The New Arab is inconsolable - Israel killed a promising young karate champion!
A Palestinian karateka has been identified as among those killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza on Friday, with the bombardment continuing into its third day on Sunday.
Youssef Qaddoum, who was a member of the Palestinian Al-Zaytoun Sports Club, was reportedly killed during Israeli strikes on the neighbourhood of Al-Shuja’iyya, east of Gaza city.
The Palestinian Shehab news agency quoted the sports club in a statement saying that "the young martyr Youssef Qaddoum was present at his house with a number of his neighbours before they were caught by the missiles of the Zionist enemy planes".
The club went on to state that the karate player was immediately martyred after the targeting, and that prayers will be sent to comfort the deceased’s family. They also urged all human rights organisations to intervene in the series of daily crimes carried out by Israeli occupation forces against Palestinian athletes.
Qaddoum, who was 24 years old, was described as one of the club’s most distinguished karate players and has participated in many sports tournaments.
How terrible that Israel would target an athlete!
Then again, this morning, Islamic Jihad published a list of its members who were killed - and sure enough, we see "The martyr fighter/ Youssef Salman Muhammad Qaddoum (24 years), Gaza Brigade" listed.
I wonder if The New Arab will update their article with this new information that undercuts their entire thesis that Israel is targeting athletes. Because journalists, especially those from pro-terror outlets, are so ethical.
The five year old girl who was killed on Friday, Alaa Qaddoum, was his relative, and he was clearly the target while she was effectively hoped to be a human shield.
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Israel said it took action against the militant group because of concrete threats of an imminent attack, but has not provided details. Caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who is an experienced diplomat but untested in overseeing a war, unleashed the offensive less than three months before a general election in which he is campaigning to keep the job.
There two sentences meant to give the impression that the fighting wasn't necessary and the caretaker government made up an excuse to look macho and gain power in the next elections.
It is beyond absurd. An article in Al Monitor by Ben Caspit on Friday described the events leading up to the initial bombings:
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) operation came after several days of tension on the Gaza border, over the arrest of in the West bank of a senior Islamic Jihad member.
In fact, at the start of the week, Israeli security forces appeared to have scored yet another victory over terrorism with the arrest of the Islamic Jihad’s West Bank commander Bassem Saadi. The Aug. 1 raid by Israeli commandos and Shin Bet agents in the Jenin refugee camp was complex, with Israeli forces coming under brutal fire that forced them to hole up with Saadi in his home until a rescue team arrived to extricate them unharmed.
Saadi’s arrest was intended to deal a severe blow to the terrorism that swept through Israel from late March to early May, much of it carried out by Palestinians from the Jenin area. In political terms, the successful raid appeared to signal yet another upbeat week in the fortunes of Yair Lapid, the caretaker neophyte prime minister struggling to position himself as a viable alternative to “Mr. Security,” former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ahead of the Nov. 1 elections.
However, as always in Israel and the Middle East, any victory can turn into a fiasco within a heartbeat, every ending is a new beginning and nothing ever turns out the way it was meant to. The footage of Saadi being dragged on the floor by Israeli troops accompanied by an attack dog generated a widespread storm, especially in the Gaza Strip, where Islamic Jihad is headquartered....
Hours later, Israeli intelligence had already detected the deployment of Islamic Jihad teams along the Gaza border, toting anti-tank rockets and other weapons, in search of targets on the Israeli side. The head of the military’s Southern Command, Maj. Gen. Eliezer Toledano, ordered the closing of all roads along the border vulnerable to rocket attack. Residents of the kibbutzim and other communities in the area were instructed to remain indoors until further notice.
The spring terror attacks, Israel's going after Islamic Jihad leaders in Jenin to stop them, the events of this past week in the "Gaza envelope," Islamic Jihad's open threats over the past week - none of this is mentioned by AP.
And this is just what we know. Why would Israel reveal intelligence information about an imminent attack?
At the same time, how does it make any sense that Israel would start a potential war for political purposes? Most citizens are reservists in the army - no one would be happy if they thought they'd have to go away from home and potentially fight for a mere political stunt. That would backfire pretty spectacularly.
Similarly, no Israeli government would put its residents at risk from hundreds of rockets - Iron Dome is good but not perfect and people get injured scrambling for shelter even if it was perfect. Israelis wouldn't stand for that, either.
To float such an idea is to say that Israeli politicians are willing and eager to put their own constituents' lives at risk for political gain.
Practically, Lapid's party Yesh Atid has 17 seats in the Knesset; it is part of a coalition with other parties who also want to lead the next government. Why would they go along with this conspiracy to keep Lapid in office? Why would they remain silent about it?
AP is publishing an antisemitic conspiracy theory.
But this is the subtle antisemitism that pervades international media coverage of Israel. If the reporter can't figure out why Israel is doing something, or is offended that Israel doesn't share enough intel, it must be that Israel is up to something underhanded. Certainly Israel cannot be telling the truth, even though lying would hurt them far more.
And as with other cases like the death of Shireen Abu Akleh, the media does not look for any evidence that would contradict their gut feeling that the Jews are certainly the guilty party and are always up to something. The only theories worth exploring are the ones that suggest that the Jews are acting odiously.
(h/t Irene)
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In the midst of Operation Breaking Dawn, on Saturday night, at about 9pm, a rocket explosion in Jabaliya in Gaza killed 4 children.
As expected, Israel was blamed.
But this time, unexpectedly, Israel was able not only to present its case that it was not responsible, but also to get the media to present a balanced report that presented Israel's contention that the explosion was the result of a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).
In one incident Saturday, four children were among seven people killed in an explosion in Jabaliya. The Palestinian Health Ministry initially said the blast was caused by an Israeli airstrike. Israel rejected the claim and said it was the result of errant rocket fire, and released a video showing what it said was the Islamic Jihad rocket sharply changing course in the air and hitting the building.
Three children were also killed on Saturday, though it was not immediately clear whether they were hit by an Israeli strike or a misfired Palestinian rocket. The Israeli military said they were killed by a failed Islamic Jihad rocket launch.
Israel said some of those children were killed on Saturday night when an Islamic Jihad rocket misfired and fell short in the northern Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said it had not been operating in that area at the time. Islamic Jihad has not commented on the Israeli claim.
France's AFP quoted Israeli sources that “it had ‘irrefutable’ evidence that a stray rocket fired by Islamic Jihad was responsible for the deaths of several children in Jabalia, northern Gaza, on Saturday.”
