As readers may be aware, an internal UN report has been leaked accusing the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the UN body that looks after Palestinian refugees, of corruption, sexual misconduct, nepotism, waste, and poor management among its leadership team. This comes on top of long-standing complaints about the agency, including:
- Its tolerance of incitement to hatred and violence in its schools and other institutions;
- Its unique definition of who is a Palestinian refugee that means the number of such refugees will expand forever;
- Its political promotion of the legally-baseless Palestinian “right of return”, contradicting the two-state solution and thus damaging any realistic hopes for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Now, the American blogger “Elder of Ziyon” has called attention to some material from UNRWA’s own website demonstrating how the latter two political stances lead to gross waste by the agency, quite apart from the current scandal.
Basically, “Elder of Ziyon” points to three facts noted on the UNRWA website:
- UNWRA says it has “started construction on a new health centre in Zohour area within the Jordanian capital Amman. … The actual construction activities started late in July 2019 and the health centre is expected to be functional by August 2020 and will improve access to health care for over 68,000 Palestine refugees in the area.”
- UNRWA admits “In Jordan, the 2.2 million Palestine refugees who are registered with UNRWA enjoy broad inclusion in social and economic life. The vast majority have Jordanian nationality, with the exception of some 158,000 ‘ex-Gazan’ refugees,” and “[M]ost of the over 2 million Palestine refugees in Jordan have been granted citizenship, and have the same access to health care as other Jordanian citizens.”
- UNRWA says “In Jordan, our clinics serve more than 1.1 million people, nearly 56 per cent of the registered Palestine refugees in the country.”
What these three facts amount to is this: UNRWA is paying to run, and even currently expanding, a separate and discriminatory health care system in Jordan which is almost completely unnecessary.
Completely reliant on donors, UNRWA is always living on the edge, with uncertain funding and a culture of secrecy. The agency regularly assesses its management, but it publishes uniformly positive reports. The imperative is always to support calls for future funding and avoid lending ammunition to critics, namely the US and Israel.
One lesson is that funders must demand internal controls, external audits and public access to information. Assurances regarding Palestinian needs aren’t enough. Scrutiny is also needed for the Palestinian Authority, which uses foreign aid to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in pensions to terrorists and their families.
A second lesson concerns the danger of devoting an international organisation to a single population. UNRWA was effectively taken over by Palestinians decades ago. Politicisation began at the bottom with school curricula, but crept upward with senior managers calling for the Palestinian “right of return”.
The US funding cuts were the first serious challenges to a long overripe status quo. This latest scandal is an opportunity for the US, joined by other angry donors, to demand a phaseout plan for the entire organisation.
UNRWA’s 30,000 employees could join the Palestinian Authority, which would take over its health, education and welfare responsibilities like the state it claims to be. UNRWA’s expensive international cadre, including lobbyists in Washington and Geneva, should be disbanded. And Palestinian residents of Arab states – all of whom are considered refugees by UNRWA – should become citizens of those states, as they are in Jordan, or of the Palestinian Authority. If Palestinians truly desire a state, they should join the call for UNRWA’s abolition.
No joke: 🇨🇭 Switzerland paid for this.
"In 2015, UNRWA chief Pierre Krähenbühl created a post of “Special Advisor” and gave the position to his mistress. Costs of this post were funded by the Swiss foreign ministry from March 2015 to December 2018." https://t.co/Tvhmxr4nyohttps://t.co/DyePU0dA0C
Seeing Palestinian flags at rallies for liberal causes like LGBTQ rights, women's rights and Black Lives Matter is always jarring, because Palestinians are among the least liberal people on Earth.
But the sight of the flag associates the "pro-Palestinian" (really anti-Israel) cause with liberalism and that is something that happens subconsciously.
If we are to fight the anti-Israel side we have to sometimes play by their rules. Let's associate the Palestinian flag with the anti-liberal causes that are their actual positions.
Here's a start:
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The official Palestinian Wafa news agency reports on the usual over-the-top reaction to a diplomatic defeat:
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned Honduras' decision to open a diplomatic mission in Jerusalem linked to its embassy in Tel Aviv, calling it a direct aggression against the Palestinian people and their rights and a flagrant violation of international law and international legitimacy and its resolutions.
It decided to file a complaint against Honduras with the Secretary-General of the United Nations over the opening of an official diplomatic mission in Jerusalem linked to its embassy in Tel Aviv, and to submit a draft resolution in the General Assembly against Honduras for violating Security Council resolution 478 of 1980, and announced that it had withdrawn from its intention to open an embassy in Tegucigalpa.
The Foreign Ministry also decided to ask the Arab League Ministerial Council, which will hold its ordinary session chaired by Iraq on September 10, to condemn this step and push for punitive measures against Honduras for the crime committed against the Palestinian people, ignoring its obligations towards the resolutions of the Security Council, which condemns the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital and the transfer of any embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The Ministry indicated that it would go to the OIC General Secretariat for the same purpose and ask for a trade boycott action against Honduras.
Hyperbole is normal diplomatic language for Palestinians. because they know that it can intimidate Western diplomats who want to keep the peace so an irrational actor must be coddled rather than more appropriately being confronted or mocked.
There's more:
"The status of Jerusalem as an occupied city is endorsed by the vast majority of states, in line with their standing legal and moral obligations to uphold international law," [Hanan] Ashrawi said.
Honduras will almost certainly locate its mission to the west of the Green Line. Hanan Ashrawi is saying that all of Jerusalem is occupied, proving yet again that Palestinians have no interest in sharing anything.
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Yesterday, the White House announced that it had issued sanctions on a number of Lebanese financial institutions and individuals that help fund Hezbollah and Hamas.
