Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

Palestinian Claims Victory In Twitter Exchange, Bringing Statehood Ever Closer (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

San Francisco, February 15 - Twitter executives reported today that in a series of messages between a Palestinian tweeter and two advocates for Israel, the Palestinian twice announced he had bested his opponents, thereby contributing to the establishment of a hoped-for Palestinian State.

The user, with 31 followers as of this writing, took on three tweeters with an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by replying to a satirical link posted by one of them regarding Israeli settlements. During the ensuing exchange, the Palestinian user repeatedly invoked what he called a legal argument regarding Palestinian statehood and the illegality of Israeli control over areas it captured in 1967, and derided his opponents for their seeming inability to muster a counterargument on a legal basis. For so doing, the Palestinian tweeter declared he had won the argument; he had thus brought his people that much closer to sovereignty.

One of his interlocutors observed that his arguments in fact featured no legal content, as they were the product of declarative, political decisions with no legal standing. This observation prompted the user to double down on his assertion, then declare again that he had bested his opponents.

Palestinians reacted with excitement to this development. "We've been waiting for so long to have someone declare victory on Twitter," gushed Saeb Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organization's chief negotiator with Israel. "This is of potentially greater weight than UN Security Resolution 2334, which we hailed as a victory - but this Twitter victory renders that diplomatic coup inconsequential by comparison. Today is a blessed day in the annals of the Palestinian struggle."

"It is good news, yes, but this must serve as the springboard to greater achievement," urged Israeli Member of Knesset Haneen Zoabi. "A self-declared victory in debate on Twitter, we can all agree, was never dreamed of by our ancestors, but that is no reason to rest now, when the objective is so much closer. I can practically taste the air of a liberated Palestine now. I guess because it would be the same air where Israel is now, just with a stronger smell of rotting corpses."

The unprecedented milestone has also galvanized supporters of the Palestinian cause around the world. "With the wind at our backs, we can press forward. Allah praise our loyal compatriot!" read a message from the Students for Justice in Palestine - Urbana-Champaign chapter. "The tactics are familiar, of course, but you have taken them to new heights!"

Israeli defense officials were reportedly quaking in their boots at the defeat.

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02/15 Links Pt1: Senator Cotton: “Jews Are Called Jews, Because They’re From Judea”; Trump officials: Two-state solution not the only path to peace

From Ian:

IsraellyCool: Senator Tom Cotton: “Jews Are Called Jews, Because They’re From Judea”

effrey Goldberg of The Atlantic recently interviewed Tom Cotton, the junior senator from Arkansas, who he describes as “the future Republican candidate for president.”
And at least when it comes to Israel, Cotton really seems to get it.
Goldberg: A semi-related question. How would you organize the West Bank in such a way as to give the Palestinians something of what they want without endangering Israel?
Cotton: Ultimately, that would be a question for Israelis and Palestinians, if the Palestinians can get non-terror supporting leaders. The United States over the last eight years has made that harder. For instance, in 2009, demanding a freeze on construction in Judea and Samaria, something that Mahmoud Abbas had never even demanded. As soon as Barack Obama demanded it, Abbas had to demand it because if you’re the Palestinian leader you can’t allow the American President to be more Palestinian than you are.
Goldberg: Do you always refer to them as a Judea and Samaria?
Cotton: I do.
Goldberg: Why?
Cotton: That’s why the Jews are called Jews, because they’re from Judea.

Agents of Their Own Destruction

Psychologically, it is easier to embrace a good cause (or, for that matter, even a bad one) in simplistic, "black and white" terms. For many people a "good" cause is made up of people who suffer from "imperialism" and "colonialism", plucky minorities, third-world victims of first-world oppression, revolutionary vanguards, and anyone put upon by the United States, Great Britain, France or any former "imperialist" power. Other "imperialist" powers, such as Russia, China or Iran, are conveniently overlooked or forgotten -- not to mention the centuries of Islamist imperialism that covered Iran, Turkey, Greece, all of North Africa, Hungary, Serbia, the Balkans, virtually all of Eastern Europe and which we see still continuing.
The Palestinians, in this narrative of "good" and "bad" have purportedly been permanently "dispossessed" by, of all people, the Jews -- whom they had the misfortune to attack in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 -- and lose to.
If members of the new U.S. administration seek to advance the moribund "peace process", they could find no better place to start than direct confrontation with Palestinian rejectionism. This means that those leaders must be pressed as hard as possible to end their persecution of their own populations.
There must be carrots, but there must also be sticks. The UN, the EU, and the OIC will offer only carrots. Will the U.S. now add the threat of real consequences to that mix?

