On Sunday, David M. Halbfinger and Rami Nazzal of The New York Times wrote an anti-Israel piece about the potential of Israel destroying illegal Bedouin communities in Judea and Samaria.
This paragraph shows not only the bias of the reporters but how poor their reporting is:
With the Trump administration providing diplomatic cover, right-wing ministers in Israel pressing to exploit that while it lasts and international support for the Palestinians focused for the moment on Gaza, a new ruling by a settler-majority panel of Israel’s Supreme Court appears to have freed the government to proceed with the removal of entire Bedouin communities on the West Bank. Advocates of the Bedouins say this would be a war crime: the forced transfer of a population under the protection of the military occupation.
In one paragraph, the NYT is claiming that Israel's Supreme Court probably allows war crimes, and that its bias is because its panel members are mostly settlers.
First of all, what evidence does the NYT have that the panel members are "settlers?" My source tells me "I'm not sure where Anat Baron lives, but I think it's Tel Aviv. As far as I know, Yael Vilner lives in Haifa, and Noam Solberg lives in Alon Shvut." While one of them is indeed a "settler" in land that would be part of Israel in any deal, two of them are religious, which may have been what caused the reporters to assume that they were "settlers."
But is the legal reasoning sound? That is the only issue that matters, and the NYT - instead of actually looking at the legal ruling and finding holes in it - instead takes unverified claims of "war crimes" and publishes them as if they have the same level of importance as a multi-page and detailed legal ruling. The reporters are impugning the integrity of Israel's Supreme Court, which has issued many anti-settlement rulings over the decades, by claiming bias - with zero evidence.
This isn't reporting. This is a smear.
(h/t Avi)
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On June 10, 2002, Charles Krauthammer delivered the Distinguished Rennert Lecture upon receiving the Guardian of Zion Award from Bar-Ilan University's Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies. Below is an excerpt from the lecture titled "He Tarries: Jewish Messianism and the Oslo Peace."
In the 1990s, America slept and Israel dreamed.
The United States awoke on Sept. 11, 2001. Israel awoke in September 2000.
Like the left and like the reverie that we had in the United States, secular messianism was intoxicated with the idea that history had changed from a history based on military and political conflict to one in which the ground rules were set by markets and technology. This was the infatuation with globalization as the great leveler and the abolisher of things like politics, war and international conflict. This kind of geo-economics was widely accepted in the early post-Cold War era.
It was Sept. 11th that abolished that illusion. It taught us in America there are enemies, they are ideological, they care nothing for economics and they will use whatever military power they have as a means to achieve their ideological ends. This is the old history, perhaps the oldest history of all, the war of one God against another. No new history, no break in history, no redemption from history.
The other source of this secular messianism in the Israeli context was the success of the European Union, which was seen as a model for peace in the Middle East. There was talk of Israel, Palestinian and Jordan becoming a new Benelux, with common markets, open borders, friendship and harmony.
Indeed, if you look at the Oslo Accords, of course there is page upon page of all of these ideas of cooperation on economics, on technology, on environment, all which in retrospect appear absurd. And indeed, this entire idea of the Benelux on the Jordan looks insane in retrospect, but I believe that it was insane from the very beginning, when it was first proposed 10 years ago.
Last week, Charles Krauthammer, one of America’s most incisive and influential political analysts and a profound thinker on issues pertaining to Judaism and the Jewish people, passed away at the age of sixty-eight. In 2016, Krauthammer engaged in an extended conversation with Roger Hertog based on his 1998 essay “At Last, Zion,” on the future of the Jewish people in American and Israel. At the conversation’s end, Krauthammer elaborates on a remark he once made that “I don’t believe in God, but I fear Him greatly.”
Long ago, when I was very young, I went from being a fervent believer to being not so much a non-believer as a skeptic. My theology can be summed up [thus]: the only theology I know is not true . . . is atheism. Everything else I’m unsure about. . . . The idea [espoused by] Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins that . . . there is nothing except what we see, and that’s it, is to me the most implausible, arrogant. It just can’t be, because things don’t create themselves. . . .
I have a deep belief in a transcendent “out there.” I don’t particularly believe in the mythologies that are told by any of the religions. I have an enormous attachment to the Jewish tradition and to the depth and the subtlety of its understanding of life, morality, and of metaphysics. I’ve always been interested in it, and to me . . . it is important for Jews to try to continue that tradition, to make sure it lives, and to make sure that culture is nourished. . . .
As to my own idea [that even if there is no God], “I fear Him greatly,” it’s because I believe in transcendence, some transcendence. [Since] I will never—we will never, as a species—be able to grasp what it is, there is a certain trepidation. In Judaism it’s called the fear of heaven. . . . I’m not really afraid, but in some ways you tremble when you look at the universe and you think, “I think I understand things.” . . . Human beings need to tremble when looking at the universe. If not, they don’t understand what’s going on. That’s sort of the key: to understand how little we can understand. . . .
Britain’s Prince William landed in Israel early on Monday evening, kicking off the first-ever official visit by a member of the royal family since the British Mandate ended and the State of Israel was founded in 1948.
William, the second in line to the British throne, was welcomed at Ben Gurion Airport by Tourism Minister Yariv Levin and MK Amir Ohana, both members of the ruling Likud party.
The Duke of Cambridge’s three-day stay, ending the royal family’s seven-decade unofficial boycott of Israel, is likely to be full of historical symbolism, though it was initially billed as a celebration of the unprecedentedly good bilateral ties between London and Jerusalem.
