Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
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Revisiting “From The River to the Sea”
1 day ago
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
BDS, boycott, cartoon of the day, humor
- Tuesday, June 14, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- arson kites, balloons, blame Israel, gaza, hamas, HRW, Hypocrisy, memri, open air prison, rockets
So naturally, Human Rights Watch decided to use the occasion to issue yet another anti-Israel report, calling Gaza an "open-air prison."
Israel’s closure policy blocks most Gaza residents from going to the West Bank, preventing professionals, artists, athletes, students, and others from pursuing opportunities within Palestine and from traveling abroad via Israel, restricting their rights to work and an education. Restrictive Egyptian policies at its Rafah crossing with Gaza, including unnecessary delays and mistreatment of travelers, have exacerbated the closure’s harm to human rights.To HRW, allowing terrorists to enter Israel freely so they can kill Israeli humans is the epitome of "human rights."
The report adds nothing new to HRW's long list of anti-Israel reports. In fact, it could have been written five years ago with little change. Even though Israel has given thousands of work permits to Gazans to work in Israel in the past year, this little fact is not mentioned in a report that is almost entirely about the restrictions on Gazans' freedom of movement.
That isn't the only omission. To HRW, Israel has no reason to treat Hamas as anything less thasn law-abiding moral citizens.
The report does not mention the word "rockets" once.
It also doesn't mention the arson kites, the balloons with incendiary devices meant to start fires in Israel, or the regular arms fire that reaches Israeli communities. It doesn't mention the attacks from Gazans who have entered Israel for medical reasons.
This is a report about Israeli restrictions on Gaza movement with barely a word as to why Israel might not want to allow Gazans to enter.
This is yet another reason why HRW cannot and should not be taken seriously.
From Ian:
White House announces Biden trip to Israel, West Bank and Saudi Arabia July 13-16
White House announces Biden trip to Israel, West Bank and Saudi Arabia July 13-16
The White House on Tuesday announced the dates for US President Joe Biden’s highly anticipated first trip to the Middle East, which will include stops in Israel, the West Bank and Saudi Arabia from July 13 to July 16.The U.N. Abandons Impartiality
Biden accepted an invitation to visit Israel in late April. The trip was initially planned for late June, but was later delayed to July over what the White House said were scheduling issues. According to an Israeli official, those scheduling issues related to the Saudi leg of the trip, which was a later addition that exposed the president to criticism from some Democrats, who expected him to maintain a firm stance against Riyadh over its human rights record.
The trip will begin in Israel, where the president will meet with Israeli leaders, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. An Israeli official told The Times of Israel that Biden will meet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, President Isaac Herzog, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Defense Minister Benny Gantz. The official added that Biden is also slated to visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and East Jerusalem.
A senior Biden administration official briefing reporters on Monday said the president would likely tour a US-funded missile defense system in Israel in order to highlight White House efforts to secure an additional $1 billion in funding for Iron Dome battery replenishments after the May 2021 Gaza war. Biden will also “discuss new innovations between our countries that use laser technologies to defeat missiles and other airborne threats.”
The administration official said the Israel visit will also focus on the Jewish state’s “increasing integration into the region through the Abraham Accords — normalization agreements Jerusalem signed with the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco — through the strengthening of Israel’s ties with Israel and Egypt and through the creation of a new forum established by the Biden administration that includes the US, the UAE, Israel and India — the I2U2.”
This COI contravenes the impartial standard Canada holds dear and violates the UN’s own standards dictating that those undertaking the investigations should “in all cases, have a proven record of independence and impartiality. It is also important to ensure that the background of candidates, prior public statements or political or other affiliations do not affect their independence or impartiality, or create perceptions of bias.”U.S. condemns UN Human Rights Council over anti-Israel bias
South African jurist Navanethem Pillay was selected as chair of the UNHRC COI focused on Israel. Ms. Pillay has an impressive resumé that qualifies her generally to serve on COIs. Regarding Israel, however, she has a well-documented bias which, according to the UN’s own guidelines, should disqualify her from participating in this COI.
Justice Pillay has accused Israel of apartheid and claims to be “very pleased” with the BDS (boycott, disinvestment, sanction) campaign against Israel. Historically, Canadian Prime Ministers, conversely, have condemned this campaign, rightly calling it antisemitic. Pillay hailed the “huge victory” against Israel when the UNHRC issued a blacklist against companies doing business in the territories. She publicly supported probes into “Israel’s war crimes” and lent her signature to petitions demanding further investigations targeting Israel. Despite these and other demonstrations of her bias, the UNHRC nevertheless appointed her to chair the COI, a decision that, by exposing the bias of the UNHCR against the Jewish state, is itself deeply troubling.
Justice Pillay is certainly entitled to her views on Israel. But those views, expressed repeatedly and publicly, call her impartiality into question, and should disqualify her from this role.
While it has, unfortunately, become standard for the UN to ignore its own guidelines of impartiality when it comes to Israel, we expect more from our own government.
Canada should recognize and refute this failure publicly. Given Canada’s domestic experience regarding impartial COIs and clear foreign policy values of supporting the credibility of international institutions, we call on our government to reject the findings of this biased commission. The dictum “Justice must not only be done but must also be seen to be done” is an important principle of our legal tradition.
By June 13, at the start of the UNHRC’s session, Justice Pillay will release her report, one that will be informed by her personal bias. The world will once again condemn Israel yet remain silent about the UN’s disregard for its own guidelines and principles intended to assure the integrity of its COI.
To maintain its own credibility and to urge reform at the UN, Canada must demonstrate leadership and reject this report.
The United States condemned the United Nations Human Rights Council on Monday for a report published last week that accused Israel of perpetuating the conflict with the Palestinians.
