I will resume blogging iy"h on Sunday night or Monday morning.
And wishing my Christian readers a happy Easter.
Jordan has accepted Israel’s choice of a new ambassador for the kingdom, another sign of improving ties after a months-long crisis.There's populist anger and there's reality.
Government spokesman Mohammed Momani said on Thursday that the envoy, Amir Weissbrod, “can start his mission any time now.”
The posting of a new Israeli ambassador would end one of the tensest episodes since the two countries signed a peace treaty in 1994.
It began last summer when a security guard at the Israeli embassy in Jordan shot and killed two Jordanians, alleging one attacked him with a screw driver. The Israeli guard and Israel’s then-ambassador were given a hero’s welcome by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, infuriating Jordan.
Earlier this year, the two sides said they found a way to overcome the crisis, including appointing a new Israeli ambassador.
Art. 81. Parties to the conflict who intern protected persons shall be bound to provide free of charge for their maintenance, and to grant them also the medical attention required by their state of health.This is not about prisoners. It is about people who are internment camps for whatever (security) reason the occupying power decides to place them there. The Conventions make this clear, as it talks about entire families should be kept together in internment. it distinguishes between internment and imprisonment, which is what happens after conviction for crimes.
No deduction from the allowances, salaries or credits due to the internees shall be made for the repayment of these costs.
The Detaining Power shall provide for the support of those dependent on the internees, if such dependents are without adequate means of support or are unable to earn a living.
One of the journalist’s favorite responses to being criticized for bias is: “As long as we anger each side equally, we’re doing something right.” It’s a favorite among journalists covering the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. “We’re on the right track because both sides complain.” And sure enough, there’s ample literature “on both sides” complaining that the press favors “the other side.” After all, as one New York Times correspondent puts it, it’s all about “dueling narratives” in a “land of few facts.”David Collier: Conflation – Labour Party antisemitism is in the details and the media
In reality, however, this “both sides complain” meme has operated as a fig leaf concealing just how far off the rails the mainstream news media have gone when it comes to reporting from the Middle East. In fact, journalists have, over the past two decades, actually produced an inversion of reality: not only do “facts” reported by Israelis get turned into an Israeli “narrative,” but Palestinian narratives get reported as facts.
For example, journalists, basing themselves on casualty figures provided by Hamas-run institutions, using footage at the hospital shot under Hamas’ watchful eye, repeat the jihadi (and UN, and NGO) narrative that “the vast... overwhelming majority of victims are civilians.”
Some of this comes from pure intimidation. In 2014, during Operation Protective Edge, Hamas intimidation of journalists became so extensive that the Foreign Press Office, normally much quicker to denounce Israeli intimidation than Palestinian, issued a protest against Hamas’ behavior.
In response, the New York Times correspondent tweeted: “Every reporter I’ve met who was in Gaza during war says this Israeli/now FPA narrative of Hamas harassment is nonsense.”
In 119 characters, she dismissed ample empirical evidence and credible testimony of Hamas intimidation as an “Israeli narrative,” now also adhered to by the FPA, and instead gave us the Palestinian narrative as news.
In other words, the real nonsense comes across as the reporter’s voice, and the accurate assessment comes across as Israeli narrative nonsense.
So consistently did the media pass on this narrative that Hamas actually based its war strategy on their cooperation. As Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh gloated in 2014, Palestinian sources “constituted the river from which the global media quenched its thirst for information about what was happening.”
An insult to British JewsLabour can’t tackle anti-Semitism under Corbyn
It is a direct insult to the 99.998%, 99.98%, 99.8% or 98% of the Jewish population who are not being represented. More importantly, it is to spit in the face of the 93%+ of Jews who actively disagree with the views of this small cult, and it gives an infusion of adrenaline to antisemites desperate for legitimate cover.
This cult are eerily similar to the Russian communist Yevsektsiya, an arm of the Russian propaganda, who set out to ‘destroy traditional Jewish life’. So what steps have the BBC, Sky, the Guardian and James O’Brien taken to ensure that they are not acting as mouthpieces for such a group? Have they done anything? Or is spirited debate ALWAYS WELCOME when it comes to racism? Will they place far-right people on a chair in their studio, every time there is a victim of anti-black racism or anti-Muslim hatred? How would that be received?
