There are petitions with 15,000 signatures to free Mays Abu Ghosh from prison:
She was sentenced to 16 months in prison this week.
What were the charges against her? Haaretz' Gideon Levy co-wrote (with Alex Levac) a sarcastic article making fun of the idea that she is anything but an innocent lamb, so let's see if we can translate his spin into truth:
Mohammed Abu Ghosh says that his daughter’s arrest has been even more difficult for him than his son’s death. He casts a wistful glance at a huge photo of Mays’ pretty face and falls silent. A pendant in the shape of Palestine is hanging around her neck. Mays, his eldest, has been in Israeli custody for five months.
Mohammed has known his share of suffering: His son Hussein was killed at the age of 17 after perpetrating a stabbing attack in the settlement of Beit Horon in which Shlomit Krigman was killed in 2016. Mohammed’s nephew, also named Hussein, was killed at the age of 19 on the first anniversary of his son’s death, in a car-ramming attack in the settlement of Ma’aleh Mikhmash. And Mohammed’s son Suleiman, now 17, was twice arrested last year and held in administrative detention – incarceration without trial – for four months each time.
Translation: Mays comes from a family of terrorists.
Now Mays is in prison and, according to her lawyers and other sources, she has been tortured during her interrogations. The five counts of the indictment against her sound serious and terrifying, but are for the most part revealed as ridiculous when the details are known.
The “unlawful association” that Mays, a fourth-year student in the media department at Bir Zeit University, is accused of belonging to is the left-wing students’ organization, Qutub. Israeli authorities claim that Qutub is affiliated with the outlawed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, but the student group denies any such connection.
Apparently Levy was convinced by that denial without doing any checking. Because the Facebook page of Qutub says that it is indeed associated with the PFLP as well as the DFLP.
And its activities are featured on the PFLP website.
"The only road to Palestine" (is through violence.)
So, yeah, Mays is associated with a terror group.
“Bearing, possessing and manufacturing weapons” boils down to filling two bottles with sand at a gas station and inserting pieces of cloth into them, which to her interrogators indicated that she might have been making a Molotov cocktail.
Hold on. She inserted sand and some cloth into a glass bottle outside a gas station.
The only ingredients in a Molotov cocktail are a bottle, gasoline and a cloth as a wick. But guess what? Sand is also used in Molotov cocktails to give it some weight and it helps the glass break easier.
Of course she was putting together a Molotov cocktail. What else could she have been doing - an art project outside a gas station? Perhaps someone should ask Gideon Levy.
So, yeah, Mays was caught manufacturing a firebomb.
“Contact with an enemy” apparently involved participating in a conference about the Palestinian return in Lebanon, speaking on a radio program about her dead brother and intending to prepare a report on Hadeel al-Hashlamoun.
About that conference in Lebanon: Mays met with Hezbollah while there. In fact, she was offered a job as a reporter for Al-Nour TV while there, which is a Hezbollah station.
So, yeah, Mays was in contact with Hezbollah.
Paragraph 2.4 of Mays’ charge sheet is particularly serious: “In August 2019, or a proximate date, the accused spoke with Kutzi Masalmeh, Lian Elkaid and Samah Gradath about holding a summer camp for the organization [Qutub], and wondered how to go about it in the light of the detention of a number of people.”
Fortunately for Israel, the malicious and perilous plan to organize a summer camp was thwarted in time, thanks to the Shin Bet security service.
What do you think would be taught at a summer camp run by a group linked to terror? It isn't a summer camp, it is an indoctrination center for children to join the PFLP.
Just based on a biased Haaretz report and some basic searches, we can see that Mays Abu Ghosh grew up with terrorists, joined a student group linked to terrorists and that glorifies terrorists, met with terrorists herself, and was caught making two firebombs.
And these are just the charges and details we know about.
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On March 30, 2020, the EU Representative Office to the West Bank and Gaza sent a “clarification letter regarding the EU-funded contracts” to Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO) – an umbrella organization of 135 Palestinian NGOs. In it, the EU diplomats appear to give in to Palestinian pressure and effectively annul EU regulations that prohibit the transfer of EU funds to terror groups or individuals connected to these groups (what Palestinian NGOs label “political parties” and “resistance factions”).
At least five members of PNGO have reported ties to EU-designated terror organizations, including through employees and/or board members who are directly involved in the activities and programs – on top of the various Palestinian NGOs and humanitarian groups that are affiliated with the PFLP. In addition to ongoing funding, on April 9 the EU announced a massive assistance package to the PA of “around €71 million in response to the coronavirus pandemic,” including “€6.9 million in humanitarian aid” to unnamed “non-governmental organisations and UN agencies already present on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
In practice, this means that even if a Palestinian NGO applying for EU grants is an affiliate of terrorist groups or employs individuals from these groups, the EU will still provide them with taxpayer funding – whether designated for emergency responses to COVID-19 or for regular programs.
Background
In 2019, the EU introduced a clause in its contracts with NGOs, under “General conditions applicable to European Union-financed grant contracts for external actions” (Annex G.2, Annex II, Article 1.5 bis). It stipulates that “Grant beneficiaries and contractors must ensure that there is no detection of subcontractors, natural persons, including participants to workshops and/or trainings and recipients of financial support to third parties, in the lists of EU restrictive measures.” In the Palestinian context, these lists EU-designated terrorist organizations(e.g. Hamas, Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Islamic Jihad, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine).
According to media reports, during a December 20, 2019 meeting with EU officials, representatives from PNGO “refused to sign an EU grant request which stipulates among its criteria that beneficiaries must refuse to transfer any EU aid given to terrorist groups or entities….The organizations in question steadfastly decline to do so, claiming Palestinian terrorist groups are merely ‘political parties.’”
On December 30, 2019, multiple Palestinian NGOs, including PNGO members, launched a “Palestinian National Campaign to Reject Conditional Funding.” The campaign, which rejects the EC’s “conditioned funding” and “so-called anti-terrorism clauses and policies…on preventing terrorism that affect the history and struggle of our people” (emphasis added), justifies the use of violence and claims that the “Palestinian resistance factions are not terrorist organizations,” Click Here to Read NGO Monitor’s Letter to the President of the European Commission Regarding the Anti-Terror Clause
Palestinians affiliated with terrorist groups may participate in EU activities, EU Representative to West Bank and Gaza Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff wrote in an official letter obtained by The Jerusalem Post on Thursday.
