Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, July 16, 2022

07/16 Links: How The UN Overlooks Evidence Of Hamas Human Rights Violations; European Parliament planned Israel trip with Nazi sympathizer delegate

From Ian:

Joe Truzman: How The United Nations Overlooks Evidence Of Hamas Human Rights Violations

Last month, a new United Nations Commission of Inquiry released its first report on human rights violations committed by Israelis and Palestinians. While the report condemns Israel for having “no intention of ending the occupation” and “having clear policies for ensuring complete control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the authors make no serious attempt to document war crimes committed by Hamas-led militant organizations, such as the use of human shields and child soldiers.

This is not just an oversight. I know from experience that UN investigators have difficulty processing information that points toward misconduct by Palestinian armed factions.

Four years ago, a UN team investigating the violent 2018-2019 Gaza protests interviewed me to discuss my research. The team was looking at the role of Palestinian militant organizations in fomenting the unrest, commonly known as the Great March of Return.

The lead investigator questioned me on a range of subjects related to the riots, such as how I obtained evidence of terrorist activity at the Gaza border and my opinion on how Palestinian militant organizations were involved in the Gaza protests. My evidence was derived from various open-source channels, and it was compelling: Hamas and like-minded militant groups such as Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) were orchestrating attacks at the security fence between Israel and Gaza under the guise of civilian protest.

The UN investigators conducted interviews with participants from both sides of the conflict, as well as independent analysts. They obtained thousands of documents. Yet their final report in 2019 said almost nothing about the role of Hamas and other militants in orchestrating riots that targeted Israeli troops and installations. Instead, the report focused on Israel’s responses without explaining that Hamas-led militant activity was largely responsible spurring the clashes.

The UN is now investigating again, and it is reverting to form. Last month’s report from the new Commission of Inquiry once again omits clear evidence of war crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian organizations during last year’s conflict in Gaza.

European Parliament planned Israel trip with Nazi sympathizer delegate

A European Parliament committee canceled its planned visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority after Israeli officials refused to meet the group as long as a Nazi sympathizer was a member, and declined to allow them to visit arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti.

The Foreign Ministry notified the European Parliament Subcommittee on Human Rights that it would not meet with the group because it includes Estonian lawmaker Jaak Madison, leading to the trip’s cancelation on Thursday night.

“We clarified to the heads of the committee that we will not agree to hold official meetings with members of parliament who express opinions inspired by the Nazi worldview,” the Foreign Ministry said on Friday. “In the end, the committee chairman decided to cancel the visit to Israel.”

Madison has called for a “final solution” against immigration to Europe. In 2015, he wrote a blog post sympathizing with the Nazis, in which he said “it is true that there were concentration camps, forced labor camps, games with gas chambers…but at the same time, such strict order brought Germany at the time out of a thorough ‘s***hole.’” He called fascism “an ideology that consists of quite a few positive and necessary nuances to preserve the nation state.”

On the delegation’s schedule for next week was a meeting with Barghouti, a leader of the Tanzim terrorist group, who is serving five life sentences in Hadarim Prison for masterminding deadly terrorist attacks during the Second Intifada, though Israeli authorities ultimately denied them permission to meet with him.

The Subcommittee on Human Rights, led by Belgian socialist MEP Maria Arena, also planned to meet with Qaddura Fares, President of the Palestinian Prisoners Club, which represents scores of terrorists, as well as representatives of six Palestinian NGOs that Israel designated as terrorist organizations last year due to their extensive ties with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Though the EU considers the PFLP to be a terrorist group, nine member states released a statement this week rejecting Israel’s designation of the NGOs.

MEP Prof. Karol Karski of the European Conservatives and Reformists group welcomed the decision, in light of the planned meetings with Barghouti and Fares.

07/15 Links Pt2: Walter Russell Mead: Why Does America Support Israel?; PLO & Hamas give silent nod to Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine; New Russian law may make Jewish, Israeli orgs 'foreign agents'

From Ian:

Yair Rosenberg: Why Does America Support Israel?

Walter Russell Mead is not Jewish, but he knows more about Jews than most Jews. The son of an Episcopal priest from South Carolina, Mead is the Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College, and previously taught foreign policy at Yale, a subject about which he has written several books. But when we first met, some 10 years ago, he wanted to tell me about the Blackstone Memorial.

The Blackstone Memorial was a petition presented to President Benjamin Harrison in 1891. It was signed by 431 prominent Americans, including J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, future President William McKinley, the chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and numerous congresspeople, as well as several notable organizations, including the Washington Post and New York Times. What urgent message did this star-studded manifesto convey to the American president? It was a plea to return the Jewish people to their historic homeland in the Middle East. Far removed from the work of Jewish activists, it was compiled years before the Jewish writer Theodor Herzl would kick off the modern Zionist movement. Mead had come across the remarkable document in the course of researching what would eventually become his next book.

A decade later, he has finally published the results of his inquiry into the historical roots of American support for Israel. The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People tells the story of the non-Jewish relationship to the Jewish state from before its founding to the present day. Part original scholarship, part counterintuitive history, part meditation on American identity, part debunking of anti-Jewish conspiracies, there is nothing quite like it. If I could force people to read one book about America and Israel, it would be this one.

It’s also quite topical. Yesterday, President Joe Biden arrived in Israel, kicking off the latest visit by an American president to the tiny country. If history is any guide, the trip will occasion the same rehashed talking points about the U.S.-Israel relationship, its origins, and its merits. Mead’s book is the antidote to this stale sermonizing. You will learn more from it than from most of the contemporary coverage.

In advance of Biden’s trip, I sat down with Mead to talk about why Zionism succeeded in spite of the preferences of many Jews, how Israel won its independence with repurposed Nazi weapons, and how an imaginary planet explains why so many people believe that Jews control America.

New initiative aims to change anti-Israel discourse among black Americans

A new peace initiative aims to counter the racialization of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict currently dominant in North American discourse.

The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has partnered with the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel to fight the anti-Israel narrative that has swept across America and is being further spread by anti-Israel groups such as Black Lives Matter and antisemitic figures like Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

The intensifying crisis between African-Americans and Jews – both in the United States and when it comes to Israel – has reached dangerous heights. Farrakhan calls Jews and Israel "Satan," and the BLM movement and its self-avowed Marxist-Leninist leaders have triggered a tsunami of antisemitic incidents across America in general and among black Americans specifically.