However, the trip is taking place under a minor cloud of controversy, as Kensington Palace’s official itinerary states that the prince’s visit to Jerusalem’s Old City — where he is likely to stop at the Western Wall and Muslim and Christian holy sites — will take place in the “Occupied Palestinian Territories.”
“We will receive today the Duke of Cambridge, Prince William, for the historic first visit in Israel of a representative of the British royal family,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier Monday at the start of the Likud faction meeting.
“I must say this is not exactly true because there is a representative, his great-grandmother Princess Alice, one of the Righteous of the Nations who saved Jews in Greece during the Second World War and requested to be buried in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu added.
Addressing Likud lawmakers, he joked that he would have invited all of the party’s MKs to meet the prince, but “it is a little cramped at the Prime Minister’s Residence, so we will welcome him on your behalf and on behalf of all the citizens of Israel — welcome!”
MOSCOW, June 25. /TASS/. Issues of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement were in focus of a meeting Russian president’s special envoy for the Middle East and African countries and Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov had with a delegation of Hamas leaders led by Hamas Political Bureau member Mousa Abu Marzook, the Russian foreign ministry said on Monday.
"Key attention was focused on the problems of the Palestinian-Israeli settlement on the basis of the generally recognized international legal documents, including UN resolutions, and on efforts towards restoration of Palestinian national unity on the basis of the agreement signed between Hamas and Fatah in Cairo in October 2017," the ministry said.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will attend the final of the 2018 World Cup in Russia with a number of world leaders and heads of state, FIFA's foot Gianni Infantino. Al-Rajoub said in a statement to WAFA that his Excellency will meet with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin while in Russia, and will discuss bilateral relations and the latest developments.
Something is brewing. Maybe Russia wants to break the Hamas/Fatah deadlock.
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Here is a soccer match of Palestine and Australia back in 1939. Hopefully sometime soon the Palestinian soccer team will participate in the tournament and Israel expelled from @FIFAcom just like Apartheid South Africa pic.twitter.com/CYyP49NaNo
Of course, the team they are showing is the Zionist Palestine team, complete with Stars of David in their logos. (Notice the announcer talks about their "brainy play.")
(h/t/ Jean Vercors)
UPDATE: Israellycool was all over this and there were other BDS groups that did the same thing, because they have no idea how to think for themselves.
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Forces loyal to the regime of Syrian strongman Bashar Assad took control of an abandoned UN post in the no-man’s land between the Israeli and Syrian areas of the Golan Heights, Israel’s Kan public broadcaster reported on Sunday.
The post, abandoned by United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) troops on the Golan, is meant to be free of both Israeli and Syrian troops, according to the cessation of hostilities agreement between the two countries that followed the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
According to the report, UNDOF has identified ongoing infrastructure work at the site.
The IDF said in a statement that it was “aware of what is taking place, and views [the takeover of the site and] the infrastructure work at the post as a serious and flagrant violation of the separation-of-forces agreement.”
The IDF statement suggested Israel might act to remove the forces from the post by force. Officials told Kan that Israel “sees UNDOF as responsible for tracking and acting against military forces in the separation zone, and is determined to prevent military entrenchment in that area.”
It would almost be funny if it wasn't so absurd. The Palestinian Authority, whose leaders pay salaries to imprisoned terrorist murderers and to families of killed terrorists - including suicide bombers - participated in a conference in Paris called "No Money for Terrorism"!
"The State of Palestine participated... in a ministerial conference against terror funding, which was held in the French capital Paris under the headline No Money for Terrorism. Palestine was represented at the conference by [PA] Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad Al-Malki and Head of the [Palestinian] Central Bank Azzam Al-Shawa, accompanied by a Palestinian delegation." [WAFA, official PA news agency, April 26, 2018]
The PA was invited and included in the conference while the PA actively and openly uses its money and also donor countries' money to pay terrorists, while PA leaders ignore the condemnation by the international community.
The PA pays monthly salaries to around 6,500 imprisoned terrorists, as well monthly allowances to the families of tens of thousands of killed terrorists - who the PA calls "Martyrs" - to which the PA allocated over $350 million in its published 2018 budget. Despite international criticism, PA leaders vow to continue to pay these salaries rewarding terror.
Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA spends money on establishing monuments to terrorist murderers and the PA Ministry of Education has named 31 schools after terrorists, just to name a few of the many ways the PA spends money on terrorists and on immortalizing them.
Twenty family members of victims of terrorism from the Almagor organization demonstrated outside the Likud faction meeting at the Knesset on Monday after they were not permitted to address Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Likud MKs about the need to pass a bill meant to discourage the Palestinian Authority from continuing to pay terrorists.
The Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee authorized legislation two weeks ago that requires the government to deduct the amount the PA pays terrorists from the taxes and tariffs Israel collects for the authority.
A final vote which would have passed it into law on Monday was postponed at the request of coalition chairman David Amsalem, who acts as the parliamentary arm of the prime minister. The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee will meet either this Wednesday or next week to consider revisions of the bill that would water it down.
“I am worried the bill will be buried,” Almagor head Meir Indor said. “I try to respect the prime minister, but we have our limits. A similar bill already passed in both houses of Congress in the US, and we have been legislating it for a year. We would rather have the bill not pass at all than pass with half its power taken away.”
Netanyahu himself requested a delay in the voting from the heads of the parties in his coalition. Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman and Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon have created obstacles that have made it harder to pass the bill due to battles over credit, but the bill’s sponsor, Yesh Atid MK Elazar Stern, said on Monday that he blames only one man for the legislation not yet being law.
