Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, February 05, 2015

02/05 Links Pt2: Did Sky News Presenter Justify Anti-Semitism?; UK '14 Record year for anti-Semitism

From Ian:

Anne Bayefsky: How the UN Mixes Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Israeli War Crimes

At the end of the anti-Semitism meeting – which was informal because formal agreement by the General Assembly to address the subject would have run smack into Arab and OIC intransigence –a joint statement was issued. The lack of formality meant it could not take the form of an official UN resolution. It does not explicitly mention Israel, but it is tangible. Fifty states signed on to what could be called the New York declaration on anti-Semitism.
Tellingly, 90 percent of the signatories are fully free democracies (on the Freedom House scale), while only 45 percent of all UN member states are fully free. The countries that participated in the event but refused to sign the commitment to combating anti-Semitism, not only included Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar and Russia, but, disgracefully, Brazil, India, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, South Africa, and Switzerland.
Less than a week later, at the UN Holocaust commemoration held on January 28, 2015 in New York, listeners heard the gut-wrenching story of one of the few surviving twins of the Nazi Dr. Mengele’s hideous experiments. Jona Laks concluded her account of the horrors of Auschwitz and surviving the Nazi death marches, only to be turned away from her former home in Poland, with this: “In 1948, an orphan, and completely alone, I made my way…to the soon to be born State of Israel. I began to rebuild my life. Only then, I began to get the feeling that I was a human being again, with a name and no more just a number.”]
It was a precise and authentic message understood long ago by the majority at the United Nations, but no longer.

Did Sky News Presenter Justify Anti-Semitism?

During Thursday morning’s review of the press on Sky News, the two studio guest reviewers made this point perfectly clear, particularly Jonny Gould. But what about Sky News presenter Eamonn Holmes’ reaction?
Jonny Gould: “The fact that it is happening around the Gaza conflict and as a consequence of it might be an understanding as to how to tackle it, but it can never be justification.
Eamonn Holmes: “It can, if you are Palestinian.”
Jonny Gould: “If you are an anti-Semitic Palestinian, yes.”
What exactly did Eamonn Holmes mean? The context of the conversation was specifically dealing with anti-Semitism in Britain. Would Holmes find it justifiable for a Palestinian living in the UK to carry out an anti-Semitic act against a British Jew?
Or is he simply stating that Palestinian anti-Semitism against Israeli Jews is understandable and even justified?

Why Do Palestinians Believe Crazy Things?

We have not seen any polls that asked Palestinians whether they believe there was a Holocaust. But a May 2009 poll by the University of Haifa found 40% of Israeli Arabs believe the Holocaust was a hoax. Note that this astonishingly high number was among Arabs who have been far more exposed to modernization and Western thinking. It seems likely that the number of Palestinians who live in Judea-Samaria or Gaza and deny the Holocaust is even higher.
Why do Palestinians believe this stuff? We leave it to sociologists, historians, and political scientists to analyze the religious and cultural factors that encourage conspiratorial thinking. We merely take note of the fact that such thinking is widespread among the Palestinians, and the implications for Israel are significant.
Hamas, in Gaza, and the Palestinian Authority, in part of Judea-Samaria, already each have a de-facto state. Hamas lacks one major thing: total control of its borders. Israel’s partial blockade prevents them from acquiring tanks and jet fighters. The PA, for its part, also lacks one major thing: a full-fledged army.
So when the international community, the Jewish left, and the State Department demand that Israel lift the Gaza blockade and give the PA a sovereign state, Israelis have to ask themselves: Who would be in charge? Would reasonable, rational people run the State of Palestine? Or would the tanks and planes be in the hands of people who – by an overwhelming majority – sincerely believe crazy things, whether about 9/11 or the Holocaust or a dozen other issues?
Wishful thinkers – and there is no shortage of them in the Obama Administration, the pages of the New York Times, and the offices of various “peace” groups – look at the rest of the world and think that everyone is pretty much “just like us.” But the polls say otherwise.

Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech at the inauguration of a new headquarters of the PA's Radio and Television Corporation in Ramallah on Wednesday.

During the speech, he made it clear that an independent media is not what he is interested in.

We inaugurate today this new building of the General Authority for Radio and Television. We dreamed of this past that we hear the word 'voice of Palestine', and we were deprived of them, and you remember in the fifties the word Palestine was taboo and forbidden [in Arabic media! - EoZ], and one could not hear the name of Palestine, but only the word "refugees."

This remained a dream for many years, we yearned for it, and we did not hear during the fifties and early sixties that we were like the rest of the world and the people, we want to hear as it was in the Lebanese, Syrian and Iraqi radio, "Palestinian radio" - but we did not hear it, I wonder if this was forbidden for us, it was very difficult and we felt like we're these people that do not exist.

...There are types of media that are objective and others inflammatory and provocative that leads to peril, and this is what we do not want....

What is needed is to have media that deals with our national cause and nationalism, and must address national issues in an objective manner, and our goal is basically the national interest, in this way we have a fourth authority of Media in collaboration with three other authorities [branches of government: executive, legislative, and judiciary -EoZ], doing the right thing and conveying correct information without abusing anyone.

Or else!

Ken Roth tries to give a lesson in context

From the New York Times:

Ken Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, said that both forms of killing should be condemned.

“ISIS’s despicable conduct shouldn’t make us lose sight of the largest killer of civilians in Syria: Assad’s barrel bombs,” he said in an email.

Really? Ken Roth is giving the world lessons on how to put human rights in context?

As I showed recently, the latest world report from Human Rights Watch implies that Israel is only slightly better than Syria and worse than every other nation on the planet, judging from the amount of attention HRW gives to Israel. But here is a list of counts of fatalities from conflicts in 2014:

Syria 76,000
South Sudan 40,000
Iraq 21,000
Afghanistan 14,000
Boko Haram/Africa 11,000
Mexico 7,000
Yemen 7,000
Pakistan 5,500
CAR 5,200
Ukraine 4,700
Somalia 4,400
Libya 2,800
Gaza 2,200
Darfur 2,100

Judging from that 2015 HRW report, Israel more worthy of attention than South Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan and Yemen - combined.

So sorry if I have to laugh when Ken Roth reminds the world that ISIS isn't so bad compared to Syria. When it comes to distorting the seriousness of human rights abuses, Human Rights Watch does not have a very good record.