Now, IBSI wants to reclaim the community from BLM, and to that end is partnering with the JCPA to restore the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr. and to effectively neutralize BLM's efforts to turn the blacks against Israel.

As per the JCPA, before this initiative, "no think tank or policy institute in Israel has analyzed and offered policy solutions to this serious challenge to Israel and the global Jewish community."

Attorney Olga Meshoe Washington, a board member of IBSI and a US-based pro-Israel activist, spoke on a panel at the JCPA on Monday with the founder and CEO of IBSI Pastor Dumisani Washington (her father-in-law) joining via Zoom. They discussed possible solutions, including their policy partnership with the JCPA and its counter-political warfare program under the direction of senior JCPA scholar Dan Diker, former CEO of the World Jewish Congress.

Washington slammed BLM for turning black Americans against Israel and hijacking the claim of apartheid, racializing Israel's conflict with the Palestinians when, in fact, it has nothing to do with race.

Her goal is for blacks to reclaim their own identity and empower themselves. She explained that by educating young people, IBSI can bring about a change in the mentality among the public, as well as the attitude of diplomats toward Israel at, for instance, the United Nations.

She lambasted the UN Human Rights Council for obsessing over the Palestinians when, at present, Africa is the focus of international terrorism.

She also fretted that African leaders contribute wrongly to the conversation about Israel, the BDS movement, racism, and Zionism when they accuse Israel of being an apartheid state.

David Singer: PLO & Hamas give silent nod to Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine

The first meeting in six years between PLO chief Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Algeria this week saw these two protagonists for leadership of the Palestinian Arabs failing to take the opportunity to condemn a Saudi Arabian proposal to unify Jordan, Gaza and parts of the 'West Bank' into one territorial entity.

The justification for this ground- breaking merger was eloquently expressed by its author – Ali Shihabi – a close confidante of Saudi Arabia’s next King – Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman – in a recent article headlined “ The Hashemite Kingdom of Palestine” published in Al Arabiya News - owned by the Saudi Royal Family:

“Jordanians and Palestinians are as similar as any people can be. They are Sunni Arabs from the same neighbourhood. Merging them will not create any long-term ethnic or sectarian fault lines.”

The Saudi proposal made the following hard-hitting truths that would have previously attracted outright condemnation and rejection by both the PLO and Hamas:
-Israel is a reality firmly implanted on the ground that has to be accepted, however grudgingly, by the region around it
-Justice, however, does not make history; hard power does—and Palestinian Arabs must reconcile themselves to this painful reality and move forward with their lives without being held back by false hopes and illusions.
-[The] illusion of “return” has served some Arab regimes’ interests by giving them a powerful excuse to avoid integrating Palestinian Arab refugees as citizens, particularly in Lebanon and even Jordan, both of which have millions of disenfranchised once Palestinian Arabs in their camps. These regimes feared that these refugees-cum-citizens would alter their demographics and threaten their ruling order. Consequently, the excuse given was that since the Palestinian Arabs would eventually return to 'Palestine', giving them citizenship would technically undermine their “right of return” and hence they should be denied citizenship. Palestinian Arab leaders actively colluded in perpetuating this tragedy.
-The Palestinian Arab problem can only be solved today if it is redefined. The issue in this day and age for people should be not so much the ownership of ancestral land but more the critical need to have a legal identity—a globally respected citizenship that allows a person to operate in the modern world. Labor in this day and age is mobile and having citizenship in a country that facilitates such mobility is critical to human development.

07/15 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: Warm words and empty gestures; Biden: I support two states based on pre-1967 lines; Biden visits east Jerusalem without Israeli flag on limousine

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: Warm words and empty gestures

Yet America’s fixation with doing a deal remains unshakeable. The White House is insisting that even Iran’s decision to send drones to Russia won’t affect the negotiations. When Lapid insisted that diplomacy wouldn’t stop Iran's nuclear programme, Biden publicly disagreed and insisted that “diplomacy is the best way”.

Nevertheless, there’s been a slight shift in language. Biden said he was prepared to use military force “as a last resort” to stop Iran’s growing nuclear programme.

This week, Biden and Lapid signed the Jerusalem Declaration formalising the US-Israel Strategic Partnership. This says that America and Israel will “use all elements of national power” — which would include military measures — to ensure that Iran doesn’t obtain a nuclear weapon.

But what does this mean? Given the Biden administration’s previous form, that “last resort” would probably not be until an Iranian nuclear missile was on the point of being fired. For the Israelis, the “last resort” would undoubtedly arrive far sooner. If Israel were to attack Iran, would the US help — or try to stop it?

And Biden’s declaration that Iran will never get a nuclear weapon is hollow, considering that the Obama administration made the same pledge even as it formulated the 2015 deal that guaranteed Iranian nuclear break-out capacity with only a few years’ delay.

So a measure of scepticism about “military force” is in order, particularly in view of what is assumed to be the real reason for Biden’s visit — to plead with the Saudis to pump more oil to bring down the price and thus relieve the fuel crisis precipitated by Russia's war against Ukraine.

And to persuade the Saudis to do this, Biden has to convince them that America seriously intends to stop Iran in its tracks. Hence the “military force” reference.

But as Lapid told Biden, Iran will only be deterred by a credible threat of military action. A really credible signal would be for the United States publicly to announce its intention to give Israel the weaponry with which it could destroy Iran’s nuclear sites.

Absent a signal of that kind, there is no reason why the Saudis or anyone else should change their view that the United Sttes under Biden is a busted flush — prepared to offer no more than the warm words and empty gestures that have been on such conspicuous display this week.

BIDEN in East Jerusalem: "…the background of my family is Irish American and we have a long history not fundamentally unlike the Palestinian people, with Great Britain and their attitude toward Irish Catholics over the years for 400 years." pic.twitter.com/stj17lgSvv
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 15, 2022

Great idea to piss all over two major US allies in one sentence in order to pander to terror entities like Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, all while butchering Jerusalem's history and present.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 15, 2022

JPost Editorial: Biden must set a deadline for Iran nuclear talks

While Biden understandably wants to try to reach a diplomatic resolution that will stop Iran, there needs to be a deadline, and the Iranians need to know that they cannot drag this on forever.