At least four children were killed in a blast close to the Jabaliya refugee camp on Saturday, according to Hamas, the group that governs the Gaza Strip. It blamed Israel for the deaths, but the military denied any responsibility, saying the explosion was caused by a failed rocket launched by Islamic Jihad. Al Jazeera could not verify the claims immediately.
On Saturday, The Associated Press reported
The Israeli military said an errant rocket fired by Palestinian militants killed civilians late Saturday, including children, in the town of Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. The military said it investigated the incident and concluded ‘without a doubt’ that it was caused by a misfire on the part of Islamic Jihad. There was no official Palestinian comment on the incident.
However, by Sunday the AP apparently decided that in the interests of balance, instead of presenting the two sides as to who was responsible, it would not address the question of responsibility at all and merely reported “among the dead were six children and four women” -- without any mention the possibility that some of them may have been killed by misfired PIJ rockets.
One of the criticisms of Israel when it comes to getting its side of the story out to the world is that it is just too slow, allowing the terrorists and Israel-haters plenty of time to get their version of things out and presented before the world audience. Israel just does not react quickly enough.
“We identified the potential for damage from this incident very quickly,” Head of the Public Diplomacy Directorate Lior Haiat said on Sunday. “We understood it could be a public diplomacy catastrophe that could lead to diplomatic harm that could change the direction of the campaign.”
Within minutes, Haiat, IDF Spokesperson Ran Kohav, representatives of the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency), the Prime Minister’s Office and the Foreign Ministry discussed the incident. Defense officials were quickly able to determine not only that the IDF was not responsible, but that Islamic Jihad very clearly was.
Haiat was able to coordinate a media plan with the others within an hour. [emphasis added]
Another welcome step, considering Israel's reputation of not dealing well with the media, was Culture and Sports Minister Chilli Tropper being released from an ongoing Security Cabinet meeting so that he could speak to Israeli media on behalf of the government.
Of course, it helped that Israel was able to provide videos to support its claim:
Palestinians accusing Israel of killing 5 kids yet at 20:40 a rocket barrage was reported into Israel. At the same time, the news broke of massacre in Jabaliya in which 5 children were killed. The IDF confirmed NO ATTACKS were carried out in the area at that time by Israel. pic.twitter.com/kIX72TnxR5
— Emily Schrader - אמילי שריידר (@emilykschrader) August 6, 2022
Now that Israel has demonstrated the ability to get its message across and reported in the media, what Israel needs is the ability to do this consistently.
Maybe it can even do a better job in presenting its side in the death of Abu Akleh.
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Ukrainian Ambassador to Israel Yevhen Korniichuk on Sunday expressed his solidarity with Israel in its military campaign against the Islamic Jihad in Gaza.
"As a Ukrainian, while our country is under brutal attack from a close neighbor - I feel great sympathy towards the Israeli public," the Ukrainian ambassador wrote on his Twitter account.
"Terror and malicious attacks towards citizens have become daily matter for Israelis and Ukrainians," he added. "We have to put an end to it. We pray for peace and hope the escalation ends soon."
You have to take this with a grain of salt - Ukraine wants Israeli weapons, while Palestinians cannot provide it with anything useful. And Ukraine does not exactly have a voting record in the UN that supports the idea that it ever identified with Israeli under attack.
But it shows how vacuous the Israel haters are in trying to hitch their cause to whatever is trendy.
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The Palestinian Center for Human Rights puts out bulletins that are the most detailed available on airstrikes in Gaza.
It blames all incidents on Israel, of course. But a little reading between the lines shows that many of the supposed strikes are actually from Islamic Jihad rockets falling short in Gaza.
The IDF has documented well over a hundred of such failed rocket launches:
When PCHR writes about an IDF "shell" causing deaths or damage, it can safely be assumed that this was a rocket. IDF bombs are devastating in the damage they cause and IDF intelligence is quite good at targeting; as far as I can tell the IDF is not using any artillery yet in Gaza.
IDF strikes look like this:
If there is only a small hole in the roof, it isn't from the IDF.
When PCHR says random people are killed by "shells" that indicates a failed Gaza rocket launch.
Here are some:
8/5 16:20: an artillery shell fell on a house belonging to ‘Adnan ‘Atiyah al-‘Amour in al-Fokhari area, eastern Khan Younis. As a result, the owner’s 22-year-old daughter, Doniana, was killed after sustaining shrapnel wounds all over her body.
At approximately 23:20 on Friday, 05 August 2022, 5 Palestinians, including a mother and her 3 children, were injured after an artillery shell landed on Foad Ghazi ‘Abdullah Farajallah’s house in Jabalia refugee camp, causing material damage to it.
At around 00:15 on Saturday, 06 August 2022, an artillery shell fell on the roof of Al-Quds Open University building in Beit Lahia, north of the Gaza Strip, causing a hole in its roof and damage to the study halls.
15:55: IOF fired a shell at a group of people gathering in front of Hussein ‘Ali al-Zuwaidi’s house, northeastern Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza Strip. As a result, 2 civilians, including the house owner’s son, Nour Al-Deen (18), sustained shrapnel wounds all over their bodies. Due to their serious condition, they were referred to al-Shifa Hospital, where Nour al-Deen was pronounced dead at around 18:30.
We've documented PCHR lies many times. By default, they assume every death is from Israeli fire, and they never correct their information after it is shown that they are wrong.
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Operation Breaking Dawn, which started on Friday, was a long time in the making.
Israel’s southern communities had been in a lockdown since last Tuesday after Israeli security forces arrested Palestinian Islamic Jihad senior member Bassam al-Saadi in Jenin. Good intelligence and careful preparation are obviously necessary to carry out such an arrest.
Residents of the South, who were held virtual hostages afterwards, now know why: Such intelligence and preparation also enabled the IDF on Friday to kill Islamic Jihad’s top commander in Gaza, Tayseer al-Jabari, in a precise operation and thwart a ticking time bomb: He was reportedly involved in planning imminent major attacks on Israel, including the use of lethal anti-tank missiles close to the border.
Jabari replaced Baha Abu Al-Ata, who was killed in a similar airstrike in November 2019. Other senior Islamic Jihad figures were killed in well-conducted strikes over the weekend, including Islamic Jihad’s southern division commander Khaled Mansour.