The letter, dated March 30, to the Palestinian NGO Network clarified that all EU-funded projects, including by Palestinian organizations, must follow EU law, such as a ban on funding terrorist groups. However, the letter points out that there are no Palestinian individuals on the EU's "restrictive measures list" barring funds to terrorists, such that the NGOs would not be penalized if members of terrorist groups benefit from EU funding.
"While the entities and groups included in the EU restrictive lists cannot benefit from EU-funded activities, it is understood that a natural person affiliated to, sympathizing with or supporting any of the groups or entities mentioned in the EU restrictive lists is not excluded from benefiting from EU-funded activities, unless his/her exact name and surname...corresponds to any of the natural persons on the EU restrictive list," the letter reads.
The letter also states that "the EU does not ask any civil society organization to change its political position towards any Palestinian faction or to discriminate against any natural person based on his/her political affiliation."
Von Burgsdorff’s message came after months of protests by Palestinian NGOs demanding that the EU erase a stipulation that aid only be sent to organizations with no ties to EU-designated terrorist groups.
Monthly budget documents prepared by the Palestinian Authorities for 2020 show that the administration is attempting to hide the salaries it pays terrorists from international donors, making a sham of its commitment to financial transparency.
The PA receives hundreds of millions of dollars annually from donor countries around the world and is therefore obliged to produce fully transparent financial records with all expenses listed for the benefit of its donors. However, its 'pay to slay' scheme, which pays terrorists a monthly stipend, likely falls foul of international law, leaving the PA unable to openly declare the payments within its budget.
Consequently, the NGO Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) has found that the PA is diverting the payments through the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), a trick it has used in the past.
“Ever since PMW notified the donor countries that the PA’s is paying salaries to terrorist prisoners with their money, the PA has been doing everything it can to confuse the donors," Itamar Marcus, director of PMW said.
"In 2014, the PA closed the PA Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs, and in 2015 it created the PLO Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs. In 2018, it reopened the PA Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs and in 2019 it changed its name to the Commission for Detainees’ Affairs. Now in 2020, it is trying to hide its payments by moving them once again from the PA to the PLO.”
Detailed analysis of the PA's Budget Performance Reports show that in 2018, the PA spent 736 million shekels financing the Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs. The following year the Authority spent a further 619 million shekels financing the Commission for Detainees' Affairs, of which 517 million was spent on terrorists salaries. In the 2020 reports, however, neither organization is listed, but the monies paid to the PLO has increased significantly, from just over 400 million shekels to in excess of 700 million shekels.
Palestine and the Will to Theorise Decolonial QueeringWalaa Alqaisiya
AbstractThis article posits a theorisation of decolonisation in relation to queer as it emerges from the settler-colonial context of Palestine, what I call decolonial queering. The first part provides a new reading of Zionist settler-colonialism, which I define as hetero-conquest. Its novelty lies in refocusing the question of colonialism in native grounded knowledge of queering, while showing the limitations of those existing studies whose frames emanate mainly from American and/or global north contexts of racism and homo-nationalism. By tracing the contemporary continuity of hetero-conquest in Palestine, the second part unpacks the need for a radical theory of liberation that weaves decolonization into queer. Bringing Sara Ahmed and Frantz Fanon into dialogue, such a theory emanates from the amalgam of histories, geographies and bodies, whose restoration beyond the strictures of hetero-conquest opens the way for a radical multi-scalar politics of liberation.
The paper itself isn't much more understandable, but one part that was almost in English was interesting.
In May 2016, Israel held its first ever beauty pageant for transgender people and the winner was Talleen Abu Hanna, an ‘Arab citizen of Israel,’ who became Israel’s transgender beauty queen. Abu Hanna’s victory marked a significant historic moment, signalling the undeniable progressiveness of Israel as an LGBT haven. The circulating facts about Israel as a beacon of LGBT emancipation, however, are part of a very carefully engineered array of narratives that aim to frame and sponsor the country as a liberal democracy via its record on gender and sexuality rights. In so doing, those narratives also are engrained into a chrono-geographical scheme that is reminiscent of what has been presented so far. Israel’s record of LGBT tolerance, in fact, is measured in relation to its Arab neighbours, who happen to lack such values....
The success story of Israel’s Arab transgender queen is not simply a historic
moment showcasing Israel’s progress on transgender rights, but it sits within the discursive economies of Zionist rightful [settler-colonial] presence over Palestine by virtue of emancipating the ‘oriental’ ‘woman-land.’ Being a woman and Arab, in fact, are
constituting elements in this victory, as they permit readers to zoom on the necessity
of her ‘triumph’ over her Arab closed-minded background, which rejected her and did
not accept her transitioning....
Abu Hannah’s case and the narratives mobilised around her allows us to map the
historical continuity of Zionist hetero-conquest. Similar to the oriental woman-land,
whose emancipation awaited halutz desiring project -fusing Zionist spatio-temporal
constitutive (modern ploughing techniques birthing a Zionist geography)- Abu Hanna’s
ability to transition successfully as a woman owes to Israel’s presence as a place of
modern sexual values. Read within the sphere of Halutz desiring logic, Abu Hanna is
the perfect embodiment of a sexed and gendered other, whose racialised [oriental]
essence makes it possible to demarcate the necessity of Zionist conquest, with its
moral modern and civilizational attributes. Through Abu Hanna, Israel’s unprecedented
celebration of transgender rights can be fathomed only in relation to its antithesis: a
Palestine to which Abu Hanna is grateful not to belong to. The latter lacks in cultural
and moral values that Israel has – [Palestine] would have killed Abu Hanna- while
Israel is the one that nurtures and permits the unfolding of her True sexed/gendered self. With this triumph, Abu Hanna is not only said to reveal and fulfil her true gendered self, but is also caught within the discursive promotion of Israel: As a place of
peace and a culture of sexual tolerance as opposed to Palestine and rest of the Arab
region. The birthing of an Arab transgender queen of Israel, therefore, corresponds to
a Zionist settler colonial teleology, generating - once again - the legitimizing grounds
for de-legitimising Arabness/Palestine.
