Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, March 17, 2017

03/17 Links Pt2: Amb. Baker: Was the Balfour Declaration Legal?; Who is Chloe Valdary?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: How the monstering of Donald Trump has confused the Jews

Everyone should calm down and stop jumping to conclusions with every phone call, visit or remark.
At a deeper level still, it also surely reflects the profound fissure within conservatism itself. For decades, progressives have rejected Western national identity and values as a form of white racism and cultural oppression.
Many conservatives bought into much of this onslaught, usually without realizing it.
That’s why millions in the West have felt so disenfranchised; and why conservatives no less than liberals were so astonished by both Brexit and the rise of Donald Trump. Both these phenomena expressed the urgent wish of the people to defend the identity, culture and democratic accountability of Western nations against the attempt to destroy them.
Yet this reasonable, even admirable impulse has been vilified as racism not just by the Left but also by mainstream conservatives – amongst whom are many anti- Trump Jews. That’s why Trump’s philosopher-strategist Steve Bannon, who is driven by the desire to restore Western national identity based on Judeo-Christian values, has been smeared and defamed as a “white nationalist.”
Yet it’s also why ultimately Donald Trump, despite his manifold flaws, is a true ally of the Jewish people. It’s a great pity so many Jews don’t see it.

Amb. Alan Baker: Was the Balfour Declaration Legal?

With the 2017 centenary of the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which acknowledged the right of the Jewish people to their national homeland in Palestine, the international community is witnessing a highly orchestrated attempt by the Arab League and the Palestinian leadership to question its legal veracity.
This campaign is one of the means of manipulation of the international community used by the Palestinian leadership to cast doubt and undermine the historic and legal basis and rights of the Jews in the area.
Sadly, and completely at odds with history and international law, this campaign appears to be receiving support from other countries.
In the context of the Balfour Declaration centenary, the Palestinian leadership called on the Arab League at its September 2016 summit meeting in Nouakchott, Mauritania, to institute “an international criminal case for the crime committed against our nation by the UK for issuing the Balfour Declaration.”
The Palestinian leadership launched a “Balfour Apology Campaign” with a disturbing statement to the UN General Assembly on September 22, 2016, in which Mahmoud Abbas stated:
100 years have passed since the notorious Balfour Declaration, by which Britain gave, without any right, authority or consent from anyone, the land of Palestine to another people.
Abbas went on to formally demand an apology from the UK for issuing the Balfour Declaration.

25 years since the bombing of Israel's Embassy in Buenos Aires

On 17.3 we mark 25 years since the terror attack on Israel's Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people.
May the memory of the victims be a blessing

From Reuters:

The head of the United Nation's West Asia commission resigned on Friday, after what she described as pressure from the secretary general to withdraw a report accusing Israel of imposing an "apartheid regime" on Palestinians.

The Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), which comprises 18 Arab states, published the report on Wednesday and said it was the first time a U.N. body had clearly made the charge.

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had asked the commission to remove the report from its website, a U.N. official said earlier.

Guterres insisted on the withdrawal of the report, U.N. Under-Secretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf said.

"Based on that, I submitted to him my resignation from the United Nations," Khalaf told a news conference in Beirut on Friday.

The report concluded "Israel has established an apartheid regime that dominates the Palestinian people as a whole". The accusation - often directed at Israel by its critics - is fiercely rejected by Israel.

Israel's Foreign Ministry spokesman likened the report to anti-Semitic Nazi propaganda. The United States, Israel's main ally, said it was outraged by the report.

It isn't surprising that Khalaf values slandering Israel over her very job.

In 2014, as ESCWA released a report on the challenges facing the Arab world, Khalaf effectively said that Israel shouldn't exist and the Arabs should have destroyed it in 1948:

The effects of fragmentation have blighted all Arabs; observers cannot but notice the consequences of decades of division and underdevelopment. It is an explosive combination of threats and challenges, characterized by unconstrained foreign interference and human misery.

Foreign interference comes in various forms, such as violations of Arab rights and dignity, but its worst manifestation is the Israeli occupation of Palestine, the Syrian Golan Heights and Lebanese territories, in flagrant breach of all international conventions and resolutions.

The authors of the report claim that the damage caused by Israeli policies is not limited to occupation activities, but they believe that aggressive Israeli policies, including its support for discord aimed at establishing Arab sectarian mini-States and its nuclear programme that is not subject to international monitoring, pose a continuous threat to the security of Arab citizens in the region as a whole.