Although it is natural to compare the current round of fighting with terrorists in the Gaza Strip to last year’s Operation Guardian of the Walls – when Hamas launched an attack on Israel starting in the capital on Jerusalem Day in May 2021 – Operation Breaking Dawn so far seems to have more in common with Operation Black Belt in which Al-Ata was killed and Hamas chose not to get openly involved.
Responding to threats
But if Israel doesn’t forcibly respond to the threats of one terrorist organization, the other organizations driven by the same desire to harm the Jewish state will be emboldened. And that includes Hezbollah over Israel’s northern border with Lebanon as well as terror cells in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank).
Over the weekend, Islamic Jihad launched more than 350 rockets at Israel and many more were fired at the country yesterday. Although the United States and others issued initial statements of Israel’s right to self-defense, there were also immediate calls for Israel to prevent an escalation and in effect to stop responding.
Although Israel has the upper hand from a purely defensive viewpoint in this round of hostilities, like in previous ones, the Palestinians have the advantage when it comes to public relations and international sympathy. Whenever Israel justifiably responds to the indiscriminate firing of rockets – every one of them a war crime – by carrying out attacks against terrorist targets in Gaza, it is immediately and unfairly perceived as the aggressor rather than the victim.
Commenting on the killing of Zawahiri, UN Secretary General's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said the UN was "committed to fighting against terrorism and strengthening international cooperation in countering that threat".
Of course it was a different story when Israel acted against Jabari. UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland was "deeply concerned" by "the targeted killing today of a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader inside Gaza."
Israel has not claimed its operation in Gaza — codenamed Breaking Dawn — is to deter. The government has made it clear that the strikes were to prevent an imminent threat to the Israeli population. It had hard intelligence that PIJ, led by Jabari, was planning attacks across the border from Gaza. Protecting its people from violent external attack is not only permitted under international law, it is the duty of every government. If deterrence of such attacks were possible, Israel would have taken action to deter.
PIJ is an Iranian proxy, directed and funded to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Its leader, Ziad Nakhaleh, has been in Tehran for the last few days, meeting with his IRGC paymasters and other government officials including Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
As PIJ and its fellow jihadists have indiscriminately fired an estimated 400 missiles (at time of writing) at targets from Sderot to Tel Aviv since Operation Breaking Dawn began, the IDF has continued to launch precision strikes from the air and the ground to halt the attacks on Israeli citizens. Just as Israel's casus belli for attacking PIJ targets was lawful, it has taken the utmost care to ensure its continued strikes are also lawful, only attacking targets that are proportionate and necessary to the military objectives and giving warnings where civilian casualties could occur.
We can expect non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Human Rights Watch to pile on. Amnesty International, however, might be slightly more circumspect as they are at present gyrating from the widespread international reproach that greeted their just-published report condemning Ukraine's defensive actions, in which they again showed the total incomprehension of war and the laws of war that they often demonstrate in their denunciations of Israel.
Slavering for the last two days at the prospect of IDF-inflicted mass casualties, much of the media immediately and without any evidence eagerly pointed the finger at Israel over the tragic killing of seven people, including four children, in Jabalia camp in the Gaza Strip. They will undoubtedly try, but journalists and UN investigators will find it hard to refute the IDF's confirmation that they did not strike the location and have conclusive video and radar evidence that the deaths were caused by a misfired PIJ rocket, launched as so often from within the civilian population. This would certainly fit, as approximately a quarter of all terrorist rockets fired so far during this campaign have landed inside Gaza, not in Israel.
Islamic Jihad leader Ziyad al-Nakhalah said during a television interview in Tehran that almost any time Israel attacks Gaza, all of the terrorist organizations rally to respond in unison. Yet Hamas has not fired a single rocket.
One Islamic Jihad spokesman told Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen network on Saturday that the commander of Islamic Jihad's northern region in Gaza wasn't killed due to superb intelligence acquired by Israel, but rather because he was intentionally deceived into going there by the Egyptian mediator in order "to finalize a cease-fire agreement with Israel" - implying "treasonous collaboration" between Cairo and Jerusalem.
Another spokesman said Hamas was completely in step with Islamic Jihad and a full partner in the rocket attacks against Israel, but that it was concealing this - reflecting Islamic Jihad's distress over being alone in this fight.
It's safe to assume that Hamas may see the "positive" aspects of the Israeli offensive: putting Islamic Jihad in its place, sending it a message that it isn't allowed to plot attacks against Israel without Hamas' approval, and making it obey the decisions that are made in Gaza, not in Tehran.
Meanwhile, Israel made it clear to the PIJ that it was willing to end the fighting, but only if the calm is reciprocated. PIJ has said through mediators that one condition for its compliance is the release of Sa’adi—a demand that should not and will not be met.
None of this makes the slightest difference to the moral-equivalence choir, certainly not those at the United Nations, whose Israel-bashing knows no bounds. Indeed, contrary to Erdan’s false hopes, they are at the ready to sing their tired chorus of bogus accusations, regardless of other occurrences around the globe.
That Russia burst into its own aria is not surprising, of course, since anything that serves as a distraction from its blitzing of Ukraine is welcome in Moscow.
In a statement on Saturday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova had an interesting slant on the events that are causing the Kremlin such “profound worry”: “The new escalation was caused by the Israeli army firing into the Gaza Strip on August 5, to which Palestinian groups responded by carrying out massive and indiscriminate bombardments on Israeli territory.”
Adding that her government was calling called on “all parties to show maximum restraint and work towards a ceasefire,” she said that Moscow reaffirms its “principled and consistent position, reflected in the relevant resolutions of the U.N. General Assembly and Security Council in support of a comprehensive and long-term settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in accordance with the two-state principle.”
Finally, she concluded, “It is possible to put an end to cyclical violence only within the framework of the negotiation process, the result of which should be the realization of the legitimate national rights of the Palestinian people to establish an independent state within the 1967 borders.”
She conveniently omitted key facts, such as Tehran’s role as sole bankroller of its proxy, PIJ. Hamas also receives money from Iran, but has other sources of income, as well.
Speaking of Iran, nuclear talks resumed in Vienna on Thursday between the Islamic Republic and the world powers hungry to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—the disastrous 2015 nuclear deal that the mullah-led regime never adhered to in any case, and from which former U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.
As Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, orchestrated the JCPOA, and his successor, Joe Biden, is as desperate to salvage it as Russian President Vladimir Putin, it is beneficial for them to leave Iran out of any discussion on Gaza. U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, while giving a social-media nod to Israel’s “right to protect itself,” added to his tweet, “We are engaging with different parties and urge all sides for calm.”