The problem of course is fueled by the deliberate confusion created in conflation. All it takes is one person, one, in a studio, media department, union, school, council session or strategy meeting, to utter the words that ‘anti-Zionism is not the same as antisemitism’, and we are back on that slippery slope. These have become empty terms used by people who do not understand them, that have allowed anti-Jewish racism to become normalised in our society. This mantra is of course promoted and propagated by groups like JVL who benefit for all the confusion they manage to create.
In any normal situation, society would rely on the victims themselves to define what they are and what they see as racism. With Jews that simply is not happening. Instead Jews are being accused of subverting democracy. Haven’t we all been down this road before? Surely now #enoughisenough
The Labour Party brings to mind any number of Yiddish expressions — most of them involving the performance of lavatorial functions — but none more so than the proverb Der mentsh trakht un Got lakht. Man plans and God laughs.
The Almighty’s black humour is surely at work in the resignation of Christine Shawcroft, chair of the Labour Party disputes panel. The woman responsible for rooting out anti-Semitism has been caught defending a council candidate accused of posting Holocaust-denying content on social media. In a leaked internal email, Shawcroft called for Peterborough’s Alan Bull to be reinstated after suspension for ‘a Facebook post taken completely out of context and alleged to show anti-Semitism’. One of Bull’s alleged posts read ‘International Red Cross report confirms the Holocaust of six million Jews is a hoax’ and a link to a neo-fascist website, Renegade Tribune. Bull insists screenshots of his Facebook page have been doctored. The Renegade Tribune has reported his plight under the headline: ‘UK Labour Candidate Shared Holohoax Article from Renegade Tribune, Suspended by Party’.
Shawcroft was put in charge of the disputes panel just 71 days ago, after the far-left ousted Ann Black, who is herself a left-winger but had seemingly displeased her comrades with her handling of membership rules and suspensions for, among other things, anti-Semitism. Her resignation, and the fact it came about via the leaking of an email sent only to fellow far-leftists, is being spun as proof that there is now an appetite among some Corbynistas for tackling Labour anti-Semitism. Undoubtedly, they are a ruthless, power-hungry bunch who make New Labour look positively unambitious by comparison. They would surely say or do or feign anything to get into Downing Street. Asked on Sky News this morning, John McDonnell would not say whether Shawcroft should also recuse herself from her NEC seat. (He later said she shouldn’t step down).
I hate to be a pain but it’s been three days now. Three days since Jeremy Corbyn acknowledged ‘pockets of anti-Semitism’ in the Labour Party and pledged himself as a ‘militant opponent’ of Jew-hatred. What has happened since then? Apart from Labour’s anti-anti-Semitism chief quitting after defending an accused anti-Semite, the answer seems to be nothing much. Richard Angell, head of the centrist pressure group Progress, has suggested a programme of actions to take on Labour anti-Semitism. Wes Streeting and John Mann have done likewise. Indeed, there seem to be more plans for ridding Labour of Jew-hatred than there are figures at the top of the party with any interest in or motivation to adopt them.
Itamar Ben Gal and his wife |
An Arab Israeli man was charged Thursday with the murder of Rabbi Itamar Ben-Gal, who was stabbed to death in a terror attack at the West Bank settlement of Ariel last month, with the indictment saying that the victim was chosen because of his appearance as a Jew.Most people would recognize someone murdering a Jew because of his kippah to be antisemitic.
On February 5, 19-year-old Abed al-Karim Assi is believed to have attacked Ben-Gal, 29, at a bus stop outside Ariel. Assi fled the scene, leading security forces on a month-long manhunt that ended with his arrest last week in the Palestinian city of Nablus.
According to the indictment filed at the Central District Court, Assi decided to commit a terror attack and kill Jews after he had an argument with an IDF soldier at a junction outside Ariel.
Later on the same day, Assi is said to have purchased two 27-centimeter-long knives at a store in Nablus and returned to the same junction, where he spotted Ben-Gal at a bus stop and recognized him as Jewish by kippa.