The transcript of the press conference (the source seems bizarre but the transcript is accurate) is a pleasure to read, as it is so refreshing even three years after Obama to see a White House that is so clearly supportive of Israel's right to self defense and so against coddling Iran and its support for terrorists. Something like this was unthinkable a few years ago, but it is so obviously the correct and moral position. Say what you want about Trump but in this area it is the Obama administration that was immoral in propping up Iran and its terror proxies Hamas and Hezbollah.
A couple of reporters asked the administration officials about presumed Israeli attacks on Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria and Lebanon. The answers show that while the White House does not officially support Israel's actions, it has absolutely no problem with them.
Q Hi, it's Karen DeYoung at the Washington Post. ...On the larger question of Hizballah and Iran, I wonder if you could -- any of you -- talk a bit about the recent Israeli strikes in Syria and Lebanon, and whether the United States is playing any role in encouraging or discouraging those attacks, and just what you think of them in general. Thank you.
OFFICIAL 1: I'll leave it for the Israelis to comment on what they did or they didn’t do. But the United States neither encourages nor discourages the Israeli attacks. The United States believes that the government of Israel has a right to defend itself from threatening activities throughout the region, wherever they may be.
OFFICIAL 2: ...It's our position that Israel is only acting because of Iran's actions. If Iran was not pouring heavy weapons and fighters into Israel's neighbors with the express purpose of threatening Israel, I don't think Israel would be needing to take any of these actions. And we fully support Israel's right to self-defense, and denounce Iran's regional campaign to violence.
Q Hi. This is Jeff Schogol with Task & Purpose. I just wanted to follow up on my colleague's question. The U.S. supports Israel's right to self-defense and Iraqi sovereignty. But if Israel attacks targets in Iraq, what does the United States do when Israel's right to defend tramples over Iraq's sovereignty?
SENIOR ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: I think that's actually an excellent question for the Iranians. Where is their respect for Iraqi sovereignty when they are putting this material into Iraq? That seems, to me, a pretty gross violation of sovereignty if that's the topic under discussion.
The press conference also revealed that Iran has transferred over $200 million to Hamas in the past four years. This is besides the funding of other terror groups in Gaza.
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When Israel barred two US congresswomen from entering the country earlier this month, I initially thought it was a stupid decision. But after hearing the reactions from both American politicians and American Jews, I’ve started to think that it may have been necessary.
This isn’t to deny the substantial damage it has caused. Pro-Israel Democrats felt betrayed and even some pro-Israel Republicans were outraged. Most of the organized Jewish community was horrified. And the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement received media exposure it could never have gained on its own.
But nobody would have felt outraged or betrayed had Israel barred, say, white-supremacist politicians. Thus the underlying message of these reactions was that unlike white supremacism, advocating Israel’s destruction is a legitimate opinion, and is entitled to the same respectful treatment as the view that Israel should continue to exist. Yet, no country can or should treat its own erasure as a legitimate option.
To understand why this was the issue at stake, a brief review of the facts is needed. When Israel originally agreed to allow a visit by Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), it knew that they enthusiastically supported BDS, a movement unambiguously committed to eliminating the Jewish state. It also knew they would use the visit to tar Israel in every possible way.
However, it assumed that they would at least pay lip service to Israel’s existence by following the standard protocol for official visitors – meeting Israeli officials and visiting some Israeli sites. On that assumption, and since the law banning entry to prominent BDS supporters permits exceptions for the sake of Israel’s foreign relations, Israel decided to admit them “out of respect for the US Congress,” as Israeli Ambassador to the US Ron Dermer said at the time.
A few days before the visit, however, the proposed itinerary arrived and proved that assumption wrong. Far from paying lip service to Israel’s existence, the trip literally erased the country from the map.
US-Israel relations have been through worse, and they will survive this too. But the incident is worth contextualizing within the US-Israel political framework. Tlaib and Omar displayed remarkable audacity in openly lying about their trip, both in advance and then again after it was canceled. They falsely claimed they were planning to meet Israeli officials when their itinerary included only ‘Palestine’, Palestinians, and supporters of Palestinians.
Tlaib’s actions proved that her visit was never meant to be an impartial trip to the scene of the conflict. Nor was it about seeing her grandmother. The point was to showcase the so-called “occupation.” Such manipulations, compounded by the soft power enjoyed by pro-Palestinian groups, magnify a fictitious reality. They allow those groups to hijack the narrative of peace, justice, and human rights while yearning for Israel’s destruction.
US-Israel relations do not exist in vacuum, and US opinion is neither monolithic nor frozen in time. It has undergone significant shifts since 1948, with some groups becoming more favorable toward Israel and others less so. Nevertheless, as polls illustrate, support for Israel has become an American value, even if some elected officials feel otherwise. Sustaining this requires work and perseverance.
It is a serious challenge to get past the self-delusion and zero-sum exclusion of the BDS worldview, which polarizes American politics regarding Israel, and convey the actual reality of the Middle East. The normalization of antisemitism in American politics and culture – together with our growing collective dependency on technology and the general tone of politics – reduces complex issues to sound bites and drives polarization and ignorance. (h/t IsaacStorm)
In The book, The Trials of Richard Goldstone, Daniel Terris, a friend and admirer, provides us with an in-depth account of a remarkable career.
Goldstone, 80, is a third-generation South African who was born into a Jewish family in Boksburg, near Johannesburg.
In the book, we follow, and are helped to understand, the events and circumstances that led to the emergence of Goldstone as a towering figure in international jurisprudence.
As his legal career progressed in South Africa, where he combated and helped defeat apartheid from within the system, and as chief prosecutor for the UN in bringing the Bosnian Serb political and military leaders to justice, Goldstone proved himself a dedicated advocate of human rights and an unwavering upholder of international humanitarian law.
Terris both describes and explains the challenges that Goldstone faced along the way, and the principles that informed his many decisions – principles that evolved over the course of his career, and have become his legacy.
Then late in the story, when he was already past 70, came the debacle of the Goldstone Report, a pivotal episode in his life and in his career. Terris describes the episode with scrupulous honesty.