When Mohammed was starting his new religion, the Arabian peninsula had many Jewish tribes. A 2012 Aish article by Sarah Yocheved Rigler explains:
According to Dr. Hagai Mazuz, an Orientalist specializing in Arabic language, Islam, and Islamic culture, “The Jewish community of northern Arabia was one of the largest ancient Jewish communities in the history of the Jewish people.”
They were powerful and wealthy. They were respected by the local Arabian tribes for their religion, culture, erudition, and literacy. They built castles on mountaintops and developed productive plantations. They had military prowess, horses, and advanced weaponry. And they were almost totally annihilated in the short span of a few years.
The Jews of Medina were divided into three groups: The Banu Qaynuqa were blacksmiths, weapon wrights, and goldsmiths. The Banu Nadir had date plantations. The Banu QurayUa were wine merchants. These groups often quarreled. Sometimes the hostility among them broke out into actual fighting.
When Mohammed fled from Mecca in 622, he went to Medina. At first, he entered into an alliance with the Jews. He studied in their study halls and adopted many of their customs into his incipient religion (e.g. not eating pork). But when, after two years, Mohammed could not convince the Jews to accept him as a prophet and convert to his religion, his attitude turned toward open hostility. He instructed his friends to murder and decapitate Ka’b Ibn al-Ashraf, a renowned Jewish poet and chief of the Banu Nadir (date farmers tribe), and ordered his followers, “Kill every Jew you can.”
I had never heard that quote before, and the article points to an article in a popular Jewish history magazine. But I researched this and it is indeed a true quote from an Islamic source, Ibn Hishām’s biography of Muḥammad, quoted in this academic paper:
Ibn Isḥāq said: The Apostle of Allāh said: “Kill every Jew you can lay your hands on (man ẓafirtum bihi min rijāl yahūd fa-qtulūhu).” Whereupon Muḥayṣṣa b. Masʿūd attacked and killed Ibn Sunayna, one of the Jewish merchants that used to associate and do business with them.
The Aish article continues:
Mohammed then besieged the Banu Qaynuqa (blacksmith tribe), knowing that the other two Jewish tribes would not come to their aid. Although the Banu Qaynuqa were proficient warriors, the lack of food and water due to the siege weakened them to the point of surrender.
The other two Jewish tribes did nothing to save the Jewish blacksmiths. After the surrender, Mohammed wanted to slaughter the vanquished tribe, but his ally Abdullah Ibn Ubayyy prevented the massacre, and instead they were exiled to Edri (now in Jordan).
Mohammed confiscated their considerable assets. Strengthened by captured Jewish wealth, one year later Mohammed turned his attention to the next Jewish tribe, the date growers. To ensure that the tribe of the wine merchants would not come to the rescue of their fellow Jews, Mohammed made an alliance with the wine merchants.
Mohammed’s forces laid siege to the strongholds of the Jewish date farmers in 625. Like the previous Jewish tribe, they succumbed to the siege. Again Abdullah Ibn Ubayyy intervened, and instead of slaughtering the vanquished Jews, Mohammed exiled them to the city of Khaybar, which, according to Muslim tradition, was inhabited by descendants of the Jewish priestly tribe.
Three years later Mohammed conquered Khaybar, the wealthiest city in northern Arabia. Because the Muslims did not know agriculture, Mohammed permitted most of the Jews to live as dhimmis, officially second-class citizens who had to pay exorbitant taxes. Eventually the second Caliph banished the Jews of Khaybar, in obedience to Mohammed’s policy that permitted no religion other than Islam to be practiced in Arabia.
Back in Medina, the wine merchant tribe had only two years to relish their position as the sole surviving Jews. Then, in 627, Mohammed, with 3,000 soldiers, laid siege to their fortress. The Jewish tribe had only 450 trained warriors. Because Abdullah Ibn Ubayyy had died a few months before, the Jews knew that no one would intercede on their behalf. The leader of the besieged Jews proposed that they either convert to Islam or, similar to Masada, kill their own women and children to prevent their being ravished and enslaved, and then fight the Muslims to the death. The Jews rejected both options and offered to surrender and leave Medina.
Mohammed rejected their offer. The vanquished wine merchants tribe, who had twice refused to help the other besieged Jewish tribes, suffered the worst fate. The children were sold as slaves; the women were given to the victorious soldiers “for the Muslims to use,” and the men (except for three who agreed to convert to Islam) were decapitated in the marketplace. According to Muslim tradition, the blood of the decapitated Jews flooded the marketplace of Medina.
A large, powerful, affluent Jewish community was destroyed in just three years. Was it destroyed by Mohammed’s forces or was it destroyed by its own divisiveness?
This is a stunning perspective. If the Jews of Medina had just put aside their differences, Mohammed would have been defeated and history would look quite different.
The traditional Jewish view is that the Temples were destroyed because of baseless hatred between Jews. How many lives could have been saved if it wasn't for the baseless hatred of the Jews in Arabia against each other?
May Jewish unity only get stronger so we will transform Tisha B'Av from a day of mourning to a holiday.
Illustration: Detail from miniature painting The Prophet, Ali, and the Companions at the Massacre of the Prisoners of the Jewish Tribe of Beni Qurayzah, illustration of a 19th century text by Muhammad Rafi Bazil.
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Israel did its utmost in the first hours of the conflict to stress that it was solely targeting PIJ assets, not those of Hamas. The IDF was engaged in “a targeted campaign against PIJ,” spokesman Kochav said repeatedly in his TV interview, and military officials made the same point in media briefings.
This contrasts sharply with previous Gaza escalations and potential escalations, when Israeli leaders have often stressed that no matter which terror group was attacking or threatening Israel, Hamas would be held responsible as Gaza’s ruling force.
Hamas asserted victory in the last major round of conflict, in May 2021, when its rocket fire toward Jerusalem against a background of growing tensions in and around the Old City triggered an 11-day confrontation. To its delight, the fighting helped foster deadly Arab-Jewish confrontations inside Israel, West Bank riots, and even minor cross-border fire from Lebanon and Syria. It also featured heavy Israeli airstrikes on the Strip, causing considerable damage to Hamas and its infrastructure — though nowhere near as much as Israel would have wanted.
The question that will define the course of this new PIJ-prompted surge in violence is whether Hamas judges its interests to be best served by staying out or wading in.
In brief Friday night remarks delivered live to the Israeli public, but also aimed at least partially at Hamas, Prime Minister Yair Lapid insisted that “Israel isn’t interested in a wider conflict in Gaza, but will not shy away from one either.”
