It couldn't be as easy as just shipping them through Israel to the the Kerem Shalom crossing, could it?
The report makes it clear that the purpose of the Imam Khomeini Foundation is political, not charitable.
(h/t B.)
A European Union official involved in negotiating on behalf of the EU over the text of Friday’s UN Human Rights Council resolution that condemned Israel for last summer’s Gaza War is married to a staff member of the UNHRC commission that investigated the war.9 Successful Anti-Academic BDS Strategies to Defeat Academic BDS
The link between EU policy officer Jérôme Bellion-Jourdan, who was tasked with reviewing the Gaza war report and helping advise EU representatives on how to vote on it, and McGowan Davis Commission staffer Sara Hamood was known to the EU but not made public.
David Harris, the head of the American Jewish Committee, protested what he called a “conflict of interest.” Harris told The Times of Israel on Monday that he took particular exception to the failure of the EU to disclose the marital connection between one of its key officials involved in dealing with the UNHRC report and a UNHRC staffer who worked for the commission.
Only on Tuesday, in response to a Times of Israel question, did the EU publicly acknowledge the connection for the first time. It denied there was a conflict of interest. (h/t Yenta Press)
In recent weeks and months, I have watched academics, students, major donors and Israel advocacy organization leaders in Israel and in the Diaspora try to counter the growing menace of both overt and silent academic boycotts. Several well meaning, but misguided, efforts are apparent to me, as one who had significant success in helping Israeli scholars and academic institutions thwart academic boycotts from Europe, Canada, South Africa and elsewhere the mid-2000s, long before American Jewish leaders believed there was a crisis.Clinton issues missives against Israel boycott movement
I would like to share some successful strategies based on successes of the past, prior to BDS reaching America’s shores, to the relative newcomers to this struggle, since this has been an ongoing international struggle since 2003 when a UK faculty union first started boycott campaigns against targeted Israeli universities. My suggestions fly in the face of the way most big donors and mainline Jewish groups operate, but these are ways which have deflated academic BDS before and could once again be successful.
1) Develop anti-academic BDS strategies around academic principles and not ideological pro-Israel strategies. There is precedent for this from such prestigious groups as the American Association of University Professors whose anti-academic boycott position is articulate and clear as well as the statement crafted by Alan Dershowitz, myself, Nobel Laureates Steven Weinberger and Roger Kornberg and a committee of distinguished academics serving the now-defunct, but very successful, SPME BDS Task Force which was signed by 44 Nobel Laureates.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton expressed concern regarding efforts to boycott Israel in letters to Jewish leaders, calling for legislative action to support the Jewish state.Hillary: George Soros is NO Friend of Israel
Writing to Israeli tycoon Haim Saban and Jewish communal leader Malcolm Hoenlein, Clinton asked for their help in devising a plan to counter the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.
“I am seeking your advice on how we can work together […] to reverse this trend with information and advocacy,” the former secretary of state wrote in identical letters last week.
Clinton said she was concerned by attempts to compare Israeli policies to South Africa’s apartheid regime, which was successfully boycotted by the world community in the 1980s in a campaign seen as an inspiration for Israel boycott advocates.
“Particularly at a time when anti-Semitism is on the rise across the world — especially in Europe — we need to repudiate forceful efforts to malign and undermine Israel and the Jewish people,” she wrote.
While Hillary Clinton is claiming that she will be better for Israel than President Obama was, its noteworthy that George Soros, the world’s most dangerous billionaire donated $1 Million this week to Priorities USA Action, a super PAC dedicated to supporting Hillary Clinton in her Presidential bid. Soros is someone who has long supported causes which are harmful to the State of Israel.
Soros is a prominent donor to J Street, and made a speech in front of the Jewish Funders Network where he said “European anti-Semitism is the result of the policies of Israel and the United States.” He has said that “America is the gravest threat to world freedom” and generally stands against many Western interests.
Let’s review further what George Soros did during World War II which has sparked controversy, courtesy of an interview on ‘60 Minutes’
Former United States Senator Joe Lieberman has said that Soros’s views on America are “so negative, so critical, and so often anti-American.” Simply, this man who is a major funder of Hillary is no friend of Israel. Hillary must dis-associate from the world’s most dangerous billionaire.
While many coalition airstrikes were directed at legitimate military targets in the city, Human Rights Watch identified several attacks that appeared to violate international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, and resulted in numerous civilian deaths and injuries.Amnesty:
Coalition attacks struck at least six residential houses not being used for military purposes. One attack killed 27 members of a single family, including 17 children. The airstrikes also hit at least five markets for which there was no evidence of military activity. Aerial attacks on an empty school and a crowded petrol station appear also to have violated the laws of war.
