Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, October 26, 2021

10/26 Links Pt1: The 'human rights' scam at the heart of the NGO controversy; GOP bill seeks to stop Jerusalem consulate for Palestinians

From Ian:

UN Watch: Ahead of Donor Conference, UNRWA Should Identify Teachers Suspended for Antisemitism

Ahead of a major international UNRWA donors conference in November that will seek $800 million from mostly Western states, a watchdog group is calling on the UN agency that runs schools for Palestinians to identify which teachers and other employees were recently suspended during internal investigations into allegations of widespread incitement to antisemitism and terrorism by more than 100 UNRWA staffers.

UNRWA has reportedly suspended at least six of its employees after a report by United Nations Watch, a Geneva-based non-governmental organization, exposed over 100 UNRWA educators and other employees who have publicly propagated violence and antisemitism on social media, in breach of the agency’s proclaimed policy of “zero tolerance” for incitement.

The suspension of UNRWA employees only came to light after the outraged reaction of Palestinians in Gaza was reported in Arabic-language media, including Al Jazeera and The New Arab, as a former UNRWA staffer—who was fired for his own ties to the Hamas terrorist organization—accused the agency of caving into “Zionist pressure” for taking measures against the employees.

Ahead of the November conference, and in the absence of any official statement from UNRWA, UN Watch has today sent a letter (full text below) to UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini asking him to reveal which of the 113 named employees were reportedly suspended.

The letter also expressed concerns over a series of recent controversial statements by Lazzarini that characterized legitimate oversight and accountability of his agency as “politically-driven attacks.”

Jonathan S. Tobin: The 'human rights' scam at the heart of the NGO controversy

The problem doesn't stop with these NGOs that help promote the work of Palestinian groups. The heart of the international human-rights scam that is now just a thinly disguised cover for Jew-hatred is the United Nations and its Human Rights Council, which lends a facade of legitimacy to these efforts to libel the Jewish state.

Sadly, the Biden administration reversed the decision of its predecessor and rejoined the Human Rights Council this year. While it says it will fight to reform it, such an attempt to do so was proved to be a fool's errand a long time ago. Instead, it just shows how the foreign-policy establishment, which is back in charge in Washington, is hopelessly compromised by its faith in diplomacy and multilateral engagement as an end in itself. In doing so, it also helps promote the credibility of a world body that became a safe place for antisemitism decades ago and shows no signs of changing.

Part of this is also linked to the growing popularity among liberal American elites of Intersectionality and critical race theory. Those toxic ideas falsely label Israel to be a function of "white privilege" and colonialism rather than an expression of the self-determination of the Jewish people, and they lie at the heart of the campaign against Israel that has been gaining traction in the international community since the 2001 Durban "anti-racism" conference that turned into a hate fest of antisemitism.

The UNHRC is at the heart of a web of groups acting in concert to attack Israel in this fashion of which HRW and Amnesty are major players. The six PFLP-associated Palestinian NGOs are essential for providing fodder for their smears.

It's long past time for those who care about human rights to reject the scam being perpetrated on a gullible world by those who parade under that banner. It can start with putting Palestinian terror NGOs out of business. But it will also require all decent people to treat HRW and Amnesty as the frauds that they truly are as opposed to giving lip service to the notion that they are human-rights groups. It will also require the United States and the rest of the West to thoroughly reject the organization at the top of this fraudulent scheme: the United Nations. Until that happens, Jewish groups, Israel and the United States will be acquiescing to the most overt expression of antisemitism on the globe rather than opposing it.

Israeli Foreign Ministry Argues Banned Palestinian Groups Are ‘Main Source’ of PFLP Funds

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Monday provided further details on why it labelled six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist groups and charged them with having links to one of the most extreme and violent factions of the PLO.

The move comes after Defense Minister Benny Gantz on Friday signed an executive order to take action against six Palestinian advocacy organizations — Addameer, Al Haq, Bisan Center, Defense of Children International-Palestine, Samidoun and the Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) — who are alleged to have connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

“The PFLP, designated as a terrorist group by the US and the EU, operates an organizational and military apparatus, including a network of civilian institutions whose goal is to absorb donations from abroad and fund the group’s critical needs on the ground,“ Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated. “PFLP institutions operate under the guise of humanitarian aid, receiving funding primarily from Europe. These institutions serve as the main source of funds for the financing of the PFLP’s activities at all levels.“

The terror designation of the NGOs has sparked some international backlash against Israel, as well as domestic criticism from within the governing coalition, while the US said Friday it had been taken by surprise by the decision. In response, Israel plans to send envoys from the Shin Bet security agency and a Foreign Ministry representative to Washington in coming days, to present further intelligence and evidence linking the Palestinian human rights groups to the PFLP.

The PFLP says it is a "human right" for Palestinians to kill Jews

As we've been reporting, the international community is in an uproar over Israel's designation of six Palestinian NGOs as being part of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group, and that these groups redirect international funds for terror.

International human rights NGOs, the UNHRC and others are claiming that Israel is trying to silence criticism and is acting like an authoritarian regime by shutting down human rights groups.

Essentially none of the critics admit that there are links between the groups and the PFLP. Yet the groups were either founded by the PFLP directly or they are run by PFLP members.

In my previous post, I looked at the 2000 political vision of the PFLP - a 225-page manifesto that made no distinction between terrorism and political activity.

That document didn't say that the PFLP planned to use human rights groups as a political tool against Israel. At the time it was written, though, it had already founded some of the groups that are now being celebrated as human rights organizations. This characterization is uncritically swallowed by Western NGOs.

You can see that even these organizations consider themselves to be part of the resistance against Israel. For example, the Union of Palestinian Women's Committees, founded by the PFLP, describes itself both as a "progressive feminist organization" and "an integral part of the Palestinian national movement that struggles to get rid of the Israeli occupation." Their summer camp for girls glorified the second intifada where the PFLP used suicide bombs to murder Israelis as the "uprising that our people fought" and a source of pride.

As we've seen, the PFLP makes no distinction between its political and social movements and its support for murdering Jews. These "human rights" groups don't consider Jews to be human. And they are being defended by the international human rights community.

The PFLP itself has its own unusual definition of human rights.