He also noted that “Islamic Jihad is an Iranian proxy” and that “the head of Islamic Jihad is in Tehran as we speak.”
PIJ and its Iranian sponsors may be hoping for a new installment of May 2021’s multi-front conflict against Israel — an installment that they, rather than Hamas, caused this time.
Hamas’s ties with Iran have been relatively warm of late, although it is emphatically not a classic proxy of Tehran. And it is always interested in principle in confronting Israel. But does Hamas want to be dragged into a fresh round, by its much smaller local ally-rival and by Iran, at a time and in a context not of its choosing?
The IDF launched the operation on Friday afternoon, taking out two of PIJ's important leaders in simultaneous strikes: northern command head Tayseer al-Jabari and anti-tank guided-missile section head Abdullah Kadoum.
Also struck in the opening of the operation on Friday afternoon were two cells that had been given orders to carry out anti-tank missile attacks.
Jabari replaced Baha abu al-Ata, who was killed in an IAF strike in 2019. Jabari, who was also responsible for coordination between PIJ and Hamas, was killed at 4:16 p.m. in his Shuja'iyya apartment. According to the IDF, he commanded over the launching of hundreds of rockets during Operation Guardian of the Walls last year, including anti-tank-guided missile attacks.
The IDF said that it had received a specific warning that he was planning an attack against Israeli targets before the arrest of PIJ West Bank chief Bassem Saadi earlier in Jenin.
"The enemy has begun a war against our people and against us and we will defend ourselves and our people," Islamic Jihad said in a statement.
The group’s leader Ziad Nahalka, who is based in Damascus, said that "the enemy should expect fighting. Our military wing will stand abreast of all other resistance factions in our struggle against Israeli aggression. This campaign is no holds barred and Tel Aviv will also taste the wrath of the rockets of the resistance."
A senior IDF official said that the military is targeting Islamic Jihad and is trying to avoid civilian casualties and damage, but that it is ready for the situation to escalate, stressing that Israeli civilians must listen to all instructions from the Home Front Command.
“We couldn't allow Islamic Jihad to carry out an attack; it backfired on them,” he said, adding that “there will be [rocket] barrages – there may also be casualties; all this is clear and this should also be told to the public.”
Following the targeted killings, which were carried out by jets and armed drones, the IDF warned that the group would likely respond with rocket fire toward the Israeli home front. The military placed Iron Dome batteries in Jerusalem, Beersheba and other areas in order to intercept any projectile fired by the group.
The IDF closed roads near the Strip on Tuesday. On Wednesday, it called up 100 reservists to bolster the Gaza Division to assist in securing the area and keep civilians out of areas that could be targeted by Islamic Jihad.
The terrorist group has in the past fired anti-tank guided missiles toward Israeli vehicles, both civilian and military.
Both Qatar and Egypt have been trying to mediate with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in order to de-escalate the situation. Hamas is also working to prevent attacks by the terror group, including by putting pressure on the group and locating cells that might be planning to fire anti-tank-guided missiles toward Israeli targets.
Islamic Jihad is an Iranian proxy which, unlike Hamas, does not have any responsibility for the citizens of Gaza. The Islamic Republic funds and equips the Gaza-based terror group.
The group’s chief Ziyad Nakhalah, who is based in Damascus, met with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in Tehran on Thursday and with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps Commander Hossein Salami on Saturday.
“The Israelis will pay yet another heavy price for their crime,” Salami was quoted by Iranian news networks as saying.
IRGC Quds Force Commander Ismail Kaani also warned that Hezbollah would join the fight.
“Hezbollah plans to deal the Zionist entity it’s final blow to and remove it from existence at the appropriate time,” he was quoted as saying.
Gantz said Friday morning that security forces are preparing for all scenarios on all fronts, including in the North and the center of the country, and that the IDF will continue its operational activity in all sectors as needed.
“We do not seek conflict, yet we will not hesitate to defend our citizens if required,” he said, adding that “the State of Israel and the IDF will continue its operations, knowing the responsibility we bear on our shoulders: to defend the communities and citizens of Israel’s South, and to defend the citizens of the entire State of Israel.”
This was a great achievement by the CIA and whatever other shadowy actors were involved in tracking down al Zawahiri and killing him.
But by doing so, Biden exposed the terrible consequences of his action in abandoning Afghanistan.
For al Zawahiri was killed in a house owned by the acting minister of the interior, Sirajuddin Haqqani, a powerful Taliban official whose Haqqani network played a key role in the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Al Zawahiri’s hiding place, showing his cosy relationship with a top Taleban official, signified that once again al Qaeda is entrenched in Afghanistan.
To this shattering revelation, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken riposted that by hosting and sheltering Zawahiri, the Taliban had “grossly” violated the 2020 Doha Agreement.
This stipulated that the US withdrawal of forces from Afghanistan was conditional on the Taliban’s undertaking “not to co-operate with groups or individuals threatening the security of the United States and its allies”, to “prevent them from recruiting, training, and fundraising” and not to “ host them”.
Blinken’s comment displayed an asinine and all-too revealing naivety. For this agreement was always worthless — as is any agreement made with manipulative, lying, cheating warlords, whether in Kabul or Tehran.
As the former British army commander in Afghanistan Richard Kemp wrote for Gatestone last October, the Taleban and al Qaeda were joined at the hip, with both Osama bin Laden and al Zawahiri having sworn unbreakable allegiance to the Taleban’s leaders.
America’s withdrawal, he wrote, would mean al Qaeda and other jihadists would now flow into Afghanistan to train, organise, establish global connections, plan attacks and receive direction and funding.
According to Dr. Hans-Jakob Schindler, senior director of the Counter Extremism Project and former co-ordinator of the United Nations Security Council’s ISIL, al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Monitoring Team, al Zawahiri is most likely to be succeeded by a potentially even bolder operative, Saif al Adel, who is currently being harboured by Iran and can easily move to Afghanistan.
The United States has now returned to the point at which it all started: the axis between the Taleban and al Qaeda that led to 9/11 and put US troops into Afghanistan in the first place.
Yet the Americans still don’t see it. Batting away concerns that al Qaeda was now back in Afghanistan, the National Security Council spokesman John Kirby insisted that the terrorist group’s leaders would now “think again” about hiding out in Kabul.
So for the Biden administration, it’s groundhog day over and over again. They appear to be incapable of learning from experience.
