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Someone Should Tell Hamas -- And The UN -- That There Is No Legal Right To Destroy Israel "By All Means Necessary"

mar, 06/06/2017 - 11:14
In its new General Principles and Policies, Hamas proclaims:
Resisting the occupation with all means and methods is a legitimate right guaranteed by divine laws and by international norms and laws. At the heart of these lies armed resistance, which is regarded as the strategic choice for protecting the principles and the rights of the Palestinian people.This is actually something new for Hamas that is not found in the actual Hamas Covenant.


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

This latitude was already made in a 2004 post on the Electronic Intifada website by John Sigler, Palestine: Legitimate Armed Resistance vs. Terrorism:
However, among these legal forms of violence there is also the right to use force in the struggle for “liberation from colonial and foreign domination”. To quote United Nations General Assembly Resolution A/RES/33/24 of 29 November 1978:
“2. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign occupation by all available means, particularly armed struggle;”Electronic Intifada also notes that the United Nations applies this concept to the Palestinian Arabs, and goes one step further:
This justification for legitimate armed resistance has been specifically applied to the Palestinian struggle repeatedly. To quote General Assembly Resolution A/RES/3246 (XXIX) of 29 November 1974:
3. Reaffirms the legitimacy of the peoples’ struggle for liberation form colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation by all available means, including armed struggle; [emphasis added]…

7. Strongly condemns all Governments which do not recognize the right to self-determination and independence of peoples under colonial and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of Africa and the Palestinian people;Sigler does make 2 concessions:
o He admits that General Assembly Resolutions do not have the force of law, though he then goes on to claim, "when they [UNGA resolutions] address legal issues they do accurately reflect the customary international legal opinion among the majority of the world’s sovereign states." (Keep in mind that international law is not decided by a poll of countries)

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

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

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

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

Article 1 of the United Nations Charter clearly states that its purpose is
To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;Article 33 adds
The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.Nowhere does the charter say that in the event that you just cannot resolve your differences -- go ahead and have at it.

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

This discrepancy between these language of the UN resolutions and its original charter is the point made by Joshua Muravchik in The UN and Israel: A History of Discrimination. Muravchik sheds light on some of the history behind those UN resolutions that Electronic Intifada quotes. On the UN apparent sanctioning of violence, Muravchik writes:
This stance, which contradicts the UN Charter, originated in the struggles for African independence and then was carried over to the Arab-Israel conflict. In the 1960s, the General Assembly passed several resolutions regarding Portugal’s colonies and the white-ruled states of southern Africa, affirming “the legitimacy of the struggle of the colonial peoples to exercise their right to self-determination and independence” (e.g., Resolution 2548). In 1970, an important modification was added in the phrase “by all the necessary means at their disposal” (Resolution 2708).

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

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

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

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

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Catégories: Middle East

Jordan's Record When Killers of Americans Flee There: 1 Pardon, 1 Extradition -- And Giving Ahlam Tamimi a TV Show

mar, 04/04/2017 - 18:35
Jordan has a very mixed record when it comes to extraditing murderers of Americans who flee to their country to avoid punishment for their crimes

Jordan Pardons An Honor Killer 
As has been pointed out before, in 1994 when Mohammad Abequa and his wife were going through a divorce, Abequa committed an "honor killing" and fled to Jordan.

Once he was there, Jordan
  • refused to extradite Abequa to the US
  • he was tried in Jordan instead and was sentenced to 15 years, instead of hanging, because it was an honor killing -- which under Jordanian law is grounds for leniency.
  • after 5 years, in 2000, one year after Abdullah became king, Abequa was pardoned and set free
Jordan Gets One Right
In 1993, Eyad Ismoil helped Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, by driving a van packed with explosives into the garage below the Trade Center. That evening, Ismoil fled to Jordan. The US could not arrest him until King Hussein of Jordan signed an extradition treaty with the United States in 1995. Not only was the US then able to extradite Ismoil, the US agents were permitted to personally land on Jordanian soil, where the terrorist was handed over to them

Jordan's One-Use-Only Extradition Treaty
Today, the word is that the extradition treaty signed by King Hussein of Jordan is no long in effect under his son King Abdullah. The high court of Jordan claims the reason is because the extradition treaty was never ratified by the Jordanian Parliament. Since we know Ismoil was extradited, we know this means either that this is not true and there was a valid treaty, or that for all intents and purposes the extradition was done under the authority of the king -- which at the time was sufficient.

Either way, nothing prevents Jordan from having Ahlam Tamimi tried in a specialized Jordanian court, a policy that Jordan has pursued in the past.

Instead, Tamimi has been active on Twitter.

Israel opens the door of hell after murder AL_FUQHA— أحلام التميمي (@dreamsnnn) March 24, 2017

Tamimi had also been hosting a weekly television show
broadcasted on Hamas’s satellite station, where she continued to support terrorist attacks -- until September 2016, when she suddenly stopped hosting the show, possibly because she was tipped off about the US indictment and quit her show in order to be less high-profile.

It is because Tamimi had been actively inciting against Israel that she has broken the condition of her release in 2011 and therefore can be retried in a US court without an incurring double jeopardy.

Caroline Glick writes that it is time to test Jordan's King Abdullah:
...Zahran, who seeks to replace the Hashemites with a Palestinian majority regime, which would allow Jordan to serve as the national home of the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, argues that Jordan is a state run by the military and intelligence services, which themselves are controlled by the US military’s Central Command.

In his words, Jordanian forces cannot “relocate an armored vehicle” without first getting “permission from US Central Command.”

... it is time for the US and Israel to test Abdullah, the moderate man we cannot do without.

The first test should be an ultimatum. Abdullah should be told that he must either extradite Tamimi to the US for trial or send her back to Israel to serve the remainder of her sentence. If he refuses, then either Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or US President Donald Trump, or both, should meet publicly with Zahran to discuss his vision for the future of Jordan.


King Abdullah is visiting the White House tomorrow.

It is all very well for Trump to seek to create a coalition in the Middle East to counter the instability caused by Iran and its drive to expand its influence.

Trump has spoken often about putting America first.
Having Jordan extradite the terrorist who murdered an American citizen would be a good start.

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Jordan Has Extradited A Terrorist to the US Once Before -- Why Won't It Extradite Tamimi Now?

lun, 27/03/2017 - 17:38
According to the Jordanian government, the terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, who masterminded the Sbarro massacre in 2001, cannot be extradited to the US, because there is no treaty. According to the Jordanian High Court an extradition treaty was signed with the US in 1995, but that it is null:
The Court of Cassation approved a decision taken by the Amman Court of Appeal not to extradite Jordanian citizen Ahlam Tamimi, to the US authorities.

A judicial source told Jordan News Agency, Petra that Kingdom and the United States singed [sic] an extradition treaty on March 28, 1995, but was not approved by the Jordanian parliament.


The source said that a request sent by a foreign country to concerned authorities in Jordan to extradite criminals, are not usually accepted as long as the extradition treaty is not effective.

Al Tamimi was accused of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against a U.S national. (emphasis added)The problem is that this is not true.

The extradition treaty between the US and Jordan may or may not have been approved by the Parliament, but it was signed by King Hussein.

More importantly, in 1995 Jordan did recognize the treaty. The New York Times reports that the same treaty the Jordanian court is now saying is null, was in fact used to allow US agents onto Jordanian soil and extradite a terrorist, a Jordanian national, to the US for the World Trade Center bombing.
At 1 A.M. on Feb. 9, 1993, Federal prosecutors say, Eyad Ismoil, a Palestinian immigrant working in a grocery store in Dallas, received an urgent phone call from a boyhood friend.

A few hours later, Mr. Ismoil bought a plane ticket, and on Feb. 21, he flew to New York to join the friend, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef -- the man prosecutors call the mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing. Five days later, prosecutors say, with Mr. Yousef in the passenger seat, Mr. Ismoil drove a van packed with explosives into the garage below the Trade Center.

...Using airline records, the F.B.I. discovered that Mr. Ismoil had flown to Jordan on the night of the bombing. With the help of the local police, agents tracked him to his home in a refugee camp near Jerash, about 30 miles north of Amman.