A PFLP representative gave a speech in Cuba to mark the group's 45th anniversary in 2012. Here is what he said about human rights:

On this anniversary, we reaffirm our commitment to our goals, principles and inalienable Palestinian national rights. Some of these have been recognized and approved by the norms, principles, conventions, international resolutions, international law and human rights. The first of these rights is the right of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation by all means and methods.

"All means and methods" is the Palestinian way of saying "terror attacks."

PFLP training camp for kids, this year

This is the lens through which any honest person must look at these organizations that claim to uphold a progressive, human rights agenda. To them, human rights includes murdering Jews for their cause.

I cannot find a counterexample where these purported human rights groups admit that Israel Jews are human or that they condemn terror attacks against Jews in Israel. (I even posted a bet in Twitter that no such statement exists.)

When Human Rights Watch, Amnesty, B'Tselem and the UN all defend the PFLP's social organizations, they are defending a philosophy where murdering Jews is celebrated.

Palestinian prime minister Muhammad Shtayyeh is visiting Europe in a bid to resume the faltering funding that used to be a blank check from the EU.

International funding to the Palestinian Authority has declined this year, for the first time in decades. While the EU says that it hasn't sent its usual $150 million to the PA this year for "technical reasons." it appears that European taxpayers do not want to continue paying for the PA's corruption.

Earlier this month Swedish Foreign Minister Ann Linde warned, "If we are to fully support economic development, then we can not have corruption at such a level as exists in Palestine."

A recent audit of the Palestinian Authority for the year 2020 revealed many examples of corruption and embezzlement of funds. These included misuse of funding for the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca, the “National Committee as a Permanent Capital for Arab culture,” abuses by the Palestinian Ministry of Finance, Al-Aqsa University and many other institutions. If lots of money is sent to the Palestinian government, you can assume that much of it is going into the pockets of their leaders.

The total aid expected by the Palestinian government this year is only 10% of the total pledges of donor countries to the PA. One official said that the funds expected to come later this month from France and the EU were earmarked in 2020, and the 2021 money has not yet come.

The rampant corruption of the Palestinian Authority is still barely reported in the media, even though it is well known to the international community and to Palestinians themselves. It contradicts the narrative that Palestinian suffering is all because of Israel, and therefore the media believes that reporting this will just confuse people - and cause them to lose interest in a conflict that is a cash cow for the news business.

Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2002 detailing the terror attacks during the start of the second intifada. The report described the various terror groups that had been targeting and killing Israelis.

Here's what it said about the PFLP:

The PFLP has not claimed any separation between its military wing and its political leaders. As with the other armed Palestinian groups that have intentionally and repeatedly organized suicide attacks against civilians, persons carrying out attacks on civilians claimed by the PFLP are individually criminally liable for their actions. PFLP leaders are also liable both directly and under the doctrine of command responsibility.

HRW accurately said that the PFLP political and terror components are one and the same.

But over the years, as Human Rights Watch lurched leftward become the leading anti-Israel organization, its descriptions of the socialist PFLP has become less critical and more admiring.

In 2007, it called the PFLP "a secular leftist party that also conducts armed attacks against Israel."

In 2012, HRW said that PFLP - which it had previously documented in 2002 of being guilty of crimes against humanity - was merely a group "which Israel considers a terrorist organization."

In 2013, it became "a left-wing political party."

In 2018, it was merely a "leftist party."

By 2021, HRW writes:

For most of the last six years, Israeli authorities have detained Khalida [Jarrar], a 58-year-old elected member of the Palestine Legislative Council, over her political activism with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). One of the more than 400 organizations that Israeli authorities have outlawed, the PFLP includes both a political party and an armed wing. The armed wing has attacked Israeli soldiers and civilians. Israeli authorities have never charged Khalida with involvement in armed activities.

The implication is that Israel has no business outlawing the PFLP altogether, because its armed and political sides have nothing to do with each other - the exact opposite of its position in 2002.

Even though the PFLP was involved in a murderous attack in 2019 - where the ringleader worked for one of those "human rights organizations" that HRW is defending now.

In 2002, HRW would have said that Khalida Jarrar was responsible for the death of Rina Shnerb, under the doctrine of command responsibility. 2021 HRW creates a virtual wall between the two sides of the PFLP - a wall that the PFLP itself brags doesn't exist.

What does the PFLP itself say?

Their most recent political platform was published in 2000:

It it is a natural right, and duty that the Palestinian people should defend itself, resist the occupation through various means of struggle, including armed struggle. ..[T]he form of armed struggle should be dealt with at each stage as a means to serve the inclusive political vision which is responsible for determining the function to be done at each stage of the struggle...

The political platform explicitly supports the "armed struggle" and regards it as integral to the PFLP. There are no "wings." The PFLP's "human rights organizations" are part of its social, political program. To the PFLP, "human rights" are just as much weapons as the IED that murdered Rina Shnerb, which the PFLP admits.

The only thing that changed is that Human Rights Watch, which had a shred of morality 20 years ago, is now an open ally with Palestinian terror groups.

10/25 Links Pt2: For the Anti-Israel Left, the Jewish State Is but a Screen onto Which It Projects Its Fantasies; Im Tirtzu: 'New Israel Fund collaborating with pro-BDS groups'

From Ian:

For the Anti-Israel Left, the Jewish State Is but a Screen onto Which It Projects Its Fantasies

There is another problem with intersectionality, at least in the way it is now being used. It, too, is a kind of conceit—an updated version of “We Are the World.” As the political theorist Michael Walzer told me, “Intersectionality is a genuinely useful idea. But there is no intersection between American Blacks and Palestinians. The moral significance of solidarity is that it extends solidarity to people with whom you have no intersection. Intersectionality is an entirely different idea from internationalism.” The Israeli journalist Etan Nechin observed to me that the American left’s discourse on Israel is “an offshoot of identity politics, with emphasis on ‘me.’ But internationalism was never about that.” To support other peoples or movements because they are somehow “like” you—or because they “look like you”—betrays the traditional ethos of internationalism.