Alqaisiya cannot deny that Israel is a liberal state. She cannot deny that transgender rights exist in Israel and are non-existent in the Palestinian areas. She cannot deny that Talleen Abu Hanna is a proud Israeli who would be killed if she lived under Palestinian rule.
But pointing out those facts is immoral, because it helps legitimate Israel and it delegitimizes Palestine.
In other words, pointing out that Israel is a more moral and a more liberal society than any in the Arab world is worse than the gay-bashing, misogynist Arab culture itself. There is no greater crime than legitimizing Israel, and its liberalism and morality do exactly that, so they must not be discussed. And when Israel shows pride in its own accomplishments and its humanity, that is all a means to legitimize itself, and therefore immoral.
The next paragraph of gibberish mostly confirms what I wrote, but it ends with an astonishing statement for a supposed liberal to make:
Conceptual frames approaching queerness as a liberal critique would interpret the case
of Israel’s first Arab beauty queen as the emergence of (queer) homo-normative/
nationalist subjectivity, thus serving a liberal/nationalist status quo that is nevertheless
racist. Drawing on decolonial queering, however, I capture the historical continuity of
hetero-conquest and the embedded violence on a native self from without and from
within. This lens invites the reader to reflect on the case of Abu Hannah - and the narratives around her – as part and parcel of the history of Zionist conquest, whose constitutive gendering and racializing elements cohere with a structural settler-colonial
politics of Time, Space and Desire. More importantly, decolonial queering situates
queerness in relation to hetero-conquest generated from within Arab-native self-struggle and adopted taxonomies for emancipation. In other words, the story of the first
Arab transgender queen in Israel is not simply a moment of queer liberal time, where
the racialized Arab emerges as ‘the most salient and dangerous other at the moment
the homosexual, once the nation’s sexual other, gains increasing acceptability.’ This
would be a reductive analysis that divorces the event from a wider historical continuity
of settler-colonial conquest and its generative production of the conquerable other.
This triumph explains how those same dynamics of hetero-conquest – mapped above –
perpetuate, whereby the colonising saviour self-legitimises its presence over the
woman/land by virtue of extending those progressive values and tools the native is
presumed to lack. What is important in Abu Hannah’s case is that she as an Arab who is said to reify this narrative of Israel’s legitimate presence by virtue of promoting herself
as Israeli and mobilising international support for Israel. She, therefore, confirms the
Zionist colonial fantasy of having to endow conquest, as Neumann would perceive it in its
moral liberating terms vis-a-vis the woman-native who is yearning for her conqueror.
The Arab winner of a beauty contest is a person to be loathed because she said nice things about Israel. According to Alqaisiya, this cannot possibly be because she actually likes her country. No, she is "yearning for her conqueror" and is therefore worthy of contempt.
The only possible way that a leftist can insult a trans woman without the risk of being labeled "transphobic," is if that trans woman praises Israel, the ultimate evil.
This is academia in the social sciences today - pseudo-academic texts with multi-syllabic (and invented) words all meant to justify the basest of hatreds.
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Since Israel haters in the West are overwhelmingly part of the socialist Left, they attempt to buttress their anti-Israel argument by hitching a ride onto whatever the current trendy social justice issue is.
The irony is that every single accusation they make against Israel applies not to Israel - but to the Palestinians.
Every single one.
I started a thread on Twitter yesterday about this with a number of examples. For example, this classic where somehow "Palestine is a climate justice issue":
- Even though the Palestinians in the West Bank waste tons of water, and the ones in Gaza burn rubber tires and set Israeli fields on fire
Many have spoken about the insanity that attracts some gays to be pro-Palestinian when gays are honor-killed and beaten in Palestinian areas, and as far as I can tell there is not one gay person who is out in Palestinian controlled areas because of fear for his or her life.
Here's a novel one:
I admit I have no clue how Israel supposedly interferes with Palestinian reproductive rights. But I'm sure there is something. Maybe watching "Fauda" is depressing Palestinian birthrates.
Of course the social justice warriors will connect "walls" - because whatever Trump supports, they must oppose and link to Israel.
Yet Palestinians set up checkpoints and limits on who can enter their territories during the pandemic, as did everyone else - but no one talks about those "walls." Everyone has a right to defend themselves except Jews.
While the social justice crowd claims to be for free speech, they do everything they can to shout down any pro-Israel voices on campus while claiming that pointing out their own biases is "quashing" their own free speech.
Even last month, Palestinian officials have suspended two journalists from their jobs at the Palestinian press agency Wafa because they didn't like their social media posts. The PA also routinely arrests people for posting insults of Mahmoud Abbas on social media.
Somehow, even disability rights is framed to be an anti-Israel issue (this is a variant of the charge that Israel seeks to maim Palestinians.)
Speaking of police, we cannot forget that Israel haters claim that Israel is somehow responsible for police brutality in the US.
-Even though Palestinian police are much more brutal.
It's all intersectional!
Israel is even accused of somehow being linked to prisoner abuse worldwide - because Israel uses G4S as a security contractor sometimes, as so do other countries! (G4S is British.) Yes, there is no logic there, but that doesn't stop Linda Sarsour from making the claim that they are connected.
I found one case where people even tried to link gentrification of US neighborhoods to Israel!
That attempt failed miserably.
The SJWs say explicitly that somehow the Palestinian issue is the defining global justice issue of our time.
To these people, Israel is the unique evil that is behind all the other evils in the world.
Which is exactly what people have said about Jews over the past 2000 years.
It's truly an amazing coincidence.
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Following agreement between the Palestinian and Israeli authorities, over ten thousand Palestinian labourers crossed into Israel from the West Bank on 3 May. They are part of an estimated 40,000 labourers who have been granted permits to stay in Israel until the end of Ramadan. As part of the agreement, Israeli employers will be responsible for the accommodation of their workers, while the Israeli authorities will provide workers with health insurance, as well as protective masks and gloves.
Yes, Israel is providing health insurance for Palestinian workers.
If there is any non-Israel issue that the anti-Israel Left agrees on, it is universal health care. If they really care about Palestinians they should be very happy about this news that provides a safety net for those who need work and must go to Israel.
