Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, May 25, 2020

“Unilateral West Bank land grab”

Alan Solow, a member of the Executive Committee of Israel Policy Forum and former Chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, wrote a blog in Times of Israel arguing that Israel should not extend sovereignty on parts of Judea and Samaria for this reason:

No solution should be imposed on anyone or by anyone in the Israeli-Palestinian arena.

While American Jewish consensus around Israel policy has not always been easy to attain, this sentiment has stood for decades as the one universally accepted principle undergirding the quest for a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – that it must be reached through bilateral negotiations between the parties. This precept allowed Jewish leadership to strongly urge American administrations of both parties not to attempt to implement their own vision of how to resolve longstanding differences between the two sides. Despite expressions of expected or preferred outcomes over the years, every President has endorsed this concept. This principle also allowed American Jewish leadership to credibly oppose unilateral attempts by the Palestinian Authority to declare a state or to otherwise take action without consent to change the status of disputed territories.

There is a fatal flaw in this logic: Palestinians have been acting unilaterally for decades.

They have called themselves the State of Palestine. They have joined numerous international conventions without any desire to actually enforce their words.

They have built illegally in Area C, with support from the European Union, creating facts on the ground and literally engaging in a “land grab.”

And, perhaps most importantly, they have taken the de facto veto power that the international community has given them, using exactly this logic, to make peace far more distant than it appeared to be in 2000. They’ve said “no” to every offer, not to negotiate but to wait for others to pressure Israel to give up more concessions without compromising their own intransigent, extremist positions.

Solow makes it sound like this status quo can go on forever:

The fact is that nobody is credibly threatening Israel’s control over major settlement blocs in the West Bank which are generally recognized as likely becoming Israeli territory as part of a final status agreement. Israel’s continued control of these Jewish population centers is, as a practical matter, uncontested. The only reason to acquiesce to Israel taking them unilaterally now is to abandon the position that solutions are to be negotiated, not imposed.

It can go on for a few years, but the situation is not frozen in amber. Palestinians will continue to build; they will continue to attempt to gain political legitimacy at Israel’s expense, they will continue to grow in population, they will continue to occasionally explode in violence.

Israel cannot play forever by these rules where Palestinians can do what they want and Israel has its hands tied by adhering to an artificial moral standard. Continuing to wait for Palestinians to come to the table means that Palestinians can continue to act with impunity.

Extending sovereignty is not a land grab. It is the beginning of a disengagement. It is finally choosing borders. It is solving the demographic problem. It is staking a legal claim. It is sending a message that Palestinian intransigence will not be rewarded anymore. It is recognition that the world has changed since Oslo and Israel cannot be tied to an agreement that the Palestinians have abrogated since at least 2001.

Solow shouldn’t be warning Israel against doing what it must. He should be explaining to American Jewry why Israel must do it. And it is a serious failure in American Jewish leadership that he, and other leaders, cannot even figure this out for themselves.

05/25 Links Pt1: Muslims themselves gave us the tools to disprove Palestinian lies ?; Israeli minister to Twitter: Remove Khamenei from your platform

From Ian:

Muslims themselves gave us the tools to disprove Palestinian lies ?

Of all the Palestinian lies about the Temple Mount, the most dangerous is the false thinking being ‎created. In recent years, the Palestinians have been kneading the timeline of history as if it were ‎dough. They are writing a new historical story for Jerusalem: the Muslims were here first, while the ‎Jews – who have no ties whatsoever to the city and its holy sites – arrived after them, then ‎proceeded to steal, block off, and invent a story about the Mount and the Temple that sits there. ‎

For the past few years, Israel has opted to stay in its PR comfort zone. In the face of these mega-lies, it ‎chose to focus on the Palestinian ritual that goes along with the invented history and assigns Israel an ‎intention of destroying "Al-Aqsa" by means of an artificial earthquake and "throwing chemicals on the ‎foundations of the mosque," as well as horrific cartoons that show Jews as "Dr. Streimer" or as snakes ‎and octopuses wrapping themselves around the Dome of the Rock, stealing ice cream bars shaped like ‎Al-Aqsa with evil looks, or cutting off the top of the Dome of the Rock with a guillotine and rushing Al-‎Aqsa on D9 bulldozers to raze it. ‎

But none of these imaginings or works of art comes close to the seriousness of what Palestinian ‎leaders have been doing to their people's thinking for several years now: the "historical" statement ‎that Jewish ties to Jerusalem are based on falsehoods; that Jews have no true ties to Jerusalem; that ‎the Temple never stood on the Temple Mount; or that the Temple itself was only imaginary – "Al-‎Mazoom," as they call it. ‎

The immediate reaction to this false version of history is to turn to archaeology and well-established ‎history – hundreds of Jewish and Christian historical sources – to disprove the plié. But it seems that ‎isn't enough. Even the long list of prominent Muslim religious figures who for 1,300 years wrote ‎unhesitatingly about the Temple Mount as the location of the Jewish Temple makes no impression of ‎missions of Muslims. ‎

So we need something else – to delve into the history of the Mount. In the past few years the ‎research "tool belt" at our disposal has expanded, and we should use it. More and more academic ‎studies are showing that the Muslims, from the first time they visited the Mount, used Jews to find ‎their way around and that the Jews were the ones who taught Muslims about the Mount and where ‎its borders lie, as well as the boundaries of the Foundation Stone, and that the first Muslim ‎ceremonies at the Dome of the Rock bore a striking resemblance to Jewish ceremonies at the very ‎Temple whose existence the Muslims now deny. ‎‎

David Singer: PLO Opens Door to Jordan Returning to Judea and Samaria

Netanyahu had no compunction in calling out and exposing the continuing travesty of justice that these current protestations represented.