Speaking of not being able to distinguish between events that are different by orders of magnitude, another HRW researcher today compared Gaza to the Holocaust:

@BBCKimGhattas @DRovera @HolocaustMuseum @BBCNewsUS should also show pics of death and destruction in #Gaza
— Sarah Leah Whitson (@sarahleah1) January 29, 2015

(h/t EBoZ)

02/05 Links Pt1: Israeli Blood is Cheap in UNSC; PA TV sermon: Jews are "apes and pigs"

From Ian:

PA TV sermon: Jews are "apes and pigs"

In Friday's sermon on official Palestinian Authority TV, the cleric demonized Jews as "apes and pigs."
"Many Muslims are being harmed these days by a group whose hearts were sealed by Allah. 'He made of them [Jews] apes and pigs and slaves of deities' (Quran, 5:60). They are harming the livelihood of the believers [Muslims]... They withhold their [the Palestinians'] money and collect interest on it."
[Official PA TV, Jan. 30, 2015]
A few months ago, a Palestinian youth recited a poem on official PA TV, also demonizing Jews as apes and pigs, as Palestinian Media Watch reported:
"You have been condemned to humiliation and hardship
O Sons of Zion, O most evil among creations
O barbaric apes, O wretched pigs"
[Official PA TV, Sept. 12, 2014]

PA cleric: Jews are "apes and pigs and slaves of deities"

Amb. Alan Baker: UN Commission of Inquiry Violates International Norms on Fact-Finding Missions

The recent resignation of Canadian Prof. William Schabas as Chair of the UN Gaza inquiry has raised some interesting issues in the general context of UN fact-finding procedures. Shabas’ glaring anti-Israel bias was demonstrated in statements made by him over the years and now confirmed by the revelation of the clear conflict of interest arising from his consultancy work for the PLO and concealed by him from the UN and from its Human Rights Council.
The UN fact finding procedures have developed over the years through a number of declarations and studies by prominent international organizations and legal authorities, and ostensibly should have guided the UN in determining the mandate for any such commission of inquiry and in choosing the Chair of any fact-finding mission or inquiry.
However, it appears that the UN knowingly chose to ignore these well-established procedures in appointing William Schabas to chair the Gaza inquiry, and as such, the UN itself, in addition to William Schabas, have prejudiced any findings and outcome of the Commission of Inquiry and created grave doubts as to any credibility of such findings or outcome.
The following documents set out the various rules and norms for fact finding commissions, each one stressing the importance and centrality of impartiality – both of the mandate, as well as by the head and members of the commission:

Anne Bayefsky: William Schabas’ appointment was testament to the corruption at the UN Human Rights Council

As he tells the Council in his resignation letter, he imagined his “legal opinion” to the PLO on how to capitalize on the International Criminal Court “was a tiny part” of his “enormous body of scholarly work.” (Non-lawyers and the less erudite might call this being a tiny bit pregnant.) He rants, further : “when I was asked if I would accept nomination to the Commission of Inquiry, I was not requested to provide any details of my past statements and other activities concerning Palestine and Israel.”
In a final stunning display of hubris, Schabas claims that none of this should affect the legitimacy of the inquiry’s forthcoming report, to be presented to the Council in March and then being sent to the ICC. According to Schabas, the research and evidence-gathering phase he had conducted, managed and directed for five months – which will form the basis of the entire report – was “largely completed.” Indeed, “the work on the drafting of the report is beginning.”
Obviously, the credibility of the final product is irrevocably discredited — to all but the Human Rights Council, which is simply reassigning the job of Chair to one of the two remaining inquiry members (both also chosen on the basis of their prior displays of anti-Israel bias).
It is no accident that a Council notorious for applying double-standards to Israel embraced Schabas, or that a lawyer like Schabas embraced the Council. But there is no excuse for the the free world not to shun both of them and renounce their legal pogrom.

"Jihad against Israel is the only thing that unites Arabs"

From MEMRI:

Speaking on the Lebanese Mayadeen TV channel on January 31, 2015, Abd Al-Bari Atwan, former editor-in-chief of the London-based newspaper "Al-Quds Al Arabi," said: "All our guns must be turned toward that enemy [Israel], regardless of our differences, because this is the only thing that unites us."

Following is an excerpt:

Abd Al-Bari Atwan: In my view, Jihad must be directed, first and foremost, against the Israeli enemy. This is the enemy about which there is a consensus. Arabs who do not think that Israel is an enemy are neither Arabs nor Muslims. Our compass must point toward that enemy. All our guns must be turned toward that enemy, regardless of our differences, because this is the only thing that unites us.

"So if Arab unity is important to us, we've got to kill more Jews! It's the only thing we can agree on!"

Two more of those "children" killed in Gaza

Today, Islamic Jihad published a memorial for two twin brothers who were both fighters for them during the Gaza war.

Their names were Anas and Saad, and I don't think their surnames are published. They were both killed on July 20, 2014.

Here they are:

What is interesting is that the article says that they were born on December 5, 1996 - which means that they were 17 when they were killed - and considered "children" by NGOs. Furthermore, we are told that they joined Islamic Jihad's Al Quds Brigades in late 2012, which would have been around their 16th birthdays.

Of course these martyr photos and videos were created months before they were killed.

I noted last year that 70% of th e children killed in Gaza between the ages of 9-17 were boys. The ratio goes up the older the teens are, from 62% of those 9-11 to 79% of those between 15-17. Given that we have evidence (same link) of children as young as nine being used by terror groups, a significant number of the "children" killed in Gaza must have been helping out Hamas or other terror groups.

The Meir Amit ITIC, in their latest report on how Gaza terror groups recruit children, says "An examination of the names of Gazan fatalities in Operation Protective Edge indicated adolescents who served in the military-terrorist wings of the terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip. The extensive recruitment of young men and the intention to use them as auxiliary forces for the regular military-terrorist units is liable to increase the number of those killed and wounded in future confrontations between the terrorist organizations and the IDF, serving Hamas as propaganda material to use against Israel."

It may be far worse than that. Documentary filmmaker Pierre Rehov wrote last year in Gatestone:

When making one of my documentaries, the Palestinian who was leading my crew offered me a scoop. As I was French, he trusted me to be on the Palestinians' side. "You know," he said, "what pays well? When an Israeli soldier kills a child. Are you interested?" he continued. "We can arrange that. For $10,000, I can organize everything." Was he talking of a staging, or the real killing of a child? I did not dare to ask. I still nurture hope, despite the facts, that people would not willingly sacrifice children just to promote a show.

Sacrificing children is part of thee war strategy for these sick organizations.But that idea is so heinous that Westerners just don't want to believe it.

(h/t Pilpula, Yenta)

From European NGO ForMENA:

President Abbas’ and the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) long-fomenting crisis of legitimacy has reached new levels, with representatives of three hundred and fifty unpaid public-sector employees denouncing the administration in a scathing letter sent to the Arab League, European Union representatives and the Palestinian Legislative Council. Seen by ForMENA, the letter criticises Abbas’ personal appropriation of power and the increasing authoritarianism of his regime. The authors state:

“The Palestinian Authority – supposedly committed to the liberation and defence of our people – has joined the ranks of Palestine’s oppressors. The PA now violates, rather than ensures, the rights of Palestinians; it systematically destroys, rather than builds, the institutions of a future Palestinian state; it appropriates funds for its own political purposes, rather than using them to create a democratic, professional and accountable government.

“The PA is not currently fit to represent the Palestinian people, who have no confidence that, under this administration, their struggles and sacrifices will lead to an independent and free state.”

The letter also claims that the PA’s failure to pay the salaries of its employees – including doctors, civil servants and security personnel – is politically motivated, targeting those who criticise Abbas’ policies. It comes in the context of significant dissent from figures within Fatah itself, who similarly accuse Abbas of playing politics with public money. With around 150,000 people on the PA payroll, the ability to switch cash flows on and off at will through allegedly extra-legal means gives the President significant coercive power over a considerable section of the Palestinian population.

The letter goes on cite a litany of other abuses, including a flagrant disregard for human rights, the executive’s unconstitutional domination of the judiciary, arbitrary arrest and incarceration of dissenters and a despotic personalisation of power by Abbas and his inner circle. The signatories also urge the United Nations and foreign governments to pressurise the Palestinian Authority into finally holding elections, with the democratic mandate of President Abbas having long expired.