He then closed in on Ben-Gal and stabbed him “with great force” in his chest and abdomen, continuing to pursue his victim even after the latter attempted to flee. A passing driver noticed what was happening and hit Assi with his car, prompting him to flee the scene.
So, what’s the story? No conspiracy. Get it? No conspiracy. Jewish people are over-represented in positions of competence and authority because, as a group, they have a higher mean IQ. The effect of this group difference (approximately the difference between the typical high school student and the typical state college student) is magnified for occupations/interests that require high general cognitive ability. Equal over-representation may also occur in political movements associated with the left, because high IQ is associated with Openness to Experience, which is in turn associated with liberal/left-leaning political proclivities.
There is no evidence whatsoever that Ashkenazi Jews are over-represented in any occupations/interests for reasons other than intelligence and the associated effects of intelligence on personality and political belief. Thus, no conspiratorial claims based on ethnic identity need to be given credence. [emphasis in original]
On March 23, the United States enacted the Taylor Force Act which cuts almost all aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues paying salaries to terrorists and allowances to families of dead terrorists. Even before the final vote in the US Congress, PA leaders announced that they rejected the Taylor Force Act and would not stop rewarding terrorists as the United States demanded.
The following are some of the reactions before and following the US passing of the law.
Before the enactment of the Taylor Force Act:
Mahmoud Abbas to PLO Central Council: “We will continue to pay them”
"There is something that the Americans are telling us to stop - the salaries of the Martyrs and the Martyrs' families. Of course we categorically reject this. We will not under any circumstances allow anyone to harm the families of the prisoners, the wounded, and the Martyrs. They are our children and they are our families. They honor us, and we will continue to pay them before the living." [Official PA TV, Jan. 14, 2018]
Issa Karake, Director of Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs:
“We are proud... it's our national, human, and moral obligation”
“I’ll quote [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas: ... “Until the last day of my life, we won't stop this support. It's important” ... The family of every Palestinian prisoner receives social aid. We’re proud of this, not ashamed of it, and we say this openly, because it's our national, human, and moral obligation, and the obligation of the struggle. It is supported by the Palestinian leadership and by the Palestinian government.”
[Official PA TV, PLO Institutions, Feb. 26, 2018]
In a Friday sermon delivered at the Masjid Al Furqaan in Cape Town, South Africa, Sheikh Riyaad Fataar said that the Al-Aqsa Mosque was "slipping from the hands of the Islamic nation... because the plans of the Jews are moving [ahead]." Quoting Saladin and saying that Muslims "are staying in Jihad in order to get rid of the Zionist occupier," Sheikh Fataar, who is the Deputy President of the Muslim Judicial Council of South Africa and the imam of the Husami Masjid in Cravenby, a suburb of Cape Town, called upon all Muslims in the world to support them and "show your help in whatever different ways there are." "All other free people of the world are called: If you think that holy sites are important in your religion... you should be standing with them," said Sheikh Fataar, a graduate of Al-Azhar, who serves as the lifetime president of the South African Students' Association in Egypt. The sermon was delivered on March 16 and posted on the YouTube channel of Masjid Al Furqaan, which is part of the Islamia College in Cape Town.
To view the clip of Sheikh Riyaad Fataar on MEMRI TV, click here or below.
"All Muslims Around The World Are Called To Support Them – To Show Your Help In Whatever Different Ways There Are"
Sheikh Riyaad Fataar: "Today we speak about Palestine and we speak about Al-Quds, and you know Al-Quds means Jerusalem – the Al-Aqsa Mosque – because it is in continuous danger. It is in continuous danger, oh Muslims. It is slipping from our hands. It is slipping from the hands of the Islamic nation, it is slipping from the hands of the Muslims, because the plans of the Jews are moving [ahead], are moving, while the Muslims are sleeping.