It is well known that a couple of years later, Goldstone published an article in The Washington Post containing the key sentence: “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.” His partial retraction of the report’s conclusions was condemned at the time as “too little, too late,” and in a sense this was true. Yet Terris also highlights the reactions of some in the human rights world who applauded Goldstone’s moral courage in acknowledging when mistakes had been made. “Heroism of the first order,” one editorial called it.
A source in the Palestinian resistance said on Tuesday that the resistance factions in the Gaza Strip will enter the front line upon the outbreak of any war with Hezbollah on the northern front.
"If there is a battle with Hezbollah in the north, the resistance factions in Gaza will enter the confrontation line," the source said.
What does Gaza have to do with Lebanon?
Iran funds many Gaza groups and would instruct them to start shooting rockets from the south while Hezbollah shoots them from the north, leaving Israelis with nowhere to go outside of rocket range - except perhaps parts of Judea and Samaria.
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Lebanese Baffled Why Israel So Bad At Apartheid Vs Palestinians When Lebanon Right There Showing Them How
Beirut, August 29 - Residents of Israel's tiny northern neighbor voiced puzzlement today regarding the Jewish state's policy of segregation and disenfranchisement perpetrated against Palestinians, noting that despite Lebanon's decades-old, comprehensive use of the practice to emulate, their neighbor to the south has never implemented any competent version of the policy.
Lebanon residents both native and Palestinian shared their confusion about Israeli Apartheid, observing that while international media, NGOs, Arab political figures, and numerous other sources call attention to that Apartheid, the fact remains that Israel has done a lousy job of following any real Apartheid policy even though Lebanon lies just over the border and makes no effort to hide its bona fide Apartheid treatment of Palestinians. Israel could imitate that policy with the simple step of copying the plain-sight example to the north, but has failed to do so.
"I can't hold a real job," noted Jibril Hassan, a resident of the Palestinian refugee camp Ein el-Hilweh. "It's against the law in Lebanon for me to own property, a business, attend university, or find employment in a whole array of fields, especially government. And of course I can't participate in Lebanese elections because I'm not a citizen. All that is for my own good, because otherwise I might get used to being in Lebanon, and I might even like it, when I'm supposed to be fighting to destroy Israel and reclaim the place my grandparents fled seventy plus years ago. Whatever the reason for the policy, it's clear Israel has no clue what it's doing, because it can't be that hard to just copy and paste Lebanese law on the subject. But here we are, and Israel lets Palestinians hold jobs, own property, attend university, and what have you - and when every now and then Palestinian leaders decide to hold elections, Palestinians under Israeli rule are allowed to vote. It's like those Jews have no idea how to do Apartheid."
"We're not allowed to employ Palestinian guests," confirmed Baalbek entrepreneur Awad Afkam. "Officially, as you know, this is for their own sake, which is why we also build high walls around their camps, we love them so much. We even let them fight among themselves instead of forcing our police upon them. But Lebanon is a small country and we must also protect our workers from low-wage competition. It amazes me that Israel doesn't follow this easy example, considering its much greater resources and wealth. It's weird, because everyone knows they have no hesitation about appropriating everything else in Arab culture such as falafel."
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The Republic of Nauru has recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, Israel Foreign Ministry announced on Thursday.
"I commend @Republic_Nauru’s important decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. We will continue to strengthen Jerusalem and to bring about the recognition and opening of diplomatic missions and embassies in our capital," Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz tweeted on Thursday.
In a letter the country’s mission to the UN in New York wrote to the Israeli mission on the matter, it stated: “The Mission of Nauru has the honor to convey the decision of the Government of the Republic of Nauru to formally recognize the City of Jerusalem as the Capital City of the State of Israel.”
The island country from the Pacific joined a small number of other countries who have taken this step in the last several years, including the United States, Guatemala and Honduras. The President of Honduras is due to arrive in Israel this weekend to open a trade office in Jerusalem.
The "Charter of Makkah," unanimously endorsed on May 28, 2019, in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, by leading Muslim scholars from 137 nations, offers Muslims guidance on concepts that champion moderate Islam.
"All people, regardless of their different ethnicities, races and nationalities, are equal under God. We reject religious and ethnic claims of 'preference.'"
"Differences among people in their beliefs, cultures and natures are part of God's will and wisdom. Religious and cultural diversity never justifies conflict."
"We recognize and respect the other's legitimate rights and right to existence. We set aside preconceived prejudices, historical animosities, conspiracy theories and erroneous generalizations."
"We should advance laws to deter the promotion of hatred, the instigation of violence and terrorism, or a clash of civilizations, which foster religious and ethnic disputes."
"The empowerment of women should not be undermined by marginalizing their role, disrespecting their dignity, reducing their status, or impeding their opportunities, whether in religious, academic, political or social affairs. Their rights include equality of wages and opportunity."
Braving extremely inclement weather, with a flood-like situation, Singha Bahini, a grassroots organization in India, held a pro-Israel rally in Kolkata, India on August 16, 2019. Over 10,000 people braved the heavy sudden downpour and flooding, which caused bumper-to-bumper traffic and clogged roads. Many thousands more could not make it through the treacherous conditions to the rally site. While the organization SinghaBahini is just a year old, the organizers have been on ground helping in the existential battle for the Hindus in the villages of Eastern India for over a decade.
Pro-Israel rallies are not new to the founder of the organization Devdutta Maji, who was instrumental in organizing two large pro-Israel rallies in India: 20,000 people in 2014 and 70,000 people in 2018. At the rally, demonstrators held placards saying, "We Support the Jewish People in their 2,000-Year-Old Struggle," "India and Israel Friends Forever," and "We Support Israel in Her War against Terrorism."
The rally reflects the positive turn in the India-Israel relationship under the leadership of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi. The Indian prime minister visited Israel in July 2017 and Prime Minister Netanyahu reciprocated with a visit to India in 2018. With strong trade ties, people-to-people contact, and rallies in support of Israel as seen recently, ties between India and Israel and between the Hindus and Jews worldwide are expected to strengthen further.
