerusalem Arabs are becoming addicted to drugs that Israel is spreading, and the police are encouraging the phenomenon, actively trying to stop any Palestinian authorities from helping out.

Of course, Palestinian police aren't allowed in Jerusalem to begin with.

Middle East Monitor made the same accusations in English a couple of years ago. It gave four reasons for Palestinian drug problems, see if you can find the common denominator:

The obvious and arguably most important reason is the ongoing Israeli occupation, which has a distinct influence on the drug problem in the occupied West Bank....A direct result of Israeli policies in occupied Palestine since 1967 has been increasing despair and frustration among Palestinians. The pressures of the occupation shake the confidence of the local populace, creating a loss of hope that their land will one day be liberated. The occupation authorities target the younger generation (18-28) in this respect.

The second reason is also linked to the occupation: the frustration caused by the deteriorating political situation and a build-up of frustration since the defeat of June 1967 drives many Palestinians to use drugs in order to “escape” from the painful reality of their life in the occupied territories.

Third, the pressure, tension and fatigue seems to have sapped young people’s capacity to carry the burdens of daily life under occupation; again, some turn to drugs to escape from this reality.

Fourthly, there are limited leisure and entertainment opportunities for young Palestinians living under Israeli occupation in the West Bank.

As usual, no sense of actual responsibility for anything; the "occupation" is the reason to justify anything and everything.

It also said that a lot of Palestinians are introduced to drugs in prison because they are housed with drug addicts, implying that Israeli prisons allow drug smuggling.

That article also adds a different twist, tying the drugs to, of all things, Jewish settlements:

Israel apparently encourages addiction among young Palestinians; this is done, claims Hosni Shahin of Samed Community Centre in the Old City, to put pressure on families to sell their land and property to Jewish settlers in order to have enough money to fund the addiction.

I have no doubt that there is a real drug problem among many Arabs, but to blame Israel for causing it is just another way to abdicate any responsibility for Palestinians altogether.

(h/t Elhanan Miller)

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Making medieval Jerusalem politically correct at the Met (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

By Petra Marquardt-Bigman

In a fascinating essay published in Mosaic, Edward Rothstein writes about a recent exhibition at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art on “Jerusalem 1000-1400: Every People Under Heaven.” According to Rothstein, the exhibition was “sumptuous and ecstatically received,” and Rothstein’s detailed descriptions as well as the glimpses provided at the museum’s website make it easy to imagine that visitors were captivated by the displays and the narrative that was presented.

But as Rothstein demonstrates, the narrative presented in the exhibition (and the catalog) glossed over Jerusalem’s rather bloody medieval history, evoking instead 21st century fantasies of inspiring multi-culturalism. Rothstein argues in chapter IV – which deals with the Met’s failure to adequately present the Jewish connection to Jerusalem (while at the same time ignoring how oppressed Jews were under both Christian and Muslim rule) – that “[n]ot only was no notice taken of these matters but, among the three faiths, a tendentious impulse was at work in the exhibition to celebrate Islam above the other two and, in particular, to claim benignity for Islamic rule.”

According to Rothstein (III), the exhibition presented Christian Crusaders as the primary perpetrators of “Holy War:”

“The Crusader conquest of Jerusalem was, we were to think, a kind of one-off example of ‘extreme ethnic and religious cleansing.’ […] it was the Crusaders who ‘fueled’ the idea of Holy War, turning jihad—until then a concept of spiritual struggle alone—into one of military struggle. So the Crusaders not only introduced Holy War, they also caused Muslim leaders to distort their own religious teachings by adopting a kind of Holy War in response.”

As Rothstein rightly points out:

“If this argument sounds familiar, it should: a similar argument has gained much traction in recent years among those who regard 9/11 and other Islamist terrorist attacks as a form of deserved blowback for prior Western offenses against Muslims. Intent on its own version of this judgment, the exhibition portrayed the Crusaders as both the single exception to, and the primal cause of any further disruption of, the multicultural paradise of medieval Jerusalem.”