After two years of exploring every angle of this seemingly unsolvable conflict, I felt like I had finally reached a conceptual breakthrough: perhaps the way to achieve peace and reduce regional tension was to narrow our focus to the issue of access to the al-Aqsa Mosque. I was optimistic that this approach aligned with the sentiment of the Arab people – not just that of their leaders. Months earlier, I had commissioned State Department focus groups in the West Bank, Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE. When Arab respondents were asked to describe the source of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the vast majority cited access to the mosque. The issue of territorial sovereignty, which was the fixation of “experts,” hardly came up.
If Israel would guarantee Muslim custodianship of the holy site, and expand access to Muslim worshippers, then we could address the issue of greatest concern to Arabs. And if these nations made peace with Israel, flights to Israel would open up, making it possible for hundreds of millions of Muslims to make pilgrimages to the mosque. In order to do this, our peace plan would need to demonstrate a serious commitment to solving the Israel-Palestinian conflict. We were ready to offer a plan that would require compromise, but still maintained Israel’s security while improving the lives of the Palestinians.
A detailed proposal would put Abbas in a tough negotiating position. If he accepted the offer and ended the conflict, he would risk losing billions per year in international aid. But if he rejected our proposal for a pragmatic two-state solution, which included a massive investment plan for the Palestinian territories, he would reveal his true indifference to the wellbeing of his own people. This would strengthen the argument I was making to the leaders of the Muslim countries – that it was time to focus on their national interests and move forward with normalization.
In the twilight of his tenure as secretary of state, John Kerry gave parting words of advice to a Washington audience. “There will be no separate peace between Israel and the Arab world,” he said at the Saban Forum. “I want to make that very clear to all of you. I’ve heard several prominent politicians in Israel sometimes saying, ‘Well, the Arab world is in a different place now, we just have to reach out to them and we can work some things with the Arab world and we’ll deal with the Palestinians.’ No, no, no, and no. I can tell you that reaffirmed even in the last week as I have talked to leaders in the Arab community. There will be no advance and separate peace with the Arab world without the Palestinian process and Palestinian peace. Everybody needs to understand that. That is a hard reality.”
This was the conventional wisdom for decades, and I initially accepted it as fact. But as I listened and learned, I felt like the reverse might be true. If we could make peace between Israel and the Arab world, then more likely than not, a path to making peace between the Palestinians and Israel would eventually open as well.
As our flight approached Bahrain, I leaned toward Jason and asked him to make two changes to the peace plan. First, he should reframe the issue of access to the al-Aqsa Mosque, removing it as a subject of negotiation with the Palestinians and turning it into the centerpiece of broader normalization agreements between Israel and the Muslim world. Second, we needed to finalize the boundaries in Jerusalem and the West Bank in a rational way that was based on the modern reality, not a UN resolution from 1967. Both concepts were rooted in finding a pragmatic solution that could end the conflict and move beyond the failed paradigm of the past.
If the Palestinian leadership rejected this approach, which they almost certainly would, the Arab leaders would recognize that Palestinian intransigence was undermining their own interests in a time of increased common threats and shared opportunities.
Our dinner with the sultan of Oman, and my subsequent eureka realization, crystallized our strategy and paved the way for the Abraham Accords. As we pursued a new paradigm, we began to see an enormous opportunity that had been hiding in plain sight.
For many contemporary western leftists, the very concept of Marxist Zionism is an oxymoron. Among radicals, the ideology behind Jewish statehood is often erroneously associated with colonialism, the antithesis of militant socialism. Yet, as I was recently reminded, not only is a synthesis between Marxism and Zionism possible, but the practitioners of such a fusion played a noteworthy role in shaping modern Israel.
Israeli families are known to embark on multi-generational vacations. Last week, four generations of my wife’s family, participants ranging in age from two months to eighty-four years, gathered for a three-day holiday at Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan in the Upper Galilee.
Established in 1945 by child refugees from Germany and Poland who had lost family in the Holocaust, Lehavot Habashan’s founders were united in their common membership of the pioneering Marxist Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair.
The kibbutz’s original settlers would have been familiar with the theories of socialist Zionist Dov Ber Borochov (1881-1917), who believed that for the Jewish people to fully participate in the hoped-for international proletarian revolution they must first forgo the abnormal socioeconomic realities of the Diaspora. Borochov believed that if the Jews rebuilt their ancient homeland, they would once again become a nation with a worker majority, like in antiquity.
Borochov’s ideas were attractive to many because they fused together the particular (Zionism) and the universal (Marxism), placing the Jewish national struggle within the framework of the larger battle for a socialist world.
Lehavot Habashan was part of Kibbutz Artzi, the most radical of the three major kibbutz movements. Accordingly, in election after election, the members of Lehavot Habashan consistently voted for MAPAM, the United Workers Party, created in 1948 by Hashomer Hatzair and other socialists as the left-wing alternative to the hegemonic rule of the more moderate MAPAI labor party.
In the 1949 elections for the first Knesset, MAPAI received 46 seats and formed the coalition government. MAPAM, with its 19 seats, was the second largest parliamentary faction and led the opposition.
Whereas MAPAI advocated a pro-Western foreign policy, MAPAM sought to align Israel with the Soviet Union; while MAPAI supported social-democracy, MAPAM embraced a militant socialism; and although MAPAI focused on state-building, MAPAM championed the non-state workers’ institutions, such as the Histadrut labor federation and the kibbutzim.
When a family is killed in Gaza, it is very rare that it is an IDF mistake. Most of the time it is because a terrorist operative is in the house - either because he is a member of the family, sometimes it seems because he is using them as human shields. Other times it is because of Hamas rockets falling short. Sometimes it is because the IDF targeted a legitimate target that had a larger cache of explosives than was thought and it caused far more collateral damage than expected.
Hamas and Islamic Jihad hides the names of most of those killed. They do this to make it look like a larger percentage of the dead are civilians - and they did it in previous wars, too.
Speaking of, the Gaza Health Ministry and the "human rights" NGOs in Gaza (PCHR and Al Mezan) downplay any mention of terrorist casualties and often call terrorists "civilians" when they report the circumstances of those who have died. (Amnesty's obscenely dishonest "Gaza Platform" with statistics from the 2014 war relied on PCHR's initial reports, and as a result it lists more "civilians" than even the UN does. They know they are lying, I've let them know enough times, and they refuse to correct it.)
