Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, June 02, 2017

Look how peaceful Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah is!

Two days ago, Israel released a terrorist from prison, after he finished serving a 12-year sentence (reduced from the original 15 year sentence.)

Ahmed Hassan Briggah was convicted in 2005 of belonging to the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror organization and of participating in terror attacks.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades is the official terrorist group of the Fatah party, headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

The official Fatah Facebook page showed the motorcade honoring convicted terrorist Briggah upon his release and the official ceremonies welcoming him.

Look at the poster in the middle of this scene at the ceremony honoring the terrorist:

Detail:

Terrorist leaders of Fatah, Hamas and Hezbollah are all featured.

This is the "culture of peace" that Mahmoud Abbas claims he is pushing.

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Poster in Jerusalem, January

I'm willing to give a new president some slack, but the White House statement justifying breaking Donald Trump's promise to move the American embassy to Jerusalem is grating:

While President Donald J. Trump signed the waiver under the Jerusalem Embassy Act and delayed moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no one should consider this step to be in any way a retreat from the President's strong support for Israel and for the United States-Israel alliance. President Trump made this decision to maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America's national security interests. But, as he has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when.

The highlighted sentences are contradictory. Is his repeated promises to move the embassy dependent on Palestinian acquiescence, as the first sentence implies, or not, as the second one says?

Here's the full context of Trump's promise at AIPAC:

President Obama thinks that applying pressure to Israel will force the issue. But it’s precisely the opposite that happens. Already half of the population of Palestine has been taken over by the Palestinian ISIS and Hamas, and the other half refuses to confront the first half, so it’s a very difficult situation that’s never going to get solved unless you have great leadership right here in the United States.

We’ll get it solved. One way or the other, we will get it solved.

But when the United States stands with Israel, the chances of peace really rise and rises exponentially. That’s what will happen when Donald Trump is president of the United States.

We will move the American embassy to the eternal capital of the Jewish people, Jerusalem.

And we will send a clear signal that there is no daylight between America and our most reliable ally, the state of Israel.

The Palestinians must come to the table knowing that the bond between the United States and Israel is absolutely, totally unbreakable.

The entire point of moving the embassy was to show the Palestinians that their threats, pressure and lies will not work with a Trump administration, that the president will stand with Israel no matter what and that any peace deal will be from a position of Israeli strength.

The decision to sign the waiver - and the implication that any critics of the President should shut up about it until December 1, 2020, after the next election - cannot be framed as anything but another broken promise.

Yes, other presidents did the same thing. But no other president made this issue such a major part of their campaign.

And that one signature has strengthened the Palestinian leadership's confidence that their empty threats of violence are still as effective at influencing world leaders as they ever were.

A US decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital would not have derailed any moves to peace. Palestinian and other Arab leaders are falling over themselves to please Trump. If he would have been strong on this promise from the beginning, instead of waffling about it starting in January, the Palestinians would have made some symbolic protests and then shut up about it.

They learned a lesson from this debacle, and that lesson lessens the chances of peace.

There is no doubt that Trump has done some very positive things towards the Middle East, things that reversed many (but not all) of the toxic policies of the Obama administration.

But no Israel-supporter can feel as confident in a Trump administration today as they did when he was elected.

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Did you ever notice that Palestinian Arabs were never "occupied" by Jordan? Or Britain? Or Ottomans?

I saw this at the UN website:

Of course, they mean 50 years of "occupation" by Jews.

Because no one was overly concerned about the previous 19 years of "Palestinian territory" being annexed or administered by Jordan or Egypt.

Or the 30 years of British administration before that.

Or the 400 years of Ottoman rule before that.

No, the only interest in what the world now calls "Palestinian lands" only started when Jews have some level of control over them. Not when generations of others - Muslims and Christians, Arabs and non-Arabs - controlled the land.

Somehow, only the years when the life expectancy of Palestinians skyrocketed, when the infant mortality rate plummeted, when practically all of the universities and major hospitals were built in the territories - only those years are considered tragic.