Outlining just some of the atrocities that were not perpetrated by the Crusaders, Rothstein provides a rather long list of major incidents that were completely ignored in the exhibition:

“no mention was made of the Muslim massacre of Christians in Jerusalem in the 10th century—long before the Crusader conquest. As Eric H. Cline points out in Jerusalem Besieged: From Ancient Canaan to Modern Israel:

‘When the Byzantine armies won a series of victories in the field against the forces of Islam toward the end of May 966 CE, the Muslim governor of Jerusalem—who was also annoyed that his demand for larger bribes had not been met by the patriarch of the city—initiated a series of anti-Christian riots in the city. Once again churches were attacked and burned in Jerusalem. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher was looted and was so damaged that its dome collapsed.’ […]

In 1070-71, the Turkic emir Atsiz ibn Uvaq al-Khwarizmi captured the city, and six years later he murdered 3,000 Islamic rebels who had plotted against him, including some who had taken shelter in the al-Aqsa mosque. En route to Jerusalem in 1187, Saladin, founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, slaughtered Christian communities throughout the Holy Land. Later, in 1229, despite the city’s alleged centrality to Islam and just decades after the fall of the Crusaders, a subsequent Ayyubid ruler offered Jerusalem to Frederick II, the Holy Roman emperor, in return for military assistance against a Muslim rival for power. In 1244, another Ayyubid ruler lost control of Jerusalem to Khawarezmi Turks who murdered much of the city’s population. In 1263, almost at the center of the era covered by the show, the Mamluk general Baibars attacked Acre and other cities held by Crusaders. As the historian Simon Sebag Montefiore relates in Jerusalem: The Biography, Baibars ‘received Frankish ambassadors surrounded by Christian heads, crucified, bisected, and scalped his enemies, and built heads into the walls of fallen towns.’”

As it is hardly possible to convey the breadth of Rothstein’s essay in just a few choice quotes, anyone interested in this excellent deconstruction of yet another effort to sanitize history in the service of current political correctness should really take the time to read this superb piece.

In his concluding section, Rothstein mentions two other critical reviews. One is by Diana Muir Appelbaum, whose observations include the interesting point that there were “a number of magnificent Qurans on exhibit,” conveying the entirely inaccurate idea that Jerusalem is mentioned in the Quran. The other critical review Rothstein cites is by Maureen Mullarkey, who denounced the exhibit as part of the kind of “jihad-by-other-means” that in her view was also promoted by UNESCO:

“The exhibition was fortuitously timed. Installed at the end of September, it opened shortly before UNESCO’s October 13 resolution to override thousands of years of Jewish ties to Jerusalem and negate any exceptional Jewish connection to the Temple Mount and the Western Wall. By the time day trippers work their way through the galleries, they will have absorbed impressions that lend credence to the UNESCO directive.

Call it jihad-by-other-means.”

A critical Wall Street Journal op-ed under the title “Rewriting the History of Jerusalem” also noted that both UNESCO and the Met exhibition were attempting “to redefine the capital of Israel as a supranational city to which Muslims, Christians and Jews have equal claim,” rejecting “both efforts” as “equally deluded.”

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02/13 Links Pt1: UN to Israel: Give Land to ISIS!; Can Israel Rely on Foreign Peacekeepers and Security Guarantees?

From Ian:

Rivlin supports one-state solution, full annexation of West Bank

In a possible harbinger signaling an official shift in government policy, President Reuvin Rivlin on Monday said he supported the full annexation of the West Bank, in exchange for complete Israeli citizenship and equal rights granted to Palestinian residents.
Stating that he believes “Zion is entirely ours,” and that “the sovereignty of the State of Israel must be in all the blocs,” at the opening day of the 14th Jerusalem Conference, Rivlin may have tested the waters for the one-state solution he has long championed.
“It must be clear,” he cautioned a packed auditorium of right-wing participants attending the two-day symposium at the capital’s Crowne Plaza. “If we extend sovereignty, the law must apply equally to all. Applying sovereignty to an area gives citizenship to all those living there.”
Rivlin continued: “There are no separate laws for Israelis and for non-Israelis.”