"[Israel] is busy, and it is continually changing the features around the Al-Aqsa Mosque, Al-Quds, and Palestine – changing anything that looks Islamic, Arabic, or Christian, and so on – because the ultimate objective is: 'Let's remove these Muslims from here. Let's get them out of here. Let's get the Christians out of here.' This is the road of the Jews, this is the road of the Zionists, so that they will make sure that they are going to end up with something that is pure... purely, only for them – for the Zionists and for the Jews.
"The Zionists are as fierce as always in their violence. They are armed terrorists, and at the end of the day, say the ulema, their whole objective is to wipe Islam out of [Jerusalem].
Cape Town Imam Riyaad Fataar Calls on All Muslims, Free People Worldwide to Support Jihad in Palestine pic.twitter.com/MY53l5iAsY
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) March 28, 2018
The German Corporation for International Cooperation in Amman fired an employee for her pro-Israel comments on a Facebook page in December.Anti-Israel posts by GIZ were cataloged by NGO Monitor:
The former employee, who asked not to be named, told The Jerusalem Post this month that her contract was not extended because she posted a personal Facebook post stating if the Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi slapped a Jordanian soldier, “she would have been immediately shot.”
The former employee told the Post that “it is not fair that we can’t talk about it [the Tamimi case].
She faced a wave criticism on Facebook, including wild conspiracy theories that she is a “spy.” She worked for the German Corporation for International Cooperation for seven years without any complaints.
When asked about the employee’s alleged discharge for defending Israel, Michaela Baur, the head of the corporation’s office in Amman, said that she “was not fired, her contract expired.”
When asked about anti-Israel, including alleged antisemitic, posts, on Facebook by corporation employees, Baur declined to answer.
In January 2016, Luke McBain, head of GIZ’s “Civil Society Programme Palestine” and of the program for “Strengthening Women in Decision-Making in the Middle East,” described Zionism as a “settler-colonialist movement,” claiming that this “explains everything,” including the “endless occupation.”
Referring to the 2014 Gaza war, McBain accused the Israel Defense Forces of adhering to an “illegal military doctrine,” and claimed that “Responding to violence originating from a territory which you occupy is not self-defense.”
Mohammed Al-Mutawakel is currently a project manager at GIZ headquarters in Germany and was previously a project manager in Jordan. He has used social media to compare Israel to the Nazis and to threaten Israel’s destruction.
Safa Kamal el Naser is a GIZ regional advisor in Jordan. In December 2017, he shared a Facebook post claiming that a “Hebrew spring” was behind the downfall of Arab dictators Saddam Hussein, Muammar Qaddafi and Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Before joining the GIZ program “Values for Religion and Development” in 2016- a program that he heads, Ulrich Nitschke led the Local Governance and Civil Society Development Program and Future for Palestine at GIZ Palestine” and the chairperson of the GIZ’s Sector Network Governance for the Middle East and North Africa region.
He has used Facebook to promote BDS, advocate for Ahed Tamimi, deny the Jewish connection to the Temple Mount, accuse Israel of misusing the term “antisemitism” and stake out other anti-Israel positions.
Tobias Thiel heads GIZ’s “Strengthening Reform Initiatives” project. He has shared articles claiming that Israel committed a “deliberate massacre” in Gaza, and arguing that Israel does not have the right to defend itself.
Shocked at the “incomprehensible” killing of a wheelchair-bound amputee protester by Israeli security forces, the top United Nations human rights official has called on the country to open an independent and impartial investigation into the incident.I noted at the time that Abu Thurayeh had told his family the night before that he planned to die:
“International human rights law strictly regulates the use of force in the context of protests and demonstrations. The lethal use of firearms should only be employed as the last resort, when strictly unavoidable, in order to protect life,” Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said on Tuesday.
“However, as far as we can see, there is nothing whatsoever to suggest that Ibrahim Abu Thurayeh [the protester] was posing an imminent threat of death or serious injury when he was killed,” he added, stressing: “Given his severe disability, which must have been clearly visible to those who shot him, his killing is incomprehensible – a truly shocking and wanton act.”
The Palestinian’s brother told Ruptly that Thurayeh knew he would not be coming back from the protest alive. “Yesterday my brother said to me while he was eating dinner us: ‘Brother, forgive me. This is the last night you will see me. And you, my mother, forgive me, and you my sisters, you all forgive me...’No comment from Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein.