Although the F.B.I. knew his whereabouts last winter, the Americans could not arrest him until King Hussein of Jordan signed a new extradition treaty with the United States last week.

...At 2:15 P.M. yesterday, Mr. Ismoil, wearing a bright orange prison suit, was led in handcuffs into Federal District Court in lower Manhattan. The 24-year-old suspect was arraigned in five minutes before Judge Kevin Thomas Duffy on bombing and conspiracy charges. He pleaded not guilty.
Eyad Ismoil. Credit: Total War History Wiki

While The New York Times refers to him as a Palestinian immigrant, Ismoil's family originated in Nablus, then moved to Kuwait, where he was born. The family then resettled in Jordan in 1990 after the Iraqi invasion. Ismoil is a Jordanian national.

On the one hand, if the extradition treaty was in effect in 1995 to bring terrorist Ayed Ismoil to justice, why can't it be used now to extradite the terrorist Tamimi?

On the other hand, if the extradition treaty was not in effect in 1995 because it was not approved by the Parliament, then why were the Jordanians able to hand Ismoil over?

In his book Relentless Pursuit: The DSS and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists, Samuel M. Katz writes about how Eyad Ismoil, who drove the explosives to the World Trade Center garage, was tracked down -- and extradicted to the US by Jordan.

Amazon describes Katz as an internationally recognized expert on Middle East security issues, international terrorism, military special operations and counterterrorism who has written books and articles and has served as a commentator on television networks.

On page the bottom of page 219 of his book, Katz describes the problem of extradition and how a treaty was drawn up and signed by King Hussein. There is no mention of the Jordanian Parliament being needed to approve in order for the treaty to be valid.


While there is no mention of the Jordanian Parliament approving the treaty, what is mentioned on the next page is that the treaty was signed into law in a ceremony in Amman a few months later. Furthermore, as the bottom of page 220 makes clear, not only was Ismoil extradited -- he was handed over to US agents on Jordanian soil.

Considering the sensitivity of the Jordanian government to non-Muslim outsiders, the treaty surely must have been valid in order to allow agents of a foreign country to enter Jordan and remove the suspect.

So what happened since then that makes the exptradition now impossible? In the third paragraph on page 221, Katz talks about the blowback from the first ever extradition from Jordan:


It is clear that the treaty was valid in 1995. The only question is what Katz meant by the Parliament "scrapping" the treaty -- did it actually repeal it, or did it choose to do something less formal, like just ignoring it.

The fact remains that if the only reason that the extradition treaty is not effective now is because the Jordanian Parliament decided to "scrap" it, then the Jordanian king, parliament and courts need to stop playing games and tell the truth about why it is refusing to hand an admitted terrorist over to the US.

Even better, Jordan could right this wrong by signing a new extradition treaty with the US so that terrorist Ahlam Tamimi can be brought to justice.

Jordan cannot be allowed to ignore justice as it has been able to do time after time in the past with other countries:

France: Jordan Finds Another Technicality
Just last year, Jordan turned down a French request that it extradite 2 terrorist suspects in the 1982 murder of six people in a Jewish restaurant in Paris. Two terrorists entered the Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood in Paris and murdered 6 people, while wounding 22 others.

The Jordanian government rejected extradition in that case because of a technicality. It turned out that one of the murderers, 62-year-old Zuhair Mohamad al-Abassi, a Palestinian, was arrested while he was in Jordan in 2015, before the extradition treaty between Jordan and France became valid. The other suspect, 54-year-old Nizar Tawfiq Hamada, never went to trial because the statute of limitation expired.

The Chez Jo Goldenberg restaurant in Paris. Credit: © 2005 David Monniaux via Wikimedia Commons. From jns.org
An anonymous source told AFP a different reason why Jordan would not extradite the suspected terrorist:
Jordan does not usually extradite its citizens to other countries, even in the case of an extradition agreement. In such a case, they are generally tried in specialized Jordanian courts.But the matter is a little different when the shoe is on the other foot --

United Kingdom: It's Different When Jordan Demands Extradition
Back in 1999, a Jordanian military court sentenced a radical Muslim preacher to death in absentia. Abu Qatada was suspected of being a key al-Qaida operative tried for conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, including a plot on the country’s American school in Amman. The sentence was immediately commuted to life in jail with hard labor. The following year, he was sentenced, also in absentia, to 15 years for plotting terrorist attacks on Israeli and American tourists and Western diplomats during Jordan's millennium celebrations.

But that was only the beginning.

Abu Qatada. Credit: Wikipedia
Abu Qatada, accused of being bin Laden's right hand man in Europe, was in London. In 1993 he entered England on a forged passport and in 1994 he was granted asylum. In 2001, Jordan requested that Great Britain extradite Abu Qatada. But then it was the British and European courts that refused the request -- based on human rights concerns over Jordan's use of torture. In the meantime, Abu Qatada had been arrested more than once.

Finally, in 2013, Great Britain and Jordan signed an extradition treaty and Abu Qatada was sent to Jordan, with a guarantee that he would not be tortured. Apparently the fact that he had been arrested prior to the signing of the treaty was not an issue to Jordan, unlike in the extradition treaty it had with France.

As a postscript, upon his return to Jordan Abu Qatada was retried -- and cleared of all charges. Evidence used in the trials when he was tried in absentia while he was in Great Britain was ruled inadmissible in accordance with the agreement with Great Britain, because of the possibility it was obtained under torture.

Abu Qatada is now free.

At the time of the deportation, Jordanian Information Minister Mohammed Momani said the kingdom “is keen on credibility and transparency” in handling Abu Qatada, and that the deportation of the Palestinian-born Jordanian cleric “sends a message to all fugitives that they will face justice in Jordan.”

No doubt.

If it's any consolation to France, Jordan is no better at extraditing terrorists when the request comes from other Arab countries.

Iraq: Jordan Does Not Play Favorites
Iraq has been requesting the extradition of Raghad Hussein, the daughter of Saddam Hussein. Known as "little Saddam," she has been a vocal supporter of Isis, accused of funding Iraqi militants and in 2010 Interpol posted an arrest warrant for her in connection with her alleged direct involvement in Iraqi terrorism.

Raghad Hussein. Credit: Al Arabiya

Iraq's repeated requests that Raghad Hussein be returned to Iraq have been turned down.

Nor is Jordan's refusal to deport Tamimi the first time that it has denied a US request.

United States: Jordan Pardons An Honor Killer 
Mohammad Abequa murdered his wife in New Jersey in 1994 and fled to Jordan -- along with their two young children. Once in Jordan, he was sentenced to 15 years by a court, but then pardoned after only 5 years in prison and set free. At the time, the US had no extradition treaty with Jordan. Even after personal pleas to King Hussein by President Clinton, Attorney General Janet Reno and New Jersey's US representatives and senators, Jordan refused to return Abequa for trial.

At the trial, he faced the possibility of death by hanging, but was sentenced to 15 years instead because of his testimony that the murder was an honor killing. Abequa, whose brother was a general in the Jordanian army, claimed he killed his wife to protect his honor, which under Jordanian law is a reason for a reduced sentence. He told the courtroom he lost his temper when his wife told him the man he saw leaving her house was her boyfriend and she showed him a new tattoo on her thigh that he had given her. Jordanian law allows leniency in the case of 'honor killing' cases when the man kills his wife or sister because he suspects her of adultery or premarital sex.

Jordan Will Deport Terrorists - When It's In Their Own Interests
Actually, Jordan does not always refuse to deport known terrorists out of the country -- even when they are nationals. In 1999, Jordan exiled 4 senior members of Hamas. Khaled Mashal, now a leader of Hamas, as well as Ibrahim Ghosheh, Izzat Rushuq and Sami Khater, were released from prison and flown to Qatar. All of them had Jordanian nationality. They were accused of inciting hardline Islamist sentiment in Jordan, and the government claimed the four left willingly as part of a deal with Qatar.