In its 18-page report which focuses on the root causes of the conflict, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel identified “forced displacement, threats of forced displacement, demolitions, settlement construction and expansion, settler violence, and the blockade of Gaza” as “contributing factors to recurring cycles of violence.”
The report was presented during a hearing at the UN Human Rights Council headquarters in Geneva.
While prompted by last year's Gaza war, the UN Human Rights Council inquiry mandate includes alleged human rights abuses before and after that.
The open-ended inquiry is headed by former United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay who is joined by Miloon Kothari of India, the first UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, and Australian international human rights law expert Chris Sidoti.
The U.S.-initiated declaration is signed by at least 22 countries, including Austria, Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and Brazil, and criticizes the broad authorities bestowed to the inquiry and cites its very existence as evidence of the disproportionate attention that the Human Rights Council dedicates to Israel, a treatment that it seeks to end.
- Tuesday, June 14, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- Al-Binaa, anti-Zionist not antisemitic, antisemitism, Arab antisemitism, blood libel, conspiracy theories, Death to Israel, Jews control the world, Lebanon, Syria, Yousef al-Mismar
Al-Binaa is a Lebanese newspaper controlled by the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. They just published an op-ed by Yousef al-Mismar saying that it is a duty to annihilate Israel:
There is no way to deal with an existential, life and fateful enemy of this kind except by eliminating it no matter how high the price. There is a sacred duty is to attack and eliminate it even if the whole world stands against us and on its side, because when the world supports the side of the aggression, it becomes a world of void, and the best solution is annihilation. ... The germ of normalization lies between right and wrong, between justice and injustice, and between crime and innocence. The right that reconciles with the wrong is no longer a right, nor the justice that accepts injustice remains justice, nor the innocence that fraternizes the crime continues to be innocence.The call to international federations, cultural and legal bodies, and Arab and international cultural ministries has proven that it is not effective. If it was useful, it would put an end to the evils and grievances of this aggressive, cancerous, dangerous entity that killed, kills, and continues to kill the children, women and men of Palestine in cold blood, and makes it homeless and will continue to displace millions of our nation’s sons and prevent them from returning to their homeland, homes and livelihoods.
You don't see this sort of thing as often as in the past, but calls to destroy Israel are common enough in the Arab world. But then the writer shows exactly who he wants to destroy:
The process of Jewish robbery and theft of the heritage of others is not new. Rather, it is old in history, and it has occurred and is still happening constantly in all countries and all the peoples in which they live and with them. In an old article by the Syrian social scientist and philosopher, founder of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, Antoun Saadeh, published in the magazine “Al Majalla” in São Paulo in Brazil on February 1, 1925, he stated: “We know, as the whole world knows, how the Jews live as independent groups among peoples.” [Jews] take their money without providing any benefit to [their host countries.]. In many countries, Jewish geniuses rose, but the rise of Jewish geniuses does not mean that they wanted to give to the peoples from whose hearts they suck blood. ...And when we wanted to analyze, we asked a simple question, which is: 'Did the Jewish geniuses change the character of the Jews?'“There has never been a genius Jew who was able to instill in the hearts of the Jews the trait of rapprochement with the peoples among whom they live, and solidarity with them in their social and urban works. The Jews, with their talents, remained like Jews without their talents, living like dreams, taking from the heart of the social organization for free. Then the Jews complain about being persecuted by the people [they are leeching from]!”
Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are the same thing.
The SSNP wants to see a Greater Syria that includes Lebanon and, yes, all of Palestine.
Its logo is a stylized swastika, created in the 1930s, although the party claims it is a whirlwind and a combination of the Islamic crescent and the Christian cross.
- Tuesday, June 14, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- double standards, Ibrahim Khraishi, Navi Pillay, UNCOI, unhrc, USA
The UN Human Rights Council has released the initial report of the permanent Commission of Inquiry that is designed to delegitimize Israel. It is the only permanent commission of inquiry in the UN.
The Palestinian Authority's deputy foreign minister and Palestinian observer to the UN, Ibrahim Khraishi, gave a speech to the UNHRC denouncing the letter - and said that because of this letter, the US should be expelled from the UN Human Rights Council!
The commission is headed by Navi Pillay who has pre-judged Israel to be guilty of a host of crimes over the past 15 years before even the pretense of investigation, making her the ideal lead for this kangaroo court.
A consortium of 22 nations, led by the US, signed a letter to oppose the obvious bias of the commission:
Resolution S-30/1 established a COI of open-ended mandate with no sunset clause, end date, or clear limitations connected to the escalation in May 2021. For this reason, many of the Council’s members at the time expressed fundamental concerns when resolution S-30/1 came up for adoption.To be clear, no one is above scrutiny and it is this Council’s responsibility to promote and protect human rights the world over. We must work to counter impunity and promote accountability on a basis of consistent and universally applied standards.We believe the nature of the COI established last May is further demonstration of long-standing, disproportionate attention given to Israel in the Council and must stop.We continue to believe that this long-standing disproportionate scrutiny should end, and that the Council should address all human rights concerns, regardless of country, in an even-handed manner.
The Palestinian Authority's deputy foreign minister and Palestinian observer to the UN, Ibrahim Khraishi, gave a speech to the UNHRC denouncing the letter - and said that because of this letter, the US should be expelled from the UN Human Rights Council!
There is a joint statement prepared by America with the occupying power inciting against the commission, its report and its work, which exposes the double standards practiced by other countries that demand the necessity of supporting the work of other investigation committees emanating from this council in different parts of the world.This policy pursued by America, which undermines the legal and human rights system, disqualifies it from being a member of this Council. Therefore, we call on the General Assembly to suspend its membership in the Council.
- Tuesday, June 14, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- Ahmed Al-Khasib, Ahmed Harish, hamas, Nawaf Al-Hasanat, NGO, No Jews No News, Palestinian Authority, torture
The Al-Hasanat family wrote a letter to various authorities claiming that Nawaf Al-Hasanat, who had a wife and six children, was arrested in November over a land dispute and was in Hamas prison until he died last week.
