Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, April 18, 2011

Three good articles

Mudar Zahran in Hudson-NY:

The UN general assembly's vote could also bring terrifying complications and hardships to the Palestinians. The establishment of a Palestinian state in such a manner would give Israel the cause to absolutely sever its ties with the Palestinians; this act would deprive the Palestinians from working with Israel, the only country in the region where they are allowed to take employment, and the country that provides them with water, electricity, fuel and transportation outlets. Of course, such deprivation would be merely a technicality for Abbas and his colleagues in the Palestinian Authority. It would just bring them even more prominence and legitimacy to cover their corruption and abuse of their own people, while at the same time enabling them to delegitimize Israel even further by portraying themselves as Palestinian freedom fighters under siege by the "inhumane Israelis."

David Harris in HuffPo:

Over a span of two decades, hundreds of thousands of Jews were compelled to leave their ancestral lands because of violence and discrimination, yet there was hardly a peep from the international community.

The UN kept silent. Most governments looked the other way. Editorial writers and news reporters wasted little time on the subject. And few scholars rushed to their usual intellectual outlets to speak out.

But it should have been clear that this mass exodus was not just about the Jews. In fact, it was about the intolerance of societies that rejected basic notions of pluralism and respect for minorities.

Well, no one said anything and then what happened? Without Jews to target, those very same societies began to focus on other communities, especially Christians, but also minority Muslim sects.

But again, the very same universe that looked the other way when it came to the Jews didn't acquit itself any better when it came to Copts in Egypt or Chaldeans in Iraq.

After all, if it couldn't be pinned on Israel, why bother?

Yair Rosenberg in The Harvard Crimson:

In early 2010, the disruption of talks by major officials was all the rage on university campuses, even as these outbursts inspired greater measures of outrage amongst the broader student body. In January, General David H. Petraeus was repeatedly shouted down by student anti-war protesters during a speech to a packed Gaston Hall at Georgetown University. In response, organizations across campus—from the Georgetown University Student Union to the Georgetown Democrats—condemned the conduct. The next month, Israeli Ambassador Michael B. Oren was similarly assailed, this time by 11 members of the Muslim Student Union at UC-Irvine. The interruptions of “war criminal” and “mass murderer,” which prevented the ambassador from addressing an assembled audience of hundreds, were harshly condemned by the university administration, and the MSU was subsequently suspended as a campus organization.

But what seemed like a typical story of an overheated campus culture clash took an unusual turn after emails among the MSU’s membership surfaced indicating that the Irvine disruptions were carefully coordinated by the group to prevent the ambassador from speaking—a premeditated plan that involved staggered disruptions by predetermined individuals with cue cards, all directed via text messages. In light of this evidence, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas convened an investigatory grand jury and then leveled charges against the so-called “Irvine 11,” bringing the campus controversy into the California courts. Arraigned this past Friday, the students each pled not guilty to misdemeanor counts of conspiracy to disturb a meeting and disturbance of a meeting.

To understand why this prosecution is justified, and indeed similar future prosecutions of campus disruptors are warranted, one must first understand what this prosecution is not.

Read them all.

And if you are looking for reading material over the next two days that I am not posting, check out the "Gleanings" linkdumps at The Augean Stables. Lots of great stuff there.

Terrorist fan Vittorio was in bed with Amnesty. Literally.

We've already blogged a bit about Vittori Arrigoni, the terrorist supporter who was killed on Friday.

Well, it turns out that he had a girlfriend, Claudia Milani:

Claudia Milani (R), girlfriend of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni, visits his mourning tent in Gaza City April 17, 2011.

And it turns out that she is the "coordinator of Israel/Occupied Territories section of Amnesty International/Italy," and as such she gave a talk at an "Israel Apartheid Week" event advertised by Amnesty last month.

Her Facebook page shows that she is "friends" with such illustrious Israel haters as Greta Berlin, Adam Shapiro, Max Ajl and Ken O'Keefe.

Isn't it interesting that Amnesty (and HRW's*) activists are so much more friendly with people who want to destroy Israel than they are with people who love Israel?

And, given that Amnesty is supposed to be concerned with human rights issues that are totally antithetical to the daily actions of Hamas, are there any Amnesty members who are bothered the least bit by this?

*Before she closed off her Facebook page, I saw that Sarah Leah Whitson from HRW's "friends" were very similar. I regret never doing a screen capture.

Abbas' newest threat: "PA will collapse!"

Mahmoud Abbas continues his long-standing strategy of making the world do what he wants: by threatening them.

His latest is reported in Palestine Today but seemingly based on this article in The Daily World Buzz, not sure where is was originally published:

The Palestinian Authority "will collapse" if Israel persists in its need to maintain a military presence in the territory of a future Palestinian state, estimated the organization's president, Mahmoud Abbas, in an exclusive interview. Abbas explained that during the peace negotiations in September 2010, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told of his desire to hold "for 40 years," a military presence in the border zone along the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.

"If you stay 40 years, that means it is an occupation that he will maintain the occupation. I reply: 'If you insist on it, let your troops here and continue its occupation forever,'" said Abbas, pointing out that Netanyahu rejected the proposed deployment of international forces, especially NATO, on the border.

On the assumption that Israel will be realized, "there will be no Palestinian Authority," warned Abbas, who on many occasions expressed his opposition to the continuance of any Jewish soldier in a future Palestinian state. It is the first time that Abbas spoke out loud about the disappearance of the Palestinian Authority if Israel's permanence in Palestinian territory.

The PA was built while Israeli troops were deployed throughout the West Bank. Its economy is thriving while Israeli troops are there. It is getting praise for its supposed state-building from the World Bank and the UN while Israel is there.

Now, if Israel stays there, it will collapse?

I fully expect that an independent Palestinian Arab state, should it ever come about, would not last 40 years. Or even 20.

Chag Sameach!

I wish all of my readers who celebrate Passover to have a happy and healthy holiday!

I'll still be posting for a few more hours, but I wanted to make sure that my readers in Israel and Europe get the message. I will not be posting anything during the first two days of the holiday, until at least Wednesday night.

Hamas' Al Qassam Martyrs Brigades website reports about the death of Daniel Viflic, the 16-year old schoolboy who was killed because Hamas shot a laser-guided anti-tank missile at a school bus.

The Hamas article doesn't acknowledge that Daniel was a minor. Instead, it says that Daniel was a "Zionist soldier" and even has the gall to pretend that it is quoting Ha'aretz to that effect!

The Haaretz newspaper reported that the slain Zionist was killed weeks east of Gaza City after the targeting of a bus he was traveling in by the Qassam Brigades.

The newspaper said that the dead man was a Zionist soldier who stayed in intensive care at Soroka Hospital in BeerSheva in the territories after a significant deterioration in his health.

The website then gleefully shows photos from the funeral as well as from the bus. And the commenters are uniform in their praise of this "heroic operation."