Mashal (left) and Ghohshe flanking another exiled Hamas activist Mousa Abu Marzouq. Credit: BBC
Also, there is also an unverified report that security agencies in Jordan at one point planned to deport 7 Libyans back to Libya. They were married to Jordanian citizens, who were legal residents of Jordan.

It's easy to forget that Jordan, for all of its supposed modernity, is really not that much different from the surrounding Arab countries. Its views on justice are not much more advanced than its views on honor killing. Even an extradition treaty is no guarantee that justice will be done, when it comes to Jordanian nationals. Supposedly in such cases, nationals can be judged in specialized Jordanian courts. However, based on Jordan's past record -- that is no comfort to the relatives of the victims of Islamist terrorism.

For now, the focus is on bringing the terrorist Ahlan Tamimi to justice.
Terrorist Ahlam Tamimi, mastermind of the Sbarro massacre

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No, This Is Not Your Father’s UNRWA

lun, 20/03/2017 - 15:04
[T]he reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 393 (V), December 2, 1950
The goal and purpose of UNRWA is simple and straightforward -- if not immensely challenging: to either repatriate Palestine refugees into what is now Israel or to resettle them elsewhere, while recognizing the obvious reality that there will come a time "when international assistance is no longer available."

Yet here we are, 67 years later.

Those Palestine refugees have not been either repatriated nor resettled.
And that international assistance?
Lo and behold: its being offered and provided.

So what happened to the whole purpose of UNRWA?
It changed.


First of all -- in case you didn't get the memo -- UNRWA is no longer dedicating its resources towards reintegrating those Palestine refugees. Just ask the people who should know:
Basically, there was an admission that UNRWA failed in its mandate to find hosts for the Palestine refugees. But instead of replacing UNRWA with an agency that would deal with the new reality, UNRWA just replaced its mandate instead.

It was able to do this because of its much-vaunted flexibility.

In his article, The Mandate of UNRWA at Sixty Lance Bartholomeusz writes
As stated at the outset, in broad terms, UNRWA’s “mandate” means what the Agency may or must do. We have seen that UNRWA’s mandate is rarely expressed in terms of what UNRWA may not do. Even though the language used in some resolutions such as “directs”, “instructs”, “essential”, and “necessary” might indicate a compulsory nature, considering the context – in particular that UNRWA is almost entirely voluntarily funded and its actual income has generally fallen far short of budgeted income – most of the Agency’s operational mandate can be seen to be permissive, albeit strongly encouraged in parts....For almost sixty years, in response to developments in the region, the General Assembly has mandated the Agency to engage in a rich and evolving variety of activities, for many purposes and for several classes of beneficiaries. The Assembly has provided UNRWA with a flexible mandate designed to facilitate, rather than restrict, the Agency’s ability to act as and when the Commissioner-General [of UNRWA], in consultation with the Advisory Commission as appropriate, sees fit. [emphasis added]So, according to Bartholomeusz:
  • Its mandate gives UNRWA a lot of leeway.
  • Even when the language implies a "compulsory" obligation for UNRWA, most of the "operational mandate" is actually "permissive" (read: optional).
  • UNRWA's mandate is "rich" and "flexible"
  • UNRWA's Commissioner-General and the Advisory Commission are the final arbiter of what UNRWA's mandate actually is.
How has UNRWA exercised this flexibility?

According to UN General Assembly Resolution 302, part of the UNRWA mandate is for "direct relief and works programmes." Yet 10 years later, the incoming UNRWA director John Davis suggested a new focus, which emphasized a shift to education:
  • providing general education, both elementary and secondary
  • teaching vocational skills, and awarding university scholarships
  • offering small loans and grants to individual refugees who have skills and want to become self-employed

UNRWA has branched out beyond just relief and works
The new focus allowed UNRWA to increase from 64 schools, with 800 teachers instructing 41,000 students in 1950 -- to 699 schools, with 19,217 instructors and 486,754 students in the 2011-2012 school year.

For all the good this may have done over the years, there are major concerns over the abuse this has led to, as documented by UN Watch in its latest report Poisoning Palestinian Children: A Report UNRWA teachers' incitement to jihadist terrorism and antisemitism:
This report exposes more than 40 Facebook pages operated by school teachers, principals, and other employees of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which incite to terrorism or antisemitism. The report is divided by region, and includes UNRWA staffers in Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and Syria. These cases are additional to the 30 cases of incitement revealed at the end of 2015 by UN Watch.

The examples of incitement in this report include UNRWA teachers and staffers celebrating the terrorist kidnapping of Israeli teenagers, cheering rockets being fired at Israeli civilian centers, endorsing various forms of violence, erasing Israel from the map, praising Hitler and posting his photo, and posting overtly antisemitic videos, caricatures, and statements.The results of this report were summarized in a video:



The report and video point to the growing problem of the unchecked influence that Palestinian Arabs have on the very agency that is supposed to be aiding them. In an email correspondence, Dr. Alexander Joffe, who has written extensively on various aspects of UNRWA, expanded on this issue and the growing threat it poses:
UNRWA basically shifted its entire operation towards education by the end of the 1950s, ending any hopes of repatriation or resettlement. It then rode the anti-colonialism wave at the UN through the 1960s and 1970s (which saw the growth of the UN's immense pro-Palestinian infrastructure) and by the 1980s had become a full service health and welfare provider.

But during the 1990s, especially the Oslo years, the concept of promoting Palestinian 'rights' and 'protections' grew, partially in response to Oslo and also as part of the global trend towards casting all claims in terms of legalisms and human rights. This advocacy role makes UNRWA a kind of competitor to the PA or at least a shadow foreign ministry.

In short, the organization adapts to changing conditions. Because it is basically run by and for Palestinians (we've called this an example of 'regulatory capture') it reacts to its own needs, those of the Palestinian street which it serves and cultivates, especially through the educational system, and to changes in the rhetorical ecosystem of international organizations. Its promotion of the 'right of return' is a recent adaptation from the last decade or so. And everything it does is against the background of 'financial emergency,' which has been its stock response since the 1950s. Currently, UNRWA is still remaking itself. In line with the advocacy role that Dr. Joffe describes, as early as 2007 UNRWA described itself in a report, UNRWA in 2006, as
a global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees. In circumstances of humanitarian crisis and armed conflict, the Agency’s emergency interventions – as well as its presence – serve as tangible symbols of the international community’s concern, helping to create a stable environment. [emphasis added]This is a far cry from the temporary agency with a mandate to help Palestine refugees resettle.

The claim that UNRWA protects as well as cares for the refugees seems something of a stretch. In 2002, when US Representative Tom Lantos complained to then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that "UNRWA officials have not only failed to prevent their camps from becoming centers of terrorist activity, but have also failed to report these developments to you," Annan responded:
the United Nations has no responsibility for security matters in refugee camps, or indeed anywhere else in the occupied territoryUNRWA will have to make up its mind just how global -- or how limited -- their protection is going to be, and who they intend to protect from whom.

Just how UNRWA intends to be a stable influence when it assumes a responsibility that overlaps with the Palestinian Authority on the one hand, while it encourages antisemitism on the other, remains to be seen.

And if it can't -- no problem.
UNRWA can always remake its mandate.

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Are The Arab Gulf States Really Ready for a Regional Alliance With Israel?

jeu, 09/03/2017 - 16:08
“[Besides Egypt and Jordan,] many other states in the region recognize that Israel is not their enemy. They recognize that Israel is their ally. Our common enemies are ISIS and Iran. Our common goals are security, prosperity and peace. I believe that in the years ahead we will work together to achieve these goals.”
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, in speech to UN General Assembly, September 22, 2016

Is The Enemy of My Enemy -- My Friend, or My Ally?
At a time when there are still some who insist that Israel is isolated in the international community, it is becoming increasingly clear that Israel is in fact building new friendships and alliances. In his speech at the end of December last year, criticizing Israel, Kerry described Israel's friends as United Kingdom, France and Russia. But Netanyahu's recent trip to Singapore and Australia extends Israel's circle beyond that. Meanwhile closer to home, Netanyahu has visited Africa, visiting Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda and Ethiopia.

