Beirut, June 7 - Community leaders among those who consume human flesh in a moderate fashion complain that they are being unfairly targeted by critics of the practice who lump them together with more radical perpetrators.
Moderate cannibals face unjust pressure from politicians, the media, and advocacy groups, the leaders contend, even though the ideology of the moderate cannibals in no way supports the activities of extreme cannibals. At a joint press conference of several cannibal community organizations, the spokespeople for the groups called on the public to distinguish between them and extreme cannibals, or risk alienating the moderates and driving them into the arms of the extreme followers of the practice.
A coalition of grassroots cannibal groups called the Federation of Levantine Eaters of Succulent Humans (FLESH) assembled the press conference this afternoon and called on the news media, especially in the West, not to paint all cannibals with the same broad brush.
"It is irresponsible at best, and outright destructive at worst, to group all cannibals together," insisted Waleed Aniwan, head of the Khaneh-Ümraniye "Recycling" Union (KURU), which brings together moderate cannibals from Iran and Turkey, where the cities of Khaneh and Ümraniye, respectively, are located. "Our doctrines and practices have nothing to do with the barbaric crimes committed by extremist cannibals. In fact we deny that what those monsters are doing is cannibalism at all."
Other speakers stressed the responsibility of the media to convey to the world at large the great diversity among cannibals. "Journalists and commentators in particular must take care not to portray the heinous acts of the extremists as reflecting on the vast majority of peaceful cannibals," explained Soylent Green, a volunteer with FLESH. "And of course it could not hurt objectivity and balance to provide some attention to the grievances the extreme cannibals may have that lead to this sort of behavior."
Critics noted that the press conference and similar events represent an effort to absolve moderate cannibals of responsibility for the extremist behavior inherent to the lifestyle. "It is disingenuous to claim the heinous acts of extreme cannibals have nothing to do with cannibalism," argued Donner Parti, a vocal opponent of cannibalism. "The same groups that produce the so-called moderates end up producing the extremists as well, and there has to be a much more prominent, sincere, and sustained campaign by these so-called 'moderate' cannibals to dissociate from the extremists. The whole denial and abrogation of responsibility is a little too much to swallow."
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Amnesty International launched a campaign Wednesday to press the international community to boycott goods produced in Israeli West Bank settlements. Timed to coincide with the 50th anniversary of Israel’s capture of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six Day War, the campaign also calls on states to stop their companies from operating in settlements.
“For decades, the world has stood by as Israel has destroyed Palestinians’ homes and plundered their land and natural resources for profit. While the Palestinian economy has been stunted by 50 years of abusive policies, a thriving multi-million dollar settlement enterprise has been built out of the systematic oppression of the Palestinian population,” said Salil Shetty, Amnesty International’s secretary-general.
Jewish settlements beyond the 1949 armistice lines are viewed by most international leaders as illegal. Israel disputes this, as there was no legal sovereign there prior to its taking control, and claims a historical tie to the biblical Judea and Samaria. “Fifty years on, merely condemning Israel’s settlement expansion is not enough. It’s time for states to take concrete international action to stop the financing of settlements which themselves flagrantly violate international law and constitute war crimes,” Shetty said.
32 nations vote in favor; 15 abstain; none oppose The United Nations Human Rights Council on Thursday voted in favor of creating a “blacklist” of companies operating in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, a motion that passed with no countries voting against.
The resolution required UN human rights officials to produce a database of “all business enterprises” that have enabled or profited from the growth of Israeli settlements, Haaretz reported.
The proposal, put forward by the Palestinian Authority and Arab states, included a condemnation of settlements and called on companies not to do business with Israeli settlements. Its most contested clause was that calling for the formation of the database. While European Union nations opposed the creation of the list, they did not vote against the resolution, electing merely to abstain. It passed with 32 nations voting in favor and 15 abstentions.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted the outcome of the vote Thursday evening, saying the international body “has turned into an anti-Israel circus, which attacks the only democracy in the Middle East and ignores the blatant violations of Iran, Syria and North Korea.”
The prime minister accused the council of ignoring more urgent issues such as terrorism in order to rebuke the Jewish state.
Several people have been killed in a terrorist attack in Iran today, with Isis claiming responsibility. This has potentially huge consequences for the wider Shia-Sunni conflict. In 2014, Douglas Murray wrote for the Spectator on Islam’s 30-year war. His piece seems particularly prescient in light of today’s events:
Syria has fallen apart. Major cities in Iraq have fallen to al-Qa’eda. Egypt may have stabilised slightly after a counter-coup. But Lebanon is starting once again to fragment. Beneath all these facts — beneath all the explosions, exhortations and blood — certain themes are emerging.
Some years ago, before the Arab ‘Spring’ ever sprung, I remember asking one top security official about the region. What, I wondered, was their single biggest fear? The answer was striking and precise: ‘That the region will clarify.’ That is a fear which now appears to be coming true.
The Middle East is not simply falling apart. It is taking a different shape, along very clear lines — far older ones than those the western powers rudely imposed on the region nearly a century ago. Across the whole continent those borders are in the process of cracking and breaking. But while that happens the region’s two most ambitious centres of power — the house of Saud and the Ayatollahs in Iran — find themselves fighting each other not just for influence but even, perhaps, for survival.
“Kiss them, each and every one” he said. “And tell Ram he shouldn’t be so serious all the time.”
I was standing on a beach named after a miracle, looking at the memory of a disaster.
“Returnees to Zion”. How many people do you know who live in a place, named after a miracle? How many people do you know that are living elements of a miracle? Can you imagine being amongst those who chose the name, knowing that they are the embodiment of a miracle unlike any that has ever been seen before in the history of the world?