As part of the Oxford Union Debate on the subject of "This House Believes the UN is a Failing Institution" last November, Professor Anne Bayefsky succinctly described exactly why it is true.

Interestingly, the Palestinian envoy to the UN Riyad Mansour argued on the same side, by saying that the Palestinians were victims of the UN - because the UN decided in 1947 that the Jews of Mandate Palestine shouldn't be slaughtered by their Arab neighbors. He says that the UN failed to create a Palestinian state without noting that his own people wanted to be part of Jordan in 1949.

Typically, Mansour argues that the UN is responsible to solve the Palestinian issue, and Palestinian Arabs themselves have no agency or responsibility of their own. His argument is filled with lies, like claiming that there are more than 5 million Palestinian refugees living in camps. He quotes Resolution 242, falsely claiming that Israel didn't give up land for peace, without saying that Palestinians were bitterly against it because it recognized Israel has a right to exist.

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Hey Thomas Friedman, who is dividing world Jewry?

Thomas Friedman has yet another self-righteous piece of stupidity in the New York Times.

[President Trump,] you may be the last man standing between Israel and a complete, self-inflicted disaster for the Jewish state and the Jewish people.

Let me explain it in terms you’ll appreciate: golf.

Did you happen to follow the story involving Barack Obama and Woodmont Country Club? Woodmont is the mostly Jewish golf club in Maryland, just outside D.C., where Obama played as a guest several times during his presidency. Near the end of his term it was rumored that Obama would seek membership there.

Then he clashed with Netanyahu over Obama’s refusal to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israel’s relentless expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Shortly thereafter, The Washington Post reported that a Woodmont member, Faith Goldstein, had sent a private email to the club’s president declaring that Obama “is not welcome at Woodmont” because of his U.N. vote.

It was appalling to think that Jews, who for so many years were themselves excluded from joining certain country clubs, would consider excluding our first black president, especially for his acting on the basis of what half of Israel believes — that continued expansion of Jewish settlements into Palestinian-populated zones of the West Bank will eventually make the separation of Israelis and Palestinians in a two-state solution impossible, and thereby threaten Israel’s character as a Jewish and democratic state.

Fortunately, in the end, the decent members of Woodmont prevailed. As The Washington Post reported, the club’s president, Barry Forman, invited the Obamas to join, declaring that “it is all the more important that Woodmont be a place where people of varying views and beliefs can enjoy fellowship.”

Why am I telling you this story? Because Israel is getting closer every day to wiping out any possibility of a two-state solution. Just last week, Netanyahu’s government pushed through the Knesset a shameful new law declaring that wildcat Jewish settlers who had illegally set up caravans on private West Bank Palestinian land, and erected their own settlement there, will have their settlements legalized, although the Palestinian landowners have to be compensated.

First Friedman essentially calls Jews racist, even though President Obama's race had zero to do with the country club story. (He also completely misrepresents the "Regulation Law" pretending that Israel now allows "wildcat Jewish settlers" to just grab land without checking if it is privately owned.) And calling Jews racist seems to be the only reason for Friedman to tell over this story, because the only tie he brings between the country club story and his usual anti-settlement screed is this:

I don’t expect Israel to just up and leave the West Bank without a Palestinian partner for a secure peace, which Israel doesn’t now have. But legalizing this land grab by settlers deep in Palestinian areas is not an act of security — it will actually create security problems. It is an act of moral turpitude that will make it even harder to ever find that Palestinian partner and will undermine the moral foundations of the state. This is about right versus wrong.

And if that is where the debate goes, what happened at Woodmont golf club will happen everywhere. That debate will tear apart virtually every synagogue, Jewish organization and Jewish group on every campus in America, and around the world. Israel will divide world Jewry.

It isn't Israel that is dividing world Jewry, it is the Thomas Friedmans of the world who claim that Israel has no rights in its homeland to begin with. That's why he equates his fake Jewish racists with Jews who believe that there are actual legal and moral reasons why Judea and Samaria should not be Judenfrei.