Not surprisingly, this story (which appears to be about a month old) wasn't published in the Palestinian Arab media, and therefore was missed (as far as I can tell) by every news organization. As I posted yesterday, 80% of Palestinian Arab journalists admit to not publishing the entire truth because of fear of retribution from the PA or Hamas.

To any unbiased observer, it was long obvious that Abbas is much closer to Bashar al-Assad than to Thomas Jefferson. But the Western media and Western governments are so heavily invested in the lie that Abbas is a Western-style, peace-seeking, democratically elected leader that they will bury these sorts of stories that contradict that lie anyway.

Herzog Blasts Bibi: Half Israeli Incomes Below National Average (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

Tel Aviv, February 4 - Opposition leader Isaac Herzog laced into incumbent Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on the economic front today, citing Netanyahu's failure to bring the incomes of the bottom half of Israeli households above the national average.

Central Bureau of Statistics data indicate that during every year that Netanyahu has been in office, fully half of Israeli families failed to earn more than the median figure for all Israeli households. Herzog called a press conference to discuss the findings at the "Zionist Camp" campaign headquarters, and to trumpet what he called "Bibi's unwillingness to help struggling families."

"It is long past time for Binyamin Netanyahu to retire from politics," asserted Herzog, whose political alliance with Hatnuah leader Tzipi Livni is polling at a dead heat with Netanyahu's Likud. "Half of this country's households cannot hope to bring in more than the median income. This statistic is a searing indictment of Netanyahu's policies on the domestic front. Only a socialist-minded government that we would assemble can hope to bridge that gap."

Herzog's ally, former Minister of Justice Tzipi Livni, seconded his remarks. "The math is so simple I am not entirely certain why it took us this long to notice," she said. "But as the statistics indicate, this inequality has been going on for years. "It's a documented feature of the Israeli economy that you can see right from the day Netanyahu took office."

Other Netanyahu opponents weighed in on the data, as well. "Our party has been saying for a very long time that Binyamin Netanyahu is the wrong choice to lead this country, and not only because of our opposition to his policies on the Palestinian front," said Meretz Chairwoman Zahava Gal-On. "As the Statistics Bureau data make clear, half the country's families are wallowing below the median income. This is no way to run an economy."

Meretz MK Ilan Gilon added that he had checked Central Bureau Of Statistics figures for Netanyahu's term in office during the late 1990's and found the same result. "This is not something you can simply blame on the global economy, or a recession," he said. "The late nineties were a time of economic upturn. It's when this country's tech sector really started taking off. But if you look back at the statistics from the first Netanyahu government, it stares you right in the face: back then, as well, half the families in Israel were unable to pull in enough money each month to meet the national average."

Likud representatives declined to comment on the statistics. Sara Netanyahu, the premier's wife, suggested that struggling families could collect used beverage bottles and redeem them for thirty agorot each to help defray expenses.

02/04 Links Pt2: Barry Rubin’s Improbable Journey; Israel & Holocaust historian Martin Gilbert dies 79

From Ian:

Barry Rubin’s Improbable Journey

Today, February 3, marks one year since Barry Rubin, scholar and friend, lost his bout with an aggressive cancer. He was sixty-four. The many tributes published upon his passing celebrated him as a prolific and passionate advocate for his adopted country, Israel, and as a tireless scholar who generated a steady flow of writings and an astonishing array of initiatives: a think tank, several journals, and many conferences. His highly regarded expertise made him the go-to source on the Middle East for journalists, diplomats, and some Israeli public figures.
This was Barry Rubin, the finished product. Had you told me thirty-five years ago, when I first met him, that he would become not only “one of the great intellectual defenders of Israel,” but an Israeli, I would have dismissed you. Nothing would have seemed so improbable.
Barry grew up in northwest Washington to well-to-do parents who strived to assimilate. He later recalled having “no sense of my own history, coming from a family which had tried to obliterate its own past.” Barry had no Zionist upbringing whatsoever—no youth movement, no summer camp, no family trip to Israel. “When I attended one-day-a-week religious school at Washington’s premiere Reform synagogue,” he later wrote, “we were told that Jewish history began with the discovery of the New World. Hebrew was taught without any reference to the existence of the state of Israel.” (Personal experience would inspire the mature Barry to write a book-length critique of Jewish assimilation.)

‘Pugnacious Zionist’ Martin Gilbert was the chronicler of modern Jewry

To the outside world, Sir Martin Gilbert was an eminent historian, a member of Britain’s Iraq Inquiry chaired by Sir John Chilcot, and – overall – Churchill’s biographer.
But to the Jewish world Martin Gilbert, who died Tuesday, was a passionate Jew and Zionist, a Soviet Jewry campaigner and chronicler of the Holocaust, repeatedly using his forensic skills to unpick telling details of the Jewish experience in the 20th century.
In his last summer vacation from Magdalene College Oxford, in 1959, Gilbert, who described himself as a “pugnacious Zionist” at university, went with a group of friends to visit Treblinka, Auschwitz and Birkenau, seeing “the doors of the huts, flapping in the wind.”
It was an unusual trip to have made at the time, but it undoubtedly sowed the seeds of Gilbert’s life-long, clear-eyed commitment to recording the Holocaust. It eventually led to one of Gilbert’s most popular and accessible books, “The Boys,” the personal stories of 732 concentration camp survivors, men and women, who ultimately made their second homes in Britain.
Even the most assiduous you-never-know-when-it-might-come-in-useful research couldn’t really account for the sheer volume of his work, I noted, wondering how on earth he did it.

Dr. Einat Wilf - Personal Experiences that Have Shaped My Views on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Is J-Street engaging in email fraud?

I have signed up for J-Street emails under a fake name in order to see what they are up to.

Yesterday I received an email urging me to contact my representative to tell him or her to sign a letter from Reps. Keith Ellison, Steve Cohen and Maxine Waters urging john Boehner to "postpone" his invitation for Netanyahu to speak to Congress.

Here is the end of the email from J-Street:

In normal email etiquette, what should happen when you click on "Contact Rep. XXXX right now"? At the very least I would expect it to take me to a webpage where I can see the language of the email or petition being sent to my representative in my name, and I would have the choice to sign it, edit it before signing or choose not to do anything.

However, clicking on that link sent me to a "Thank You" page and triggered an immediate follow-up email saying "Thanks for taking action."

What? Clicking on a link that says "Contact XXXX" sends him or her an email under my name that I don't even get a chance to read???

I of course immediately emailed my representative urging him or her to welcome Netanyahu to Washington despite J-Street's deceptive practices.

Just as J-Street is committed to disparaging Israeli democracy by trying to pressure the US to do the opposite of what Israeli voters want, it shows no respect for its supporters to even be able to choose how to write their own emails to their representatives - or to choose not to.

It is the same mentality: J-Street is telling people to trust that it knows better than you, just as it pretends to know better than the Israeis who have to live with the consequences of J-Street's anti-democratic policies.

Moreover, they are sending emails to elected representatives under false pretenses. I believe that this qualifies as email fraud, and Jeremy Ben-Ami needs to address why his organization is using underhanded tactics to inflate the number of names apparently supporting his position.

William Schabas lied, repeatedly, on his application form to UNHRC (UPDATE)

Israel's Channel 2 reported that William Schabas lied in his resignation letter - and on his application form to become the head of the commission to investigate the Gaza war..