Haaretz reported last week that the Israeli Health Ministry issued a a directive already on March 24 requiring the Israeli employers to arrange for health care coverage for those Palestinians who decided to stay in Israel to continue to work. Soon they all went home anyway because the PA demanded it.
It looks like the employers are not all following the directive, so - based on this UN report - it looks like the Israeli government itself is ensuring that Palestinian workers have health insurance.
Even so, the ministry issued the order based on its own judgment of what is the right thing to do - not because of pressure from critics of Israel.
This is how a moral society works.
And this is why you will not hear a word about this from the people who claim to be pro-Palestinian. Because they want to find things to blame on Israel. They want to see Israel treating Palestinians poorly.
Palestinians, as always, are pawns to those who pretend to support them. And the proof is the lack of coverage of the remarkable fact that Israel is providing the most socialist of benefits to people who declare themselves to be Israel's enemy.
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My latest EoZTV interview is with Asaf Romirowsky where we discuss 70 years of UNRWA failure and what the future might bring.
Unfortunately you cannot hear his audio for the first 3 minutes, so listen to my initial question and skip to the 3:00 mark.
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There might be all manner of “creative ways” to help the Jordanians mitigate any damage and the US should certainly give them “time and space to advise us on how they intend to do it,” said Shapiro. “But that’s quite different from the seeming lack of conversation for a long time, where they simply refuse to discuss it and we conduct business as usual.”
Hoenlein and Conference of Presidents CEO William Daroff told The Times of Israel in Jerusalem in February it was outrageous that Tamimi was walking around freely in Jordan.
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations executive vice president Malcolm Hoenlein (R) and CEO William Daroff at The Times of Israel offices in Jerusalem, February 6, 2020. (Times of Israel)
“I speak to [Malki’s] parents and we are getting more involved in it,” said Hoenlein. “They are right: it is an outrage. Because of the sensitive position the king is in, everybody tiptoes. Rightfully, we have good relations with him, and when he comes to America, he meets with us always and we want to see him strengthened. We don’t want to jeopardize the stability of Jordan, which would have grave implications for Israel, for everyone in the region. But this is really an unacceptable situation.”
Along with the simple principle of justice, Congressman Perry, the legislator whose bid to condition US aid on Jordan honoring its treaty led to that extraordinary new “extradition” clause in this year’s Appropriations Bill, raised another central point when considering the balance between pushing Jordan hard for Tamimi’s extradition and preserving Jordan’s internal stability: the imperative that neither Jordan, nor any other country for that matter, be permitted to turn itself into a safe haven for terrorists.
“Delivering justice to the loved ones of the three Americans killed in the August 2001 senseless bombing is a top priority. Under United States law, we have the legal authority to try individuals whose attacks against US Nationals outside the US result in death; as such, we’re seeking the rightful extradition of Al-Tamimi from Jordan,” Perry said in an emailed statement. “Jordan’s unwillingness to cooperate with our extradition request is unacceptable, and I fear its resistance will turn them into a safe harbor for international terrorists and thugs.
“If Jordan is unwilling to allow Al-Tamimi to stand trial in the United States for the actions about which she publicly boasts and brags,” he added, “this is a very dangerous message to other bad actors that consider attacking innocent civilians.”
A group of Republican members of Congress have called on the Jordanian ambassador to the United States for the Hashemite Kingdom to extradite wanted Palestinian-Jordanian Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the United States.
Tamimi has been accused of being the mastermind behind the Sbarro Pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem on Aug. 9, 2001, that killed 15 people, including eight children, and wounded 121 others. Among those killed were two American citizens, 15-year-old Malki Roth and 31-year-old Judith Greenbaum, who was pregnant at the time. A third American, Chana Nachenberg, has remained in a permanent vegetative state ever since.
“Today, appallingly, Tamimi is a media celebrity, the subject of wide popular admiration. She has appeared publicly side-by-side with prominent political figures and received extraordinary recognition in Jordan’s mainstream press and television media as a respected commentator and as an object of Jordanian national pride,” wrote the group of Republican congressmen to Jordanian Ambassador to the United States Dina Kawar.
The signees were Reps. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), Ted Yoho (R-Fla.), Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), Brian Mast (R-Fla.), Scott Perry (R-Penn.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
“She has been showered with acclaim by the students of the Arab world’s most important graduate school of journalism, the Amman-based Jordan Media Institute, who declared her to be their “success model,’ ” they wrote. “For five years, she traveled widely and often to deliver public speeches throughout Jordan and in numerous Arab countries beyond Jordan’s borders. Her theme has always centered on promoting terror and terrorists.”
Tamimi, who planned the attack, has shown no remorse, saying she has “no regrets.”
The Supreme Court’s "narrow" technical ruling against the government over local authority divestments will not prevent forthcoming legislation to ban public bodies from imposing boycotts, the Conservative Friends of Israel group has said.
In a joint response to last week’s ruling that former Communities Secretary Said Javid had gone too far in telling local councils that they could not choose to shun certain countries when investing pension funds, CFI’s chair Stephen Crabb MP, Lord Pickles and Honorary President Lord Polak said the judge’s decision "serves to reinforce the importance of the government’s forthcoming legislation."
The trio added: "We reiterate our strong support for the Conservative government’s manifesto commitment to ban public bodies from imposing their own boycotts, divestments, and sanctions, which have all too often sown discord within local communities”.
Meanwhile a government spokesperson underlined the continued support for legislation – a commitment that was confirmed by Boris Johnson in the Queen’s Speech debate following the December general election. “We are committed to ensuring public bodies take a consistent approach to investments and to stop local boycotts," a spokesperson said this week. "We will therefore bring back new legislation that addresses the technical points raised by the Supreme Court."
A legal expert told the JC that last week’s ruling was "a narrow one" which applies in relation to a specific law, rather than making any general points about the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
They added that nothing in the judgement prevents parliament from passing new legislation.
A May 1st Guardian article by Patrick Wintour (“MPs press for sanctions against Israel over West Bank annexations“) promotes a letter organised by the Council for Arab British Understanding (Caabu), a UK lobby group which promotes BDS and other forms of deligitimisation against Israel.