Someone should ask Bassem Tamimi and Rashid Khalidi about their illustrious family histories of helping Zionists build the land. Their reactions should be videoed.
The next paragraph provides a very nice counterbalance to this one:
A couple of months ago I wrote about the Palestinian Arab leaders' rejection of the British proposal of creating an "Arab Agency" parallel to the Jewish Agency.
The official reason that they rejected the Jewish Agency was that it was an affront to their dignity - which is the reason that this rejection is celebrated today. But Morris is correct as to the real reasons that the Arabs didn't step up to create public institutions, and "dignity" was just a fig leaf for the leaders' laziness, corruption and apathy towards the people they supposedly lead.
Just like today.
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A/HRC/41/G/17 Annex to the letter dated 12 July 2019 from the representatives of Algeria, Angola, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Comoros, the Congo, Cuba, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Gabon, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, the Lao People's Democratic Republic, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sri Lanka, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkmenistan, Uganda, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe and the State of Palestine to the United Nations Office at Geneva addressed to the President of the Human Rights Council
Mr. President, Madam High Commissioner,
We, the co-signatories to this letter, reiterate that the work of the United Nations Human Rights Council (IIRC) should be conducted in an objective, transparent, non-selective, constructive, non-confrontational and non-politicized manner. We express our firm opposition to relevant countries' practice of politicizing human rights issues, by naming and shaming, and publicly exerting pressures on other countries.
We commend China's remarkable achievements in the field of human rights by adhering to the people-centered development philosophy and protecting and promoting human rights through development. We also appreciate China's contributions to the international human rights cause.
We take note that terrorism, separatism and religious extremism has caused enormous damage to people of all ethnic groups in Xinjiang, which has seriously infringed upon human rights, including right to life, health and development. Faced with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang, including setting up vocational education and training centers. Now safety and security has returned to Xinjiang and the fundamental human rights of people of all ethnic groups there are safeguarded. The past three consecutive years has seen not a single terrorist attack in Xinjiang and people there enjoy a stronger sense of happiness, fulfillment and security. We note with appreciation that human rights are respected and protected in China in the process of counter-terrorism and deradicalization.
We appreciate China's commitment to openness and transparency. China has invited a number of diplomats, international organizations officials and journalist to Xinjiang to witness the progress of the human rights cause and the outcomes of counter-terrorism and deradicalization there. What they saw and heard in Xinjiang completely contradicted what was reported in the media. We call on relevant countries to refrain from employing unfounded charges against China based on unconfirmed information before they visit Xinjiang. We urge the OHCHR , Treaty Bodies and relevant Special Procedures mandate holders to conduct their work in an objective and impartial manner according to their mandate and with true and genuinely credible information, and value the communication with member states.
We request that this letter be recorded as an official document of the 41st session of the Human Rights Council and that it be published on the OHCHR website.
Anyone who pretends to care about human rights in the name of Palestine and who does not have anything negative to say about this letter clearly does not really care about human rights.
(h/t UN Watch)
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A Canadian anti-Israel group, CJPME, proudly claimed that Hydro-Quebec caved to BDS demands to stop cooperating with Israel.
Another BDS Win?! 👍👍‼️@hydroquebec Quebec chooses not to renew a cyber-security contract with Israeli company IEC. @BDS_Quebec has been working for years to pressure Hydro-Quebec to sever the partnership. Congratulations! https://t.co/cIAJTpQ2eA
Hydro-Quebec responded that CJPME have no idea what they are talking about and that they have excellent relations with IEC.
Regarding the end of our cybersecurity knowledge sharing partnership with Israel Electric Corporation (IEC), we would like to state that it was not politically motivated in any way or the result of a pressure from BDS Québec. The partnership agreement of good practices between Hydro-Québec and the IEC, signed in May 2017, lasted two years. It ended, as initially planned, in May 2019. The partnership was not renewed for the simple reason that our needs and expectations regarding the sharing of information in the area of cybersecurity were fully met in the course of our 2 year collaboration. We continue to have excellent relations with the IEC and could eventually pursue our discussions should the need arise.
The BDSers will have a press conference this morning pretending to reveal important information about this - the memo of the 2017 agreement between IEC and Hydro-Quebec, being spun by an anti-Israel lawyer.
The funny thing is that the agreement ended in May, and the BDSers are only now noticing. A recent article in TVA Nouvelles talks about cyberattacks on Hydro-Quebec and how they are defending against them (autotranslated):
Hydro-Québec says it has learned a lot in Israel about how to better avoid cyber attacks.
Over the past two years, Hydro-Québec has been to the Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) school, the equivalent of Hydro-Québec in Israel. The agreement ended last May.
"This agreement has allowed us to share our knowledge. Israelis are recognized as the best in the world in the field of cybersecurity, "said a spokesman for Hydro-Quebec, Louis-Olivier Batty.
The Israel Electric Corporation estimates it counteracts millions of malicious interventions annually.
The Israeli state-owned company has developed state-of-the-art expertise to counter hackers.
Many analysts believe that Israel has become a model to follow in the field of computer security.
Israel has more than 450 companies specializing in cybersecurity on its territory. In 2018 alone, 60 new companies were created in Israel in this very promising niche for the economy of the Jewish state.
The expertise of the Israel Electric Corporation is so popular that since 2013 it has offered paid training in cybersecurity.
The training program is not only intended for power grid operators, but also for IT managers in the industrial, manufacturing, insurance and financial sectors, among others.
Hydro-Québec argues that its agreement with the Israel Electric Corporation, however, did not cost anything.
"It was a knowledge sharing agreement," said his spokesperson.