These eight cases investigated by Amnesty International must be independently and impartially investigated as possible disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks. The findings of any investigation must be made public, and those suspected of responsibility for serious violations of the laws of war must be brought to justice in fair trials.On the other hand, Amnesty declared after only a couple of weeks of the Gaza war that Israel was guilty of "serious violations of international humanitarian law [and] serious human rights abuses" as it called on the US and other countries to suspend all shipments of weapons to Israel.
‘The attention of the world has been drawn to the plight of the half-million Arab refugees from Israeli territory and from Jerusalem. But little attention has been paid to the treatment of the 70,000 (or, according to later reports, 100,000) Arabs who have remained in Israel or who have returned to their homes. Yet the story is worth telling. For the young Israeli Government is setting an example of care for its minorities. As soon as it was constituted, it set up a special Ministry of Minorities with the function of securing equal rights for all citizens and freedom of religion, language, education, and culture. The Minister is a native-born Jew from Tiberias, from an Oriental family; he was for many years an officer in the Palestine Administration, first in the Police, and then a magistrate. Mr Shitreet* is at the moment also the Minister for Police, but he gives his heart and mind to his other portfolio.
The chattering class has spent months bickering about whether or not the United States should sign on to a nuclear deal with Iran, and everyone from the French and the Israelis to the Saudis has weighed in with “no” votes. Hardly anyone aside from the Saudis, however, seems to recognize that the Iranian government’s ultimate goal is regional hegemony and that its nuclear weapons program is simply a means to that end.Has the Obama Administration Become Iran’s Lawyer?
The Middle East has five hot spots—or “shatter zones,” as Robert D. Kaplan called them in his landmark book, The Revenge of Geography—which are more prone to conflict than others, where borders are either unstable or porous, where central governments have a hard time keeping everything wired together, and where instability is endemic or chronic.
Gaza, where Hamas wages relentless rocket wars against Israel, is one such shatter zone. The Lebanese-Israeli border, where Hezbollah does the same on a much more terrifying scale, is another. Yemen, which is finally falling apart on an epic scale, has been one for decades. Syria and Iraq have merged into a single multinational shatter zone with more armed factions than anyone but the CIA can keep track of.
What do these shatter zones have in common? The Iranian government backs militias and terrorist armies in all of them. As Kaplan writes, “The instability Iran will cause will not come from its implosion, but from a strong, internally coherent nation that explodes outward from a natural geographic platform to shatter the region around it.”
That’s why Iran is a problem for American foreign policy makers in the first place; and that’s why trading sanctions relief for an international weapons inspection regime will have no effect on any of it whatsoever.
The smart money here in Vienna is on the likelihood of a nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran being finalized at any moment. Maybe it will happen today with the White House showing the good manners to wait until after Americans have returned from their July 4 vacations to announce that they’ve cleared the way for Iran to get a bomb. Or maybe the Iranians will get the bomb in a little more than a decade, as the president of the United States has explained, but it will probably happen much sooner. And when the clerical regime does finally break out, the chances are they’re the Iranians will be the ones who are going to let the American public know because our elected officials seem to be keeping information from us and our allies when it comes to all things Iran.Dennis Ross: On Iran, Worry About the Deal, Not the Deadline
Indeed, it looks like the Obama administration has become Iran’s lawyer. In both making Tehran’s case to U.S. allies (from the White House’s P5+1 negotiating partners, to Middle East friends like Israel and Saudi Arabia), and shaping public perception of Iranian actions, the White House has made itself an indispensable friend to the clerical regime. Iran doesn’t have to worry about justifying its behavior—like its failure to meet obligations under the interim nuclear agreement and its outright lies—because it knows the administration will do all the heavy lifting.
Consider how the White House has managed to explain away Iran’s illicit nuclear activities. In the first place, the Joint Plan of Action is a somewhat weak document. It fails to prohibit the sorts of things you might expect to be banned if Iran’s program was really “frozen,” like the White House says. For instance, even though there are UN security council resolutions regarding Iran’s procurement of parts and equipment for illicit nuclear work, the JPOA has sidestepped the issue. The resulting framework is that when the Iranians get caught violating those resolutions, the State Department can declare that Iran is not in technical violation of the JPOA.
There’s also the issue of Iran coming clean about its past nuclear activities in order to disclose the possible military dimensions of the program. Despite the fact that the Obama administration has repeatedly assured skeptics that Iran would address the question of PMDs, the IAEA has reported that Iran fails to address outstanding questions or allow inspections of certain sites. But since PMDs are not in the JPOA, the State Department can brush away such concerns.