It begins thusly: Nearly 130 parliamentarians, including former Conservative cabinet ministers, have written to Boris Johnson urging him to impose economic sanctions against Israel if Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition government goes ahead with its threat to annex parts of the West Bank.
However, we examined the 130+ parliamentarians who signed the pro-BDS letter, and it turns out to be far less impressive than the Guardian’s framing.
First, here’s our breakdown of the party affiliation of those who signed.
42 Labour MPs
12 Labour Peers
31 SNP MPs
7 Lib Dem MPs
17 Lib Dem Peers
9 Conservative MPs
3 Former Conservative MPs
5 Conservative Peers
1 Green MP
1 Plaid Cymru MP
1 Northern Ireland Alliance MP
8 Crossbench Peers
1 Green Peer
Some observations:
In total, only 92 signatories are current MPs. (The rest are either peers or retired MPs)
The number of current Labour MPs who signed the letter (42) is actually small when you consider that 91 Labour MPs are members of Labour Friends of Palestine, and that there are 202 Labour MPs overall. Further, signatures from high profile Labour MPs – including Jeremy Corbyn – were noticeably absent, and, in fact, not one member of Keir Starmer’s Shadow Cabinet signed.
The Western Wall Plaza reopened to worshippers on Tuesday morning.
The reopening comes after the Israeli government relaxed some of its coronavirus restrictions, including canceling the restriction on joining outdoor prayer services only within 500 meters from a person’s home.
The plaza in front of the Western Wall will be divided into as many prayer areas as possible in accordance with government social distancing regulations, The Western Wall Heritage Foundation, which operates the holy site, said in a statement.
For the next few days, up to 300 worshippers will be allowed to be in the Western Wall plaza at one time, contingent on them wearing masks.
Here's how Hamas mouthpiece Felesteen reported the news:
The resumption of the Jewish incursions into IslamicAl-Buraq Square in Jerusalem
The committee that supervises the Jewish settlers' incursions into the Islamic Al-Buraq Square, west of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, announced today, Tuesday, the resumption of these incursions in the place starting today.
This is just a reminder that for all the assertions that Muslims are tolerant towards Jews, there is a significant percentage that wouldn't even allow Jews to worship at the Western Wall if they were in charge. In fact, there is not a single Jewish holy place that Muslims do not also claim as their own, so they would - if they were in a position of power - ban all Jews from all holy places.
The people who say they want peace don't like to admit that fact, or they pretend that a Muslim state would act differently today.
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Once known as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, the agency has responded to the end of Jewish refugee immigration into the port of New York by refocusing on refugee advocacy Washington, D.C.
In doing so, HIAS is joining an exodus of religion-based immigrant agencies, said Mark Hetfield, HIAS president and CEO.
It was all about a growing trend among organizations that were shedding their old identities once they saw their original missions as having been fulfilled.
The change was more than geographic:
Not only will HIAS join other refugee aid organizations in Washington, it will also compete with other Jewish organizations involved in advocacy and claiming to be the “Jewish voice” on this or that political issue. Each group is fighting to carve out a niche for itself in what some think is an oversaturated market of advocacy groups, none of which seem to close down when its job is done.
Now, just 6 years later, HIAS is again in the news and may be signaling another new trend in American Jewish organizations.
The recent nomination of Dianne Lob as the next chairperson of the Conference of Presidents created an uproar, and it is more than just because of claims that the organization's bylaws may have been violated to make the nomination happen.
The larger concern is that Lob was the former chairperson of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society -- HIAS.
Just how controversial can helping Jewish refugees be?
There are 2 distinct narratives as to what is happening.
He writes that despite Lob's statement of unity in strengthening the Jewish community and supporting Israel,
over the past week, right-wingers within and outside the Presidents Conference launched a pressure campaign against the nomination, citing Lob’s involvement with HIAS, which has clashed with the Trump administration over immigration policy. Leading the charge was Morton Klein’s Zionist Organization of America, which has strongly opposed efforts to resettle Muslim refugees from Arab countries in the United States and Europe — something that has topped the HIAS agenda in recent years because of unrest in the Muslim world.
Kampeas writes that this "injection of immigration politics into Presidents Conference deliberations" reflects how the left-right divide in the Jewish community has gone beyond an Israel-centric focus to encompass an issue embroiling the country. The controversy of the Lob's HIAS background is
the antagonistic relationship between HIAS and the Trump administration. HIAS has clashed repeatedly with the current administration on its immigration policy and has been lead plaintiff in at least two lawsuits against the administration.
We were founded as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. As we expanded our mission to protect and assist refugees of all faiths and ethnicities, we realized our name no longer represented the organization. We are now known as HIAS, the global Jewish nonprofit that protects refugees. [emphasis added]
HIAS CEO, Mark Hetfield, however, gave a different reason for the change, saying that the word “Hebrew” is exclusionary and outdated, much as the word “colored” is to refer to African Americans.
The mission of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is to secure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights in order to eliminate race-based discrimination and ensure the health and well-being of all persons.
Nor does it shy away from making it clear their mission remains:
the major areas of inequality facing African Americans that are the focus of the NAACP’s work. [emphasis added]
But there is more to this than a change in name.
This change in focus that Hetfield refers to has had real ramifications.
The group assisted 4,188 people last year from 36 different countries; about half were Muslims. The others were Jews and Christians and some Hindus and Buddhists, Hetfield said. The Jews – just 169 out of the total – were mainly from Ukraine and Iran.
As Suissa points out, that's just 4%.
But Suissa has no problem with helping non-Jewish refugees. Instead, his argument is that HIAS should “grandfather” immigration assistance into its budget for Jews who, though not technically qualifying as refugees, are feeling the pressure of antisemitism in the US or are experiencing other kinds of extreme hardships.
But ZOA's Mort Klein goes further, taking those numbers and making a case against Lob and claiming that HIAS itself should not be a member in the Conference of Presidents, altogether.
HIAS likely does not even qualify for COP membership. The “Processes and Procedures of the Conference of Presidents” (updated March 2017) limits COP membership “to those national Jewish organizations whose primary purpose is to serve the interests of the American Jewish community and whose activities are consistent with the goals and objectives of the Conference.” It would be inappropriate to select a COP chairperson from an organization that likely does not meet the COP’s membership requirements.