Meanwhile, the PA was accused of torturing Hamas members in a Jericho prison. The "Lawyers for Justice" NGO says that 15 Hamas members who were recently arrested by the Palestinian security services in Ramallah "are subjected to very, very severe torture."
One prisoner, Ahmed Al-Khasib, appeared in court yesterday, unable to speak due to the severity of torture. Another detainee, Ahmed Harish, could not control himself in front of the Jericho Court today and started crying during his court appearance.
As usual, when Israel cannot be blamed, people show no interest in the fate of Palestinian prisoners.
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Monday, June 13, 2022
From Ian:
22 nations oppose UNHRC probe, Pillay calls for arms embargo against Israel
22 nations oppose UNHRC probe, Pillay calls for arms embargo against Israel
Israel secure the opposition of 22 nations to the UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) against it, as the prob's chair blamed it for the conflict with the Palestinians and called for an arms embargo against the Jewish state.Free occupied Svalbard!
"The occupation must end," said Navanethem ("Navi") Pillay who heads the UN Human Rights Council's three-member COI.
Third-state parties also have a responsibility here and can be culpable when it comes to breaking international law, Pillay said.
"This includes, but is not limited to, the transfer of arms when there is a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate serious violations or abuses of international human rights law or serious violations of international humanitarian law," Pillay said.
She delivered the first of what is expected to be an annual report against Israel to the 47-member UNHRC on the opening day of its 50th session in Geneva. An updated version of the report is expected to be given to the UN General Assembly late this year.
The UN's probe into Israel
The probe is set to investigate alleged Israeli human rights abuses within sovereign Israel and against the Palestinian living over the pre-1967 lines in Gaza and the West Bank.
No vote was required with respect to this first annual report, but Israel together with the United States garnered a list of 22 UN nations including themselves who opposed the COI.
US Ambassador to the UN Michelle Taylor read out a statement against the report, explaining that her country was not part of the UNHRC and was not part of the council when it approved the COI in a 24-9 vote last year.
Israel is the only UN member state against whom there is an open-ended permanent probe.
In 1925, the Norwegians got aggressive. They used their clout at the Paris Peace Conference following World War I to wrangle the “Treaty of Svalbard,” granting them sovereignty.EU chief, Italian PM in Israel, with Russia-sparked energy crisis topping agenda
But what makes that treaty valid? Countries that win wars are able to impose new boundaries. That doesn’t mean their decisions are necessarily right or just. It’s merely the ‘right of might.’ I don’t see how Norway’s claim to Svalbard is superior to that of the other countries whose explorers preceded the Norwegians by many decades.
The assorted fishermen, hunters, and scientific researchers who reside in Svalbard today are being denied their right to self-determination. Nobody asked them if they want to live under Norwegian sovereignty.
Maybe they would prefer to be part of Holland, Britain, Denmark, France or Russia. Or maybe they would like to be part of Free Svalbard.
All of which highlights Norway’s brazen hypocrisy. The Norwegians say Israel is “illegally occupying” Jerusalem, and therefore products coming from most parts of the city, as well as Judea-Samaria, have to be labeled.
Well, the Norwegians have been occupying Svalbard for a lot less time than the Jews have been in Jerusalem. To be precise, Svalbard has been part of Norway for 95 years. Jerusalem has been the capital of the Jewish people for over 3,000 years and was the capital of several sovereign Jewish kingdoms during much of that time.
Israel’s right to Jerusalem is enshrined in history, the Bible, and international law. Norway’s right to Svalbard is based on arbitrary border realignments following a world war. Norway has no historical or religious claims to Svalbard.
When Norway’s foreign minister tell us that her country’s labeling action against Israel is just some kind of consumer protection, I say: Nonsense. The sole purpose of labeling those products is to facilitate the boycotting of goods made in most of Jerusalem and other parts of the ancient Jewish homeland.
And the purpose of boycotting them is to bring about Israel’s economic collapse. That’s what the leaders of the BDS movement themselves say.
For Norway to aid and abet those who seek Israel’s collapse is outrageous and immoral. Even more outrageous and immoral than Norway’s continuing occupation of Svalbard.
European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi landed in Israel on Monday, as the EU seeks to wean itself off Russian fossil fuel imports.
Both leaders were due to hold energy talks in Israel, which has turned from a natural gas importer into an exporter in recent years, cashing in major offshore finds.
Von der Leyen was to meet Foreign Minister Yair Lapid later Monday and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Tuesday, with talks expected to focus “in particular on energy cooperation,” a commission statement said.
Draghi, on his first Middle East trip since taking office last year, was also set to discuss energy and food security during his two-day trip, Italian media reported.
Both leaders will meet Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh on Tuesday in the West Bank.
Israel’s ties with the EU frayed during former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tenure over the lack of movement on the Palestinian issue. Relations have slowly improved over the last year since the new Israeli government was sworn in, with Lapid leading the effort.
On Sunday, the cabinet unanimously approves joining the EU’s Creative Europe program through 2027. The program offers almost 2.5 billion euros every seven years toward films, visual art, literature and other creative endeavors.
- Monday, June 13, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- Ali Samoudi, fact check, forensic evidence, Shireen Abu Akleh
This is almost all conjecture - I'm hoping that people with more knowledge than me can help out.
Ali al-Samoudi was shot at the same time as Shireen Abu Akleh. He made a selfie video of his drive to the hospital and his initial treatment there.
He told interviewers he was shot in the lower back, but the only wound I see doctors actively working on appears to be a graze on his left shoulder. (The selfie video is mirrored.)