“He kissed the hand and the leg of my father and said to him: Father, forgive me. This is the last night you will see me, as I intend to be a martyr. I am bored of this life, I have no legs and I have nothing. I want to die and rest from life.”
His mother told Ruptly that her son wanted to “sacrifice himself for the homeland,” adding that “he has become a martyr.” His father said that his son died for Jerusalem.
....The older bereaved brother, who took part in Ibrahim’s funeral, recalled for Mondoweiss their last conversation during breakfast last Wednesday. Ibrahim saw that the demonstrations were becoming deadly. “Mom, bro… please forgive me for any mistake I have ever did, I have lost my legs for my country and I think that is not enough, I must sacrifice my whole body for the sacrifice of the homeland,” Ibrahim said.
Findings of a Military Police investigation into the death of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, a double amputee who was killed during a violent protest near the border fence in the northern Gaza Strip in mid December, reveal that the sniper fire had ended at least an hour before the time Abu Thuraya was hurt according to Palestinian reports, Ynet has learned.I also noted that Abu Thuraya was depressed for years over not being able to provide for his family and to find a wife.
Two snipers from the Maglan special forces unit were questioned under caution by the Military Police Investigations Division in recent weeks on suspicion of causing Abu Thuraya's death. One of the snipers told his investigators, "There's no chance we killed him. We have been trained to detect injuries."
According to the findings, Ynet had learned, the sniper fire that day was halted at least one hour before the Palestinians claim Abu Thuraya was shot and hit. The snipers fired at key instigators only three times that day.
Gaza Division officials have also detected the growing participation of many disabled Palestinians, including people in wheelchairs, in these protests. The fighters have been instructed to avoid hitting the disabled protests, who are usually positioned in the centers of friction, so as not to provide Hamas with the image it is hoping to gain.
The bottom line of the military investigation is that no fault was found in the forces' conduct during that incident. One of the assumptions, which hasn’t been proved as part of the investigation, is that Abu Thuraya died from a ricochet of a certain crowd dispersal mean used by the forces to drive the rioters away.
The two Maglan unit snipers were questioned under caution by the Military Police following Palestinian claims that an autopsy found Abu Thuraya had been struck in the head by a bullet while attending the weekly fence protest.
The two fighters and their commanders argued that no shots had been fired at the disabled protestor. "We are trained to accurately hit our targets," one of the snipers told his investigators. "And in any event, the instruction is to shoot at the lower part of a key instigator's body. There's no chance we killed him. We are trained to detect injuries after every shooting, and when that happens we see people gather around the wounded person. In this case, it didn't happen."
About six months after Andrew Pessin posted on his Facebook profile a defense of Israel during its 2014 war against Hamas, the once popular Connecticut College philosophy professor was subjected to an academic smear campaign. The school paper published articles defaming him. The administration hosted condemnations of Pessin from across the campus community on the school's website, and tolerated other anti-Semitic activities that only worsened the climate for Jews and Israel supporters. Pessin received death threats and, in the spring of 2015, took a medical leave of absence. The Connecticut College administration offered no meaningful protection or support to Pessin, and never issued any apology for its role in his abuse.
The Pessin affair was part of a growing trend of anti-Israel hostility on U.S. campuses, but at least his story has a somewhat happy ending. Pessin resumed teaching last fall after an extended paid sabbatical, and – together with a colleague – convinced the school to establish a Jewish Studies program. Moreover, he has edited a new book with Fordham University's Doron Ben-Atar on the general campus trend: Anti-Zionism on Campus: The University, Free Speech, and BDS. Ben-Atar, who is part of Fordham's American Studies program, protested at a faculty meeting about the 2013 passing of a resolution calling for a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) targeting Israel, only to find himself soon being investigated for unspecified charges, resulting in a Kafkaesque campaign of intimidation and vilification. This volume of essays, by faculty and students who have confronted anti-Israelism on their campuses, documents and analyzes how this movement masks an underlying anti-Semitism that creates a hostile environment for Jews while undermining free speech and civility.
