Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 12, 2015

06/12 Links Pt2: Jewish Voice for Peace? Not really; A new low in fake "moral equivalence"

From Ian:

In the saturated market of pro-Palestinian activism, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) has emerged as a major player.
On its website, JVP now boasts over 60 member-led chapters across the country and more than 200,000 online Facebook and Twitter supporters.
These days it’s also flush with new funding sources.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which describes JVP as the “largest and most influential Jewish anti-Zionist group in the United States”, until very recently the organization reported an approximate average of $300,000 in annual contributions.
By 2013 that figure had jumped to over $1 million.
It’s been a pretty busy couple of years for an organization that’s operated in relative obscurity for much of the last twenty.
You’ve got to hand it to JVP’s new leadership team and their savvy marketing skills.
They’ve managed to carefully craft and disseminate a brand that draws on the appealing language of rights along with Jewish culture and values to justify vilifying the planet’s only Jewish state, expressing an utter hostility to the notion of Jewish peoplehood and self-determination, and lending support to Israel’s enemies.
But now that JVP has a real shot at playing in the big leagues of American organizational life, it also has a strong incentive to clean up its act.
Cavorting with obvious Jew-haters and being attacked for whitewashing anti-Semitism is counterproductive.
All it does is tarnish the brand.
So now JVP is quietly trying to scrub its online presence of past partnerships with sketchy anti-Semites.

A new low in fake "moral equivalence"

Australia's distinction as a major source of recruits joining "Islamic State" has been used as a pretext for a variety of commentators to defame Israel, through the morally vacuous argument that the phenomenon is no different to that of Jewish Australians who serve in the Israeli Defence Force (IDF).
A typical example was Phillip Adams writing in his Weekend Australian column that "the government is understandably concerned by the indoctrination of local youth who head off to Iraq or Syria, though we've not expressed concern about the generations of young Australian Jews who've headed for Israel to join the army."
In the Canberra Times, ANU Professor Amin Saikal wrote, "some Western countries, including Australia, have had no qualms over some of their Jewish citizens either joining or fighting for the Israeli security forces, and have not viewed their return with trepidation. It is not surprising to hear Muslim voices raised about double standard."
And in the Courier Mail columnist Paul Syvret wrote that "all religions and societies tend to breed their own brands of extremist ratbaggery", and then inveigled against "young Jewish Australians who ‘make Aliyah' with a return to Israel and service in that (foreign) country's military - an armed force well schooled in bloody regional and religious conflict".
There are many other examples I could provide.
This tendency to react to any mention of the problem of Australians going to join ISIS by immediately responding "What about Israel?" is now so common that one could be forgiven for thinking that Jewish Australians are enjoying some unique dispensation to serve in a foreign power's armed forces.

Denis MacEoin replies to Guardian letter calling for a boycott of Israeli Film & TV Festival

The signatories to the letter about the Israeli film festival have never, to my knowledge, called for the banning of any Iranian film, based, not on individual merit, but on the human rights abuses of the country in which they were made or the nationality of their directors, producers, and actors.
The Guardian has published, before this, praise for several North Korean films, including A Flower Girl. But North Korea is one of the world’s most repressive and dangerous states, governed by a regime that might even make the Ayatollahs of Iran hesitate. So why no letters in the Guardian boycotting their films? Oh, I forgot, nobody ever calls for a boycott of North Korea or any really repressive state.
The activists never march against Saudi Arabia, which has just confirmed the sentence of a blogger, Raif Badawi, to a flogging of 1000 lashes, “very harshly” as the flogging order read, as a punishment for writing thoughts such as, “My commitment is… to reject any oppression in the name of religion… a goal we will reach in a peaceful and law-abiding way.” They never march against Qatar, Iran, North Korea, Russia, China or Sudan. They only protest about the actions of one of the freest liberal democracies in the world, and the only country in the Middle East that gives human rights to all its citizens.
Each of those forty signatories should feel ashamed. To uphold human rights by supporting a murderous terrorist state, while condemning a democracy forced to defend itself against outside forces bent on its destruction — do any of these writers know what free speech and human rights are about, what democracy means, or what international law consists of? One suspects not.
Meanwhile, Seret will go on. Genuine lovers of cinema and television will watch the films and go away satisfied, hoping to see more like them.

From the NY Times:

A 2,500-year-old Islamic cultural heritage site in Yemen’s capital was obliterated in an explosion early Friday, and witnesses and news reports said the cause was a missile or bomb from Saudi Arabia-led warplanes. The Saudi military denied responsibility.

The top antiquities protection official at the United Nations angrily condemned the destruction of ancient multistory homes, towers and gardens, which also killed an unspecified number of residents in Al Qasimi, a neighborhood in Sana’s Old City area.

“I am profoundly distressed by the loss of human lives as well as the damage inflicted on one of the world’s oldest jewels of Islamic urban landscape,” said the official, Irina Bokova, the director general of Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Given that Islam is less than 1400 years old, how can there be a 2,500 year old Islamic cultural heritage site?

UNESCO's website gives background:

Inhabited for more than 2,500 years, the city was given official status in the second century BC when it was an outpost of the Yemenite kingdoms. By the first century AD it emerged as a centre of the inland trade route. The site of the cathedral and the martyrium constructed during the period of Abyssinian domination (525-75) bear witness to Christian influence whose apogee coincided with the reign of Justinian. The remains of the pre-Islamic period were largely destroyed as a result of profound changes in the city from the 7th century onwards when Sana'a became a major centre for the spread of the Islamic faith as demonstrated by the archaeological remains within the Great Mosque, said to have been constructed while the Prophet was still living.

...The houses in the old city are of relatively recent construction and have a traditional structure.

Ah, so the city is 2500 years old but the Muslims destroyed the original buildings. The layout is Islamic and the more modern structures respected the style of the older ones.

It is not clear that the buildings destroyed were ancient at all.

Sanaa is indeed a very nice example of Islamic architecture, but it sure isn't a 2,500 year old example of that.

(h/t abeleehane)

UPDATE: It was corrected. The original tweet is still online.

Holocaust survivors understand how important Israel is

I recently saw a video, produced for a synagogue dinner, asking Holocaust survivors what their message was to future generations.

It is an open ended question. Some spoke about the importance of maintaining Jewish culture and faith, others about being happy with what you have and to be kind to others.

A surprising number, unprompted, spoke about the importance of Israel.

One said that Israel must be strong to ensure that there would never be another Holocaust. He mused what would have happened if an Israeli air force existed during the Holocaust.

Another said for Jews to go to Israel and volunteer to help because Israel is there to help all Jews, wherever they are.

One women survivor said "The Jewish people should have a Jewish state and we should be proud of it."

The people who saw the face of absolute evil viscerally understand how important it is to have a Jewish state. To them, Israel is not only a refuge but also an actor that would go anywhere in the world to help Jews. This idea is very powerful for those who lost so much..

It is a moral argument in a world that has forgotten what morality is.