This modest, sleepy little community has a beautiful beach. It’s quiet and peaceful. From a distance, the shapes on the beach are unclear.
Pillars of strong stone, leaning on each other, toppled over. Together they lie on the beach, silent and alone.
“Kiss them, each and every one” he told me.
But how could I? His friends aren’t there, only the stones on the beach.
Twelve stones, large and strong for men that had been amongst Israel’s finest. Stones that should be standing but were not, for men who should be with us and are not. Leaning on each other, they would not move from the direction in which they had fallen – north, Lebanon.
Standing next to the twelve is a stone that declares their names and marks the disastrous mission from which they did not return. It also provides instructions for those who are left behind, in the form of a poem by Natan Alterman (this is my poor translation):
“From the northern border, they were carried from the battle they waged alone.
Accept them amongst the fierce warriors who know love. Israel, remember their names.”
The memorial on the beach is a silent agony. That disastrous mission happened twenty years ago - twenty years of memory frozen in stone where there should have been twenty years of families growing, with new children running and laughing on the beach, playing in the waves their fathers loved.
The loss is both personal and collective.
Twelve children of Zion had grown to be pillars of strength. Men, strong and capable, men you could lean on, who would hold you up. They were an example of Israel’s best, the type of men we need to build a strong and safe society, forever lost to us all.
The stones on the beach are there to teach those who did not know them.
My friend sees people, dear friends, not stones.His too serious friend. The others, each with their own special qualities. He sees those that should have come back from their mission but did not. Those he wished he could have saved but could not.
“Kiss them all.”
If only I could.
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This week there has been no shortage of articles from leftists decrying 50 years of "occupation."
I found "Rabbi" Michael Lerner's promotional email introducing his current issue of Tikkun Magazine to be especially repugnant.
I was one of those many young American Jews who went to the nearest Israeli consulate 50 years ago today to volunteer to serve in Israel as it appeared to be facing a threat to its existence. Fifty years later, I'm mourning what happened AFTER Israel won the 6 Days War [sic], believing the subsequent Occupation not only as an ethical outrage but a course of behavior that will live in infamy in Jewish history not only because it has been destructive to Israel's security but also because it has been a "chillul haShem"--a desecration of God's name and an undermining of the spirtual [sic] legitimacy of Judaism itself to the extent that it has become a major cheerleader for a nation state with lots of Jews but less of Judaism's powerful and beautiful prophetic, ethical and spiritual foundations.
While I don't agree with those who criticize the "occupation," I can understand how moral people would be bothered by various aspects of the situation.
However, I have no patience for people who cannot find anything positive to say about Israel's victory in 1967.
This goes double for those who pretend to base their criticisms on Jewish values.
For the first time in millennia, Jews have relatively free access to the most holy sites in Judaism - the Temple Mount (with restrictions,) the Kotel, the Tomb of the Patriarchs (with restrictions,) Rachel's Tomb and many others.
Jews can now access their holy places, overriding the bigoted Muslim history of co-opting the sacred sites of other religions.
No matter what you think of the "occupation," any true Jew must rejoice at this fact. And any honest observer would know that the Muslims never allow Jews to have free access to their holy sites when they are under Arab control.
If it wasn't for the Six Day War and the "occupation" those areas would remain forbidden to Jews to visit and worship and live.
The ability of Jews to be in their historic and ancient lands is cause for celebration, even for those who have reservations about the circumstances around it and the political and security consequences. Anyone who looks at the Six Day War and only sees Israel's supposed immorality does not have any real Jewish sensitivities.
"Chilul Hashem" is about as bad an insult as one can make in Jewish tradition. To call Israel's presence on the ancient Jewish homeland a "chilul Hashem" is outrageous and perverted.
The Holocaust was the ultimate chilul Hashem - because it made the world believe that the Jewish people had reached the end of their history and the God had abandoned His people. There is no greater chilul Hashem than that.
The rebirth of Israel, on the other hand, was a "kiddush Hashem" - a sanctification of God's name - because it showed the world that Jews are strong and resilient and creative and tenacious, and that miracles can still occur.
The Six Day War was by any measure a kiddush Hashem as well, because it showed that even when Israel had not a single ally willing to help it, Jews could not only survive but win. Gaining back the territories of Judea and Samaria where all of Jewish history occurred was an incredible display of sanctifying God's name. (It was a "chilul Allah", if you will.) The Six Day War catapulted tiny Israel from being regarded as little more than a banana republic to becoming a major player on the world stage.
Michael Lerner's inability to find a single positive thing about 1967 shows that his "morality" is itself immoral. It shows that the Jewish people, its history and its survival mean nothing to him. To Lerner, Jewish holy places are liabilities, not assets, which must be relinquished.
And he is willing to loudly proclaim that to the world.
There is nothing Jewish about Lerner's positions. There is plenty that is anti-Jewish. Lerner, in considering the redemption of historic Jewish lands as an unmitigated disaster, has more in common with Muslim terrorists than with real Jews.
Lerner does not have one ounce of Jewish pride. He prefers that Jews maintain a shtetl mentality and meekly do what the rest of the world tells them to do, even if that means marching to the latest version of the gas chambers. He wants to replace the respect that the world gave to the Jewish nation in the wake of the 1967 war with the derision that he feels towards the state of Israel. He does not represent "tikkun Olam" by any definition - he is trying to turn back time to make Jews defenseless victims instead of a strong, proud people.
Michael Lerner is the very definition of a chilul Hashem.
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Qatar must end its support for the Palestinian group Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood before ties with other Arab Gulf states could be restored, said Saudi Arabia's foreign minister.
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates severed diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar on Monday, accusing it of supporting "extremism".