Mer-Khamis' "Freedom Theatre" spawned terrorists

Two weeks ago, a new martyr was created. Juliano Mer-Khamis, who ran a drama club and theater for the youth of Jenin, was murdered by the very people he was said to be trying to help.

Condolences came from all over the world talking about how Mer Khamis and his mother, Arna, who created the theater were a ray of hope in Jenin, where they were teaching the young people there about how peace is better than bullets.

In reality, the theater was not only a failure, but its original members spawned an almost unbelievable amount of terror.

From The Globe and Mail, April 20, 2009 in an article that is sympathetic to the theater (no longer online, a copy is here):

The scene is 1989, the second year of the Palestinian intifada. Stone- throwing protests against Israeli occupation have spread throughout Gaza and the West Bank. In Jenin, the youthful protesters are joined by older militants who carry out armed attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers. The Jenin camp´s schools are closed; its children have nowhere to turn.

Enter Arna Mer, a 59-year-old Jewish peace activist who had been born in a northern collective farm, fought as an 18-year-old to create the state of Israel, joined the Israeli Communist Party and married an Arab-Israeli activist. Since 1967 she had protested against the Israeli occupation and, by 1989, was determined to help the children of Jenin.

On the top floor of a house owned by a local widow name Samira Zubeidi, Ms. Mer opens a children´s drama school. Aided by her actor son, Juliano Mer Khamis, she forms a small troupe and provides an artistic and educational outlet for dozens of children, including Ms. Zubeidi´s sons, Zakariya and Daoud. For her efforts, Ms. Mer was awarded an alternative Nobel prize in 1993 and the prize money went to create a proper school facility.

The school would survive Ms. Mer´s death from cancer in 1996, and Mr. Mer Khamis´s departure – until 2002, that is, and the violence of the second intifada. It was destroyed when Israeli bulldozers levelled a section of the camp.

That´s when Mr. Mer Khamis would return and make an extraordinary film called Arna´s Children, using old and new video footage to show what had happened to those original young children his mother had nurtured.

Thirteen years after joining Ms. Mer´s company of children, all but one of the original troupe were dead: One had been so affected by the killing of a young girl, he launched a suicide attack on the Israeli town of Hadera; two had perished in the Battle of Jenin, killed in the theatre school´s rehearsal hall from where they had fired on advancing Israeli forces. One had become the Jenin leader of the al- Aqsa Martyrs´ Brigades militant group and was hunted down and killed.

Only Zakariya Zubeidi had survived. Imprisoned for throwing rocks, and again for throwing Molotov cocktails, he had been released after the 1993 Oslo Accords and joined the Palestinian police. He left the force, as a sergeant, disillusioned, he said, by the corruption he encountered.

In 2002, his mother and brother were killed when Israeli forces moved into Jenin camp. Once again, Mr. Zubeidi picked up a weapon.

He survived the intense battle in Jenin and, somewhat reluctantly, succeeded his friend as the leader of the al-Aqsa militants.

Mr. Zubeidi, his face still badly marked by a bomb of his own making, said in an interview last week that he did not approve of suicide missions, only military attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers. High on Israel´s most wanted list, however, he somehow survived several assassination attempts.

In 2006, Mr. Zubeidi approached Juliano Mer Khamis, his old drama tutor and, by that time, an award-winning filmmaker, and urged him to reopen the theatre school.

Mr. Zubeidi, by this time a husband and father, said he wanted the next generation to find a better way to express itself.

“I was fed up with the fighting,” he said. “It didn´t get us [Palestinians] anywhere.”

Arna's school had not resulted in a single original student supporting pacifism. Every single one of the original kids there became a militant.

It is hard to imagine that any random classroom of Palestinian Arab kids in the West Bank, or even in Gaza, would have such a stunning record of churning out terrorists.

Juliano's film, instead of castigating what was by any measure a catastrophic failure of the vision of his mother, romanticized it by claiming that Israeli measures are so bad that every single child was driven into terror, despite his mother's efforts.

From Mother Jones' tribute to Juliano and description of his film:

The film, shot over almost two decades, is set in the Palestinian refugee camp of Jenin, a place where Israeli bombs and tanks are inescapable realities of childhood. In the first half of the film, we are introduced to Juliano's mother, Arna, a Jewish Israeli who set up the theater group in Jenin in the late 1980s. Arna is bald from chemotherapy, yet devotes her dying days to her playful and talented little actors, helping them express their anger and grief through art and drama.

Years pass. Arna succumbs to cancer, the 1994 Oslo peace accords unravel, the theater program shuts down, the Israeli occupation hardens, and the 2000 second intifada erupts. On April 3, 2002, the Israeli army invades Jenin, killing more than 50 Palestinians and destroying hundreds of homes.

And many of "Arna's children" have now become militiamen and suicide fighters.

In the second half of the film, Juliano returns to Jenin to find out how and why this has happened. We see that it's not mainly about anti-Semitic brainwashing—Jenin residents adore Arna and Juliano despite their Jewish background and Israeli nationality. Rather, Arna's children have chosen "martyrdom" because of the searing horrors they've witnessed with their own eyes.

How can a youth program, supposedly meant to foster "peace" but that has a 0% success rate of creating peaceful people, be considered so wonderful?

Arna Mer-Chamis, if she really was trying to teach peace, was a spectacular failure. It is not possible for her to have been more of a failure. The last person alive from her kids, who now claims to want peace, didn't say he learned the idea from the Mer-Chamises - he just says that he was simply "fed up with fighting."

Which brings up the question: did the theater really promote peace in any sense at all?

Now Juliano Mer-Chamis, who created an entire movie trying to soft-pedal the terrorism of his mother's proteges, has become victim to something the leftists pretend doesn't exist - Palestinian Arab hate. His film, rather than showing the inherent culture of violence and hate that laughs at the idea of words replacing bullets, was a prophetic view of what his own end would look like.

No one is asking the question - if Mer Chamis was murdered by Palestinian Arabs for no good reason, then perhaps the terrorism that he justified in his movie is also for no reason, and not because of anything Israel does?

Too bad that those who watch the film have no capacity to look beyond the rosy, romantic notion of Palestinian Arab peacefulness and see the simple facts: the Palestinian Arab kids who were exposed to Western values became terrorists anyway. The same kind of terrorists that killed Juliano himself.

(h/t Silke, Giulio Meotti)

Muslim intimidation of Christians in Nazareth before Easter

This is Easter week, so the media is doing their annual stories about how Israel is supposedly restricting some Christians from coming to Jerusalem. (I showed the bias on a similar Reuters story last year.)

I received an interesting email from commenter Womble last Tuesday. Here's what he wrote:

I’ve just returned from a trip to the north of Israel, focused mostly on Christian holy places, and I’ve taken some photos.

This photo was taken in Nazareth this morning. It shows the banner which greets any Christian pilgrim or tourist who wants to visit the Christian places of worship in the city.