The most dangerous of these policies is Israel's adamancy that it is a Jewish State, which violates the rights of both the Muslim and Christian indigenous populations and revives the concept of state ethnic and religious purity, which caused egregious human suffering during the twentieth century.

The report claims that Arab rights would not have been trampled; Jerusalem would not have suffered under Judaization policies, land confiscation and the expulsion of populations; and Muslim and Christian holy shrines would not have been desecrated if Arabs had stood united and coordinated their efforts, or at least met their existing commitments to joint defence.

That ESCWA report praised Egypt's launching the Yom Kippur War.

Also in 2014, ESCWA released a series of 181 pro-Palestinian memes, many of which were absolute lies and half-truths.

Last year, Khalaf publicly praised BDS and Arab states forbidding "normalization" with Israel, and praised "resistance," code-word for terror attacks.

For years, Khalaf used her platform to use the UN's name to bash Israel way beyond what even the UN's one-sided Human Rights Council had done. But now the UN has a head that actually cares to ensure that Israel is treated more fairly.

The difference between new UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Ban Ki Moon is huge. Good riddance to Rima Khalaf.

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03/17 Links Pt1: Glick: Know thine enemy; Nikki Haley Restores Morality to the UN Mission

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Know thine enemy

There are iron rules of warfare. One of the most basic rules is that you have to know your enemy. If you do not know your enemy, or worse, if you refuse to act on your knowledge of him, you will lose your war against him.
This basic truth appears to have eluded Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This week we have been beset by the bizarre and sudden appearance of Jason Greenblatt, President Donald Trump’s negotiations chief.
Greenblatt’s mission is apparently to reinstate the mordant peace process between Israel and the PLO.
The peace process that Greenblatt is here to reincarnate died 17 years ago.
In 2000, PLO chief and Palestinian Authority chairman Yasser Arafat killed the peace process when he initiated a massive terrorist war against Israel, right after he rejected peace and Palestinian statehood at the Camp David peace conference.
In rejecting peace, the architect of modern terrorism made clear that his claim seven years earlier that he was willing to reach a compromise with Israel, based on partition of the Land of Israel between a Jewish and an Arab state, was a lie. As the nationalist camp had warned at the time and since, the PLO was not remotely interested either in statehood or in peace. Arafat’s willingness to engage Israel in negotiations that led to its transfer of security and civil control over Gaza and the Palestinian population centers in Judea and Samaria to the PLO was simply another means to the only end the PLO ever contemplated. It was a means of weakening Israel as a step toward achieving the PLO’s ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state.

PMW: Fatah blatantly supports terror - findings presented in US Congress

A new collection of examples shows that Fatah continues to blatantly incite and glorify terror in 2017 (March 17, 2017)
Yesterday, Palestinian Media Watch presented its report Fatah Votes for Terror to the House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East. Included as an appendix to that report is a new collection of examples which show that Fatah continues to blatantly incite and glorify terror in 2017.
The picture to the right, which Fatah posted on its official Facebook page and appears in Appendix 2 of PMW's report, is just one of countless examples of the party's violence promotion.
Click to view Fatah Votes for Terror Appendix 2: Fatah terror promotion continues in 2017
Fatah promotes terror during times characterized by daily terror attacks as well as during relatively peaceful times. In Fatah Votes for Terror Appendix 3, PMW documents that Fatah actively glorified terrorism on its Facebook page throughout the terror wave of 2015-2016.

[Official Fatah Facebook page, Jan. 17, 2017]
The image below, which Fatah posted to its official Facebook page and appears in Appendix 3, glorified the ongoing violence and promised more to come:

UN Watch: UN chief rejects Richard Falk’s ESCWA report accusing Israel of ‘apartheid’

U.N. chief Antonió Guterres rejected a report published by ECSWA, a Beirut-based agency of the world body— ECSWA—comprised entirely of 18 Arab states, which accuses Israel of “apartheid.”
The report’s chief author is Richard Falk, a former U.N. official who was condemned repeatedly by the UK and other governments for antisemitism.
In 2011, Falk was also denounced by his own boss, former U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, for espousing 9/11 conspiracy theories which accused the U.S. government, instead of Al Qaeda, of perpetrating the 9/11 terror attacks.
The new report, said Guterres’ spokesman, “does not reflect the views of the Secretary‑General.”
U.S. ambassador Nikki Haley blasted the report, and called on the UN to withdraw it:

What the media doesn't want you to know about Richard Falk's new U.N. Report

Further to my previous article, there have been a few noteworthy changes to the scheduled event.