Who is more divisive than a smug columnist who declares every Jew who disagrees with him to be the morally equivalent to racists? How much can Tom Friedman care about Jewish unity when he makes such a claim?

While Friedman pays lip service to the fact that Palestinians aren't a peace partner, he lays the blame on Israel by saying that only Israel is killing the two state solution - despite the fact that Israel has lready accepted and offered the Palestinians a state multiple times.

Let's put this in terms Friedman might be able to understand.

Here is the top of the PLO official webpage, today:

I'll increase the size of the logo in case your reading glasses aren't on:

Where, exactly, is Israel on this PLO map of their ersatz state?

If Friedman wants to unite Jews, he should write about how the "moderate" Palestinians have never budged from their position that the "peace process" is a Trojan horse to destroy Israel. That's something all Jews should be aware of, but they certainly wouldn't know it from reading Friedman's columns.

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Valentine's Day in Gaza is actually pretty funny

Palestine Today, the Islamic Jihad mouthpiece, points out that Gazans generally do not celebrate Valentine's Day because many religious authorities forbid it. They even have an interview with a sheikh bitterly complaining about how damaging the holiday is to Islamic morals and how celebrating it violates a hadith not to imitate the customs of Jews and Christians.

But some Gazans managed to celebrate in their own way without violating any community standards - with humor.

Presenting the Love Donkeys:

And sheep got in the act as well:

Instead of a bouquet of flowers, how about a bouquet of meat for the holiday?

And Gaza women have to put on their sexiest burqas for the holiday:

Yowza.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

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Can you tell the difference between J-Street and the BDSers?

Last month I pointed out an eerily similar emails that both J-Street and BDSers sent out.

It's happened again.

One of these columns shows a (slightly edited) email from J-Street. The other shows an email from the BDSers known currently as the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights.

See if you can tell which is which.

As President Donald Trump prepares to meet tomorrow with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, we also wanted to make sure you were aware of another important policy development that you can impact.

On Thursday, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee will hold a hearing and vote on David Friedman’s nomination to be ambassador to Israel.

You’ve already sent more than 6,000 letters to Senators opposing the nomination of this extremist who denies Palestinian rights, funds and identifies with the Israeli settler movement, and viciously attacks all who disagree with his abhorrent ideology.

Now, we need you to pick up your phones and call your two Senators to oppose Friedman’s nomination.

Two days from now, the Senate will begin its deliberations on Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel, David Friedman.

This is a man who called President Obama an anti-Semite. And, in contrast with everyone who has held this position since 1967, he’s a major supporter of the Israeli settlement movement. In fact, he’s raised millions of dollars for one of the most extreme settlements in the West Bank.

Right now, we need you to call your senators and tell them to vote NO on David Friedman’s nomination.
Every Senator needs to know that a vote to confirm Friedman is a vote against America’s commitment to Middle East peace.

Today is the day. Let’s flood the Senate with calls opposing Trump’s nominee for US Ambassador to Israel.

(If you read carefully, you can figure it out - only J-Street pretends that treating Israel like a banana republic helps Middle East peace.)

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02/14 Links Pt2: Foreign Ministry places permanent exhibit at UNESCO; A Tale of Two Talks: Free Speech in the U.S.

From Ian:

Foreign Ministry places permanent exhibit at UNESCO

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decided to place a permanent exhibit at UNESCO headquarters of a replica of the seven-branched Menorah featured on the Arch of Titus in Rome.
The decision to place the exhibit at UNESCO in Paris is part of the Israeli government struggle against the Palestinian narrative denying any Jewish connection to Jerusalem; a narrative which many in Israel and around the world have accused UNESCO of abetting following the passing of a controversial UN resolution which conspicuously failed to make any mention of Jewish ties to the Temple Mount.
Israel's ambassador to UNESCO, Carmel Shama Hacohen, came to an agreement with UNESCO's Director-general, Irina Bokova, in which the exhibit will be presented in an official ceremony with ambassadors from all over the world.
Following consultation with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the Tender Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs approved the project at a cost of NIS 45,000.
Initially, the statue was only meant to illustrate the seven-branched Menorah, but Hacohen decided to add the imagery showing Jewish slaves carrying the Menorah into exile to Rome. The statue will also include a written explanation in English, French, Hebrew and Arabic.