06/12 Links Pt1: BDS and Hamas: The New Partnership; EU Funds Illegal Construction in Area C

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: BDS and Hamas: The New Partnership

Hamas is pinning high hopes on BDS to pave the way for the destruction of Israel through boycotts, divestment and sanctions. Hamas believes that such tools are no less important than rockets and suicide bombings, which have thus far failed to achieve the goal of wiping Israel off the face of the earth.
U.S. universities that allow the BDS activists to disseminate their hate against Israel are unaware that these people are serving as Hamas ambassadors. Moreover, Western governments, above all the U.S., are unaware that Hamas and BDS allies also consider them enemies of the Palestinians.
What Bahr is actually saying is that the BDS campaign should be intensified until Israel is forced to surrender and accept all the demands of Hamas, which include, of course, ending the existence of Israel.
While the anti-Israel activities of the BDS movement have emboldened Hamas, they have also undermined those Palestinians who believe in peace and coexistence with Israel. If BDS supporters really care about Palestinians, why don't they go to the Gaza Strip and the Palestinian territories to promote reforms, democracy, freedom of speech and the rights of women under the rule of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority? BDS seems to be more about promoting Hamas's agenda than advancing the cause of peace.

How the EU Funds Illegal Construction in Area C

Chaos continues to reign: months have passed since Prime Minister Netanyahu ordered the destruction of all illegal buildings built by the EU in the E1 area · Mida checked and found that no actual change has happened on the ground · The State authorities are paralyzed, and Zionists NGOs are left alone in the struggle to cut of the EU pipeline

It is a story of unending frustration: the Palestinian illegal takeover of Area C is in full swing and no-one's trying to stop it. It didn't start yesterday. The originator of the idea, former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, described already in 2009 his plan for a "creeping annexation," by creating corridors and territorial contiguity, which will serve as the starting point for any future Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. By all accounts, he seems to have succeeded.
This impression is strengthened by the fact that one of the reasons for the Palestinian success in this land grab is the massive intervention of a foreign power. In recent years, the EU has acted to implement a "humanitarian plan for the occupied Palestinian territories." These innocent-sounding terms are a cover for active support and funding for the Palestinian illegal takeover of the plane of Mishor Edumim (E1), to the tune of hundreds of millions of Euros.

Important update from @LTCPeterLerner on Military Advocate General report on #Gaza beach incident

One of the most sensational Guardian reports during the summer war involved a July 16th IDF attack on a Gaza beach which killed four Palestinian children. Yesterday, Israel’s military advocate general’s office issued its report on the tragedy. Here’s the Facebook update from Lt. Peter Lerner, IDF military spokesman, on the report.
Today the Military Advocate General announced his decision on one of the most tragic cases of last year’s conflict with Gaza. I believe it is one of the most covered incidents that was reported on by the media, it was the incident of an air force strike on Gaza beach that resulted in the tragic death of four boys, Ahed Atef Bakr, Zakariya Ahed Bakr, Mohammad Ramiz Bakr, and Ismail Mahmoud Bakr.
The military police carried out an extensive criminal investigation. During the investigation testimonies were collected from a large number of IDF soldiers and officers who were involved in the planning and execution of the attack. Additionally, an extensive number of documents relating to the attack were reviewed, along with video footage documenting the attack in real time, as well as media images and video footage which documented parts of the incident. Efforts were made to collect the testimonies of Gaza Strip residents who were, allegedly, witnesses to the incident. In this context, the collection of testimony from three witnesses was coordinated. Regretfully, despite the prior coordination, the witnesses eventually declined to meet the investigators, and instead provided affidavits in regard to the incident.
From the factual findings collected by the investigators, it revealed that the incident took place in an area that had long been known as a compound belonging to Hamas’s Naval Police and Naval Force (including naval commandos), and which was utilized exclusively by militants. The compound in question spans the length of the breakwater of the Gaza City seashore, closed off by a fence and clearly separated from the beach serving the civilian population. It further found in the course of the investigation (including from the affidavits provided by Palestinian witnesses), that the compound was known to the residents of the Gaza Strip as a compound which was used exclusively by Hamas’s Naval Police.

From AP:

Spain's lower house of parliament gave final approval Thursday to a law setting a citizenship path for descendants of Jews forced to flee the country after all Jews were told in 1492 to convert, go into exile or risk being burned at the stake.

The law allows Sephardic Jews to start applying for Spanish citizenship in October, granting them a three-year window to seek a Spanish passport complete with the right to work and live anywhere in the 28-nation European Union.

"Today begins a new stage in the history of relations between Spain and the Jewish world," the Spanish Federation of Jewish Communities said in a statement. "A new period of reunion, dialogue and harmony re-integrating a branch of the nation that was unjustly torn off in its day."

Many would-be applicants thought the Spanish law in the works since 2013 would carry few requirements beyond thorough vetting of applicant ancestry by Jewish organizations. That's the case with the Portuguese law, which was proposed after Spain's but went into effect in March 1.

But Spanish lawmakers ended up drafting a citizenship process for Sephardic Jews similar to that faced by permanent residents seeking Spanish citizenship.

The hurdles are significant: Sephardic applicants must learn and be tested in basic Spanish and must also pass a current events and culture test about Spain.

And they must establish a modern-day link to Spain, which can be as simple as donating to a Spanish charity or as expensive as buying Spanish property.

Muslims are upset, saying that they too should have the same rights after their expulsion from Spain.

Moroccan media calls this rule hypocritical. A group of activists in Morocco and Spain criticized the decision, describing it as a policy of double standards. One analyst said that the Muslims who were expelled from Spain after hundreds of years of ruling Andalusia are more important than the minority of Jews who lived there. He said, "Moroccans and the world strongly condemns this distinction that does not make sense, and we demand equality in the granting of citizenship for each of his Andalusian origin. "

There is one significant difference, though. Many Muslims claim that Andalusia is still Muslim land and they want it back. As Yoram Ettinger wrote in 2012:

The collapse of Israeli-Palestinian agreements from the 1993 Oslo Accords until today stems from the fact that both Israeli and US leaders ignore the real root of the conflict. The heart of the conflict is the denial of the existence – and not the size - of any non-Muslim entity on land that, in the eyes of Muslims, is Waqf – an inalienable religious land endowment.

On Jan. 9, 2012, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Muhammad Ahmad Hussein, a close associate of Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, stated that all of Israel has been Waqf since 637 C.E. and will be forever. The statement was made at the annual rally of Fatah, which Abbas heads. It was broadcast on the official Mahmoud Abbas television station, and called for the killing of Jews to hasten the Islamic Resurrection.

The principle of the Waqf land is permanent, and transcends leaders and policies which are provisional. It applies to any land that was ever under Islamic control. It is an inseparable part of the legacy of Muhammad and Islamic law, especially at this time of the surge by the trans-national Muslim Brotherhood, which views Allah, the Koran, the Prophet Muhammad, jihad and martyrdom as the goal, the law, the leader, the way and the exalted aspiration respectively. Their loyalty to the Waqf land obligates Muslims to "holy wars" and the restoration of sovereignty in the Philippines, Thailand, parts of China, Kashmir, Chechnya, Israel, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Spain, Portugal and elsewhere.

The centrality of the Waqf land in the Muslim experience can be understood from the precedent of Andalusia, the Arabic name for most of the Iberian Peninsula, which was under Islamic rule from 711-1492 C.E. The Muslim Golden Age did not take place between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea, but rather in Andalusia, especially in the Alhambra palace/fortress in Granada. At the beginning of the 8th century, the Muslims conquered the Iberian Peninsula, southern France, Sicily and the Italian coastline and declared it "the Abode of Islam." In 1492, Spain was liberated from the occupation by Muslims, who today still view "Al-Andalus" as Waqf. The March 2004 Muslim terrorist plots in Madrid, which murdered 191 people and wounded around 1,800, intended to rectify the "Injustice of Andalusia."