The US also has tools. One is presenting the Iranians with a credible military threat. The other is upping the sanctions against Iran while threatening that more will be imposed if the Islamic Republic continues to stall and to spin its centrifuges.

Iran is a threat that will not simply go away on its own, and needs a comprehensive solution in which America needs to lead. Waiting is not a strategy.

As Seth Frantzman wrote in The Jerusalem Post this week, Tehran by hosting Russian President Vladimir Putin next week is trying to showcase that it can work with countries that want to unseat the US as a global hegemonic power.

This is the messaging Iran is putting out, and one that Turkey, Pakistan, China, Russia and other authoritarian regimes believe in.

A clearer message than the one Biden presented in Israel is needed for Iran to understand that it cannot continue on its current path.

The first step would be to set a deadline for the talks. The Iranians need to know that the world will not wait, and that if they do not comply, they will ultimately pay a price.

Gantz presents Biden with clandestine Israeli-Arab defense pacts

Amid the backdrop of various reports of a potential diplomatic breakthrough between Israel and Saudi Arabia during US President Joe Biden's visit to the region, the Wall Street Journal on Thursday reported that Israel and Arab countries that are not a part of the Abraham Accords have already signed security agreements.

One historic diplomatic breakthrough was already achieved on Friday, as Saudi Arabia, without explicitly mentioning Israel, opened its airspace to "all air carriers," signaling the end of its longstanding ban on Israeli flights overflying its territory.

According to the report, which was based on a "person familiar with the matter," Defense Minister Benny Gantz presented Biden with a list of clandestine defense agreements Israel has with Arab countries in the region, including those with which it does not have official diplomatic ties.

The report also noted that talks to establish a joint regional air defense alliance between Israel and some Arab countries have slowed recently, amid concerns from some of the Arab nations involved.

Even Israeli lab-grown meat is colonialist, according to this academic

Israel is a leader in lab-grown cultured meat. But according to at least one academic, this is symbolic of Israeli colonialism.

Yes, really.

Efrat Gilad is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Jewish Studies at the University of Bern. She wrote "A Colonial Legacy of Cultured Meat" describing how Israel's meat industry, including its recent leadership in lab-grown cultured meat, is really all just a history of Jewish colonialism.

Without the politics, the article would be a pretty good overview of the history of the meat industry in Palestine since Ottoman times. But instead, it is a screed about how evil Jews have upset the wonderful balance of nature in Palestine by introducing a meat-based diet into the region.

You see, native Palestinians didn't consume much meat. But the evil Ashkenazi Jews who selfishly returned to Palestine to save their lives from pogroms brought with them a love of meat, and that transformed the country into something it was never meant to be.

In Europe, Jews had been associated with the cattle trade since the Middle Ages. But in Palestine, consuming meat depended on Palestinian peasants and regional Arab breeders. Jewish actors (importers, butchers, religious authorities, urban officials) tried to gain more ground in the country’s meat trade. In the 1930s, Jewish cattle dealers began to import cattle from Europe, relying on their old continental networks. By shipping in animals from overseas, Jewish dealers expanded Palestine’s regional trade into a transcontinental trade. This ...allowed Jewish dealers to penetrate the country’s meat trade by importing to Palestine European bovines three times the size of local species.

...Tel Aviv, for example, was the settlement’s most important city financially, demographically, and also in terms of meat consumption. Its emerging meat infrastructures – especially its slaughterhouse built in 1931 – facilitated the expansion of the city, and by proxy, the entire Jewish settlement.

Rather than a land of milk and honey, settlers hankered for meat as the material manifestation of arriving at a utopia of prosperity and plenty. Increasing Jews’ access to meat in Palestine under British rule may have been against economic ideals, but still served the Zionist goal: the expansion of the settlement and the colonization of Palestine.

I suppose that their draining the malaria-infested swamps was also a colonialist interference to destroy the natural beauty of Palestine.

Gilad goes on to describe the austerity period after the War of Independence when there was very little meat, and Israeli attempts to create vegetable-based substitutes, as a precursor to today's cultured meat industry. She includes this marvelous cartoon from Maariv in 1949:

“We have been informed of the invention of “artificial meat” in our country, and it was produced from mushrooms and eggplant..” - “What kind of animal is this?” - "It's an artificial cow!"

But she absurdly interprets a brief history of the Israeli meat market by the Tnuva conglomerate as evidence of how Israelis hate Palestinians:

On its website, the company recalls how it entered the meat business: Until 1948 meat supplies depended on “Arab agriculture and nomadic Bedouins. But with the creation of the state, this main source of meat disappeared”. Echoing the hegemonic Israeli stance, Tnuva’s website reduces Palestinians to a “source of meat” and their forced exodus to a “disappearance”.

If you write a history of meat that doesn't center Palestinian suffering, you must be a racist colonialist pig.

In short, when Zionists import beef, it is colonialist. When they try to create ersatz substitutes, it is colonialist. When they lead the world in cultured meat, it is colonialist.

Anti-Zionist glasses are a requirement for academia

Her very thesis that meat is an alien part of the Middle East diet brought in by colonialist European Jews is another manifestation of viewing the world through anti-Zionist glasses. The consumption of meat in Arab countries today roughly corresponds with wealth, not historic diet habits. The per capita consumption of meat in Gulf states - almost all of it imported - is not much different than that of Israel.

And guess who consumes the most meat in the Arab world? Palestinians, by far!

No doubt, Gilad would blame Israel for irrevocably ruining the diet of the natives.

As countries become richer, they buy more meat. It has nothing to do with colonialism. It has everything to do with the crazy idea that people like meat.

Ascribing Jewish colonialist and racist motives for what is a consumer preference and economic issue is just a more sophisticated - and academically approved - version of antisemitism.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

At the end of President Biden's visit to Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, they both issued statements.

And Abbas' statement included explicit Jew-hatred.

According to the official Palestinian Wafa news agency:

President Abbas stressed that East Jerusalem, occupied since 1967, is the capital of the State of Palestine, stressing the need to stop the extremist groups’ incursions into the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, and to preserve the historical situation in the Christian and Islamic holy sites in East Jerusalem, in accordance with the Hashemite guardianship over them.

He told the American president that the holiest site in Judaism should be Judenfrei.

Slightly less explicitly but no less clearly, Abbas also insisted that all of the Old City be empty of Jews as well. When he refers to the "historical situation" of the holy sites in Jerusalem under Hashemite rule he means the situation between 1949 and 1967, when Jordan controlled the Old City - and not one Jew was allowed to visit.