The wound caused serious bleeding to both the front and back of his shirt. I couldn't find obvious damage to the flak jacket in the brief period before it was removed, outside of one errant thread.
If he was shot from the IDF position, roughly level but slightly elevated, could the bullet have grazed him in a way that at least part of the wound is visible on the front half of his body?
It seems to me that the bullet grazed him from an angle that was higher than ground level to leave a wound there.
I could easily be wrong here - maybe there was a deflection from his flak jacket or maybe the flak jacket stopped the bullet and this is only a secondary wound from the impact on his shoulder, although the amount of blood doesn't seem consistent with that. To me, this doesn't look like an indent - it looks like he lost some skin.
If I am right and he was not hit in his lower back at all, it is more proof that Ali Samoudi is a liar who will say anything for self-promotion and to make Israel look bad. Notice how he switches his video view from the front camera to selfie mode while he is entering the hospital, as he cares more about the drama for his video than his own bullet wound.
- Monday, June 13, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- #PayForSlay, Area C, double standards, gaza, IMF, Martyrs Fund, NGO silence, Palestinian Authority, pay for slay, World Bank
On May 10, the World Bank issued a report on the economy of the Palestinian territories, with suggestions and ideas to help it make ends meet.
This follows a similar report by the International Monetary Fund at the end of April.
Both of them mention, as an issue, that Israel is withholding some tax revenue corresponding to the PA's payments to terrorist prisoners, their families, and families of "martyrs" - the so-called "Pay for Slay" program.
For example, the IMF notes:
A significant part of the fiscal problem is structural. The PA raises virtually no revenue from Gaza and East Jerusalem, while in 2021 it spent about a third of its budget in these two areas— particularly in Gaza—mainly comprising civil servant salaries and pensions, and net lending. Neither does it raise any significant revenue from Area C in the West Bank. Furthermore, the PA and Israel disagree on the amounts that the Government of Israel should transfer to the PA under the Paris Protocol, the so-called “fiscal leakages” (estimated at about 2 percent of GDP annually). In addition, the PA disagrees with unilateral Israeli deductions from clearance revenue for so-called “prisoner payments” (which amounted to 1.3 percent of GDP in 2021).So while both groups mention the prisoner payments, neither of them suggest that the PA end the program.
They give plenty of other advice to the PA on how to reduce expenses and increase revenue. For example, the IMF recommends:
The way out of the current fiscal crisis will require wide-ranging Palestinian policy actions. Staff discussed the benefits of adopting a broad-based strategy to contain and rebalance public spending, while boosting growth. As the Palestinian authorities have fewer policy tools compared to peers, systematic reform to the key drivers of non-discretionary spending—i.e., civil service salaries and benefits, transfer payments, the public pension scheme, the health care system, and fuel subsidies—are key.But neither they nor the World Bank ever say that if the PA would just stop paying terrorist salaries, then a significant chunk of cash would immediately become available to them.
Instead, they recommend negotiations with Israel on the topic, as if this is an expense that the PA has every right to spend even when they are being lent Western money.
It is telling that the world refuses to publicly condemn "pay for slay." And even those who are espousing responsible financial policies for the PA refuse to mention that lots of money can be saved if terrorists aren't rewarded for trying to murder Jews.
From Ian:
Alex Ryvchin (The Australian): Cheerleaders for Palestine Ignore Dysfunctional Society
Alex Ryvchin (The Australian): Cheerleaders for Palestine Ignore Dysfunctional Society
With the Palestinian Authority's payment of life pensions to the families of terrorists, Palestinian society operates under a system of inducement and reward that has turned the killing of Jews into an industry.Michael R. Pompeo: Terror-finance rulings the Supremes must strike down, despite Biden’s pleas
Any visitor to a Palestinian village in the West Bank will have seen the banners and posters dedicated to their "martyrs," with photoshopped photos of smiling terrorists to convince the youth that there is glory in death.
The violent purging of suspected "collaborators" is another feature of this system.
To make them worthy of the adulation, the marches, and the pledges to recognize a Palestinian state, the Palestinians have been reconstructed as a mythical version of themselves, cleansed of all sin and stripped of all responsibility.
The consequence is that there is absolutely no incentive for Palestinians to self-examine, let alone reform, let alone develop a society that is functional, just and worthy of a state.
Should our new government wish to revisit Australia's position on aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it ought to see the Palestinian leadership not as it wishes it to be but as it is, and to hold Palestinian leaders to the same standards as in every other society.
The writer is the co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
The Supreme Court is set to decide if it will consider two important terror-financing cases centering on the ability of Americans who have been harmed in terrorist attacks to seek redress against financial institutions that knowingly funnel money to fronts for terrorist organizations such as Hamas.JCPA: Israel's E1 Building Plan: The Most Strategic, Consensual - and Frozen - Project
But the Biden administration has urged the justices to let lower court rulings stand in Weiss v. National Westminster Bank and Strauss v. Credit Lyonnais — and so undercut 25 years of bipartisan consensus that Americans must be able to seek redress against those who knowingly facilitate terrorism.
Terrorism, its reach and its sources of funding constitute a central security issue of our times. Hamas, Hezbollah and other terror groups seek to alter the geopolitical calculus of target nations through intimidation, extortion and carnage to rain destruction on the innocent.
They also use purported charities to finance their networks and to recruit personnel to carry out terror operations. Why is the Biden administration intent on accommodating this deceit?
Knowingly giving support to a foreign terrorist organization has been a federal crime since 1996. More, Congress has recognized that terror groups often hide their intent, using charitable fundraising to help finance slaughter, so such “charities” are inexorably entwined with their terrorist elements. Four successive administrations have worked to expose these schemes.
Yet the US solicitor general’s brief calls this principle into question by suggesting that some support to terrorist groups might back “legitimate activities.” This would set an appalling precedent that will help Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other hostile entities that use front charities, and so endanger the safety of Americans abroad.