However the roadblock jamming any progress in resolving the conflictwas suddenly cleared when days later PLO President Mahmoud Abbas announced:
"The Israeli occupation authority, as of today, has to shoulder all responsibilities and obligations in front of the international community as an occupying power over the territory of the occupied state of Palestine, with all its consequences and repercussions based on international law and international humanitarian law, particularly the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, which holds the occupying power responsible for the protection of the civilian population under occupation and their property, criminalizes collective punishment, bans theft of resources, appropriation and annexation of land, bans forced transfer of the population of the occupied territory and bans transfer of the population of the occupying state (the colonialists) to the land it occupies, which all are grave violations and war crimes"

Stripped of the lies and false and deceptive claims contained in this statement that have formed part and parcel of the PLO’s propaganda arsenal since its formation in 1964 – Abbas’s message was clear: Abbas was now turning over responsibility for Judea and Samaria to Israel.

The PLO had never claimed “regional sovereignty over the West Bank in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan” or “on the Gaza Strip” as article 24 of its founding 1964 Charter declared. Its activities were to be “on the national popular level in the liberational, organizational, political and financial fields”.

This PLO position only changed in 1968 after Jordan – having occupied Judea and Samaria between 1950 and 1967 driving out every Jew living there – lost that territory to Israel in the Six Day War. Gaining sovereignty in 100% of Judea and Samaria by the creation of another Arab State became the focus of the PLO from 1968.

President Trump’s peace plan offeringthe PLO possibly 70% of Judea and Samaria plus Gaza (see map below) has been rejected by the PLO.

Abbas – in turning over responsibility for Judea and Samaria to Israel – has opened the door to Jordan replacing the PLO as Israel’s negotiating partner.Successful negotiations between Jordan and Israel could see Jordan annexing part of Judea and Samaria, Jordanian citizenship being restored for the Arab residents as existed between 1950 and 1988 and a possible end to the Jewish-Arab conflict.

King Abdullah – expect a call from President Trump.

Are deep security ties between Israel and Jordan at risk? – analysis

Israel’s defense establishment understands the need to prevent a collapse of such ties, as the two countries not only have robust security coordination and intelligence sharing mechanism regarding the common threats. According to foreign reports, Jordan has allowed Israeli jets to use its airspace for its war-between-wars campaign in Syria.

The strategic depth provided by Jordan, which has not entered into any alliance with neighboring countries hostile to Israel, has kept Israel’s eastern and longest border the quietest and safest for 25 years.

Both Jordan and Israel understand that should security ties fail, not only will King Abdullah face instability at home, but the violence could spill over the border to Israel.

With a majority of Jordan’s citizens of Palestinian descent, Palestinian self-determination and maintaining the status quo of the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem are key aspects of public discourse in Amman and contribute to the cooling relationship between the neighboring countries.
In March, Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz told CNN that “today, we are at the lowest level in the relationship that has been since signing the peace treaty” and warned that the peace treaty itself was at risk.

Razzaz also denounced Israel’s alleged “violations of the sanctity of Muslim and Christian endowments in Jerusalem.”

While Netanyahu and Abdullah both recognize the need to keep the peace, domestic pressures in Jordan might make it difficult for the king to continue it at the low-profile level it currently stands.

That would not be good, for either side.

Lebanese interior minister Mohammad Fahmi, noting an increase in coronavirus cases in Lebanon, called for a “total lockdown” on the country.

But to make his point, he didn’t say this this was for the safety of the Lebanese people. He didn’t say that he wanted to flatten any curves.

No, this minister said that by not adhering to a lockdown, Lebanese society would be hurt – which is just what the Israelis want to see.

He explained that "For me , there is no such thing as Israel; there is something called the Zionist entity. It intends that our society crumbles from within. This is a particular interest of the enemy of our society, and our enemy is clear. If our society does not to abide by public safety, this is in the interest of the Israeli enemy.”

I fully expect an opposition politician, who wants lockdown restrictions lifted, to say that failing to do so would wreck the Lebanese economy, which is exactly what the Zionists want.

It is a strange obsession that Arabs still have with Israel: blaming Israel for everything that is wrong in their own society, labeling their political enemies as “Zionist” and using the word Israel the way some parents use the boogeyman to scare kids into doing what they want.

Pressure builds to stop EU funds to Palestinian NGOs with terror ties

Here is a translation from a German article by Bild about how the EU is starting to wake up to the consequences of funding NGOs with terror ties.

Terror with EU tax money?

The EU appears to continue to fund non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Palestinian Territories where terrorists are employed. An EU representative also assured the Palestinian NGOs that a new EU counter-terrorism clause would not change this. There is massive criticism from Israel about this practice.

Background

On August 23, a cell of the PFLP terrorist group carried out an explosive attack and murdered the teenage girl Rina Shnerb (17), her father and brother were seriously injured.

After Israeli security forces smashed the terror network, the investigators found that several of the arrested worked for Palestinian NGOs, some of them in senior positions. The organizations are funded by the EU.

Samer Arbid, the leader of the PFLP terror cell, worked for several Palestinian NGOs that received EU funds - as accountants and finance directors.

New EU anti-terrorism guidelines

At the beginning of December 2019, the EU tied the funding of NGOs worldwide to a new clause: Funded NGOs would have to ensure that their employees or organizers of workshops are not on the EU terror list.

Palestinian NGOs then protested sharply against the clause: Hamas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the PFLP are on the EU terror list. It is unclear how many of their members, sympathizers and supporters are employed by Palestinian NGOs and thereby receive EU funds.

The PNGO, the umbrella organization for Palestinian NGOs, appeared to be seriously concerned that millions of euros could not be paid from the EU and called on the EU to remove the anti-terror clause for the Palestinian organizations.