"We want to see Qatar implement the promises it made a few years back with regard to its support of extremist groups, to its hostile media and interference in affairs of other countries," Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir told reporters in Paris.
"Nobody wants to hurt Qatar. It has to choose whether it must move in one direction or another direction. We took this step with great pain so that it understands that these policies are not sustainable and must change."
Jubeir added that Qatar was undermining the Palestinian Authority and Egypt in its support of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
These are the strongest statements ever made against Hamas by a major Arab country, and the terror group is reeling.
Hamas, reeling, issued a statement saying that Jubeir's statement violated international law:
The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas expressed its deep regret and disapproval of the statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir inciting against Hamas, arguing that it is alien to the positions of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which has always been characterized by the support of the cause of our people and the right to struggle.
The movement said in a press statement that these statements represent a shock to our Palestinian people and the Arab and Islamic nation, of which is the Palestinian issue is central, and which sees Hamas as a legitimate resistance against the Zionist occupation, which represents the central enemy of Arab and Islamic movements. Hamas and the forces of the Palestinian resistance are the major defenders of the land of Palestine and the first qiblah (Jerusalem) and the third holiest shrine.
The Movement stressed that the Zionist enemy exploits such statements to commit further violations and crimes against our people and our land and our holy places and the right of Jerusalem and Al Aqsa Mosque.
Jubeir's remarks are in violation of international laws and attitudes of Arab and Islamic people, which emphasizes the right of our people to resistance and the struggle to liberate their land and holy places.
The Hamas brothers call on Saudi Arabia to stop these statements that offend the kingdom and their positions towards the cause of our people and their legitimate rights.
This is fear.
I noted in passing recently that a major pan-Arab newspaper referred to Hamas, flatly, as a terror group. Hamas notices all of this - and none of it looks good for its future.
Turning to Iran for support is not such a clear move because that would cement Hamas' reputation as being an enemy of Sunni Islam, which it claims to represent. Any shred of popular support that Hamas has in the Arab world would disappear if it openly aligns with Iran.
It must be said that a lot of this anti-Hamas rhetoric is a direct result of President Trump's speech in Saudi Arabia last month where he compared Hamas to ISIS, and no one in the Arab world objected.
This is a huge change from only a couple of years ago.
Mahmoud Abbas is taking advantage of this anti-Hamas feeling to collectively punish Gazans for supporting Hamas. He has cut off electricity, medicine, anesthetic and other essentials, to only muted criticism as Gazans suffer - something that would create world headlines if Israel did it. "Human rights organizations" suddenly don't care about Gazans.
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How can we explain the international community’s indifference to Palestinian suffering? Every day, angry bands of protesters burn the flag of Israel, call for the destruction of the Jewish state and insist that Israel and its Jewish citizens be shunned from polite society and thrown out of the global economy all in the name of opposing “the Occupation.”
Although the breathless protesters insist that all their efforts are directed toward the Palestinians, as it works out, none of their assaults on Israel have improved the Palestinians’ lot. To the contrary, their protests have given a free pass to those that do the most to harm Palestinians.
The angry, hateful protests against Israel tell us nothing about either the history of the Palestinians’ relations with the Jewish state or their present circumstances.
And what are those circumstances? Consider the stories of two different groups of Palestinian prisoners.
The official Palestinian Authority daily has reported that a 23-year-old Palestinian man wished to die as a Martyr because he would then marry the 70 Virgins of Paradise.
Saba Abu Obeid, who was shot during violent clashes with Israeli soldiers and later died of his wounds, had told his grandmother he was hoping to die, because "70 beauties are waiting for me." According to Islam, one of the Martyr's rewards is to marry 72 Dark-Eyed Maidens, and the PA in fact describes Martyrs' funerals as weddings.
Obeid's grandmother recounted: "He asked me to sound cries of joy if he died as a Martyr. I told him: 'Everyone who seeks Martyrdom-death (Shahada) is entitled to achieve it, but I want to marry you off and rejoice in your happiness.' He told me: 'Grandmother, 70 beauties are waiting for me in Paradise, why should I replace them with the women of this world?'" [Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, May 25, 2017]
This story reflects years of PA indoctrination to its people that Shahada - Martyrdom - is "sweet." During the PA's terror campaign 2000-2005 (the second Intifada), PA TV targeted kids with this message, telling them that Martyrdom was an ideal to strive for.
In 2002, today's young man of 23 was 8 years old, and possibly watched the following program for youth on PA TV, which Palestinian Media Watch exposed at the time. Two 11-year-old girls explained that "Shahada is beautiful" and that "everyone yearns for Shahada." They stated that "going to Paradise" is "sweet" and that what really matters is "the Afterlife."
On April 17, 2017, some 1,500 Palestinian security prisoners incarcerated in Israel launched a hunger strike, under the leadership of Fatah Central Committee member Marwan Al-Barghouti, who is serving five life sentences for murder. The timing of the strike, which ended 41 days later, on May 27, was inconvenient for the Palestinian Authority (PA), which feared that it would lead to violent riots just as U.S. President Donald Trump was hosting PA President Mahmoud 'Abbas at the White House, and during Trump's subsequent visit to Bethlehem as part of his efforts to restart Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. Another difficulty faced by the PA was the fear that Al-Barghouti – who initiated the strike and led it – would take sole credit for it, rather than the PA and 'Abbas himself.[1]
Nevertheless, the PA and Fatah could not be indifferent to the strike lest they spark public outrage, and thus launched a campaign of support for the prisoners. The campaign included: establishing solidarity encampments throughout the West Bank, which were also used as a platform for Fatah and PA representatives to deliver speeches and as a meeting place for families of the prisoners; holding protest activities such as a general strike, conducting parades, declaring days of rage, blocking roads, and marching to the border with Israel and other points of friction. Likewise, the PA government, headed by Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, announced an open-ended government session for the duration of the prisoners' strike, and Fatah's Revolutionary Council called for escalating the popular resistance. Also, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry instructed its representations abroad to hold activities for solidarity with the prisoners, and Fatah and PA representatives called on international delegations to pressure Israel to comply with the prisoners' demands.