The entire exercise of "50 years of occupation" is underlined by blatant hypocrisy. If there was no Six Day war, the West Bank Palestinian Arabs under Jordanian rule would be just as interesting as the East Bank Palestinians are today - meaning, not at all. Gazans would remain in an effective Egyptian prison, with no ability to move to Egypt itself - but no one would be talking about it.

The self-rule that most Palestinians in the territories enjoy today would never have happened.

And no one would be writing op-eds about it.

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06/01 Links: Trump Signs Six-Month Waiver to Keep US Embassy in Tel Aviv; Lebanon Officially Bans Wonder Woman After Group Complains of Israeli-Born Lead

From Ian:

Trump Signs Six-Month Waiver to Keep US Embassy in Tel Aviv

U.S. President Donald Trump has signed the six-month waiver that postpones relocating the American Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
The move was expected, but comes as a major disappointment to Jewish and right-wing Christian voters who expected the president to keep his campaign promise to move the embassy upon entering the White House.
Despite his action, administration officials did their best to mitigate the inevitable reaction from his voter base in a statement issued with the news that he had signed the waiver despite all campaign promises to the contrary.
“President Trump made this decision to maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America’s national security interests,” the White House said in a statement.
“While President Donald J. Trump signed the waiver under the Jerusalem Embassy Act and delayed moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no one should consider this step to be in any way a retreat from the President’s strong support for Israel and for the United States-Israel alliance,” the statement continued.
“As he has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when,” the White House said in its statement.
Sadly, upon the advice of career foreign service employees and U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, the president has put the move on the back burner as a hostage to the “ultimate deal” between Israel and regional Arab peace partners, and/or the Palestinian Authority.

Statement on the American Embassy in Israel

While President Donald J. Trump signed the waiver under the Jerusalem Embassy Act and delayed moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, no one should consider this step to be in any way a retreat from the President's strong support for Israel and for the United States-Israel alliance. President Trump made this decision to maximize the chances of successfully negotiating a deal between Israel and the Palestinians, fulfilling his solemn obligation to defend America's national security interests. But, as he has repeatedly stated his intention to move the embassy, the question is not if that move happens, but only when.

Eugene Kontorovich: Trump’s trouble in justifying a waiver of Jerusalem Embassy Act

News reports today suggest that President Trump will exercise his waiver authority under the Jerusalem Embassy Act for the first time, delaying an opening of the U.S. Embassy to Israel in that country’s capital for six months.
The CNN report suggests the waiver, a reversal of his campaign promises, would be motivated by concern that moving the embassy could “prejudice” a diplomatic process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that Trump hopes to broker. The problem is that the the Jerusalem Embassy Act provides that State Department budgets must be severely cut unless the president issues a waiver, and the reasons for waiver are limited, essential national security considerations. The considerations mentioned by CNN’s sources (and others) are diplomatic, not security ones.
On the other hand, if the White House does issue a waiver on national security grounds, it undermines the peace process. A basic assumption of any of the conventional “two-state solution” models is that Israel’s security would be guaranteed by U.S. commitments. But if the White House is unwilling to put the embassy in Israel’s capital because of vague threats of terror, it proves that there is no chance it would actually put its forces in harm’s way if needed to come to Israel’s aid, should the Jewish state be attacked after a peace agreement. In such a case, the threats of retaliation against U.S. targets would be more vocal, salient and real.

Chag sameach!

Wishing all my Jewish readers a chag sameach!

I will not be blogging until probably Friday.

Don't OD on the cheesecake!