Top employee at EU-, UN-funded Gaza hospital quotes ‘Protocols of Zion‘

The Simon Wiesenthal Center on Monday called for the withdrawal of UN and EU funding from a Gaza Strip hospital whose director of public relations posted quotations from the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion on his private Facebook page.
The Protocols documents as fact an imaginary late-19th-century meeting at which Jewish leaders, the “Elders of Zion,” purportedly plan their takeover of the world.
Yahya Al Nawajha, director of public relations and media at the European Gaza Hospital in the southern Strip, referred on Facebook to Victor Marsden’s English translation of the Tsarist protocols and included a link to download the book.
Shimon Samuels, the Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, called for the immediate withdrawal of the hospital’s UN and EU funding until the hospital apologizes, issues a public repudiation of all forms of Jew-hatred, and fires Al Nawajha.
Even if the post appeared on a personal page, the hospital bore full responsibility, he charged.

Douglas Murray: The shameful hypocrisy of Sweden’s ‘first feminist government’

Pipping even Speaker John Bercow to the award are the brave sisters of the Swedish government. Here is a photo from earlier this month of Isabella Lovin (Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for International Development Cooperation and Climate and spokesperson of Sweden’s Green Party). In response to Donald Trump’s male-heavy team, Isabella and the sister-hood (pregnant and non-pregnant) recently posed for this photo to signal that the self-declared ‘first feminist government in the world’ will be taking no lectures from the current US President:
Just signed referral of Swedish #climate law, binding all future governments to net zero emissions by 2045. For a safer and better future. pic.twitter.com/OqOO2y8BU6
— Isabella Lövin (@IsabellaLovin) February 3, 2017
Here, by contrast, (courtesy of the excellent UN Watch) is how the Swedish sisterhood behaved when they visited Iran this past weekend:
But who’s to call, hey? On the one hand you have an American President and former Miss Universe competition owner who has done nothing to diminish women’s rights. On the other you have an Iranian President before whom all women must cover, and who presides over a legal system where nine-year old girls can be legally raped and women are regularly hanged from cranes.
The contrasting approaches are emblematic of our stupid, signalling times. To President Trump it’s ‘Hey you, Mr bigot, get off my vagina.’ While to President Rouhani it’s ‘How’s my hijab, Mr President? Do just say if anything else about my body offends you.’ The sisterhood should enjoy it while it lasts.

UNRWA has been trying to use the worldwide refugee crisis as a means to raise money as if most of the people under its program are real refugees. Refugees who don't know where their next meal is coming from.

But when people send money to UNRWA, not all of it goes to providing food and shelter.

Some of it goes towards producing professional cooking shows.

Obviously, starving refugees need to know how to make meat-filled dumplings on YouTube.

The UN clearly knows its priorities. People of Palestinian descent must learn how to correctly create avocado onion rings, because they are so horribly oppressed without that knowledge.

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Can you imagine living in exile? Knowing that, although you have lived all your life in one place, as have your parents and maybe even grandparents, you belong to a different land?

The Jewish people lived in exile for centuries. Their religion and traditions did not allow them to forget… Maybe, most of all, it was their neighbors who did not allow them to forget that they belonged to a different land.

Jews in exile yearned for Zion, “the sun-drenched land.” Its fruits became something almost mythological. If someone managed to bring them fruits of the Land, it was like receiving a small miracle, something rare and very precious.

Of course, fruits couldn’t stay fresh on such a long trip. Dates, for example, could be brought from the far away land to the people in exile. This is where the tradition of eating dried fruit on Tu B’shvat began.

Tu B'Shvat is the new year for trees, celebrated according to the Hebrew calendar, on the 15th of the month of Shvat.

This is the new year for the purpose of calculating the age of trees for tithing (See Lev. 19:23-25, which states that fruit from trees may not be eaten during the first three years; the fourth year's fruit is for God, and after that, you can eat the fruit).

It is customary to celebrate the holiday by eating fruit from Israel, particularly a new fruit or one of the Seven Species described in the Bible as being abundant in the land of Israel: wheat, barley, grapes (vines), figs, pomegranates, olives and dates (honey) (Deut. 8:8).

In 1904, Professor Otto Warburg proposed establishing a Zionist Fund for the purpose of planting olive trees in Zion on lands redeemed by KKL-JNF. The Teachers’ Association of Eretz Yisrael turned planting trees in to a national tradition, followed by school children throughout the country.