If you want to get to the Church of the Annunciation or to the Synagogue Church, there’s literally no way to get there without being confronted with this warning to embrace Islam or else. (The building on the right is the Church of the Annunciation; this way you can see the proximity). My guess is that it is the work of the local branch of the Islamic Movement, whose offices are located nearby.

However, I cannot identify the logo in the upper left corner of the banner, so I can’t be absolutely sure if it’s the Islamic Movement or some other, less known, organization doing it.

I think that Womble is right and this is the Islamic Movement of Nazareth:

Either way, here is a little seen side of how Muslims feel free to intimidate and bully Christians in the Middle East - and even in Israel.

It turns out that this is not the first time the Nazareth Islamists have done something like this. Here's a banner they erected before Christmas, 2008, also in front of the Church of the Annunciation:

More about that incident here.

This is a story you will not be seeing in the mainstream media.

Especially this week.

Just in case you still thought the PCHR was unbiased...

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights put out a statement condemning the murder of Vittorio Arragoni, the terror-supporting member of ISM (but I repeat myself) who was killed on Friday.

If you believe that the PCHR has any objectivity left after its willful labeling of Hamas terrorists as "civilians" in Gaza, check this out:

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, on Thursday evening, 14 April 2011, a group named "Group of the Companion Mohammed Bin Maslamah" announced the kidnapping of the Italian journalist, Vittorio Arrigoni, 36, a prominent member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and a human rights defender. In a video posted on the Youtube website, the group demanded the release of detained members of the group, affiliates of the so-called "Salafist Jihadist Group". The kidnappers threatened to kill Arrigoni if the government in Gaza did not meet their demands within 30 hours.

In a grave development, contrary to fundamental values shared by all Palestinians, the group carried out their threat. On Friday morning, 15 April 2011, security services found the body of Arrigoni in a house located in the 'Amer project area, west of al-Karamah building in the west of Jabalia, north of the Gaza Strip. In his testimony, a PCHR staff-member reported signs of beating on the victim's face, signs of handcuffs on his hands, and signs of strangulation around his neck.

Yes, a so-called human rights organization is stating as a fact that all Palestinian Arabs are against murdering innocent people.

This same PCHR had, up until a couple of years ago, prominently detailed hundreds of instances of Palestinian Arabs being murdered by other PalArabs. It know quite well what Fatah and Hamas did to each other. It knows what Hamas did the the Salafist group in Gaza. Yet PCHR states as a fact that all Palestinian Arabs share fundamental values against murder!

Do we detect a wee bit of bias here?

One more fun part of the PCHR report:

[The PCHR] appreciates the role played by the International Solidarity Movement and other human rights defenders in the occupied Palestinian territory;

The ISM is not a human rights group, it is a terror-enabler group. So is, apparently, the PCHR.

Vittorio was not the first ISM activist murdered by Palestinian Arabs

Vittorio Arrigoni, who is being beatified as a new Palestinian Arab saint as I write this, was not the first ISM activist to be murdered by his fellow Palestinian Arabs.

In September 2007, ISM member Akram Ibrahim Abu Sba’ was killed by members of Islamic Jihad. He was shot twice in the chest in Jenin.

His killing was never condemned by the ISM. They know better than to say anything bad about Islamic Jihad, their erstwhile partners in "resistance" against Israel.

The immense value of moonbat art

Palestine News Network has an article about a mural painted in a Gaza camp:

The Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project is an initiative co-produced by The Rachel Corrie Foundation and Breaking the Silence Mural Project, along with co-sponsors The Middle East Children’s Alliance, the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and the International Trauma Treatment Program.

The mural is a community building memorial honouring all those who have lost their lives in struggle and those who are resisting oppression. Inspired by the killing of Rachel Corrie, the mural tells a tale of two cities linked through tragedy, Olympia, Washington and Rafah, Palestine. The overall purpose of the project is to increase the strength and visibility of the global solidarity movement for social justice across the world through the use of art, culture and technology.

‘Freedom Tree', the first of A Tale of Two Cities- Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project in Gaza, was inaugurated last January 16th. Located in the Afaq Jadeeda (New Horizons) Association of Nuseirat Refugee Camp, the mural was painted by the staff of New Horizons and facilitated by Susan Greene.

Facing the deaths of more than 1400 civilians, destruction of homes, schools, hospitals, roads and infrastructure after Israel’s large-scale military offensive (December 2008- January 2009), Palestinians in Gaza are finding ways of continuing to cope with trauma and rebuilding their communities.

The anti-Israel activist who wrote this story for PNN, Alessandra Bajec, is now claiming that every single Arab killed in Cast Lead was a civilian. They love to deny that Gaza is run by a well-armed, Iranian trained terror group, and that more than half of those killed in Cast Lead were in fact terrorists. Nope - to these moonbats, they are all "civilians."

More interesting, though, was part of an interview where she asks the Director of the Public Relations Department at the Gaza Community Mental Health Program a very good question:

How concretely do you think this and similar projects can help people in Gaza in rebuilding their communities?

Indeed - how do these art projects really help Gazans who are supposedly suffering so much? Why is a giant mural in a camp a wonderful thing for people who are under "siege"?

The answer:

Such projects are very important, as I said, to show solidarity with Palestinians, to make people aware and expose the human rights violations that Palestinians endure. Once people in the world get to know about the Palestinian people, see what their life looks like…that will encourage more solidarity and advocacy, will help build our community and fundraise for our projects. So this is a really important project, definitely valuable in this respect.

So this project helps make people aware of supposed Israeli crimes (like killing over 1400 mythical civilians) so those people can hate Israel and give money for more similar projects, so more people can become aware of Israeli crimes and hate Israel!

It doesn't really help Gazans, you see. It helps the world hate Israel, which makes the Gazans feel good and their mental health will therefore improve because they know other people hate Israel as much as they do. Then more Westerners can tattoo "Resistance" on their biceps and really make a difference!

It is the circle of death wrapped up in pseudo-art. Very progressive!

Book review: "The Road to Fatima Gate", Michael Totten

Lebanon is a very complicated place.

You literally need a scorecard to keep track of all the different groups that make up Lebanon's political scene and their shifting loyalties. The three main groups are,of course, the Christians, the Shiites and the Sunnis, but each of those groups have splinter groups that may or may not be aligned with their co-religionists at any time. There are also the Druze and smaller groups, whose very survival depends on being able to anticipate which way the wind is about to blow and jump on the side of the winning team.

Add to this that these are not just political groups but they all generally were parts of militia in the 1970s and 1980s. Sometimes they have to take out their weapons to defend their towns and villages.

And add to this the entire recent history of civil war. Plus the collective memory of being effectively controlled by Syria, by Israel or (more recently) by Iran. Not to mention the French influence on Lebanese culture and the fact that it is a favorite vacation spot for decadent, rich Saudis. More ingredients in Lebanon's ratatouille is the generally liberal and Western-style of downtown Beirut compared with the poverty of the south and the traditionalism in other areas.

The resulting dish is dizzying in its complexity.