Not Israelis, but Jews. Jordan banned Jews from any country to visit the Old City as well as the rest of Judea and Samaria.

Mahmoud Abbas publicly told the US President that the holiest city in Judaism should be off limits to Jews.

This pure antisemitism will be roundly ignored in the international media. Because the English version of the story in Wafa didn't include any of this part of his statement.

UPDATE: Abbas also said that all of Israel is "occupied Palestinian land." In his speech, according to YNet, he said, "After 74 years, isn't it time for occupation to end?"

The US should strongly condemn these words that insult not only Israel but the US itself.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Used to be, Palestinian terror leaders could get automatic throngs for demonstrations.No more.

Not too long ago, whenever Hamas or Islamic Jihad or Fatah wanted to fire up their people, they would put together a massive rally where tens of thousands could be summoned at seemingly the snap of a finger.

Here's a Hamas rally from 2017:

An Islamic Jihad rally from 2016:

But on Thursday, The Palestinian Authority and Islamic Jihad held a rally to protest President Biden's visit to Israel.

And the turnout was pathetic.

Here was Islamic Jihad's rally:

And here is another demonstration in Ramallah:

In Gaza, with a captive audience, a couple hundred people came to a rally organized by several socialist groups.

It looks like it is not only other Arab nations who are sick of Palestinian leadership.

Palestinians are, too.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

07/14 Links Pt2: The antisemites and their defenders; The Billion Dollar Industry of Hate; Reps. Omar and Tlaib among Democrats tied to group with alleged links to Hamas slaying

From Ian:

David Collier: The antisemites and their defenders

Whilst there is no doubt that much of the activism against Israel is driven by antisemites – these people feed from the lies being spread through the mainstream. Pushed mainly by Journalists who have long ago removed the mask of impartiality. This includes those at Sky News, the BBC, the Guardian, CNN and the NYT – whose networks rely on Palestinian support – and mostly produce pieces that bolster the disinformation campaign.

Just as they have always done, lies about Jews create the atmosphere for antisemitism to thrive.

And Jews are now not only the targets of antisemitic attack – they are even being attacked for complaining about being attacked.

Just recently, Amnesty’s general secretary Agnese Callamard said critics of their ‘Israel apartheid’ report ‘weaponise antisemitism’. Callamard runs an organisation that spread libels about Israel – driven by the Islamist extremists and antisemites in her own camp – and then attacks the Jewish people who stand up against her organisation’s racist falsehoods.

Jews ‘weaponising antisemitism’ is the latest of the anti-Jewish libels. Events on the subject are held globally and academics provide the neccessary ‘science’ to ‘prove’ the accusation is real. Websites are created about ‘bogus antisemitism’ and those called out for their anti-Jewish hatred receive applause as they claim they are victims of a ‘Zionist witch hunt’.

The media is happy to lend a hand, by publishing endless articles about how anti-Zionism is not antisemitism – or by promoting that view that it is all about silencing ‘legitimate criticism of Israel’. (BBC, Guardian, NYT, CNN, Irish Times, Independent, Washington Post )

Antisemites and their defenders. A partnership that has lasted over 1000 years. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

The Billion Dollar Industry of Hate

The human rights industry is worth billions of dollars. This is serious wonga! According to recent statistics reported by the Business Research Company, the global human rights organizations market size was expected to grow from $16.60 billion in 2021 to $17.47 billion in 2022 at a compound annual growth rate. That is a lot of lucre.

One could see why people are drawn to working for human rights organisations – after all who wouldn’t want to work for what they perceive is a noble and just cause? The two most notable organisations are Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. There are notable parallels between these organisations. Both of these once venerated NGO’s were founded by Jews. Both enjoy extremely high profiles and trust. Both are seen as the litmus test for evaluating human rights transgressions. Both have a clear obsession with the State of Israel. Both have seen their original founders publicly distance themselves from the organisations for fear they were headed down a dangerous, agenda driven road.

When an organization, no matter how noble their mandate is, starts to veer off course and head down a very dubious path it often raises question “who is funding them?”

For the purposes of this article, we will take a look at Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. (h/t Max Mendelbaum)

Rights Group Exposes Palestinian Torture Ahead of First UN Review

The Palestinian Authority and Hamas routinely torture human rights activists, women, LGBT persons, political opponents, so-called “collaborators,” and Palestinians who sell land to Jews, the non-governmental group UN Watch charged Thursday.

The Geneva-based human rights organization made its criticism in major new report to the UN Committee Against Torture, which will meet next week for two days, on July 19-20, to consider Palestinian compliance with the UN convention against torture and other cruel forms of punishment. The UN panel published the submission on its website.

“Evidence continues to emerge of widespread torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of detainees held in Palestinian custody in the West Bank and Gaza,” said Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch.

UN Watch representatives will present the report to the 10-member committee during a private briefing with human rights groups on July 18, one day before the experts are set to grill a delegation from the Palestinian Authority for the first time since it signed the treaty in 2014.

While the PA is expected to tout how it has fulfilled its promises, UN Watch said the PA’s 67-page response—submitted to the committee four years late—seeks to absolve Palestinian actors of responsibility for complying with the treaty’s prohibitions against torture, and instead points the finger at Israel to deflect attention from the PA’s own record, the actual subject of the UN review.

According to UN Watch legal advisor Dina Rovner, the Palestinian submission “contains no data on the pervasiveness of torture under the PA and Hamas, or on any practical measures implemented to prevent torture by security forces during interrogation, nor does it offer any information on individual cases of torture, justice for victims, or actions to address underlying causes of violations.”

NGO Monitor: UN Adopts Invented NGO Claims on Palestinian Minors to Threaten Israel with Blacklist

The EU is a significant funder of the primary NGOs behind the campaign to list the IDF on the Secretary-General’s CAAC annex. Indeed, EU-funded grant descriptions emphasize advocacy and collaboration with the UN to extensively lobby international actors and governments and ensure accountability.

In addition, many of the reporting and advocacy benchmarks are established in advance of the project or any documented wrongdoing, encouraging NGO grantees to invent and inflate claims in order to comply with the grant requirements.Between 2018-2020 alone, the EU provided at least €3.2 million to projects that advance the campaign to “blacklist” the IDF, alongside at least $6.7 million from European countries (UK, Norway, Belgium, Switzerland, and others).