And then, even closer to home, are the Arab countries.

Israel has diplomatic relations with Egypt and Jordan.
It has no relations with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
Israel has unofficial relations with Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE and Oman.


Map of Israel and surrounding countries. Credit: Altapedia
Putting aside Egypt and Jordan and those Arab countries with which Israel has no diplomatic relations at all, where does Israel really stand with the countries which make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)?

The prevailing wisdom is that Obama has practically pushed Israel and these Gulf countries into each others arms by strengthening Iran through the Iran deal and giving them billions of dollars.

But does having a common enemy make Israel and these Arab countries friends or does it make them allies?
Is it the beginning of a growing bond of understanding and cooperation or is it a temporary marriage of convenience?


Saudi ArabiaJust last year, Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Anwar Eshki, chairman of the Middle East Center for Strategic and Legal Studies in Jeddah, headed a Saudi delegation to Israel. He claimed that he was representing only himself and said all of the other right things to avoid putting his government into a corner. Naturally, the visit was still attacked as an attempt by the Saudi Arabian government to normalize relations with Israel.


Anwar Eshki, standing in the middle with striped tie, with members of the Israeli Knesset. Credit: Haaretz
MEMRI describes how the Saudis took other steps to ease relations with Israel.

A Saudi columnist, Siham Al-Qahtani, wrote that descriptions in the Quran portraying Jews as infidels, warmongers, and usurers - were meant to apply only to a particular group of Jews that lived during that time. Contrary to the Arab traditional view that Jews were to be blamed for both Arab and world problems, blaming the Jews was merely a way for Arabs to use them as scapegoats, and had to stop.

Another Saudi Columnist, Yasser Hijazi, went a step further and wrote that Arabs had to take part in the fight against "Judophobia." In another article Hijazi suggested that fighting antisemitism would not only help in the fight against terrorism, but would also counter Western arguments against Islam.

"Netanyahu does not represent Judaism... any more than [ISIS leader] Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi represents Islam..."But that does not mean that the Saudis and the Israelis are going to be friends.

In addition to the above quote, implying a comparison between Netanyahu and Al Baghdadi, Hijazi made it clear that there was a red line. Fighting antisemitism does not mean they are going to normalize relations with Israel:
The meaning [of this] is not normalization, softening [positions], or relinquishing negotiations to establish a Palestinian state within internationally-recognized borders... The two religions cannot resolve the conflict on the ground... The conflict is not between Islam and Judaism - even if our Israeli enemy seeks to present it as such - but rather between the [rightful] owners of the land and of the rights and occupiers and war criminals… [emphasis added]The Saudi Writer Ibrahim Al-Matroudi put it a little less harshly, that there was a need for "overcoming the hostility towards the Jews and for benefiting from their experience and successes, even though they are enemies."

You can enlist your enemy as an ally in a fight against a common foe, but the message from some in the Saudi elite is that the alliance will end there -- and Israel remains an enemy.

Some do offer more.

Salman Al-Ansari, the Founder and President of the DC-based Saudi American Public Relation Affairs Committee offers being more than just allies against Iran:
In fact, there are some opinions suggesting that having a common enemy in Iran will help accelerate any sort of rapprochement between two of the Middle East’s most powerful nations. While that could be partially true, a more solid foundation for establishing deep-rooted ties between the two countries could manifest in the context of a mutually beneficial economic partnership.The way Al-Ansari puts it, the potential exists for a partnership that goes beyond Iran to an economic bond and a true friendly relationship.

Except for one thing.

“The Palestinians are still the gatekeepers.”Wherever a Saudi-Israeli alliance may go, the issue of the Palestinian Arabs remains the ball and chain that is never far behind.

Netanyahu is fond of saying there are 3 reasons that the Arabs are interested in Israel: "technology, technology and technology", which makes sense. Why should Israel make relations with a country dependent on a danger of the moment?

But the Saudis, let alone the rest of the Arab world, still insist that the path to a regional alliance requires a settlement of the Palestinian Arab issue.

That may explain why Trump and his aids are no longer talking about moving the US embassy to Jerusalem.

Even a Saudi journalist like Muhammad Al-Sheikh, who writes that the  Middle East is in turmoil and the Palestinian Arabs can no longer consider themselves the center of attention in the Arab world -- only uses that fact to advise that they give up armed resistance and settle down to negotiating a two-state solution.

The result of this could be that while the US tries to assemble an Arab coalition to get Abbas to the negotiating table, the Palestinians could just as easily try to form their own coalition to get Israel to make concessions. As it is, the Palestinian Arabs are offering to form a confederation with Jordan with the backing of some of the same Arab states Israel is looking to forming alliances with.


Peace Without Normalization
This same uncertainty about whether to consider Israel a friend, an ally or an enemy, exists among other Arab states as well -- and no matter what the potential for future relations between Israel and the Arab world, those relations may progress no further than they have with Egypt.

The war with Egypt ended in 1973.
The peace treaty with Egypt was signed in 1979.

But what do Egypt and Israel have to show for all that after 38 years?

Egypt and Israel share a high level of security and intelligence cooperation in the face of the common security threats they face in Sinai, but without the common threat posed by ISIS in the Sinai and dealing with Hamas -- what would relations between the 2 countries be like?

Is that what Israel has to look forward to with the Arab Gulf states?

The difference may be that in Egypt both the education and the media encourage antisemitism and picture Jews in a negative light, while the Saudis seem to be making an effort to change that.

In addition, there are elements of Egyptian society among the elite, the bureaucrats and the military who feel they have an interest in discouraging normalization with Israel.
There exists a fear of Israel, of Western principles, a fear the military uses to consolidate its role.

Are things that different in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states?

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Though these days Israel does not find itself in the midst of one of the major conflicts engulfing the world, its situation is no less complicated.

There is a potential for game-changing alliances, assuming that age-old hatreds can be truly be overcome. At the same time, it is unclear whether those alliances can help to finally help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- or whether the Palestinian Arabs will play the spoiler in preventing a new regional alliance.

Between Netanyahu's new penchant for making friends and the possibilities opened up by having a US president friendly towards Israel, things won't be boring.


Cartoon by Moshe Gulst, The Israeli Cartoon Project


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For A While Gaza Actually Was Another Singapore -- Before They Blew It In the 1970's

mar, 07/03/2017 - 16:06
A couple of weeks ago, Israeli Defense Minister Liberman offered to provide Gaza with a huge level of assistance in return for Hamas shutting down their rocket attacks and closing their attack tunnels. In return, senior Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar turned down the offer, claiming that if Gaza wanted to be like Singapore, it would have already done so.

The truth is that for a while, in the 1970's, Gaza rivalled -- and even surpassed -- Singapore.


In "What Occupation?", Efraim Karsh writes about how severe the situation of the Palestinian Arabs was before the start of Israeli control following the 1967 War.that following the 1967 War:
The larger part, still untold in all its detail, is of the astounding social and economic progress made by the Palestinian Arabs under Israeli "oppression." At the inception of the occupation, conditions in the territories were quite dire. Life expectancy was low; malnutrition, infectious diseases, and child mortality were rife; and the level of education was very poor. Prior to the 1967 war, fewer than 60 percent of all male adults had been employed, with unemployment among refugees running as high as 83 percent. Within a brief period after the war, Israeli occupation had led to dramatic improvements in general well-being, placing the population of the territories ahead of most of their Arab neighbors.

...During the 1970's, the West Bank and Gaza constituted the fourth fastest-growing economy in the world-ahead of such "wonders" as Singapore, Hong Kong, and Korea, and substantially ahead of Israel itself.[emphasis added] Similarly, CAMERA notes that
the Palestinian territories had one of the ten fastest growing economies during the 1970's, just behind Saudi Arabia (which benefited from the oil shock of 1973), and ahead of Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea. What both Karsh and CAMERA write is substantiated by the World Bank.

In 1993, The World Bank published Developing the Occupied Territories: The Economy

According to the World Bank report (paragraph 2.3):
This picture of crisis contrasts sharply with a longer-term view of past development. The Occupied Territories [OT] were among the top ten fastest growing economies in the world during the 1970s period when measured in terms of GNP growth (Figure 2). The expansion in GDP per capita was somewhat lower, but was still large by international standards.