Michael Totten, in his great book "The Road to Fatima Gate: The Beirut Spring, the Rise of Hezbollah, and the Iranian War Against Israel ," explains it all (or at least a lot of it) in a wonderful first-person journalistic style.

We learn about Lebanon as Totten does. We follow him as he interviews Shi'ite, Maronite and Sunni leaders and ordinary people as well. We tag along as he gets threatened by people with guns and eventually finds that he is somehow safer with armed people around.

Unlike many journalists who speak as if they are omniscient, Totten lets us see his mistakes and how he learns from them.

He takes us on his journey during the Israel/Hezbollah war of 2006 and mini-civil wars precipitated by Hezbollah in afterwards. He speaks to many people on most sides, and lets us know when he doesn't believe what they say. He and his friends get into dangerous situations that are inconceivable to Western eyes - but he knows that and explains it so the audience gets it.

Totten often uses that skill to great effect. For example, he mentions that he asks Eli Khoury, a leader of the March 14th movement, "What is the solution?" Totten then goes on to tell his readers that this is a very American question, one that he soon learned not to ask, because the Lebanese know that there isn't one. However, Americans are solution-oriented and cannot grasp that basic concept that is so integral to survival in the Middle East.

We cannot solve the problems. We can only manage them as best we can, today.

One other talent that Michael Totten has is the ability to see the entire picture and relate to it. It is easy to get lost in the minutiae, especially in Lebanon where there are so many groups competing with each other and none of them are in the majority. But Totten is always there to remind us what the real danger is. It is Iran, using Hezbollah as its proxy. All of the desire to be pacifist or pan-Lebanese is doomed as long as Hezbollah, effectively an arm of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, has effective veto power over the Lebanese government and controls its own state within a state. No one can confront Hezbollah militarily nor politically, and as a result Iran is extending its hegemony over the region.

Totten's journalistic style is especially appreciated in the Lebanese arena. While most other journalists will meekly follow whatever restrictions their interview subjects impose on them, Totten reports on the entire context of his interviews, letting us know that if he cannot find out a piece of information it is not because he didn't try. He also lets us know when his subjects are not being entirely truthful.

Totten was not in Lebanon for all the events he covers so he relies on his friends to fill in the personal stories. Also, he didn't talk much about the Palestinian Arab experience in Lebanon outside of broad historical strokes; there is no interview with the Arabs in refugee camps and the Nahr al-Bared fighting is glossed over as a "sideshow." While this is probably true, there are about as many Palestinian Arabs in Lebanon as there are Druze, and demographics do matter. I would love to have seen him highlight Lebanese discrimination against them across the board as well as what they have done to help destroy Lebanon from inside.

These are minor points, though. The Road to Fatima Gate is a brilliant combination of memoir and journalism, and it is highly recommended.

Hamas has murdered another child

From JPost:

Daniel Raphael Viflic, the 16-year-old boy who was injured in the anti-tank missile attack on a school bus in the Negev by Hamas terrorists 10 days ago, died on Sunday after a steady decline to critical condition.

When the bus sustained a direct hit by the missile, Viflic suffered severe head trauma and was artificially respirated at the scene. He was rushed to Soroka University Medical Center Hospital in Beersheba, where his family has been holding vigil for the past ten days. On April 12, the severity of his condition was upgraded to extremely critical and doctors expressed concern that he had suffered irreparable brain damage.

The missile hit the bus moments after most of the children got off, while it was traveling near Kibbutz Sa'ad, about 2.5 km. from the Gaza Strip. Just two people were on the bus when it was hit – the driver, who was lightly injured, and the boy, who was en route to visit his grandmother.

May his parents be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem.

ברוך דיין האמת

Spring cleaning open thread

Lots of last minute Passover stuff to do, so I have to delay the many posts I want to write. Alas.

Meanwhile, here's a sign that spring is actually here.

Mother of accused Itamar murderer denies everything

Hamas' Palestine Times newspaper quotes the mother of one of the youths who were arrested for the Fogel family murders.

[The mother stated] that her son was asleep with his brothers at 9:30 PM, i.e., during the operation, and he is not linked to any political party or organization, and he is a student in high school who only travels between home and school.

She added: "My son was arrested, on April 4th, about two weeks ago, and when the families went to inquire of their status, one of the soldiers told me there we want to conclude the investigation of this crime, even if we have to fabricate the charge against any person from the village."

Yeah, that sounds believable.

Of course, it will be considered not only believable but gospel truth to the Mondoweiss crowd. Every other statement attributed to the IDF are lies, of course, but a mother of a murderer claiming that an IDF soldier freely admits that they arrested her son for no reason will be swallowed whole.

HRW's latest lies: WB Arabs live in "shanties", Jews in "spacious villas"

In the Huffington Post, the executive director of the Middle East and North African Division for Human Rights Watch, Sarah Leah Whitson, describes the West Bank this way:

And security concerns do not justify systematically separating Palestinians from Jews, with shanties and dirt roads provided for the one, and spacious villas with swimming pools and paved highways provided for the other.

Here is a photo I took of one of those "shanties". Click to see it in all its horror:

And here's a photo of those spacious villas:

The Jewish towns in Judea and Samaria that I visited were clean, well-planned and overwhelmingly suburban in nature. I saw nothing that could be remotely described as ostentatious. Houses were attractive but uniform in design.

From the highway, many of the Arab towns showed literal mansions, orders of magnitude larger than any Jewish house in the area. And many more were under construction.

Similarly, Whitson is pushing the similar slander that Palestinian Arabs are not allowed on "Jewish" roads, a complete lie that Yisrael Medad documented last week as such:

More photos of Palestinian Arab mansions are at Shiloh Musings.

(h/t Anne)

Fogel family murderers arrested. They don't look Thai to me.

From JPost:

The IDF Spokesperson on Sunday confirmed the arrest of two Palestinians, one a minor, from Awarta, in the March murder of five Fogel family members in their home in the Itamar settlement. The arrest was a joint IDF and Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) operation.

The suspects committed the crime for nationalistic reasons, and according to Army Radio, admitted to the crime without expressing remorse. Six others have been remanded on suspicion of involvement in the murders.

According to Shin Bet findings, the two teens, 18-year-old Hakem Awwad and 19-year-old Amjad Awwad, carried out the crime based on their own convictions and without direction by any specific political or terrorist organization.

On the Friday of the murders, the two reportedly met at 3:00 p.m. and planned to carry out the murder. At 9:00 p.m. they met again, equipped with knives, and broke into the Itamar settlement. The two broke into one home, which was empty, and stole an M16 rifle. Afterward, they went to the Fogel family home.

The teenage suspects proceeded to murder two of the children by stabbing, and then entered the parents' bedroom. Udi and Ruti Fogel awoke to the murderers' presence, and began to struggle with them. In the end, the suspects gained control and murdered them as well.

The two then left the house. One of the suspects returned and murdered the three-month-old baby Hadas, taking an M16 from the house.