These cases are not the first time the Supreme Court has addressed these issues. In 2010, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project, the justices affirmed Congress’ findings that terrorist groups “are so tainted by their criminal conduct that any contribution to such an organization facilitates that conduct.”
Elena Kagan, then the US solicitor general, stated emphatically in her oral argument before the court: “Hezbollah builds bombs. Hezbollah also builds homes. What Congress decided [in crafting the law] was when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs.”
The plan to link the city of Maale Adumim (pop. 40,000) to Jerusalem by building housing units in the E1 area, a proposal backed by nine Israeli prime ministers, has been frozen for 28 years because of U.S. and European opposition. The E1 plan covers an area of 12 square kilometers of state land. In April 1994, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gave the mayor of Maale Adumim the documents for the annexation of E1 to his town.
The central claim of the plan's opponents is that building E1 will obstruct Palestinian continuity of building and traffic between Ramallah and Bethlehem, from north to south. Yet Israel wants to preserve continuity from west to east, between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim, leading to the Dead Sea and the Jordanian border.
There has been large-scale illegal Palestinian building between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem along the Jerusalem-Jericho road and in the E1 zone itself for many years. This illegal activity - conducted in Area C under Israeli civil and security control - has already significantly narrowed the corridor through which the main traffic artery runs between Jerusalem and Maale Adumim.
The international community has worked to thwart measures to stop the illegal building in the area. Often, the Europeans themselves are involved in illegal construction activity in Area C.
Israel is offering the Palestinians a solution to maintain transportation continuity between the northern and southern West Bank by the use of a road to link these areas, providing the Palestinians free movement from the Ramallah area to the Bethlehem area.
Israel's need for strategic depth, as an aspect of defensible borders, is now recognized by most Israeli security and military professionals. In case of the reemergence of an eastern front that threatens Israel, the area between Maale Adumim and Jerusalem - and further eastward, toward the Dead Sea - is essential for Israel's strategic depth.
- Monday, June 13, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- 1919, British Mandate, Dr. I. Kligler, malaria, Malaria World Journal
After the defeat by the British Army of the Turkish Army in 1918, in the final year of World War I, Palestine was administered by the British Mandate, in effect a colony-like structure. It is little appreciated today that Palestine was then thinly populated or even uninhabitable in many areas. Indeed, Palestine was then almost empty. It is also usually not appreciated that if malaria had not been eliminated in Palestine, it is doubtful the State of Israel could ever have come into existence.The following brief extract from a previous paper may assist in appreciating the severity of the malaria that existed in Palestine 100 years ago.In 1919, Dr. Manson-Bahr, a future director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, described Palestine as one of the most highly malarious countries in the world. He knew the conditions in Palestine as in 1918, in the final months of WWI, whilst an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps with the British Army in Palestine, he had witnessed a force of 40,500 men lose 20,427 men in 9 weeks due to malaria. Of the 100,000 Turkish prisoners-of-war taken after their defeat in 1918 by the British Army in Palestine, 20 per cent had to be hospitalised immediately, suffering from malaria....For many years, historical narratives have been promoted providing a hostile account of the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 from out of Palestine. These narratives have often assumed the form of the Emperor’s New Clothes, misleadingly omitting reference to the malaria which devastated the country. Such narratives for years have thereby provided an incorrect impression that malaria in Palestine 100 years ago did not exist. In effect, it may have been an attempt to make the disease invisible!The world has been done a great disservice by the failure before now to declare ‘the emperor is wearing nothing at all’, to call out that Palestine 100 years ago was drenched in malaria, that it was accordingly uninhabitable in many areas. Palestine, in fact, had become desolate and neglected in many areas, and was then almost empty of inhabitants. The method and approach begun by the Zionists in 1922 to eliminate malaria in Palestine were successful, there was much to learn from the method, and the lessons from that malaria elimination are still relevant around the world and could still be applied today.Due to the omission of reference to malaria in these misleading narratives, today’s malaria-community is likely to be unaware of the steps taken in the successful malaria elimination in Palestine all those years ago and which experience could be saving lives today. Sadly, it is likely such misleading narratives by these malaria omissions will have done harm, costing many lives over the years throughout the world today wherever malaria has existed.
Dr. Kliger's methods were respectful to all inhabitants of the land, Arab and Jew, and education was key. Alexander wonders whether today's approaches to control malaria have the same respect for the inhabitants that the Zionists did a century ago.
But before such instruction or education could take place, it was necessary firstly to interest the inhabitants in malaria control or elimination, to cause the inhabitants to realise that a death from malaria was not just a fact of life. Instead, the inhabitants had to realise that such a death was a tragedy. The inhabitants had to believe malaria was not inevitable, therefore fatalism had to be overcome. The commencement of the successful Zionist malaria elimination in Palestine 100 years ago was a demonstration of an effective engagement with the community. Palestine was one of the first places to throw off some of the world’s old colonial attitudes which it did by engaging with dignity and respect all the inhabitants (both Arabs and Jews). This resulted in an extraordinarily strong and resilient cooperation by the inhabitants, Jews and Arabs, in the necessary anti-malaria works, lasting for years and years, and which cooperation was to rid the country of the disease.I ponder the point and ask the question to the malaria-community: Are inhabitants today truly treated with respect and dignity? Is the approach and engagement with inhabitants the same that each one in the malaria community would honestly want for themselves? Is there a whiff of old-style patronage about the malaria community’s approach?
- Monday, June 13, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- #PayForSlay, algeria, corruption, EU, hamas, Mohammad Shtayyeh, Palestine TV, Palestinian Authority, pay for slay, unrwa, USAID
He said that the entire Arab world has stopped funding the PA, with the sole exception of Algeria.