Going further, Klein adds that HIAS also has a history of associating with anti-Israel groups.
HIAS and IRUSA [Islamic Relief USA] have been collaborating to advance refugee rights for several years. In June 2017, IRUSA honored HIAS with its Courage Award. Upon accepting the award in Washington, D.C., Hetfield noted, “All the Abrahamic faiths are united by the value of hospitality and welcoming the stranger as ourselves, for we were all once strangers in a strange land.” [emphasis added]
Klein notes ties between Islamic Relief Worldwide and Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, a connection that is documented also by NGO Monitor, which notes that Israel banned the group in 2014.
partnering with the Gulf Coast Jewish Family and Children’s Services in another pilot program to support successful Syrian refugee resettlement through a range of activities including resource development, bridging cultural differences, and educating the community about their potential contributions to the community. The program also works closely with the Council on Islamic Relations [sic] and other faith based organizations. [emphasis added]
CAIR was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation trial -- which among the offenses cited was the funneling of money to Hamas.
A further issue is a letter Hetfield signed as a representative of HIAS when Democratic Jewish state Assemblyman Dov Hikind spoke out against Linda Sarsour speaking at the CUNY commencement because it would be “giving a podium to promoters of violence. The letter was in defense of Linda Sarsour, signed by multiple leaders of left-wing groups such as J Street, If Not Now, New Israel Fund and T'ruah. The letter proclaims that while not agreeing with everything she says, "with Sarsour and others, we work as allies on issues of shared concern and respectfully disagree when our views diverge" -- apparently ignoring such disrespectful things as
o Sarsour's tweet that “there is nothing creepier than Zionism” o Her praising the Palestinian Authority tactic of deploying children to hurl rocks at Israelis as the “definition of courage” o Her embracing (literally) Rasmeah Odeh, the Palestinian terrorist who was convicted of murdering 2 Israelis. Sarsour said she was "honored" to be on the same stage with Odeh.
“As a Jewish refugee organization, we have an important connection to Israel because the reason we can advocate for refugees who are not Jewish today is because the Jewish refugee problem has essentially been solved by the State of Israel. That’s the thing — Israel is central to our mission, in that sense.”
'In that sense'?
Even Hetfield doesn't sound convinced.
More problematic is that according to the same article
Hetfield also noted that as a matter of policy, HIAS won’t partner with organizations that promote the BDS movement. [emphasis added]
It's not clear how that is supposed to jive with HIAS partnering with Islamic Relief and CAIR.
According to Glick, while American Jewry as a whole is not being radicalized, Lob's nomination reflects the efforts of radical leftists within the American Jewish organizations, Jews who are pro-BDS and anti-Zionist. And in furtherance of their views, they are trying to either gain control or to neutralize American Jewish organizations -- all this while many of the leaders of the large Jewish organizations are retiring or close to it, and in some cases have failed to cultivate successors.
She warns that
At the rate that the radical left is taking over major Jewish organizations, we can assume that within five years, there will be a steep rise in the number of American Jewish groups that advocate on behalf of BDS. Our notion of a “friendly organization” will change from an organization that advances Jewish interests and supports Israel to an organization that doesn’t work against Jewish interests and opposes Israel.
An Expiration Date?
Jonathan Tobin offers a different perspective in his column for JNS, where he focuses on the overall implications of the growing split within the groups and asks Do the Jews really need a Conference of Presidents?
Tobin notes that the history of the Conference of Presidents goes back to 1956, when Eisenhower's Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles gave an ultimatum to the Jewish groups advocating on behalf of Israel following Israel's campaign with England and France against Egypt. Tired of dealing with individual groups, he threatened that if the various groups did not unite to form a single group he could deal with more easily, he would not listen to any of them.
And so the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations was born.
But now, in light of the current rift in the organization in reaction to Lob's nomination, Tobin suggests that the group may have reached its "expiration date":
But what this dispute could demonstrate is that the Jewish right and left are now so divided that the entire concept of an umbrella group like the Conference is no longer viable.
Rather than as an insurgency by the radical left, Tobin sees the current controversy as a sign that the Conference of Presidents has reached the point where differences can no longer be transcended by a common love for Israel.
And if that is true of the Conference of Presidents, what does that say of the American Jewish community as a whole?
A Tempest in a Kum-Kum
But some see all this as an over-reaction.
Mitchell Bard, Executive Director of American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise and director of the Jewish Virtual Library notes that taking into account the influence and familiarity that William Daroff has as the successor to Hoenlein as head of the Conference of Presidents, Lob will, in fact, have minimal influence within the organization, and as such it does not pay to get all worked up over the current controversy surrounding Lob.
After all, can anyone even name the person currently serving in the position Lob will be assuming?
Between Israel, the US and now the Conference of Presidents -- elections seem to have an increased sense of drama to them.
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Defense Minister Naftali Bennett on Monday said he witnessed a “significant breakthrough” by Israel’s defense biological research institute in developing an antibody to COVID-19, as the researchers wrapped up the development phase and moved to patent and mass produce the potential treatment.
Bennett visited the labs of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), a secretive unit that works under the Prime Minister’s Office, in Ness Ziona and was shown the “antibody that attacks the virus in a monoclonal way and can neutralize it within the bodies of those ill,” according to a statement from his office.
The statement said the antibody’s development had been completed. The institute was in the process of patenting the find “and in the next stage, researchers will approach international companies to produce the antibody on a commercial scale.”
“I am proud of the institute staff for this terrific breakthrough,” said Bennett. “Their creativity and the Jewish mind brought about this amazing achievement.”
It was not immediately clear if the breakthrough presented to Bennett was in addition to progress that was reported in late March, and no further details were provided. The statement also did not specify whether human trials were conducted.
The Health Ministry on Tuesday reported 31 new coronavirus cases over the preceding 24 hours, bringing the total number of infections in Israel to 16,268.
Three people died from COVID-19 over that period, putting the death toll at 237.
According to the Health Ministry, 5,808 people in Israel were sick with the virus, 89 of whom were in serious condition. Of those in serious condition, 66 were on ventilators.
Another 58 Israelis were in moderate condition and the rest had mild symptoms.