In his letter, he wrote:

In early August 2014, when I was asked if I would accept a nomination to the Commission of Inquiry, I was not requested to provide any details on any of my past statements and other activities concerning Palestine and Israel. Of course, my views on Israel and Palestine as well as on many other issues were well known and very public. My curriculum vitae was readily available indicating public lectures and writings on the subject. My opinions were frequently aired on my blog. This work in defence of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks...

But his application did ask him about conflicts of interest. I found it online and it includes a series of three questions about conflict of interest,

Here's the first page:

Here's where he answers, three times, that he has no conflicts of interest - and he lies on at least two of them, questions 1 and 3, based on his resignation letter alone:

I would argue that his answer on question 2 was a lie as well, based on how he wrote his "motivation letter" elsewhere in the document:

The mandate of special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories has proven to be one of the most sensitive and delicate of the special procedures. What I bring to the table is a level of expertise in the relevant legal sources, that is, international humanitarian law, international criminal law and international human rights. A very high standard of legal precision in these areas is important for the credibility of the mandate. Although controversy is inevitable, the 'stakeholders', States and international civil society must have a high level of confidence in the accuracy of the special rapporteur's observations, findings and legal qualifications.

The contribution that the special rapporteur can make in terms of the protection of the population in the occupied territories will be enhanced by an ability to interact in a constructive manner with the Occupying Power. Although a difficult task, especially in light of recent developments, efforts should continue in an attempt to create some level of communication and dialogue as the landscope continues to evolve, transformed by changes in the region and political developments within Palestine, Israel and beyond.

Even though to the media Schabas would emphasize that he would be looking at violations from all sides, here he only emphasizes protection of Gazans and potential actions by Israel. I think that shows that he could not act impartially. At any rate, having a financial relationship with the PLO should disqualify him based on that question anyway.

Are there any consequences for such a prestigious professor to being proven a liar by his own words?

(h/t Yair Rosenberg)

UPDATE: It has been pointed out to me that this was not the application for the specific position as leading the commission of inquiry; rather this was Schabas' application to become the "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories since 1967" which was Rchard Falk's old job.

He still lied, but the last point I made about his interest in protecting Gazans is consistent with that job title. It is very interesting that he applied for Falk's job.
(h/.t Katie)

Journalists protesting Hamas arrest of their colleagues, Jan 27

From Al Monitor:

A late 2014 study by the Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms found that 80% of Palestinian journalists in the West Bank and Gaza practice self-censorship of their writing.

Journalist Ghazi Bani Odeh, who conducted the survey, “The Official Media and Freedom of Expression,” told Al-Monitor that attacks and harassment, and thus fear of them, are the main causes leading journalists to censor themselves.

He told Al-Monitor, “There is no difference between the violations [against journalists] committed in the West Bank and those committed in Gaza, as journalists are equally suppressed, thus leading them to examine every word they write.”

The Internal Security forces under the Gaza Ministry of Interior sent young journalist Youssef Hammad a notice requesting him to appear at its headquarters Dec. 30, 2014. Hammad, who works for Al-Watan Radio and some local websites, told Al-Monitor of his visit: “They threatened me. They said it was the last warning and that if I ever criticize Hamas again in my articles, they will break my knees.”

Hammad said that previously he had received a notice from the Government Information Office run by Hamas. “They asked me about an investigative report I wrote about the conflict in mosques between Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza. This shows that there is no freedom of expression or freedom of the press. There is no security apparatus in the world that believes in these freedoms,” he stated.

Hammad said he tries to resist censorsing himself, “But when I remember two years ago, when the security forces attacked me at a march [I was covering] and left me with a head injury, I control myself when I write. It’s a self-defensive reflex.”

Mohammed Othman, a freelance journalist who writes for Al-Monitor, was physically assaulted and threatened at the headquarters of the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) on Jan. 5. According to Othman, he had published a report about the killing of people accused of collaborating with Israel during the 2014 war. After publication of the report on the web, which contained information provided by a PRC spokesman, the spokesman asked Othman to withdraw the statements. When he refused, he was assaulted. Othman said, “Due to pressure and fear for my safety, Al-Quds TV decided not to publish the video of the interview [with the spokesman] after I was attacked.”

According to the Skeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedoms, in January there were three episodes involving journalists being detained by West Bank security forces and two involving Gaza security, in addition to two attacks in Gaza resulting from lawlessness. One of the latter incidents involved the journalist Maha Abu Omer, who was severely beaten by an unknown man while walking down the street.

Fathi Sabah, who writes for Al-Hayat, said that self-censorship is the name of the game for every Palestinian journalist. According to him, there is a policeman in the mind of every reporter in the West Bank or in Gaza.

“I think that self-censorship is constantly present when a journalist writes about domestic affairs and deals with sensitive issues such as family honor, incest, [social] division or political, administrative and financial corruption plaguing authorities and government departments and structures,” he told Al-Monitor.

“Journalists here fear the threats of parties, officials and families given the absence of the rule of law, the lack of respect for human freedom and the spread of chaos and lawlessness,” Sabah said. He admitted that he practices self-censorship whenever he writes about certain issues related to the resistance, especially after he received several anonymous threats by phone and on Facebook, including death threats.

Khalil Shaheen, director of the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Unit at the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, said that journalists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have faced actual shootings and beatings, in addition to threats, throughout the eight-year Hamas-Fatah split, leading them to apply some sort of self-control in their work.

Must be because of the settlements.

If they aren't allowed to talk about any government corruption or family honor, imagine how little they want to report about the rare Palestinian Arab who wants real peace with Israel!

(h/t messy57)

02/04 Links Pt1: Abbas' Fatah promotes rocket attacks; U.S. Seen in M.E. as Ally of Terrorists

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: U.S. Seen in Middle East as Ally of Terrorists

Many Egyptians and moderate Arabs and Muslims were shocked to hear that the U.S. State Department recently hosted a Muslim Brotherhood delegation. They were equally shocked when an EU court decided to remove Hamas from the bloc's list of terror groups.
"Just two days after the controversial visit, the Brotherhood called for a war against their fellow Egyptians." — Linda S. Heard, Middle East Expert, Gulf News.
"The Muslim Brotherhood is seeking to return to the political arena through the American door and terrorist attacks. The U.S. policy appears to be devious and unreliable." — Ezzat Ibrahim, columnist, Al Ahram.
"[Ousted Egyptian President] Mohamed Morsi, before his election, described these Jews as descendants of apes and pigs. In English, the Muslim Brotherhood says one thing and in Arabic something completely different." — Mohamed Salmawi, Egyptian columnist

Abbas' Fatah promotes rocket attacks

Abbas' Fatah movement has once again demonstrated its support for terror and violence, as Palestinian Media Watch keeps exposing. The above picture showing masked Fatah fighters launching rockets at Israel was posted on Fatah's official Facebook page with a quote from the Quran, indicating that according to Fatah, even Allah sanctions the use of terror attacks:
"If Allah should aid you, no one can overcome you."
(Quran, Sura 3:160, translation Sahih International)
[Facebook, "Fatah - The Main Page", Jan. 27, 2015]
The text on the flag is Islam's declaration of faith: “There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah."
Another recent Fatah post also showed the rifle as an integral part of the Fatah movement and the way it wants to "resist" Israel.