Sephardic jews are not planning to take over parts of Spain. But many Muslims want to do exactly that.

This may explain why Spain is in no rush to provide "equal rights' between those those whom it expelled capriciously and those who were expelled in the course of reconquering their land.

Dave Zirin's deranged hate of Israel

Dave Zirin is a sports reporter for The Nation. But he doesn't only cover sports - he uses sports to bash Israel.

Last year he wrote two columns claiming that Israel routinely attacks Palestinian soccer players, and that some of them were deliberately shot in their feet by Israel.

Bob Knot demolished every single one of Zirin's arguments and exposed him as a liar. His last piece of evidence, that he was trusting the reporting of Haaretz, was found to be wrong as well, as Haaretz plagiarized its report and was forced to take it down.

Yet The Nation and Zirin, full of venomous hate for Israel, didn't adhere to the slightest shred of journalistic standards and no corrections were made.

This week Zirin finds another tenuous sports story to hang his anti-Israel hate on: the NBA finals.

David Blatt, born in Framingham, Massachusetts, holds dual citizenship in Israel by virtue of being of the Jewish faith. His Israeli citizenship (which I could also claim by virtue of my own familial Judaism) gives him a set of political and civil rights that non-Jews born on this land 5,500 miles from Framingham do not possess. After playing and coaching in Israel following a Princeton education, Blatt became in his own words, “much more Jewish and much more Zionist.”

Blatt’s proud Zionism means that he has been a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces (the IDF), an experience described in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz as “his most significant bonding experiences with the country.” He is also on a first-name basis with the nation’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. This friendship, which ABC broadcaster Jeff Van Gundy described at high decibels as “impressive” during Tuesday night’s primetime Finals broadcast, is so intimate, that Blatt boasts of being able to call Netanyahu “Bibi” when they speak. Blatt told The Plain Dealer that the prime minister “said all of Israel is behind the Cavaliers. That was great.”

What went unmentioned by Van Gundy, not to mention The Plain Dealer, are the ethical implications of an NBA coach beaming about his friendship with Netanyahu. “Bibi’s” last campaign was so riven with virulent anti-Arab racism, it was condemned across the globe. The aforementioned Israeli newspaper Haaretz printed an editorial about feeling “shame” that their “prime minister was a racist” after Netanyahu’s March election victory. The New York Times editorial page credited his triumph to a “desperate and craven” campaign that relied on a “racist rant” against Arab citizens of Israel to pull out a victory. Time’s Joel Klein wrote that Netanyahu’s victory represented an “appalling irony” that “brought joy to American neoconservatives and European anti-Semites alike.” I use these examples because they represent how even staunch supporters of Israel were nauseated by Netanyahu’s toxic political platform.

Blatt has evidenced no such concerns, but this should not surprise. Last year, as NBA players were being excoriated for just posting messages about the loss of innocent life during Israel’s war on Gaza, Coach Blatt, without consequence, publicly cheered a venture that, according to the United Nations, killed more than 2,200 people and over 500 children, 1,500 of whom were civilians. Israel lost six civilians in the fighting. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Globes, Blatt said, “In my opinion, this war is Israel’s most justified war I can remember in recent years. I’m really sorry about what’s happening in Gaza, but there’s no doubt that we had to act there, so that Israel will have quiet there once and for all.” He then reprimanded the people of the United States for not supporting Israel’s war more heartily, saying, “There’s support, although sometimes it’s not enough.”

The absence of public criticism or even discussion about Blatt’s politics represents a head-spinning double standard.

So an Israeli citizen is proud of his friendship with his adopted nation's leader and supports its war against terrorism.

But to Dave Zirin's twisted mind, this means he supports the murder of children and anti-Arab racism. (Counterexamples showing how Bibi supports Arab citizens in Israel of course must be censored from the pages of The Nation. We can't let facts get in the way of a false narrative.)

The other irony of the column is that the father of the Golden Warriors coach was murdered by"Islamic Jihad" in Beirut, which has the same name as one of the terror groups that Israel was defending itself against in Gaza.

Does Dave Zirin know how many children have been killed by the US military since President Obama has entered office? For some reason, those numbers are hard to come by, but they seem to be well over 150 from drone strikes in Yemen and Pakistan alone. We don't know how many were killed in airstrikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria and Libya. If Zirin supports Obama, then by his logic he must support killing babies too!

A high school essay couldn't get away with this ridiculous attempt at logic. But to The Nation, it is impeccable.

Zirin once wrote, "It's always dangerous, but never boring, when a newspaper sports columnist uncorks a political thesis." In his case, it reveals his ignorance and sickening hate.

I have some bad news for Zirin, though. Other people call Bibi their friend, and they even say the same about IDF generals.

Will Zirin find a way to write the same hateful words against General Martin Dempsey? Or does that apply only to Jews who dare to be proud of Israel?

Hundreds of merchants cross Gaza border every day

From the news articles about Gaza, one would think that Israel only allows medical patients, foreign dignitaries, NGOs and journalists into and out of Gaza.

But COGAT's statistics for the last several months show that the largest category of people crossing the Gaza border are actually the people we hear about least - merchants.

On Wednesday, 966 merchants crossed the border - more than all other categories combined.

That's the way it was all week, with 1,253 merchants crossing on Monday.

For a territory under "siege," there sure is a lot of business going on.

Other statistics on COGAT's new Facebook page:

115,000 Gazans crossed Erez for medical treatment in Israel and abroad in 2014
Nearly 900 tons of goods were exported from Gaza in 2014
100 mobile homes were donated by Oman to Gaza and COGAT is coordinating their entry

On that last point, the homes are too large to take up one lane of the road leading to Gaza, he effectively close the road. COGAT must coordinate with the police to allow them to be transported at night.

You won't read this in the media.

06/11 Links Pt2: The Six Day War, and the Origin of the Left’s Hatred for Israel; Beheadline goes viral

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: Exposed: Orange telecom involved in war crimes in occupied territories, according to French official

First, let us review developments thus far. Last week the French telecom giant caused an international fracas by saying it was going to “drop” its business with Israel – apparently in response to Arab boycott calls.
After first suggesting that the divestment was designed to ingratiate Orange to to Arab countries, and before saying it was a routine business decision, the CEO said it was due to the local affiliate’s activities in “occupied territory.” The French ambassador to the US, Gerard Araud, backed this claim, declaring on Twitter that “Contributing to settlements in an occupied territory is illegal”.
To be sure major French companies, like Total, are quite active in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara, with the apparent approval of the French government. But it turns out that Orange itself directly and openly operates in occupied territory. Orange provides cell phone service in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area of Azerbaijan that has been occupied by Armenia since seizing it in a bloody 1992-94 war. The U.N., along with the E.U. and U.S., considers the area occupied territory. Nonetheless, Armenian settlers have moved into the occupied territory in in significant numbers, amid constant complaints from Baku and others.
Nor is this Karabakh some long-forgotten frozen conflict. Fighting broke out this year across the line of control, killing dozens, and a full scale war over the occupied territory is looming.
In other words, Orange, and the French government, is committing what a senior French official just described as a war crime. Indeed, by the theoretical international law standards applied to Israel, Orange’s behavior in Armenia is particularly egregious. Having cell phone towers in the West Bank (the purported crime of Orange’s Israeli licensee) does not involve any recognition of Israeli sovereignty or any judgement about the status of the territory.