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05/30 Links Pt2: Glick: Sarsour and the progressive zeitgeist; Arabs planned to eliminate Israel in 6 Day War

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Sarsour and the progressive zeitgeist

In US academic tradition, university administrators choose commencement speakers they believe embody the zeitgeist of their institutions and as such, will be able to inspire graduating students to take that zeitgeist with them into the world outside.
In this context, it makes perfect sense that Ayman El-Mohandes, dean of the Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy at City University of New York (CUNY), invited Linda Sarsour to serve as commencement speaker at his faculty’s graduation ceremony.
Sarsour embodies Mohandes’s values.
Mohandes’s Twitter feed makes his values clear. His Twitter feed is filled with attacks against Israel.
Mohandes indirectly accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of wishing to commit genocide. Netanyahu, he intimated, wishes to “throw the Arabs in the sea.”
He has repeatedly libeled Israel as a repressive, racist, corrupt state.
Mohandes has effectively justified and legitimized Islamic terrorism and the Hamas terrorist regime in Gaza. The Islamic terrorist assault against Israel, led by Hamas from Gaza, is simply an act of “desperation,” he insists.
By Mohandes’s lights, Hamas terrorists are desperate not because they uphold values and beliefs that reject freedom, oppress women and aspire to the genocide of Jewry and the destruction of the West. No, they are desperate because Israel is evil and oppressive.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Arab leaders did plan to eliminate Israel in Six-Day War

During the 1967 war, Israel seized Egyptian and Jordanian operational documents with clear orders to annihilate the civil population. Nevertheless, different academics are distorting the facts in a bid to turn the Arabs into victims and Israel into an aggressor. Here’s the real story.
More than anything else, the Six-Day War has turned into a rewritten war. A sea of publications deal with what happened at the time. Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, the revisionists assert, had no ability to fight Israel, and anyway, he had no intention to do so.
It’s true that he made threats. It’s true that he sent more and more divisions to Sinai. It’s true that he expelled the United Nations observers. It’s true that he incited the masses in Arab countries. It’s true that the Arab regimes rattled their sabers and prepared for war. It’s true that he closed the Straits of Tiran. It’s true that Israel was besieged from its southern side. It’s true that this was a serious violation of international law. It’s true that it was a “casus belli” (a case of war).
All that doesn’t matter, however, because there is a mega-narrative that obligates the forces of progress to exempt the Arabs from responsibility and point the accusing finger at Israel. And when there is a narrative, who needs facts? After all, according to the mega-narrative, Israel had expansionist plans, so it seized the opportunity. Different scholars are distorting the facts in a bid to turn the Arabs into victims and Israel into an aggressor. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Daniel Pipes: 6 days and 50 years

Israel's military triumph over three enemy states in June 1967 was among the most successful wars in recorded ‎history. The Six-Day War was also deeply consequential for the Middle East, establishing the permanence of the ‎Jewish state, dealing a death-blow to pan-Arab nationalism, and (ironically) worsening Israel's status in the ‎world because of its occupation of the West Bank and east Jerusalem. ‎
Focusing on this last point: How did a grand battlefield victory translate into problems still tormenting ‎Israel today? ‎
First, because of rejectionism -- the refusal to accept anything Zionist dominates the Palestinian attitude ‎toward Israel and renders Israeli concessions useless, even counterproductive. Rejectionism crystallized with ‎Hajj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974), a malign figure who dictated Palestinian politics from 1921 until his death. He ‎so absolutely abhorred Zionism that he collaborated with Hitler and even had a key role in formulating the ‎Final Solution. Husseini's legacy remains a powerful force in Palestinian life -- its latest manifestations include the ‎‎"anti-normalization" and the boycott, divestment and sanctions movements. Assorted Israelis and do-‎gooders, however, ignore rejectionism and instead blame Israel's government for not making sufficient efforts. ‎
Second, Israel faces a conundrum of geography and demography in the West Bank. Its strategists want ‎to control the highlands, its nationalists want to build towns, and its religious want to possess Jewish holy sites; ‎but Israel's continued ultimate rule over a West Bank population of 1.7 million mostly hostile Palestinians takes an immense toll both domestically and internationally. Various schemes to keep the ‎land and defang an enemy people -- by integrating them, buying them off, dividing them, pushing them out or ‎finding another ruler for them -- have all come to naught. Israelis are stuck in an unwanted role they cannot ‎escape. ‎
Third, the Israelis in 1967 took several unilateral steps vis-a-vis Jerusalem that created future time bombs: They vastly expanded its borders, annexed it, and offered optional Israeli citizenship to the city's Arab ‎residents. This led to a long-term demographic and housing competition that the Palestinians are winning, ‎jeopardizing the Jewish nature of the Jews' historic capital. Furthermore, 300,000 could at any time choose to apply for ‎Israeli citizenship. ‎

From Asharq al-Awsat:

Iran is holding meetings with Hamas and will allegedly resume its financial support for the organization, Palestinian sources said on Tuesday. Members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and senior Hezbollah figures were among those at the talks in Lebanon.