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I spent some time Tuesday at a kibbutz in the “Gaza envelope,” the area close to the Strip that absorbs the brunt of the rockets that are the usual expression of Palestinian Arab rage at my existence. The kibbutz was sprinkled with little concrete shelters, because the 15 seconds or less that would elapse between the warning and the impact of a rocket doesn’t permit even a fast person to make it to the main protected areas.
There is also a serious fence around the kibbutz, and an electric gate. If one or more of the terrorists that often break through the border fence were to get in, there could be a disaster. So far, this hasn’t happened, because the IDF usually stops them, thanks to the female soldiers that “man” the observation posts up and down the border. But when we got to the gate, there was nobody to let us in. So we just waited for another car to drive out. No problem.
It was a beautiful day, not as humid as here in Rehovot even though it was closer to the coast. It was hard to believe that earlier in the day several mortar shells had been fired from Gaza at Israel, and that on Sunday night there was a rocket attack nearby. But Tuesday afternoon was quiet and peaceful.
It wasn’t peaceful in early May, when 690 rockets were launched at Israel. Some were intercepted by the Iron Dome system, but some got through, doing significant damage, killing four Israelis and wounding numerous others. Most of the rockets were aimed at the area near Gaza, but several of the deaths were in the cities of Ashkelon and Ashdod, farther north. In March, a rocket from Gaza landed in a town20 km north of Tel Aviv, destroying a house and injuring seven.
If it were not for the Iron Dome systems and the plethora of shelters in the communities near Gaza, the death toll would be much higher. A massive, all-out attack – Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad may have as many as 30,000 rockets stockpiled – would certainly overwhelm the systems, which can’t be everywhere at the same time.
There are not only the rocket and mortar attacks that kill people, but there are the arson balloons, the attempted incursions, the threat of actual invasion. And why limit the discussion to Hamas? There are also the paymasters of the “lone-wolf “ terrorists, the leaders of the Palestinian Authority – the organization that we allowed to be set up in Ramallah, led by the men of Fatah, the heirs of the Nazi al-Husseini and the ones responsible for the Second and (as yet unofficial) Third Intifadas.
These are the Palestinian Arabs, our deadly enemies.
We can’t defeat the PA and Hamas in a direct military confrontation without killing thousands. We won’t do that, even though they would do it to us in an instant. But we can’t make peace with them either. There is no common ground, no desire for anything other than total victory on their side, no possibility of trust on our side – and we are completely correct in not trusting them.
But there is a solution. And luckily, it is also a solution for some of our other problems.
The Palestinian Arabs do not have the resources to maintain their struggle by themselves. They are supported by other enemies of the Jewish state (what other country in the world has such a collection of enemies?), primarily Iran and Qatar, sometimes Saudi Arabia, and the European Union. The Palestinians are our proximate enemies, but these are our remote enemies. They are no less our enemies, and they have the same goal: they do not want there to be a Jewish state in the Middle East (or probably anywhere).
The Iranian regime fights by proxy. Its powerful Hezbollah proxy is probably the most dangerous threat facing us today. But it also supports Hamas. The remarkably hypocritical European Union also fights by proxy; it financially supports the Palestinian Authority and tries to subvert Israel’s government by supporting left-wing groups within Israel.
If we could knock out the support systems, the Palestinian war effort against us would collapse. Without financial support from Iran and Qatar, Hamas would be unable to maintain control of Gaza. The existing tribal forces in Gaza would take over. We would still have to deal with local terrorism, but the ability to mount a coordinated attack would be gone.
If Iran were neutralized, Hezbollah would wither away, along with the Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria. And that’s the solution. Rather than exhaust ourselves fighting with Iran’s local proxies, we need to confront the Iranian regime directly.
It sounds daunting – Iran is a massive country with a huge population. But it isn’t necessary or desirable to invade or occupy Iran. All we need to do is to help the opposition overthrow the regime, which is very unpopular. In this enterprise we would have the US on our side, at least under the present administration. I think it’s doable, if dangerous. Military operations would be limited to the Revolutionary Guard, which protects the regime and implements its expansionist policy.
There is also the looming nuclear threat. On this, we have no choice. The only way to deal with it is to neutralize Iran.
I think that PM Netanyahu understands this and that it is in fact his policy (that’s the only way I can understand the degree of restraint we are exercising toward Hamas).
The Palestinian Authority also must collapse. This is about to happen almost all by itself. There will soon be a struggle for power after Mahmoud Abbas dies or retires; we can support multiple tribal leaders, aiming to create a group of decentralized “emirates” in Judea and Samaria as suggested by Mordechai Kedar. But it will be important to get Iran out of the picture; otherwise the PA would simply be replaced by Iranian-funded proxies like Hamas. That implies that action against the Iranian regime must come soon.
Once the PA is gone, the EU’s influence over the Palestinian Arabs will be reduced. Our own government can and should work to strengthen regulations that will prevent the Europeans from supporting anti-state organizations here.
The solution for both Gaza and Judea/Samaria, in other words, is the same: decentralize Palestinian governance and split them from the outside forces that maintain their belligerency.
Israel is a truly beautiful place when it is at peace. We are now on the verge of a very difficult period, which will be quite the opposite. But I believe that if we have a consistent strategic plan and carry it out, we can bring about a situation in which our country will at last experience long-term peace. Timing will be everything: if we wait for the demise of Mahmoud Abbas, or if we don’t act before the administration in the US changes, it may be too late.
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Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez will travel to Israel on Friday to inaugurate a “diplomatic office” in Jerusalem, recognizing the holy city as Israel’s capital.
The diplomatic office in the city will be an extension of Honduras’s Tel Aviv-based embassy.
“For me it’s the recognition that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” Hernandez said on Tuesday.
The Honduran foreign ministry said in a statement Israel had proposed that Honduras move its embassy to Jerusalem, which is being “analyzed and evaluated in the international and national context.”
US President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in late 2017 and officially moved the US embassy there last May, sparking a deterioration in relations with the Palestinians.