The Israeli Minister of Strategic Affairs and Public
Diplomacy just published
research that describes the links between various BDS-promoting
entities and terrorist organizations such as the People’s Front for the
Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Hamas.
The report confirms (as if more confirmation was necessary) that – far
from being the grassroots human rights movement it poses as – BDS is in fact an
operational asset in the ongoing war against the Jewish state.
The infographic that accompanied the report, which has been
making the rounds over the last week, reminded me of other illustrations of how
propaganda and “direct action” (i.e., terrorism) fit together into an
integrated militant strategy.
This work represents two strands of public diplomacy being
carried out by the Israeli government that demonstrate their seriousness with the
propaganda as well as kinetic battlefield: high-profile exposing of war
organizations posing as peace groups, and keen use of communication methods (in
this case infographics) that cut through the word clutter often characterizing
pro-Israel commentary.
Given how well organizations much less resourced than government
agencies have made use of such tools (I’m thinking especially about NGO Monitor
and its BDS Sewer System
animated graphic that eloquently communicates the way politicized NGOs launder
accusations against Israel to fuel BDS and other propaganda campaigns), it’s
nice to see Israeli political leaders leveraging modern communication
techniques to spread the truth as well as our opponents use them to spread
lies.
While specifics are always vital when planning strategy and
tactics, it is equally important to keep in mind the big picture into which
these specifics fit.
For instance, the prime movers in the war against the Jewish
nation state are the other nations who declared war on that state at its birth,
a war that continues to this day. As I
noted when describing the odds Israel faces in her
military situation:
A majority of countries
that make up the Arab League are in a formal declared state of war against
Israel and, taken together, these states have a combined population of close to
350 million and combined armies of over a hundred million soldiers. This
number does not include irregular forces like the terrorist armies of Hezbollah
in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. If we also want to take economics into
consideration, Israel’s economy (with a GDP of approximately $300 billion) is
one twentieth the size of the economies of her combined enemies.
The years 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973 (and possibly 1982) are often
invoked to mark times when this long-term war erupted into actual shooting
between national armies, but every year in between these dates can also be
characterized as periods when formal military clashes were replaced by
irregular action (referred to as guerilla warfare and terrorism, depending on
who you talk to and when). This supports
the notion that 1948, 1967 et al should not be considered distinct wars, but
rather seen as battles in a long-war that stretches back almost a century.
Alongside kinetic actions involving people actually shooting
at one another, there has also been a parallel propaganda effort that again
begin with Israel’s nation-state enemies (i.e., the countries making up the
Arab League). Coupled with allies,
including another 20+ non-Arab Muslim states and states who once described
themselves as “non-aligned”) this “automatic majority” exercises power inherent
in numbers to corrupt organizations like the United Nations, turning them into
a propaganda arm for a war against a member state.
The purpose of the propaganda branch of the war against
Israel is to (1) make Israel’s destruction seem virtuous vs. horrifying; and
(2) provide support to military actors by limiting Israel’s options with regard
to allowable military responses. Again quoting
previous analysis of this situation, current activity by BDS and
similar anti-Israel propaganda campaigns can be characterized as follows:
·When there is not a shooting war going on, BDS advocates run Israel
Apartheid Week events and other similar programs designed to paint Israel as so
hideous that any action taken against it should be considered moral.
·During “quiet” periods when groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are
readying for the next war (by collecting weapons, building rockets or digging
terror tunnels) these “peace advocates” say and do nothing to limit that war
preparation.
·Once a shooting war breaks out, they take to the streets condemning
Israel’s counterattack and demanding a ceasefire as soon as the aggression of
Israel’s enemies start bearing a price.
Taken together, these actions demonstrate
not just a political movement playing a military role (by justifying attacks
against Israel and then trying to limit the Jewish state’s military options
once those attacks begin) but a foe with clear-cut and militant goals: to see
Israel destroyed or weakened to the point where someone else can handles the
trigger pulling.
If we keep
these fundamentals in mind, details regarding the actual makeup of the network
providing this propaganda support to the ongoing war against the Jewish state put
vital flesh on the skeleton outlined above.
And such knowledge can help us better understand what we’re dealing with
when we deal with BDS and make sensible decisions regarding what to do about
it.
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.
Here is one point I made in my speech yesterday, that I hadn't thought of before preparing for it.
In 1974, after several years of airplane hijackings and other terror attacks, Yasir Arafat went to the UN and gave a speech. The architect of terror suddenly became an honored diplomat.
The most famous phrase from his speech was, "Today I have come bearing an olive branch and a freedom-fighter's gun. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand. I repeat: do not let the olive branch fall from my hand."
Think about what he is saying. He is saying that the world must do what Palestinians want it to do, or else there will be more terror.
It was a threat!
A normal man can hold an olive branch, or a gun, or both. A normal man makes the decision whether he wants to be peaceful or violent, whether he embraces peace or war.
Arafat is saying that the decision as to whether he will drop the olive branch is up to the world pressuring Israel to give in to terrorist demands. He refuses to drop the "freedom fighter's gun" and his choice to pretend to also hold an olive branch depends entirely on other people doing his desire.
It is part of a larger pattern of using threats to get the world to pressure Israel, and it has worked brilliantly, to the present day.
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Here is the official White House translation of an interview Jared Kushner had with Palestinian newspaper Al Quds, along with my comments.
Altogether the US seems to be placing proper pressure on the Palestinian leadership which is a breath of fresh air after eight years of Obama only pressuring Israel.
