Anne Bayefsky: Bombshell UN report attacks Israel’s 'supporters' worldwide
The report specifically names Palestinian (and Israeli) victims of alleged Israeli crimes, but doesn’t name a single Israeli victim of a Palestinian crime. The report couldn’t locate a single Palestinian terrorist or terrorist organization. There are only Israelis guilty of wrongly “labeling them as ‘terrorists.’” The only children who count in the report are Palestinian children allegedly harmed by Israelis targeting and arresting their parents – not the acts of their parents in the first place. Not Palestinian children used as human shields and child soldiers. Not Palestinian victims of rocketattacks that miss their Jewish targets. Not Palestinian minors actively engaged in terrorism themselves.The UN inquisition to vilify Israel
The report says nothing at all about Israeli children
The report finds no Palestinian antisemitism, only alleged Jewish stooges of the Israeli government who have wrongly “reframed antisemitism.” Here were three inquisitors, none of whom is Jewish or a victim of antisemitism, announcing from their UN perch that they know better about what counts as antisemitism than Jewish victims of antisemitism.The report describes boycotts of Israel (BDS) – deeply discriminatory campaigns aimed at the political and economic ruin of the Jewish state – as “legitimate protest.” The inquisitors complain that Israel is engaged in “lawfare,” in a report that culminates with a call to the International Criminal Court to commence an anti-Israel blitzkrieg. The report accuses Israel of a “strategy of delegitimizing and silencing civil society.” Official delegitimizing strategies like promoting antisemitism, Palestinian Authority payments to terrorists and their families, and the Hamas Charter exhorting genocide, were never raised. Nor was the ultimate Palestinian silencing strategy pursued for the last 75 years – murdering Jews.
The inquisitors claim that Palestinians face “a clear attempt to erase their identity, culture and history” after recounting that “history” as the catastrophic creation of a Jewish state by way of the criminal act of “ethnic cleansing.”Actual history – namely, three thousand years of attempted erasure of the Jewish people’s connection to their ancestral homeland, the erasure of Jewish populations from Arab lands, and the ongoing erasure of Jews for attempting to fulfill Jewish self-determination in the land of Israel – is never mentioned.
The inquisitors attack critics as engaging in a “well-organized smear campaign,” while engaging in a well-organized smear campaign to slander individuals and organizations who don’t dutifully “criticize Israeli policy” or “support Palestinian rights.” By which they mean anyone who challenges the “Palestinian narrative” – laced with falsehoods and lethal incitement. The report accuses Israel of seeking “permanent occupation.” Except that Israeldemonstrably left Sinai and Gaza, and permanent non-negotiation is a Palestinian trademark. Deceitfully, this inquisition styles itself a purveyor of “legitimate criticism of Israelipolicies and actions.”
In reality, “Pillay’s pogrom” is one of the most antisemitic and dangerous assaults on the homeland of the Jewish people in UN history.
The third installment of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) appointed Inquisition to vilify Israel and the Jews is out, and it is safe to say that even Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels himself would be proud of the product. Using selective evidence, selected witnesses, manipulative techniques, sleight of hand, invented methodology, and standards, all mixed with a huge dollop of bias and classic antisemitism, Navi Pillay and her co-conspirators have produced another travesty of fact, justice, and morality. Considering the nature, scope, modus operandi, inherent bias, and the identity of its members, the “Commission of Inquiry” is more akin to a Middle Ages Inquisition to persecute Jews, than a legitimate UN human rights endeavor.US Left aims to sabotage Saudi-Israeli peace for Palestinian statehood
In May 2021, the UNHRC, well known for its pathological hatred of Israel, appointed yet another “Commission of Inquiry” to investigate Israel. While UN commissions of this nature are not new, this one was unique in the breadth of its scope, the enormity of its budget, and the absence of any end date.
While cloaking their report in the halo of “human rights”, Pillay’s Inquisition has already decided that the Jews and Israel are guilty, and having already fired the proverbial arrow, are now simply engaged in drawing the target around the guilt of the Jews.