The Six Day War, and the Origin of the Left’s Hatred for Israel

June 10, 1967, marked the end of the Six Day War and the beginning of the radical left’s hate affair with the Jewish State.
Although Israel neither welcomed nor wanted this conflict, the Left declared that Israel, not the invading Arabs, had been ‘militaristic,’ ‘colonialistic,’ and ‘fascistic.’
Was Israel really that bad, or was the Left biased, twisting or ignoring inconvenient facts to fit a prepackaged verdict – and has been biased ever since?
By 1967, Vietnam-war, civil-rights, and feminist protestors joined with hippies, yippies, flower-power pacifists, and not so pacifistic Hells Angels to form a vast anti-Establishment counterculture. The 1960s had become the Sixties. It was not the most rational of times.
Amorphous, anarchic, and contradictory, the movement nevertheless enjoyed basic principles and a single voice: America was Amerika. Revolution was imminent. Frantz Fanon’s Marxist anti-colonial Wretched of the Earth was the radicals’ book of the month.
Facts – such as who actually started the war, and why – were irrelevant. The left was Manichean, pitting the evil West against the good Third World. Israel – a western nation and ally of America – was on the wrong side. It was guilty on all counts.

UN Watch: Beheadline goes viral

Was the alleged typo in our viral headline “Saudi Lose Bid to Behead of UN Human Rights Council” intentional, or not?
Autocorrect will do just the darnedest things when the word “Saudi” is in context?
One thing is sure: the faux typo caught the attention of the world’s leading news agencies, whose reporters posted it all over Twitter — turning a global spotlight on Saudi Arabia’s shockingly cruel system of gross and systematic human rights abuses.
The buzz sparked a feature debate on Twitchy.com, which concluded: “Amazing UN Watch ‘typo’ regarding Saudi Arabia ‘has to be on purpose’.”

Pinkwashing, in summary (ElderToons)

I was inspired to create this cartoon after seeing a Twitter debate sponsored by Haaretz this morning that effectively legitimized the absurd charge of Israel "pinkwashing" its supposed crimes by engaging in progressive policies.

In fact, anti-Israel "progressives" created the "pinkwashing" charge to inoculate their fellows from being sympathetic to Israel's progressive agenda.

Vic Rosenthal's weekly column:

Israel’s Declaration of Independence calls for a Jewish and democratic state. This is creatively ambiguous because very few people agree on precisely what each of these characteristics entails, although they have very strong opinions. This isn’t a theoretical discussion; both of these concepts have a direct bearing on Israel’s policies, in particular the question of a “Jewish State Law” and the possible annexation of all or part of Judea and Samaria. Today I’m interested in the ‘democratic’ part.

As everyone knows, the ancient Greeks gave us the word δημοκρατία, democracy. What they had in Athens, of course, wasn’t terribly appealing by modern standards, since only free males had the right to vote (and there were plenty of slaves). Here is a modern definition of democracy:

1. A political system for choosing and replacing the government through free and fair elections.
2. The active participation of the people, as citizens, in politics and civic life.
3. Protection of the human rights of all citizens.
4. A rule of law, in which the laws and procedures apply equally to all citizens.

Significantly, this definition, and most others, refer to ‘citizens’ as the beneficiaries of democratic governance. But who is a citizen? Some things are clear: as in the case of Athens, a definition of citizenship which excludes women is not acceptable. An extreme view is that anyone who resides within the borders of a polity is automatically a citizen of it, regardless of any other considerations (how he or she came to be there, etc.)

Although some immigration activists in the US would like to see this criterion adopted, it has not been and probably will not be anywhere in the world. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, says that “everyone has a right to a nationality,” but not that a state needs to offer one to anyone who lives within its boundaries.

In Saudi Arabia, a citizen must either have lived in ‘Saudi land’ before 1914 and not have taken non-Ottoman citizenship, have a Saudi father, or apply for naturalization. In the US, anyone who is born on US soil receives citizenship automatically, but otherwise must undergo naturalization. In Germany, those residents who do not have at least one German parent must apply for citizenship (but there are exceptions for children born in Germany of long-time residents).

Under some conditions states can revoke citizenship. In Canada, a dual citizen who is convicted of treason, espionage or membership in a group engaged in armed conflict with Canada can lose his Canadian citizenship. In the US, naturalized citizens can have their citizenship revoked for various reasons, including membership in a subversive organization or refusal to testify before Congress. This has happened more than a few times.

Today it is considered wrong to grant or deny citizenship on the basis of race, religion or ethnicity, although some Arab countries require all citizens to be Muslims. Prior to 1965, the US had immigration quotas based on national origin; but these were considered unacceptable and replaced by a system based on family unification, skills, etc. with per-country caps. Nevertheless, many countries (e.g., Greece) are adjusting their citizenship laws to deal with the reality of ‘irregular’ population migrations.

What happens when a country annexes territory? When Israel extended its authority to eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, Israeli citizenship was offered to existing residents. Those who didn’t accept it were granted residency, along with the right to vote in local (but not national) elections. When Russia annexed Crimea, it offered Russian citizenship to the inhabitants — and let them know that after a month anyone that refused it would be barred from government jobs. In 1950, Jordan gave most Arab residents of Judea and Samaria (the Jewish ones had been expelled during the conquest) Jordanian citizenship, although lately it has been revoking the citizenship of ‘Palestinian refugees’ whom the ruling Hashemites see as a demographic threat.

What would happen if Israel annexed all or part of Judea and Samaria? One thing that’s certain is that Israel would not refuse to grant citizenship to anyone on the basis of ethnicity or religion. But as we’ve seen, it would not be exceptional to limit full citizenship on the basis of other criteria, such as criminal convictions or membership in terrorist organizations, or to require a process of naturalization.

Would it be ‘democratic’? When we talk about democracy, it’s important to understand that it is a more limited concept than fairness or even human rights in general. Strictly speaking, democracy resides in the relationship of a state to its citizens, and therefore the process for obtaining citizenship doesn’t bear on the democratic nature of the state. Of course, fairness demands that the process not be based on irrelevant factors like skin color or gender. But — just like screening airline passengers — it is not necessarily unfair to allow security considerations to affect decisions to grant citizenship or not.

Viewed in this light, much of the tension between Jewishness and democracy in Israel evaporates. The Law of Return, a prime target for those who claim that a Jewish state can’t be democratic, is a criterion for immigrationwhich does not apply to those who are already citizens — and there are no states in the world that don’t assert the right to make rules about immigration. The expressions of national identity that are essential to a Jewish state — the flag, national anthem, holidays, etc. — may be disliked by minority citizens, but they do not affect their participation in the democratic process. And it’s quite a stretch to argue that there is a basic human right to an approved national anthem.

Israel, by any reasonable definition, is a democracy. It will remain one if a Jewish State Law is passed, and even if it annexes all or part of Judea and Samaria without granting citizenship to all their inhabitants.

This is not the dream of the post-nationalist, post-Zionist, post-everything Left which believes that the Hatikvah is ‘racist’ and that economic migrants from Africa and ‘Palestinians’ who have never lived in Palestine have as much right to be citizens of the one tiny Jewish state as the descendents of Jacob. But it may be the reality that will sustain the democratic Jewish state.

BDSing in Ireland (brilliant Ami Horowitz film)

Another brilliant film by Ami Horowitz showing the hypocrisy of Israel boycotters, this time in Ireland.