Erdan: No minister, including Netanyahu, wants a Palestinian state soon

All Israel’s cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state in the near term, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan insisted on Monday.
“I think all the members of the cabinet oppose a Palestinian state, and the prime minister first among them — some [ministers] for reasons that might be ideological, biblical, and some from security considerations,” Erdan told Army Radio.
A few seconds later added, “No one thinks that in the next few years a Palestinian state is something that, God forbid, might and should happen.”
At a security cabinet meeting Sunday, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party, demanded that Netanyahu use his Wednesday summit with US President Donald Trump to announce that Israel would no longer pursue the two-state solution.

Honest Reporting: UN to Israel: Give Land to ISIS!

UN Security Council's anti-Israel Resolution #2334 technically requires Israel to give land to Islamic State (ISIS). No - really! Take a look..

Walk of shame: Sweden’s “first feminist government” don hijabs in Iran

In a statement that has gone viral on Twitter and Facebook, UN Watch, a non-governmental human rights NGO in Geneva, expressed disappointment that Sweden’s self-declared “first feminist government in the world” sacrificed its principles and betrayed the rights of Iranian women as Trade Minister Ann Linde and other female members walked before Iranian President Rouhani on Saturday wearing Hijabs, Chadors, and long coats, in deference to Iran’s oppressive and unjust modesty laws which make the Hijab compulsory — despite Stockholm’s promise to promote “a gender equality perspective” internationally, and to adopt a “feminist foreign policy” in which “equality between women and men is a fundamental aim.”
In doing so, Sweden’s female leaders ignored the recent appeal by Iranian women’s right activist Masih Alinejad who urged Europeans female politicians “to stand for their own dignity” and to refuse to kowtow to the compulsory Hijab while visiting Iran.
Alinrejad created a Facebook page for Iranian women to resist the law and show their hair as an act of resistance, which now numbers 1 million followers.
“European female politicians are hypocrites,” says Alinejad. “They stand with French Muslim women and condemn the burkini ban—because they think compulsion is bad—but when it happens to Iran, they just care about money.”
The scene in Tehran on Saturday was also a sharp contrast to Deputy Prime Minister Isabella Lövin’s feminist stance against U.S. President Donald Trump, in a viral tweet and then in a Guardian op-ed last week, in which she wrote that “the world need strong leadership for women’s rights.”
Trade Minister Linde, who signed multiple agreements with Iranian ministers while wearing a veil, “sees no conflict” between her government’s human rights policy and signing trade deals with an oppressive dictatorship that tortures prisoners, persecutes gays, and is a leading executioner of minors.
“If Sweden really cares about human rights, they should not be empowering a regime that brutalizes its own citizens while carrying out genocide in Syria; and if they care about women’s rights, then the female ministers never should have gone to misogynistic Iran in the first place,” said UN Watch executive director Hillel Neuer.

A topic alluded to, but not discussed separately, in last year’s extended essay on the strategy and tactics needed to defeat BDS (and other anti-Israel campaigns), is timing.

When teaching my kids to cook, I tell them to treat time as an ingredient that needs to be taken into account during the planning process and “added” when called for, given that messing up timing can screw up your bread dough just as badly as forgetting to add the yeast.

Moving on to more serious business, Gulf War General Norman Schwarzkopf’s habit of wearing two watches illustrated the vital role time plays in warfare where battle and war plans are as much about the clock and calendar as they are about weapons and terrain. An army not showing up where it is needed is obviously a problem, but no more so than the same army showing up at the right place too late (or even too early).