There were 10,223 people in Israel to have recovered from the virus, an increase of 365 since Monday morning.
Among those to recover were an 11-year-old and a 16-year-old who had been hospitalized in serious condition at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa.
Less than eight weeks after he warned that the coronavirus pandemic could kill tens of thousands of Israelis, and intimated that tens of millions might die worldwide, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the nation on Monday night that Israel has brought the virus under control, at least for now, with its death toll at a strikingly low 235.
“Every death is a great loss… it’s heartrending,” he said. But overall, he declared, Israel’s battle against COVID-19 has been “a great success story.”
Throughout the past eight weeks, Netanyahu has frequently held evening broadcasts: to tell the citizens of the latest restrictions being imposed on their lives in the first weeks of the crisis, and, more recently, to tell them of limitations being gradually eased. On Monday night, during an unprecedentedly lengthy appearance summed up by TV commentators as a kind of “victory over coronavirus” event, Netanyahu announced that the State of Israel was now gradually reopening — for business, and for something akin to normal life.
Taking questions, sharing the forum with ministers and experts, a strikingly upbeat Netanyahu announced that citizens are now free to travel as far as they like from their homes; families can visit their elderly relatives; gatherings of up to 100 will be permitted by the end of the month, and unlimited gatherings by mid-June; the whole school system will be open by the end of the month; sports and leisure will be unlimited by mid-June; and Israel is looking for ways to work toward a resumption of international flights without risking new waves of infection from countries that have handled the pandemic less effectively. “We want to reconnect to the world,” he said, but without importing a new wave of contagion.
Every effort would now be made to get the economy back on track, he said, and to get compensation more effectively distributed to battered companies, freelancers and small business owners than has been the case to date. “We’ve made mistakes too,” he allowed. “Not everything is perfect.”
Yes, Israel is not included as a place where there are any COVID victims.
While WHO is part of the UN, and the UN does not include Israel in various Middle Eastern categories because of the refusal of much of the Arab world to sit with Israel in committees, this has nothing to do with public health. When using data to monitor and help stop the spread of a virus, geography is more important than politics, and in normal times there is some travel between Israel and Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian-controlled areas.
Leaving Israel out of the region is politicizing health, and this is unacceptable.
But WHO does even worse.
Here are its numbers for "occupied Palestinian territories." Look at the footnote.
They are counting "East Jerusalem" cases as Palestinian, even though the area is not under Palestinian Authority control and therefore the numbers are meaningless. This is a health crisis, and as such the data is meant to show what nations are doing to combat it. "Palestine" has no control over treatment or even counting the number of cases in the portions of Jerusalem that were under Arab control for 19 years. These numbers are not only deceptive, but double-counted, since Israel already counts them.
The Palestinian Authority coronavirus page makes the distinction between the cases registered under the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the numbers of Jerusalem Arabs that they hear about second-hand.
Every other dashboard I've seen uses the numbers from the Palestinian Ministry of Health and doesn't include "East Jerusalem."
It makes no sense for an international health organization to count according to its own political biases rather than according to the areas of control.
Apparently, the PLO has a very expansive definition of "Jerusalem" that reaches the Jordan River - and the WHO uses it, no question. (Perhaps this can be leveraged to have Palestinians build a capital city in far-far-east-Jerusalem as shown here.)
Finally, check out the absurd map of "Europe region" by WHO that includes Israel as a tiny island with no neighbors:
To play politics with health is to prioritize politics over health. The UN shows that its hate for Israel is more important than providing accurate information during a pandemic.
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Jews have been extremely sensitive to Christian proselytization since Christianity started. There are a number of good reasons for this, not the least being that it was often accompanied with a harsh choice of being expelled or killed if we don't "choose" Christianity.
More recent attempts by Christians to proselytize to Jews came in the 19th century, as a type of proto-Zionism emerged to encourage Jews to emigrate to Israel as a way to hurry along the end-times, where they would be slaughtered ahead of the arrival of the Christian messiah. There were scores of lectures and books from England and the United States on the "conversion and restoration of the Jews" to Israel.
In recent decades the proselytizers began a campaign creating completely new movements specifically to fool Jews into thinking that Christianity is just another form of Judaism, with names of groups like "Jews for Jesus" and "Messianic Judaism." Ignorant Jews fell for the deception as these charlatans hijacked Jewish symbols and rituals to attract Jews, often staying away from using the word "Jesus" until the Jews already bought into the Christian message of salvation by embracing their god.
At its root, the entire idea of proselytization is antisemitic. After all, the entire point is that Jewish teachings are wrong and Christianity has supplanted Israel. Millions of Jews were martyred for defending their faith and the implication of the proselytizers is that they either died for no reason or, at worst, they deserved it for rejecting Christian teachings. This is profoundly offensive.
As a result of millennia of being cajoled, prodded, intimidated, fooled or forced into embracing a religion that is utterly incompatible with Judaism, Jews are understandably sickened by modern attempts to convert Jews. It took Vatican II for the church to say that Jews were not responsible for killing Jesus and to reject the antisemitism that underlied centuries of persecution and forced conversions, and only in comparatively recent times have major Christian denominations started to say that Jews have a place in Heaven without conversion. In 2011, the Pope explicitly wrote that the Church should not try to convert the Jews anymore.
As this new attitude started spreading, Jews started slowly accepting the idea that some Christians could be Zionist without an agenda of trying to set up an End Times scenario. The new, improved relations between Jews and Christians have taken a while to be accepted by Jews as being heartfelt, but over time Jews have felt more comfortable working together with Christians without the horrible history of Christian antisemitism being recalled.
Which is why this new channel from "GodTV" that somehow was allowed to be put on Israeli cable TV is such a punch in the gut.
Today we made history! For the first time ever, a Messianic television channel is broadcasting the Gospel across Israel in the Hebrew language! At 13:00 Israel time, Shelanu TV launched in Israel. And the mission field in Israel will never be the same again.
Shelanu translates to ‘Ours’ in Hebrew. We want every person in Israel to know, not a foreign Messiah, but a Jewish one! His name is Yeshua and He has not forgotten His people.