According to Israel Radio, Amjad said that he was unaware that there were two other children in the house, and that if he knew, he would have stabbed them as well.

Following the incident, the two suspects involved five others, mostly relatives, to help cover up their crime. Hakem's uncle, Saleh, reportedly hid the knives, burned their clothing from the night of the murders, and brought the stolen weapons to Ramallah resident Jad Obeid.

Ha'aretz adds more details, slightly at odds with JPost's:

The two suspects, who are unrelated to one another, were identified as members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine along with several members of their family.
Shin Bet investigators have at this point not identified the murder as being carried out under the auspices of the Popular Front organization. According to what is currently known, the murders were carried out independently by the two suspects.

According to the investigation, it took the suspects about ten minutes to cut the fence which separates the settlement of Itamar from the Palestinian village of Awarta. They climbed the security barrier at the settlement unnoticed and walked about 400 meters into the settlement. Once inside the settlement, they broke into an empty home and stole an M-16 rifle, a weapons cartridge, a vest and a helmet before proceeding to the Fogel family's home.

So there were two fences between 'Awarta and Itamar; they cut one and climbed the second.

Before entering the house, the suspects noticed Yoav and Elad Fogel in the home's window. Yoav and Elad were the first to be stabbed after the suspect entered the home. The suspects then entered the parents' room. Ehud and Ruth tried to fight off the attackers, but were eventually overcome and stabbed to death. Ruth was also shot, but due to the weather at the time of the murder, the gunshots were not heard. The suspects fled the home, fearing that the gunshots had been heard.

Outside of the home, the suspects realized that their gunshots had gone unnoticed and they had not yet been discovered. Amjad Awad subsequently reentered the home in order to steal an additional M-16 rifle that was there. Back inside the parents' room, Awad noticed three-month-old Hadas and stabbed her to death. While leaving the home once more, the suspect noticed that there were more children but apparently figured that he was running out of time. The lives of Roi Fogel, 8, and Yishai Fogel, 2, were spared.

There have been many articles since the murders by anti-Israel writers saying that Jews had killed the Fogels, or foreign workers in the settlements (there were none,) or that the IDF was unfairly searching the village of 'Awarta without any evidence.

None of them will retract their lies, of course.

Australian party's BDS costs its political leadership

Last week I mentioned that the Sydney, Australia suburb Marrickville intended to boycott Israel - at the cost of nearly $4 million.

It looks like this foray of a left wing party into world politics has cost it dearly:

NOW we know that the meddling ideological extremism of the Greens cost them the inner-city seat of Marrickville in the NSW election last month.

What should have been a shoo-in in one of the most barmy left electorates in the country resulted in more than one-in-three voters rejecting the Greens because of Marrickville Council's Israel boycott, according to a poll by a Jewish group.

This is a boycott that, by the Green-controlled council's own figures, will cost it as much as $4 million to stop using Israeli-linked products such as Hewlett-Packard computers (apparently used at Israeli checkpoints) and Motorola telephones.

The voters were first to show some backbone, after abiding years of Green dabbling in Middle East politics. But last week Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd slammed the boycott as "nuts" and NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell threatened to sack the council if it doesn't reverse its stance.

Sensing the end of his dream run, even the Greens' supreme leader, Bob Brown, rejected the boycott and distanced himself from his failed state candidate, Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne, although he can't help offloading blame onto what he calls the "hate media" for costing his party the seat.

But he should look a little closer to home for the culprit.

Jake, a 55-year-old Jewish health professional with friends in Marrickville, was so incensed by the council's Israel boycott that he took three weeks off work to wage a guerrilla campaign against the Greens, plastering the suburb with posters late at night, accusing them of homophobia for boycotting gay-friendly Israel.

"I felt so angry," says Jake, who wants to remain anonymous. "I couldn't sleep at night, so I organised the posters, hired some utes and ladders" and enlisted the help of his son and his friends. Greens supporters harassed them, ripped down the posters, called police, and tried to intimidate Jake's young helpers, posting footage of them on YouTube.

On election day, Jake and his son organised 10 friends wearing T-shirts with "Boycott the Greens" logos to visit polling booths, prompting "Zionist pigs" abuse from greenies.

The Greens lost to Labor by fewer than 700 votes, in a seat they were favourites to snare.

The backlash was quite a shock to the Greens, whose extremist ideological baggage is at last costing them votes.
...
The Middle East conflict is not a game. Yet it has somehow become a vehicle for moral preening half a world way and a badge of belonging for lazy leftists whose talents are best suited to fixing potholes, which, by the way, abound in Marrickville.

Another BDS epic FAIL.

(h/t Zvi)

One more picture of terror supporter Vittorio Arrigoni

So what is on his arm?

Since Arrigoni is being called a humanitarian and peace activist, one can imagine it says something like "No more war" or "Peace forever" or maybe "Mom" or "I love puppies."

However, this modern martyr who was killed by the very people he loved and supported chose a different message to permanently ink on his arm.

It says "Moqowama." That means "resistance."

The very same word that Palestinian Arab terrorists use to describe suicide bombings, rocket attacks against civilians and everything else they do to target innocent Israelis.

That fact that he chose that word, from all the words in the world, to decorate his body says everything you need to know about how peaceful and humanitarian he was.

The Elder of Ziyon Haggadah (2009) - download it now!

Two years ago, I made a Haggadah:

It contains the full Haggadah text, including English (except for Nirtzah.) It includes dozens of commentaries that I found on the Internet, almost all from a religious-Zionist perspective. Many of the commentaries assume that the audience is religious, so there are many transliterations of Hebrew words that I did not translate. I did not write anything original; I just compiled and edited it, pretty quickly.

The Haggadah is in PDF format, suitable for printing. It is 61 pages long and looks decent when printed two-sided on a color printer.

I had always hoped to rewrite it and make a real printed edition, which would entail paraphrasing all the commentaries and expanding it, but I never had the time.

(I seem to remember that a paragraph in Maggid is missing, but I couldn't find it now from a quick glance. Maybe I'll fix it next year.)

About 1500 people downloaded the Haggadah so far.

I still can't believe that there are not more Haggadahs with an explicitly Zionist theme, at least in English. The theme of redemption seems such a natural fit.

(Here's one that is implicitly Zionist, based on the writings of Rav Kook. )

To download the Elder of Ziyon Haggadah, click here and then click on the text that says "Click here to start download from MediaFire."

חג שמח!

Weekend links

Ephraim Karsh looks at how many Arab refugees there were in 1948. His conclusion: 583,000-609,000.

Alan Dershowitz on Norman Finkelstein's support for Hezbollah rockets at Israeli civilians.

NYT says that some US groups helped the Arab uprisings.

Investor's Business Daily on why Israel prospers while Arab regimes suffer.

Krauthammer video interview at JPost.

An Indian region strengthening ties with Israel on fruit crops.

Guess who's building a wall?

The delusion of peace initiatives, at the Begin-Sadat Center.