And in the Manichean imagination—and this, I think, is its greatest sin, if I can use that word—the democratic forces within Israel, both Jewish and Arab, are rendered literally invisible, as if by a perverse magic trick. In Haaretz, Nechin recently charged that those on the American left—and particularly the Jewish American left—“dismiss realities on the ground in Israel and Palestine entirely, and instead offer high-minded ideological critiques.” As for ending the occupation, American leftists “expect … if that day comes, [that] it won’t be because of the work of decades by the Israeli left, but because Americans boycotted SodaStream.” Gone missing are “the hundreds of thousands of union workers, writers, doctors, teachers, activists, and everyday people within the Green Line who protested the Jewish Nation State Bill, or go out on a Friday afternoon to stand in solidarity next to their Palestinian neighbors.”

Today’s left, and today’s liberals, are in a bit of a pickle—or at least in a state of moral and theoretical disarray. I don’t exempt myself from that. It is extremely hard to figure out how to extend solidarity—in real, not rhetorically grandiose terms—to Syrians and Afghans; to democracy activists in China, Nicaragua, and Hong Kong; to horrifically endangered peoples such as the Uyghurs and Yazidis and Rohingya. Ending the occupation, and strengthening endangered democratic institutions in Israel, are goals that rank high on the list of political urgencies for some of us.

In the current, often bewildering international context, the venomous attacks on Israel qua Israel offer a seductively easy, morally antiseptic—and, I would add, appallingly self-absorbed—way to intervene in foreign affairs. The hysterical hyperbole, the self-referential projections, the lazy conflations, the warped histories that abound today: All substitute for solidarity. What is needed, I believe, is an entry into the world of political thought, whose foundation is the ability to make distinctions within the context of history rather than to crush them.

So no, Palestine isn’t Ferguson, Israel isn’t South Africa, and Zionism isn’t white supremacy. As Arendt wrote, the activity of thinking—the very basis of politics—begins with the knowledge that “A and B are not the same.”

Im Tirtzu: 'New Israel Fund collaborating with pro-BDS groups'

The New Israel Fund has increased its funding of a series of left-wing organizations and Palestinian aid groups, at least one of which has ties to an organization that supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement. This is according to a new report by right-wing watchdog group Im Tirtzu.

The report's findings are in contrast to the New Israel Fund's claims to donors "it will not support organizations that call for and support a comprehensive boycott of the State of Israel."

According to Im Tirtzu's Research and Policy division, in 2020 the New Israel Fund gave $125,000 to Baladna – the Association for Arab Youth. According to its Facebook page, Baladna recently collaborated with Qatari-based BDS organization QAYON. According to QAYON's official website, the organization opposes any form of normalization with the "Zionist entity" and runs BDS campaigns. Baladna recently worked with QAYON to organize an event benefitting Palestinians detained during the Israel Defense Forces' Operation Guardian of the Walls. In addition, Baladna is known for its opposition to minorities enlisting in the IDF or national service.

The report further found that the New Israel Fund continues to donate tens of thousands of dollars a year to Combatants for Peace, a self-described anti-occupation" Israeli-Palestinian non-governmental organization. The New Israel Fund increased its funding to Combatants for Peace in 2020, according to the report.

Alon Schwartzer, who heads Im Tirtzu's research and policy division, said: "This is not the New Israel Fund, but the Israel Erasure Fund. The findings of the New Israel Fund's financial reports prove the fund is continuing its support for organizations that act toward the defamation of IDF soldiers, the tying of their hands, and their prosecution at the International Criminal Court at The Hague."

Prof. Phyllis Chesler answers Giulio Meotti''s tough questions

On their own initiative, two internationally well-known authors and publicists, veteran op-ed writers for Arutz Sheva, decided to get to know one another's thoughts on crucial current issues from across the ocean. Here is the result.

Meotti: Question 2) In the UK, a Tory MP was just murdered. A year ago, a French teacher…and the llist goes on. Will the West pay dearly for its appeasement?

Chesler Response: Absolutely. The West has a choice. Build walls up to the very skies and guard them well —or monitor and root out radical Islamic terrorists from afar. Both propositions are hugely expensive. Europe genocidally exterminated their peaceful “Semites,” the Jews, and has reaped a terrible karmic destiny.

They subsequently welcomed millions of non-peaceful other “Semites,” the Muslims, within their borders, without demanding proof that they will become Europeans, without subjecting them to a rigorous Western education and linking all benefits to that program, and without deporting them when they fail to Westernize.

Meotti: Question 3) Joe Biden, Kamala and the others don’t seem much impressed by the news coming from Afghanistan. Is their woke gender women's agenda just a dog whistle?

Chesler Response: President Biden seems to be half-comatose or at least cognitively impaired. The Anyone But Trump crowd found the least qualified candidate, one who could be controlled by the increasingly “left” Democratic Party. Biden and Harris are not paying attention to the consequences of America’s shameful retreat from Afghanistan.

Or to the immigrants entering the United States through our southern border. No one is checking to see if they have COVID or any other communicable disease. No one is checking to see whether they are Jihadists or criminal cartel members.

God help us all.

No wonder BDS doesn't try to boycott companies that open offices in Israel

One difference between the Arab boycott of Israel from the 1940s (still officially in effect) and BDS is that the Arab boycott would restrict business from any companies that had business in Israel.

This is why Israelis couldn't buy Pepsi Cola, Toshiba computers, Toyota or Nissan cars until 1992, because those companies adhered to the boycott out of fear for losing the more lucrative Arab market.

But BDS couldn't make such a boycott work, without the support of the Arab world.

And for one other reason: BDSers themselves couldn't live for five minutes without using products from companies that have branches in Israel.

This morning I saw that AT&T opened up it second R&D center in Israel; the first was opened in 2007. It employs 600 people.

For high tech companies in Israel, that is practically nothing.

Wikipedia's page of companies with R&D facilities in Israel is a who's who of the top companies in high tech, not to mention many other industries.

Imagine BDS trying to boycott Apple, Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Amazon and Microsoft.

That's why they nibble around the edges, going after HP and AirBnB. Because they know that they cannot possibly adhere to a real boycott themselves, let alone demanding that others do.

This is why Israel's best defense is strength. Economic strength ensures that boycotts can't hurt it; military strength ensures that enemy states cannot hurt it, and when they realize that they can gain much more by cooperating with Israel than fighting a losing battle, that's how peace can happen.