Horowitz goes to stores that boycott Israeli products and gets them to consider buying products from Iran, Sudan and North Korea, all while explicitly saying how his sponsors violate human rights.

Stop everything and watch this now.

(h/t Vandoren)

06/11 Links Pt1: Michael Oren's Memoir to Expose Obama Administration's Abuse of Israel

From Ian:

'Ally': Michael Oren's Memoir to Expose Obama Administration's Abuse of Israel

Former Israeli ambassador Michael Oren is set to release a new memoir June 23: Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide. The book tells the story of Oren’s four years (2009-13) as Israel’s representative in Washington–and reveals just how hostile the Obama administration is towards Israel. Though he argues Obama is not anti-Israel, Oren notes that his administration did all it could to bully Israel into compliance with its hopelessly naïve new agenda in the Middle East.
Breitbart News was shown an uncorrected galley of the text, on the promise that we would not quote from it. Suffice to say that the Obama administration–and to a lesser extent Hillary Clinton, who was responsible for carrying out its foreign policy at the time–emerge looking ill-informed at best, thuggish at worst.
In one episode, State Department staffers cheer as a senior official slams Israel’s envoy. In another, Susan Rice does her best impression of a Chicago mobster, with an implied threat.
Oren is uniquely placed to chronicle the deterioration of relations between the two government–just as he was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s best choice to limit the damage. An American Jew who became an Israeli citizen, Oren understands both countries and their cultures. A distinguished historian, he has a keen sense for detail, and his book weaves personal recollections and anecdotes into a detailed, even forensic, narrative of diplomatic disenchantment.
Oren encounters an administration stacked with left-wing professors and their students, who are attempting a perilous experiment in American foreign relations, and who treat Israel, at best, as their guinea pig. He begins to worry that many of Obama’s public gestures of support for Israel are also attempts to constrain Israel in a bear hug, preventing it from acting on its own. And he frets about an erosion of support for Israel among American Jews, urged along by left-wing J Street.

A new inside account of Obama’s Israel ire

When it’s released June 23, the new book by bestselling historian Michael Oren is going to be the talk of Washington and Jerusalem — not to mention everywhere people take an interest in the relations between the United States and Israel, which is to say, in many if not most places on the planet.
It’s called “Ally: My Journey Across the American-Israeli Divide,” and I’m not sure that in the annals of diplomatic history there’s ever been anything quite like this astonishing account of Oren’s four years (2009-2013) as Israel’s ambassador in Washington.
It’s an ultimate insider’s story told while all the players save Oren are still in place; the Israeli prime minister he served still holds office and the administration to which he was the ambassador will remain in power until January 2017.
It’s not that there’s lots of breaking news in “Ally” that will startle people. Rather, it makes news on almost every page with its incredibly detailed account of the root hostility of the Obama administration toward the Jewish state.

Isi Leibler: American Jewish leaders fail to respond to Obama’s threats

Stressing that he considers Israel’s security paramount and that he “understands Israeli concerns and fears,” he insisted that the Jewish state needed tough love from its friends, assuring his audience that he felt he had a better understanding of Israel’s needs than Israelis themselves. He effectively called on American Jews to choose between his flawed evaluation of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the concerns about security and survival shared by the majority of Israelis.
Obama had the chutzpah to warn that the current Israeli government would alienate the people of America and the global community because it was diverging from the noble sentiments expressed in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
Intensifying his vendetta against Netanyahu, he effectively described him as a deceitful liar who could not be trusted. He constantly harped on two statements that Netanyahu had uttered in the heat of the election and had subsequently repeatedly repudiated. However, not even once did he condemn the Palestinian Authority for its daily incitement of hatred, sanctification of mass murderers, or criminalization of Israel at the UN.
He warned that Israel has become obsessed with fear, claiming ludicrously that the US had proposed solutions by which, given goodwill, Israel’s security concerns could have been overcome. He urged Israelis to adopt “the politics of hope.”
He chided Israel for being obstinate and inflexible, thus preventing the peace process from moving forward, and clearly held Israel responsible for the breakdown of negotiations – conveniently ignoring the fact that it was PA President Mahmoud Abbas who terminated the talks and breached the Oslo Accords by unilaterally seeking recognition at the United Nations and uniting with Hamas. He failed to make mention of Israel’s major concessions, including a 10-month settlement freeze to pave the way for negotiations – to which Abbas only responded in the 10th month – and the wretched release of mass murderers who were subsequently fêted as heroes and many of whom renewed their terrorist activities.
And to top it off, Obama even made the outrageous observation that Netanyahu “had so many caveats, so many conditions” that the Palestinian officials and others might not see Netanyahu as a reliable negotiating partner.

Rabbi Abraham Cooper: Obama’s No Anti-Semite – But He Fails To Understand History’s Oldest Hatred

In his recent Atlantic interview with President Obama, Jeffrey Goldberg asked about Iran, anti-Semitism, and the nuclear bomb.
While admitting “there are deep strains of anti-Semitism in the core [Iranian] regime,” the president tried to explain them away with a historical analogy: “Well, the fact that you are anti-Semitic, or racist, doesn’t preclude you from being interested in survival. It doesn’t preclude you from being rational about the need to keep your economy afloat; it doesn’t preclude you from making strategic decisions about how you stay in power; and so the fact that the supreme leader is anti-Semitic doesn’t mean that this overrides all of his other considerations. You know, if you look at the history of anti-Semitism, Jeff, there were a whole lot of European leaders . . . .”
This argument is essentially a revival of the Western democracies’ (wishful) thinking in the years leading up to World War II. Hitler’s regime, they admitted, was anti-Semitic – but the same could be said, they noted, for other European regimes, past and present. The problem with this apology for appeasement was its failure to recognize the difference between the traditional anti-Semitism of European leaders and the Nazis’ genocidal anti-Semitism.
Genocidal anti-Semitism had never been put into practice when in 1938 Neville Chamberlain ignored the potential catastrophic threat it posed. By 1945 a shocked world saw the results of a war of extermination against the Jews carried out by a modern state – a state so driven by virulent anti-Semitism that it often diverted personnel and materials from the epic military conflict in order to expedite the killing of Jews.

Ma'an has a fawning article about the latest Gaza flotilla. In the middle we learn its cargo:

On board, the Marianne is carrying one solar panel to al-Shifa hospital and medical equipment for Wafa hospital, both in Gaza City. If everything goes as planned, activists will also leave the fishing trawler for Palestinian fishermen to use.

“The people in Gaza never have electricity all day long. Solar panels could be a sustainable solution for the power shortage,” Ighe said.

The spokesperson admits that bringing only one solar panel is mainly a symbolic message.

Israel allows solar panels into Gaza. Many UNDP solar-power projects are in flight, Individual Gaza homeowners have been importing solar panels for years,

And Shifa Hospital already has a system of solar panels.

Given that there are no restrictions on imports to Gaza except for materials that can be used to kill Jews, there is only one reason that these people want to end the naval blockade.

The Global Ministries website of the United Methodist Church says:

Janet Lahr Lewis is a missionary with the Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church serving in the Middle East as liason between ecumenical groups, Israel and Palestine.

Focusing on advocacy and activism, Janet's responsibilities are numerous. She is the main contact for VIM teams and United Methodist visitors who wish to follow the recommendation of the General Conference to spend a significant amount of time in the area with local Christians, acting to make those connections with UMC partner organizations and Advance Projects.