REPORTER: What have you learned from Arab leaders on your recent trip through the Middle East?
KUSHNER: That the prospects for peace are very much alive. The leaders we met with all care a lot about the Palestinian people, and know that the lives of the Palestinian people can only be made better when there is a peace deal that is agreed to by both sides. They know that it is a tough deal to make, which is why it has eluded both sides for decades, but they all acknowledge the good that will come to the region if an understanding of peace is achieved.
REPORTER: What are the points that are most important to the Arab leaders to see in a peace plan?
KUSHNER: They conveyed they want to see a Palestinian State with a capital in East Jerusalem. They want a deal where the Palestinian people can live in peace and be afforded the same economic opportunities as the citizens of their own countries. They want to see a deal that respects the dignity of the Palestinians and brings about a realistic solution to the issues that have been debated for decades. They all insist that Al Aqsa Mosque remain open to all Muslims who wish to worship.
Notice that he doesn't say that Al Aqsa would be under Palestinian control.
And this also implies the end of UNRWA and replacing it with Palestinians becoming citizens of their host countries - a conclusion that Palestinian leaders are already panicking about because a cornerstone of their desire for "peace" has been the "right of return" to destroy Israel demographically. Apparently, Arab leaders are understanding that they can get a financial windfall if UNRWA funds, and additional funds from the West, could replace money being wasted by UNRWA. Gulf states especially like Palestinian workers because, frankly, they are much better than the lazy Gulf workers. It would boost their economies to integrate the Palestinians into their own society.
REPORTER: Does the deal you are working on accommodate these points?
KUSHNER: I don’t want to speak about specifics of the deal we are working on, but like I said in my speech in Jerusalem — I believe that for a deal to be made, both parties will gain more than they give and feel confident that the lives of their people will be better off in decades from now because of the compromises they make. It will be up to the leadership and the people of both sides to determine what is an acceptable compromise in exchange for significant gains.
The deal apparently is heavy on economic incentives, which is much more appealing to the Palestinian Arabs themselves than the symbolic "red lines" that their leaders have fruitlessly demanded for decades.
REPORTER: You mention “up to the people.” Are you saying that you could see a world in which you put out a plan and let the people vote on it?
KUSHNER: I didn’t say that, but that’s something that the leadership of both sides should consider doing. Perhaps that’s a way for them to take less political risk on endorsing a solution, but that is still a few steps ahead of where we are now.
REPORTER: This conflict has been going on for so long and so many people have tried to bring a resolution on what seems like intractable problems — how is your approach different?
KUSHNER: We have done a lot of listening and have spent our time focusing on the people and trying to determine what they actually want. At the end of the day, I believe that Palestinian people are less invested in the politicians’ talking points than they are in seeing how a deal will give them and their future generations new opportunities, more and better paying jobs and prospects for a better life.
Each of the political issues are very controversial and there are people on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides who will object to any compromise. We think that the deal should be looked at by both sides as a package and both sides should ask themselves — are we better-off with what we are getting in exchange for what we are giving?
Not everyone will agree that it’s the right package, but reaching for peace takes courage and the need to take the right calculated risks. Without the people pushing the politicians to focus on their needs and giving them the courage to take a chance, this will never be solved.
REPORTER: What do you make of the recent statements by Nabil Abu Rudeineh, the spokesman for President Abbas, that your trip is a “waste of time and is bound to fail”?
KUSHNER: I think the Palestinian leadership is saying those things because they are scared we will release our peace plan and the Palestinian people will actually like it because it will lead to new opportunities for them to have a much better life.
Meaning, jobs. Israel can help, the Saudis and other Gulf states can help.
REPORTER: Have you reached out to President Abbas to see if he would meet you on this trip?
KUSHNER: Not directly. President Abbas knows we are in the region and we have many mutual contacts who convey messages — he knows that we are open to meeting him and continuing the discussion when he is ready. He has said publicly he will not meet us and we have opted not to chase him.
We have continued our work on the plan and on building consensus on what is realistically achievable today and what will endure for the future. If President Abbas is willing to come back to the table, we are ready to engage; if he is not, we will likely air the plan publicly.
That would be tricky, because the people will then be inundated with propaganda about how terrible the deal is in their own media. The PA would orchestrate massive anti-deal rallies. The Internet is not yet the great equalizer it should be in Palestinian areas; despite the growing discontent with Abbas he still has a great deal of dictatorial control.
REPORTER: When will you be ready?
KUSHNER: Soon. We are almost done.
REPORTER: Will the breakdown in the relationship with President Abbas impact your ultimate ability to get a deal done?
KUSHNER: President Abbas says that he is committed to peace and I have no reason not to believe him. More importantly, President Trump committed to him early on that he would work to make a fair deal for the Palestinian people. However, I do question how much President Abbas has the ability to, or is willing to, lean into finishing a deal. He has his talking points which have not changed in the last 25 years. There has been no peace deal achieved in that time. To make a deal both sides will have to take a leap and meet somewhere between their stated positions. I am not sure President Abbas has the ability to do that.
Entirely accurate.
REPORTER: What makes you think he doesn’t have that ability?
KUSHNER: I didn’t say that he doesn’t have the ability, I said I am not sure. I greatly respect that there are many things he has done well for establishing the foundations of peace, but I don’t think the Palestinian people feel like their lives are getting better and there is only so long you can blame that on everyone other than Palestinian leadership. The global community is getting frustrated with Palestinian leadership and not seeing many actions that are constructive towards achieving peace.