Just as June 30 turned out not to be a true deadline for the Iranian nuclear talks, it would be wise to treat July 7 — the extended deadline — much the same way. The Obama administration should make clear that it is prepared to conclude a deal at any time, provided it is fully consistent with the framework understanding from April; anything less, and there will be no deal. If the Iranians insist on trying to walk back or redefine the framework understanding, they will not only stretch out the negotiations but will lead us to harden our own position and impose new conditions.
Taking such a stance is all the more critical now, with Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, seemingly laying down conditions that are inconsistent with the framework understanding — no access to military sites or scientists, immediate sanctions relief upon signing of the agreement, no limits on research and development, and rejection of any restrictions on its program lasting 10-12 years. Was the supreme leader signaling that he does not want a deal? Was he posturing so his negotiators could seek more concessions? Was he playing domestic politics and trying to assuage hard-line opponents of a deal?
My bet is on posturing. Of course, his revolutionary ideology and hostility toward the United States, as well as the reality that there are hard-line opponents of an agreement, mean that he might not only be posturing to influence the negotiations. It may, in fact, be difficult for him to conclude a deal. Still, Khamenei has allowed these negotiations to continue and permitted his negotiators — whom he continues to defend — to conclude the framework understanding. Clearly, he decided Iran has much to gain from an agreement. And the fact is that an agreement consistent with the framework understanding offers Iran a lot.
Egypt's Foreign Ministry issues foreign press corps a style guide for how we should describe terrorist groups. pic.twitter.com/AAn9MNcLxC
— Alex Ortiz (@azortiz) July 4, 2015
The draft anti-terrorism law approved by Egypt's cabinet last week includes "dangerous articles" which threaten media and press freedoms, the press syndicate said on Monday.This means, for example, that if Egyptian forces kill civilians and blame terrorists, reporters could go to jail for reporting it.
The syndicate's board discussed the draft law during a meeting on Monday, when it stressed that it stands by the armed forces in its fight against "terrorist attacks".
The cabinet passed the draft on Wednesday and referred it to the State Council, after militants in Sinai escalated their attacks on security forces in the peninsula.
The syndicate's board said in a statement issued after the meeting it would contact with other syndicates, political parties and civil society organisations to agree on a unified stance to "face the articles which restrict press freedoms" in the draft. The syndicate listed five articles in the draft as such.
Among the most controversial articles is Article 33, which punishes by a minimum of two years in prison the publishing of "false news or data" which contradict official data on "terrorist operations".
Heneidi said the article would come into effect only if four conditions are met: if the case is related to "terrorism", if it is deliberate, if it involves publishing false news, and if such news contradicts official data.
I have no problem with the media choosing to call Islamic terrorists "militants" but when governments start to tell the media what to do, then that is a major problem. Not only because of the intimidation that accompanies such demands, but also because readers will not know that the coverage is being slanted by the government. This happened countless times in Gaza, in Lebanon and elsewhere, and the media refusing to push back and publicize these efforts to muzzle them makes it complicit to some extent.Prime Minister David Cameron recently joined the growing chorus of British politicians who argue that the name "Islamic State" is offensive to Muslims and should be banned from the English vocabulary.During an interview with BBC Radio 4's "Today" program on June 29 — just days after a jihadist with links to the Islamic State killed 38 people (including 30 Britons) at a beach resort in Tunisia — Cameron rebuked veteran presenter John Humphrys for referring to the Islamic State by its name.When Humphrys asked Cameron whether he regarded the Islamic State to be an existential threat, Cameron said:"I wish the BBC would stop calling it 'Islamic State' because it is not an Islamic state. What it is is an appalling, barbarous regime. It is a perversion of the religion of Islam, and, you know, many Muslims listening to this program will recoil every time they hear the words 'Islamic State.'"Humphrys responded by pointing out that the group calls itself the Islamic State (al-Dawlah al-Islamiyah, Arabic for Islamic State), but he added that perhaps the BBC could use a modifier such as "so-called" in front of that name.Cameron replied: "'So-called' or ISIL [the acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant] is better." He continued:"But it is an existential threat, because what is happening here is the perversion of a great religion, and the creation of this poisonous death cult, that is seducing too many young minds, in Europe, in America, in the Middle East and elsewhere.
"And this is, I think, going to be the struggle of our generation. We have to fight it with everything that we can."
An investigative online tool mapping Israeli attacks in Gaza during the conflict of July and August 2014 has been unveiled by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture today. Its purpose is to help push for accountability for war crimes and other violations of international humanitarian law.The platform is a map of Gaza where you can graphically zoom in on many Israeli strikes, or search for names or specific types of attacks.