In any case, the PNGO said, the Palestinian groups on the EU terror list are not terror groups, but political organizations and "resistance groups" whose legal status cannot be determined by an EU document.

According to the umbrella organization PNGO, the EU must withdraw its "unjust conditions" for the support of the Palestinian NGOs. Under these conditions, the Palestinian NGOs should not accept funding agreements with the EU. Further steps will be taken at local and international level against the "criminalization" of the Palestinian struggle.

EU buckled against the Palestinians

The story could actually end here: After all, the EU, as a generous donor, can determine the conditions under which it distributes the millions of taxpayers' money - compliance with the anti-terrorism guidelines should be a basic requirement.

But instead of pointing out that the Palestinian NGOs should either stay away from terrorist groups or look for new sponsors, the EU apparently met the Palestinian demands. Several EU representatives assured the PNGO that nothing would change in the current funding practice, as the organization NGO Monitor documented.

On March 30, Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff, EU representative in the Palestinian Territories, said in an official letter to the umbrella organization PNGO: The EU would continue to support Palestinian NGOs as before. Because on the EU sanctions list, according to the EU representative, there are no Palestinian individuals, only terrorist groups. However, as long as these individuals were not on the EU sanctions list with their “exact first and last name and confirmed identity”, they would not be excluded from EU funding, even if they belong to or support terrorist groups.

That letter from the EU representative to PNGO is likely to have made a board member of the umbrella organization particularly happy. Walid Hanatsheh is also the finance director of the NGO "Health Work Committees", so it manages the donations from the EU. In addition, Hanatsheh is a senior member of the PFLP. In October 2019, he was arrested by Israeli security forces - he was charged with commanding the Samer Arbid terror cell that murdered teenage girl Rina Shnerb in August.
However, since Hanatsheh is not on the EU sanctions list as an individual, there would still be nothing standing in the way of funding with EU funds. On April 30, NGO Monitor addressed an open letter to EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (61, CDU) and asked that the EU actually implement its own counterterrorism clause.

In the meantime, several EU parliamentarians have made inquiries to check the practice of the award. Olivér Várhelyi, European Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighborhood Policy, said he had asked the heads of the EU delegations in Tel Aviv and the West Bank, as well as the Gaza Strip, to look closely at whom EU funds were paid out to.

Daniel Schwammenthal, director of the American Jewish Committee's AJC Transatlantic Institute in Brussels, demands consequences from BILD: "These NGOs have to repay European taxpayers' money immediately and are on a black list." who received EU funds. "The current EU security measures have not worked here, we need improvements to rule out such networks with terrorists in the future."

(h/t EBoZ)

The Palestinian Ministry of Communication released some statistics that show that Palestinians are among the better connected people of the world.

Some 4.2 million have mobile phones–that’s equivalent to 85% of the total population. The survey, though, said that some 75% of all above the age of 10 have their own mobile phone, while some 87% of all above 10 use a mobile phone, presumably the family phone.

About 80% of Palestinian families have internet access at home.86% of those aged 10 and above use social networks, the number reaching 90% in the West Bank.

These are not exactly third-world numbers, here.

EoZTV: Interview with Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz on their book “The War of Return”

This was a good, informative interview about the real goals of the mythical Palestinian “right of return” and what can be done about it now.

05/24 Links: Undermining the International Criminal Court; Suddenly, HRW Discovers Antisemitism; UAE activists rail against Palestinians for rejecting medical supplies

From Ian:

Amb. Alan Baker: Undermining the International Criminal Court

As early as the late 1950s, following the Holocaust of the Jewish People by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, Israel was one of the founding fathers of the post-Second World War vision of a permanent international criminal tribunal.

The vision was to establish a juridical body to adjudge the “most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.” As such, from the early 1950s and up to the adoption of the International Criminal Court’s Statute at the Rome Conference in 1998, Israel took an active and central part in the process of negotiating and drafting the court’s founding documents.

The preambular provisions of the Statute indeed stressed the noble and solemn determination of the States parties “for the sake of present and future generations, to establish an independent, permanent international Criminal Court.”

The very nature and purpose of such a central, independent and vital juridical body to adjudge the most serious crimes of international concern would imply that such a body would be completely independent of pressures and influence, and immune from politicization. One might have assumed that the international community would not permit any attempt to prejudice the Court’s integrity, credibility and authority through political abuse and manipulation.

However, for several years, the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has been deluged with complaints by the Palestinian leadership, purporting to represent a non-existent “State of Palestine.” Such a huge volume of complaints are part of the ongoing Palestinian attempts to delegitimize the State of Israel in the institutions of the international community, including the ICC, through the cynical abuse and manipulation of those institutions. Download pdf

StandWithUs: The Jew Always Fits The Crime

WATCH: Antisemites will always find a rationale for their particular brand of Jew-hatred, but none of their explanations hold up. Yet throughout history, people who want to marginalize and demonize Jews continue to find ways to make sure that the Jew always “fits the crime.”

Suddenly, Human Rights Watch Discovers Antisemitism

In essence, while HRW understands that antisemitism is a core element of the extreme right’s worldview, it sees its appearance in other contexts as a marginal aberration. In a May 2019 briefing that purported to explain the “wrong way to combat antisemitism,” HRW analyst Wenzel Michalski took to task a vast swathe of the German parliament — from the left-wing Greens to the conservative Christian Social Union — for agreeing on a resolution that deemed the movement to boycott Israel as antisemitic.

“In Germany, the term ‘boycott’ evokes memories of the boycott of Jewish-owned shops in the 1930s,” wrote Michalski. “To equate that dark chapter with boycotts of Israel over its rights abuses is to trivialize our history. Activists worldwide use boycotts to challenge rights abuses and seek political change. Boycotts played key roles in the US struggle for African-American rights and in international campaigns against apartheid in South Africa and atrocities in Darfur.”