The purpose of this site is not to praise anti-Israel propagandists, but with regard to using time as a tool of combat, the BDSholes seem to “get it” better than our side does. Scheduling propaganda events during Sabbat or the Jewish holidays - while devious and cowardly - does have the intended effect of lowering the number of opponents that can mobilize against them. Similarly, the Leninist tactic of pushing meetings of decision-making bodies into late hours and then voting in their own agenda after everyone else goes home exhausted - while dishonest and manipulative - does demonstrate the BDSers understanding of how to wield time as a weapon.

Whenever friends of Israel find themselves scrambling to pull together fliers and posters for a rally or debate taking place in a few hours or days, that should be an indication that time (like the initiative) is not on our side.

Obviously the enemy must be met, and given that we’re not the ones perpetually demanding that third parties condemn our political foes, it’s likely that we’ll be responding to situations created by others more often than we’d like. But preparing in advance for likely occurrences, such as entirely predictable Israel Apartheid hate-fests cropping up in the Spring, seems like a good use of time in the Fall. Similarly, snarling up anti-Israel votes in student government through aggressive procedural challenges so that they can’t be voted on during an academic year seems a more effective use of time as a weapon than does a direct confrontation with the enemy at a time and place of their choosing.

Even (scratch that, especially) when you’re riding high politically, timing can mean the difference between small (and often temporary) victories, and long-term real ones.

For instance, it’s taken as axiomatic that a new President should press his advantage during the first hundred days of his presidency, shoving through as much game-changing legislation and rule changes as possible before political opponents regroup and figure out ways to thwart the new administration’s agenda.

We’re seeing this now as the new Trump administration continues to issue an avalanche of Executive Orders in order to implement campaign promises (like restricting immigration and walking away from trade agreements) while foes are still in a daze. But the very aggressiveness of this activity helps give those foes a focal point for resistance.

For instance, Bill Clinton in 1992 and Barak Obama in 2008 used their victories (which included the Democrats capturing both houses of Congress) to rapidly push through game-changing agendas that did not need to take into account the needs of the Republican minority. But this very haste led to Republicans retaking Congress two years into each new administration’s first term, becoming the majority and thus an enormous barrier to any new Presidential initiatives.

Might patience reward the new President (or any President) with longer-lasting legislative (or even cultural) victories vs. controversial administrative decrees? Hard to tell, but precedent seems to say that “all glory is fleeting” which implies the need for strategies above and beyond “full speed ahead!”

There is a lesson here for Israel and her friends abroad. The replacement of a hostile US administration with a friendly one is an obvious source of relief, but the controversial nature of the new American President means we are faced with yet another multi-faceted challenge which needs to be managed skillfully and strategically.

Some thoughts on what this can include next time.

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Fatah's first military communique, January 1, 1965, invoked jihad

As we've mentioned many times, Fatah celebrates its anniversary as if it began on January 1, 1965, but that was really the first terror attack - Fatah was organized in the 1950s.

On the front page of the FatahMedia site is a link to the text of Military Communique No. 1 from Fatah's Asifah Forces, which is what they celebrate every year.

It is notable in a number of respects.

One is that it refers to all of Israel as "occupied territory."

It refers to a supposed operation that occurred on December 13, 1964, in which Asifah supposedly infiltrated Israel from Lebanon and returned safely, without discussing anything that they actually did.

It says that Arabs should control all land from the Atlantic to the Gulf.

Finally, and most interestingly, it refers to its actions as jihad - holy war. People think of Fatah as being the secular equivalent of Palestinian "resistance movements, " but from the start Fatah used the language of jihad to justify its terror attacks.

And this interest in jihad remains to this day, There are many posters celebrating this Military Communique No. 1.