The move came after representatives from the Islamic Republic and the Palestinian terror group conducted intensive discussions in Lebanon over the last two weeks.

According to the sources, Iran and Hamas agreed to resume diplomatic relations to the level at which they were, before the Syrian civil war, when the sides broke off their close ties. It was also reported that Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh is expected to visit Tehran in the near future.

The agreement was supported by commander of IRGC’s al-Quds Brigades Kassam Soleimani, Ismail Haniyeh, and Hamas’ Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar.

Hamas reduced its staff and members by 30 percent including the Qassam Brigades because of difficult situations. Iran took advantage of Haniyeh’s elections as head of the organization to reinstate the relationship.

Iran supported Haniyeh reaching the leadership and didn’t support senior Hamas official Musa Abu Marzouk because of disagreements after Tehran accused Marzouk of falsifying truths when said that Iran was not transferring financial aid to Hamas or the Gaza Strip, and that relations between Hamas and Tehran were frozen.

Since the beginning, Iran was relying on Haniyeh’s diplomacy who leans towards reconciliation with Tehran unlike former leader Khalid Mashaal.

Thanks, Obama! Iran can afford to return to its funding of the major Palestinian terror group (they never stopped funding Islamic Jihad.)

There is a small silver lining here.

This article in a pan-Arab newspaper refers to Hamas flatly as a "Palestinian terror group." Not a "resistance group," not even a "militant group." Asharq al Awsat uses the T word that Western news agencies are afraid to use.

Which means that Hamas has really lost the Sunni Muslim world.

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05/30 Links Pt1: What not signing a Jerusalem embassy waiver would really mean; Terrorism Is Not Random

From Ian:

Eugene Kontorovich: What Trump not signing a Jerusalem embassy waiver would really mean

On Thursday, President Barack Obama’s last waiver pursuant to the Jerusalem Embassy Act will expire. Absent a new waiver by President Trump, the provisions of the law will go into full effect. Trump promised during his campaign to move the embassy, a policy embodied both in federal law and the Republican Party platform. But since he came into office, Trump’s promise seems to have lost some momentum.
This piece will examine the mechanics of the Embassy Act waiver — it is not actually a waiver on moving the embassy. The details of the law make it a particularly convenient way for Trump to defy now-lowered expectations and not issue a waiver on June 1.
First, some context. Many commentators have sought to cast a possible Trump waiver as proof that Obama’s Israeli policy is really the only possible game in town. But whether or not a waiver is issued, Trump has succeeded in fundamentally changing the discussion about the U.S.-Israel relationship. Waivers under the 1995 act come twice a year, and for the past two decades, they have hardly warranted a news item. Under the Bush and Obama administrations, they were entirely taken for granted.
Now everyone is holding his or her breath to see whether Trump will sign the waiver. If he does, it will certainly be a disappointment to his supporters. But it will not be the end of the show — he will have seven more waivers ahead, with mounting pressure as his term progresses. Under Obama, speculation focused on what actions he would take or allow against Israel (and even these waited until very late in his second term).
The waiver available to the president under the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 does not waive the obligation to move the embassy. That policy has been fully adopted by Congress in the Act (sec. 3(a)(3)) and is not waivable. Of course, Congress cannot simply order the president to implement such a move, especially given his core constitutional power over diplomatic relations.
But Congress, having total power over the spending of taxpayer dollars, does not have to pay for an embassy in Tel Aviv. The Act’s enforcement mechanism is to suspend half of the appropriated funds for the State Department’s “Acquisition and Maintenance of Buildings Abroad” until the law’s terms are complied with. The waiver provision simply allows the president to waive the financial penalty.
What this means is that by not signing a waiver, Trump would not actually be requiring the embassy to move to Jerusalem, moving the embassy or recognizing Jerusalem. That could give him significant diplomatic flexibility or deniability if June 1 goes by with mere silence from the White House.