JPost Editorial: Schabas shalom

Schabas’s resignation seals the fate of the misguided UNHRC’s panel of inquiry and its report, slated to be produced at the end of March. By stepping down, Schabas is effectively admitting his own bias, which renders the results of his inquiry inadmissible to any court of justice.
The Schabas controversy would be farcical if it were not tragic. The world is in desperate need of a body with international backing and clout to investigate human rights abuses and bring criminals to justice. The UNHRC was supposed to be precisely this body, but it has failed miserably.
As a result, a double injustice has been performed. Not only has Israel, a country that is not perfect but that strives to protect human rights, been singled out for wildly disproportionate censure, but other countries – Sudan, Syria, Saudi Arabia to name just a few – are allowed to carry on violating basic rights indiscriminately.
It is a small consolation to bid Schabas a hearty “shalom” and witness the trashing of his biased report on purported Israeli war crimes and human rights abuses. Yet while Schabas wasted his time with his “inquiry,” human rights were being abused around the world. The cries for help from Nigeria, Ukraine, and China, however, were met by the UNHRC in Geneva with silence.

UN Watch: UN rights council: Schabas’ resignation “preserves integrity of the process”

Their Gaza probe was run for half a year by a law professor who did paid work for the PLO, but the UN is insisting that Schabas’ sudden resignation under a cloud of bias “preserves the integrity of the process.”
The truth is that Schabas made clear in his resignation letter that he “devoted several months of work” to the project.
As the top expert on the issues, Schabas in those several months of work would have played a leading role in conceiving of the entire project: the scope, framework, methodology, selection of incidents to examine, choice of witnesses, and legal standards to apply.
Schabas would also have had a say in the influential choice of staffers, who do a lion’s share of the work. Finally, Schabas chaired all of the hearings where testimony was delivered and impacted the entire process. He ran the game until the 9th inning.
This is a mistrial. And if Schabas is tainted — because of his ties to the PLO and because of his long record of biased statements and actions — then the taint attaches to the entire commission and report.

Yesterday there was a speaker at Swarthmore College:

Hussein Aboubakr was born in 1989 to an Arab Muslim family in Cairo, Egypt. Hussein studied Jewish and Middle Eastern history and Hebrew literature at the Faculty of Arts and Oriental Studies Department at Cairo University. Persecuted by state police for his research at the Israeli Academic Center of Cairo, Hussein participated in the Egyptian revolution until he was forced to depart Egypt as a political refugee. He now lives in the United States.

A man who was persecuted for his beliefs and research. You can't get a more liberal cause than that, can you?

However, some students are clearly illiberal. From Swarthmore Independent:

The following is an open letter to the Swarthmore community submitted by Swarthmore Students for Israel.

Today, the Swarthmore Students for Israel held an event with an invited speaker, Hussein Aboubakr. Hussein was a victim of torture (both physical and mental), repression, and hatred from his own government in Egypt. His only crime: studying Hebrew in his native country. We brought him in to speak because we believed his story was interesting and offered an important and original perspective on issues in the Middle East.

Our intention was to open a dialogue. Yet some students who attended behaved contemptuously from the very beginning. They opened textbooks and pretended to read while Hussein spoke. They talked amongst themselves. They interrupted and scoffed at him when he told the most harrowing parts of his story. As he tearfully recalled painful experiences in a military prison of being assaulted and cursed at, our peers prepared to yell at him and say that he “can’t f***ing say that.”

Understandably, Hussein reacted negatively to this rude treatment. The students who had come to interrupt now escalated. Soon our question-and-answer session degenerated into a screaming match. Instead of asking the speaker questions, these students yelled at us for bringing him to campus to spread “hatred” and claimed that his lecture “[didn’t] belong here.” One student stood up and proclaimed that he was shocked to hear such opinions at Swarthmore. We thought people attended college to hear new opinions. We expected to people to disagree with him politically. What shocked us was that a survivor of sustained torture could be treated in such a way on our campus.

We should all be able to agree, at a minimum, that guests to our campus, especially those who have suffered extreme physical and mental abuse, should be treated with respect and dignity, regardless of whether we disagree with what they have to say. Alternative opinions should be listened to, not shut down. Unfortunately, those who most fervently advocate diversity seem to be the ones least tolerant of it when it is presented to them, especially in a civilized forum.

What is amazing is that this is not amazing at all.

You can read a couple of Hussein's articles at TOI.

(h/t SWU)

UNESCO president notices that much of Palestinian Arab poster culture is violent (update)

A few years ago I got some flack for making this poster:

There is an elephant in the room, that Palestinian Arab culture is suffused with glorification of violence and terror acts. And that is part of what I was calling attention to by commenting on "Palestine" joining an educational and cultural institution.

Amazingly, the new UNESCO head seems to have noticed this, at least in terms of Palestinian Arab poster art:

The head of UNESCO vetoed the inclusion of a vast collection of Palestine-themed posters in a register of world heritage, arguing that the posters fuel hatred and anti-Semitism, The Times of Israel has learned.

The decision by Irina Bokova to block the Liberation Graphics Collection of Palestine Posters from being accepted into UNESCO’s Memory of the World program marks the first time such a nomination has been vetoed.

The collection was initially accepted by an advisory board but then blocked by Bokova, who said some of the posters were “totally unacceptable” and “run counter to the values of UNESCO,” the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

Besides universal themes of occupation and the motifs depicting the struggle for liberation and peace — such as barbed wire and white doves — many of the posters feature machine guns and hand grenades, extolling armed resistance and terrorism. Some of the posters glorify Palestinian suicide attacks and other murderous missions against Israeli civilians, including a 1978 massacre known in Israel as the bloodiest terror attack in the country’s history.

In August, the collection — which includes some 1,700 posters celebrating the Palestinian national liberation movement — was accepted for formal review by UNESCO’s International Memory of the World Register, which strives to preserve archival holdings of “world significance and outstanding universal value.”

Usually, nominations are considered by an international advisory board, and, if approved, confirmed by the organization’s director-general. In this particular case, too, the board reviewed the nomination and none of its members raised any concerns, which indicated that the board would recommend that the director-general formally accept the collection into the register.

However in this case, Bokova, surprised that no one had raised any objections to the posters, said she has decided to block the collection’s approval.

“In my capacity of Director General of UNESCO, I will oppose any such proposal for inscription,” she wrote in a December 23 letter to the chair of the advisory board, Helena Asamoah-Hassan. Some of the posters “would seem totally unacceptable and run counter to the values of UNESCO and its aspiration to build peace in the minds of men and women,” Bokova wrote.

She is of course right. The entire collection can be seen here, and there are many posters that glorify terror as well as gleefully call for the destruction of Israel:

And some posters are undeniably antisemitic:

This worship of hate and violence is so embedded in Palestinian Arab culture that the UNESCO board could not find any problems with this artwork - how else would Palestinians celebrate their culture?

Bokova's decision wipes away the fog of willful ignorance around this aspect of Palestinian "culture" (a culture that, as I noted previously, did not seem to produce any poster art before 1967.)

It is sad that the world's standards for how Palestinian Arabs are expected to act is so low that this collection did not even raise eyebrows at UNESCO until now. It is astonishing that the head of UNESCO has publicly exposed the elephant.