Honduras’ President Juan Orlando Hernandez speaks at the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington on March 24, 2019. (Screen capture/AIPAC)
Guatemala and Paraguay followed suit while Brazil said it was studying the possibility. Paraguay reversed its decision four months later, after a change in government.
Moving an embassy to Jerusalem is highly contentious. Israel claims all of Jerusalem as its capital, while Palestinians view East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state.
Most diplomatic missions in Israel are situated in or near Tel Aviv as countries try to maintain a neutral stance over the status of Jerusalem.
(h/t IsaacStorm)
In an August 4, 2019 blog post on the website of the Qatari Al-Jazeera network, Palestinian blogger Ahmad Samir Qannita praised the summer camps held by Hamas's military wing, the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades,[1] and commended Hamas for instilling the values of jihad and resistance in the Gazan youth and raising a "generation that believes in the duty of jihad." He noted that Hamas devotes all its resources, including its official institutions, media and education system, to this goal and that the summer camps for children and teens are an example of this. He noted further that the camps offer the participants – junior high and high school students from all over the Gaza Strip – a comprehensive military training program conducted by professional Al-Qassam fighters and "similar in its intensity to [the training] received by the Palestinian resistance fighters." The program includes the maintenance and use of machine guns and other weapons, live ammunition practice, urban warfare, and the crossing of enemy lines by means of attack tunnels.
The blogger also quoted lines from a militant poem by Sheikh Yousuf Al-Qaradawi, a major ideologue of the Muslim Brotherhood who lives in Qatar and is close to the Qatari regime, which urges the Arab and Muslim nation to produce arms and fighters for the sake of Islam.[2]
The following are excerpts from Qannita's blog post:[3]
"Gaza is not like it was in previous decades, when the jihad activity there was limited to small armed groups that acted in secret, [striving] to carry out high-quality operations against the Zionist occupation forces in complicated security conditions. [Such was the situation] after, in 1996, the Oslo authorities [an epithet for the Palestinian Authority] delivered harsh blows to the armed Palestinian factions, led by Hamas, and persecuted and arrested anyone leaning towards the idea of resistance. The [Palestinian] Authority's security apparatuses even established an army of informers who were tasked with spying and collecting information on young jihad fighters, so as to arrest them and incarcerate them in dungeons, to deter them from fighting the Zionist occupation...
While the BBC shows footage of Tamimi attacking an IDF soldier, for which she spent eight months in an Israeli prison, it fails to give any real background on the Palestinian poster girl for terror. For the real tragedy is not Tamimi’s experience with the Israeli military court system (what the BBC terms a “childhood”).
Ahed Tamimi’s entire childhood has been spent in an environment permeated with Palestinian terrorism: terror in which her family has long played an active and prominent role. For example, Ahed’s aunt helped plan the horrific Sbarros Pizza restaurant bombing, and her mother posted anatomically precise tutorials on how to most effectively stab Israelis.
Ironically, this very terrorism is the reason Israel has security measures in the first place.
Related reading: Ahed Tamimi’s Global Propaganda Tour
Since childhood Ahed has learned from her family that all of Israel is occupied Palestinian land, including Tel Aviv, and that she must fight to gain all of it. Hardly a path to peace. And Ahed’s family have placed her personally in danger over and over, for the benefit of cameras.
Her appearance for the BBC is just the latest in a global propaganda tour, milking her iconic status.
This, however, is the real Ahed Tamimi that you won’t see on the BBC:
We all
know what Trump said about the Jewish people, right? About American Jews being uninformed
or disloyal? This, we were told, was the president being antisemitic! He’s
using an ancient antisemitic trope: the dual loyalties accusation.
Except he’s
not. The president is not speaking of divided loyalties to two different
countries, the United States and Israel. On the contrary, he’s saying that American
Jews are loyal to a single entity alone: the United States. He means that Jews
who vote Democrat are disloyal to the Jewish people and to Israel.
Look at the
context of what he said, when he responded to Ilhan Omar’s call to cut off U.S.
aid to Israel:
“Where has the Democratic Party gone? Where have they gone where they are defending
these two people over the State of Israel? I think any Jewish people that vote
for a Democrat, I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great
disloyalty."
What
Trump means is that people vote their conscience. And the Democratic Party appears to have no conscience when it comes to Israel and the Jews. If you vote Democrat, you're throwing Israel and the Jews under the bus.
Democratic Party: Lost Its Moral Compass
Here is a fact: the Democratic Party has lost its moral compass when it comes to the Jews and Israel. The party is not issuing clear condemnations against BDS, cutting aid to Israel, or the trip to Israel that wasn't, which was so clearly intended to demonize and harm Israel. There has been no official censure of the junior congresswomen
for the things they have said and done against the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel. The inaction and the silence of the Democratic Party in the face of this antisemitic onslaught makes
it complicit in the attack, an actor with ill designs against the Jews.
The issues we speak of are deadly serious. BDS, for example, represents an existential threat to the State of Israel and the Jews who live there. Cutting aid to Israel, has as its goal, a Jewish people unable to defend itself against domestic Arab terror and attacks by hostile countries on several fronts at once. Maybe Israel doesn't need U.S. aid and is perfectly capable of managing without it. But the malicious intent of the effort is clear, a desire to bring down the State of Israel while placing the lives of 7 million Israeli Jews in mortal danger.
Hence, from Trump’s perspective, if
a Jew votes Democrat, the voter is basically saying he doesn’t care whether his own people--7 million of them--live or die. If the average American Jew, in his continuing support for the Democratic Party votes his conscience he is collectively saying he doesn’t care about these things--doesn't care about Israel, doesn't care when his faraway brethren are endangered.
Maybe They're Clueless
But there's a silver lining. President Trump did offer these average American Jewish Dems the benefit of his doubt: maybe they're not disloyal. Maybe they're just clueless! That could be it: they simply aren't aware of what is going on with the Democratic Party and what it has sanctioned with its
inactivity and its silence. Hence, “a total lack of knowledge.” They're not disloyal: they're uninformed. Which is what happens when you just don’t care about something. When you don't care, you don't bother to do your homework.