The Jewish people returned to the land, planted trees and made the desert bloom. Technology and dedication realized the promise of a land “flowing with milk and honey”. Hills that were barren became green. The fruits of the land grew more abundant and new fruits were cultivated.

Our trees and their fruit are precious. This land gives much – when it is loved.

This year Tu B’Shavat seemed to me a holiday of sad stubbornness.

My beautiful city of Haifa is currently scarred with black patches of land that once were green.

Hills that were covered in trees are now bare. The arson-terrorism that brought fires to my neighborhood, city and in other places across the country just two months ago, has caused scars that will take years to heal.

Thankfully no human lives were lost during the fires. Many homes were lost or terribly damaged. It is difficult to comprehend the loss of memories, family heirlooms, treasures that survived so many other attacks…

Enough anguish is caused by the loss of things that can be replaced with money. How can you replace the irreplaceable?

This Tu B’Shvat new trees and flowers were planted in Haifa. Experts say it will take some 30 years for the trees to grow back to something like what we had before the fires. Their knowledge will guide the replanting to facilitate speedy, healthy new growth, in a way that is best for the land.

The green will spread before the trees grow. New plants will cover the ugly scars terrorism left behind. Our city, that was lovely in its green urbanity by the sea, will be lovely once more.

Tu B’Shvat should not have to be used in this way but it is fitting that it was. Ours is a love story between a people and their land, between a land and its people.

Hate so ferocious that it is willing to burn us out of our homes, killing the fruits of the land and make it barren where it was once green, is not enough to disconnect the People of Israel from Zion.

Exile could not make the People of Israel forget Zion. Terrorism, even terrifying fires, cannot make us give up this land. Like countless times before, we will rebuild, plant new plants and grow better and stronger than ever before.

People can be killed. Trees can be burned. True love lasts forever.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

02/14 Links Pt1: Glick: The Livni-Fayyad two-step; Beyond the Failed "Two-State Solution"

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: The Livni-Fayyad two-step

Livni isn’t being considered for the position because she’s the former foreign minister. She’s being touted as a “balance” to Fayyad because she agrees with him that Israel shouldn’t defend itself against his aggression or that of his cronies in the PA.
Moreover, if Livni receives the UN post, Guterres will expect her to defend the intrinsically anti-Israel organization when it is justifiably attacked by the government of Israel she stands no chance of ever serving in again.
The only way to get the UN to think twice before it attacks Israel is for Israel to stop acting like a chump.
Not only must the government reject Guterres’s offer. The government should take the actions that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened to take against the UN following the Security Council’s diplomatic pogrom against the Jewish state on December 23.
The UN should be kicked out of Jerusalem.
International and UN forces deployed in Judea and Samaria should be shown the door.
And Israel should stop transferring taxpayer funds to the corrupt institution that is controlled by an automatic majority of states that believe the chief purpose of the UN is to criminalize Israel while whitewashing terrorists and their supporters like Fayyad.
The purpose of the Livni offer is to distract Israel – and the US – and make us forget the organization’s inherent bigotry against the Jewish state while enabling the UN to maintain and even increase that bigotry. Israel must not be seduced by Guterres’s cheap, insulting, phony peace offering.

Col Kemp: Nato needs to reform into a global alliance against Islamic terrorism – or become obsolete

In 2005 we proposed, in a study called “Nato: An alliance for freedom”, a few ideas on how to close the gap between the Nato we have and the Nato we need. Some of them are still relevant. For instance, forget all the bureaucratic jargon about "capabilities-based alliance", "stability operations" or "operations other than war".
Nato should accept that we are all under attack by Islamist extremist forces of all kinds. President Hollande said that France was at war, and the rest of the allies cannot sit idle by his side. Nato must make the fight against Islamic terrorism its core mission.
Second, we are clearly not in a time to expand freedom in the world – a point British Prime Minister Theresa May made in Washington last week. On the contrary, we need to defend and preserve freedom in our lands.
In order to reinforce our Western world, Nato must invite to become members countries that are alike in the defense of our values and with the willingness to share the burden in this civilizational struggle. Nato should invite without delay Israel, Japan, Singapore and India to become members.
Defense expenditures should be revised and increased, but ceilings and burden sharing are not the problem. We don’t expend more because current leaders do not feel compelled to do so. Furthermore, to spend more on the same will not change our ability to confront the threats and challenges we face.
There is a myriad of things that can be done to put Nato back on track. Interior ministers should join defense ministers at council level and in summits.
That’s easy. But above all, what Nato needs is a vision and an impulse to transform from the new US President and administration. Yes, Mr President, we agree with you that Nato has become obsolete. But we believe you can make it relevant again. Your allies will follow.