That all came to an end with the Intifada -- but not quite.

In March 1995, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggested Soon The Gaza Strip Will Be Competing with Singapore, thanks to
industrial parks which the leadership of the [Israeli] Foreign, Industry and Finance Ministries is planning at this very moment, under total secrecy. The goal: to establish between 8 to 11 such parks on the cease-fire line between Israel and the autonomous areas, which the Palestinian Authority will control within the next few months.

Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is the one who envisioned all this, and those close to him say with pride: We are getting closer to Singapore, Taiwan and Hong-Kong, in huge steps.

And then, after the vision arrives to develop the cities Gaza, Dir Al- Balah, Ofakim and Sderot it will be copied in the cease-fire line between Afula and Jenin, to Mt. Hebron and Tul-Karm, and will reach the entrance of Kochav Yair.

Each industrial park will be established for about 10,000 employees, and will sit on 2,000 dunam of land, with considerable financial assistance from foreign investors and also governmental subsidies. The Palestinians will run them, and be its workers, for the most part.None of that came to pass.

And now Hamas says with pride not only that it has no interest interest in becoming another Singapore, but that if it really wanted to, it could do it without any help from Israel.

Regarding the former -- there is little doubt.
Regarding the latter -- there is little likelihood.
Either way, Gazans themselves have no say in the matter.

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How UNRWA Keeps Remaking Itself: Defining, Re-Defining and Re-Re-Defining Who Is a Palestinian Refugee

mar, 21/02/2017 - 16:03
The Report of the Commissioner-General of UNRWA in 2007 indicates that
...The mission of UNRWA is to contribute to the human development of Palestine refugees in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and the Syrian Arab Republic until a durable and just solution is found to the refugee issue. The Agency fulfills this purpose by providing a variety of essential services within the framework of international standards...

The Agency’s vision is for every Palestine refugee to enjoy the best possible standards of human development, including attaining his or her full potential individually and as a family and community member; being an active and productive participant in socio-economic and cultural life; and feeling assured that his or her rights are being defended, protected and preserved.

UNRWA is a global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees. In humanitarian crisis and armed conflict, the Agency’s emergency interventions, and its presence, serve as tangible symbols of the international community’s concern and ultimately contribute to a stable environment.This is UNRWA?


UNRWA is supposed to address the problem of Palestine Refugees and find them permanent homes in host countries. Yet, in the entire report, there is not a single mention of "repatriation", "reintegration" or "resettlement" of Palestine refugees. In fact, there is only one time the word "return" is even used -- and that is in a reference not to refugees going back to their homes but rather to "a return to normal Palestinian life" for Palestinian Arabs already living in the West Bank.

So why doesn't the report emphasize its primary mandate of finding a permanent home for refugees?
And since when is UNRWA a "global advocate for the protection and care of Palestine refugees"?

UNRWA logo

What happened?

On December 11, 1948, the UN adopted Resolution 149 regarding the Arabs who fled during the war. Paragraph 11:
Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date...Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation.Clearly the original intent was to either repatriate the Arab refugees back to their original homes -- in Israel -- or to resettle them elsewhere in the area.

One year later, on December 9, 1949, UN Resolution 302 established UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) for that purpose:
without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability, and that constructive measures should be undertaken at an early date with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief.We already saw that the provisions of paragraph 11 require either repatriation and resettlement, which becomes part of the UNRWA mandate. In fact, a year later, on December 2, 1950, Resolution 393 reviews a report by UNRWA and reiterates that "the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential."

Another point that Resolution 302 makes clear is that the creation of UNRWA is "with a view to the termination of international assistance for relief" -- clearly "global advocacy" for Palestinian rights was not intended to be part of UNRWA's job.

From the beginning, UNRWA was not intended to be a permanent agency of the UN.

But there is a bigger problem.

Who qualifies to be considered a Palestine Refugee?

Apparently, the answer must have been obvious -- because in defining UNRWA's job, Resolution 302 never actually defines who is a Palestine Refugee.

Yet UNRWA has defined -- and redefined -- who qualifies as a Palestine Refugee multiple times over the years.
  • Originally, in 1950 UNRWA based its definition of a refugee on need alone:  the "agency has decided that a refugee is a needy person, who, as a result of the war in Palestine, has lost his home and his means of livelihood."

  • In 1954, a refugee was specified in terms of a time frame: "one whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum period of two years preceding the outbreak of the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, has lost both his home and means of livelihood.

  • In 1955, Arabs who were not necessarily displaced during the war -- for example, lived in Jordan -- but who lost some or all of their livelihood as a result of it were included as being qualified for aid.

  • In 1965, UNRWA extended refugee status to third generation Palestinian Arabs, i.e. grandchildren.

  • In 1971, because of the additional refugees as a result of the 1967 war, the definition was again redefined:
    A Palestine refugee, by UNRWA's working definition, is a person whose normal residence was Palestine for a minimum of two years preceding the conflict in 1948 and who, as a result of this conflict, lost both his home and means of livelihood and took refuge, in 1948, in one of the countries where UNRWA provides relief [limited to Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan]. Refugees within this definition or the children or grandchildren of such refugees are eligible for agency assistance if they are (a) registered with UNRWA, (b) living in the area of UNRWA's operations, and (c) in need.
  • In 1982, UNRWA went one step further, extending eligibility to all generations of descendants, as a result of a General Assembly resolution that
    Requests the Secretary-General, in co-operation with the Commissioner- General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, to issue identification cards to all Palestine refugees and their descendants, irrespective of whether they are recipients or not of rations and services from the Agency, as well as to all displaced persons and to those who have been prevented from returning to their home as a result of the 1967 hostilities, and their descendants;
Why the changes?

Some of the changes, like the original definition itself, were the result of purely humanitarian grounds.

Joan Peters, in her book From Time Immemorial, suggests that the two-year minimum initiated in 1954 could have been in order to include the Arabs who were recent arrivals to the coastal areas from where many had fled. (p.398)

According to political scientist Benjamin Schiff, the reason for extending refugee status to 3 generations was actually because of budgetary problems caused by the inflated rolls of refugees. UNRWA's Commissioner-general, Laurence Michelmore, wanted to "enlist the host-states' assistance in cut­ting the rolls ... he had offered a trade: If the governments would help rectify the rolls, he would be willing to ... add third-generation refugees to the rolls."

But extending aid to third-generation Palestinians created a unique dilemma for UNRWA:
With regard to the Palestine Liberation Organization, the names of the refugees in its army should be struck from UNRWA's rolls; the Palestine Liberation Organization was committed to renewed military struggle and thus confronted the Agency with the paradox of United Nations funds being used to provide rations for refugees recruited for armed action against a Member State. Israel, however, supported the extension of the Mandate of UNRWA and was in full agreement with the imperative need to rectify the relief rolls.This seems to be part of an ongoing problem for the agency. We saw in the last Israel-Hamas war that UNRWA has difficulty staying out of the ongoing conflict and Hamas weapons were found being stored in UNRWA schools.

With all of these changing definitions, is there really any limit to how UNRWA can define a Palestine refugee under its jurisdiction? Apparently not. In 1991, when Kuwait expelled thousands of Palestinian Arabs who supported Saddam during the war, UNRWA claimed jurisdiction:
During a meeting of the agency's major donors in June 1991, its commissioner general, Ilter Turkmen, affirmed that UNRWA did have an obligation toward Palestinians who were being "persecuted, hounded, and expelled by the Kuwaiti government for supposed support of the Iraqi occupation … I consider that the responsibility of UNRWA extends to Palestinians in all parts of the Middle East [including Kuwait]." Despite UNRWA's supposedly restricted fields of operation, Lance Bartholomeusz, former chief of the agency's International Law Division, noted that "General Assembly resolutions do not explicitly exclude UNRWA from operating in other areas."Somewhere along the way, humanitarian concerns have become infected with political interests that have created an agency that has rejected the fact that it was meant to be temporary and has given itself an unlimited, global sphere of influence among Palestine refugees.