(h/t Mike, YM, Zvi, oao, Folderol, Benjamin)

Dutch might ban ritual slaughter. Is circumcision next?

Holland is considering banning ritual slaughter. From AP:

One of Europe's first countries to allow Jews to practice their religion openly may soon pass a law banning centuries-old Jewish and Muslim traditions on the ritual slaughter of animals.

In the Netherlands, an unlikely alliance of an animal rights party and the xenophobic Freedom Party is spearheading support for the ban on kosher and halal slaughter methods that critics say inflict unacceptable suffering on animals.

The far right's embrace of the bill, which is expected to go to a parliamentary vote this month, is based mostly on its strident hostility toward the Dutch Muslim population. The Party for the Animals, the world's first such party to be elected to parliament, says humane treatment of animals trumps traditions of tolerance.

Jewish and Muslim groups call the initiative an affront to freedom of religion.

As in most western countries, Dutch law dictates that butchers must stun livestock — render it unconscious — before it can be slaughtered, to minimize the animals' pain and fear. But an exception is made for meat that must be prepared under ancient Jewish and Muslim dietary laws and practices. These demand that animals be slaughtered while still awake, by swiftly cutting the main arteries of their necks with razor-sharp knives.

What scientific studies exist that show that Jewish ritual slaughter is more painful than stunning animals before slaughtering them? I am not aware of any. What I am aware of is how Temple Grandin, possibly the world's foremost expert on animal pain during slaughter, has described when Jewish slaughter - shechita - is done correctly:

When shechitah was performed on each steer, I was amazed that the animal did not move. To find out if shechitah was really painless, I started holding the head of each animal with less and less pressure to see if it would move during shechitah. Even big bulls stayed still when the head holder was so loose they could have easily pulled their heads out....In the hands of the best shochets, the animal does not make a sound or flinch, and drops unconscious in eight to 10 seconds.

So the Ap article is correct: the push to ban ritual slaughter is not based on compassion for animals but on xenophobia for Muslims, which is spilling over into Jews.

In short, the proposed ban is an expression of pure bigotry.

And it is not stopping there. From the apparent success of the campaign against ritual slaughter, the xenophobes have now set their sights on circumcision. An op-ed in de Volkskrant, a major Dutch newspaper, argues that male circumcision is immoral and just as barbaric as stoning or female genital mutilation, and therefore should be outlawed.

Interestingly, the arguments again are not based on any scientific study that shows a negative effects from male circumcision. The arguments are:

- Boys circumcision is a medically futile act on a minor patient.
- Boys Circumcision violates the integrity of the body, the right to religious freedom and the right to autonomy of the child.
- Boys Circumcision is contrary to the rule that minors may only be subjected to medical procedures in cases of illness or changes, or if it can be convincingly demonstrated that the intervention in the interests of the child, such as vaccinations.
- Boys Circumcision has sometimes serious complications.

Of course, religious imperative to this writer does not override the lack of real negative consequences.

How can we prove that the writer is clearly anti-religion, rather than just advocating for the rights of male babies?

It is very simple. The exact same four points can be made about the practice of piercing the ears of young girls. It violates the integrity of the body, it violates the rights of children to make their own choices, and it sometimes has serious complications, including major infections. Yet can one conceive of a Dutch law to criminalize piercings?

In both the cases of the ritual slaughter and circumcision, people who are driven by xenophobia are hiding behind humanitarian rationales to push their agenda of hate. Otherwise, they would be far more interested in coming up with standards where religious rituals such as these can be made as safe and humane as possible.

This is one reason why Jews need to be careful about which far-right groups they associate with. Not all of them are this bad, of course. But some anti-Muslim groups are motivated more by irrational hate of anything associated with Islam rather than for justice and human rights. They can easily become as obsessed with Jews as they are with Muslims.

(h/t Metzada)

Some sober analysis of the "Arab Spring"

From Michael Scott Doran in an IHT/NYT op-ed:

The turmoil in the Middle East is not unique. Half a century ago, a similar series of revolutions shook the ground beneath the Arab rulers. The immediate catalyst was the Suez crisis. After Gamal Abd al-Nasser, the charismatic young Egyptian ruler, nationalized the Suez Canal in July 1956, the British and French, in collusion with Israel, invaded Egypt to topple him. They failed; Nasser emerged triumphant.

...In the 1950s, the dominant ideology, pan-Arabism, focused on external threats: gaining independence from imperialism and confronting Israel. In contrast, today’s revolutionary wave is driven by domestic demands: for jobs and political representation. Yet the underlying ethos of both revolutionary waves is very similar. Then, as now, the people in the street believed that the existing order was dominated by corrupt cliques that exploited the power of the state to serve their own interests. In addition, then, as now, the revolutions tended to topple leaders aligned with Washington.

Although there is no personality like Nasser towering over the revolutionary events, there is one state taking a leaf from Nasser’s book: Iran. Under Nasser, Egypt opposed British and French imperialism, which it worked to associate in the public mind with Israel. Iran is taking a similar stand today against Britain’s “imperial successor,” the United States. And like Nasser, Iran has created an anti-status-quo coalition — the resistance bloc which includes Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas.

The bloc’s strategy seeks to turn the anarchy of the Middle East to the disadvantage of the United States. As the revolutionary wave expands political participation, the bloc will insinuate itself into the domestic politics of its neighbors. In countries divided along ethnic and sectarian lines, it will use terrorism and work closely with partners on the ground who are willing to make direct alliances, as we have already seen in Iraq and Lebanon. In more homogeneous countries, such as Egypt, the bloc will resort to more subtle and insidious means — for example, inciting violence against Israel through Hamas, in an effort to drive a wedge between Cairo and Washington.

Although the resistance bloc may not be as influential as Nasser was, it is nevertheless poised to turn the turmoil of the region to the detriment of American interests.

And from John Bolton in the WSJ:

Since the "Arab Spring" began four months ago in Tunisia, U.S. media have focused constantly and generally optimistically on the turmoil in the Middle East. Unfortunately, the rising threat of an Iranian Winter—nuclear or otherwise—is likely to outlast and overshadow any Arab Spring.

Iran's hegemonic ambitions are embodied in its rapidly progressing nuclear-weapons program and its continued subversion across the region. In a case that emphasizes the fragility of aspiring democracies, Iranian Winter has already descended upon Lebanon, where Iran's influence has helped replace a pro-Western government with a coalition dominated by Tehran's allies, including Hezbollah. Last week, departing Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri condemned Iran's "flagrant intervention" in his country.

In Syria, despite substantial opposition to the Assad dictatorship, regime change is highly unlikely. Iran will not easily allow its quasi-satellite to be pried from its grasp, and is reportedly helping the Assad regime quell this week's protests.

Then there's the Victoria, a ship containing tons of weaponry bound for Hamas that the Israeli navy seized last month. The episode recalls the Karine A, a weapons shipment from Iran to the Palestine Liberation Organization seized by Israel in 2002. Clearly Iran has a penchant for arming Sunni and Shiite terrorists alike.