For instance, the EU disbursed €1.6 million to the Norwegian Refugees Council (NRC) in 2019-2020 for “Humanitarian Support to Protect Education from Attacks in West Bank, including East Jerusalem- phase IV”. France contributed $763,807 to this project in 2020.9 The project’s objectives included “Strengthening documentation, reporting, advocacy and communication (including dialogue with national and international authorities, and media outreach) on education-related violations,” as well as “Advocacy using field and desk research to produce materials, briefings and submissions to the international community in oPT, including EU and UN bodies and diplomatic missions, as well as EU and UN bodies based in Brussels, Geneva, and New York, and the U.S. Congress” (emphases added).

Similarly, in an earlier phase of this project to which the EU provided $929,000 in 2018, NRC was expected to produce three “education related advocacy materials (briefings, briefing documents, reports and formal complaints to UN special Mechanisms etc)” to “share[] with relevant stakeholders.” Additionally, officials in Brussels wanted “20 advocacy briefings on documented violations on the Right to Education,” and “3 instances when Third States and intergovernmental bodies condemn violations of the Right to Education” (emphases added).

In other words, it was already decided in advance of its work that the NRC would file complaints against Israel with the UN, and tangible success would be measured by lobbying and getting countries and intergovernmental bodies to condemn Israel.

Some reactions to the Jerusalem Declaration from terror groups:

The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine called it "an open invitation to ignite regional wars in the region...[it brings] destruction and scourge, under the pretext of Israel's defense of itself.

"It aspires to fully control our region's energy wealth, and drag it into alliances and regional and continental wars. It serves only the imperialist interests of the United States.

"It will drown our region in seas of blood, with many problems such as impoverishment, starvation, waste of wealth and mass destruction."

They forgot to mention the locusts.

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said "it is a continuation of the aggression against the Palestinian people and their national rights and the release of the Zionist entity's hand in expanding and deepening its colonial project in Palestine, and extending outwards."

The Palestinian Authority said that "the threats launched by US President Joe Biden in occupied Jerusalem will fall via the resistance and steadfastness of our people and the peoples of the region and the forces of resistance. The Palestinian people are the ones who determine their fate, not the colonialist Biden and his Zionist partners."

The moderate PA then "called for escalating all forms of resistance....against aggressive colonial and Zionist policies" which is a lightly veiled call for terror attacks.

Hamas said that "Biden's visit confirmed that Washington is a direct partner in the Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people....Attempts to legitimize the occupation and integrate it in the region will be destroyed on the rock of the steadfastness of the Palestinian people."

Islamic Jihad said, "We have to sharpen our resolve, intensify our resistance, and impose new facts on the ground. Only then can we achieve the minimum of what we aspire to."

All of this sounds like a ringing endorsement to me!

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Soccer Fan Hopes To Catch Maariv Minyan At Post-Game Riot (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Jerusalem, July 14 - A stalwart supporter of this city's Premier League team, known for the jingoistic, often-racist, and sometimes-violent passion of its core demographic, plans to return from this evening's match too late to catch evening services at his synagogue, forcing him to look for nine other men who can take time away from their customary after-hours vandalism to form the necessary quorum for communal devotionals.

Shimon Abutbul, 30, told reporters on his way to the Beitar Jerusalem game against B'nei Sakhnin that he hopes to catch Ma'ariv, the evening liturgy, after the match, while acknowledging that doing so will require assembling a minyan, the ten necessary men over the age of thirteen, while hundreds, perhaps thousands, of fans express either their jubilation at a victory over the mostly-Arab opposing team, or their frustration at losing to them, by smashing windows, beating up people wearing anything other than yellow-and-black Beitar colors, strewing trash, spray-painting nationalist slogans, and harassing passers-by.

"I'm still saying Kaddish for my mother," explained Abutbul, a produce-stall proprietor by day. "She was always supportive of the things that kept our family connected to our community and heritage, and support for Beitar has long been a staple of that culture. I've managed not to miss a single time since she died six months ago. We'll have to leave some things to God, and I don't mean just the performance of our boys down on the pitch tonight. We have to show those filthy Arabs who's boss now, on the field and off. Black and yellow!"

Jerusalem-Sakhnin games often devolve into fights between opposing groups of fans, who bring the resentments and animosity of the Arab-Israeli conflict to each match between the two clubs. Conservative sensibilities among Beitar's Jewish supporters assign symbolic political importance to the rivalry and feel the need to reassert, by proxy, Jewish sovereignty after centuries of life as an underclass under Islamic rule; Sakhnin fans bring to the confrontation both the shame of Arabs having lost their dominant position despite outnumbering and outgunning the Jews of 1948 and 1967, and the cumulative grievances of discrimination against their minority since the founding of the modern state of Israel. More than once, law enforcement has ordered games between the two squads to take place with no fans in attendance, both as a penalty for the disorder and as a preventive measure.

Abutbul boasted that he once succeeded in assembling a minyan after a Grateful Dead tribute concert, but conceded that not all the participants were necessarily in a mental state to realize they formed part of the quorum

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07/14 Links Pt1: Biden needs to share intel, get out of the way and let Israel end Iran nuclear threat; Israel, India, US, UAE unveil joint food security, energy projects at virtual summit

From Ian:

Biden needs to share intel, get out of the way and let Israel end Iran nuclear threat

It is the credible threat of force that allows economic and diplomatic pressure to advance with success. And it is the lack of such a threat that gives way to deeply flawed agreements that provide Iran pathways to nuclear weapons.

Biden yesterday reaffirmed his commitment to returning to the 2015 nuclear deal — an agreement that offers more policy challenges than solutions.

Under the deal, Iran gets a financial package worth up to $275 billion in the first year and as much as $800 billion over the next five. With a trillion dollars available by 2030 for Iran’s missile program, sponsorship of terrorism and Revolutionary Guard, the agreement enables Tehran to set a dozen more fires around the Middle East that force a US response to defend American citizens, embassies and allies. And in the end, without demanding a full accounting of Iran’s nuclear activities or destroying a single centrifuge, the deal’s expiration dates all but guarantee Iran will still cross the nuclear threshold at a future time of its choosing.