When virtually the entire Arab world has decided that the Palestinian Authority is not worth investing in, the rest of the world should listen.
One major reason the Arab world has lost interest in the Palestinian cause is because of the ongoing split between the West Bank and Gaza. Today is the 15th anniversary of Hamas' Gaza coup, and the PA half-heartedly demanded that they should be in control of the sector. They claimed that Hamas' takeover was part of a Zionist plot against them. Saying absurd things like that doesn't help endear the PA to the Arab world, either.
Shtayyeh also complained that the US has not resumed its aid to the PA that ended under Donald Trump. The Biden administration has resumed funding UNRWA and USAID programs in the territories, but not the PA itself. Part of the reason is because of the Palestinian Authority's insistence that it continue to pay terrorists and their families as a core part of its budget.
He also whined about how EU countries have been curtailing aid, in response to the PA's funding terror and teaching hate in its schools. He stated that "We affirmed to the European Union the rejection of any conditional financial aid. We will not accept to change one line in the Palestinian curriculum."
There is nothing wrong with the West putting conditions on how its aid money is spent, and the PA refusal to adhere to those conditions shows how important it is to the Palestinian leaders to continue to teach hate and fund terror.
- Monday, June 13, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- fact check, forensic evidence, Shireen Abu Akleh, WaPo
The Washington Post held its own investigation into the death of Shireen Abu Akleh. Its flaws are immediately apparent:
In other words, if you read the Washington Post article carefully and measure the distances from their own map yourself, you can see that not only is the IDF too far to have shot Shireen, but not even conceivably close enough. And the Post further quotes their expert: "Beck said he used a number of different weapons that fire that caliber [5.56 mm] of round in his analysis, but there is little significant difference between them in determining the distance between Abu Akleh and the shooters." The speed of sound changes, but not that much; bullet speeds can change, but not that much. As far as I can tell, it is impossible to come up with a scenario where the IDF could have shot Shireen at that distance and generate the audio signature that is heard.
“We were very sure there were no armed Palestinians, and no exchange of fire or clashes with the Israelis,” said [Ali al-]Samoudi, [an Al Jazeera news channel producer.] Then, the journalists headed up the street, toward the Israeli convoy. “It was totally calm, there was no gunfire at all.” Suddenly, there was a barrage of bullets. One struck Samoudi. Another hit and ultimately killed Abu Akleh, as their colleagues scrambled for cover.The shots seemed to come from the military vehicles, Samoudi recalled.
In the video that the Washington Post posted, the gunfire volley that causes the reporters to scramble happens at 7:06, but one can hear gunfire two minutes earlier at 5:02.
More importantly, however, is that al-Samoudi contradicts another interview he gave the day of the shooting.
After a few minutes, we heard the sound of bullets raining down on us from the side of the occupation soldiers who were on the roofs of the buildings opposite us , amid the screams of Palestinian citizens who call out to us: Get down on the ground, snipers are targeting you. . I was hit in the lower back, and Shireen screamed: "Ali was wounded, Ali was wounded."
He said the gunfire was from roof of buildings opposite him then - and now he says they came from military vehicles. Which one is it?
Given his track record making up stories about Israel, captured in the 2003 film "The Road to Jenin," it is very likely that Samoudi at first thought that Israeli snipers were on the roofs. Once he found out they were not, he changed his story.
The Washington Post, of course, didn't ask him about it, and accepted his new story without question.
The key piece of evidence, as with the other analyses, comes from the calculation of the distance of the gunshots based on audio analysis. A different expert was used but he came up with a similar estimate. But note the Washington Post's sleight of hand in these paragraphs:
As videographer Awad] approaches an intersection, three rounds of gunfire are heard in the distance. Roughly two minutes later, he points the camera south revealing Israeli military vehicles about 182 meters (597 feet) away, according to The Post’s analysis of the footage.
At The Post’s request, Steven Beck, an audio forensic expert who consulted for the FBI for more than a decade, conducted an analysis on the gunfire heard in the two separate videos. Beck found the first two bursts of gunfire, 13 shots in total, were shot from between 175-195 meters (574-640 feet) away from the cameras that recorded the scene — almost exactly the distance between the journalists and the Israeli military vehicles.
There are two problems with this paragraph. One is that even according to the Washington Post's own map, the IDF was not 597 feet (182 meters) away from the journalists, but 660 feet away (about 201 meters), according to both Bing Maps and Google Maps. Here are the two maps side by side, my Bing map annotated like the WaPo map for comparison (click to better see the Bing 660 foot measurement, the blue dot is the location of the camera):
200 meters is outside the 175-195 meter estimate.
But see how the Post tries to deceive you further, saying that the 175-195 meters from the IDF to the cameras are almost exactly the distance from the IDF to the journalists.
The cameras were 10-15 meters further than the journalists, meaning that the IDF was some 20 meters outside the range of the audio distance estimate of the gunfire!
I asked the expert used by CNN and Bellingcat, Rob Maher of Montana State University, if there were any circumstances like weather or wind that could stretch the 195 meter estimate to 210 or 215 meters. His answer was, "I think that if the average bullet speed is assumed to be at least 760 m/s, the effect of wind and temperature would only move the estimated distance by a few meters, not tens of meters."
I don't know where the Washington Post got the 182 meter estimate, but I certainly cannot reproduce it. We have seen video of the IDF lead vehicle turn into the street shown on that map at its northmost end, so the map is accurately showing exactly where it was. There is no way that both Google and Bing Maps are off by some 10% in their distance estimates.
The WaPo also shows the eight minute video I had analyzed showing a resident who filmed the IDF vehicles from where the journalists were. But they didn't bother to translate the conversation in the video, where - minutes before Abu Akleh was killed - people are joking about and pointing to snipers in buildings to the southeast of Abu Akleh.