Peace is the last thing that the BDSers want - including the ones with "peace" in their names.

This poster barely scratches the surface - 380 multinational companies have R&D facilities in Israel, and many more have subsidiaries, investments and partnerships.

From AFP/Kuwait Times:

The Gaza Strip might be off-limits for foreign foodies but the coastal Palestinian enclave is brimming with seafood restaurants, many owned by one local family whose culinary hook is their matriarch’s spicy fish tajine. Munir Abu Hasira arrives at the Gaza port’s fish market at daybreak, but holds back as traders snatch up sardines and other fish caught during the night. He is angling for more discerning catches like grouper, sea bream and large shrimp, which can go for around 70 shekels ($22) a kilo-a small fortune in the impoverished enclave, under Zionist’s entity blockade since 2007. “It’s expensive because of the economic situation, but we buy the fish to supply restaurants and to export” to the occupied West Bank, he says, as workers pile fresh fish into a van.

.For decades, the Abu Hasira family were fishermen, but since opening their first restaurant in the 1970s, they have gradually traded their fishing kit for chef’s tools. Sitting on a chair in a Gaza courtyard, Eid Abu Hasira, in his 80s, said he was the last of the family’s fishermen. “I sold everything in 2013,” said the head of the family, sporting a white moustache and wearing a traditional robe and headdress. “Today, we are in the fish trade, and have 13 Abu Hasira restaurants,” he said, clutching Muslim prayer beads as he leaned on a wooden cane.

If the name Abu Hasira sounds familiar to you - here's why:

One of his ancestors was a prominent Jewish Moroccan rabbi, who died during a trip to Egypt in the 19th century. A descendent in Egypt had a vision that “they had to go to Gaza”, Eid Abu Hasira said. “So we came here. My grandfather chose to live off the sea,” he said, adding that a Jewish branch of the family lives in Zionist entity, while those in Gaza are Muslim.

Actually, Rabbi Yaakov Abuhatzeira died in Egypt while on his way to Israel. Yes, he was a Zionist before Zionism.

The article goes on to say that before the first intifada, Israelis used to enjoy going to Abu Hasira's restaurants.

The Roma restaurant Facebook page has lots of videos of the establishment and food, with lots of heavily Islamic posts.

10/25 Links Pt1: Melanie Phillips: The "human rights" terror laundry; Folly of the “Economy for Peace” Thesis; Is the decision to renew US funding to UNRWA conducive with US law?

From Ian:

Melanie Phillips: The "human rights" terror laundry

One of the things that has fried the western brain over the last few decades is the hijack of language to present evil as good and to reverse oppressor and oppressed, victimiser and victim.

One of the principal mechanisms of this moral inversion has been the culture of so-called “human rights,” which has been used to extinguish actual human rights in support of certain agendas. To be more precise, the agenda to destroy the State of Israel. To that end, “human rights” has become in effect a laundromat for terrorism.

In the Middle East, the vehicles for this agenda have been certain “human rights” NGOs. These conduct systematic campaigns of defamation and delegitimisation against Israel — the only upholder of human rights in the Middle East — while downplaying, sanitising or ignoring the real human rights abuses by tyrannical regimes. These include Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, which perpetrate or support war crimes and terrorist outrages against Israel as well as committing human rights abuses and /or war crimes against their own people.

Now, the Israeli government has identified six Palestinian “human rights” NGOs that it says go further and work for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), which has been declared a terrorist organisation by the United States, Israel, Canada, and the European Union.

Ben-Dror Yemini: Israel's peace activists must back terror tags for Palestinian rights groups

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees - which is one of the six groups with a terror label on it - sounds like a name of an organization delightfully innocent and pedestrian.

Two of the activists working for this organization - Summer Arabid and Abd a-Razak Farage - not only happen to be members of the PFLP, but were also accused of being involved in the murder of 17-year-old Rina Shnerb in August 2019, who was killed by a roadside bomb while hiking with her father near Dani's Spring.

The former head of the prisoners' rights group "Addameer," another outlawed organization, Khalida Jarrar, is also a PFLP member.

The list of members of these EU-funded rights groups who are connected to terror organizations goes on and on.

Nevertheless, shortly after Gantz’s declaration, Meretz MK Gaby Lasky posted a tweet in which she stated that “human rights organizations are not terrorist organizations. The defense minister must reverse his decision.”

Meretz head and Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, meanwhile, demanded proof before labeling the six organizations illegal, same as Labor MK Naama Lazimi.

Their demands are weird, to say the least, considering detailed proof has been published not only in the 2019 report , but also, repeatedly, by the NGO Monitor organization - which promotes accountability on the reports and activities of humanitarian NGOs in the regards to the Arab–Israeli conflict.

Serious peace and rights organization should have built a wall between them and the organizations and bodies that celebrate terrorism and work to delegitimize Israel, but the opposite is true.

And when politicians and "rights organizations" in Israel stand up to defend these bodies, they are basically killing what was supposed to be Israel’s "peace bloc.”

For over a decade the media has sympathetically portrayed this elderly Palestinian as a victim…

Neglecting their duty to tell you he's a convicted terrorist. pic.twitter.com/1z7lIWzmLW
— Israel Advocacy Movement (@israel_advocacy) October 25, 2021

NGO Monitor: 13 NGOs, 70 Staff and Board Members Linked to Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

Al-Haq: Shawan Jabarin, Al-Haq's General Director, was convicted in 1985 for recruiting and arranging training for PFLP members. In 2008, he was referred to by Israel's Supreme Court as a "senior activist" in the PFLP.

Addameer: Abdul-Latif Ghaith, Addameer's Founder and former Chairperson, has been identified as a PFLP "activist." Khalida Jarrar is Addameer's former Vice-chairperson. In March 2021 she was sentenced to 2 years in prison for membership in the PFLP. Bashir Al-Khairi, a member of Addameer's Board of Directors, is a member of the PFLP's National Council.