One of the scheduled speakers, Rania Khalek, has backed out, citing the following reason: “I pulled out because I will not be in town and I'm sick of the backlash from Syria trolls. Had no idea Berlin was invited”.

Khalek claims she “won’t be in town” but also added that “she’s sick of the backlash from Syria trolls”. Not quite sure which excuse we should believe. She then goes on to say, “I had no idea Berlin was invited”. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Khalek is referring to Greta Berlin, notorious anti-Semite, co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement, and frequent boarder of “freedom flotillas” to Gaza. Berlin has even been criticized by Ali Abunimah of the Electronic Intifada for posting Anti-Semitic propaganda. Imagine that. This week, she also invited our very own “Holohoax” white nationalist Jimmy Fry to her hate corner at the event. Jimmy of course accepted her invitation.

After exposure, an exchange on Twitter ensued. The @freegazaorg account [which Greta is said to be handling] sent a picture of a currency bill. The bill says “Palestine” on it in English, Hebrew, and Arabic. Of course, being as ignorant as we are, we all believe that since it is emblazoned with the word Palestine, that must mean it was issued by the sovereign Arab Palestinian state in 1939. Unfortunately for Greta, she isn’t very detail-oriented. Had she noticed the signatures on the currency, she would have read Sir P. Ezechiel - Sir J. Caulutt – and H. Downie, all British members of the Palestine Currency Board for the British Mandate at the time. These names are a far cry from Al-Mohammed or Al-Husseini.

I explained that the bill was issued by the British Mandate and that it was in circulation until 1947. Prior to that, the currency was the Turkish Lira under Ottoman rule. The response? A pathetic “you’re paid by the Israeli government” and the usual block.

So it’s safe to assume that Khalek backed out because Berlin and other anti-Semites plan to attend the event. The backlash she receives daily for supporting Assad, as well as the talk cancelled by BDS earlier in the month, was enough to make her think twice. Equally interesting is that your usual “anti-Zionists” starting lashing out at the event organizer, Abbas Hamideh.

One of those is the one and only Gary Spedding, a proud supporter of BDS and anti-Zionist. The other is the notorious Noa Shaindlinger who supports Hamas and claimed to be affiliated with the terrorist organization PFLP.

She was even called a Zionist and “Controlled Opposition” by non-other than Hamideh sidekick and number one David Duke fan Jimmy Fry, who will also attend the event.

As for Hamideh, he has taken to Facebook to criticize the Al-Awda members who urged him to tone it down. He also referenced to the article I wrote and “congratulated” the traitors, saboteurs, and gatekeepers who have officially changed sides – and are now with AIPAC. Then Hamideh wrote another post claiming that anti-Semites and white nationalists will not be invited to the event. This of course is a lie.

As of this moment, here are some of the speakers and attendees of the event. Reach your own conclusions as to whether BDS is becoming a haven for rabid anti-Semitic activity.

Abbas Hemideh – Event Organizer

Refers to Jews as “Shlomos”.

Supports Hezbollah, Hamas and Assad.

Organized rally in Cleveland . Followers chanted, “Kaybar Kaybar Yahud” [Slaughter Jews].

Greta Berlin

Promotes anti-Semitic videos on social media.

Shunned by Electronic Intifada

Alison Weir

Promoter of “Jewish Power” and “Organ Harvesting” anti-Semitic blood libels.

Shunned by Max Blumenthal and JVP.

Anas Amireh - Event Organizer

Promotes car ramming attacks by terrorists.

Jimmy Fry

Holocaust denier – “Auschwitz Lies”.

Makes jokes about Jews making good lampshades.

In conclusion, and as I have stated repetitiously, BDS is in shambles in terms of its leading activists, who are not aligned with one another. Expect to continue seeing this type of mud-slinging on social media as more and more anti-Semites join the “peaceful movement” known as Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.

J.Mikarov

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For years, NGOs and the UN have railed against the supposed inhumanity of Israel's using administrative detention against various terrorist suspects.