Writer Noah Beck interviewed Pessin via email.
Q: Your book catalogues the many underhanded tactics used to promote the anti-Israel agenda on college campuses, which should help Israel advocates prepare for what awaits them. Did your personal ordeal inspire you to create a potential resource for campus Israel advocates? Or did you have the idea for such a book even before what happened to you?
Pessin: I had been observing the general campus scene for some time, but passively; like many professors, I preferred to spend my time teaching and doing my research, rather than get involved in the mess. And so, when I read about Doron's affair at Fordham, being persecuted for standing up for Israel, I simply thought, "That's terrible," then clicked on the next story. It was only six months later, when I began to receive hundreds of emails of support from around the world, that I realized how important it is to hear from people off campus. So I wrote to him, belatedly, to offer my support—and he wrote back immediately to suggest we collect narratives from faculty members who have been on the receiving end of anti-Israel nastiness on their campuses. Though the book evolved from there—we include several more analytical essays, as well as some narratives from students—that's how it was born.
Last November, the Tunisian-born French movie producer Said Ben Saïd briefly found himself thrust into the center of the Arab world’s conflict with Israel as a result of his work with Nadav Lapid, an Israeli film director.Charles Jacobs: As Passover Nears, Let’s Not Forget Farrakhan’s Shameful Stance on Slavery
In an op-ed for the French daily Le Monde, Ben Saïd revealed that an invitation to preside over the jury of the 28th Carthage Film Festival in Tunisia had been curtly rescinded because of his cooperation with Lapid, as well as his participation on the judges panel at the 2017 Jerusalem Film Festival in Israel. That decision provided an opportunity for Ben Saïd to articulate some home truths.
“[I]t must be admitted that the Arab world is, in its majority, antisemitic,” Ben Saïd wrote at the time. “This hatred of Jews has redoubled in intensity and depth not because of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but with the rise of a certain vision of Islam.”
Four months on, Ben Saïd, who was on a visit to New York, seemed unfazed that his critique of the widespread, socially acceptable antisemitism that has endured throughout the Arab world for more than a century had not become more commonplace.
“I’m talking as an Arab and as a Muslim, and that’s what I am,” Ben Saïd explained during an interview with The Algemeiner at his hotel in Manhattan’s Soho district. “But I am talking against a majority of people who do not think as I do. Those people who need to think completely differently about their relationship with Israel, they are the same people who are at present convinced that they are not antisemitic. They think they are merely anti-Zionists.”
In 1995, as Research Director of the American Anti-Slavery Group, I co-authored a New York Times op-ed with Mohammed Athie, an African Muslim refugee, that first brought broad national attention to the plight of black chattel slaves in North Africa. In Sudan, for decades, as part of a war waged by the Arab north against the black, mostly Christian south, militia armed by Khartoum stormed African villages, killed the men and captured the women and the children. These served their masters as goat-herds, domestic servants, and sex-slaves. In Mauritania, Arab Berbers who had conquered the area centuries before had always kept African slaves, even though these were Muslims. As our Times piece explained, Western rights groups had thoroughly documented human bondage in these two countries, but did next to nothing to marshal their constituencies to act. No one was trying to free the slaves.
As interest in the issue grew, especially in the black press, Mohammed and I were invited on PBS’s Tony Brown’s Journal, a popular news show where we described our experience and research. We cited reports on current day slavery from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the State Department in Sudan, Mauritania, and Libya.
Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam immediately demanded to have its spokesperson—Akbar Muhammed—come on the show with a different view. Akbar claimed this was all a “big lie,” part of a Jewish conspiracy against Minister Farrakhan. Akbar was particularly upset about our mention of human bondage in Libya; It turned out that he was Farrakhan’s emissary to that country. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page, Khadafi had loaned Farrakhan $5 million in 1984 and later promised to give the Nation of Islam a billion dollars for “Muslim causes” in America which, Clarence Page suggested, was what kept Farrakhan mute on African slavery.