Michalski’s overarching argument — that a small number of antisemites muttering darkly about “Zionists” should not sully the boycott movement’s honorable goal of securing independence for the Palestinians — exemplifies the denial among progressives in Europe and the United States that the Palestine solidarity movement is itself an incubator of antisemitism. Nowhere does Michalski recognize what the movement to boycott Israel has no problem recognizing: that subjecting Israel and its people to isolation is a necessary condition of bringing about the Jewish state’s replacement with a unitary State of Palestine, in which Jews would, at best, revert to being a religious minority ruled by others.

In the minds of most Jews (and quite a few non-Jews as well), promoting the elimination of the world’s only Jewish state as a just solution to the Palestinian issue is unquestionably antisemitic. Now in its second decade of existence, the BDS movement has been a key contributor to the antisemitic atmosphere in Europe — specifically, by portraying Jews as oppressors and violators of human rights, it helped remove the taboo on blatant antisemitic rhetoric in society more generally.

I don’t believe that HRW’s inability, or refusal, to grasp the diverse nature of modern antisemitism is a reason to shun its solidarity in combating the far-right. But as long as HRW remains blind towards these other forms of Jew-hatred, its solidarity will only run skin-deep — and no more.

How the EU skirted the ban on funding terrorist groups

A letter sent by a representative of the European Union to the Palestinian Authority, which includes a promise to find a way around new EU instructions that prohibit the transfer of any financial aid to civil groups that are directly or indirectly linked to terrorism has aroused strong criticism in Israel as well as the EU.

On March 30, German diplomat Sven Kuhn von Burgsdorff sent the letter to the umbrella organization that represents Palestinian civil groups, announcing continued funding for their activities, even if their members include individuals who are linked to terrorist groups.

The main paragraph in contention states: "It is understood that a natural person affiliated to, sympathizing with, or supporting any of the groups or entities mentioned in the EU restrictive list is not excluded from benefiting from EU-funded activities unless his/her exact name and surname (confirming his/her identity) corresponds to any of the natural persons on the EU restrictive lists."

After the letter was made public, members of the EU Parliament have demanded an investigation into the EU representatives in the PA for allegedly violating EU policy. The parliament wants to determine whether the EU Commission knew about the step he was taking.

Now the American Jewish Committee's Transatlantic Institute in Brussels has revealed that Von Burgsdorff 's letter was preceded by two other similar commitments from senior EU functionaries to the Palestinians, which would appear to indicate a consistent policy of skirting the ban on funding organizations with ties to terrorism, rather than a rogue move by one official.

According to the American Jewish Committee, a few days after the EU adopted the ban on funding groups whose members and/or activity is linked to terrorism, Von Burgsdorff 's predecessor, Thomas Nicholson, promised Palestinian groups that the new regulation did not apply to them.

“Obviously, [UNRWA] has an interest in NOT solving the refugee problem”–LIFE, June 1967

Today I plan to interview Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz on my live webcast (12 noon EDT/7 PM IDT, it will be viewable here.)

We will discuss the fictional “right of return” for Palestinian Arab “refugees,” the subject of their book that was just released in English, The War of Return.

Ahead of that webcast, here are a couple of articles about that issue I recently found.

From JTA, November 2, 1962:

In supplementary reports to the General Assembly, Commissioner General John H, Davis, chief for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, also told the Assembly that:

1. There are “at least 100, 000 dead persons” still listed on the UNRWA relief rolls, but that “rectification” of the rolls has been impossible because the Arab “governmental authorities” considered “the time was not opportune. “

2. All efforts at economic reintegration of the refugees that might lead to resettlement off the refugees in Arab states have had to be abandoned in the face of Arab governmental opposition and the opposition of the “Arab people. “

Davis in fact swallowed the Arab narrative whole and later lobbied against the existence of a Jewish state altogether, as Wilf and Schwartz detail in their book.

This second article is from LIFE magazine, written right after the Six Day War. Note the Nasser quote.

People were aware of the problems with UNRWA for decades. But no one has had the political will to do anything about it (until the US pulled funds.)

Antisemitic BDSers stage Nazi-style “execution” of "Palestinians" in Vienna

The Austrian Parliament condemned the BDS movement as antisemitic in February, but that hasn’t stopped them from staging more antisemitic PR stunts there.

Heute reports:

At Viktor-Adler-Platz in Vienna-Favoriten, supporters of the anti-Semitic BDS movement staged a tasteless campaign. They acted as Israeli soldiers executing people (pretending to be Palestinian.)

The anti-Israel movement BDS (which stands for "Boycott Divestment Sanctions"), which was originally primarily active in the USA, has also been active in Austria for a long time. The anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic movement rejects Israel's right to exist.

On Saturday supporters of the movement staged a tasteless protest at Viktor-Adler-Platz in Vienna-Favoriten. According to eyewitnesses, two men disguised as Israeli soldiers apparently imitated an execution of a third man who is said to be a Palestinian.

Of course, the IDF doesn’t execute unarmed Palestinians against walls. That was something Nazis did to Jews. You can see previous similar BDS actions, the street theatre of “Israelis” shouting in German (and English, for the cameras) at “Palestinians” while forcing them on their knees before being executed, pure antisemitism. and Holocaust inversion.

On the streets of what used to be Nazi-occupied Vienna, today.

(h/t Petra)

After I tweeted about Hanan Ashrawi ludicrously claiming that Jewish settlements named themselves after neighboring Arab villages, someone named Nazer Abuznaid responded, “Yes they did I lived in DURA and they built one next to us called Adura.”