Again, entirely accurate, and Kushner is referring to the Egyptians and Gulf states when he says "global community" here.
There are a lot of sharp statements and condemnations, but no ideas or efforts with prospects of success. Those who are more skeptical say President Abbas is only focused on his political survival and cementing a legacy of not having compromised than on bettering the lives of the Palestinian people.
REPORTER: Do you think that is the case?
KUSHNER: I hope not. My job is to work with the parties in charge, so I am ready to work with President Abbas if he is willing. There is a good deal to be done here from what I assess.
REPORTER: What does “economic prosperity” look like for the Palestinian people in your view?
KUSHNER: Think about the prospects for the Palestinian people over a 5-20 year horizon if they get massive investments in modern infrastructure, job training and economic stimulus. The world is going through a technological industrial revolution and the Palestinian people can be beneficiaries by leapfrogging to be leaders in the next industrial age. The Palestinian people are industrious, well educated and adjacent to the Silicon Valley of the Middle East — Israel. Israel’s prosperity would spill over very quickly to the Palestinians if there is peace.
Many countries from around the world are ready to invest if there is a peace agreement. I feel strongly that while in order to make a peace deal you need to define and have secure borders, economically you want to eliminate boundaries and allow the economies to become more integrated to increase the opportunity and prosperity for all of the people — including the Jordanians and Egyptians and beyond.
The critics of the plan are correct when they say that this sounds like what Israel has wanted for years. They are worried because it might actually work, and the Arab world can benefit as a whole from working with rather than against Israel. Palestinians would indeed benefit greatly as well.
REPORTER: So what you are working on is more regional in nature?
KUSHNER: The actual deal points are between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but the economic plan we are working on can show what comes as part of a deal when it is achieved with some massive investments that will extend to the Jordanian and Egyptian people as well. This conflict has held the whole region back and there is so much untapped potential that can be released if peace is achieved.
REPORTER: Can you give some details about the economic plan you are working on?
KUSHNER: Yes. We believe we can attract very significant investments in infrastructure from the public and private sectors to make the whole region more connected and to stimulate the economies of the future. This will lead to increases in GDP and we also hope that a blanket of peaceful coexistence can allow the governments to divert some of their funds from heavy investments in military and defense into better education, services and infrastructure for their people.
REPORTER: I know you recently hosted a conference on Gaza in the White House. Has anything come from that? What are you doing to make that situation better while we are all watching it deteriorate before our eyes?
KUSHNER: Well, what’s happening in Gaza is very sad. The humanitarian situation started long before President Trump came into office, but nonetheless we must try and make improvements. The level of desperation and despair shows the worst-case scenario of what happens when these problems are left unresolved and allowed to linger. The people of Gaza are hostages to bad leadership. Their economy has spiraled downward because of the inability to have connectivity with the world.
As long as there are rockets being fired and tunnels being dug, there will be a chokehold on resources allowed to enter. It’s a vicious cycle. I think the only path for the people of Gaza is to encourage the leadership to aim for a true cease-fire that gives Israel and Egypt the confidence to start allowing more commerce and goods to flow to Gaza. This is the only way to solve the problem from what I have seen. Many countries would be willing to invest in Gaza if there was a true prospect for a different path. It will take some leadership in Gaza though to get on that path.
Kushner is correctly blaming Hamas and Fatah - and the Arab countries have known this for years.
REPORTER: Saeb Erekat recently criticized your efforts to help Gaza saying it’s a political situation that you are trying to make a humanitarian issue in order to divide the Palestinians. Is this your intent?
KUSHNER: The last I checked they are divided, they are not connected by government or land and it’s needlessly become a dire humanitarian situation because the Palestinian leadership has made it a political situation. While it’s been on a downward spiral for a decade, long before this administration got involved, with multiple wars and a terrorist government, the political dysfunction, greatly exacerbated by the PA’s salary cuts, has made Gaza ungovernable.
It’s time for the Palestinian Authority and Hamas to stop using the people of Gaza as pawns. The narrative of victimhood may feel good for the moment and help you grab headlines but it doesn’t do anything to improve lives. President Trump cares a lot about the Palestinian people and so yes we are looking very closely at Gaza and have spent a lot of time with our partners and hope to put forth ideas to relieve some of the pressure and try to change the trajectory of the situation for the people. Finally we have said from the beginning that there is no path to peace without finding a solution for Gaza.
REPORTER: Do you see a world where the Israelis and Palestinians can coexist peacefully?
KUSHNER: I really hope so. A lot of people tell me that this can never happen because there is a lot of distrust and hatred that comes from years of conflict and people using politics to blame the hardships of life on others. There have been wars, conflicts, demonstrations, acts of terrorism and more. This is not exactly a solid foundation on which you can build coexistence and peace.
However, I am an optimist and I have met so many people and also have seen so many examples of Israelis and Palestinians reaching out to each other and trying to forge bonds to try and circumvent a failed political process. These people know their lives will only be improved by working out the issues and moving on. So yes, there is a lot of hatred and a lot of scar tissue, but I do not underestimate humankind’s ability to love. To be successful, we must be willing to forgive in the present, not forget the past, but work hard towards a brighter future.
REPORTER: You clearly are very focused on improving the economic circumstances of the Palestinian people — what about the traditional core issues?
KUSHNER: The traditional core issues are essential and we focus on them extensively with a strong appreciation of the historic differences between the two sides. We are committed to finding a package of solutions that both sides can live with. Simply resolving core issues without creating a pathway to a better life will not lead to a durable solution.