UPDATE: UNESCO denies everything in this story, says that the collection is still under consideration. (h/t Ian)

US reportedly offers concessions to Iran in exchange for - boosting Iran's regional power

Can the Obama administration really be this pathetically stupid? From JPost:

European diplomats have told Israeli officials in recent days that the United States and Iran are moving closer to an agreement that would allow the Islamic Republic to keep a large number of centrifuges in return for guaranteeing regional stability, Army Radio is reporting on Tuesday.

According to EU officials, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, have discussed increasing the number of centrifuges which Iran would be permitted to keep. In exchange, the Iranians would undertake an obligation to bring their influence to bear in order to ensure quiet in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.

European diplomats are quoted by Israeli officials as saying that the US in recent weeks has made significant concessions in its talks with Iran, so much so that it is willing to permit Tehran to operate 6,500 centrifuges while lifting sanctions that have hurt its economy this past decade.

The Europeans have told the Israelis that these concessions were offered in exchange for Iranian promises to maintain regional stability. According to Army Radio, the EU is opposed to the proposed linkage between the nuclear issue and other geopolitical matters. In fact, the Europeans suspect that Washington is operating behind Brussels’ back and that Kerry has not bothered to keep them in the loop in his talks with Zarif.

Israel is concerned that the Obama administration’s willingness to allow Iran to keep centrifuges would in effect render Tehran a “nuclear threshold state,” enabling it to assemble a nuclear bomb within months if it so chooses. Such a scenario is unacceptable to the Israelis.

Is that how negotiations work nowadays - demanding that the other side get what they want in exchange for giving them more of what they want?

Why would the White House trust a nation that controls the Hezbollah thugs who are destroying Lebanon from the inside, a nation that makes daily threats against Israel, a nation that only this month was further implicated in a major terrorist attack in Argentina, a nation that openly funds and arms terror groups in Gaza and says explicitly that they want to arm Arabs in the West Bank to start a new Intifada, a nation with links to terror attacks in Europe, a nation that recruits people to assassinate diplomats on American soil, a nation that is building ICBMs that can reach the US, a nation that continuously lies about its nuclear weapons program - why in the world would such a nation be trusted to promote regional stability??

Why promote a strategy to promote Shiite rule throughout the Middle East, against the wishes of the 85% of Muslims who are Sunni?

A great example of Iran's Shiite partners are the Houthis who are on the verge of taking over Yemen, These are the people whose very logo is the slogan "God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel, Damn the Jews, Power to Islam." These are the people who will guarantee regional stability?

If you want a technical analysis of why it is literally impossible for Iran to guarantee stability even if it was the most trustworthy of allies, J. E. Dyer goes into the details - and her predictions of what would result are dire. But Iran is an enemy of the US and it will remain an enemy of the US no matter how many concessions Obama makes to them. Just like Sunni extremists, Iran prefers regional chaos to calm as a means to grab more power.

Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of evil seems like the minor leagues compared to Barack Obama's.

Egypt seems REALLY upset at idea of teaching the Holocaust

I recently mentioned that UNESCO had completed a study of which nations' schools teach about the Holocaust.

In the wake of that report and its recommendations, Egyptian newspaper Vetogate has no less than seven articles that are against the idea of Egyptian schools teaching the Holocaust.

Besides the main article about the UNESCO report, it published:

Dr. Sana Juma, a curriculum development expert at the Ministry Center of Education, said adding the Holocaust to the Egyptian school curriculum was "nearly impossible" since it would take so much effort.

Dr. Nawal Shelby, a former director of the Center for Curriculum Development of the Ministry of Education, said "there is no need" to add the Holocaust to the curriculum.

Mohammed Fathallah, "educational expert," called UNESCO's guidelines an interference into Egypt's affairs, adding that UNESCO must respect that each state has the full right to determine their own curricula which are part of its sovereignty, and that Egypt has a capable experts to determine the required curriculum according to scientific studies. He added that UNESCO's report is a kind of cheap political trade, saying that "Israel committed numerous massacres and holocausts in Palestine and the Arab states and still practices it, and UNESCO and other organizations are not taking into account the feelings of the Arab countries."

A second interview with Fathallah, this time called a "parenting expert," said that any subject taught should be subject to the curriculum experts and review by reliable educational leaders. He added thateducation should not be politicized.

Reza Massad, "educational expert," said that the Ministry of Education can not permit teaching the Holocaust, particularly as the Holocaust id disputed by historians and teaching it would lead the ministry into political controversy.

Dr Hassan Shehata, an "expert educator and professor of curriculum" at Ain Shams University, said that the goal behind teaching of this "incident" is to promote sympathy with the Jews and show that they have suffered. This is, he says, inconsistent with the reality of the Arab in his struggle with the Jews throughout the ages, noting that they are performing many massacres every day against the Palestinians and no one calls for the teaching of such facts in history.

The UNESCO report sure seems to have touched a nerve in Egypt.

02/03 Links Pt2: Jewish connection to Hebron cannot be denied; French soldiers attacked at Jewish center

From Ian:

'Jewish connection to Hebron cannot be denied'

President Reuven Rivlin visited Kiryat Arba and Hebron on Monday, becoming the first Israeli president to do so in 17 years. Rivlin attended the inaugural ceremony of a new visitors center at the Jewish Heritage Museum in Beit Hadassah and also visited the Tomb of the Patriarchs.
During Rivlin's visit, dozens of Meretz party activists protested against the president's visit and the opening of the new visitors center. At one point, there was an altercation between the activists and local Jewish residents.
In his speech at Kiryat Arba, Rivlin said, "We are allowed to disagree, but we must not disrespect each other, whether we are on the Right or on the Left."
From there, Rivlin continued to Hebron, the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and the visitors center's inaugural ceremony with Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi David Lau.
"The museum tells a 3,800-year story," Rivlin said. "Even those who have different opinions regarding the presence of the Jewish community in Hebron cannot deny the deep connection of the Jewish people to the city."

UN Watch: UN rights chief who ignored anti-Semitism to address Holocaust Museum

Is UN rights chief Zeid the right person to address the Holocaust Museum this week?
Last week he issued a statement on the Holocaust that — unlike the remarks of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon — noticeably refused to mention the word anti-Semitism once, neither in relation to the Nazi genocide, nor in relation to the continuing attacks and incitement against Jews today in Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere.
Today’s UN press release follows below.
High Commissioner Zeid today begins the first official visit by a UN Human Rights Chief to Washington D.C. to meet senior U.S administration officials and Members of Congress since 2007, when former High Commissioner Louise Arbour made a similar visit.
Zeid, who took up his position as the fifth UN High Commissioner for Human Rights last September, will hold meetings with State Department and other U.S. Government officials, including National Security Adviser Susan Rice, to discuss a wide range of overseas and domestic issues. He will also meet with around eight senior members of the House of Representatives and the Senate.
On Thursday, at 10:00 a.m., Zeid will deliver an address entitled “Can Atrocities be Prevented? Living in the Shadow of the Holocaust” at a public event at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington. He will also attend two round-table events with Civil Society organisations.

Richard Millett: Investigations and media coverage in aftermath of LSE Palsoc/Femsoc event.