So I looked up Dura in Wikipedia and here’s what I found:

The present-day name of Dura has been identified with ancient Adoraim or the Adora of 1 Macc.13.20^[3]^[4] Mentioned as Adora by Apocrypha and often by Josephus.^[5] A weak letter is usually lost in Hebrew to Arabic sound conversion, such as in the case of Adoraim to Dura.^[6] A loss of a first feeble letter is not uncommon and the form of Dora could be found as early as in several instances of Josephus writings.^[5]

So even his village’s name is Biblical!

His response was, sadly, typical:

You guys often have an explanation to suit your needs!

Yes, it’s called the truth.

05/23 Links: IHRC Al Quds 2020 – terrorists, extremists, antisemites and violence; UN coronavirus aid going to Palestinian terror-linked groups; Abbas's Precious Gift to Iran: Hamas

From Ian:

David Collier: IHRC Al Quds 2020 – terrorists, extremists, antisemites and violence

The IHRC Al Quds Day 2020 was like no other. If you doubt that the BDS movement supports violence, seeks to destroy Israel and wants to rid the Middle East of Jews, then you should sit through the whole toxic 150 minutes of this online event like I did.

Each year, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) are given permission to hold a radical Islamist event calling for the destruction of Israel as they wave their flags through the streets of London. They play a game in which they wave their extremism in our faces and laugh at the foolishness of those that permit them to recruit on our streets.

It is a pro-Hezbollah, radical Islamist event, that until the terrorist organisation was proscribed in the UK, would regularly see the flag of Hezbollah proudly on display.

Al Quds 2020 was different because it was online. There were no police to monitor their words. Instead the IHRC were allowed to invite whomever they liked and freely speak their mind. Before any British Government official ever gives these terrorist supporters another chance to walk through London – they should be forced to watch this event.
IHRC 2020 – Not just the usual suspects

Because of the importance of some of the content, I am not going to write up every speaker – but rather focus on those I believe need special attention. However, given some of what occurred it is important to remember the names of all those who participated.
Nazim Ali (host and Director of the IHRC)
Raza Kasim (co-host, IHRC)
Ramzy Baroud ( Editor, Palestine Chronicle)
Ramon Grosfoguel (academic, UC Berkeley)
Reverend Daniel Burton (Area Dean, Anglican Church)
Rabbi Elhanan Beck (Neturei Karta, UK)
Marzieh Hashemi (Press TV Journalist, Iran)
– read message from – Zahra Mostafavi Khomeini (daughter of Ayatollah Khomeini)
Yisroel David Weiss (Neturei Karta, US)
Roshan Muhammed Salih (5 Pillars)
Mizanur Rahman (Mizan the Poet)
Michel Warschawski (headed Israeli Marxist Revolutionary Communist League)
Hashem Al Haydari (Deputy Commander – Kataib Hezbollah)
Suhaila El -Zakzaky (Daughter of Sheikh El Zakzaky, leader of Islamic Movement of Nigeria)
Ilan Pappe (Academic, Exeter University)
Mohammad Al Asi (Islamic 9/11 truther and extremist)
Haim Bresheeth (academic, SOAS)
Mick Napier (toxic extremist, head of SPSC)
Mohammad Saeed Bahmanpour (Islamic cleric, speaker and extremist)
Narjis Khan (Lawyer at [UK] Goverment Legal Department and Islamic poet)
Masoud Shajareh (Chair of IHRC)

The IHRC video you have to see
According to his introduction, Mohammad Al Asi has been banned from the UK because of his extremism. During his speech Al Asi spoke about the fact that most Jews would need to be ethnically cleansed after the resistance successfully destroys Israel. Bringing back shadows of the Holocaust, Al Asi mentioned the need to ‘separate’ the Jews into groups – those that might be allowed to stay, and those that would need to be forced (violently) to withdraw (face expulsion). Just as he began to talk about ‘dezionising elites’, he ran out of time:

The Government Legal Department Lawyer
After 2 hours and 20 minutes Nazim Ali introduces an ‘accomplished poet’ by the name of Narjis Khan. The poem she recites is an anti-Israel, anti-western rant – in rhyme. During the poem Khan comments that ‘Palestine’ teaches ‘the meaning of resistance,’ and apparently refers to all resistance (she does not differentiate) as ‘self-defence’.

Khan also has a blog on the IHRC website. Her most recent contribution appears to be an eulogy to Qasem Soleimani the Iranian General killed in a targeted US strike. Soleimani was head of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force and responsible for bloodshed throughout the region, often through terrorist proxies.

All this is bad enough. Participating in an event alongside rabid extremists that call for Israel’s destruction and writing poems for a man who helped sponsor terrorism throughout the Middle East. But aside from being a poet, Narjis Khan is also a lawyer who works for the Government Legal Department (GLD).

The Government Legal Department are the government’s principal legal advisers. Their core purpose ‘is to help the government to govern well, within the rule of law.’

It is surely beyond all logical reasoning to accept that ANY government employee in ANY government department should in ANY way be associated with the radical Iranian Islamist Al Quds day – and an event that also contains leading members of Kataib Hezbollah.

Axis of Resistance honors ‘International Quds Day’

On May 20, leaders of the Axis of Resistance and pro-Axis clerics published videos commemorating International Quds Day with the central theme being the liberation of Palestine.

International Quds Day, which was introduced by the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979, is held every year on the last Friday of Ramadan. The day is marked by protests against Israel across the region. Protesters burn flags of Israel and the United States as a way to show solidarity with the Palestinian people.

Hamas’ political leader Ismail Haniyeh addressed viewers by deriding the Trump peace plan and Israel’s possible annexation of settlements in the West Bank.