There is one more almost unbelievable omission in the Washington Post's analysis. Unlike the other media investigations, they notice the group of gunmen to the southwest of Abu Akleh, and show their video (#7), noting that the video was uploaded shortly after Abu Akleh was shot but they couldn't confirm the exact time it was taken. (Analysis of the shadows indicates it was taken within 10 minutes of her death but they didn't perform that analysis.)
They show where Jenin militants were based on that video #7:
They don't measure the distance between those Palestinian fighters and Abu Akleh!
If they would, here is what they would find:
They were, at some points, the exact correct distance away from the camera!
I don't know if there is any line of sight from them to her. I doubt it, at that corner, based on photos by Mapillary. But there could have been holes in the wall at that corner. The Washington Post had enough data to look for such a line of sight in Jenin, and didn't bother to do it. Even though these are the only people with guns that they identified who were the proper distance away!
That is a glaring omission, and it shows how the "investigators" had a conclusion in mind and simply did not want to consider any other possibilities.
As I mentioned and have previously reported, I think - based on Ali Samoudi and Shatha Hanaysha's interviews on the same day as the shooting - that she was shot by Palestinian snipers in a house shown to the immediate east of the place it says "580 ft" in the diagram above. Its roof is tall and there is a direct line of sight from there to Abu Akleh. We also know that Jenin militants often simply go to roofs of buildings and shoot wildly, as I showed in this post.
I also found another interview with Shatha Hanaysha, the woman next to Abu Akleh, saying:
We were facing a house and an open space. We were fired upon from an area above us and shots hit the tree I was standing behind from above. It was where Israeli occupation forces were.
She is saying that the bullets came from above, similar to her previous statement that they came from a building. That is further indication that Shireen was killed by Palestinian snipers that she thought were IDF. (IDF snipers do not use 5.56 mm bullets.)
One more data point. If there were snipers on roofs all over Jenin, as multiple witnesses attest, why do we not have video of any of them?
One reason may be this message in the Jenin Telegram channel from 6:28 AM: "Please brothers, the family inside the houses, no one photograph the gunmen - pray for them." There were explicit instructions to avoid taking photos or videos of the militants, seemingly specifically the ones who barge into houses to take up sniper positions. The IDF would be aware of the people on the ground, but if I am reading this correctly, the leaders in the camp were trying to maintain a tactical advantage of hidden snipers where residents would know if gunmen were on their own roof but they might be hidden from the IDF.
In other words, the investigators using open source materials fall into the trap of thinking that the open source materials are an accurate and complete record, when in fact there are other factors that make them quite incomplete.
Put it all together, and the Washington Post investigators didn't even try to investigate anything beyond what they wanted to be true. If anything, they provided even more proof that Israel could not have killed Shireen Abu Akleh.
(correction - I originally said message not to video gunmen was 5:28, it was 6:28, h/t DigFind.)
Sunday, June 12, 2022
- Sunday, June 12, 2022
- Elder of Ziyon
- Amad, anti-Zionist not antisemitic, antisemitism, Bedouin, gaza, hamas, house demolition, No Jews No News, Tawfiq Abu Hashish
Palestinian site Amad reports:
Evicting people from their homes? Demolishing houses? Using gunfire against a violent riot?
Local sources reported on Thursday afternoon that there was an exchange of fire between Hamas security forces and residents of the Bedouin village area [in Northern Gaza], and that there were a number of casualties.The sources indicated that the Hamas Land Authority demolished homes in the Bedouin village in the northern Gaza Strip.Shooting took place in the Bedouin village at Hamas policemen while they were demolishing a house in the Bedouin village belonging to Tawfiq Abu Hashish.According to the sources, there was intense shooting and a number of injuries, one of them seriously, they were transferred to the Indonesian Hospital.
Evicting people from their homes? Demolishing houses? Using gunfire against a violent riot?
When Israel is blamed for these things, they are considered the worst human rights abuses in the Middle East.
When Hamas does them - there is next to no coverage in Western media. The only reason any Israeli media covered it at all was because some gunfire reached an Israeli community, causing slight damage and a light injury - to an Arab worker.
When Palestinians do to Palestinians what Israel is accused of doing to Palestinians, no one cares. Not even the people who claim to be "pro-Palestinian."
Which proves, yet again, that practically nobody is really pro-Palestinian. They are anti-Israel. And since they only care what happens to Palestinians when they can blame Jews, they are antisemitic, by definition.
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From Ian:
NGO Monitor: False Claims, Discredited Sources: The Initial Report from the UN’s Permanent COI Targeting Israel
NGO Monitor: False Claims, Discredited Sources: The Initial Report from the UN’s Permanent COI Targeting Israel
Executive SummaryHow the Palestinians were born into the world
On June 7, 2022, the UN Human Rights Council (HRC)’s “Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in Israel” (COI) published its first report. As expected, this initial report perpetuates outright falsehoods, and relies on information provided by terror-linked and anti-Israel NGOs to previous UN bodies. This is consistent with the COI’s prejudicial mandate and the bias of commission members.
The COI’s Fundamental Bias
Unlike other commissions of inquiry that present a single report to the HRC, the COI will report twice a year in perpetuity, making it yet another permanent anti-Israel UN institution.
The COI seeks to collect evidence that will be provided to the International Criminal Court (ICC), affording NGOs another vehicle to lobby for prosecutions of Israeli officials.
The COI’s mandate includes an obligation to investigate “root causes” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In this regard, it will likely become a platform for NGO claims that the Jewish state is illegitimate and guilty of the crime of “apartheid.”
The selection process for commissioners was non-transparent, and there is secrecy regarding the identity of the “experts” upon whom the COI is relying.