Which makes this small comment by the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights earlier this month all the more interesting:

In the State of Palestine, my Office is also concerned that both the Palestinian Authority and the authorities in Gaza have increased use of administrative and arbitrary detention, with increasing allegations of torture and ill-treatment in both the West Bank and Gaza against political opponents, journalists and activists.

So where are the NGOs? Where are the hundred-page reports with interviews of the victims? Where are the calls for justice from the "pro-Palestinian" activists? Where are the conferences?

Apparently, no one really cares about human rights.

"Human rights" is simply an excuse to bash whoever your political opponent is. Actual or alleged victims of human rights abuses are useful when they are used to further your political agenda, otherwise, if you have been tortured or otherwise abused, don't bother wasting the time of these so-called "human rights" advocates.

There are more NGOs in the Palestinian-administered territories than anywhere else on Earth. But they get their money from those who only want to bash Israel, not to protect Palestinians from human rights abuses by their own people. So most of them take their EU funds and rehash the information they have to write yet another anti-Israel reports while actual victims of daily human rights abuses have nowhere safe to turn for help.

(h/t Irene)

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Richard Falk's report that calls Israel an "apartheid state", commissioned by UN ESCWA, relies heavily on Israel's defining itself as a Jewish state as proof that it is discriminatory against non-Jews.

So he writes:

Where a State’s constitutional law provides equal rights to the entire citizenry, it can provide an invaluable resource for people challenging discrimination at all levels of the society. However, if constitutional law defines the State as racial in character — as in Israel (as a Jewish State), and apartheid South Africa (as a white-Afrikaner State) — movements against racial discrimination not only lack this crucial legal resource but find themselves in the far more dangerous position of challenging the regime itself. Such a challenge will naturally be seen by regime authorities as an existential threat and be persecuted accordingly.

Falk is astonishingly dishonest in later quoting Israel's Declaration of Independence as proof that Israel defines itself as a Jewish state without noting that that same Declaration says that all citizens must have equal rights - and Israel's Basic Laws refer to the equal rights section of the Declaration, giving it the force of constitutional law.

The report by UN ESCWA believes that the "Jewish state" is inherently discriminatory, rejecting any objections to "the ethnic premise of Jewish statehood [as] illegitimate, because it violates international human rights law."

Yet how do ESCWA members define themselves?

Here is a chart showing how every ESCWA member defines themselves in their constitutions.

ESCWA member	How it defines itself
Bahrain	Bahrain is an independent, sovereign, Islamic Arab State
Egypt	Egypt is part of the Arab nation
Iraq	This Constitution guarantees the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people.
Jordan	The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is an independent sovereign Arab State. The people of Jordan form a part of the Arab Nation.
Kuwait	Kuwait is an Arab, independent, fully sovereign State.
Lebanon	Lebanon is Arab in its identity and in its affiliation.
Libya	Islam shall be its religion and Islamic Shari’a shall be the main source of legislation.
Mauritania	Mauritania is an Islamic, indivisible, democratic, and social Republic.
Morocco	[Commits] To deepen the bonds of togetherness with the Arab and Islamist Ummah
Oman	The Sultanate of Oman is an Arab, Islamic, Independent State
Palestine	Palestine is part of the large Arab World, and the Palestinian people are part of the Arab Nation.
Qatar	Qatar is an independent sovereign Arab State.
Saudi Arabia	The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic state with Islam as its religion
Sudan	The Republic of the Sudan is an independent, sovereign State. It is a democratic, decentralized, multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-lingual country where such diversities co-exist
Syria	The Syrian Arab Republic is a democratic state with full sovereignty, indivisible, and may not waive any part of its territory, and is part of the Arab homeland; The people of Syria are part of the Arab nation.
Tunisia	Tunisia is a free, independent, sovereign state; its religion is Islam, its language Arabic, and its system is republican.
United Arab Emirates	The Union shall be part of the Great Arab Nation, to which it is bound by the ties of religion, language, history and common destiny. The people of the Union shall be a single people, and shall be part of the Arab Nation.
Yemen	The Republic of Yemen is an Arab, Islamic and independent sovereign state

With the exception of Sudan (and to an extent Morocco) every member identifies as either an Arab state, an Islamic state or both, which - by Falk's logic - means that the nations that sponsored Falk's report to define Israel as an apartheid state are apartheid states themselves.