“Today, as we commemorate the International Day of Jerusalem, Jerusalem lives in a most dangerous stage as we follow the American-Zionist talk about implementing the so-called Deal of the Century, which is based on the liquidation of the Palestinian cause,” Haniyeh said.

Furthermore, Haniyeh warned Israel “From here I salute our people stationed in the blessed al Aqsa Mosque, and in their name and in the name of our people and our nation, we warn the Zionists against committing any foolishness against the blessed al Aqsa Mosque. We seek not only to liberate al Aqsa, but the whole of occupied Palestine.”

Hezbollah’s Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah commemorated Quds Day by addressing viewers about the strengthening of ties between members of the Axis of Resistance. Nasrallah also affirmed the Axis of Resistance was “closer than ever to liberating al Quds.”

“Thanks to the cooperation of between countries and the forces of the Axis of Resistance of the Arab and Islamic world, we find ourselves closer than ever to al Quds and its liberation,” Nasrallah said.

Nasrallah also noted “The Israeli authorities are afraid and terrified by the victories of the Axis of the Resistance. They are also disappointed by the defeats suffered not only by this regime [Israel] but also by the United States and its allies in the Middle East.”

Another Axis leader, Abdul-Malik al Houthi, used his address to touch on several subjects regarding Israel and Saudi Arabia.

Al Houthi maintained his movement’s position regarding relations with Israel saying “We condemn and reject all attempts to normalize relations that some Arab countries, especially the Saudi regime, have attempted with the Israeli enemy.”

UN coronavirus aid going to Palestinian terror-linked groups

Millions of dollars of international funding for the Palestinians’ coronavirus emergency response, coordinated by the World Health Organization and UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) have gone to organizations with links to terrorism, a new report by NGO Monitor found.

The research institution focused on the funding of non-governmental organizations found that several of the groups funded by OCHA and the WHO are tied to the People’s Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which is recognized as a terrorist organization in Israel, the EU, US and Canada, and had staff members arrested and indicted late last year for the murder of 17-year-old Israeli Rina Schnerb.

Among OCHA’s NGO partners with ties to the PFLP are the Health Work Committees (HWC), Union of Health Work Committees (UHWC), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC), Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), and Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR).

HWC’s Financial and Administration Director Waleed Hanatsheh bankrolled the PFLP that murdered Schnerb, and is currently standing trial for the murder, as is Samer Arbid, UAWC’s financial director. UHWC was identified by USAID as “the PFLP’s health organization.”

The NGO Monitor report also pointed out that OCHA stated that the aid money was meant to “respond to the public health needs and immediate humanitarian consequences of the pandemic in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip,” but many of the activities funded do not appear to be vital or lifesaving. Rather, anti-Israel advocacy ventures were relabeled COVID-19 without substantive contributions to humanitarian aid.

For example, the OCHA coronavirus response includes a “Joint Statement on Israel’s Obligations vis-a-vis West Bank and Gaza in Face of Coronavirus Pandemic” by 18 NGOs, calling for Israel to lift the blockade on Gaza to let medical supplies in. OCHA notes in the very situation report in which this statement is listed that Israel does allow medical supplies into Gaza.

05/22 Links Pt2: Fighting the academic demonisation of Israel in schools; Who Really Represents America’s Jews?; Jerusalem: 1948, 1967, 2020; Latma 2020, Episode 8

From Ian:

David Collier: Fighting the academic demonisation of Israel in schools

How do you deal with historical distortion in academic textbooks and propaganda in schools and universities? I would argue that if you want to really fight this fight, then you have to begin by understanding just how widespread the problem really is.

(On Wednesday I spoke as part of a panel on anti-Zionist, antisemitic propaganda in schools. The event was organised and chaired by UK Lawyers for Israel. Also on the panel were Noru Tsalic, Marcus Sheff and Nomi Benari. You can now view a recording of the event online.)
A battle for academic minds

The issue of historical distortion in academic textbooks and propaganda in schools and universities is as important – if not more important – than any of the other battles taking place for accuracy and truth. The children sitting in school will have their minds shaped by the information they are given. And if we take all the classrooms in the UK – including the universities – then sitting in those rooms is almost every single politician who will be lawmaking in the coming generations, alongside every future councillor, union leader, lawyer and teacher.

If lies are told to them unchecked, then we lose the battle for minds even before it is started.

How big a problem is it
In the last few months, two seperate UK textbooks (1 , 2) were checked and were removed from the shelves because of historical innacuracies and anti-Israel bias.

If we seek to put all the blame on the academic author or the publisher we are missing the point. These two books were written by different authors, did not rely on the same source material and went through the editorial checks of two seperate publishing houses.

We are dealing with an ideology, a narrative, a world vision – and much of the modern academic landscape has been swallowed whole.

Whilst I have access to some of what is taking place on campus – much of what is occuring in schools is beyond me. Not only are Jews a tiny minority group in the UK – but we are also highly concentrated in certain areas. This means that outside of our bubble are 1000s of schools which have no Jewish presence at all. Our eyes and ears simply do not reach very far.

What we see is only the tip of the iceberg and the problem extends far beyond textbooks.

Jonathan S. Tobin: Who Really Represents America’s Jews?

The notion that any single organization could represent the views or the interests of American Jews on Israel—or any other issue—has always been risible. Yet this dubious assertion has been the raison d’être of one of the more successful experiments in political activism in American Jewish history.

Born seven decades ago out of a hostile administration’s impatience with the myriad Jewish groups lobbying the State Department about Israel, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations has thrived by claiming to be the central address for American Jewish political interests.

But while the Conference has enjoyed a unique perch in the organized Jewish world, many of the groups who compose its membership are neither “major” in any real sense or, by themselves, particularly influential—let alone representative of American Jewry.