This is short on details, and this is the crux of the issue.
REPORTER: Finally, if you could deliver a message directly to the Palestinian people, what would it be?
KUSHNER: You deserve to have a bright future. Now is a time where both the Israelis and Palestinians must bolster and refocus their leadership, to encourage them to be open towards a solution and to not be afraid of trying. There have been countless mistakes and missed opportunities over the years, and you, the Palestinian people, have paid the price.
Show your leadership that you support efforts to achieve peace. Let them know your priorities and give them the courage to keep an open mind towards achieving them. Don’t let your leadership reject a plan they haven’t even seen. A lot has happened in the world since this conflict began decades ago. The world has moved forward while you have been left behind.
Don’t allow your grandfather’s conflict to determine your children’s future. My dream is for the Israeli and Palestinian people to be the closest of allies in combating terror, economic achievement, advancements in science and technology, and in sharing a lifestyle of brotherhood, peace and prosperity.
The backlash for this interview has already begun. It is difficult to know whether it means anything to the average Palestinian Arab. But there is a lot to like in this, and if the Arab nations - crucially, Jordan - are on board with this, the pressure on the Palestinian leadership could be immense.
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Here is my speech on Sunday to Temple Emanu-El Men's Club, with an enthusiastic crowd.
I spoke about the Jerusalem embassy move and the threats that the Arab world routinely make to scare the west to do their will.
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President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump will welcome Their Majesties King Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein and Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan to the White House on June 25, 2018. President Trump looks forward to reaffirming the strong bonds of friendship between the United States and Jordan. The leaders will discuss issues of mutual concern, including terrorism, the threat from Iran and the crisis in Syria, and working towards a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. [emphasis added]
The US and Jordan are supposed to be allies - in fact, Jordan is arguably our second strongest ally in the Middle East after Israel. No wonder talking about cooperation against terrorism is on the agenda.
The website of the Jordanian embassy to the US makes clear the relationship between the two countries:
Since the establishment of diplomatic relations more than six decades ago, Jordan and the United States have enjoyed strong relations based on common goals and mutual respect. The relationship has endured the complexities and volatilities of the Middle East and has demonstrated that the two countries can rely on each other as allies and partners.
...Following the September 11 terrorist attacks, Jordan stood with the U.S. in its effort to combat the common threat of terrorism and radical ideology. The two sides have worked together and with the international community to rid the world of the scourge of terrorism and end the threat posed to the national security of both countries.
This close relationship between Jordan and the US combined with Jordan's self-proclaimed dedication to fighting terrorism leads to the obvious question:
Why does Jordan refuse to extradite the Hamas terrorist that murdered 3 American citizens to the US?
The Background
On Aug. 9, 2001, Ahlam Tamimi, a Palestinian woman transported suicide bomber Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, a member of Hamas military wing Iz a Din al-Kassam, to the Sbarro restaurant. Fifteen people were killed, including 8 children and a pregnant women. Over 120 were injured. Three of those killed were US citizens. Tamimi was later captured and sentenced to 16 life terms in prison. She never expressed any remorse. On the contrary, in a video interview, she smiled and expressed satisfaction with the number of murders she accomplished.
Here, she explains how she did more than just transport the suicide bomber -- Ahlam Tamimi masterminded the Sbarro massacre:
Israeli interviewer: "Who chose Sbarro [restaurant, as the target of the attack]?"
Tamimi: "I did. For nine days I examined the place very carefully and chose it after seeing the large number of patrons at the Sbarro restaurant. I didn't want to blow [myself] up, I didn't want to carry out a Martyrdom-seeking operation (i.e., a suicide attack). My mission was just to choose the place and to bring the Martyrdom-seeker (i.e., the suicide bomber). [I made] the general plan of the operation, but carrying it out was entrusted to the Martyrdom-seeker. ... I told him to enter the restaurant, eat a meal, and then after 15 minutes carry out the Martyrdom-seeking operation. During the quarter of an hour, I would return the same way that I had arrived. Then I bade him farewell.
In October 2011, as part of the deal to free Hamas hostage Gilad Shalit, Ahlam Tamimi was one of those released. She returned to her native Jordan where she lived all her life, until about two years before she carried out the terrorist attack. Tamimi is now a celebrity throughout the Arab world, and was a host on a weekly show on the Hamas satellite TV station, Al Quds, where she extolled the virtues of "martyrdom attacks" against Jews and celebrated what she did. Only recently did she stop hosting the broadcasts, apparently in response to the extradition request, waiting for the situation to calm things down.
Last year, the US unsealed an indictment for the extradition of Ahlam Tamimi to the US to stand trial for the murder of the 3 American citizens murdered in the suicide bombing she masterminded.
Jordan refused.
Wanted Poster for Ahlam Ahmad Al-Tamimi
The State Department's Rewards For Justice program posted a $5 million reward for "information that brings to justice" Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi.
Jordan's Extradition Treaty With The US
Jordan's extradition treaty with the US goes back to 1995.
On February 26, 1993, a truck bomb containing 1,336 pounds of urea nitrate–hydrogen was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The detonation was intended to murder tens of thousands of people. Though the plot failed, it did kill six people and injured over a thousand. Four men were convicted. Ramzi Yousef, who masterminded the bombing fled to Pakistan and Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck carrying the bomb, escaped to Jordan.