The reaction of the PA, headed by 'Abbas, to the prisoners' hunger strike reveals the duplicity of its stand vis-à-vis terrorism: While it takes care to announce its opposition to violence and terrorism, and to condemn terror attacks and their perpetrators in the world, when it comes to the Palestinian security prisoners in Israeli facilities – the vast majority of whom were convicted on terror charges, including the murder of Israeli civilians, after the Oslo Accords – the PA glorifies their deeds, presents them as freedom fighters, and places their cause at the top of the Palestinian agenda. This is manifested by 'Abbas's meetings with families of the prisoners,[2] including of terrorists with blood on their hands who carried out horrific terror operations; by presenting the prisoners' cause to President Trump during his visit to the region; by asking the U.S. envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt, during 'Abbas's May 25 meeting with him, to pressure Israel to comply with the prisoners' demands; and by effusively praising the prisoners' heroism and sacrifice.[3]
Douglas Murray - Voting for Corbyn would be 'Madness'
Gaza's Ministry of Health warned on Tuesday that supplies of anesthesia drugs had stopped. About 1,000 surgeries per month are performed in Gaza.
The main drug that is running out is fentanyl.
This is all because the PA refuses to pay for medicines and other critical equipment in Gaza in an effort to exert control - at the expense of ordinary Gazans.
It is just another outrage that dwarfs the worst that anyone can credibly accuse Israel of doing, but one that won't make any headlines since Israel isn't the one that can be blamed.
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The legacies of 1967 envelop us and permeate everyday life in Lebanon. Daily we elbow our way through their viscosity, wondering why movement and breath and vision are limited. We take comfort in the invisibility of these legacies, convince ourselves that we have escaped, even as we have spent fifty years wiping the gelatinous tendrils from our very selves.
These tendrils are cartographic, linguistic, and epistemological.
The web of 1967 has spread its tendrils on the land itself. Those five days rent a gash in Lebanon’s southern boundary. The realities of defeat emboldened Israel, known simply as the kayan, or entity, to strafe ever larger swaths of territory, interrupting lives, devastating livestock, and eradicating fish. This relentless military practice, in addition to separating families, has reshaped village life and transformed topographies. And the wounds on the land are not confined to the south. They run along a north-south axis like a C-section scar left unhealed. The wounds shape the grounds of those permanently temporary fixtures: the refugee camps, which greeted a second generation of displaced and expelled.
Lebanon didn't fight in 1967. There was no change to the borders between Lebanon and Israel, not one centimeter. I would be very surprised if any "refugees" from 1967 made it to Lebanon to go to their UNRWA camps rather than remaining in the West Bank, Gaza or going to Jordan.
I'm sure I could find some NGO that came up with a figure of how many fish Israel "eradicated" in 1967, though.
The author goes on to say that, essentally, he is tasked with inventing propaganda about 1967 to his Lebanese students since there is no actual history there and Lebanon feels left out:
And the thick tendrils breed silences, as the penchant for feigning ignorance feeds an actually existing ignorance, an epistemological insistence on being immersed in but denying the existence of a web of 1967’s legacies. I ask undergraduates who grew up in Lebanon what they know about 1967. I am greeted with a resounding silence. They know nothing, it seems. But, knowledge is a fluid process. As the history lesson unfolds, the same students suddenly comprehend an uncle’s suicide, a mother’s defiance, a neighborhood’s layout, a name unspoken; they ponder the tyranny of citizenship, the buoyant torment of resilience, and the laughter of survival that formidable historical amnesia tries to render invisible. As realization dawns, they sit in the viscous climate, stuck between solid and liquid, and the web of 1967 crystalizes anew.
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Time to Fix the Distortions
The centennial of the Balfour Declaration is the perfect opportunity to chip away at the distorted accretions of a century. The largest of these is the notion that the Balfour Declaration arose outside any legitimate framework, as the initiative of a self-dealing imperial power. This is utterly false. The Balfour Declaration wasn’t the isolated act of one nation. It was approved in advance by the Allied powers whose consensus then constituted the only source of international legitimacy. Before Balfour signed his declaration, leaders and statesmen of other democratic nations signed their names on similar letters and assurances. The Balfour Declaration anticipated a world regulated by a consortium of principal powers—the same world that, 30 years later, would pass a UN resolution legitimating the establishment of a Jewish state.
This centennial is thus the time to remind governments of their shared responsibility for Britain’s pledge to establish a Jewish “national home” in Palestine. In Washington, Paris, Rome, and Vatican City, it is important for Israel’s ambassadors and friends to speak openly of the historic and essential role of each government in the gestation of the declaration. The same should be done in all of the capitals that endorsed the Balfour Declaration after its issuance, but before it was enshrined in the mandate. That would include Beijing and Tokyo. The American role deserves particular emphasis. Few Americans know that Wilson approved the Balfour Declaration in advance, or that this approval had a decisive effect in the British cabinet. The United States never entered the League of Nations, and so never ratified the mandate. But in June 1922 the United States Congress passed a joint resolution (the so-called Lodge-Fish resolution) that reproduced the exact text of the Balfour Declaration (“the United States of America favors the establishment in Palestine,” etc.). President Warren G. Harding signed the resolution the following September. The centennial is a unique opportunity to remind the American public of these facts, all of which point to America’s shared responsibility for the Balfour Declaration.