...America's failure to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions—which is certainly how it would be perceived worldwide—would be a substantial blow to U.S. influence in general. Terrorists and their state sponsors would see Iran's unchallenged role as terrorism's leading state sponsor and central banker, and would wonder what they have to lose.

The Arab Spring may be fascinating, and may or may not endure. Sadly, Iran's hegemonic threat looks far more sustainable.

I touched on these themes in an earlier post that concentrated on how a resurgent Muslim brotherhood can only help Iran, despite the Shi'a/Sunni rift.

Read both articles (you need to find the Bolton article in Google in order to read the whole thing - the title is "Iranian Winter Could Chill the Arab Spring" so search for that.)

(h/t David G)

Rock band Journey sues BDS group for (badly) singing their song

From the New York Post:

Don't stop believin' that you'll get sued if you mess with Journey's music.

The composers of the hit song "Don't Stop Believin' " filed a copyright complaint yesterday against a pro-Palestinian group that performed their pop anthem with the words changed to support a boycott of Israel.

Journey bandmates Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon, along with former frontman Steve Perry, want a permanent injunction barring Adalah-NY from "exploiting" their 30-year-old tune.

The Manhattan federal court filing says Adalah-NY organized a March 26 "flash mob" in Grand Central station that ripped off "the entire melody, chord changes, and other musical elements."
"However, the version defendants performed uses the title 'Don't Stop Boycottin', and contains lyrics that convey a political message relating to the conflict in the Middle East."

Adalah's Web site says a video was viewed more than 30,000 times in two days before it was taken down by YouTube.com on April 1 and replaced with a silent version.

I had seen it when it came out, and while it was quite not as bad as other BDS flash mobs it was still horrible. These stunts just irritate the people they are meant to convince, and no one can even understand the lyrics without the subtitles (in this case they are drowned out by what sounds like a bad high-school band.)

Here's a version that is still on the web:

(h/t YM)

Abbas instructs newspapers to stop insulting Hamas

Palestinian Arabic media associated with Fatah is reporting:

The official spokesman for the Fatah movement, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, announced that President Mahmoud Abbas has issued instructions to stop all media campaigns against Hamas.

The spokesman added that the reason for this instruction was 'to create a positive atmosphere for the success of the initiative launched by the leadership to end the division and achieve unity, and strengthening efforts for the success of this goal...."

See how democratic the Palestinian Arabs are? Their president can tell the media what to do, and they follow his instructions without any complaint! No chaos, no doubt, no criticism! Not one newspaper pointing out that this is exactly how Mubarak acted.

Sounds like a Palestinian Arab state would be a veritable utopia for freedom.

Vittorio was not a peace activist. He was not a human rights activist.

Vittorio Arrigoni, who was killed yesterday by a Muslim group in Gaza, was not a peace activist. He was not a human rights activist.

And, as Zvi points out in the comments to my last post, he was not even a "pro-Palestinian" activist.

A look at his Facebook page photos show nothing about how much he loves Palestinian Arabs. Barely any pictures of him smiling with his friends the Gazans. Unlike most Facebook pages, stuffed with photos of people smiling with their family and friends, Arrigoni's page is filled with hate.

In fact, one can see how he defined himself: not as pro-anything, but only as anti-Zionist:

He never had anything bad to say about Hamas. He never campaigned for Arab countries to stop their discrimination against Palestinian Arabs. He never spoke a word demanding that "refugee camps" in Gaza be dismantled and real homes built.

Here is how he was described by his Free Gaza friend, Mary Hughes Thompson (via email):

Words can't express the shock and sense of bereavement at the loss of this beautiful man, who considered himself Palestinian. The videos we saw of him bloodied and blindfolded were chilling, nothing like the Vittorio we knew and loved, always smiling, always wearing a skipper's hat and holding his beloved pipe.

The anti-Israel left might consider themselves "Palestinian," but clearly some Palestinian Arabs don't.

Imagine if Christian Zionists who visit Israel in solidarity were murdered - by Jews. You can bet that their enthusiasm for Israel would cool quite quickly.

But that is because their support is built on love, not hate.

So-called "Pro-Palestinian activists" are not motivated by love. If they were, they would act completely differently. So the murders of Arrigoni and Juliano Mer-Khamis - done by the people they supposedly love - will not make a dent in far leftist "support" for PalArabs, because they don't support them in any real way.

They only have a shared hate for Israel.

One last cartoon on Arrigoni's Facebook page is stunning in its irony, an irony that his fellow activists will never, ever get:

UPDATE: One more lovely photo that Vittorio thought was wonderful: (h/t Kramerica)

His heart was overflowing with love.

To be clear...he didn't deserve to die. But he doesn't deserve to be remembered as a person who cared one bit about peace or human rights, either.

He was a hater.

April rocket calendar

G=Grad
Q=Qassam
M=Mortar
P=Unidentified projectile (includes mortars)
R=Unidentified rocket
S=Fell short in Gaza
F=Fatality (Green-Gaza, Red-Israel)
[] - Palestinian claims

April 2011

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
					1	2
3	4 1Q	5 1Q	6	7 45P (1G) 4Q	8 22M 4Q	9 38R (15G) 20M
10 13R	11	12	13 [2P]	14	15 2G	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30

Vittorio Arigoni, pro-Pal activist, found dead. Update: Moonbats blame Israel.

From JPost:

Security officials found the body of an Italian man who had been abducted in the Gaza Strip in an abandoned house overnight Thursday, a Hamas security official said.

Two men were arrested and others were being sought.

Arrigoni, an Italian pacifist and blogger, has lived in the Gaza Strip for some time. He was shown blindfolded with blood around his right eye and a hand can be seen pulling his head up by his hair to face the camera.

A spokesman for the Hamas interior ministry in Gaza City said it was investigating the abduction.

The Arabic text that accompanied the footage of Arrigoni also said "the Italian hostage entered our land only to spread corruption" and it described Italy as "the infidel state".

When you can't trust depraved, homicidal jihadists to keep someone alive for thirty hours, who can you trust?

Countdown to the moonbats blaming Israel for his death: 3...2...1...

UPDATE: I found one from before he was known dead. An Italian website claims that since Hamas has denied that there are any Salafis or Al Qaeda in Gaza, and since no Palestinian Arab would ever want to hurt someone who has done so much for them, it must be Israel that kidnapped him!

And Ken O'Keefe has a rambling video also blaming the Jooooz.

UPDATE 2: Sasha points out Max Ajl, who says flatly (and ungrammaticality): "He died because was in Gaza resisting the occupation."

Wow!

UPDATE 3: Mondoweiss piles on with, well, a pile. (h/t Challah Hu Akbar)

The timing, which comes days before Flotilla II, and the irreparable damage the crime did to Gaza and the Palestinians tell of the Israeli Mossad hand lurking behind the doers. For Israel, the best way to prevent a second encounter with a freedom fleet is to scare the participants way. Imagine how many people will either in fear or in protest stop joining the flotilla.