Janet circulates updates about developments in the ongoing crisis and suggests courses of action people can take to address it.

What kinds of courses of action?

Here's one, from an article she wrote last month:

Don't participate in Holocaust Remembrance Day without participating in Al Nakba Remembrance Day. Don't visit a Holocaust museum until there is one built to remember the other holocausts in the world: the on-going Palestinian holocaust, the Rwandan, the Native American, the Cambodian, the Armenian ... You could be waiting a long time!

The love of one does not automatically mean enmity towards the other.

Calling for the boycott of remembering the Holocaust sure sounds like an expression of enmity to me. Her statement is outrageous and antisemitic, implying that Jews are blocking the commemoration of other genocides. Her equation of the situation of Palestinians today with the Holocaust is pure antisemitism.

But the Methodist Church has no problem with her.

Lewis was the keynote speaker for a Methodist Federation for Social Action conference in Iowa last weekend, and people paid $25 for the honor of listening to her wisdom borne from years of antisemitic indoctrination:.

A Methodist bishop in Iowa, when asked, wrote an implied mild rebuke but hardly a condemnation of Janet Lahr Lewis' hate and antisemitism.

This is yet another example of how hate of Jews is made kosher by pretending to be "pro-Palestinian."

Janet has written other outrageous things, for example "the state of Israel is directly and indirectly imposing its goal to be rid of all non-Jews and justify it’s declaration of Israel as a Jewish state." This is on the United Methodist Holy Land Task Force website.

Of course, you will not find a word in her writings about how Arabs treat their Palestinian brethren. No, for Janet as well as so many others, the only time that Palestinian suffering matters is when it can be blamed on...Jews.

(h/t Mark)

RAND falsely claims that releasing terrorists would save money

From the NYT, June 6:

Supporters of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict generally start with a moral argument: Both peoples deserve the rights of self-determination and sovereignty; one should not rule over the other. Lately, President Obama and liberal American Jewish leaders also frame their case in security terms, saying Israel cannot survive as a Jewish democracy without ending its occupation of Palestinian territories.

But how about $173 billion as incentive for a peace deal?

That is how much a new report by the RAND Corporation says the Israeli and Palestinian economies stand to gain over the next decade if an independent Palestine were to emerge tomorrow — admittedly a development that might require divine intervention. It translates to an average per capita income increase of $1,000 (36 percent) for every Palestinian in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and $2,200 (5 percent) for each Israeli.

There is a lot to criticize in this study, and Joe Settler covered many of the issues. But I want to look at one specific point that RAND makes in order to highlight how little the "experts" know.

The study lists eight costs that the Palestinian Authority would avoid if there is a peace deal. One of them is the cost of paying terrorists a stipend:

An estimated 6 percent of the PA’s budget is spent annually providing stipends to the families of prisoners held in Israel. The total annual value of this direct cost is approximately $200 million.

So if there is a two-state solution, RAND says, the state of Palestine can save these $200 million annually.

This neatly shows how worthless this study is.

First of all - why do these terrorists have to be paid today? What exactly makes this expenditure so important that the PA must go deeper into debt to pay the families of terrorists? Why not recommend that the PA stop these payments today?

The answer is because one of the two states that RAND is pushing happens to wholeheartedly support terrorism. These payments are, after all, an insurance policy to support terrorist activity.

Secondly, why should Israel be obligated to release murderers in any "peace" agreement? Isn't releasing known terrorists the antithesis of peace?

Thirdlly, there is more than one financial issue with releasing terrorists. There is in fact a good chance that some of these terrorists will return to terrorism, peace deal or not. While RAND obviously doesn't care about Israelis being killed in this scenario - the study is only about money, after all - what about the financial costs to the victims of terror, of hospitalization and insurance and funerals?

Finally, a point that shows how the authors of the study aren't even aware of the basics of Palestinian Arab priorities. When hundreds of prisoners were released in the Shalit deal, the PA didn't stop paying them - they hired them in ceremonial jobs that they have for life! These ex-prisoners are paid as much as $50,000 annually as their reward for killing Jews.

There is no cost savings!

RAND makes the fatal assumption that a Palestinian state would not support terror and would not pay lifetime stipends to murderers. Yet we know they do.

When researchers have blind spots, their research is next to worthless.

06/10 Links Pt2: The Islamization of World Soccer?; Calling BS on BDS; Israel-UK Trade in a ‘Golden Era’

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: BDS threats thwart Israeli-Palestinian normalization meeting in Bethlehem

A meeting between Israelis and Palestinians that was supposed to take place in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, on Thursday has been relocated, after the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement threatened to thwart the gathering.
The meeting was meant to be the founding congress of the Two States One Homeland Initiative, which advocates the establishment of two sovereign states on one open homeland.
The Israeli-Palestinian group believes in equality for both people living with open borders.
The Israeli side is represented by former Haaretz journalist Meron Rapoport, while the Palestinian side is represented by Awni al-Mashni, a senior Fatah official from the West Bank.
“Because of difficulties on the Palestinian street, we have decided, in agreement with our Palestinian partners, to postpone the Founding Congress of Two States One Homeland Initiative in Beit Jala on Thursday to a more calm period,” the group said in a statement on Tuesday.
The organizers decided to hold the meeting on the same day but in Jerusalem.
Palestinian sources said that BDS activists in Bethlehem threatened to wage protests against the meeting if it were held in Beit Jala. (h/t Yenta Press)

British Business Secretary Says Israel-UK Trade Ushering in ‘Golden Era’

The British business and innovation secretary declared on Monday that the U.K. and Israel had entered a “golden era” for trade.
“The past few years have been a golden era for Anglo-Israeli business,” said British Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills Sajid Javid, during the annual British Israel Business Awards event.
“Over the past 67 years, Israel has made business bloom in the barren desert,” said Javid. “What really excites me are the possibilities for the years that lie ahead.”
The MP, self-described as a “proud British-born Muslim,” and keynote speaker at Monday’s event said he held Israel in high regard, and expected bilateral trade and services– currently valued at about $6.9 billion, according to Javid — to continue to grow.
Javid told the audience of about 250 people that he has traveled to Israel extensively, “both for business and with family.”
“Over the years I’ve taken a great interest in [Israel’s] affairs. Because the values that have made Israel such a success are values that matter a great deal to me. I share Israel’s love for freedom and democracy. I admire its tenacious determination when the odds are stacked against it,” he said.
“And, like millions of Israelis, I have a mother who’s still waiting for me to get a proper job!” he quipped.
Javid said the British National Union of Student’s decision to adopt boycott measures against Israel, while rejecting a motion to do the same against the Islamic State, “speaks volumes.”
He said he “had no time for a boycott campaign. Because for me, freedom is an absolute concept.”