The Gaza Platform enables the user to explore and analyse data about Israel’s 2014 military operation in Gaza. The preliminary data currently plotted on the Platform, which will be updated over the coming months, already highlights a number of patterns in the attacks by Israeli forces that indicate that grave and systemic violations were committed.
“The Gaza Platform is the most comprehensive record of attacks during the 2014 conflict to date. It allows us to piece together more than 2,500 individual attacks, illustrating the vast scale of destruction caused by Israel’s military operations in Gaza during the 50-day war last summer,” said Philip Luther, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme.
“By revealing patterns rather than just presenting a series of individual attacks, the Gaza Platform has the potential to expose the systematic nature of Israeli violations committed during the conflict. Our aim is for it to become an invaluable resource for human rights investigators pushing for accountability for violations committed during the conflict.”
While a vast amount of multimedia information, including testimony, photos, videos and satellite imagery, is still being processed, the Gaza Platform currently shows that more than 270 Israeli attacks were carried out using artillery fire during the 2014 conflict, killing more than 320 civilians. The repeated use of artillery, an imprecise explosive weapon, in densely populated civilian areas constitutes indiscriminate attacks that should be investigated as war crimes.
“We see this project as a first step towards more effective conflict monitoring efforts, supported by collaborative platforms that facilitate the sharing of data between witnesses on the ground, organizations, and citizens worldwide.”Yet Israel is always the first and usually only target of these "innovative" tools. Will Amnesty do the same research into Saudi airstrikes in Yemen? Of course not, because they don't put the same resources into Yemen, and it is more dangerous to be there than it was to be in Gaza last summer.
At approximately 21:00, an Israeli warplane launched a missile at a number of Palestinian civilians in Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis, killing 2 of them: Mohammed Barham Abu Draz, 24; and ‘Essam Ibrahim Abu Ismail, 23.
Until 1896 when a group of academic intellectuals, financial advisers, majority being non-Jewish Europeans, decided to create the Zionist movement with one pretext/excuse; the creation of a homeland for the Jewish people. Although the truth is that this (the goal) is to protect their plans of dominating life in the entire planet. According to the book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” published in 1923, discovered by Lenin after the triumph of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was over. In that book they mention the destruction of the moralities of other religions. In that book they put plans of the manipulation of all the apparatus of the financial, economic and industrial of the entire world. They discuss about the manipulation of the local political forces from all different countries.Apparently his use of the term "non-Jewish Europeans" is invoking the Khazar myth.
About the hatred we have against the Jewish people. As Palestinians, first, we don’t have hatred. Second we don’t recognize the existence of the Jewish people-there is no Jewish people. This is not my personal analysis. Here we can refer to the Jewish Israeli professor from the University of Tel Aviv, Dr. Shlomo Sand, in his book “The Invention of the Jewish people.” A Jew with Israeli passport announces that, the so-called Jewish nation is a made up invention. Because a religion cannot be a people.I have previously documented that denial of Jewish peoplehood is official PLO policy.
The last six years of Israeli-American relations have been characterized by both a deepening security partnership and—at the same time—acrimonious, occasionally personal, and often public disagreements on political issues.JPost Editorial: Targeting Petrenko
A prevailing orthodoxy has emerged to explain this, one that creates very little dissonance for Americans whose views are basically liberal and not explicitly anti-Israel. The orthodoxy holds that the tensions between Washington and Jerusalem are the fault of an Israeli government that prioritizes settlements over peace and interferes in domestic American politics in an attempt to sabotage a diplomatic opening with Iran. The explanation for this is found in Israel’s “increasing rightward shift” and the personality of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It is an orthodoxy championed by the likes of New Yorker editor David Remnick and assumed implicitly by The New York Times.
This orthodoxy is easy for American liberals to accept, particularly the bulk of American Jewish liberals. It also has a veneer of credibility, as Israel’s government has at times appeared to prefer policies that privilege the settlement enterprise over Israel’s more pressing security needs. At other times, its prime minister has publicly acted in ways that make him seem a bit too close to some of President Obama’s nuttier domestic opponents.
But this is not the entire story or even most of it, and the memoirs of Michael Oren, who was Israel’s ambassador to Washington during the crucial years of 2009-2013, will force a complete rethink of the orthodox narrative.
There is no room for surprise anymore as this administration moves forward with its opening to Iran and its risky gamble on the Iranian nuclear program. Pro-Obama, pro-Israel liberals have lived in a dissonance-free zone as long as they embraced the prevailing orthodoxy of Netanyahu’s malfeasance. Oren’s book does not in any way exonerate Netanyahu from responsibility for allowing the settlement issue to limit Israel’s policy options or from misunderstanding a changing American domestic political landscape. But no serious reader from the camp that Oren is trying to address can close this book and still be free of that dissonance.