Obama treated Israel ‘as part of the problem,’ says ex-envoy Oren. With Trump, ‘it’s love, love, love’

As a noted historian, former Israeli ambassador to the United States and current Knesset member, Michael Oren has been grappling with the question of how Israel should be presented to the world for years.
Last year, shortly before being appointed deputy minister for public diplomacy, Oren was invited for a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss just that.
“Delegitimization, the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions movement… What are we doing wrong? What could we be doing to present Israel better?” Oren, speaking to a crowded auditorium of English-speaking Israelis at a Times of Israel event Sunday night, recalled Netanyahu asking him.
Oren said he told the prime minister that he believed Israel was fighting the war of words with the wrong weapons. While “the other side” has a simple narrative peppered with buzzwords like “occupation,” “colonialism,” “oppression,” and “apartheid,” Israel, according to Oren, had yet to work out how to present a succinct and salient argument to counter its critics. Israel was falling behind in the battle for hearts and minds because it has not succeeded in creating a positive counter-narrative, Oren argued.
Tasked by Netanyahu with forming that narrative, Oren at first approached public relations experts, he recounted, but soon realized that traditional PR methods were the wrong approach to hasbara, or pro-Israel advocacy.

JCPA: The Psychological Profile of the Palestinian "Lone Wolf" Terrorist

A series of psychological measures was administered to Palestinian residents of a refugee camp as well as a neighboring village, with subjects asked to rate both themselves as well as how they imagined actual perpetrators of "lone wolf" violence would see themselves. Our sample included many in both groups who actually knew "lone wolves." Our goal was to construct a psychological profile of the young Palestinian "lone wolf" based on the descriptions of those who knew him or her best, namely peers.
We found distinct differences between the Al-Aroub refugee camp and the nearby village of Beit Ummar. The Beit Ummar subjects saw themselves no less "nationalistic" regarding the rights of Palestinians than they saw terror operatives being, while at the same time were more tolerant of Jewish rights and less tolerant of violent behavior towards Jews.
The refugee camp residents appear to have more closely identified with those that perpetrate attacks, while Beit Ummar residents see themselves as more psychologically intact, less hopeless, less violent in school settings and more moderate in their beliefs related to incitement. We found that many Palestinian Arabs see the "lone wolves" as psychologically distressed individuals who are not solely driven by ideology.

Little one looks at me, clutching her mother’s hand.

She knows I don’t belong in her village.

Does she know I am a Jew?

I don't know.

Something in my clothes or possibly the way I was standing declares to her that I do not belong.

She doesn’t know if this is good, bad or indifferent.

Her family knows I am a Jew. They say nothing. It wouldn’t be polite. Obviously, someone had invited me, there is no way that I would be at the wedding by accident. I wasn't bothering them so it was not necessary to acknowledge me.

Little one stared. She couldn't help herself and no one told her not to.

Hesitation in her eyes it seems she is considering, "Is this lady nice? Can we be friends?" I smiled at her and her smile grew in return. Not a full smile but a half smile, as if hoping but unsure.

When she grows older, will she learn to hate me?

Will her parents teach her to be a proud Israeli-Arab-Muslim?

Or will they teach her that she is a victim ‘Palestinian’? That she can only attain pride when the Jews are gone?

The eyes of this little one speak of potential. I look at her and see both the possibility of greatness and, the flipside, the potential for nothingness, stagnation, anger and hate.

It all depends on what she is taught.

You have to be taught to hate. Preferably before you are six, or seven or eight.

It doesn’t come naturally, you have to be carefully taught.

“What do you want to be little one? A doctor? A lawyer? A scientist? An artist? You can be anything you want, if you work hard enough and take advantage of the opportunities this country, your country, Israel offers you.”