In its newest “report”, which pays special attention to the alleged “shrinking space for civil society in the Occupied Palestinian Territory including East Jerusalem and in Israel,” Pillay’s Inquisition weaves a not-so-careful web of deception.
In the Inquisition’s alternate reality, Palestinians are paragons of virtue who bear no ill feeling or ill intent towards Israel, Israelis, or Jews. No Palestinian terrorist organizations exist, no Palestinian terrorists exist, and no Palestinians have ever raised their hands against innocent victims. The Palestinian leadership does not incite terror on a daily basis, and even the Palestinian Authority’s nefarious ‘Pay-for-Slay’ terror reward policy does not exist.
The New York Times columnist Tom Friedman and others on the hard Left are seeking to scuttle normalization between Riyadh and Jerusalem. They will not tolerate any breakthrough in ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel during the tenure of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and certainly not until they get their long-groused-about Palestinian state.Hamas-Affiliated Network in Europe Fails to Gaslight Swedes - Opinion
In a nasty 6,000-word essay this week, Friedman compared the forward-looking bent of Saudi Arabia under its young leader Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, with the backwardness of Israel under the nationalist-haredi coalition headed by Netanyahu.
Friedman called upon the Biden administration to play hardball with Israel and “only invite Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the Oval Office if he will answer two questions: One, are you occupying the West Bank and committed to resolving its permanent status through negotiations with the Palestinians, or do you see Israel’s current control of the Palestinians as the permanent status, never to be changed? We need to know once and for all.”
“And two, are you committed to ensuring that any major changes to Israel’s court system will be implemented with broad public support to ensure political stability, because the US has a huge interest in its most important military ally in the region not descending into civil war over judicial reform?”
Friedman barked that “For the last 75 years Israel has been a trusted and vital strategic partner of the United States, but that was always based on shared interests and shared values. If those values aren’t shared any longer, we need to know that. We need to get behind those Israelis who want to preserve Israel as a democracy – and keep locking the White House gates to anyone who doesn’t.”
Picking up on the radical rhetoric of parts of the Israeli opposition, Friedman is thrilled to insinuate that Israel is no longer a democracy that shares America’s values. In fact, reading between the lines of his previous columns you can feel Friedman’s elation at Israel’s supposed moral fall. You can sense the relief he feels from the need to support Israel any longer.
On May 27th, the annual European Palestinians Conference (EPC) took place in Malmo, Sweden, the sole aim of which was to unjustly demonize the State of Israel. Attendance, however, was less than the EPC anticipated, after news spread about the conference’s links to the EU-designated Hamas terrorist organization, causing several Swedish parliamentarians to quickly withdraw their attendance, rightfully hesitant to tarnish their reputations by sharing a stage with terror-linked individuals.
After years of casually spreading Hamas-laden propaganda throughout Europe, perhaps finally, the danger that EPC poses will be taken seriously. But in order for that to happen, the truth about the EPC must be exposed.
The most troubling aspect of the EPC is that its President, Amin Abou Rashed, is a former member of the Al-Aqsa Foundation Netherlands, a Hamas network led by the Muslim Brotherhood’s spiritual leader Yusuf Qardawi before his death. The foundation was designated by the US Department of Treasury as part of a coalition of organizations fundraising on behalf of Hamas. Perhaps it’s no surprise then that Abou Rashed has been repeatedly photographed embracing Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh at Hamas events.
For this and other reasons, Israel’s Defense Ministry designated Abou Rashed as a terrorist in 2013. The Ministry also designated EPC Secretary General, Dr. Mazen Kahel, as a terrorist due to his Hamas affiliation.
The EPC’s issues also extend to the groups that comprise it. Since its first annual conference in 2003, the EPC has repeatedly been organized by the UK-based Palestine Return Centre (PRC), a staunch advocate of the so-called Palestinian “right of return,” which would effectively lead to the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state. Zaher Birawi, the former head of the Centre, was designated by Israel as a terrorist for his involvement with Hamas, as was its former general director, Majed Khalil Musa Al Zeer. In 2010, PRC was outlawed by Israel for acting as an organizational and coordinating arm of Hamas in Europe.