Military Communiqué No. 1

Issued by the General Command of the Asifah forces

Dependent upon us to God, our belief in the right of our people in the struggle to recover their usurped homeland, and our belief in the duty of holy war ... and our belief in the Arab position to reign from the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf; and because we believe we have the support free and honest world ... so it has moved in the wings of the striking forces in the night Friday, 13/12/1964 and has implemented the required operations within the occupied territory ... and all of the men returned to their camps safely ...
We warn the enemy from carrying out any action against innocent Arab civilians wherever they are ... because our troops will respond to attacks. .. and we will consider these actions to be war crimes ... as we warn all States against intervening in favor of the enemy in any way ... because our troops will respond to this work by exposing the interests of the states of destruction wherever they are ...
Long live the unity of our people
and lived his struggle to regain his dignity and homeland
1 / 1/1965
General command of forces Asifah

Here are some posters of the communique made by Palestinians over the years.

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Which countries receive the highest amounts of the US military aid?

The BESA Center had a fascinating article last week showing that if you include the costs of deploying US troops around the globe, the amount of aid given to Israel is not nearly as much as that given to other countries.

Commenter Ed ran through the numbers, based on the amount the US spends per soldier around the world.

There are other major expenses like the cost to patrol the coasts of foreign nations but those aren't included here. Neither are the costs of joint military exercises that are done around the world.

Here is a chart that shows how much the US really spends per country when you include troop deployments.

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Qatar envoy says Israel more cooperative than PA on Gaza power; PA freaks out

Times of Israel reports:

Qatar’s special envoy to Gaza, Muhammad al-Amadi, said that he maintains “excellent” ties with various Israeli officials, and that in some case it is Palestinian officials who are holding up efforts to better the lives of residents of the Strip.

Al-Amadi said he planned to meet with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah on Sunday regarding an agreement that would help solve the Gaza energy crisis.

He said that while Israel has agreed to take part in the deal, the Palestinian Authority has been holding it up.

“We proposed the establishment of a technical committee, free of politicians, that would be responsible for handling Gaza’s energy problem. The committee would be composed of experts from Gaza, [Qatar], the UN, and UNRWA; and they would manage Gaza’s energy affairs,” said al-Amadi.

“This is a very serious matter that should help you in Israel as well, since these are your neighbors that are without regular electricity and water flowing to their homes. The Israelis understand this and are helping, but there are other parties that are not” — namely, the PA.

The article also spoke about a pledge of $100 million Qatar promised to rebuild Gaza infrastructure and buildings.

The PA was very upset over this interview. The official PA news agency Wafa published a reaction by Fatah:

The Fatah movement expressed surprise at the behavior of some of the regional parties which insulted the Palestinian National Authority, so as to enhance the authority of the coup in the Gaza Strip at the expense of the legitimate government.

The movement said in a statement on Sunday, we wonder about the words of Ambassador Mohammed Al Emadi to the site Times of Israel, where through this platform he accused the PNA of failing to cooperate in resolving the electricity crisis in the Gaza Strip .

The statement added, "We support all aid provided by the brothers in Turkey and Qatar, to alleviate the suffering of our people due to the unjust Israeli siege, but we reject being charged or fabrications questioning the commitment of the Palestinian National Authority of our full responsibilities towards our people in the Gaza Strip, and reject the involvement of these parties campaign to justify the continuation of the division.

"Fatah rejects any attempt to circumvent the Palestinian legitimacy, which was confirmed by Ismail Haniyeh, in comments in which he announced his intention for Qatar to support the coup authority with $100 million.

Ah, the PA want the $100 million for itself!

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Palestinian media refusing to show photos of women politicians in Jenin

There was an election for the People's Committee of the Jenin camp.

Two of the candidates on the winning slate are women.

Here is how the winners were shown on the official Fatah webpage:

The two drawings on the bottom represent the women, named Najat Abu Qatana and Hanadi Abu Qandil (a former prisoner).

This is the official photo of the winners from the Jenin camp Facebook page as well.

Here is how the winners were depicted in the Safa.ps news site:

While these media will routinely show faces of women in other cases, there seems to be no pushback that the Jenin committee is clearly so Islamist that they consider the depiction of women to be forbidden.