The full extent of the politics of UNRWA become more evident when we examine the change and redefinition of the actual role of UNRWA and how the agency views itself.

That will be examined in the next post.

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On The Palestinian "Option" -- Not The Right -- Of Return

mer, 15/02/2017 - 06:08
There are many aspects to the issue of Palestinian Arab refugees, a problem that persists nearly 70 years after the 1948 War that created the current situation. One question is whether Israel is actually obligated to allow those Arabs back in.

In other words, do the Palestinian Arabs have a legal "Right of Return"?

That is the argument made by pro-Arab advocate Hussein Ibish and Electronic Intifada founder Ali Abunimah in The Palestinian Right of Return, an article they wrote together in 2001, using many of the basic arguments still being used to make the case.

They start with establishing a right according to international law -- and immediately run into a problem.


The first source is a quote by "prominent legal scholars" Mallison and Mallison that
"[h]istorically, the right of return was so universally accepted and practiced that it was not deemed necessary to prescribe or codify it in a formal manner.Putting aside the possibility that the absence of such a codification could be because no such absolute right exists, the quote itself is problematic.

Tracing the origins of the quote -- the authors' paper provides no links or footnotes -- we find the full quote is a claim that the Palestinian Right of Return can be based on the Magna Carta:
Historically, the right of return was so universally accepted and practi­ced that it was not deemed necessary to prescribe or codify it in a formal manner. In 1215, at a time when rights were being questioned in England, the Magna Carta was agreed to by King John. It provided that: "It shall be lawful in the future for anyone... to leave our kingdom and to return, safe and secure by land and water..."Mallison and Mallison then go on to connect the Magna Carta's guarantee of return "in armed conflict and belligerent occupation situations" with the Geneva Convention's protection of war victims and repatriation.

Noting that Now, Arabs claim the Magna Carta provides the "right to return" Elder of Ziyon gives the full quote to fill in the gap created by the ellipses:
In the future it shall be lawful for any man to leave and return to our kingdom unharmed and without fear, by land or water, preserving his allegiance to us, except in time of war, for some short period, for the common benefit of the realm. People that have been imprisoned or outlawed in accordance with the law of the land, people from a country that is at war with us, and merchants - who shall be dealt with as stated above - are excepted from this provision.So contrary to Ibish and Abunimah, Mallison and Mallison have found a source for international law for a "universally accepted and practiced" right of return that
  • only applies to people who are citizens of the country they left
  • does not apply to members of an entity that is hostile to the country
  • does not apply to descendants (contrary to UNRWA policy).
John sealing the Magna Carta by Frank Wood, 1925
Photo: www.bridgemanimages.com. Source: The Telegraph
Another source they quote is The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, specifically Article 13(2), "Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country" and 15(2) "No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality."

CAMERA, in a backgrounder on The Palestinian Claim to a “Right of Return”, notes the limitations on using the declaration as a source for the rights of refugees in international law.

Firstly, while granting its importance, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is not legally binding -- see, for example, here. More to the point, while UDHR is the basis for
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, not one of these 3 documents actually mentions refugees.

Secondly, the reference to  a "return to his country" would not include the Arabs who left then-Palestine, seeking entrance to Israel.

Ibish and Abunimah anticipate this argument and counter "It is a generally recognized principle of international law that when sovereignty or political control over an area changes hands, there is a concurrent transfer of responsibility for the population of that territory." -- but bring no source for their claim.

Thirdly, Article 29 of UDHR notes the rights of the citizens of the country itself, namely:
In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.Obviously the influx of millions of Palestinian Arabs would raise concerns about the "rights" and "general welfare" of the citizens of Israel.

Ibish and Abunimah claim that Israel particularly has a responsibility for Arab refugees because they were expelled from the land. That is a whole topic unto itself, but the fact remains that
  • the Jewish state was involved in a war of survival not of its own choosing. It was inevitable that some of the population would be forced out because of security issues
  • it is documented that many of the Arabs who left did so not only to get out of harms way but also at the encouragement of the surrounding Arab countries.
A key part of the argument for a right of return is of course UN General Assembly Resolution 194, which directly addresses the issue of Palestinian Arab refugees. According to paragraph 11, the resolution:
Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;Key points to keep in mind:

First, General Assembly resolutions are not binding -- thus the UN is not establishing a right of return.

Second, the language of the resolution, "should" instead of "shall" again points to the lack of an actual right or legal obligation.

Lastly, left unmentioned by Ibish and Abunimah is the second paragraph of Article 11, indicating that the UN:
Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees and the payment of compensation, and to maintain close relations with the Director of the United Nations Relief for Palestine Refugees and, through him, with the appropriate organs and agencies of the United Nations;The UN is not establishing an absolute right of return. Instead it is establishing the options of either return (repatriation) or resettlement in another country.

CAMERA points out that is why the same language reflecting 2 options occurs in
  • UN Resolution 393: "either by repatriation or resettlement"
  • UN Resolution 394: "whether repatriated or resettled"
  • UN Resolution 513: “reintegration either by repatriation or resettlement”
Could it be that the lack of a guaranteed right of return in Resolution 194 would explain why the Arab countries at the time voted against the resolution?

Ibish and Abunimah finish off with an argument for rights based on a comparison between the Palestinian Arabs and the situation in Kosovo -- and with the Jewish rights following Holocaust.

Without going into a discussion of their examples, one can come up with another example -- quoting Benjamin Franklin. Mitchell Bard points out that during the American Revolution, many colonists loyal to England fled to Canada. After the war, the British wanted the loyalists to be allowed to return to claim their property. Benjamin Franklin rejected this suggestion, writing:
Your ministers require that we should receive again into our bosom those who have been our bitterest enemies and restore their properties who have destroyed ours: and this while the wounds they have given us are still bleeding!Portrait of Benjamin Franklin by Michael J. Dean
Based on continued Palestinian terrorism to this day, the comparison still holds.

Similarly, Bard notes that after WWII, 12.5, million Germans in Poland and then-Czechoslovakia were expelled, allowed to take only the possessions they could carry. World War II’s effects on Poland’s boundaries and population were considered a fait accompli that could not be undone after the war. Those expelled did not receive compensation for confiscated property and no one in Germany petitions for the right of the millions of deportees, and their children, to return to the countries from which they were expelled. This is in spite of the fact that they and their ancestors had lived in those countries for hundreds of years.

The bottom line is that while refugees in general, and Palestinian Arab refugees in particular, retain an option to return -- this is not considered an absolute right. Instead it is one option to measured against existing circumstances and the consequences of repatriation. This is established based on the resolutions of the UN itself, something that perhaps should be pointed out to UNRWA.


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Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem Has Never Been An Easy Issue -- For Israel

mar, 14/02/2017 - 05:56


It is 1967. What would become known as the Six Day War has begun and Menachem Begin, invited by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol to join an expanded emergency cabinet, has an idea.

There is a meeting in the basement shelter of the Knesset and the news is announced that Jordan has decided to join Egypt and Syria in battle. Begin and Labor Minister Yigal Allon suggest that the reaction to Jordan's shelling of Israel should be the liberation of the Old City of Jerusalem, lost in the 1948 War following a UN ceasefire. Begin urges quick action before a similar ceasefire again leave the city divided.

Moshe Dayan opposes the idea based on the human cost of expected house-to-house fighting in addition to the potential damage to Christian and Muslim holy places -- leading to a world-wide outcry against Israel and opposition to Israeli control over Christian and Muslim holy places. Instead, Dayan suggests it would be enough to just surround the Old City and wait for it to fall.


Allon responds that the Jordanian lines were crumbling and Israel could go in. More to the point, it is essential for there to be a Jewish presence both deep within the Old City and on the Temple Mount itself.

In the end, a 4am news report from the BBC that the UN is planning to declare a ceasefire leads to another meeting where it is agreed to recapture the Old City. [Source: The Prime Minsters, by Yehuda Avner, p157-9]

The rest is history.

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The issues then have not changed over the years when discussing the step of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

The Israeli reaction has.