Nor can it be considered the public face of the pro-Israel community. That distinction belongs to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Unlike AIPAC, the Conference can’t mobilize tens of thousands of activists to lobby Congress, attend an annual conference, or help direct campaign donations to friends of Israel or foes of the Jewish state’s critics.

Despite its title, the Conference has also lacked the ability to command its member groups to take action on even the most anodyne issues. All 53 organizations retain complete autonomy of action and are divided along political and ideological lines that allow little room for cooperation.

Yet by cloaking itself in a mythical consensus, the Conference has skillfully inserted itself into policy discussions at the highest level both in Washington and abroad. Its ability to not merely be heard but to have its bland but still assertive brand of advocacy be treated as an important factor in rallying support for the State of Israel in Washington has made it the go-to place for anyone—especially foreign governments—who wishes to sound out the views of American Jewish influencers.

Under the leadership of Executive Vice Chairman Malcolm Hoenlein, who assumed the role in 1986, the Conference became less of a club of organizational leaders and more of an aggressive collective putting forward the views of the Jewish community on issues concerning Israel and anti-Semitism at home and abroad.

Gerald M. Steinberg: Jerusalem: 1948, 1967, 2020

As a Jerusalemite, the degree to which the modern history of our city is mangled, distorted, and rewritten by journalists, foreign politicians and diplomats, and less-than-rigorous academics is a major source of frustration, particularly around the celebration of Jerusalem Day.

Almost inevitably, we are told that “East Jerusalem” and the “Old City were captured by Israel from Jordan during the 1967 war, without reference to the status of this city between 1948 and 1967. Outside of Israel, the false narrative portraying Palestinians exclusively as victims and Israel as “occupiers” has replaced the actual history, and substituted propaganda for justice.

The continuing impact of the 1948-1967 Jordanian occupation is central to understanding the broad Israeli rejection of grand peace plans to re-divide this city, including the mirages of “shared sovereignty” and internationalization. While such creative political architecture may sound good, the history of this period should remind us that in practice, such visions will return us to the bad old days,

Jews have lived in Jerusalem continuously, and were the majority population in the decades before the 1948 war. The destruction and ethnic cleansing of the ancient Jewish Quarter in the Old City began following the UN Partition Resolution on November 27 1947. Arab forces blocked the access road from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and numerous Israeli efforts to end this blockade failed, with major casualties. As a result, few reinforcements were available, and on May 28, the Jordanian army (also known as the “Arab Legion”) completed the capture of the Jewish Quarter.

The Jordanian commander, Abdallah el-Tal, boasted that “The operations of calculated destruction were set in motion… Only four days after our entry into Jerusalem the Jewish Quarter had become a graveyard.” (Disaster of Palestine, Cairo 1959) All of the Jewish inhabitants were exiled — the ethnic cleansing was complete. Jews were prohibited from accessing the Temple Mount, destroyed by the Romans in the year 70 AD, or at the Western Wall, which survived the destruction. (These were and remain the holiest sites in the Jewish religion.)

Even after the fall of the Jewish Quarter, the conquerors systematically desecrated all remnants of 3000 years of Jewish Jerusalem. 57 ancient synagogues, libraries and centers of religious study were ransacked and 12 were totally and deliberately destroyed. Those that remained standing were defaced, and turned into barns for goats, sheep and donkeys. Appeals were made to the United Nations and in the international community to declare the Old City to be an ‘open city’ and stop this destruction, but there was no response.

People who claim they are anti-Israel and pro-Arab for "human rights' reasons are among the most delusional people on the planet.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 18, 2020

Was it occupied Palestinian territory when the Ottomans controlled it?
Was it occupied Palestinian land when Britain controlled it?
Was it stolen Palestinian land when Jordan illegally annexed it?

Because I can't find any books or articles before 1979 that calls it Pal land.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 18, 2020

People who claim they are anti-Israel and pro-Arab for "human rights' reasons are among the most delusional people on the planet.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 18, 2020

For those who say Israel is Islamophobic:
What Western country would tolerate mosque loudspeakers at this ear-splitting volume? pic.twitter.com/8TdnRQTpih
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 20, 2020

People who believe that Israel should be treated like every other nation need not apply. https://t.co/B6nO3XEnK1
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 20, 2020

Israel wouldn't do anything if there were serious negotiations. But the peaceniks don't ask anything from the PLO because they KNOW the PLO isn't a peace partner.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 20, 2020

Hey! Let's give a bunch of terror supporting, misogynist, homophobic, dictatorial, corrupt antisemites a state!
That's the only way to peace.
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 21, 2020

Hey Iran and @khamenei_ir!

Since you are boycotting all products with Israeli provenance, here's a short list of companies whose products you must shun:

* Microsoft
* Apple
* Intel
* Samsung
* IBM
* Siemens
* Cisco
* Google
* Facebook
* Oracle

Hatzlacha raba! (Good luck!)
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 21, 2020

"Israel doesn't want peace!"

>"But Israel has offered peace many times."

"No! Its prerequisites are unacceptable to Palestinians!"

>"Which prerequisites?"

"In all those plans, Israel is still allowed to exist!"
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 21, 2020

Of course, @IfNotNowOrg knows that the "international Jew" isn't the "world's foremost problem."

It's the "international Zionist." pic.twitter.com/Q24XKOwHUm
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 21, 2020

This was also part of the liberation of Jerusalem.
Never forget how disgustingly the Arabs treated the thousands of Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives. pic.twitter.com/CSrBrIA70r
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 22, 2020

Good to know that Iran isn't antisemitic, only anti-Zionist. Otherwise, I might have gotten the wrong impression from this cartoon in official Iranian state media. https://t.co/Kqm5PChjdB
— Elder of Ziyon (@elderofziyon) May 22, 2020

Here’s a map of Palestine from 1895

Anti-Israel activists love pointing to coins and stamps and maps from before 1948 showing the existence of Palestine.