The Judean People's Front: Calling BS on BDS - BDS Handbook: Forward

This is the first post in our new series Calling BS on BDS. In this series the JPF will not only debunk the major theories driving the BDS movement, but also go through the BDS Divestment Handbook used by anti-Israel "activists" all over the world and show how to counter their lies.
The forward of the BDS handbook sets the stage with two important points that must be properly understood:
The use of an anti-apartheid framework can be instrumental for student BDS activists, because some schools already have policies prohibiting investment in apartheid. (page 4)
Here they are admitting that their use of the "anti-apartheid framework" is tactical rather than substantive! BDS supporters are attempting to hijack a cause that is not their own in order to manipulate the system for their own benefit. The article this quote is referencing attempts to make the charge fit and is very effective if the reader knows nothing about the conflict, which is precisely why this debunking is so important
Showing reverence for the concept of self-determination is key when struggling in solidarity, and this call should be the basis for international BDS campaigns to challenge Israel’s occupation and apartheid. (page 5)
Anyone hearing a BDSer make this charge should immediately ask, "What about Jewish self-determination?! Why should the Jews be the only people denied the right to self-determination? If BDS cares so much about the right of self-determination, why are they trying to take this right away from one of the most persecuted groups in history?" Most supporters of Israel are not against the idea of Palestinian self-determination, but they do not support the idea of establishing a Palestinian state without it making peace with Israel.

J-Street poll shows American Jews don't quite support J-Street positions

J-Street is pretending to be happy:

Just weeks ahead of the June 30 deadline for negotiations, this morning J Street released a new poll that confirms the majority of Jewish Americans support President Obama's approach to keeping a nuclear bomb out of Iran’s hands.

In fact, the data prove yet again that the pundits and presumed Jewish communal representatives are flat-out wrong in assuming this community is hawkish on Iran or US policy in the Middle East in general.

But the poll itself has results that J-Street would prefer not to be publicized.

Here are some:

Binyamin Netanyahu, who J-Street vilifies at every opportunity, has a higher favorability rating than Barack Obama, 56-49.

Would you support or oppose the United States playing an active role in helping the parties to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict if it meant the United States publicly stating its disagreements with Israel? 56% oppose, J-Street supports.

Other results are skewed by the nature of the question:

72% say "I support a two-state solution that declares an end to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, resulting in all Arab countries establishing full diplomatic ties with Israel and creating an independent Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza."

J-Street says this is their position. it also happens to be Binyamin Netanyahu's position. The question is whether every square inch across the Green Line must be part of a Palestinian state - J-Street seems to say yes, judging from their adamant opposition to Israel building in areas that would remain part of the Jewish state. So the question is tilted to get answers that J-Street can claim supports their position.

Even the nuclear Iran question is skewed:

Imagine that the U.S., Britain, Germany, France, China, Russia, and Iran reach a final agreement that places significant limits on Iran's nuclear program to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
The agreement imposes intrusive inspections of Iran's nuclear facilities by international nuclear experts, and it caps the level at which Iran can enrich uranium to far below what is necessary to make a nuclear weapon. In exchange for limiting its nuclear program and agreeing to intrusive inspections, Iran would receive phased relief from U.S. and international economic sanctions, as Iran complies with the terms of the agreement.
Would you support or oppose this agreement?

78% of American Jews support this, but the problem is that recent news stories show that there will not be "intrusive inspections" - and J-Street has not uttered a word of concern.

Wording is everything. Let's say the question had been written as "Iran has a history of cheating on its nuclear agreements. They have insulted the US and its leader has said 'Death to America.' They refuse to give adequate access to IAEA nuclear inspectors. They have created secret nuclear facilities Do you support an agreement that is unenforceable?" - would the answers be the same?

Russia: We Won't Get In Way If World Decides Not To Strike Syria (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Moscow, June 10 - Russian Foreign Minster Sergei Lavrov told reporters at a press conference this evening that if the Western powers decide to maintain their inaction on Syria, Russia would not impede the move.

A longtime supporter of embattled Syrian leader Basher Assad, Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed his foreign policy team not to oppose the supporters of the Syrian rebels in the event that those allies decide to continue not significantly aiding the rebels militarily against Assad's forces. The death toll in the four-year-old conflict has surpassed 200,000, while the violence has also created millions of refugees and internally displaced persons that aid agencies have struggled to help.

The announcement marks a clear shift in Russian strategy, which until now has focused on countering Western efforts to bolster Assad's opponents. The new approach, says Near East Institute analyst Mark Mywords, takes a more circumspect approach that recognizes other countries' ability not to intervene. For some countries, their ability even exceeds that of Russia, though the US and Iran, historically, have been loath to use it.

"What we're seeing is a new appreciation by the Kremlin that sometimes the most effective form of inaction is to let others perform the non-action," he explained. "In the rush to abandon much of the Communist government legacy, Russia was quick to let go of generations-old incentives not to do anything. But a resurgence of nostalgia for the simpler old times, as rough as they were, has prompted the leadership to revisit many of the Soviet practices such as providing no reason to do things at all, since the end result will be the same anyway," he continued.

The change presents Washington and other Western governments with a new opportunity not to act, coming as hundreds of thousands of Americans continue not to demand US action despite ongoing atrocities by all parties to the conflict. The Obama administration continues to weigh its options on how best not to respond to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, despite a vow by Obama that any such development would not be tolerated by the international community.

Several other key nations have embarked on a similar policy regarding Iran as well as Syria. The US itself under the Obama administration has made it clear that if no one else acts to stop Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons, it would not hesitate to leave well enough alone.

Discreetly getting out of the way of someone else's not doing anything has a venerable history, according to military historian Anne Nabler, author of See No Evil, See No Evil. "Perhaps the most famous example of not standing in the way of non-action is the world's reaction to Hitler's annexation of the the Czechoslovakian Sudetendland in 1938," she wrote in an e-mail. "But history is rife with nations standing idly by while other nations stand idly by."

06/10 Links Pt1: Poll: half of Gazans want to emigrate; Gazans Upset over UNRWA Aid to Syria

From Ian:

Palestinian poll shows discontent with Hamas

Gaza Strip residents are unhappy with Hamas and the results of the war with Israel last summer, a new Palestinian poll released Tuesday shows.
The poll, by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, shows that half of Gaza's residents want to emigrate, compared to 25% of the West Bank's residents.
The center's director, Khalil Shikaki, said the 50% emigration figure in Gaza is the highest ever, and is even higher among young people, about 80%.
"Gaza is definitely showing tremendous frustration," Shikaki said.
A majority, 63%, expressed dissatisfaction with "achievements compared to human and material losses" during Operation Protective Edge last summer. More than 2,100 Palestinians died in Gaza, while 67 Israeli soldiers and six Israeli civilians were killed.
The fighting devastated parts of Gaza, and reconstruction has been slow, causing many there to ask if it was worth it.
Of those polled, 63% said they support launching rockets at Israel while a blockade is in place. The same number said they favor indirect talks between Hamas and Israel to negotiate a long-term truce in exchange for lifting the blockade. (h/t djcelts)

Int'l Legal Experts Slam IDF - For Over-Warning Gazans

The IDF went to extraordinary lengths last summer to prevent civilian casualties while fighting Hamas terrorists in Gaza, achieving a remarkable 1:1 civilian to combatant ratio, but according to international legal experts it went too far in avoiding casualties among the enemy population.
Willy Stern of Vanderbilt Law School, in an article to be published next Monday in the Weekly Standard, details what he found while spending two weeks with attorneys in the IDF's international law department dubbed "Dabla" as well as front-line commanders, and documents the IDF's "legal zeal" which as he notes has not stemmed the deluge of international criticism against it.
Stern listed how the IDF bombarded Gaza residents with thousands of telephone calls, leaflet drops, TV and radio messages, as well as calls to influential citizens urging them to evacuate residents, and in doing so gave the terrorist enemy detailed information about its troop movements.
"It was abundantly clear that IDF commanders had gone beyond any mandates that international law requires to avoid civilian casualties," writes Stern. He reported how Dabla attorneys have to sign off on a "target card" for each airstrike on terror targets, with the cards enumerating all of the relevant data about the planned strike.
In contrast, the Hamas "doctrine manual" captured by the IDF in the Shejaiya neighborhood early last August documents how the terror group urges its fighters to embed themselves among civilians in hopes that the IDF will kill civilians.
"Hamas’s playbook calls for helping to kill its own civilians, while the IDF’s playbook goes to extreme - some say inappropriate - lengths to protect innocent life in war," reads the article.