To be loyal to someone or something, on the other hand, is first and foremost to
care. You make sure you know what’s going on with those you love and the things you
care about. You show your loyalty and broadcast it loud and clear.
A Blood What?
So if the average American Jew is loyal to his people, he should know that Tlaib and Omar were to tour Judea and Samaria with Miftah, an organization that promoted the blood libel. He should know what a blood libel is, a primitive, evil, and unfounded rumor that Jews kill Christians to get their blood to be used in the manufacture of Passover matzah. The irony of the blood libel is that it has caused the spilling of Jewish blood alone, for centuries. The average American Jewish voter should know that the itinerary for Tlaib and Omar contained meetings with two organizations tied to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror group. The PFLP has as its sole aim the murder of as many Jews as possible. Tlaib and Omar chose to give these people a hearing, and to amplify their views even now, by association. For surely if American congresswomen saw nothing wrong in meeting with these people--people tied to those whose sole goal is murdering Jews because they are Jews--it must be that goal isn't really so bad.
Now this is important: if American Jews know the Democratic congresswomen were to meet with people who thirst for Jewish blood, and these Jews continue to vote Democrat anyway, there's no getting around it. They are disloyal. To their own people and to Israel.
If, on the other hand, the average American Jew doesn't know the congresswomen were to meet with people who thirst for Jewish blood, it's because he hasn't cared enough to find out. Which is, arguably, disloyal. One might say he is "willfully uninformed."
Loyalty Is A Duty
In loyalty, you see, there's a self-imposed duty. You find out what you need to know in order to protect the people and the things you care about. And if you don't look to find out, it's because you don't care about your own people. Which means you have a loyalty problem. That's just how it is.
It's not just that the Democratic Party--the party of choice for the average American Jew--was silent in the wake of the trip to Israel that wasn't. It went beyond that, with candidates seeking the Democratic nomination for president actually condemning Israel for barring entry to the congresswomen, instead of calling them out for consorting with antisemites. The response, meanwhile, of your average American Jew? Continued support for the Democratic Party, a party that is doing nothing about the antisemitic narrative taking hold of its kishkes, its innermost workings.
Strange Loyalty
It is simple: the average American Jew is not using his vote to defend the Jewish people and the Jewish State. American
Jews are not defending their people, their brethren in Israel. They aren't defending Israel, either. What
we have is a dearth of loyalty accompanied, on the other hand, by this strange
loyalty to a Democratic Party that is more and more, allying against the Jewish people and
the country that is so central to their religion and history.
This is hard for me to understand as an Israeli American. I am certain it would be all the more difficult for a non-Jew like the president to understand. This lack of loyalty to one's own. It is a shameful thing. A moral
failing.
From
Trump’s perspective then, the Jew who votes as a Democrat is using his vote to express his conscience. When AOC trivializes the Holocaust by comparing detention camps to concentration camps, she is cementing an idea into our zeitgeist, that what happened to the Jews was nothing special, not so bad. That Auschwitz, for
instance, was no more than an immigrant holding center, a detention camp.
The Language Of Holocaust Trivialization
And when AOC is not censured by the party she represents, they are helping this narrative take hold. So when you vote Democrat, this is what you are voting for: a narrative that trivializes what happened in Auschwitz, compares the separation of parents from their children to say, an infant thrown up in the air, with a Nazi shooting bullets into it in front of its mother's eyes, to count how many shots he can get into it before it falls to the ground dead. If you care enough about your people to know these things, there is a shocking disparity between these two events, all the more so because the illegal immigrant enters America knowing what will happen if he is caught. The mother of the dead Jewish infant, on the other hand, was taken from her home, packed into a cattle car, and shipped off to an unchosen destination.
If you are a Jew who is loyal to your people, you fight against AOC and the evil she peddles, that horrendous narrative. You move your vote to the other party, because you know what is right and what is wrong.
Because as a Jewish voter you either know what AOC said and do not care or you don’t know
what she said, because you didn’t care enough to find out.
You Should Be Screaming
It is a very serious thing indeed that Jews would not be crying out against the Democratic Party, the things these women say about their people and the way they try to hurt Israel. If they were loyal to their own, they'd be shrieking their heads off about these issues. That is how things seem to
President Trump and how it looks to Israeli Jews as well.
Unless of course, the average American Jew is completely unaware of these things. And then of course, we have to ask why they don't care enough to make it their business to know.
Uninformed or disloyal? It seems there is a thin Jewish line between the two. In either direction, it's a bad choice, the wrong way to be. The good news is you can change.
What You Can Do
Tired of being disloyal, uninformed? Want to be a better
support for your people and for Israel? Here is what you can do, going forward:
oFollow alternative news sources like Elder of
Ziyon to find out what is really going on and how these things affect Israel
and your people.
oSpeak out loud and clear on social media
regarding Democratic candidates who target Israel and the Jews.
oUse whatever platforms you have to fight against
BDS, Arab terror, the blood libel, antisemitism, and Holocaust trivialization.
oVote in a way that counts for your people. Don't
vote Democrat.
If you are an average American Jew, that last bullet point is going to be a difficult one to swallow. The media has whipped you into a frenzy of hate against the alternative. Loyalty, however, demands a second look at what is really going on. If you love your people, step away from the Democratic Party.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
I mentioned 10th century Arab geographer al-Muqaddasi recently.
He was from Jerusalem and wrote extensively about it. Notably, he remarked upon how few Muslims lived there at the time, even though the Muslim invasion of Palestine had already been going on for centuries.
Few are the learned here, many are the Christians, and these make themselves distasteful in the public places ...The Christians and the area are predominant here and the mosque devoid of congregations and assemblies.
Referring to the Christians and Jews in Jerusalem, he referred to the city as a "golden basin full of scorpions."