The high percentage of Palestinians who support fundamentalist interpretations of Islam is a very under-reported story. The last Pew poll on the topic showed that 89% of Palestinians support Sharia being the law of the land.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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02/12 Links: Dispelling the Myth that Israel Is the Largest Beneficiary of US Military Aid; J Street seeks to block Friedman's appointment as ambassador

From Ian:

Dispelling the Myth that Israel Is the Largest Beneficiary of US Military Aid

Many American detractors of Israel begin by citing that Israel receives the lion’s share of US military aid. The very suggestion conjures the demon of an all-powerful Israel lobby that has turned the US Congress into its pawn. But these figures, while reflecting official direct US military aid, are almost meaningless in comparison to the real costs and benefits of US military aid – above all, American boots on the ground. In reality, Israel receives only a small fraction of American military aid, and most of that was spent in the US to the benefit of the American economy.
Countless articles discrediting Israel (as well as many other better-intentioned articles) ask how it is that a country as small as Israel receives the bulk of US military aid. Israel receives 55%, or $US3.1 billion per year, followed by Egypt, which receives 23%. This largesse comes at the expense, so it is claimed, of other equal or more important allies, such as Germany, Japan, and South Korea. The complaint conjures the specter of an all-powerful Israel lobby that has turned the US Congress into its pawn.
The response to the charge is simple: Israel is not even a major beneficiary of American military aid. The numerical figure reflects official direct US military aid, but is almost meaningless compared to the real costs and benefits of US military aid – which include, above all, American boots on the ground in the host states.
There are 150,500 American troops stationed in seventy countries around the globe. This costs the American taxpayer an annual $US85-100 billion, according to David Vine, a professor at American University and author of a book on the subject. In other words, 800-1,000 American soldiers stationed abroad represent US$565-665 million of aid to the country in which they are located.
Once the real costs are calculated, the largest aid recipient is revealed to be Japan, where 48,828 US military personnel are stationed. This translates into a US military aid package of over US$27 billion (calculated according to Vine’s lower estimation). Germany, with 37,704 US troops on its soil, receives aid equivalent to around US$21 billion; South Korea, with 27,553 US troops, receives over US$15 billion; and Italy receives at least US$6 billion.

How a “Pro-Peace” Organization is Deceiving Social Justice Advocates

The Telos Group is an American nonprofit organization that claims to help advance a “pro-Israeli, pro-Palestinian, and pro-peace” agenda. While its “pro/pro/pro” slogan is appealing, Telos’s past and current work reveals a different agenda altogether.
In 2014, an exposé by the watchdog organization CAMERA showed that Telos was using its “pro/pro/pro” slogan to disguise its anti-Israel agenda. Telos rebranded the following year with a new logo, a new website, and the announcement of “a slightly new direction.” Unfortunately, the rebrand was simply a facade for its real goal—solely promoting the narrative favored by Palestinian leadership. The only notable change was Telos’s new reluctance to post about meetings with some controversial Palestinian figures. For instance, in 2011, Telos uploaded a picture of the PLO’s Hanan Ashrawi to its “Conservative Leaders Trip” Facebook photo album. In 2016, following its rebrand, Telos met with Ashrawi twice, but did not publicize the meetings.
The silence on the Telos Group’s “pro/pro/pro” social media accounts is understandable, since Ashrawi recently reiterated the PLO’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and rebuked Theophilos III, the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church of Jerusalem, for referring to Israeli “democracy” and “freedom of worship.” Unhappily for Telos, Palestinian media covered the meetings, and the PLO published two press releases about the meetings and posted them on Facebook, complete with pictures.
Telos also facilitated a meeting between Sam Bahour, chairman of Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, and the Women Donors Network’s Middle East Peace and Democracy Circle, which claims to “fund progressive peace initiatives for a just, sustainable, and non-violent resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” While Bahour posted about the meeting on social media and thanked Telos staff for organizing it, Telos’s social media outlets remained silent.