The question of Congressional legislation to move the embassy came up during the 1984 presidential campaign. Democrats Walter Mondale and Gary Hart both came out in favor of the bill introduced by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynnihan, while President Reagen threatened to veto such a bill.

The response of an Israeli Foreign Ministry official at the time was less warm: "I'm very leery of trying to tread on a Congressional debate and an argument between the President and Congress, a constitutional problem of who runs foreign policy."

A decade later, in May 1995, news about what would become enacted that November as the Jerusalem Embassy Act, did not excite Israelis either. Prime Minister Rabin, suggested the Likud was behind it with the aim of "torpedoing" peace negotiations. Foreign Minister Peres tried to distance Israel from the bill, saying there was "no need for our involvement."

Fast-forward to today. During his presidential campaign, Trump made a point of talking about moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

And now he is the President.
Again, it is not so simple.

Moshe Feiglin, founder and chairman of the Zehut party, was interviewed the day after the elections -- and he predicted that once moving the embassy became a very real possibility, Netanyahu would not be any more enthusiastic or outspoken than past Israeli officials. See the video below, starting at 1:03:




Events seem to justify Feiglin's pessimism.

This past Friday, Marc Zell, chairman of Republicans overseas Israel indicated that the Israeli government did in fact have cold feet:

Jerusalem Embassy delay not due to #Trump. Sadly Israeli government is dragging feet. Time to grow a backbonehttps://t.co/r6JMcKH4ub— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 27, 2017He followed up on his criticism the following day:

Now if Bibi @netanyahu would only give the green light to the Embassy move. That's also a Great Idea. https://t.co/mCN0fuYmiy— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 28, 2017Zell even went so far as to imply that once Israel indicated its approval, plans for the embassy move could proceed right away

As soon as the Israeli PM gives the green light https://t.co/qbewReVugz— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 28, 2017

But when Haaretz published an interview with him the same day:
The co-chair of the Republicans Overseas organization in Israel, Marc Zell, says that recent foot-dragging by Donald Trump's White House on moving the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, is happening at Israel’s request.

Zell told Haaretz, citing both Israeli and U.S. sources, that “Trump has been unequivocally in favor of moving the embassy and remains so” but “he is proceeding cautiously because of concerns raised by Israeli officials.”...Zell used Twitter again -- this time to walk back what he said:
Well I didn't quite put it that way. However it would be a shame to miss this historic opportunity. https://t.co/E0B7m5O1Ve— Marc Zell (@GOPIsrael) January 28, 2017For his part, Netanyahu came out out Sunday with an apparent response to Zell:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced support on Sunday for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem but mentioned no time frame, after a Republican activist accused Israel of pressing the Trump administration to delay the pledged step.Even in welcoming the idea, Netanyahu appears cautious.

Now as in 1967, a mix of of the threat of Arab violence and world disapproval appears to be the issue.

Back then, there was no time to delay, as the threat of a missed opportunity was very real. Then again, who today is as blunt and influencial as Menachem Begin?

The question is how much time does Israel really have to take Trump up on his offer, before he too decides to put the offer on the back burner or take it off the table altogether.

After all, at heart -- Trump is a businessman, and even now, Trump appears more wary about the idea

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What Is It About "Israeli Settlements Are Not An Impedimet To Peace" That The Media Can't Understand?

ven, 03/02/2017 - 14:06
It did seem like a straightforward statement by Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Israeli settlements:
“The American desire for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians has remained unchanged for 50 years. While we don’t believe the existence of settlements is an impediment to peace, the construction of new settlements or the expansion of existing settlements beyond their current borders may not be helpful in achieving that goal. As the President has expressed many times, he hopes to achieve peace throughout the Middle East region. The Trump administration has not taken an official position on settlement activity and looks forward to continuing discussions, including with Prime Minister Netanyahu when he visits with President Trump later this month.”
The key takeaway from this short statement is:
  • Israeli settlements are not an impediment to peace
  • Construction of new settlements "may not be helpful" in achieving peace
  • Expansion of existing settlements "may not be helpful" in achieving peace
  • The Trump administration has not taken an official position on settlement activity
  • Trump looks forward to discussing settlements with Netanyahyu
The emphasis on actual settlements -- both new and expanding existing ones -- leaves the way open to the building of homes within the already existing settlements, since they do not expand the settlements themselves.

Seems pretty straightforward. The US is open to the construction of homes within and withholds final judgment on expansion without until Trump meets Netanyahu later in February.

And it is positive and favorable to Israel.

Until the media gets a hold of it.

According to The New York Times, President Trump unexpectedly shifted his stance on Israel, warning Prime Minister Netanyahu to hold off on settlement construction:
President Trump, who has made support for Israel a cornerstone of his foreign policy, shifted gears on Thursday and for the first time warned the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off new settlement construction.

...The statement resembled those issued routinely by previous administrations of both parties for decades, but Mr. Trump has positioned himself as an unabashed ally of Israel and until now had never questioned Mr. Netanyahu’s approach. That's a stretch.

Yes, Trump's statement is a shift -- not a shift from his position on Israel, but a shift from previous administrations whose official policy has been that the settlements are "illegitimate," and that means that contrary to The New York Times, this statement decidedly does not "resemble" previous administrations.

The White House statement itself is a response to a tweet by the Jerusalem Post's Michael Wilner:

Exclusive: Donald Trump supports a two-state solution and is warning #Israel to cease settlement announcements. https://t.co/4AmbhR0blu— Michael Wilner (@mawilner) February 2, 2017

That tweet was followed up later by fellow Jerusalem Post reporter Yaakov Katz:

And here we go. Now official statement by @PressSec. "Expansion of settlements...may not be helpful". Follow up to @mawilner's scoop. pic.twitter.com/FRhbpfzQ9m— Yaakov Katz (@yaakovkatz) February 2, 2017There are 3 points to keep in mind:

  • Israel has been building homes all along -- that is what the statement would have addressed if the intent was for Israel to stop building homes.
  • Israel has not built a new settlement, despite exaggerated media reports, in 25 years
  • Wilner's tweet and the Trump Administration's statement is happening against the backdrop that in response to the evacuation of Amona, Netanyahu announced his intent to build a new settlement.

At a time when for years Israeli construction of homes has been confused by the media and the Obama Administration with the building of new settlements, now the media insists that discouraging the building of new settlements for the time being is equivalent to opposing the building at homes.

In doing so, the media is sidestepping the huge significance of the Trump Administration being the first US administration to legitimize settlements and clearly state that they are not an impediment to peace.

Netanyahu met Trump in September last year. Credit: Jerusalem Post



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As Trump Takes Office, A Last Look At Obama and Bush

mar, 31/01/2017 - 19:03
As of Friday, January 20, we have a new president -- President Donald Trump.

Comparisons have been made between Trump and Obama, and we can expect many more comparisons to be made over the next four years. One of those comparisons is in connection with Israel.

Obama allowed passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334, calling the settlements illegal and putting renewed pressure on Israel. Now along comes Trump, who has promised -- and has reiterated his intention to keep that promise -- to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Yet both claim to be friends of Israel.


We know Obama is a friend of Israel -- after all, he's told us so.

There are some indications that Trump is a friend of Israel as well:
This seems to point to a basic problem that Obama had from the beginning - not just how to prove that he was a friend of Israel, but that he was the bestest friend that Israel has ever had.

Let's take one last look at Obama's relationship with Israel.

During a daily press briefing on November 17, 2009, the following exchange took place between the State Department Spokesperson Ian Kelly and Matt Lee, reporter for the Associated Press on what the Obama administration had accomplished till then in advancing peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs
MR. KELLY: Well, I would say that we’ve gotten both sides to commit to this goal. They have – we have – we’ve had a intensive round or rounds of negotiations, the President brought the two leaders together in New York. Look --
QUESTION: But wait, hold on. You haven’t had any intense --
MR. KELLY: Obviously --
QUESTION: There haven’t been any negotiations.
MR. KELLY: Obviously, we’re not even in the red zone yet, okay.
QUESTION: Thank you.
MR. KELLY: I mean, we’re not – but it’s – we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eight years. [emphasis added]
QUESTION: Well, I – really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can’t even get that far.
MR. KELLY: All right.
QUESTION: I’ll drop it.One could argue that this press briefing in 2009 became the template for the drama that would play out during the next 7 years of the Obama Administration: attempts to bring peace between the two sides, resulting in failure, followed by excuses, claims of accomplishments -- and claims of friendship.