If that dissonance sparks a more robust and honest conversation about U.S.-Israel relations, and in particular about the problems of the last six years, this book will have made an enormous contribution. If it is mistakenly received as an anti-Obama Right-wing screed, embraced by the President’s conservative foes and caricatured and dismissed by everyone else, we will all be poorer for it.
Even before it was announced that Russian-born Kirill Petrenko was appointed to take over in 2018 from Sir Simon Rattle as conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Petrenko’s Jewishness became a hot issue in Germany.Orim Shimshon: The Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment
The notion that Europe has not rid itself of its ancient hate generates reactions of indignant scorn. The corollary suggestion that European anti-Semitism is not only rearing its ugly head again but actually grows by leaps and bounds is met with near-hysterical righteous resentment.
This is nowhere more so than in Germany – smug and intolerant of reminders of its past. Apart from scant obligatory lip-service from its leaders, the German mainstream is “fed up” with Jewish annoyances. From its point of view, the slate is wiped clean and Germans have no cause to be apologetic in any sense.
No one in the German political hierarchy much bothers anymore to remonstrate against pro-Arab demonstrators who shout “Jews to the gas” (as in an Essen rally last summer, replete with Nazi salutes). This is either blamed on Muslims (who presumably are not bound by the same codes as the rest of society) or on ruffians who are painted as the unrepresentative dregs of society.
But those who chose to target Petrenko’s Jewishness come from the urbane cultural elite, from the refined ranks of those who presumably know better. The Petrenko case exposed the nasty dark underside that belies the spic-and span German façade.
That is particular cause for concern, unsurprising though it is to anyone who follows the changes in German attitudes both to Jews in general and to the Jewish state in particular. The two go together and are indeed inseparable.
The perception of Israel is tinged with precisely the same bigotry as evinced toward individual Jews such as Petrenko.
I decided to go to the gay parade with an agenda. Since the mainstream media spreads lies about Israel and hardly mentions the persecution of minorities in the Islamic world particularly gays, I seized the opportunity to take the chance and go with a sign that read “I’m a gay Muslim. Remember two things. Islamic world = no gay rights. Israel = 100% gay rights.” Needless to say, I was a little nervous about the presence of the police. However the highlight was the wonderful response I got from most by passersby and attendees – with the exception of few hypocritical anti-Israel bigots who took issues with my Israeli flag.The Gay Muslim Zionist Experiment
Hamas authorities yesterday reopened the offices of the Gaza Strip’s only mobile telephone company, five days after closing them on accusations of tax-dodging.Fatah media, however, claim that Hamas used this as a pretext to have Jawwal allow Hamas to spy on the phones of Gazans.
A statement from attorney general Ismail Jaber’s office said that he had “ordered the reopening” of telecom provider Jawwal in Gaza City, but it did not give reasons.
“All Jawwal offices and stores have reopened,” a company executive said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Police in the coastal territory, which Hamas controls, shut Jawwal’s Gaza City office on Tuesday and posted notices saying the closure for “tax evasion” was on Jaber’s orders.
Jawwal director Ammar al-Eker said in a statement yesterday that his company “always met its fiscal and financial obligations”.
Some observers have said that Jawwal is probably paying taxes to the Palestinian Authority and not the Hamas authorities in Gaza.
Iranian Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan says the West, including the US, is not safe from the threats of the Israeli regime.Yes, this comes from a country whose parliament chanted "Death to America" as recently as two weeks ago.
The Iranian official described the Tel Aviv regime as a symbol of terrorism, infanticide, occupation, aggression and genocide.
Dehqan made the remarks on Monday ahead of International Quds Day, which falls on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
He said that the Israeli regime, backed by the US, seeks to create divisions, wars and bloodshed among Muslims to disunite them, stressing that the upcoming Quds Day rallies can foil Israeli plots and further foster unity among Muslims.
Today, the bloodthirsty Zionist regime, which is in possession of hundreds of nuclear warheads as well as weapons of mass destruction, is the “world’s center of evil, espionage and warmongering” and neither Islamic countries nor the Western ones and even the US will be safe from its threat, the Iranian official said.
Buy EoZ's book, PROTOCOLS: EXPOSING MODERN ANTISEMITISM
If you want real peace, don't insist on a divided Jerusalem, @USAmbIsrael
The Apartheid charge, the Abraham Accords and the "right side of history"
With Palestinians, there is no need to exaggerate: they really support murdering random Jews
Great news for Yom HaShoah! There are no antisemites!