Amb. Alan Baker: "The Two-State Solution": What Does It Really Mean?

The phrase "two-state solution" is repeated daily by international leaders and organizations. However, the phrase is bandied about without a full awareness of its history or of the practical aspects of its implementation in the realities of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
It is accepted that a situation in which a neighboring Palestinian state would be politically and economically unstable and open to manipulation by terror elements could never be acceptable to Israel and would constitute a threat to Israel's security.
It is accepted that a unified Palestinian leadership must be able to speak in the name of the entire Palestinian people and capable of entering into and fulfilling commitments. Such a situation does not exist at present.
On the basis of experience gained with the existing agreements, any permanent status agreement between the sides will need to include solid guarantees - legal, political, and security - that a Palestinian state will not abuse its sovereign prerogatives and international standing in order to violate or void the agreements.
It is clear that a Palestinian state will only emanate from direct negotiations between Israel and a unified Palestinian leadership. Issues such as borders, Jerusalem, refugees, and settlements will only be resolved by negotiation and not by partisan political resolutions emanating from the UN or any other source.
Any such state must recognize Israel as the nation state of the Jewish people, in the same manner in which Israel would recognize a Palestinian state as the nation state of the Palestinian people.

The Report of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA in 2007 indicates that

...The mission of UNRWA is to contribute to the human development of Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic until a durable and just solution is found to the refugee issue. The Agency fulfills this purpose by providing a variety of essential services within the framework of international standards...

The Agency’s vision is for every Palestine refugee to enjoy the best possible standards of human development, including attaining his or her full potential individually and as a family and community member; being an active and productive participant in socio-economic and cultural life; and feeling assured that his or her rights are being defended, protected and preserved.

UNRWA is a global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees. In humanitarian crisis and armed conflict, the Agency’s emergency interventions, and its presence, serve as tangible symbols of the international community’s concern and ultimately contribute to a stable environment.

This is UNRWA?

UNRWA is supposed to address the problem of Palestine Refugees and find them permanent homes in host countries. Yet, in the entire report, there is not a single mention of "repatriation", "reintegration" or "resettlement" of Palestine refugees. In fact, there is only one time the word "return" is even used -- and that is in a reference not to refugees going back to their homes but rather to "a return to normal Palestinian life" for Palestinian Arabs already living in the West Bank.

So why doesn't the report emphasize its primary mandate of finding a permanent home for refugees?
And since when is UNRWA a "global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees"?

UNRWA logo

What happened?

On December 11, 1948, the UN adopted Resolution 194 regarding the Arabs who fled during the war. Paragraph 11:

Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date...Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.

Clearly the original intent was to either repatriate the Arab refugees back to their original homes -- in Israel -- or to resettle them elsewhere in the area.

One year later, on December 9, 1949, UN Resolution 302 established UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) for that purpose:

without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.

We already saw that the provisions of paragraph 11 require either repatriation and resettlement, which becomes part of the UNRWA mandate. In fact, a year later, on December 2, 1950, Resolution 393 reviews a report by UNRWA and reiterates that "the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential."

Another point that Resolution 302 makes clear is that the creation of UNRWA is "with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief" -- clearly "global advocacy" for Palestinian rights was not intended to be part of UNRWA's job.

From the beginning, UNRWA was not intended to be a permanent agency of the UN.

But there is a bigger problem.

Who qualifies to be considered a Palestine Refugee?

Apparently, the answer must have been obvious -- because in defining UNRWA's job, Resolution 302 never actually defines who is a Palestine Refugee.

Yet UNRWA has defined -- and redefined -- who qualifies as a Palestine Refugee multiple times over the years.