The 1967 war generated opportunities and a new, more pragmatic dynamic among the Arab states and Palestinians, which at least partially reversed the results of the war itself and transformed much of the Arab-Israeli arena. With this in mind, here are some myths about the war's centrality and impact that need to be reexamined.
1. "The 1967 war was the most consequential and impactful of the conflicts between Israel and the Arabs." The 1948 conflict was more foundational, creating as it did the state of Israel, the Palestinian refugee problem, and a political revolution in Arab politics that would see various coups and revolutions.
2. "There were very real and missed opportunities for Arab-Israeli agreements in the wake of the war." Not really. There was a flurry of initiatives, statements, and U.S. and Russian maneuvering during the postwar period. And in November 1967, UN Security Council Resolution 242 established the guiding principles for Arab-Israeli peace negotiations. From my personal experience, I can attest that diplomats and would-be peacemakers often imagined openings and opportunities where there were none.
3. "The 1967 war was an unmitigated disaster for the Palestinians."
The war would carry an unintended set of consequences that would redefine the Palestinian national movement. The discrediting of the Arab states, particularly the bankruptcy of Arab nationalism, would force Palestinians to strike out on their own. The Arab defeat reenergized Palestinian identity and put Palestinians on the political map.
4. "The 1967 war was a catastrophe for peacemaking."
Not really. In strategic terms, the 1967 war created one new reality that could not be denied: Arab state weakness and the rapidly fading prospect of destroying Israel by force, even in phases. The growing alignment between Israel and the Sunni states, particularly in the Gulf, attests to a new pragmatism born of a common threat perception of a rising Iran and Sunni jihadis, and sheer Arab state fatigue with the Palestinian issue. 5. "Fifty years later, Arabs, Israelis and Palestinians are ready to solve the conflict." Don't bet on it. The core of the impasse is a reality that shows no signs of changing: the gaps on the core issues-1967 borders, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees, acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state-are Grand Canyon-like. Without their narrowing, no matter how the new peace process starts, it is hard to imagine it ending well.
While Palestinian officials continue to threaten Israel with prosecution at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, a leading Palestinian university recently chose not to debate Israelis there.
Last month, during the annual ICC Moot Court Competition, Birzeit University advanced to the quarterfinals, where it was to meet Hebrew University of Jerusalem. But the team from the Palestinian university, near Ramallah in the West Bank, decided to shun the Israeli competitors.
In a May 27 press release, Birzeit said its Faculty of Law and Public Administration withdrew from the competition after having debated 12 other groups from various other countries. “This was in line with the university’s commitment toward the Boycott and Divestment Sanctions Campaign (BDS),” Birzeit said in the press release, which was posted on the university’s website but later made unavailable. “Birzeit Team is the first Arabian team to make it to the quarterfinals, and to win the oral pleading competition,” the statement continued. The Hebrew University expressed disappointment over the Palestinian boycott, pointing to the academic nature of the competition.
On November 4, 2016, 3 US soldiers - Staff Sgt. Matthew Lewellen, Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe and Staff Sgt. James Moriarty died after coming under fire from a Jordanian soldier as they were entering a Jordanian military base.
On November 17, Eric Barbee, spokesman for US Embassy in Jordan, issued a short statement, reflecting the possibility of a terrorist motive on the one hand, and the rumors being spread that the soldiers themselves had accidentally brought the incident upon themselves.
A segment from the CBS morning news revealed more about what happened, and a taste of the various stories that were to come from the Jordanian government.
As early as November 19, two days later, it was already known that there was video footage of what had happened. Even then, the strong possibility was raised that this was a deliberate attack by a Jordanian soldier on US soldiers, Green Berets. The security footage showed a lone Jordanian gunman at a checkpoint shooting at the convoy of Green Berets who were there to conduct training at the King Faisal Air Base in al-Jafr.
It was reported at the time that a US official had, on condition of anonymity, confirmed the video showed the Jordanian soldier waived the first vehicle through the checkpoint and then opened fire on the second vehicle, killing two of the Americans inside. When US troops in the third vehicle returned fire, a third American was killed.
The video itself was not made public at the time
As for the Jordanian soldier, M'aarek Abu Tayeh, he was wounded and placed in a medically induced coma at a Jordanian hospital.
Both an FBI and a military investigation were begun.
o On the afternoon of Nov. 4, 2016, a Jordanian Air Force guard shot and killed three Special Forces Soldiers at the entry gate to King Faisal Air Base, Jordan.
o The three Soldiers were returning to the base in a four-vehicle convoy after conducting weapons familiarization training on a nearby military range.
o The Jordanian Air Force guard opened fire on the second vehicle of the convoy with his M-16 rifle, killing Staff Sgt. McEnroe and mortally wounding Staff Sgt.(P) Lewellen.
o Within seconds of coming under fire, Staff Sgt. Moriarty and another Soldier exited the third and fourth vehicles in the convoy in order to seek cover as the shooter closed in on their location. After unsuccessfully trying to communicate to the shooter that they posed no threat, the Soldiers returned fire. While the other Soldier maneuvered to gain a better position, Staff Sgt. Moriarty stood and fired his pistol directly at the shooter, who was wearing body armor. After closing in on their position, the shooter hit Staff Sgt. Moriarty with two rounds, mortally wounding him. Staff Sgt. Moriarty’s actions enabled the remaining Soldier to maneuver and engage the shooter, seriously wounding him.
o Staff Sgt. McEnroe died at the scene. Staff Sgt. (P) Lewellen and Staff Sgt. Moriarty were medically evacuated after receiving initial treatment at the local medical treatment facility but died en route to King Hussein Hospital in Amman. Autopsy results show that no amount of medical care could have saved the three Soldiers due to the nature of their wounds.
o All three Soldiers died in honorable service to their country. All three Soldiers were properly trained, equipped, and armed, and were acting in compliance with all procedures and accepted practices. In maintaining their position and engaging the shooter, the Soldiers acted with great valor.