Yet no one ever accuses them of that, even though by any sane measure they discriminate against non-Arabs and/or non-Muslims in ways that are far more egregious than anything Israel can be accused of doing.

For example, in Bahrain non-Arabs are extremely limited in where they can lease land, while Arabs have no such restrictions and can buy land outright. Jordan and others have similar laws. Arab League states, which is the majority of ESCWA members, also discriminate against non Arabs in their citizenship laws.

This is only one example of how Falk's definition of "apartheid" for Israel would apply to many of not most other nations, including the US.

So if you accept that this report proves Israel is an "apartheid state" you must agree that so are many, many other states that also fall under that definition. By manipulating the facts to judge Israel guilty, Falk is not strengthening human rights - he is weakening the definition of apartheid to become meaningless and therefore useless.

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03/16 Links Pt2: Mayim Bialik: Feminism & Zionism; PMW: Fatah: Kill 37 Israelis, become a role model for Palestinian women

From Ian:

Mayim Bialik: Feminism & Zionism: Definitions and Exclusions

A recent series of articles about Palestinian-American political activist Linda Sarsour startled many in feminist and Jewish circles, me being one of them. In these articles, Sarsour states that feminism and Zionism are incompatible.
Sarsour said, “There is no country in this world that is immune to violating human rights. You can’t be a feminist in the United States and stand up for the rights of the American woman and then say that you don’t want to stand up for the rights of Palestinian women in Palestine.” (Check out this interview with Sarsour in The Nation.)
I don’t know that I am even the authority to speak to this on an international level, but here’s what I have on a personal level. Feelings.
Why am I upset?
Definitions
Zionism is the belief in the right of the Jewish people to have an autonomous state in Israel. I am a Zionist. Feminism is the belief that a woman-driven movement can bring about race, class and gender equality and that women deserve all of the rights and privileges afforded to men. I am a feminist. There are Zionists who are critical of certain Israeli policies and those who are not; there are Zionists who are anti-occupation and there are Zionists who are pro-settlement; and there are Zionists who fall between these extremes. The definitions of Zionism and feminism are not in conflict with each other. At all.

Alan Dershowitz: Why Must Women Choose between Feminism and Zionism, but Not Other "Isms"?

There are many countries and movements throughout the world that treat women as second-class citizens: Israel is not among them.... There is a word for applying a double standard to Jews. That word is anti-Semitism.
If Sarsour was concerned with addressing structural causes of all female oppression, she would mention the status of women in the PA-controlled West Bank where just a few months ago the names and photos of female candidates for the municipal elections were omitted, referring to the women instead as "wife of" or "sister of." Sarsour would also call out the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, where the police are a law unto themselves who act as judge, jury and executioner of those who speak out against their oppression and misogyny. She would condemn the tolerance, if not acceptance, by so many Muslim countries of the "honor killings" and genital mutilation of women. Instead the IWS platform exploits the feminist cause in order to delegitimize and demonize only one nation: that of the Jewish people.
The real choice to be made now by all those who care about the feminist cause is whether to allow Sarsour and her radical anti-Israel allies to hijack the movement in support of their own bigoted views. The alternative is to maintain feminism's focus on key issues that pertain to women and to call out countries and movements according to how seriously they violate women's rights, rather than singling out the one Jewish democracy – Israel.

PMW: Fatah: Kill 37 Israelis, become a role model for Palestinian women

Role model for Palestinian women is terrorist Dalal Mughrabi who led murder of 37, including 12 children
Secretary of Fatah Central Committee: “The women of Palestine draw from the giving and struggle of the first female Martyrs of Palestine, and prime among them Dalal Mughrabi and Laila Khaled”
Fatah Central Committee member: “[Mughrabi was] a daughter of the land who scattered her soul on the soil of the land of peace and constitutes for us a Palestinian school for the supreme love of the homeland”
“The lady of complete giving for the freedom of the land and man. May her soul rest in our skies, a true rainbow of freedom”
Fatah Central Committee member: “[Her operation] spread the spirit of victory in the hearts of the Palestinians and struck the Israeli occupation like lightning... [Her] “soul is constantly floating in the skies of Palestine”
PA National Security Forces: Mughrabi is “the bride of Jaffa”
Head of Palestinian Women’s Union on occasion of International Women’s Day: “She killed as many as she killed"