The media still has no idea what "proportionality" means in the context of international law. They make scorecards of how many have been killed on both sides as if the results are supposed to be "fair," implying that if only more Jews would be killed, then they can all be happy.
The media (and human rights groups) also don't understand the principle of distinction, pretending that it means that Israel cannot bomb a high value target if there are civilians around. It can, under proper circumstances.
Then again, the media is also part of the problem. Hamas has almost complete control over the media in Gaza. Citizens who speak freely to media know that they will be punished. Everyone sticks to the Hamas-approved script. International reporters know that they will be kicked out if they say anything not to Hamas' liking. Yet the media hardly ever mentions this, giving a false impression that their reporting is objective.
The media will also ignore most of Hamas' war crimes. Using ambulances or "press" credentials to transport weapons, using Gazans as human shields, using mosques as weapons depots, shooting from schools- - I once counted 19 different war crimes that Hamas has done in the Gaza wars, but "human rights groups" somehow only notice and denounce one.
Some other must-read background that will make you more knowledgeable than the most presigious journalists from the New York Times, the BBC and CNN:
Israel's success in keeping civilian casualties to a minimum in an urban war zone where the military targets are purposefully placed among civilians is unparalleled.
The decisions as to what Israel targets in Gaza is detailed, lengthy and adheres to international law. The media and Israel haters portray Israel as a spoiled baby who lashes out at anything that moves and I've never seen a serious mainstream media article that describes anything close to the reality that military experts understand.
If the media would miss one or two of these topics, there wouldn't be a problem. They are in the job of simplifying things for readers. But they consistently get basic things wrong, and always in the direction of making Israel look bad.
It is no accident.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Israel called an apology by UN investigator Miloon Kothari “pathetic and unconvincing” and reiterated its demand to disband the inquiry commission on the 2021 Israel-Hamas conflict over his “antisemitic” remarks.
“The hollow apology of commission of inquiry member Miloon Kothari is a pathetic and unconvincing maneuver, which doesn’t compensate for the long record of anti-Israeli and antisemitic statements made by him and the other COI members,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “In light of the antisemitic and anti-Israeli statements of the commissioners, and the fact that they do not meet the minimal standards of neutrality and impartiality required from individuals in these positions in the UN, Kothari and his colleagues must resign immediately.”
“If the UN is committed to fighting antisemitism and to upholding its values, this is the only reasonable and acceptable result,” the ministry’s statement read.
Kothari, a member of the UN’s International Commission of Inquiry (COI) expressed his “regret” on Thursday for using the words “Jewish lobby” when talking about its influence on social media.
“It was completely wrong for me to describe the social media as ‘being controlled largely by the Jewish lobby,’ Kothari wrote in a letter to United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) President Federico Villegas. “This choice of words (…) perceived and experienced to be antisemitic was incorrect, inappropriate, and insensitive.”
In recent days about 20 countries have condemned Kothari’s remarks made during a podcast interview at the end of last month to Mondoweiss, an anti-Zionist web publication, as antisemitic.
Bravo ???? Brazil! One of the strongest condemnations yet of Miloon Kothari, commissioner on the UNHRC inquiry against Israel, who ranted about “the Jewish Lobby.” Also called out Kothari’s antisemitism:???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ???? UN Sec-Gen & UNHRC Chair https://t.co/6rqPpg1N6R
Denmark and Bulgaria become latest countries to condemn the deplorable antisemitic remarks of @UN_HRC’s Miloon Kothari. That makes it 20 countries! Message loud and clear: Democracies will not accept such blatant antisemitism, prejudice and bias from UN officials! pic.twitter.com/LWkELlpsj7
Al-Saadi was arrested by Israeli security forces this past week.
The delegation was received by family members, leading figures in Islamic Jihad, and Fatah figures.
The media office of the Islamic Jihad stated in a press release after the visit:
The United Nations delegate listened to the painful details of what happened to Sheikh Bassam Al-Saadi at the hands of the occupation forces at the moment of his arrest, dragging and assaulting him and his family members in a brutal and barbaric manner. Mrs. Nawal Al-Saadi spoke about the details of this event and the moments of terror that they experienced at the moment of the storming.
The United Nations representative, Jody Barrett, expressed her strong disapproval and sympathy with the family of Sheikh Bassam Al-Saadi, after hearing the details of the attack.
As the leader of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, al-Saadi was almost certainly responsible for at least some of the terror attacks in Israel this past spring. Israel had been trying to arrest him for months.
A UN visit to his home is nothing less than support of murdering Jews. It is certainly being reported that way in Palestinian media.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
Last week, one of the preachers at the Great Mosque in Mecca, Imam Saleh Bin Al-Humeid, gave an antisemitic sermon, calling for genocide of all Jews.
He said, "Oh Allah, bring annihilation upon the plundering and occupying Jews, for they are no match for You. Oh Allah, bring down upon them Your punishment, from which criminals cannot escape. Oh Allah, we make You our shield against them, and take refuge with You against their evil."
These sermons are televised and approved by the Saudi kingdom.
Popular Israeli expert on the Arab world Edy Cohen launched a one man campaign against Humeid, demanding that he be fired and that the Saudi government apologize for this clear incitement against world Jewry.
His campaign has been noticed and widely publicized in the Arab world - and the backlash has resulted in many major Islamic figures defending Humeid.
The Grand Mufti of the Sultanate of Oman, Ahmed bin Hamad Al Khalili, expressed his solidarity with Humeid on Thursday, saying his Jew-hatred "warmed our hearts."
The head of the Palestine Scholars Association, Nassim Yassin, used similar language, saying "Sheikh bin Hamid warmed our hearts with his support for our cause and our Palestinian people," complaining about Cohen's campaign as "a despicable arrogance, and a clear and unjust injustice against the virtuous Sheikh and our Palestinian cause."
There was a popular hashtag in some Arab countries on Wednesday saying "We are all Sheikh Bin-Humeid."
Notice that, as usual, antisemitism is whitewashed as "support for Palestinians."
This explicit antisemitism has been roundly ignored in international media, but it is not like they aren't aware of it. CNN Arabic has written at least two articles about this controversy so far. As far as I can tell, this is the first time it is being discussed in English, a full week after the offensive sermon.
Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!
Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.
UN investigator Miloon Kothari gave a half-hearted, obviously insincere apology for his statements from over a week ago that the "Jewish lobby" controlled social media and his questioning of Israel's legality altogether, saying "I would go as far as to raise the question as why are they [Israel] even a member of the United Nations."