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
It is not likely that Netanyahu has anything to worry about where Trump is concerned, however.
In the first place, the American president said that he had no intention of lifting the sanctions. So, as was the case where his “buddy” in Pyongyang was concerned, no appeasement toward Rouhani is on the horizon.
Secondly, he was adamant that a precondition for any negotiations with Tehran would be its agreement to “no nuclear weapons and no ballistic missiles.”
Third, Rouhani replied by saying that he would not talk to Trump without a lifting of sanctions. The predictable impasse means that there will be no change in the status quo.
No, it’s not Netanyahu who needs to fear a flip-flopping Trump at this stage, but rather the Iranian people. It was they who were just sent a loud and clear message from the White House that the United States would not help them overthrow their evil regime, even indirectly.
It was “déjà vu all over again” for the population that was so brazenly abandoned by the Obama administration in favor of the world’s greatest terror-masters.
Let us hope that Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, is able to persuade his boss that Iranian weapons are only part of the battle. As he and Netanyahu are both keenly aware, without new leadership in Tehran – one not governed by a desire for global Shiite hegemony and jihadi fighters to carry it out – the West cannot rest.
Abdul Hameed Al-Ghabin – “a Saudi writer and a political and tribal figure” – has challenged Jordan to negotiate with Israel on President Trump’s “deal of the century” – or risk losing control of the Islamic holy sites in Jerusalem currently vested in Jordan under the 1994 Israel-Jordan Peace Treaty and the Washington Declaration.
Al-Ghabin’s views have – significantly – been published by an Israeli newspaper. Saudi Arabia’s rulers have not condemned Al-Ghabin or disavowed his views – indicating that Al-Ghabin’s message could represent Saudi Arabia’s official position.
Al-Ghabin asserts: “There is a major issue of contention: the future of the Palestinians and their right to self-determination. It is important and logical to us that Palestinians should have a state at the end of a peace process. However, anti-peace forces litter our region. An example of such a force is, sadly, the Kingdom of Jordan”.
Al-Ghabin asks: “How can we achieve peace if the Palestinian people remain without a place to call home?”
Al-Ghabin’s answer will assuredly jolt Jordan – and the United Nations – out of their long running historical, geographical and demographical memory loss: “The answer is simple: Jordan is already 78 per cent of historical Palestine. Jordanians of Palestinian origin constitute more than 80 percent of the population according to U.S. intelligence cables leaked in 2010. Jordan is essentially already the Palestinian Arab state. The only problem is, the king of Jordan refuses to acknowledge this.
Nonetheless, the world will eventually recognize Jordan as the address for Palestinian statehood—and perhaps sooner than we think. We don’t know if the Jordanian royal family will still be in power when Jordan officially becomes Palestine, but we do know that if the royal family leaves and the Palestinian majority takes over, Jordan will officially become their homeland and we Arabs won’t feel guilty normalizing relations with Israel as another regional state.”
The sting in the tail is Al-Ghabin’s warning that Jordan’s custodianship of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – created under article 9(2) of the Israel- Jordan Peace Treaty – could be ended if Jordan does not play ball.
Al-Ghabin is ruthless in his criticism of Jordan’s monarch – King Abdullah:
First, the security services were able to father the first leads of the details of this heinous crime and its perpetrators, and continue to pursue the investigation to uncover all its circumstances, which we will announce later.
Second, we assure our people of the stability of the security situation in the Gaza Strip, and stress that these suspicious bombings - aimed at shuffling the cards in the internal arena - are isolated incidents that will not affect that situation.
Third: The sinful hands that committed this crime will not go unpunished...
Fourth: We will not allow any party to compromise the security of the citizens of the Gaza Strip, and that all the sinful and suspicious attempts in this regard will fail, and we will strike with an iron hand anyone who tries, under any cover, or by any means.
Fifth: We pledge to our struggling people that the Ministry of Interior and National Security will remain the guardian of the security of Gaza, whatever the sacrifices, and will not rest until we take away from the masterminds of this criminal act, and those behind them.
Sixth: The Zionist occupation and its agents are constantly working to undermine the security and stability situation in Gaza, and they use various methods, and the security services have thwarted many plans, and still stands immune to all suspicious attempts that take different forms and methods.
Seventh: We call upon all sectors of our people and factions to condemn this cowardly act, and stand united in the face of this pariah group, which seeks to provoke chaos and strike the home front and cohesion.
The eighth point is most interesting:
Eighth: We call on the media and social networking activists not to rush with the transmission of news, and only report [news] from official sources. Anyone who spreads rumors and false news is a partner in trying to tamper with security.
The Interior Ministry, which controls the police, is warning bloggers and reporters not to say anything beyond official statements.
This is an explicit and official threat to press freedom by Hamas.
Not that "human rights activists" will even bother to mention it. After all, their willingness to speak "truth to power" doesn't extend to powers that are actually dangerous.
Sure enough, the "independent" Ma'an and Islamic Jihad's Palestine Today only reported on what the interior ministry demanded, and nothing else. One needs to go to western sources to find out more details on the bombings, which appear to be suicide bombings by IS.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
In a recent poll by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion in partnership with The Washington Institute of Near East Policy, a large majority of Palestinians said that the top priority for the next five years should be either "regaining all of historical Palestine for the Palestinians from the river to the sea" or "achieving a one state solution" - both of which would eliminate the Jewish state.
Moreover, when asked about ending the conflict with Israel permanently, a majority in both the West Bank (56%) and Gaza (54%) say “the conflict should not end, and resistance should continue until all of historic Palestine is liberated.”
The survey did say that most Palestinians don't expect this kind of victory, but the important part is that they have never been taught that peace with Israel is a desirable solution - but only the best they might be able to do because Israel is too strong to be dislodged.
The poll results came out nearly a month ago. One would hope that this is considered newsworthy by the mainstream media, but obviously it isn't.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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Friday, August 30, 2019