LSE’s Israel Society immediately lodged a complaint against the LSE Student Union over Baker’s remarks (Why not over Agha’s remarks also?) and the Feminist Society immediately apologised:
“Having reviewed the statements, regarding applauding an attack against Israeli soldiers, made by a speaker at our event we apologise unequivocally on behalf of the Feminist Society. We give platforms to oppressed peoples, including those under violent occupations, but that does not mean that their views always reflect our own. The Feminist Society is truly regretful that we have caused offence.”
Shamefully, the same cannot be said of the Palestine Society which stated:
“Although the LSESU Palestine Society does not necessarily share the views held by the speaker, we maintain that she is entitled to them and is free to express her analysis on the issue, whatever that may be.”
Incredibly, the chairperson of last week’s event Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, a research fellow at the LSE’s Middle East Centre, then took the issue to new depths with her equating of Israelis and Nazis. She said to the online newspaper:
“These resistance military actions were done in the western history by the IRA, during the American and French revolutions. At a lesser extent, Jews resisted against the Nazist (sic) kidnappers, but faced certain death, the same as Palestinians who committed violence against the Israelis certainly face certain death.”

OneVoice Palestine campaign implies destruction of Israel (update)

We've mentioned OneVoice, the foreign-funded, supposedly moderate organization that is actively campaigning to defeat Netanyahu in the upcoming elections.

Here is the logo of a campaign that was started in October by OneVoice Palestine called The Land Is Ours:

Was the keffiyehed man intentionally drawn to resemble the entire British Mandate of Palestine - meaning that is OneVoice advocating the destruction of Israel?

Normally I would discount this sort of theory. However, when you watch the video that accompanies it, twice in the first three seconds of the introduction the entire Palestine map part of the drawing flashes (with thunder), to draw attention to it. Nothing else is illuminated by this "lightning."

Given how much importance Arabs attach to symbolism, this seems to be no coincidence. (Remember, Yassir Arafat used to arrange his keffiyeh to resemble a map of British Mandate Palestine.)

While I doubt that the funders of OneVoice want to get that message across, the Arab producers of this film ensure that the Arab viewers get the real message loud and clear.

OneVoice Palestine also has had as one of its honorary board members Sheikh Taysir Tamimi. At the time he was appointed, around 2005, they defended their choice of having him, saying that his intolerant remarks were over a decade old. Since then, Tamimi has engaged in regular incitement, often predicting that Jews would destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque or massacre worshipers, in order to start a religious war. Tamimi also managed to upset, of all people, the Pope with his antics.

(h/t Yoel, Ronn)

UPDATE: A number of readers point out that the image is reworked from a famous Soviet anti-Nazi propaganda poster, "Motherland Calls":

It clearly is, but I still maintain that the decision as to what portion of the body to colorize in the otherwise monochromatic poster was to mimic the map of the British Mandate.

Hasby Award:Best Pro-Israel Speech

The nominees for the 2015 Hasby Award for Best Pro-Israel Speech are:

George Deek in Oslo

Rachel Frenkel, Bat Galim Sha'er & Iris Yifrah at UNHRC

Canadian PM Stephen Harper at the Knesset

Bibi at the UNGA

Ben Shapiro at UCLA

Col. Richard Kemp on the Gaza war

This is another very difficult category.

And the winner of the Hasby for Best Speech is...

02/03 Links Pt1: New Chair Can’t Salvage UN Gaza Travesty; Captain Kangaroo Covers His Behind

From Ian:

New Chair Can’t Salvage UN Gaza Travesty

It should be recalled that the UNHRC’s investigation of the 2008 war in Gaza—the Goldstone Commission—was a travesty that was focused almost entirely on delegitimizing Israeli self-defense while largely downplaying the actual war crimes committed by the Hamas rulers of Gaza. Ultimately Judge Richard Goldstone, the South African Jew who had been appointed to chair that commission, repudiated its findings. But that recantation came too late. The damage was already done. Whereas the UNHRC thought to put a more acceptable face on its Star Chamber investigation of Israel with Goldstone, naming Schabas showed it no longer thought it worth the bother to even put up a pretense of objectivity.
That’s why Schabas’s withdrawal changes nothing about the UNHRC’s prejudice or its methods. No one who is likely to be named to this post would be objective and anyone who was would quickly discover, as Goldstone eventually did, that the UNHRC’s staff has one objective with respect to Israel and it is not fairness or the truth.
But rather than focus solely on what is, in effect, a pro forma effort that will produce a raft of slanders and distortions no matter what evidence is presented to the panel, observers should be directing their attention to the UNHRC itself. Despite efforts to reform it, this agency remains one of the worst examples of UN bias against Israel and the Jews. Rather than helping to stem the rising tide of anti-Semitism around the world, the UNHRC is aiding and abetting it. Rather than wring its hands about the likelihood of an unfair attack on Israel about the Gaza war, the United States ought to be pulling out of the UNHRC and leading efforts to isolate it so as to prevent the world body from doing even more damage. But since the Obama administration is led by a president who is infatuated with the UN and often enraged by the temerity of Israel’s leaders to both defend their country and to urge others to speak out against threats to its security—such as the Iranian nuclear threat—don’t expect common sense or courage from Washington on the UNHRC.
In the meantime, decent persons both here and elsewhere should be denouncing the UNHRC’s latest attempt to smear Israel, no matter who is at its head.

UN Watch: Backstory: Schabas quit UN inquiry following growing pressure from colleagues

Why did William Schabas finally step down as chair of the UN inquiry on Gaza?
The latest revelation that he was paid by the PLO for legal advice in 2012 was the last straw, but the decision came in wake of a sustained campaign by UN Watch starting from the day of his appointment, which included videos of Schabas calling for the indictment of Israeli leaders, a formal UN Watch legal brief demanding his recusal that was submitted to the UN in an official filing, and UN Watch op-eds urging legal scholars to speak out against the absurd appointment of Schabas. Many did so.
Over the past several months of the campaign, some of the world’s most prominent international lawyers and human rights activists around the world—jurists well known to Schabas because he cites them as authorities in his works, or they are professional, faculty or law review colleagues—called for him to step down.

Hillel Neuer argues before U.N. plenary: "Schabas must step down"

NGO Monitor: Schabas Resignation: What Else Has Not Been Disclosed?

The revelation that Schabas previously did legal work for the PLO raises numerous questions, which should be publically and transparently addressed by the UNHRC.
- What other conflicts of interest did Schabas not disclose?
- What connections and consultancies did Schabas have with politicized NGOs such as Amnesty International and what role did these NGOs have in the UN “investigation”?
- How did the UN’s vetting process fail? According to news reports, Schabas “was not asked to detail his consultancy work when he was appointed.”
- If UN officials were previously aware of Schabas’ connections to the PLO, why was this information not disclosed earlier?
Journalists also have a responsibility to pursue these avenues of inquiry.
“Before there is further embarrassment, the Commission should disband immediately,” continued Prof. Steinberg. “From the beginning, the Commission’s mandate was part of the campaign to single out of Israel through the exploitation of human rights and international law. The Human Rights Council failed to learn the lessons from Judge Goldstone’s denunciation of his own pseudo-investigation in 2009.”

Independent (UK) calls Netanyahu "sinister" in his "Bibi-sitter" ad

Let's review and insult an Israeli TV campaign ad without knowing a thing about the context!

Here's a real description of this ad meant for a non-Israeli audience from Arutz-7:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is getting excellent reviews from commenters following the release of his latest campaign video.

The video features a young couple that is about to leave for a night out when the baby-sitter knocks at the door. “You asked for a babysitter? You got a Bibi-sitter,” says Netanyahu.