To be sure, Russia and China would like nothing more than to see an America bogged down by never-ending Iranian nuclear extortion and escalation. That is why they are the strongest proponents of a nuclear deal with Iran. They know that the more money Iran has available for terrorism, missiles and nuclear expansion in the Middle East, the more American time and resources will consistently be diverted from Asia and Europe to mitigate the latest Iran-sponsored crisis. That, unfortunately, is a strategic reality supporters of an Iran nuclear deal fail to grasp.

Facing reporters in Israel, Biden reluctantly stated he would consider military action against Iran as a last resort. But given his commitment to the Iran deal and aversion to combat operations in the Middle East, it is more likely Iran acquires nuclear weapons than Biden orders a military strike.

Plan of action?
That leaves Israel as the world’s last line of defense. Over the past weeks, Jerusalem has widened its covert campaign against Iran — conducting clandestine strikes, cyber-attacks and assassinations deep inside the Islamic Republic. At a minimum, Biden should commit to his counterpart that the US will not get in Israel’s way. Better though would be an offer of US support through a combination of intelligence coordination, expedited defense transfers, and covert action — while simultaneously ratcheting up economic and diplomatic pressure to further weaken the regime, even as the president insists publicly his goal is a return to a nuclear deal.

Biden doesn’t want to make the difficult decisions necessary to stop Iran’s drive to nuclear weapons. Hopefully he’s willing to let Israel save America from years of Middle East quagmires.

JPost Editorial: Biden's 'Jerusalem Declaration' is a non-binding act of friendship

The declaration on Iran sends a message that while the US and Israel may disagree on how best to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and about whether Iran needs to be stopped, they are in total agreement on the need to prevent the Islamic Republic from getting nuclear arms, and will ensure that it is unable to do so.

Coming at a time when the nuclear talks with Iran are on the verge of collapse, when Tehran is moving perilously close to the nuclear threshold, and as Russian President Vladimir Putin is scheduled to meet in Iran next week with its leaders, this is not a message being sent in a vacuum.

In addition, the reaffirmation that will come in the proclamation regarding Israel’s QME – something already anchored in congressional legislation – is important now considering the multi-billion dollar arms deals the US has signed, and is in the process of signing, with the Gulf countries, including Saudi Arabia.

Reaffirming Israel’s QME now means that the US pledges to uphold it even in the Abraham Accords era, when the major recipients of US arms – such as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – are at peace with Israel. But what happens if there are seismic changes in those countries, or in Saudi Arabia, and the rulers are overthrown? Israel will still need to have a military edge on them, and this commitment reaffirms that.

This proclamation further anchors the close strategic ties between the countries. The tighter that knot is tied, the better. Problems with the “Jerusalem Declaration”

It is worth noting, however, that this is a proclamation and has no legal standing. There have been other such declarations made by US presidents toward Israel in one form or another – such as George W. Bush’s famous letter to Ariel Sharon – that had a shelf life of the duration of that president’s tenure, but which can – as Barack Obama did with the Bush letter – later be largely disregarded

Biden’s proclamation is a powerful declaration of friendship, for which Israel should be extremely grateful. It is not, however, a treaty or legally binding document. There is a difference, and both Israel’s policymakers and the public would do well to keep that in mind.

Mark Regev: US president visiting Israel: A dream now commonplace - opinion

George W. Bush visited Israel twice during his presidency. In January 2008, he came to bolster the dialogue between prime minister Ehud Olmert and PA President Mahmoud Abbas, returning that May to be part of the celebrations marking Israel’s 60th year of independence.

President Barack Obama traveled to the Middle East in June 2009 where he addressed the Muslim world from Cairo University. Obama controversially chose to avoid an Israel stopover, deliberately seeking to signal “daylight” between Washington and Jerusalem.

Obama ended up visiting Israel at the beginning of his second term, hoping to open the door for incoming-secretary of state John Kerry’s (ultimately ill-fated) effort to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace.

In May 2017, Donald Trump chose to make his first international trip as president to the Middle East, combining visits to Saudi Arabia and Israel. In Riyadh, Trump met with Arab leaders from across the region. In Jerusalem, he broke the taboo on American presidents visiting the Western Wall.

Biden’s presence this week is designed to showcase the strength of the US-Israel partnership. In addition, the president’s visit conveniently serves as a public cushion for his Saudi rapprochement, following a period of strained Riyadh-Washington ties due to Biden’s overt criticism of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s role in the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. And perhaps, Biden, like Clinton in 1996, also wants to buttress the political standing of an Israeli prime minister who many see as a more comfortable fit for his Democratic administration.

Yet, as we have seen, Biden is not the first president, and won’t be the last, to utilize an Israel visit to advance disparate goals.

Very pleased to hear Pres. #Biden open his remarks at the press conference in #Jerusalem with PM @yairlapid, by saying "I'm honored to be back here, in the capital of Israel."#POTUSIsrael2022 pic.twitter.com/ZqQh2YOOe4
— Arsen Ostrovsky (@Ostrov_A) July 14, 2022

Jewish Voice for "Peace" Political Director Beth Miller reveals that the organization supports dead Jews.

In a bizarre attempt at far-Leftist humor, she writes:

Israel bringing Iron Dome batteries to the tarmac for Biden is like wearing the sweater your aunt gave you whenever she comes over. If your aunt was an imperial military power and you'd begged her for the sweater in order to maintain military control over the people you occupy.

Usually people don't want to wear their aunts' sweaters, but Israel definitely loves Iron Dome.

Notwithstanding Millers lack of understanding how jokes work, she is calling Iron Dome - a purely defensive system meant to save Israeli lives, that has never hurt a single Palestinian - as something meant "to maintain military control over the people you occupy."

Meaning, according to Miller and JVP, Iron Dome should never have been built. Hamas and Islamic Jihad has every right to shoot rockets aimed specifically at Israeli civilians in Israeli population centers, under this sickening concept of morality.

Iron Dome allows Israel to brush off rocket attacks that otherwise would require a major military response. It saves at least as many Palestinian lives as it saves Israeli lives. But JVP doesn't care about the Palestinians in Gaza or elsewhere; their entire purpose is to oppose Jewish rights and Jews living in security.

Never has the both the "Jewish" and "peace" part of their name been proven more Orwellian.

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The Palestinian Authority has signed numerous international conventions, without any reservations. It never intended to adhere to any of them. The only reason it signed them, as admitted by Palestinians themselves, is to make it appear to be a legitimate state so it can bring charges against Israel at the ICC.