Defense for Children International - Palestine (DCI-P): Hashem Abu Maria was coordinator of DCI-P's community mobilization unit and was hailed by the PFLP as a "leader." Nassar Ibrahim, former President of DCI-P's General Assembly, was former editor of El Hadaf - the PFLP's weekly publication. Mary Rock was a DCI-P board member and PFLP candidate for the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Bisan Center for Research and Development: Ubai Aboudi, Bisan's Executive Director, was sentenced in 2020 to 12 months for membership in the PFLP. Itiraf Hajaj (Rimawi), Bisan's previous Executive Director, was responsible for clandestine PFLP operations. In 2020, he was sentenced to 42 months. An Israeli High Court of Justice decision referred to Rimawi as a "PFLP member" who "posed a security threat."

Union of Palestinian Women's Committees (UPWC): Suhair Khader, UPWC's Vice President, is a member of the PFLP Central Committee. Board member Samira Abdel-Alim, UPWC head in the Rafah area, is a member of PFLP Central Committee. Ismat Shakhshir, head of UPWC operations in the Nablus district, ran for the Palestinian Legislative Council representing the PFLP.

Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC): The group was identified by USAID as the "agricultural arm" of the PFLP. Abdul Razeq Farraj was UAWC Finance and Administration Director at the time of his arrest in 2019 for recruiting members of the PFLP. Samer Arbid, UAWC's accountant, was arrested for commanding a PFLP terror cell that carried out a bombing that murdered an Israeli civilian. (NGO Monitor)

The PFLP - a terror group designated in the US and Europe - organized and coordinated a network of institutions in order to raise funds and funnel them to its terrorist activity. pic.twitter.com/7zRUPTc2dN
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 24, 2021

Someone forgot to tell Jordanian writer Mohamed Fouad Zaid Al-Kilani that he is supposed to substitute "Zionist" for "Jew" in his essays.

Al-Kilani has written extensively for Palestinian, Jordanian and Iraqi media. In today's Kitabat he writes that there really isn't any normalization between Arabs and Israel, because Arabs remain as patriotically antisemitic as they ever were.

And he is damned proud of it.

There is much evidence of the fakeness of this normalization. Whether it is through sports, media, education or politics, we find the exact opposite, that Arab peoples refuse to deal in any way with this mortal enemy.

In the matches that were held some time ago in Japan, Arab players refused to play with the Jewish team, despite the sports regulations and the slogan "sports for all."

In the artistic community as well, there are large protests, if any Jew is dealt with, in any artwork, meeting or otherwise, this is rejected by the Arab peoples.

What happened in Iraq recently in terms of a conference of normalization with the Jews, the Iraqi government had an honorable position by bringing the organizers of the meeting of the printers and interrogating them. On the political level, the Arab delegations refuse to sit with this mortal enemy in any conference or gathering in which these Zionists are present.

In terms of education, the Arabs still reject the Israeli presence occupying Palestine, and teach in schools that its only and first enemy is the Jew occupying an Arab country. The idea of many generations is still rooted in rejecting this parasite in the middle of Arab countries. The examples of this are very many, they are countless, so normalization or a meeting here or there is nothing but news in the channels of sedition, and the truth is the exact opposite.

Naked Jew-hate is still prevalent in Arab media, although it now has competition with articles that are sympathetic towards Jews, something that was rare a few years ago.

Even so, just today we have an article in Al Quds arguing to make the Palestinian cause a more religious war, that says "the imperialist Zionist project employed Talmudicism - which interpreted the Torah according to the hatreds of the diaspora’s psychology - in favor of its colonial and settler tendencies."

A Yemen newspaper rails against Saudi Arabia allowing a rabbi to visit, disgusted that the Jew was "desecrating the country."

And yet some people keep insisting that there is no Arab antisemitism, and it is all anti-Zionism.

Amnesty's anti-Israel story "Uncle Meena," aimed at kids, is even worse than reported

Last week, CAMERA posted a discussion of a story "Uncle Meena" by Palestinian author Ibtisam Barakat. The story is assigned as reading in some elementary school classes.

As CAMERA notes, the story shows a one-sided, false view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But it is even worse than that.

The story is about a Palestinian girl from Ramallah, Noora, whose family is visited by her uncle Meena from California. For much of his stay he is depressed because he cannot walk around the center of Ramallah because of an Israeli action there. Finally, he tells his mother that he is in love with a Native American girl, and the religious Muslim mother accepts it without any qualms.

The only slight hint that there might be two sides of the conflict is when the girl narrator mentions that the Israeli actions are after "an explosion in Jerusalem." Not the slightest indication of who might have caused this explosion or if there were any casualties.

At one point, Uncle Meena sees kids playing "Jews and Arabs," and he explains that it is just like American kids playing "Cowboys and Indians," but the Palestinians are the Native Americans and the Israelis are the colonialist cowboys who have taken over the land. He tells his niece that there are Native American reservations in America, just like refugee camps in the West Bank, and his niece notes that she was shocked, because she thought that everyone in the world was free except Palestinians.

Young readers are being left with the impression that Israelis are forcing Palestinians to live in refugee camps, when Israelis have tried to dismantle them and Palestinian leaders are the ones who insist on keeping the camps after seven decades.

The story, published in 2009, clearly takes place during the second intifada, when there were daily terror attacks against Jews. The story doesn't even hint at that. The only good Jews are the ones who hate Israel, as Uncle Meena says he has "friends of many faiths: Muslims, Christians, Hindus, pagans, and also some Jews who care about Palestinians and want the occupation to end." Schoolchildren are being taught that they can be friends with anyone whose opinions they disagree with - except for Zionist Jews, whose opinions are beyond the pale.

As one-sided as the story is, it is more insidious when placed into context of the book it was published in..

"Uncle Meena" was commissioned by Amnesty International to be part of an anthology of stories for school-age children where each story teaches a lesson about a different area addressed by the Declaration of Human Rights. The anthology, called "Free?" was published in 2010, and has apparently been used to brainwash children in schools for over ten years now.

The part of the Declaration of Human Rights that this story is meant to illustrate is Article 18, freedom of religion. Religion is only glancingly mentioned in the story, though: one example is where Noora asks hr uncle "How come there are many religions that fight each other, destroying what God creates - like people and olive trees? It takes years for a person or a tree to grow up, and then someone with a gun kills them in a second." The other is where Noora's grandmother is upset over not being able to visit Al Aqsa mosque because of Israeli restrictions. (The story broadly implies that Uncle Meena is now agnostic, and his religious Muslim mother not only accepts that, but approves his wanting to marry his pagan Native American girlfriend without a single word of disapproval.)