All three COI commissioners have long-documented anti-Israel biases or have worked for a Palestinian Authority-linked institution. For example, regarding COI head Navi Pillay, in 2012, US House Foreign Affairs Chair Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Rep. Elliot Engel opposed the extension of her tenure as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, due to her “repeatedly demonstrated bias against the state of Israel.”
In March 2022, the COI met with NGOs responsible for promoting the “apartheid” campaign against Israel, including B’Tselem, Adalah, Addameer, and Human Rights Watch (HRW). There is no indication that the COI made efforts to engage with or meet with Jewish groups or those providing a mainstream Israeli perspective.
Failures of the June 2022 report
The report makes demonstrably false claims, such as asserting – incorrectly – that Palestinian residents of Jerusalem cannot apply for Israeli citizenship and that non-Jewish Israeli citizens have a separate legal status than Jewish Israelis.
The most-cited source in the COI is the discredited 2009 Goldstone Report on the 2008-2009 conflict between Israel and Palestinian terror organizations in Gaza. That report’s biases and flaws were so severe that its own author, Judge Richard Goldstone, disavowed it in an April 2011 op-ed in the Washington Post, writing, “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document.”
The report cites to non-binding and political UN resolutions, reports, statements, and advisory opinions as representing binding law.
It attacks Israel’s Law of Return – streamlining immigration and naturalization for Jews around the world – while erasing its consistency with international law and practice.
The COI seeks to discredit Israel’s designation of terror-linked Palestinian NGOs. In contract, the EU, the Netherlands, and financial institutions such as Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Citibank, and Arab Bank, have frozen funds, ended contracts, closed accounts, and denied services to these groups over terror-financing concerns.
The report cites to UN documents that are themselves based on data provided by these terror-linked NGOs.
The COI does not mention Palestinian incitement and other crucial factors necessary for understanding Israeli security policy.
The COI parrots earlier NGO and UN documents blaming Israel for “the destruction of Palestinian water infrastructure” and limited “access to water,” ignoring increased Israeli supply of water to the West Bank. Moreover, the Palestinian Authority boycotted the Israeli-Palestinian Joint Water Committee (JWC) – a decision-making body tasked with managing and improving infrastructure in the West Bank – for years, severely hindering the development of additional water infrastructure for Palestinians.
The Six-Day War, whose 55th anniversary will be marked this month, represents a historical turning point in the annals of Israeli history, and in the Jewish state's relations with the Arab world. Indeed, that war forged the first crack in the wall of Arab hostility and rejectionism, which at the time was predicated on the unwavering belief that the Arabs would ultimately succeed in defeating and destroying Israel.Seth Frantzman: Understanding the new Israel-Iran tensions
Alongside all these things, however, the war was also an important turning point in the annals of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as its consequences essentially "created" the Palestinian nation.
In an effort to promote the Palestinian narrative and its inherent demands for ownership of the Land of Israel, the Palestinians have gone as far as to claim that not only did they precede the Zionists who came here in the late 19th century, but also the Israelites, as Palestinians – they argue – are the descendants of the ancient Canaanites and therefore have first rights over the land.
However, even the Palestinians themselves don't buy the historical revisionism and fundamental fabrication linking present-day Palestinians to the Canaanites and Jebusites, who controlled Jerusalem prior to King David's conquest of the city. Case in point, when the Palestinians systematically destroy archaeological remnants to erase any reminder of the Jewish past in this land, they also don't spare those artifacts and sites from the period prior to the Israelites' conquest of the land.
On the other hand, one very common claim, which many Israelis also happen to echo, is that the Palestinian national movement is essentially a mirror image of Zionism and first began in the early part of the 20th century as a type of response by the local population to the Zionist movement, which sought the help of the British to settle the land and establish a Jewish state.
The truth, however, is that in one fell swoop the Six-Day War was the event that turned the Arabs of the Land of Israel into Palestinians.
Israel has said it is shifting gears against Iran in the region. This apparently hints at a public shift from the campaign between the wars, in which thousands of airstrikes were carried out against Iran in Syria, to other types of operations.
“Israel fell into the trap and fought the octopus’s tentacles tactically,” Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has said. “But the octopus itself is Iran. My doctrine states that in this Cold War between Iran and Israel, I won’t allow it to be one-sided. I want to weaken them and hurt their forces in all dimensions. They have no business in our region, 1,000 kilometers from home. I don’t want to see Iran in Syria or on any border of ours.”"My doctrine states that in this Cold War between Iran and Israel, I won’t allow it to be one-sided. I want to weaken them and hurt their forces in all dimensions. They have no business in our region, 1,000 kilometers from home. I don’t want to see Iran in Syria or on any border of ours."This is an important public shift. But the question that is also raised is how these new tensions have unfolded. Here are some key incidents in the recent rise in tensions.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett
The drone threat
Iran has embarked on expanded drone operations against Israel. This began in earnest in February 2018 when the Islamic Republic launched a drone from Syria. Then it tried again in early 2021 and later in May from Iraq. It sent drones to Yemen and attacked a tanker in the summer of 2021. Earlier this year, it also tried to fly drones over Iraq headed for the Jewish state.
Defense Minister Benny Gantz discussed the drone threat numerous times over the past year, highlighting how Iran is training drone operators from the region and pointing to areas where it trains and operates with drones. On May 17, he discussed the Iranian drone threat and noted that two drones were downed over Iraq in February. Israel will continue to block Iran’s precision weapons transfers, he said. On May 29, Iran unveiled a secret drone base.
Assassinations
On May 22, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Col. Hassan Sayad Khodayari was assassinated in Iran. He was accused of being involved in plots against Israel abroad. Over the next few weeks, another two of the IRGC’s officers also died in mysterious circumstances, and the Iranian military complex at Parchin suffered some kind of incident.Reports abroad hinted that Parchin was struck by a drone. Iran, angry at these incidents, appears to be threatening Israelis and Jews abroad, including in Turkey.
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