However, these conventions do have requirements, so the Palestinian leaders must then submit to the UN a sheaf of lies to cover for the fact that they never did anything substantial to take on their obligations under international law.

One of the many international conventions the PA signed was the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 2014. (It also signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention in 2017. )

One of the provisions in the Convention is the issue a report within one year of signing the Comvention and then an additional one every four years afterwards on how it has implemented the Convention. The PA has finally issued its initial report that should have been published in 2015.

The 67-page report is a joke. It brags about passing laws and says nothing about actual efforts on the ground to stop torture. It is a whitewash that even Palestinian NGOs are upset about. UN Watch dissects it very nicely.

Beyond that, as always, the Palestinian Authority uses this report not to discuss its own human rights abuses, but to blame Israel for everything. To do this, it resorts to a torrent of lies.

It is difficult to overstate how pervasive the Palestinian industry of lies is. Every statement, every document, every official press agency report is simply filled with falsehoods, and the average observer simply cannot believe that the "State of Palestine" would lie so egregiously in official reports to the UN or official statements to the world. The Palestinians have created a brand new propaganda method - instead of the famous Big Lie of Hitler and Goebbels, the Palestinians have perfected a Sea of Lies technique, making up thousands of little lies that build on each other so the overall effect is that so many lies in such seeming detail must be true.

It would take encyclopedias to expose every single one of the falsehoods in the Sea of Lies. I will show only one of them here.

In Paragraph 47, the Palestinian authors claim:

The conditions of detention in which Palestinian women [in Israeli prisons] are held are wretched.... They are forced to give birth with their hands bound, regardless of the pain they endure in labour and childbirth.

There are no footnotes for the charge that Israeli prison authorities shackle pregnant prisoners during childbirth.

It is completely made up.

The last pregnant Palestinian prisoner in Israeli prison was Anhar al-Deek, who had tried to stab Israelis. After a public campaign she was released to give birth while under house arrest. She had smuggled out a letter claiming that she would be shackled while giving birth in an Israeli hospital, but it simply isn't true.

The source for the lie seems to be from a previous prisoner who gave birth in an Israeli hospital, 15 years ago. Palestinian NGOs submitted to the UN this "testimony" which itself is highly suspect, but even she doesn't claim that she gave birth while handcuffed: "After delivery, I was cuffed by having one arm and one leg tied to the bed. In this position I was left for several hours before being taken back to my room."

What is not said is that this woman - a mother of eight - had attempted a suicide bombing while she was already nine months pregnant. She didn't seem to have much concern for her unborn child then. And that is a pretty good reason to take extra precautions to ensure she didn't escape from a hospital room only weeks after attempting to mass murder Jews.

It is obvious that Israel doesn't handcuff Palestinian prisoners as they are giving birth. Even the most anti-Israel NGO doesn't make that claim. But the Palestinian Authority does, in official documentation sent to the UN.

The major goal in everything they do, every statement they make, is to demonize Israel. And their citizens are expected to do the same. The rules are clear.

This one sentence in this one document proves that you cannot believe a word the Palestinian Authority says.

In a sane world, a consistent pattern of lying would destroy the credibility of the liar. But with the Sea of Lies, the web of falsehoods is perceived as increasing the credibility of the lies and the liars. The media is guilty of not bothering to do the slightest fact check of Palestinian statements; indeed they report them uncritically - because they want to believe the lies of a Jew-hating, terror supporting organization.

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On Wednesday, Morocco's King Mohammed VI chaired a meeting of the Council of Ministers. A remarkable thing occurred:

At the end of the Council's proceedings, the Minister of Interior made before His Majesty the King, may God preserve Him, a presentation on the measures elaborated, pursuant to the High Royal Instructions on the organization of the Moroccan Jewish community.

These measures are based on the supreme responsibility of His Majesty the King as Commander of the Faithful and guarantor of the free exercise of worship for all Moroccans, all religious confessions included, and come to enshrine the Hebrew tributary as a component of the Moroccan culture rich of its multiple tributaries.

The scheme submitted to the High Appreciation of His Majesty the King, drawn up after extensive consultations with representatives of the Jewish community and personalities belonging to it, includes the following bodies:

1- The National Council of the Moroccan Jewish Community:

It is responsible for managing the affairs of the community and safeguarding the cultural and religious heritage and influence of Judaism and its authentic Moroccan values. Regional committees of the Council will be responsible for managing the day-to-day issues and affairs of the community's members.

2- The Committee of Moroccan Jews living abroad:

It works to consolidate the ties of Moroccan Jews living abroad with their country of origin, to strengthen their cultural and religious influence and to defend the supreme interests of the Kingdom.

3- The Foundation of Moroccan Judaism:

Its mission is to promote and watch over the Jewish-Moroccan intangible heritage, to safeguard its traditions and to preserve its specificities.

King Mohammed VI was always sympathetic towards his Jewish subjects, but until the Abraham Accords he couldn't have allowed an organization for Moroccan Jews abroad - for the simple reason that most of them live in Israel.

This brings up an additional benefit of the Abraham Accords: it has significantly reduced the amount of antisemitism in the media of Gulf countries and Morocco.

The ADL's polls from 2014 in the states most affected by the Abraham Accords indicated that in Morocco, 80% of the citizens held antisemitic attitudes; UAE 80%, Bahrain 81%, Saudi Arabia 74%, Oman 76%.. The Palestinian territories was 93%.

Until there is a new survey, we won't know how much the Accords have reduced Arab antisemitism, but it is a fair bet that with fewer antisemitic articles and stories in the media - and far more stories sympathetic to Jews - the attitudes of the citizens will be positively impacted towards Jews.

The progressives who never admitted that there was an Arab antisemitism problem likewise will not admit that reducing Arab antisemitism is a clear win from a human rights perspective. They try to spin the agreements as if they are somehow making human rights worse for the Arab signatories, when in fact when they are more favorably disposed towards Jews they are also more open to all non-Muslims.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

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Jews have always been Zionist (posters)

I created these in April but cannot find that I posted them, so here is a series of graphics showing that Zionism is an integral part of Judaism.