A March 6 letter from Dina Kawar, ambassador of the Kingdom of Jordan, to Representative Ted Poe, a Republican from Texas claimed that a joint US-Jordanian investigation concluded that there was an "absence of premeditated intentions by M'aarek Abu Tayeh," the shooter. Instead, the Jordanians accused the American soldiers not only of failing to stop at the gate but also of having negligently discharged their weapons, causing the security guards to panic and open fire.
The parents of the soldiers responded that the video, which they had been shown, refuted the Jordanian version of events. The video shows that none of the Jordanians showed any reaction, as would be expected if there had been a loud noise, until the Jordanian guard himself opened fire. The video also showed that the Jordanian guard had deliberately murdered their sons at close range.
The parents turned to the Trump Administration, demanding that action be taken against Jordan and that if the Jordanians refused to take action, that US aid to the country be cut off.
One of the parents, Mr. McEnroe expressed their feelings about Jordan:
"Over four months have passed since our boys were murdered. None of our families has heard any apology, condolences or explanation from the Jordanians other than these false narratives," McEnroe said.
"In my mind, Jordan is at the very least guilty of complicity in the murder of three American brave servicemen," he said.
"We are told that Jordan is an important ally in the war on terror -- a war which I support -- but I encourage our president and our administration to take a hard look at our relationship with an ally who would so callously disrespect the sacrifice made by our boys," McEnroe said.
Congressman Poe, who serves as the chairman House Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, spoke about Jordan’s changing story about what had happened:
"I wrote the Jordanian king after I talked to Jim Moriarty about his son," the lawmaker said. "The response seem to say that this entire incident was a mistake and that the Americans were at fault for this whole incident."
Last night, Poe said he received a second letter from the embassy of Jordan.
"They now say 'it was not a mistake but that the shooter was following the rules of engagement," Poe said.
o A second guard who manned the post with Abu Tayeh had left to use the restroom o A third soldier left to open the gate, leaving Abu Tayeh along o Other Jordanian soldiers in the area, as many as 11, did not nothing to help the American soldiers o Those same Jordanian soldiers fired warning shots at a US truck entering behind the Green Berets’ vehicles, preventing the truck from assisting the US Green Berets.
It was suggested that the reason for the lack of an immediate apology from the Jordanian government was the implications behind such an apology. An apology would be an admission that the elite Hashemite force that guards Jordan’s King Abdullah II had made a mistake -- or worse, that the guard had been turned by ISIS.
The FBI told the families that when Abu Tayeh came out of his coma, they had interviewed him. He admitted that he had used excessive force and was away from his assigned guard position. However, he claimed that he had heard a loud noise and that was what set him off.
For their part, the military investigation was unable to find any indication for the reason behind the attack. No group ever took responsibility and there was no evidence that Abu Tayeh had actual terrorist sympathies. What they did find was that sloppiness by the Jordanian army was par for the course and it was usual for them to wave US soldiers in without coming out and personally confirm the identities as required and that gate guards “often displayed negligence for basic weapons handling and safety which could be improved.”
What was left was the series of lie after lie offered by the Jordanian government:
o First the Jordanian government claimed that the US soldiers had failed to stop at the gate o When the video disproved that, the Jordanians claimed that there had been an “accidental discharge” by one of the soldiers. o When that was disproven, the Jordanians claimed there had been a loud noise
The video, though it had no audio, disproved all three claims.
Finally, in mid-April, the Jordanian government admitted that Abu Tayeh had not followed proper military protocol and said they would prosecute him over the death of the US soldiers. However, it was not immediately made clear what exactly the charges would be nor when the trial would take place.
Dana Daoud, a spokeswoman for the Jordanian Embassy indicated that an apology was finally going to be issued by the Jordanian king to the families and added that “the Jordanian government will do everything to ensure that justice is enacted fully.”
Mr. Moriarty was doubtful in his response:
“Any statement that doesn’t include an admission of total guilt and plans for prosecution for the murderer who killed my son and the Jordanians who have failed to do anything about it, will not be enough.”
o The official charge is murder with intent to kill more than one person o A second charge included “insulting the dignity and reputation of the military” o Another charge is “violating orders and instructions of the military”
There are 3 basic things the parents of the US soldiers are looking for:
o Prosecution of Abu Tayeh o Prosecution of the Jordanians who did nothing to help their sons o Serious sentences for both Abu Tayeh and the other Jordanian soldiers involved
And that is why -- based on everything the families of these soldiers have had to put up with till now -- the road ahead may still be a long one.
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The vast majority of the Palestinians who fled the West Bank did it well after the war. Voluntarily.
I received this email from UNRWA-USA, entitled "50 years of occupation. Still refugees."
This week marks a devastating anniversary for Palestinians: 50 years of the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip. In 1967, UNRWA had already been providing services to Palestine refugees displaced by the Nakba for 17 years. The Naksa -- the new wave of displacement caused by the June 1967 war and subsequent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza -- warranted the establishment of 10 new refugee camps, and UNRWA expanding its services to newly displaced Palestinians in need. Refugees still live in these camps today. Please continue to stand with Palestine refugees. For decades, generations of Palestinians -- refugees and non-refugees -- have persevered as their land is confiscated, their families separated, and their rights repeatedly violated. UNRWA will continue to stand with Palestine refugees, no matter what, until they receive a just and durable solution to their plight. Today, and every day, we remember those, still refugees, living under an occupation that becomes more entrenched every day. We honor them as they continue to hope for a brighter future.