Barakat, and Amnesty, are saying that this is a religious conflict, that Jews are killing Muslims because of their religion, and that they stop Muslims from worshipping in their holy place because they are Muslims.

This is slander and very close to antisemitism. Israel doesn't target anyone because they are Muslim, and Israel allows tens of thousands of Muslims to visit the holiest Jewish place every day of the week - while Jews themselves were not allowed to pray there by law, and certainly would have been dragged away and arrested at the time of the story if they tried.

The only religious discrimination happening in the region is the story of how nearly all Christians have been forced to leave by Muslim intolerance - just as virtually all Jews have already been ethnically cleansed by the Muslims decades ago. Muslims who become atheists or convert to Christianity are persecuted. There is no shortage of examples of religious intolerance in the Middle East and worldwide.

Yet Amnesty asked a Palestinian writer to teach the concept of freedom of religion, specifically to paint the most religiously tolerant people in the Middle East as the most intolerant.

Given that the book is written for tweens and early teens, the stories - while well written - generally have no nuance; there are good people and bad people with no shades of grey. One story is about how a clique of boys are led by a sadistic bully and it takes an East German immigrant to stand up to him; another is about a boy who discovers a child labor slavery factory in his town. Another is a science fiction story about a future where microchips are implanted in children's brains so their thoughts can be monitored, ostensibly for national security reasons.

Within the book, the only bad people mentioned who have any national or religious identity are Israeli Jews.

Amnesty is proud that they have an entire program of teaching children about human rights concepts through fiction. They write, "Many children’s novels and even picture books possess great power to open up new worlds and inspire a capacity for empathy. Being able to empathize makes it easier to be kind, tolerant, and willing to consider other points of view." But there is no empathy in this book towards Jews or Israelis - they are only framed as oppressors who are taking away freedoms.

A book meant to teach empathy succeeds in subtly but unmistakably teaching hate.

Astoundingly, two of the fourteen stories in a book about worldwide human rights are centered on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The other story, "No Trumpets Needed," is more balanced than "Uncle Meena"- a hopeful if extraordinarily naive tale of how a Palestinian kid who is struck mute when his (obviously innocent) brother was killed by Israelis still works to send a message of peace across the security barrier with kites, and the Israeli settlers respond back in kind. (In fact, grassroots peace initiatives are virtually all initiated by the Israeli side; the Palestinians regard them as "normalization" and actively work against them.) This story does mention Palestinian terror in passing but it doesn't say the real reason why the barrier exists. The author blithely and falsely says that it is to "separate Arab from Jew" but not to protect Israelis from being blown up. The only link to the Biblical past of the region is ascribed to the mute Palestinian child, who is a shepherd. Even in this far less offensive story, the only people who are humanized are the Palestinians; the Jews remain an abstraction.

When viewed as a whole, this book by Amnesty promotes the lies that Jews have no rights to the land, Jews have no history in the land, Jews are anti-Muslim, Jews kill Palestinians for no apparent reason beyond hating Muslims, Palestinians have no freedom because of Israel, and Palestinians are saintly victims.

The very Universal Declaration of Human Rights that forms the theme of the book was written specifically in response to the Holocaust, and now is being used as a tool to teach children to hate anyone who supports a tiny place on Earth where Jews can live fully as Jews in their own ancestral land.

Children who read this book are not sophisticated enough to understand how they are being manipulated. I can easily imagine that rabid anti-Israel Jews in college today first learned about the conflict from this book.

Giving children anti-Israel propaganda in their school reading is immoral, and Amnesty should be taken to task for inciting kids into hating Israel.

Palestinians have political rights. Or they don't. Depends on what argument you want to make.

In The Atlantic, Susie Linfield writes,

Israel is unusual in that it existed as an idea before it existed as a nation-state. Today, it is also unusual, even remarkable, for lacking internationally recognized borders—an indispensable marker of sovereignty—and for decades it has been depriving Palestinians in the occupied territories of political rights and freedom.

Is that last phrase accurate? Do Palestinians have no political rights or freedom, and is Israel depriving them of those?

At last count, out of 195 UN member states, 138 recognize the "State of Palestine."

The Palestinian passport is recognized as a travel document in nearly every nation on Earth, with the curious exceptions of Georgia, Madagascar and Syria.

Israel does control the borders as well as the population registry. But those don't affect the political rights of the 95% of Palestinians who live under Palestinian control.

Palestinians are free to set up their own elections in areas under their control. They have representation in numerous UN and international bodies, as well as sporting events. They have a pavillion in the Dubai Expo.

Palestinian leaders proudly publish news in their own media about their diplomatic gains worldwide.

And if they would have accepted any of the peace plans Israel offered, they would have defined borders as well and full statehood recognized by all.

The funny thing is that a couple of paragraphs later, in this very same essay, Linfield quotes Israeli American writer Joel Schalit: “The reality of Israel is, in large measure, a projection of fantasies, both by those who want to love the place and those who are consumed by hatred for it.”

Linfield herself doesn't fit either of those paradigms of loving or hating Israel, yet she too feels compelled to project her own fantasies on the Jewish state.

Unethical Jordanian antiquities dealers fake old Jewish artifacts

Jordanian officials have, several times, accused Jewish visitors of visiting archaeological sites like Petra and burying fake Jewish artifacts there, in order to claim the land as Jewish some time in the future.

This is all part of Jordanian paranoia, as the sites in question may be important to Jewish history but are generally not considered to be part of Biblical Judah.

However, it appears that there is a grain of truth in the wild accusations. But it is not Jews who are faking the artifacts - but Jordanian dealers trying to rip off tourists.

Al Ghad has an investigative report where they acted as tourists and befriended dealers who set up shop outside the archaeological tourist sites, eventually getting them to sell their most secret items that they hide from the casual shopper.

The sellers regale potential customers with tales of how the artifacts - often coins, are Roman, Greek or Jewish, or they interest them in amulets or rocks carved with six-pointed stars or a depiction of the Temple menorah.

The purchased items were brought to experts, and most of them were found to be forgeries.