“Freedom and opportunity are yours by right of birth in this unique land. Grasp it and use it! It is your choice, what do you want? To grow or to stagnate? To achieve or complain? Walk in gratitude or anger? Do you realize that you are blessed beyond the wildest dreams of anyone in our neighboring countries and most places around the world?”

“And your neighbors? We can live side by side, little one. Maybe, one day, I can come celebrate your wedding too.”

That is the truth, but is that what she will be taught? I don’t know. What I know is that those who choose what to teach this little one shape not only her future but mine as well.

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There are lots of articles being published in recent and upcoming weeks about the Six Day War and its legacy.

Any article that talks about "occupation" and "colonialism" and all the other evils that are ascribed to Israel, that do not mention the Khartoum Resolution of September 1, 1967, is an example of deceit.

The main paragraph of the Khartoum Resolution said:

The Arab Heads of State have agreed to unite their political efforts at the international and diplomatic level to eliminate the effects of the aggression and to ensure the withdrawal of the aggressive Israeli forces from the Arab lands which have been occupied since the aggression of June 5. This will be done within the framework of the main principles by which the Arab States abide, namely, no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it, and insistence on the rights of the Palestinian people in their own country.

That last sentence means "destroy Israel," by the way. It was not referring to the territories in any way. Nobody at all demanded a Palestinian state in the territories in 1967.

As Michael Oren writes in an abbreviated history of the Six Day War published on Sunday:

A month after the war, Israel formally annexed East Jerusalem, but it also offered to return almost all of land captured from Syria and Egypt in exchange for peace.

The Arabs responded with “the three noes”: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace.

I don't think that returning the lands would have been a good idea, but the fact is that Israel did offer land for peace - a much more generous offer than the Palestinian Arabs are likely to ever receive.

And the Arab leaders said "no."

Who can blame Israel for holding onto a small percentage of the territory it won in a defensive war, on a front where it warned its enemy to stay out of the fighting to no avail? Where the alternative is a state that is only nine-miles wide that is literally indefensible?

But Israel did make the foolhardy offer. And the Arabs responded that they would prefer war to peace - an attitude that the Palestinian Arabs have maintained and demonstrated very bloodily on multiple occasions, most notably in 2001 but also by encouraging the more recent "knife intifada."

If someone thinks that "occupation" is the ultimate evil and doesn't have a word to say about the Arab leaders' decision to reject peace in exchange for virtually all the land Israel gained in 1967, then that person doesn't care about "occupation" or peace - they support the old Arab genocidal attitude towards Jews in the Middle East.

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YNet reported yesterday that the Lebanese BDS campaign to ban the "Wonder Woman" movie because it stars Israeli Gal Gadot was unsuccessful.

It may have been premature.

From the Daily Star Lebanon, today:

Highly anticipated DC Comics American superhero film “Wonder Woman” will be banned in Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency reported Monday.

The movie’s casting, with the superhero played by Israeli actress Gal Gadot, prompted the Ministry of Economy and Commerce “to take necessary measures” to prevent the film’s screening in the country.

The ban is in alignment with Lebanon’s attempts to boycott supporters of Israel and Israeli-affiliated businesses.

But it isn't quite over. Arab News reports:

According to a circulated information poster released by the ministry, on Monday it “prepared a directive for the General Directorate of Public Security to take the necessary measures to prevent the screening of this film.”
However, despite stirring up a social media frenzy, the reported ban has yet to be enforced and when contacted by Arab News, a representative of one cinema chain in Lebanon — who spoke on condition of anonymity — said that a premiere screening has been planned for Tuesday evening, pending an official announcement.

Significantly, the Saudi-based Arab News includes the trailer for the film in its article.

Last year, Lebanese boycotters attempted to ban "Batman v. Superman" where Gadot's character was introduced, but apparently that was not successful.

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In its new General Principles and Policies, Hamas proclaims:

Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.

This is actually something new for Hamas that is not found in the actual Hamas Covenant.