(photo credit: Dov Epstein) |
(photo credit: Dov Epstein) |
(photo credit: Dov Epstein) |
- 7.47% of the PA's operational budget is for salaries to terrorist prisoners, released terrorists, and payments to families of "Martyrs" and woundedMurder of 11 at Savoy hotel in 1975 was “greatest and most wonderful quality operation,” says Fatah
- The PA has 2 budget categories rewarding terror; together they equal 44% of anticipated foreign aid
- New in 2018 Budget: For the first time since 2014, the PA is directly paying the Commission of Prisoners, which pays the salaries to terrorist prisoners; as a result, the PA now fits Israel's criteria to be declared a terror organization
Total PA 2018 operational budget: 16.559 billion shekels ($4.76 billion)
Salaries to terrorist prisoners: 550 million shekels ($158 million)
Payments to families of "Martyrs" and wounded: 687 million shekels ($197 million)
Total expenditure in budget categories rewarding terror = 1.237 billion shekels ($355 million)
For comparison: PA Ministry of Health which serves the entire population of 5 million has a budget of 1.787 billion shekels, a mere 44% more than 1.237 billion shekels serving the recipients in the two budget categories rewarding terror
In the same week that the United States passed the Taylor Force Act, which cuts off nearly all US aid to the Palestinian Authority if it continues paying salaries to terrorist prisoners and allowances to families of terrorist "Martyrs," the PA publicized the main parts of its 2018 budget. In open defiance of the US, other donor countries, and Israel, the PA's new budget shows it is continuing to reward terror. The amount the PA has budgeted to spend on the two categories that reward terror (salaries to prisoners and allowances to families of "Martyrs" and wounded) is 7.47% of the total operational budget. The amount equals 44% of the funding the PA hopes to receive in foreign aid in 2018, which is 2.79 billion shekels according to the budget.
United Nations agencies that single out Israel may soon be on the hook to lose a certain portion of US funding.'There's a tendency in Israel to demonize Sweden' (not satire)
According to a little-noticed provision in the massive government spending bill that President Donald Trump signed into law last week, UN agencies and entities that act against the United States or its allies, including Israel, could lose 5% of their US contribution.
The new law requires the secretary of state to consult with the US ambassador to the UN to determine if an “agency or entity has taken an official action that is against the national security interest of the United States or an ally of the United States, including Israel.” Israel is the only US ally that is explicitly named in both the bill’s text and its accompanying report language.
In an effort to sway UN policy, the law stipulates that the UN agency must take steps to change the policy in question before receiving the withheld funds. Otherwise, the funds are subject to reprogramming for other international organizations.
Josh Reubner, the policy director for the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, a coalition of groups supporting Palestinian statehood, denounced the new law as “yet another example of how the United States bends over backward to shield Israel from valid criticism at the UN.”
“It also shows how the Republican-led Congress is closely coordinating with the Trump administration to make good on its threat to punish the UN for criticizing Israel’s separate-and-unequal policies toward Palestinians,” added Reubner.
But US lawmakers and successive US administrations have long held that the UN singles Israel out for unfairly harsh treatment relative to other countries. Nonetheless, the Trump administration is considering options to make the UN more favorable to Israel.
Sweden’s ambassador to Israel on Tuesday claimed there was a tendency in Israel to “demonize” his country and in particular foreign minister Margot Wallstrom.
In an interview with i24news, the ambassador, Magnus Hellgren, also insisted he doesn’t see the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement as anti-Semitic.
Relations between Israel and Sweden have been tense in recent years. Wallstrom in particular has come under fire for her harsh anti-Israel comments.
In 2014, then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman denounced Sweden’s decision to recognize the Palestinian Authority (PA) as "the State of Palestine", saying that “relations in the Middle East are a lot more complex than the self-assembly furniture of IKEA”.
Wallstrom later replied and said she would be “happy” to send Liberman some IKEA furniture “and he will also see that what you need to put that together is, first of all, a partner.”
Following that incident, Wallstrom accused Israel of being “extremely aggressive” and accused the Jewish state of “irritating its allies”.
In December of 2015, she attacked Israel again, claiming during a debate in parliament that Israel was “executing” without trial terrorists who carried out stabbing attacks in Israel.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!