It's funny, because in 1967 these "refugees" were in camps in Jordan and Gaza, under foreign control. Today they are in camps in the West Bank and Gaza under the control of their own people. They are no worse off from the "occupation" than they were under Jordanian occupation; in fact their lives are markedly better in the West Bank (and in Gaza, the only reason things are worse is because of Hamas, not Israel, which tried to build houses for them and got a UN resolution condemning Israel for that desire.)
Now they have hospitals, universities, far improved health care and far better jobs for the most part compared to 1967. Yet UNRWA wants to make it sound like it is Israel that is making their lives miserable.
Most egregiously, UNRWA is skirting the main question: Why are they still in "refugee" camps, UNRWA? They live in "Historic Palestine!"
Furthermore, the Palestinians living under UNRWA auspices in Lebanon and Syria would kill to trade places with the Palestinians who live under "occupation."
Yet UNRWA-USA knows that to the anti-Israel drones who support it, there is no more magical word than "occupation." It conjures horrors unheard of since the Spanish Inquisition.
UNRWA doesn't want the world to know the truth - that it is simply a self-perpetuating bureaucracy that should have been dismantled in the 1950s. If that would have happened, the majority of people who claim to be Palestinian today would be in much better shape because the Arab nations would have been forced to take care of them instead of fobbing them off to the UN.
There is literally no reason to keep Palestinians in "refugee" camps in the West Bank and Gaza (and Jordan, where most of them are citizens) - except to use them as cannon fodder to eventually destroy Israel. UNRWA feeds them the myth of "right to return" in schools and they happily consume it.
The Six Day War didn't destroy Israel. UNRWA is trying to leverage that victory to destroy Israel today. .
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The centrist and left-wing Israeli media, in both Hebrew and English, had a field day with the remarks that PA official Jibril Rajoub made on Israeli TV in Hebrew about the Western Wall, where he said "In the end, it must remain under Jewish sovereignty. We have no argument about that. This is a Jewish holy place.”'
I reported Rajoub's official denial on Sunday morning. And today he "clarified" even more to his Arab critics, saying that he literally said that the Wall should be under Jewish "religious supervision."
The Hebrew phrase he used, ריבונות יהודית, unambiguously means "Jewish sovereignty."
Rajoub spun what he said on Palestinian TV on Monday evening, after furious blowback for his alleged "acceptance of Israeli sovereignty over the Wailing Wall." He said that the Israeli TV presenter asked him: Do you accept Israeli sovereignty over the Wailing Wall? "I told her 'no way' and I 'cannot.'"
Yet even after these explicit denials, most of the Israeli media has not reported on it. Haaretz today even has a sarcastic op-ed deriding those who think that Palestinian leaders are anything but flexible and wonderful based wholly on Rajoub's initial, purposefully ambiguous remarks meant to make himself look moderate:
There’s no choice: We have to liquidate Jibril Rajoub. He’s continuing to spout off about peace, and we must put an end to it.
In an interview Saturday night with Channel 2 television’s “Meet the Press,” he threw a bombshell. “We understand that the Western Wall ... is sacred to the Jews and ultimately it has to remain under Jewish sovereignty,” he said. “There is no argument over this.”
Then, to prove just how dangerous, subversive and scheming he is, Rajoub added that his Fatah party’s Seventh General Congress, which took place about six months ago, had decided “the solution to the conflict is two states for two peoples, and resistance to the occupation will be nonviolent.” Why nonviolent, for heaven’s sake? Let them blow up buses, so we can bomb them in return.
The Fatah Seventh Congress said nothing about "two states for two peoples." It is another bald-faced lie by Rajoub that Haaretz fact checkers don't want to check because it fits in with their biases of only Israeli officials lying.
In this case, it isn't only Haaretz clinging to the false narrative of a moderate Jibril Rajoub. Virtually all of Israel's mainstream media has not mentioned his about-face that occurred within a day of his original interview.
Religious newspaper Hamodia mentions Rajoub's denial in English and Yoni Ben-Menachem on News1 reports on Rajoub's habit of saying one thing in Hebrew/English and another in Arabic, noting his many incendiary statements made over the years. That was all I could find. Most of Israeli media simply chose to ignore Rajoub's heated denial of his supposedly moderate statement.
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Israelis are celebrating 50 years since the Six-Day War — and with good reason. That victory saved us from destruction and reunited our holiest city. Ultimately, it also brought us peace with Egypt and Jordan and a strategic alliance with the United States. The Palestinians, by contrast, are mourning a half-century of suffering. They claim that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza subjected them to colonization and denied them statehood.
While the war certainly shaped the modern Middle East, it alone cannot account for the contradictory ways Israelis and Palestinians commemorate it. The chasm can only be explained by events that preceded it. Far beyond 1967, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is in fact about 1917, 1937 and 1947. Those anniversaries can teach us much about the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and why peace has proved so elusive.
A century ago this November, Britain, anticipating Turkey’s defeat in the Middle East, issued the Balfour Declaration. Endorsed by the League of Nations, the declaration pledged to create a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine. Britain did not commit to creating a Jewish state in all of Palestine — the national home could have been tiny — and promised to uphold “the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.” Still, the Palestinians vehemently rejected the document. “We Arabs,” wrote Jerusalem notable Musa al-Husayni, would never accept “such a nation.”