But the claim that the Palestinian Arabs have a right under international law to "resist" Israel "with all means and methods" -- implying including the targeting of civilians as well, is not specific to Hamas terrorists.

This latitude was already made in a 2004 post on the Electronic Intifada website by John Sigler, Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism:

However, among these legal forms of violence there is also the right to use force in the struggle for “liberation from colonial and foreign domination”. To quote United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/33/24 of 29 November 1978:

“2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle;”

Electronic Intifada also notes that the United Nations applies this concept to the Palestinian Arabs, and goes one step further:

This justification for legitimate armed resistance has been specifically applied to the Palestinian struggle repeatedly. To quote General Assembly Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX) of 29 November 1974:

3. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle; [emphasis added]…

7. Strongly condemns all Governments which do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people;

Sigler does make 2 concessions:

o He admits that General Assembly Resolutions do not have the force of law, though he then goes on to claim, "when they [UNGA resolutions] address legal issues they do accurately reflect the customary international legal opinion among the majority of the world’s sovereign states." (Keep in mind that international law is not decided by a poll of countries)

o Sigler also will agree that civilians are off-limits. (Pity that Hamas do not make that distinction and that most of their targets actually are civilian, not military)

United Nations. Credit: Neptuul, Wikipedia

One problem -- with both Sigler's and the United Nations approach -- is that the language adopted in the resolutions do not apply.

To claim that the Jewish State of Israel constitutes "colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation" ignores the fact that Jews are indigenous to the land and have been living there uninterruptedly for over 3,000 years. Since when is a people with historical, cultural, and religious ties to the land considered "colonial" or "foreign"? When archaeologists uncover finds that reveal the earlier history of the land, it is the history of the Jews -- not the Arabs. The name "Jew" comes from Judea, while the Arabs come from and are indigenous to Arabia.

But there is another issue here: since when does the United Nations sanction violence?

Article 1 of the United Nations Charter clearly states that its purpose is

To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

Article 33 adds

The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.

Nowhere does the charter say that in the event that you just cannot resolve your differences -- go ahead and have at it.

The aftermath of a bus bombing in Haifa in 2003. Credit: Wikipedia, B. Železník

This discrepancy between these language of the UN resolutions and its original charter is the point made by Joshua Muravchik in The UN and Israel: A History of Discrimination. Muravchik sheds light on some of the history behind those UN resolutions that Electronic Intifada quotes. On the UN apparent sanctioning of violence, Muravchik writes:

This stance, which contradicts the UN Charter, originated in the struggles for African independence and then was carried over to the Arab-Israel conflict. In the 1960s, the General Assembly passed several resolutions regarding Portugal’s colonies and the white-ruled states of southern Africa, affirming “the legitimacy of the struggle of the colonial peoples to exercise their right to self-determination and independence” (e.g., Resolution 2548). In 1970, an important modification was added in the phrase “by all the necessary means at their disposal” (Resolution 2708).

The PLO, backed by the Arab states and the Islamic Conference, was to cite this language as sanctioning its deliberate attacks on civilians. In his famous speech to the General Assembly, Arafat claimed that “the difference between the revolutionary and the terrorist lies in the reason for which each fights. Whoever stands by a just cause?.?.?.?cannot possibly be called [a] terrorist.”

Just a week after Arafat’s appearance, the General Assembly affirmed “the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means” (Resolution 3236). Any ambiguity in this phrase was wiped away in a 1982 resolution that lumped the Palestinian case together with lingering cases of white rule in southern Africa and affirmed “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples against foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle” (Resolution 37/43). Since the Palestinians were engaged neither in conventional nor even, for the most part, guerrilla war with Israel, but rather a campaign of bombings and murders aimed at civilian targets, this is what was meant by “armed struggle.” [emphasis added]

From Portuguese territories to Israel is a slippery slope.

Leave it to the UN to go from UN Resolution 3236 recognizing "the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations" to using all available means, including armed struggle.

The bottom line is that just as there is no unalienable right of the remaining Palestinian Arab refugees to return, neither is there a right under international law to allow Palestinian Arab to violently attack Israelis.

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