Shelanu TV has signed a seven-year contract with HOT Cable, the largest cable network in Israel reaching both Jews and Arabs. It will present new and original programming from local congregations on the ground in Israel. Additionally, international Messianic voices will share powerful real-life testimonies of Israelis who have come to know Yeshua as Messiah.
Notice that this press release avoids using the word Jesus. They make no secret that they want to convert Jews - and they want to do it in Israel.
Israel does not have laws against proselytization in general. It does have laws against proselytizing to children without parental consent, which would preclude such a channel on TV. There are Christian networks on Israeli TV that do not attempt to convert Jews and those are fine - but "Shelanu" is explicitly meant to preach to and convert Jews.
Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for HOT said: “It [Shelanu TV] is an independent Christian channel, similar to other religious channels broadcast in Israel. It received a permit from the council and is broadcasting according to law.”
When asked about the missionary nature of its activities, she said that “full information was provided to the council, and the channel is operating in accordance with the permit it received.”
Shelanu TV is broadcast on Channel 182 of HOT. The description provided to subscribers on their television screens says it is a “faith-based channel geared toward pro-Israel Christians.”
That's a lie. The opening words of the video announcing the channel to Christians says:
If you've not already heard, GodTV has been given the government permission to broadcast the gospel of Jesus Christ Yeshua the Messiah in Israel on cable television in the Hebrew language. Never before as far as we know in the history of the world has this ever been done. God has supernaturally opened the door for us to take the gospel of Jesus into the homes and lives and hearts of his Jewish people.
Characterizing the channel as being geared towards Christians and then announcing that it is meant to bring the Gospel to Jews recalls the deceptions of the past Christian missionizers.
This is profoundly offensive, especially in Israel. And at a time that Christians have just started to be trusted by Jews to not have an agenda, this channel hurts the cause of Jewish-Christian relations immeasurably.
(h/t Real Jerusalem Streets)
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In this video, I (along with Mrs. Elder) fisk a two minute clip of Linda Sarsour, showing exactly how she uses propaganda methods to libel Israel (along with old fashioned lying.)
Framing a discussion is a major way to keep people from even thinking of bringing up facts you don't want to talk about, and Sarsour is good at it. I show how and when she does it.
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Israel has been the only democratic nation-state whose existence has been rejected and attacked since the day of its establishment in 1948, 36 months following the revelation of the Nazi regime’s mass murder of European Jewry. It would appear reasonable that any well-reasoned civil discourse on Israel would include an appreciation of its security concerns, historical and legal rights, and its diplomatic claims.
The topics of settlements, occupation, the West Bank security barrier, and borders have been among the most politicized, distorted, and mischaracterized in the decades-long history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Legitimate political critique would include the presentation of raw facts, stripped of political hyperbole, and couched in principles of evenhanded assessment and well-reasoned legal, historical, security, and diplomatic context. The principles of fact and context-based discussion on Israel would result in far more productive international dialogue than the current one.
Finally, Israel should be judged by the same values as other nation-states, values that overcome the current tendency to defamation, delegitimization, dehumanization, demonization, and denial of equal treatment under the law.
Coverage of Israel has undergone a transformation in recent weeks, according to a report by the Department of Public Diplomacy at the Israel Foreign Ministry.
When the coronavirus pandemic first hit in January 2020, "Israel's [approach] was viewed with hostility, mainly due to its decisions to cancel flights, close borders and remove foreign nationals in the first stage."
Once the scope of the pandemic became more apparent in the West, articles began praising Israel's life-saving policies.
"In the second stage, Israel was portrayed as a model of a country successfully coping with the medical crisis, precisely due to all the reasons for which it was previously criticized."
Israel also received recognition for its immense efforts on behalf of its citizens stranded across the globe
The head of a leading international Jewish group praised US President Donald Trump over the weekend for a proclamation condemning antisemitism, saying, “I know personally that he is committed to eradicating the spread of antisemitism from our society.”
“President Trump has consistently stood by American Jewry and the State of Israel throughout his tenure,” said World Jewish Congress President Ronald Lauder. He added that Trump’s commitment applies “even in the midst of the present immense global uncertainty and concerns accompanying the COVID-19 crisis.”
“As the president emphasized … antisemitic discrimination, persecution, and violence continue to plague our Jewish communities,” Lauder noted, saying the president’s words “must be repeated, over and over again … until it is made absolutely clear that incitement, bigotry, hatred, and xenophobia will not be tolerated.”
“The World Jewish Congress deeply appreciates the US administration’s ongoing efforts to combat the evil of anti-Jewish hatred, and its continuing support of American Jewry in its cherished traditions and innumerable contributions to society,” he added. “We look forward to the day when we will be able to say that antisemitism has truly been eradicated in America.”
Lauder’s comments came in response to a proclamation late last week marking Jewish American Heritage Month. In the statement Trump said, “Hatred is intolerable and has no place in our hearts or in our society. We must therefore vigorously confront antisemitic discrimination and violence against members of the Jewish community.”
He himself was born in Lebanon and attended UNRWA schools there. He made his way to the US:
Ghassan came to the United States when he was 20 years old and received his BS in Mechanical Engineering from the California State University-Sacramento and an MBA, focusing on marketing and finance, from the University of San Francisco. From there, he rose through the ranks of Booz Allen from Associate to the coveted position of Senior Partner. Since retiring from Booz Allen, he has held senior management positions at top global companies and is currently the Chairman and CEO of Rubix Holdings, a technology and investment company that has just launched its first two global social media platforms, with more on the way.
This successful American businessman is considered, according to UNRWA's definition, to be a "Palestine refugee" - today.
And so are any of his children and grandchildren, born and raised in the US.
If Salameh would decide to move back to Lebanon, he would be eligible for UNRWA services as a refugee. His American citizenship is not a factor in determining what UNRWA considers refugee status.
This is just one of the absurd stories about UNRWA's definition of "refugee" that the media does not cover. If UNRWA's definition would be in line with that of the Refugee Convention, then the number of "Palestine refugees" would plummet from millions to thousands. And places like Lebanon and Saudi Arabia would feel more obligated to actually give these people a path to citizenship instead of pretending that they will one day go "back to Palestine."
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Elder of Ziyon
And its activities are featured on the PFLP website.