JPost Editorial: Jerusalem, Israel

Ostensibly, the State Department’s position on Jerusalem – as presented to the US federal appeals court – is that the “reversal of US policy” could “provoke uproar throughout the Arab and Muslim world and seriously damage our relations.”
But kowtowing to extremists in the Arab and Muslim world only encourages more extremist behavior, because it proves that intimidation works.
Setting policy because of fear of violence also strengthens the Palestinian “Nakba” narrative that views Israel as the aggressor in the 1948 War of Independence. In reality, it was a radicalized Palestinian leadership – backed by bellicose Arab nations – that rejected the 1947 UN Partition Plan: the original two states for two peoples. The Palestinians made the historic mistake of attempting to annihilate out the fledgling Jewish state at birth. Thankfully, they failed. But they refuse to face the consequences of their own acts of violence. By refusing to recognize Jerusalem as part of Israel, the US is essentially strengthening this distorted narrative.
Just walking around Jerusalem, a city that has flourished and grown beyond recognition for the betterment of both Jews and Arabs during the years it has been under Israel’s control, one is struck by the sheer absurdity of the US’s position.
The time has come for the Obama administration to amend America’s policy.
Through direct negotiations, Israelis and Palestinians will decide the final borders of Israel and a future Palestinian state. No matter what the outcome, however, parts of Jerusalem always have been and will always remain Israel’s capital. US policy should reflect this simple fact.

Report: Israeli malware targeted hotels hosting Iran negotiations

It sure looks like Israel is doing some very sophisticated reconnaissance of the nuclear talks.

A fascinating report from the WSJ:

When a leading cybersecurity firm discovered it had been hacked last year by a virus widely believed to be used by Israeli spies, it wanted to know who else was on the hit list. It checked millions of computers world-wide and three luxury European hotels popped up. The other hotels the firm tested—thousands in all—were clean.

Researchers at the firm, Kaspersky Lab ZAO, weren’t sure what to make of the results. Then they realized what the three hotels had in common. Each was targeted before hosting high-stakes negotiations between Iran and world powers over curtailing Tehran’s nuclear program.

The spyware, the firm has now concluded, was an improved version of Duqu, a virus first identified by cybersecurity experts in 2011, according to a Kaspersky report reviewed by The Wall Street Journal and outside security experts. Current and former U.S. officials and many cybersecurity experts believe Duqu was designed to carry out Israel’s most sensitive intelligence-collection operations.

Senior U.S. officials learned Israel was spying on the nuclear talks in 2014, a finding first reported by The Wall Street Journal in March. Officials at the time offered few details about Israel’s tactics.

Kaspersky’s findings, which the Moscow-based company is expected to disclose publicly Wednesday, shed new light on the use of a stealthy virus in the spying efforts. The revelations also could provide what may be the first concrete evidence that the nuclear negotiations were targeted and by whom.

No intelligence-collection effort is a higher priority for Israel’s spy agencies than Iran, including the closed-door talks which have entered a final stage. Israeli leaders say the emerging deal could allow Iran to continue working toward building nuclear weapons, a goal Iran has denied having.

Kaspersky, in keeping with its policy, doesn’t identify Israel by name as the country responsible for the hacks. But researchers at the company indicate that they suspect an Israeli connection in subtle ways. For example, the company’s report is titled “The Duqu Bet.” Bet is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Researchers at the company acknowledge that many questions remain unanswered about how the virus was used and what information may have been stolen. Among the possibilities, the researchers say, the intruders might have been able to eavesdrop on conversations and steal electronic files by commandeering the hotel systems that connect to computers, phones, elevators and alarms, allowing them to turn them on and off at will to collect information.

Israeli officials have denied spying on the U.S. or Israel’s other allies, although they acknowledge conducting close surveillance on Iranians generally. Israeli officials declined to comment specifically on the allegations relating to the Duqu virus and the hotel intrusions.

...
U.S. intelligence agencies view Duqu infections as Israeli spy operations, former U.S. officials said. While the new virus bore no overt links to Israel, it was so complex and borrowed so heavily from Duqu that it “could not have been created by anyone without access to the original Duqu source code,” Kaspersky writes in its report.
...
A Kaspersky employee in Moscow discovered the virus while testing a new security program on a company computer he assumed was bug-free. Rather than try to kick the hackers out, the company set up a special team to monitor the virus in action to figure out how it worked and what it was designed to do.
...
The company ran tests to determine if any of its 270,000 corporate clients world-wide had been infected. Kaspersky’s list of corporate clients includes big energy companies, European banks and thousands of hotels.

It found infections on a limited number of clients in Western Europe, Asia and the Middle East. None of Kaspersky’s clients in the U.S. were targeted. A targeted cyberattack against a hotel struck researchers as unusual but not unprecedented.

The first hotel with Duqu 2.0 on its computers piqued Mr. Raiu’s interest right away, in light of the revelations he read in the Journal about Israeli spying efforts, he said. The hotel, he said, was a well-known venue for the nuclear negotiations. But he wasn’t sure if it was an isolated case.

Soon thereafter, Kaspersky found the same virus at a second luxury hotel. Initially, Mr. Raiu didn’t see a connection between the hotel and the nuclear talks. Then, a couple of weeks after the discovery of the second hotel, he learned that the nuclear negotiations would take place there. His team was “shocked,” Mr. Raiu recalled. In both cases, the hotels were infected about two to three weeks before the negotiators convened.

Kaspersky provided information about Duqu 2.0 to one of its partners, which did its own round of tests. That search turned up a third infected hotel which hosted the nuclear talks. Mr. Raiu said the third hotel was discovered last but appeared to have been infected first, sometime in 2014.
...
In addition to the three hotels reported to have been hacked, the virus was found in computers at a site used to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz. Some world leaders had attended events there.

A former U.S. intelligence official said it was common for Israel and other countries to target such international gatherings. “The only thing that’s unusual now is you hear about it,” the official said.

Mr. Raiu said Kaspersky doesn’t know what was stolen from the three hotels or from the other venues. He said the virus was packed with more than 100 discrete “modules” that would have enabled the attackers to commandeer infected computers.

One module was designed to compress video feeds, possibly from hotel surveillance cameras. Other modules targeted communications, from phones to Wi-Fi networks. The attackers would know who was connected to the infected systems, allowing them to eavesdrop on conversations and steal electronic files. The virus could also enable them to operate two-way microphones in hotel elevators, computers and alarm systems.

In addition, the hackers appeared to penetrate front-desk computers. That could have allowed them to figure out the room numbers of specific delegation members.

The virus also automatically deposited smaller reconnaissance files on the computers it passed through, ensuring the attackers can monitor them and exploit the contents of those computers at a later date.

The mistake by the hackers seems to have been to use the same malware for attacking Kaspersky as for attacking the hotels.