"Look, it's either me or Tzipi [Livni] and Buji [Herzog],” he explains to the bewildered couple. The couple immediately protests that their children would need to babysit Herzog, and not the other way around. In addition, “by the time we return we'd have no house... he'd even hand over the carpets” – a play on the Hebrew words “shtichim” (carpets) and “shtachim” (territories).

As for “Tzipi” – the woman says she doubts that she would stay in the same place for two hours, and Netanyahu agrees she would probably have gone over to the neighbors' by the time they returned. This, of course, is a swipe at Livni's frequent migration from one political party to another.

At one point in the video, Netanyahu can be seen sitting in the couple's living room, watching Likud's earlier, banned campaign video, which featured Netanyahu as a kindergarten teacher trying to control rowdy children, who played the roles of Livni, Yesh Atid's Yair Lapid, Jewish Home's Naftali Bennett and Yisrael Beytenu's Avigdor Liberman. The video was banned because of the illegal use of child actors, but it seems the new video is a spin-off of sorts.

When the couple returns and greets him with the word "Shalom" - hello - but also the word for "peace", Netanyahu responds "but not at any price."

Here is how the clueless Independent describes it:

Few sights are as unnerving as seeing a giggling Benjamin Netanyahu throwing popcorn into his mouth under a duvet as he watches a video of himself shouting at children.

According to the Israeli Prime Minister, this is what constitutes as child care, at least in the context of the new political party advert he posted on Facebook ahead of Israel’s general election in March.

In it, he plays mildly sinister babysitter, who turns up at one couple’s house entirely uninvited.

They are delighted, but panicked, presumably as they’d expected a 16-year-old wearing loose-fitting jeans and expression of mild disdain and instead got a grey-haired 65-year-old in a loose-fitting suit wearing an expression of mild lunacy.

He then announces to the pair that he is the “Bibi-sitter” – the only one in the nation who can look after the country’s children – while Zionist Camp Party leaders Tzipi Livni and Isaac Herzog, his political opponents, are not to be trusted.

“This election, vote for who will care for your children,” he says to camera.

The parents leave, only to return to their house moments later to find Netanyahu nesting on the sofa and their children no-where to be seen.

“Shalom (Peace)!” they shout with glee.

“Not unconditionally,” Netanyahu replies

Here's the actual video with English captions.:

Nah, no media bias there!

William Schabas has linked to his letter of resignation from his blog.

His spin is interesting enough:

On 13 January 2015, the Jerusalem Post reported that attempts to discredit the Chair will be part of Israel’s campaign against the Commission of Inquiry on the Gaza Conflict. Two weeks later Israel made a formal complaint to the President of the Human Rights Council calling for my removal. On 2 February 2015, the Bureau of the Human Rights Council, which operates as its executive or standing committee between regular sessions, decided to examine the complaint and to request a legal opinion from United Nations Headquarters in New York.

The complaint concerns the fact that in October 2012, I prepared a legal opinion for the ‘Negotiations Affairs Department/Palestinian Negotiations Support Project’ of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The legal opinion was to consider the consequences of a UN General Assembly resolution upgrading Palestine’s status to that of a non-member state on the declaration that was lodged by Palestine with the International Criminal Court in January 2009. It also addressed whether accession should include acceptance of the amendments to the Statute adopted at Kampala and how the territorial jurisdiction of the Court might be applied. These are matters on which, as one of the academic specialists on the subject of the Rome Statute, I have frequently expressed myself in lectures and in publications. A 7-page opinion was provided on 28 October 2012 and I received remuneration of $1,300, as previously agreed. I have done no other consultation and provided no other opinions for the State of Palestine, the Palestinian Liberation Organisation or any other related body.

The complaint about my brief consultancy, as I understand it, is not about the content, which is of a technical legal nature, but the implication that in some way I am henceforth beholden to the Palestine Liberation Organisation. Perhaps there is also the suggestion that I might tailor my opinions in one direction in order to generate more such consulting for remuneration. If I were indeed motivated by financial gain, it would be hard to explain why I would have accepted the position as Chair of the Commission of Inquiry, to which I have gladly devoted several months of work and for which there is no remuneration whatsoever.

THis is dripping with his condescending attitude. Schabas cannot even allow that being paid by one of the parties under investigation, no matter how small, is enough to disqualify any judge; instead he pretends that his using the commission as a platform to attack Israel is simply a humanitarian gesture on his part.

His claim that his lack of remuneration proves that his motives are pure is as close to hogwash as one can imagine. His consultancy business would be expected to soar after a high profile UN commission of inquiry, and his fees for public speaking would easily go up by a factor of ten.

This part of the letter alone proves how little Schabas cares about truth and fairness. In a sane world, this in itself should be enough to ensure that his opinions are tainted forever more. Israel didn't discredit Schabas; he discredited himself.

But the most telling part of his letter actually isn't what it reveals about him, but what he unwittingly reveals about the UN Human Rights Council:

In early August 2014, when I was asked if I would accept a nomination to the Commission of Inquiry, I was not requested to provide any details on any of my past statements and other activities concerning Palestine and Israel. Of course, my views on Israel and Palestine as well as on many other issues were well known and very public. My curriculum vitae was readily available indicating public lectures and writings on the subject. My opinions were frequently aired on my blog. This work in defence of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks which, if Israel’s complaint is to be taken at face value, will only intensify in the weeks to come.

Can you imagine hiring anyone for any position where objectivity is a key component of the job, and not even asking a single question about such conflicts of interest?

On the contrary. Schabas' description of how he was chosen implies that the UNHRC chose him because of his well-known attitudes towards Israel, not in spite of them!

In other words, instead of his resignation letter showing that he is unfairly being attacked as he intends, it shows that the criticism of both him and the entire commission is more than justified. Schabas' letter proves not only his own unsuitability for the job; it shows UNHRC's bias that underlies the entire idea of a commission of inquiry to begin with.

Of course, the anti-Israel world will look at this differently. Schabas will still get his speaking gigs at CAIR dinners and at SOAS lectures. He will be a welcome guest on Al Jazeera and he will parlay this bit of supposedly pro-bono humanitarian work into a cash bonanza, now as a martyr that was mercilessly attacked by the Israel lobby.

(h/t Gidon Shaviv)

UPDATE: Israel's letter that caused this chain of events:

Al Hayat al Jadida, which is an official Palestinian Authority daily newspaper, published a cartoon of Mohammed this week.

The cartoon was complimentary, showing Mohammed on top of a globe spreading "seeds of love."

Mahmoud Abbas sprung into action, ordering an immediate investigation. He emphasized the need to take deterrent action against offenders , stressing respect for sacred religious symbols.

Al Hayat al Jadida panicked and issued an immediate apology, saying it had created an inquiry into the matter and saying that the point of the cartoon was to emphasize Islam's love of peace.

The artist, Mohammed Sabanneh, a Muslim, said he meant no harm. Backtracking from the caption of the cartoon, he wrote on Facebook that it was not a picture of Mohammad but "a symbol of humanity enlightened by what the Prophet Muhammad brought."

His life is becoming a living hell because of his attempt to show a message of how peaceful Islam is.

UPDATE: We've discussed this cartoonist before. He was arrested for taking money for Hamas in Jordan, but he told the world he was arrested by Israel because of his cartoons. This might get interesting... (h/t Vandoren)