Originally, in 1950 UNRWA based its definition of a refugee on need alone: the "agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."
In 1954, a refugee was specified in terms of a time frame: "one whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum period of two years preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, has lost both his home and means of livelihood.
In 1955, Arabs who were not necessarily displaced during the war -- for example, lived in Jordan -- but who lost some or all of their livelihood as a result of it were included as being qualified for aid.
In 1965, UNRWA extended refugee status to third generation Palestinian Arabs, i.e. grandchildren.
In 1971, because of the additional refugees as a result of the 1967 war, the definition was again redefined:

A Palestine refugee, by UNRWA's working definition, is a person whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum of two years preceding the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, lost both his home and means of livelihood and took refuge, in 1948, in one of the countries where UNRWA provides relief [limited to Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan]. Refugees within this definition or the children or grandchildren of such refugees are eligible for agency assistance if they are (a) registered with UNRWA, (b) living in the area of UNRWA's operations, and (c) in need.
In 1982, UNRWA went one step further, extending eligibility to all generations of descendants, as a result of a General Assembly resolution that

Requests the Secretary-General, in co-operation with the Commissioner- General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to issue identification cards to all Palestine refugees and their descendants, irrespective of whether they are recipients or not of rations and services from the Agency, as well as to all displaced persons and to those who have been prevented from returning to their home as a result of the 1967 hostilities, and their descendants;

Why the changes?

Some of the changes, like the original definition itself, were the result of purely humanitarian grounds.

Joan Peters, in her book From Time Immemorial, suggests that the two-year minimum initiated in 1954 could have been in order to include the Arabs who were recent arrivals to the coastal areas from where many had fled. (p.398)

According to political scientist Benjamin Schiff, the reason for extending refugee status to 3 generations was actually because of budgetary problems caused by the inflated rolls of refugees. UNRWA's Commissioner-general, Laurence Michelmore, wanted to "enlist the host-states' assistance in cutting the rolls ... he had offered a trade: If the governments would help rectify the rolls, he would be willing to ... add third-generation refugees to the rolls."

But extending aid to third-generation Palestinians created a unique dilemma for UNRWA:

With regard to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the names of the refugees in its army should be struck from UNRWA's rolls; the Palestine Liberation Organization was committed to renewed military struggle and thus confronted the Agency with the paradox of United Nations funds being used to provide rations for refugees recruited for armed action against a Member State. Israel, however, supported the extension of the Mandate of UNRWA and was in full agreement with the imperative need to rectify the relief rolls.

This seems to be part of an ongoing problem for the agency. We saw in the last Israel-Hamas war that UNRWA has difficulty staying out of the ongoing conflict and Hamas weapons were found being stored in UNRWA schools.

With all of these changing definitions, is there really any limit to how UNRWA can define a Palestine refugee under its jurisdiction? Apparently not. In 1991, when Kuwait expelled thousands of Palestinian Arabs who supported Saddam during the war, UNRWA claimed jurisdiction:

During a meeting of the agency's major donors in June 1991, its commissioner general, Ilter Turkmen, affirmed that UNRWA did have an obligation toward Palestinians who were being "persecuted, hounded, and expelled by the Kuwaiti government for supposed support of the Iraqi occupation … I consider that the responsibility of UNRWA extends to Palestinians in all parts of the Middle East [including Kuwait]." Despite UNRWA's supposedly restricted fields of operation, Lance Bartholomeusz, former chief of the agency's International Law Division, noted that "General Assembly resolutions do not explicitly exclude UNRWA from operating in other areas."

Somewhere along the way, humanitarian concerns have become infected with political interests that have created an agency that has rejected the fact that it was meant to be temporary and has given itself an unlimited, global sphere of influence among Palestine refugees.

The full extent of the politics of UNRWA become more evident when we examine the change and redefinition of the actual role of UNRWA and how the agency views itself.

That will be examined in the next post.

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Palestinians officially celebrate terrorists at Cairo embassy

Last month an exhibition called "Martyrs for Palestine" opened at the "Palestine embassy" in Cairo.

It includes propaganda art like this, contributed by professional and amateur artists throughout the Arab world.

But, as the name of the exhibition indicates, its main purpose was to celebrate murderers.

Tribute photos include mass murderer Dalal Mughrabi, founder of Islamic Jihad Fathi Shaqiqi, founder of Hamas Sheikh Yassin and master Hamas bombmaker Yahya Ayyash. Along with, of course, the Nazi-sympathizing antisemite Mufti Amin al-Husseini.

Awards were given out with the terrorists as a backdrop.

Official state support for murder doesn't get more explicit than this. Yet this story was not reported anywhere in the West.

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