This year, Israelis are also celebrating the centenary of the Balfour Declaration because it formalized the international community’s recognition of a Jewish nation and our 3,000-year attachment to our homeland. But the Palestinians are mourning it — their leaders have even called on Britain to apologize. Today, as in 1917, they view Jews not as a people with rights to a national homeland but as a religious group and, throughout much of Islamic history, an inferior one at that. Understanding this reality helps explain why, in the 1920s, Arab rioters murdered Palestinian Jews, desecrated synagogues and eradicated the ancient Jewish communities of Hebron and Safed.
Despite persistent Arab rejection of Jewish identity, the Zionist leadership recognized that the Palestinian Arabs were a people with sovereign rights. That acknowledgment was codified 80 years ago, in July 1937, with the Peel Commission in Britain, which divided Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states. Though the Jews were allotted only one-third of the land, the Zionist leader David Ben-Gurion supported the plan. The Arabs rejected it, proclaiming that the only acceptable solution would be “the complete cessation of the experiment of the Jewish National Home.” Buckling to Arab pressure, the British cut off almost all Jewish immigration to Palestine, shutting European Jewry’s last escape route from Hitler.
We all know the term "fake news," but there is also "fake history." A notable example of that is the twisted way the Six-Day War is addressed in certain quarters, especially among the Palestinians.
In the opinion of most of the Israeli public, the war is justifiably seen as one of the most significant milestones in the brief history of the modern state, whether because of ideology or reasons of security and diplomacy. The result of the war also strengthened Israel's international standing immeasurably, and in the eyes of the U.S. in particular it was transformed from what had mainly seemed to be a security burden to a strategic asset.
But in recent years, there are those who have been presenting a distorted image by speaking up about the "curse," the "disaster" and the "unnecessary war," referring both to the war itself and the situation of victory that Israel created with it. Here we must point out that no Israeli official intended to initiate a war or plan ahead of time to exploit the war's results for purposes unrelated to security considerations. In fact, at the end of the war, Israel offered to leave all the territory it had taken if Egypt and Syria would sign a peace deal with it, but the proposal was rejected by the "Three No's" of the Khartoum Resolution of September 1967.
For 50 years, the Arabs tried to erase the consequences of that incredible war. For 50 years, the world has tried to force Israel to turn its back on those terribile days.
On May 16, 1967, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser ordered the UN Interposition Force to get out of the Sinai peninsula, the force which for ten years had preserved calm between Egypt and Israel. The United Nations obeyed, and at that point Nasser imposed the naval blockade of the only Israeli southern coastline, the port of Eilat, a real act of war.
During those three endless weeks, US President Lyndon Johnson tried to gather a convoy of ships from different countries that would challenge the blockade. But the attempt failed miserably. Egypt, already a military ally of Syria, struck an emergency military pact with Jordan, Iraq, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Libya and Morocco, who began sending military contingents to participate in the upcoming fight.
As troops and armored men lurked on all Israeli borders, radio and television broadcasts from every Arab capital announced the upcoming final war to exterminate the Israeli Jews. “We will destroy Israel and its inhabitants”, proclaimed Egyptian general Ahmad Shuqayri - and for the survivors, if there are any, ships are ready to deport them”.
Europe betrayed Israel. And in the face of the pro-Arab choice of Charles de Gaulle, a man like Daniel Mayer did not hesitate to declare: “I am ashamed of being French”.
For Israel, the waiting was terrible. Aharon Appelfeld recalls that among Israelis survivors of the Shoah “the talking about deportations, punitive actions, trains”, while Cairo's radio broadcasted hymns, slogans and songs in which they dreamed of throwing “Jews into the sea” was unbearable.
Anti-Israel, anti-semitic Arab cartoons on the eve of the Six Day War
The June 3rd edition of the BBC World Service radio programme ‘The Fifth Floor’ included an item (from 27:13 here) billed as follows in the synopsis: “Egypt’s Naksa Day Next Monday is the 50th anniversary of Naksa day, or Day of the Setback. The “setback” for Egypt was their crushing defeat by Israel in the Six Day War. BBC Arabic reporter in Cairo, Sally Nabil, tells us how the day is viewed there now.”
At the start of the programme presenter David Amanor described the upcoming item as follows: “…and a six-day war with consequences much greater. We’re finding out what young Egyptians today know about the events of June 1967.”
He introduced the segment itself thus:
Amanor: “Now most countries don’t relish their defeats and I guess Egypt is no different. Next week sees the 50th anniversary of what’s generally called the Six Day War in June 1967 but its impact remains much bigger than its short time span might suggest. It was a humiliating defeat for Egypt and its Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Israel took forces…took possession of the entire Sinai peninsula, leaving Egyptian forces to make a chaotic retreat. In Egypt the war is called the ‘naksa’. Sally Nabil of BBC Arabic tells me the story behind that name.”
Scores of former Palestinian prisoners freed by Israel and living in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday their stipends from the Western-backed Palestinian Authority have been suspended in an apparent bid to appease Israel and the United States.
A spokesman for Palestinian prisoners said that 277 freed prisoners in the Gaza Strip, most of whom are aligned with the Islamist Hamas group that runs the coastal enclave, were surprised to find their May stipends had not been paid.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded that the Palestinians, who view prisoners as national heroes, stop paying stipends to them and their families, and U.S. lawmakers have warned that Palestinian funding could be cut off unless Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas halts the practice.
This is politics, not morality. The PA continues to publicly praise terror attacks. It is simply a way for the PA to pressure Hamas while pretending to do something against the terror it wholeheartedly supports.
(h/t Yerushalimey)
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Elder of Ziyon
Beirut, June 7 - Community leaders among those who consume human flesh in a moderate fashion complain that they are being unfairly targeted by critics of the practice who lump them together with more radical perpetrators.