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07/13 Links Pt2: Blinken invites Abu Akleh family to DC, will raise killing during Biden visit; Meet the Cori Bush Activist Who Wants To Burn Jews Alive

From Ian:

Blinken invites Abu Akleh family to DC, will raise killing during Biden visit

The Biden administration has invited Shireen Abu Akleh’s family to Washington to “engage directly” with the slain Palestinian-American reporter’s relatives, who have expressed outrage over the US determination that she was not intentionally killed by the IDF during a raid in the West Bank.

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters aboard Air Force One en route to Israel on Wednesday that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke recently on the phone with members of the Abu Akleh family and extended the invitation.

“The administration, at the president’s direction, has been very much engaged in helping try to determine what exactly happened around the tragic circumstances of her death,” Sullivan said, adding that “this subject will be one of the subjects at play in this visit.”

Abu Akleh was killed on May 11 while covering clashes between IDF soldiers and Palestinian gunmen. The Palestinian Authority said its investigation proved that the Al Jazeera journalist was intentionally targeted and killed by the IDF, while Israel insists there is not enough evidence to draw a definitive conclusion.

After nearly two months, the PA agreed to hand over the bullet used to kill Abu Akleh to US authorities, who proceeded to conduct a forensic examination. On July 4, the State Department announced that the probe had been inconclusive because the bullet was too badly damaged.

Washington added that it had reviewed the separate investigations by Israel and the Palestinian Authority, concluding that she was likely struck by Israeli fire, though it found “no reason to believe that this was intentional.”

Meet the Cori Bush Activist Who Wants To Burn Jews Alive

Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.) spent years cultivating a relationship with a pro-Palestinian activist who once tweeted that she wants to "set Israel on fire with my own hands & watch it burn to ashes along with every Israeli in it."

Bush, a member of the far-left "Squad" of lawmakers known for their anti-Israel attitudes, has been working alongside anti-Israel activist Neveen Ayesh since at least 2017, according to information published by Canary Mission, a watchdog group that tracks anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activists online. While Bush has publicly condemned attacks on the Jewish community, her relationship with Ayesh and other anti-Israel activists is drawing accusations that these statements are empty rhetoric.

Ayesh, who has been active in several leading anti-Israel groups, including American Muslims for Palestine, organized a 2020 fundraiser for Bush that featured Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D., Mich.), one of Congress's most vocal opponents of the Jewish state, and Linda Sarsour, an activist who has repeatedly used anti-Semitic rhetoric. An invitation for the fundraiser, titled "Muslims for Cori," is accessible on the ActBlue website, an online donation portal used by Democrats.

The relationship between Ayesh and Bush is raising fresh questions about the congresswoman's support for anti-Israel causes and willingness to partner with individuals who have expressed hatred toward Jewish people.

"Neveen Ayesh has shown support for terror organizations, wants to kill every Israeli, and called being Jewish a crime worthy of the rope," a Canary Mission spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon. "Her anti-Semitism is publicly known information. It was even discussed on the floor of the Missouri House of Representatives. However, Cori Bush had no problem benefiting from a fundraiser organized by Ayesh and enjoys a long-standing relationship with her."

Bush, the watchdog group said, must provide her constituents with "an explanation." A Bush spokesman did not respond to a Free Beacon request for comment on the 2020 fundraiser and the congresswoman's relationship with Ayesh. Bush and Ayesh were pictured together as recently as 2020 and as early as 2017 during a trip to the Middle East.

Ayesh in February defended Hamas, comparing the group's armed resistance against Israel to Ukraine's war against "their oppressors" in Russia. People "somehow have an issue with Palestinians doing the same," she tweeted.

Ayesh has lambasted Israel on social media and wished death upon its citizens, posts that were made before she formed an alliance with Bush. Many of the most controversial tweets have since been deleted but remain archived online, with original screenshots, by Canary Mission.

"I want to set Israel on fire with my own hands & watch it burn to ashes along with every Israeli in it," Ayesh tweeted in February 2014.

"Once again I want to personally set Israel & all the Israelis in it on fire & watch them burn to ashes. Burn you bastards #IHateYou," she wrote one month later.

Nine EU states reject Israeli ban on 6 Palestinian NGOs for terror ties

Nine European states rejected Israel’s designation of six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations, in a joint statement released on Tuesday.

Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden came out against the Israeli decision, announced in October. The Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the Foreign Ministry said then that Palestinian NGOs Addameer, Al-Haq, Bisan Center, Defense for Children International Palestine (DCI-P), Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC) had extensive enough ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to be considered branches of the group, designated as terrorists by the US, EU and others.

“No substantial information was received from Israel that would justify reviewing our policy toward the six Palestinian NGOs on the basis of the Israeli decision to designate these NGOs as ‘terrorist organizations,’” the statement reads.

“Should evidence be made available to the contrary, we would act accordingly. In the absence of such evidence, we will continue our cooperation and strong support for the civil society in the [occupied Palestinian territories]. A free and strong civil society is indispensable for promoting democratic values and for the two-state solution.”

Among the items the Israeli government has made public to show the connection between the organizations and the PFLP is a video from the Palestinian Wattan Media Network of leading figures in the NGOs, including Khalida Jarrar and Abdullatif Ghaith of Addameer, Shawan Jabarin of Al-Haq, Gebril Muhamad of Bisan, and Ahmad Sa’adat of the UPWC, at an event in a hall with dozens of PFLP flags hanging.

Background
The event in Ramallah honored PFLP political bureau member Rabah Muhanna, who according to information posted by the PFLP, took part in the establishment of Addameer, UHWC and UAWC.

In 2019, the PFLP planted a bomb, killing 17-year-old Rina Shnerb and injuring her relatives.

"Should evidence be made available to the contrary, we would act accordingly. In the absence of such evidence, we will continue our cooperation and strong support for the civil society in the [occupied Palestinian territories]"
The joint statement

UAWC’s Finance and Administration director Abdul Razeq Farraj was indicted in October 2019 on four counts, including aiding an attempted murder in the terrorist attack on the Shnerb family. Farraj’s indictment refers to Ubai Al-Aboudi, a PFLP member working with Farraj on recruitment, and the UAWC’s Monitoring and Evaluation Officer until April 2019. The commander of the PFLP terror cell that prepared and detonated the bomb was Samer Arbid, and accounted for UAWC at the time of his 2019 arrest.

The Netherlands previously acknowledged the UAWC’s ties to the PFLP, and that Dutch funds paid the salaries of the NGO’s employees that carried out the attack that killed Shnerb.