Eyad Ismoil, who drove the truck in the World Trade Center Bombing
In order to extradite Ismoil from Jordan, the US and Jordan signed an extradition treaty. Based on that treaty, US agents were allowed to go onto Jordanian soil where the Jordanians handed Islmoil over, to be brought back to the US for trial. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to life.
The Argument Against Extradition: Jordan Does Not Extradite Nationals
One of the reasons given for Jordan's refusal to extradite Ahlam Tamimi to the US to stand trial for the murder of 2 Americans is the claim that Jordan does not extradite Jordanian nationals, citizens of Jordan. In 2015, Arutz Sheva quoted an unnamed Jordanian source who told AFP that
Jordan does not usually extradite its citizens to other countries, even in the case of an extradition agreement. In such a case, they are generally tried in specialized Jordanian courts.
Al Jazeera has reported that "Jordanian courts have said their constitution does not allow for the extradition of Jordanian nationals."
Not true.
First, there is nothing in the Jordanian Constitution that forbids the extradition of Jordanian nationals. According to Article 21:
(i) Political refugees shall not be extradited on account of their political beliefs or for their defence of liberty.
(ii) Extradition of ordinary criminals shall be regulated by international agreements and laws.
Extradition is excluded as a possibility in the case of political refugees on account of their political beliefs, which does not apply in this case -- though Stephen Flatow, whose own daughter was murdered by Palestinian terrorists, accuses the Jordanian government of a cynical interpretation:
Get it? If the Jordanian government is claiming that its constitution forbids extraditing Tamimi, it has to claim that the Sbarro massacre was a “political” crime. That’s outrageous."
More to the point, the second point in Article 21 states that extradition is regulated by international agreements and laws.
She said the U.S. has no right to charge her, arguing that she was already tried and sentenced in Israel. "How come I should be returned to jail again for the same charge," she said Tuesday.
Nor could Jordan or any other requested country invoke the bar against double jeopardy that appears in many extradition treaties to prevent second punishment after a criminal prosecution for the extraditable offense has been conducted and fully carried out. That provision obviously does not prevent extradition of a fugitive who flees a country where he has been convicted in order to avoid imprisonment. It also should not prevent extradition if, by some other unlawful means such as Hamas’ extortionate demand, the criminal process is aborted.
A criminal complaint was unsealed today charging Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, also known as “Khalti” and “Halati,” a Jordanian national in her mid-30s, with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against U.S. nationals outside the U.S., resulting in death.
The Argument Against Extradition: Jordanian Parliament Never Ratified The 1995 Extradition Treaty
The Jordanian Court of Cassation ruled that the original extradition treaty was never ratified by the Jordanian parliament. This argument appears the strongest, if also the oddest. The treaty was the foundation of the extradition of Jordanian national Eyad Ismoil, with US agents arriving in Jordan to pick him up. How could that happen if there was no treaty?
The handover of Eyad Mahmoud Ismoil Najim was a political hand grenade in Jordan. The first extraditions ever of a Jordanian national accused of a terrorist crime against the United States would also be the last. A week after the extra Eyad Mahmoud Ismoil Najim to the United States, the Jordanian Parliament scrapped the treaty.
Article 46
Provisions of internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties
1. A State may not invoke the fact that its consent to be bound by a treaty has been expressed in violation of a provision of its internal law regarding competence to conclude treaties as invalidating its consent unless that violation was manifest and concerned a rule of its internal law of fundamental importance.
2. A violation is manifest if it would be objectively evident to any State conducting itself in the matter in accordance with normal practice and in good faith.
This analysis means the United States should not give up on attempting to extradite Al-Tamimi. If other countries place enough pressure on Jordan due to concerns of Al-Tamimi’s danger and susceptibility to planning another attack, Jordan may change its position. Al-Tamimi is above all else, a significant danger that Jordan should take seriously—if not for the world, for Jordan’s own citizens that live amongst Al-Tamimi.
Even if we take at face value Jordan's claim that there is no extradition treaty, that does not leave Jordan off the hook for harboring an admitted Hamas terrorist.
According to Article 2:
Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in order to carry out:
(a) An act which constitutes an offence within the scope of and as defined in one of the treaties listed in the annex; or
(b) Any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a Government or an international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act. [emphasis added]
The Convention goes on to describe extradition:
Article 11.2:
When a State Party which makes extradition conditional on the existence of a treaty receives a request for extradition from another State Party with which it has no extradition treaty, the requested State Party may, at its option, consider this Convention as a legal basis for extradition in respect of the offences set forth in article 2. Extradition shall be subject to the other conditions provided by the law of the requested State. [emphasis added]
Article 12.1:
States Parties shall afford one another the greatest measure of assistance in connection with criminal investigations or criminal or extradition proceedings in respect of the offences set forth in article 2, including assistance in obtaining evidence in their possession necessary for the proceedings. [emphasis added]
The Government of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan does not consider acts of national armed struggle and fighting foreign occupation in the exercise of people’s right to self-determation as terrorist acts within the context of paragraph 1(b) of article 2 of the Convention.
Looks like Stephen Flatow's suspicion of Jordan's cynical approach to fighting terrorism was correct.
If so, it is time for Jordan to clearly state that it is defending Tamimi and preventing her facing justice is based on Jordan's considering Tamimi's terrorist attack on the Sbarro pizzeria to be a heroic act of national armed struggle.
In any case, this makes the Jordanian claim that an extradition treaty that was used in the past is suddenly non-existent suspicious, to say the least.