Guess who moonbats blame for Vittorio's kidnapping?

From the nutty-left Salem News:

Possibly the strongest voice in the years-long struggle to free Palestine, 36-year old Vittorio Arrigoni, a journalist and activist with the International Solidarity Movement, was kidnapped in Gaza.

One person who knows the steadfast dedication of Vittorio 'Vic' Arrigoni is our writer Ken O'Keefe, also in Gaza, who stated the bottom line on this sad day.

"Who benefits? This is the question we must ask first when something like Vic Arrigoni being kidnapped happens. The answer is, Israel; nobody benefits more than Israel."

"So whether they are false-Muslims or agents of Israel, those that have Vic are serving Israel."

Well, that was predictable.

Nice to know that Arrigoni travels in wonderful circles!

September scenarios for the UN (INSS)

Israel's Institute for National Security Studies has put out a paper that seems to be a very good summation of how things might play out in the scenarios being tossed around for a unilateral declaration of a Palestinian Arab state in September, including the much discussed "Uniting for Peace" scenarios.

INSS Insight No. 251, April 11, 2011

UN General Assembly "Uniting for Palestine"

Robbie Sabel

Decision making in the UN General Assembly is on the basis of one vote for each member state. This may reflect the principle of sovereign equality of states, but clearly a situation where Micronesia and China have equal weight does not reflect political reality. The drafters of the UN Charter were therefore careful not to grant the General Assembly any executive or legislative power. Except on matters of procedure and budget, all General Assembly resolutions are only recommendations. The other main organ of the UN is the Security Council, which was granted the primary responsibility for matters of international security and peace. In contrast to the General Assembly, Council decisions are binding if adopted under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

During the early years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union used its veto power in the Security Council to prevent decisions being taken against North Korea. At the time the UN General Assembly was dominated by the Western states, and in order to try and bypass the stalemated Security Council the United States initiated General Assembly Resolution 377, commonly referred to as the "Uniting for Peace Resolution." The resolution declared that where the Security Council could not reach a decision because of a veto, a special session of the General Assembly could be convened "with a view to making appropriate recommendations for collective measures…including the use of armed force when necessary.” Such resolutions require adoption by a two thirds majority at a specially convened emergency session of the Assembly. Because of the present automatic anti-Israel majority in the Assembly, "Uniting for Peace" resolutions have been used frequently for condemning Israeli policies. Resolutions adopted at such sessions, however, are still only recommendations and are not binding on states.

There are reports that this September, the Palestinian delegation to the UN, which has observer status at the organization, will attempt to introduce a new "Uniting for Peace" resolution. There are a number of possible scenarios for such a resolution. The most likely possibility would by a call for recognition of a Palestinian state within the 1967 boundaries. In fact, a 2003 Arab sponsored General Assembly "Uniting for Peace" resolution has already called for "Affirming the necessity of ending the conflict on the basis of the two-State solution of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and security based on the Armistice Line of 1949." If adopted, a new such resolution would grant the Palestinians further international support for their demand for a return to the 1967 lines. It would not however be binding on Israel or on any other state, not even for those states voting for the resolution. Under international law, except for cases where a former border is inherited by new states, borders can only be delimited by agreement between the states concerned. No UN organ has the authority to delimit boundaries.

A General Assembly resolution recognizing a Palestinian state would not mean acceptance of Palestine as a member of the UN. In order to be accepted as a member of the UN, the Palestinians would have to officially declare that they are a state, an act they have refrained so far from doing. Should the Palestinians unilaterally declare themselves to be a state, it would be a violation of the Oslo agreements and of the Middle East Roadmap, but it might have the salutary effect of changing the current image of the Israel-Palestinian dispute from that of a homeless people under military occupation into a fairly minor border dispute between two neighboring states.

Even if the Palestinians were to declare themselves as a state, the General Assembly could then only accept Palestine as a member of the UN if there is a recommendation to that effect from the Security Council. In a 1950 Advisory Opinion, the International Court of Justice explicitly stated that "The General Assembly can only decide to admit [a new member state] upon the recommendation of the Security Council" and the admission of a state to membership in the United Nations cannot be done "by a decision of the General Assembly when the Security Council has made no recommendation for admission." The Security Council could make such a recommendation if it determines that Palestine fulfils the international law criteria for recognition. These requirements are that the presumptive state has an effective government, a permanent population, defined territory and an ability to conduct foreign relations. There is no need, however, for a state to have clearly defined boundaries provided there is at least some territory that is under its effective control. A Security Council recommendation cannot be adopted, however, if a permanent member of the Council vetoes it by voting against the resolution.

One other, less likely scenario, is that the General Assembly will call for a UN trusteeship to replace Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. The League of Nations mandate for Palestine could serve as a precedent, and the UN has undertaken such trusteeship functions in Namibia, East Timor, and Kosovo. For the Palestinians to propose such a trusteeship implies, however, that they do not see themselves as being ripe yet for statehood. It is unlikely that they will make such a statement. Furthermore many UN member states might be very reluctant for the UN to undertake such an expensive and thankless task. They have only to recall Britain's unhappy record as the Mandatory power.

A third possible scenario is that the Assembly will request the International Court of Justice to give an advisory opinion confirming that the 1949 armistice lines are the boundaries of the Palestinian state. Requesting an opinion on the 1949 armistice lines might, however, be self defeating for the Palestinians as it would be extremely difficult for the World Court to find that a temporary Armistice Demarcation Line between Israel and Jordan is a binding international boundary. The Court in its 2004 advisory opinion on the "wall" in "Occupied Palestinian Territory," an opinion that was requested under a UN Arab sponsored "Uniting for Peace" resolution, refrained from making such a ruling regarding the 1949 Armistice Line.

The underlying issue remains that the UN General Assembly can only adopt non-binding recommendations. The Assembly cannot determine boundaries nor can it confer statehood. A boundary between Israel and a future Palestinian state can only be determined by agreement between the two parties. The international community can encourage or hinder agreement, but it cannot replace the parties in this respect.

Afternoon links

Must read: Israel's pacifist tragedy

Barry Rubin makes a good point, as always.

George Freedman on the Arab uprisings, Israel and Hamas.

McCormick, the giant maker of spices, has stopped selling to Iran following a campaign by Jewish activists in Baltimore.

Commenting on my piece yesterday on the World Bank report about how ready the PA is for statehood, an author of a critique of the previous World Bank report on the topic points out serious flaws in their methodology.

Postwest expands on that same posting and more in "Just what the West needs: Another failed state."

Helen Thomas is speaking tonight at Loyola in Chicago. Maybe she'll address how anti-tank missiles are not disproportionate force against schoolbuses.

Bahais unveiled their new improved shrine at their headquarters in Haifa. I wonder if Thomas wants them to go back where they came from too?

(h/t Greg, Adam, Hadar, Ian)