His response to that was,
I also wish to clarify that my comment on Israel's membership of the United Nations was made to highlight the fact that every member of this body should uphold. and respect findings and recommendations issued by it. in accordance with relevant UN General Assembly resolutions. What I wanted to highlight is the non-compliance of Israel with UN decisions related to its obligations under international law, a concern the Commission extensively covered in its first report to the Human Rights Council. At no place in the interview did I question the existence of the State of Israel. On the contrary, in several instances, during the media interview in question, I have defended the existence of the State of Israel. This is fully consistent with the position of the Commission, as also stated in our first report and stressed in the letter of our Chair to the President of the Council: “The Commission does not question the status or United Nations membership of either of the concerned states of its mandate. The foundations for the legality of the State of Israel, alongside that of the State of Palestine were laid out by General Assembly resolution 181 and are not and never will be in question by this Commission” I did not intend to suggest that Israel should be excluded from the United Nations.
He is asserting that UN General Assembly Resolution 181 is the legal basis for the State of Israel.
This is not remotely true.
First of all, General Assembly resolutions do not have the status of international law.
Secondly, you can read Resolution 181: it did not declare the Jewish and Arab states in Palestine. It recommended the Security Council implement the provisions listed there and suggested that if either or both states declare their independence then the UN should treat their application for membership with sympathy.
When the Arabs rejected the resolution, it became a dead letter. It is valuable in the sense that it showed that the UN overwhelmingly supported a Jewish state in Palestine, but it is has no legal weight.
Some people claim that Israel itself has used UNGA 181 as its legal basis in its Declaration of Independence. It is true that Israel's Declaration of Independence referred to the resolution as onne of many reasons supporting the right of the Jewish people to a state, but that is not the legal basis for it. The Declaration says:
In the year 5657 (1897), at the summons of the spiritual father of the Jewish State, Theodore Herzl, the First Zionist Congress convened and proclaimed the right of the Jewish people to national rebirth in its own country.
This right was recognized in the Balfour Declaration of the 2nd November, 1917, and re-affirmed in the Mandate of the League of Nations which, in particular, gave international sanction to the historic connection between the Jewish people and Eretz-Israel and to the right of the Jewish people to rebuild its National Home.
The catastrophe which recently befell the Jewish people - the massacre of millions of Jews in Europe - was another clear demonstration of the urgency of solving the problem of its homelessness by re-establishing in Eretz-Israel the Jewish State, which would open the gates of the homeland wide to every Jew and confer upon the Jewish people the status of a fully privileged member of the comity of nations.
Survivors of the Nazi holocaust in Europe, as well as Jews from other parts of the world, continued to migrate to Eretz-Israel, undaunted by difficulties, restrictions and dangers, and never ceased to assert their right to a life of dignity, freedom and honest toil in their national homeland.
In the Second World War, the Jewish community of this country contributed its full share to the struggle of the freedom- and peace-loving nations against the forces of Nazi wickedness and, by the blood of its soldiers and its war effort, gained the right to be reckoned among the peoples who founded the United Nations.
On the 29th November, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution calling for the establishment of a Jewish State in Eretz-Israel; the General Assembly required the inhabitants of Eretz-Israel to take such steps as were necessary on their part for the implementation of that resolution. This recognition by the United Nations of the right of the Jewish people to establish their State is irrevocable.
This right is the natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate, like all other nations, in their own sovereign State.
ACCORDINGLY WE, MEMBERS OF THE PEOPLE'S COUNCIL, REPRESENTATIVES OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY OF ERETZ-ISRAEL AND OF THE ZIONIST MOVEMENT, ARE HERE ASSEMBLED ON THE DAY OF THE TERMINATION OF THE BRITISH MANDATE OVER ERETZ-ISRAEL AND, BY VIRTUE OF OUR NATURAL AND HISTORIC RIGHT AND ON THE STRENGTH OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY, HEREBY DECLARE THE ESTABLISHMENT OF A JEWISH STATE IN ERETZ-ISRAEL, TO BE KNOWN AS THE STATE OF ISRAEL.
Resolution 181 was one of many pieces of evidence showing that Jews have the right to a state of their own. It was not the legal basis for that state.
So what is the legal basis for the State of Israel?
Sir Lauterpacht, a renowned expert on international law and editor of Oppenheim’s International Law, clarified that, from a legal standpoint, the 1947 UN Partition Resolution had no legislative character to vest territorial rights in either Jews or Arabs. In a monograph relating to one of the most complex aspects of the territorial issue, the status of Jerusalem,7 Lauterpacht wrote that to be a binding force, the “Partition Plan” would have had to arise from the principle pacta sunt servanda,8 that is, from agreement of the parties at variance to the proposed plan. In the case of Israel, Lauterpacht explains:
“… the coming into existence of Israel does not depend legally upon the Resolution. The right of a State to exist flows from its factual existence – especially when that existence is prolonged, shows every sign of continuance and is recognised by the generality of nations.”
Reviewing Lauterpacht’s arguments, Professor Stone added that Israel’s “legitimacy” or the “legal foundation” for its birth does not reside with the United Nations’ “Partition Plan,” which as a consequence of Arab actions became a dead issue. Professor Stone concluded:
“… The State of Israel is thus not legally derived from the partition plan, but rests (as do most other states in the world) on assertion of independence by its people and government, on the vindication of that independence by arms against assault by other states, and on the establishment of orderly government within territory under its stable control.”9
That is Israel's legal claim to statehood - surviving and being recognized as a state. And if the COI doesn't know that basic fact, it is incompetent to do anything.
But it does know the truth, and it is lying for a specific reason.
Kothari is making two wrong assertions here: that Israel's legal foundation is based on Resolution 181, and also that the "State of Palestine" has the same legal basis. This is doubly absurd: not only is 181 not legally binding, but the Palestinian Arabs of the time rejected it - which is the exact reason it cannot be legally binding! They cannot turn back the clock and say that, sorry, we now accept UNGA 181 decades after we ripped it up.
It seems that the Commission making up the claim that 181 is the legal basis for Israel in order to pretend that Palestinians have an equal claim to nationhood as Israel does!
That is a breathtakingly cynical twisting of international law to create a legal basis for Palestinian statehood - and once you realize that this is a lie, one may wonder what exactly the legal basis for a nonexistent State of Palestine is to begin with?
This analysis shows that this commission is pretty much founded on lies.
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Monday, August 08, 2022
Elder of Ziyon