The real crime, of course, is that these fake Jewish coins and artifacts help push the imagined Jewish narrative that this is really Israeli territory. "They are tampering with the history of Jordan, for a few dollars, and that they are selling the homeland and substantiating in its place Jewish allegations that the Jews have promoted since time immemorial," the newspaper writes.

The newspaper goes on to describe how the dealers will take older coins, re-engrave them with pictures and wording copied from legitimate antique coins, bury them in the ground for a period of time and then resell them.

10/24 Links: Is There Still Room for Zionist Jews on the American Left?; UK government pulls funding to Palestinian education; IAEA chief admits ability to monitor key Iranian nuclear site compromised

From Ian:

Jonathan Tobin: Is There Still Room for Zionist Jews on the American Left?

Though the Jewish groups it targeted were clearly shocked by the broadside, Sunrise DC’s attack on Jews is hardly surprising. That’s because they come straight from the same intersectional and critical race theory playbook that most on the left have now adopted as their political catechism. Despite being a pack of lies, the notion that all of Israel is a “colonial project” oppressing the supposedly indigenous black and brown people of “Palestine,” where Jews are privileged white settlers, is in line with the ideological frame of reference used by many left-wing activists these days.

Liberal Jews who are fine with applying that kind of rhetorical excess to their political opponents on the Israeli right are slowly realizing that their comrades in arms on American domestic issues make no such distinctions between “good” Israelis and Jews, and the supposedly “bad” ones.

Once they get over their shock at this incident and the failure of their coalition partners to unequivocally condemn this latest outbreak of left-wing antisemitism, mainstream liberal Jewish groups will console themselves by saying that Sunrise DC is marginal and doesn’t speak for most Democrats. To some extent, that will be true. The problem is that, as with “The Squad,” it’s clear that the growing influence of critical race theory and intersectionality are making incidents like this commonplace. Moreover, the divide on this issue seems to be as much generational as it is ideological, guaranteeing that the ranks of the anti-Zionists among Democrats will grow even more numerous.

For now, Jewish liberals can claim that they are still at home amid rallies like this one. But the time will come soon when they will no longer be able to pretend that a Jew who embraces Israel will be welcomed in an increasingly antisemitic American left.

Dragging out consulate reopening, Biden does Israel a favor, but not himself

A senior Israeli official told ToI last month that while Jerusalem might vehemently oppose the consulate reopening, eventually it will have to concede to Washington, given the significant military aid and diplomatic backing the US gives Israel.

In the meantime, though, Jerusalem is working to “drive up the price” for Biden to fulfill his campaign promise, said the US source familiar with the matter.

Blinken’s reported willingness to negotiate the matter with Lapid via a joint task force indicates that the US is willing to reach some sort of compromise with Israel on the matter, meaning Jerusalem expects to get something in return.

“They’re spending all of this political capital on a move that’s largely symbolic, and even if they manage to go through with it, the next ask from Israel on more important matters such as settlements and steps to actually improve Palestinian lives will be that much more difficult to achieve,” said one senior Democratic congressional aide.

“[Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett will be able to say, ‘Look, I already gave you the consulate, you can’t keep making such big asks,” the aide speculated.

“All [the Biden administration] had to do was change the sign on the door,” the staffer said, referring to the rather simple procedure that would be required to transform the mission on Agron street from a US embassy branch office back to a consulate. (Some measure of Israeli buy-in is required, though, since Jerusalem would need to credential whoever is tapped to head the consulate.)

Meanwhile, huddling on a matter that ultimately has to do with the Palestinians without including a representative from the Palestinian Authority is likely to further irk Ramallah, which believes the consulate reopening is a “done deal.”

“By waiting, we allowed the issue to snowball,” the staffer said.

Israeli Official Says Reopening of US Palestinian Mission in Jerusalem May Not Happen

Israel’s deputy foreign minister said on Sunday that the Biden administration may shelve its plan to reopen a US diplomatic mission for Palestinians in Jerusalem after Israel voiced opposition to such a move.

The Jerusalem consulate was subsumed into the US Embassy that was moved to the city from Tel Aviv in 2018 by the administration of former President Donald Trump.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken this month reiterated Washington’s plan to reopen the consulate as part of efforts to repair ties with the Palestinians. He did not give timelines.

“I believe that I have good reason to think this will not happen,” Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll told Israel’s Ynet.

“The Americans understand the political complexity,” Roll said. “We have very good relations. … We don’t believe in surprising them. I don’t think they will try to surprise us.”

US Embassy spokespeople could not be immediately reached for comment.

Israel deems all Jerusalem its undivided capital and says it will not consent to reopening the consulate. The Palestinians want the city’s east for their own future state.

Ruthie Blum: The government’s assassination of Israel’s character

Foreign Minister Yair Lapid outdid himself on Monday evening. Yes, the “alternate” premier slated to replace Prime Minister Naftali Bennett at the helm in September 2023, took the opportunity of a special parliamentary session commemorating the 26th anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin to insult the national camp.

“There is a [direct] line between Rabin’s murder and the past year,” he said. “Both are part of Israel’s great struggle, not between Right and Left, but between those who believe in democracy and those who are trying to destroy it.”

Rabin, he continued, “wasn’t murdered by the Right – the true right wing is democratic – but by anyone who isn’t willing to accept Israeli democracy. Anyone who tells himself that the majority doesn’t rule isn’t really in the national camp; he’s a dangerous, nationalist extremist. Instead of loving the country, he hates anyone who doesn’t think the way he does.”

He went on to claim that the “ideological heirs” of Yigal Amir – Rabin’s assassin, who is justifiably in prison for life – “are sitting in the Knesset today, and if not for the miracle of the change government, they’d be sitting in the government.”

Here, he was forced to pause by angry shouts from the plenum.

“Do you mean the Joint [Arab] List?” heckled Religious Zionist Party leader MK Bezalel Smotrich, referring to the members of Knesset who openly oppose the Jewish state.

“Aren’t you ashamed?” added Smotrich, who knew full well that Lapid had been pointing a finger at him and his political allies. When he and a few other MKs from Shas and Likud exited the premises, Lapid resumed his inexcusable tirade.