Conclusion
While King Abdullah II of Jordan likes to talk about trust and confidence, the king is going out of his way to avoid building it with his refusal to fulfill his obligations under the US-Jordanian extradition treaty and handing over Hamas terrorist Ahlam Tamimi to the US. His actions, or in this case - inaction, speaks louder than the convenient statements of friendship and alliance. When we add Jordan's reliance on the US for the financial assistance required to maintain his kingdom, this sense of obligation only increases. The US government has made clear that it is serious about prosecuting Ahlam Tamimi. It remains for King Abdullah to demonstrate that he really is serious when he claims to be an ally in fighting terrorism.
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The United States has quietly frozen its aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA) pending review, i24NEWS has learned. The move comes two months after Congress passed the Taylor Force Act, which aimed to force the PA to terminate its “pay-for-slay” policies of paying stipends to convicted terrorists in Israeli jails and to the families of dead terrorists.
The act orders that US assistance to the West Bank and Gaza “that directly benefits the PA” be suspended unless the Secretary of State certifies that the Palestinian Authority has met four conditions: terminating these payments to terrorists, revoking laws authorizing this compensation, taking “credible steps” to end Palestinian terrorism, and “publicly condemning” and investigating such acts of violence.
The Taylor Force Act was passed as part of an omnibus $1.3 trillion spending bill on 23 March 2018. It was named for the US army veteran who was murdered by a Palestinian terrorist in Jaffa in March 2016, in an attack that injured eleven people.
A Senate Foreign Relations Committee aide told i24NEWS, “Our understanding is that US funding to the West Bank and Gaza is on hold pending an administration review.”
Separately, i24NEWS understands that the West Bank and Gaza office of USAID -- the American international development agency -- has not received its budget for the upcoming fiscal year and therefore has not been able to put its projects out to tender.
Comparing Trump’s policies to the Holocaust is a species of Holocaust denial.
This week, with the controversy over Trump’s separation of families arriving illegally from Mexico, has represented a turning point in their popularisation of the Hitler comparisons they once chided. They refer to the places in which the children of illegal migrants are being housed as ‘concentration camps’. The former director of the CIA, Michael Hayden, tweeted a photo of Auschwitz with the words, ‘Other governments have separated mothers and children’. Pre-empting the suspension of Godwin’s Law, a writer for the New Statesman said: ‘Stop talking about Godwin’s Law – real Nazis are back.’ Twitter buzzes with Trump-as-Hitler talk. ‘This is how the Holocaust started’, they all say.
This is how the Holocaust started. This is wrong in itself: the Holocaust started with racial laws forbidding Jewish and Gentile inter-marriage and severely restricting Jews’ rights to work, move and speak. Trump’s America has passed no law that bears the remotest resemblance to these hateful racial edicts. But perhaps this claim that Trump’s behaviour echoes the start of the Holocaust represents a tiny pang of conscience among those who are exploiting the horrors of the mid-20th-century to signal their disgust with Trump. Perhaps they know, at some level, that it is mad – not to mention immoral – to compare Trump’s policies to the Holocaust itself. To compare the temporary removal of children from their parents to the shoving of children into ovens. Actual ovens. The vast majority of children who were sent to Auschwitz were put in an oven and gassed to death and then their bodies were burnt, leading to their ashes raining down on their parents who had only been enslaved rather than gassed. They were gassed later.
That is what happened at Auschwitz. Does Michael Hayden know this? Do the thousands of people who retweeted his Auschwitz-Trump comparison know this? If they do, then their commentary on Trump’s child-migrant policy is more foul than the policy itself, because it renders Auschwitz mundane. It diminishes the horrors of that death camp through comparing them to some temporary, excessively harsh migrant controls at the Mexican border. To speak of the gassing to death of hundreds of thousands of Jewish children in the same breath as the temporary removal of scores of Mexican children from their parents insults those dead Jewish children. It relativises their suffering. It says it wasn’t that bad; it was merely on a spectrum with the largely ordinary stuff that happens in politics today.
Students at the University of British Columbia are trying to get conservative author Ben Shapiro banned from campus, according to The Ubyssey.
Fifth-year UBC arts student Reid Marcus wants the school to cancel the event, saying “Shapiro is neither a scholar nor an activist.” Ahhh so because Ben isn’t involved in either the production or distribution of BS indoctrination, his opinion is invalid. I see. Marcus cited Shapiro’s views on Islam, by which he probably means his refutation of what he calls the “myth of the tiny radical Muslim minority.” He also cites Ben’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and gender identity.
Angelo tells me his club has hosted Jordan Peterson 5 times with no protesters. “Yet the moment we invite a pro-Israel speaker like Ben Shapiro, it’s chaos. Jewish students feel completely silenced by the campus culture and this campaign to shut down the event is proof of this. The opposition is comprised [of] SJWs who hate any opinion that isn’t their own, and raging anti-Semites who openly talk about violence towards Israeli Jews.”
Men’s Club proudly presents Elder of Ziyon, the anonymous, most popular and respected pro-Israel blogger, who has been quoted in many media outlets. The Elder of Ziyon will speak at Temple Emanu-El Sunday, June 24 at 10:00 AM in the Social Hall. $10.00 at the door (CASH ONLY) including the “Famous Men’s Club Breakfast”! Men's Club events are open to everyone. You don't have to be a man to attend. Breakfast is Kosher.
Sun, June 24, 2018 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM EDT LOCATION Congregation Temple Emanu-El 984 Post Ave Staten Island, New York 10302
Hope to see many of you there!
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Tuesday, June 26, 2018
Elder of Ziyon