A reader sent me this one, from a school atlas from 1895:

Well, it does say “Palestine,” but there is nothing Arab about this map. It is all quite…Biblical.

(h/t DS)

05/22 Links Pt1: Israel-bashers fail to see the Arab train leaving the station; Could his protests over annexation be Mahmoud Abbas’s last whimper?; Palestinians: Eating with a Jew is a Crime

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Israel-bashers fail to see the Arab train leaving the station

It’s a busy time for Israel-haters. So what’s new? Well, a lot.

Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the Democratic congresswoman who has a lengthening record of lies about Israel, last week tweeted the boiler-plate falsehood that Israel’s foundation in 1948 had entailed the “ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian Arabs who were “indigenous” to the land.

The Jews, of course, are the only people for whom the land of Israel was ever their national home. And the Palestinian Arabs’ displacement took place in the war of extermination against the nascent State of Israel, waged by Arab states who told them to leave on the basis that they would return as conquerors.

Yet Tlaib’s ahistorical rubbish is standard discourse among western Israel-bashers. In Britain, more than 130 MPs have signed a letter drafted by the Council for Arab-British Understanding calling for sanctions against Israel if it proceeds with its proposal to extend Israeli law over parts of the disputed territories.

Their claim that this “annexation” is contrary to international law is also demonstrably untrue. It would actually belatedly enforce international law, by restoring the legal right to settle these territories that in the 1920s the international community gave to the Jews alone.

Nevertheless, the European Union (with objections from Hungary and Austria) has repeatedly condemned Israel for the plan. The British government has denounced it. Liberal American Jews fulminate against it.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden says he would “reverse” U.S. President Donald Trump’s Israel policies that he claims damage the chances of a peace agreement, while hedging this with enough caveats to render deniable his hostility to Israel’s best interests.

At the same time, the man they all refuse to condemn for his record of supporting terrorism, inciting mass murder and breaking his undertakings — Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas— declared that the Palestine Liberation Organization was now absolved of all its agreements with Israel and the U.S. over the proposed “annexation.”

Even his followers realized the absurdity of this latest such empty bombast. An exasperated P.A. official said: “How many times can you repeat the same threat? How can you renounce the same agreements you said you renounced five years ago?”

Ruthie Blum: Could his protests over annexation be Mahmoud Abbas’s last whimper?

WHILE ISRAELIS of all persuasions are engaged in a political and ideological debate over elements of the plan – which enables the Jewish state to extend sovereignty over its heartland but also allows for the establishment of a Palestinian state – Abbas is busy igniting another intifada.

And why wouldn’t he be when faced with a document that calls for the empowerment of Palestinians through economic progress and clean governance? Having a state that he doesn’t really want is bad enough. One that is “of the people, by the people and for the people” is his worst nightmare.

This is probably why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had no trouble embracing the plan. Experience has taught him two things: One is that Palestinian signatures on peace deals are meaningless; the other is that Trump keeps his promises.

Abbas couldn’t argue there.

His only recourse under the circumstances, then, is to try to stir a commotion – or, in this case, cry wolf – in the hope that Netanyahu’s and Trump’s foes will come running to his rescue. Take Joe Biden, for example, the US Democratic Party’s presumptive presidential contender against Trump in November.

On the very day that Abbas declared all agreements with Israel and America null and void, Biden held a conference call with Jewish donors, during which he said, “Israel needs to stop the threats of annexation, stop settlement activity, because it will choke off any hope of peace.”
If his suggestion that Palestinians “end incitement in the West Bank and rocket attacks in Gaza” caused Abbas any ill ease, it was likely fleeting. A presidential hopeful who creates moral parity between Israel and the PA is a lot better than a president actually in the Oval Office whose compass can’t be manipulated by a terrorist in a tie.

It is not immediately apparent what Abbas hopes to accomplish by making threats that everyone considers empty. If anything, the 84-year-old author of The Other Side: The Secret Relationship between Nazism and Zionism is setting himself up to go out, not with a bang, but with a whimper.

Jonathan S. Tobin: The Abbas comedy and ongoing Palestinian tragedy

Even more important, Abbas's vows to end security cooperation with Israel are even less credible than his other histrionics.

Although Israel benefits from being able to coordinate with the PA's various intelligence agencies, the real beneficiary of the scheme is Abbas. Without Israeli security to fend off both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, the PA leader's life would be in jeopardy. He needs Israel a lot more than Israel needs him.

But there's one more good reason to treat this subject with skeptical derision.

Far from having abided by the 1993 Oslo Accords that Abbas now threatens to abrogate, the Palestinians have made a mockery of them from the moment they were signed on the White House Lawn in September 1993.

Though the late Yitzhak Rabin made the argument for the peace process by saying that Arafat would fight Palestinian terror, he was tragically wrong. Arafat was never against terror; quite the contrary, he was inciting, planning and funding it. His successor Abbas carries on the tradition of paying for terrorism through the pensions and salaries the PA gives those who commit violence against Jews and Israelis with higher amounts going to those who shed the most blood.

That's why Israelis are so disillusioned with the sort of mindless talk about peace and a two-state solution that passes for informed comment on the situation by people like Biden and the op-ed writers at the Times.

The tragedy of the Palestinians is that they could have had peace and an independent state if their leaders been willing to give up the illusion that Israel could one day be eliminated. Instead, they have chosen corruption, fantasies about the end of Israel and more comedic relief from Abbas. It's a poor bargain, but until Palestinians decide they want something better from their leaders, it's all they'll ever have.