The Caroline Glick Show: Ep23: Will Israel Act on Washington's Betrayal? | Guest: David Wurmser

In Episode 23 of the Caroline Glick Mideast News Hour, Caroline war joined by special guest Dr. David Wurmser, her colleague at the Center for Security Policy. Caroline and David reviewed the 50 year history of U.S. military support for Israel in light of the Biden administration refusal to work with Israel to block Iran’s path to a nuclear arsenal.

They then switched gears and discussed Israel Diaspora Affairs Minister Nachman Shai’s decision to participate in a forum hosted by BDS and anti-Zionist activist Peter Beinart. David and Caroline discussed the intellectual roots of anti-Zionism and what it means that American Jews are taking leading roles in delegitimizing Israel’s existence, and what it means that the Israeli government is now empowering them.

Arab media: Man sentenced for attacking Jews, synagogue, LGBTQ is jailed for "solidarity with Palestine"

Algemeiner reports:

A 32-year-old man convicted by an Austrian court on Thursday for an assault on a Jewish communal leader told the hearing: “I don’t hate all Jews — only those in Palestine.”

The unnamed man, a Syrian refugee who arrived in Austria in 2013, was sentenced to three years in a secure facility for mentally unstable prisoners. On Aug. 22, 2020, he attacked Elie Rosen, the president of the Jewish community in Graz, outside the city’s synagogue with a wooden club.

Identified through the synagogue’s CCTV cameras, Rosen’s assailant was subsequently linked by police in Graz to at least six other crimes — including the defacing of the Graz synagogue with the slogan “Free Palestine.”

Other buildings vandalized by Rosen’s assailant included an LGBTQ community center in Graz.

“He is characterized by a complete lack of repentance,” Chief Inspector Fritz Grundnig said at the time. “He is filled with hatred of Israel, Jews, gays, lesbians and prostitutes.”

The public prosecutor told the court that the assailant remained convinced in his belief that Jews should be targeted for “slaughter” and banned from living in Austria.

So how was this story headlined in El Dorar, a pan-Levant new site? That he was sentences "for his solidarity with Palestine!"

The same article justified his actions as well, saying that it was part of Syrian culture. "Syrian refugees in Europe suffer from difficulty in adapting to the laws and customs of Western society, which are far removed religiously and morally from what eastern societies know, and Syrian society in particular."

Attacking Jews and gays is a moral and religious obligation for Arabs. Their own media say so.

The terrorist PFLP's links to Palestinian NGOs are extensive

The news all weekend has been about the backlash against Israel declaring six specific Palestinian NGOs as having links to the terrorist PFLP organization.

Israel and the US State Department clashed over the weekend after the Justice and Defense ministries on Friday declared that several leading Palestinian NGOs were arms of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist organization.
The ministries each issued documents classifying Addameer, Al Haq, Bisan Center, Defense for Children International – Palestine (DCI-P), Union Of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) and the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees (UPWC), as branches of the PFLP, joining other NGOs who had previously also been designated as terrorist affiliates.
The US State Department criticized the announcement on Friday in the most explicit admonition from the Biden administration since the new Israeli government was formed in June.

The State of Israel itself has issued a detailed report, titled "Terrorists in Suits," documenting the extensive links between the PFLP and three of the organizations listed - Al Haq, Defense for Children International-Palestine, and Addameer. Some excerpts:

There is no coincidence here. The PFLP is a Marxist organization that uses human rights as a weapon against Israel at the exact same time they are using explosives to kill Jews. Because it is socialist, the far Left haters of Israel fully embrace the PFLP, treating its terrorists as heroes - and these are many of the same organizations now screaming the loudest that their terrorist-linked NGOs are being treated appropriately.

What about the other organizations listed? What are their PFLP links?

One of the people arrested for the murder of Rina Shnerb was Samer Arbid, who served as an accountant at the Union of Agricultural Works Committees (UAWC) and led the cell for the murder - which the PFLP proudly calls the Bubeen operation.

The Regavim organization documented the links between the PFLP and UAWC:

Both the PFLP and UAWC have attempted to obscure their close ties, in order to portray the civilian organization as an independent non-profit. Notwithstanding their efforts, there is clear evidence of their ideological and financial interdependence: An internal document prepared for the American humanitarian organization USAID in 1993 stated that the UAWC is "the agricultural wing of the People's Front for the Liberation of Palestine." In fact, the PLO registered the UAWC as a branch of the Popular Front.

The affiliation of the UAWC with the PFLP is ongoing, despite the latter's classification both by the United States and the European Union. Senior figures in the PFLP hierarchy have served in senior positions in the UAWC, among them Jamil Muhamad Ismail Al Majdalawi, formerly the Vice President of the UAWC in Gaza, who is a well known senior officer in the PFLP. He served as head of the political division of the PFLP in Gaza, and in 2013 acted as the PFLP's representative to Fatah bodies in the Palestinian Authority. Bashar Al Khiri served as Chief of the PFLP's Political Division in the early 2000s. He was arrested and imprisoned by the State of Israel, and after his release served as President of the UAWC Advisory Board from 2005-2010.

Ubai Aboudi is the Executive Director of Bisan Center for Research & Development. In early 2005 he was arrested for planning an attack at the Latrun Armory Museum and also to carry out a shooting attack against an IDF vehicle and abduct the soldiers' bodies.

A report for USAID mentions that the Union of Palestinian Women’s Committees was founded as the the PFLP's women's organization, just as the UAWC was founded as its agricultural wing. The report, written in 1993, says "Most major Palestinian institutions, especially in the health, agricultural, and industrial sectors, are affiliated with one of the principal factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (Fatah, PFLP, PPP, and the two wings of the DFLP). That is, each faction has its own medical committee, agricultural committee, women's committee, federation of trade unions, etc."

The very genesis of Palestinian NGOs that are now considered to be "human rights" organizations are as part of designated terror groups - and the US knows this quite well!

The PFLP is not just "linked" to these NGOs. For most of them, it appears to be their founders. Any pretense that they have separated their ways is ignoring reality, as people move back and forth between the PFLP and these organizations even today.

It is too bad the State of Israel didn't release the corroborating information on these NGO links to terrorist organizations in concert with the announcement. As usual, the messaging has been amateurish or incompetent. But the links and history is all there for anyone who bothers to look.