That certainly is what we recently saw in the remaining days of the Obama Administration.

During the last week of the Obama Administration, we read about how Kerry defends Obama administration’s record on Israel. During an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last Monday, John Kerry bristled at Amanpour's observation that the Obama administration was the last in a long line of American administrations that had failed to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. This of course was true, but instead of admitting to the obvious, Kerry placed the blame elsewhere, dividing it evenly between Israel and Palestinians:
“No, the leaders of the countries involved — one country and one entity — have failed to come to the table and reach an agreement.”Let's save time and put aside the fact that contrary to Kerry's protestations, Netanyahu has consistently offered to sit down and negotiate directly while Abbas has refused.

So just what was Kerry arguing here? By objecting to Amanpour's comment, was he saying that Israel and the Arabs are to blame for the failure -- and therefore the Obama administration attempts at peace have been a success? Make all the excuses you want, and clearly many attempts were made by the White House over the years, but at the end of the day Amanpour was right: “yet another administration has not brought peace.”

The same John Kerry who is blaming Israel for that failure is the same John Kerry who goes on to claim that he speaks "as a good, solid best friend of Israel and we have done more for this government, more for Israel than any other administration.”

US Secretary of State John Kerry speaks to CNN on January 16, 2017.
(Screenshot/CNN). Credit: Times of Israel
Some friend.

Kerry bases his claim of friendship on the $38 billion military aid package that the Obama Administration signed with Israel and on the assistance the US has given Israel in developing Iron Dome.

For both of these, Israel is of course very grateful.
After all, $38 billion is an awful lot of money.

So is $30 billion.

On June 4, 2008, candidate Obama promised the following at an AIPAC convention (the same AIPAC convention where Obama famously declared Jerusalem "must remain undivided"):
I will ensure that Israel can defend itself from any threat - from Gaza to Tehran. Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As President, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade - investments to Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation.Not only did Obama make this promise -- he also kept it.

Except that it wasn't exactly his promise to keep. Though he failed to give credit where credit was due, Obama was actually promising to implement not a Memorandum of Understanding, but the Memorandum of Understanding -- the one that George Bush signed in 2007. And yes, Obama allowed the understanding to be fulfilled, unimpeded.

So here's my question.
If we say that George Bush was a good friend because he gave Israel $30 billion -- does that make Obama, who signed off on giving Israel $38 billion, a better friend, a best friend?

That does seem to be the gist of Kerry's argument.
Giving money and weapons to Israel makes the US friends of Israel.

Allowing passage of a UN resolution calling Israeli settlements illegal and strengthening the hand of those who want to boycott Israel is apparently tough-love, and according to Kerry, was intended to "make a statement and frankly ignite a debate" -- a novel idea since the debate over settlements has long been raging in Europe, the UN and in Israel.

And yet Obama's predecessor, George Bush, was able to go beyond funding and weapons and get Israel and the Palestinian Arabs talking.

True, by the end of his administration, Bush also had not brought peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

But not for lack of trying or lack of some successes.

The Secretaries of State of both administrations made many, many visits to the Middle East. Kerry notes he logged 300 hours discussing peace with Netanyahu -- during 13 trips to Israel and 6 meetings with Israeli officials outside of Israel, while Condoleezza Rice made 25 trips to Israel and met Israeli officials outside of Israel on 2 occasions.

But more than that, in 2003, a speech President Bush gave the previous year was developed into the Road Map for peace, and it was approved not only by the Quartet of the US, UN, the EU and Russia -- but approved also by Israel and the Palestinian Authority as well.

President Bush, center, meets with Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, left, and
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas to finalize the road map to peace
at Beit al Bahar Palace in the Jordanian Red Sea resort of Aqaba, June 4, 2003. AP
In 2007, he convened a worldwide conference in Annapolis to begin a year-long period of final status negotiations

Olmert, Abbas and Bush at the opening of the Annapolis talks
(U.S. Navy photo by Gin Kai)
Obama did get Abbas to meet directly with Netanyahu in 2010. After Netanyahu sweetened the deal with a 10 month settlement freeze, Abbas finally agreed to meet during the 10th month, following pressure from Hillary Clinton and persuasion from Jordan and Egypt. Abbas then insisted on another freeze before continuing, and when a frustrated Netanyahu refused, the talks broke down.

Obama with Prime Minister  Netanyahu and Abbas at the White House onSeptember 1, 2010. Reuters.
The bottom line, though, is that both administrations failed.

Bush, though, had the two sides talking to each other -- which was all he could really be expected to do.
Obama never got that far, and was reduced to spending his 8 years in office bragging about being Israel's friend, while giving it arms and money in a Middle East that became increasingly volatile during his term, and then stabbing Israel in the back during his last weeks in office.

We'll have to wait and see what happens with Trump as president.





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If Israel Has Not Been Building Settlements, Why Are the White House and Media Claiming It Is?

lun, 16/01/2017 - 16:45

"[T]housands of new settlements are being constructed...you saw tens of thousands of settlements being constructed"
Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, December 23, 2016


On December 23rd, United Nations Security Council Resolution 2344 was passed 14-0 with one abstension --  the United States. One of the key points of that resolution was the clear declaration that Israeli settlements are illegal. Not "illegitimate", as per US policy in the past, but "illegal". The settlements were described as an impediment to peace that must be removed.

Are There Tens of Thousands of Israeli Settlements... Or 228?
That same day, Ben Rhodes, the White House deputy security advisor, gave an interview to Judy Woodruff.

Recall that Rhodes is noted for having bragged about his manipulation of the media in creating the narrative that made the Iran deal possible, despite both popular and congressional opposition. He boasted at the time about the media's lack of knowledge of world events:
Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing...We created an echo chamber...They [the seemingly independent experts] were saying things that validated what we had given them to say.
Now, in his interview to Judy Woodruff on the PBS Newshour, quoted above, Rhodes claimed that Israel had built literally thousands of settlements -- and then he doubled down on that claim and asserted that actually tens of thousands of settlements had been built.

White House deputy security advisor Ben Rhodes. Source: Youtube

CAMERA easily rebutted what Rhodes said by pointing out that according to Peace Now there were a total of 228 settlements altogether, 131 settlements and 97 outposts, a far cry from the tens of thousands of settlements that Rhodes claimed, unchallenged.

With the Rhodes embellishment disposed of, we can turn to Secretary of State John Kerry.

3 Settlements Built in 22 Years
In a speech following passing of the UN resolution, Kerry claimed:
We’ve made countless public and private exhortations to the Israelis to stop the march of settlements.But have there really been a steady building of new settlements that would constitute a "march" as implied by Kerry?

Again, all we have to do is just take a look at the Peace Now website.

In April 2012, they posted an article with the headline: For the First Time Since 1990 – the Government is to Approve the Establishment of New Settlements:
According to reports, Prime Minister Netanyahu stated this week that the Government will approve the establishment of three settlements (Bruchin, Sansana and Rechalim), in the upcoming cabinet meeting on Sunday, April 22.That's it. Three settlements.
In 2012.
And no new settlements built since.
And for this Kerry is "exhorting" Israel about stopping the "march" of settlements.

The White House is not alone in exaggerating a growth in settlement construction.

The Media Plays Along
Over the years, the media has conflated building settlements with building houses within the settlements, adding to the confusion and aiding in the creation of this false narrative.

CAMERA has noted the media's sloppiness confusing houses with Israeli settlements:
Whenever Israel approves plans for new housing units in preexisting West Bank settlements, or in established Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem beyond the pre-1967 Armistice Line (the Green Line), it seems there's always at least one major media outlet which wrongly states that Israel is building "new settlements."That time, the article in question appeared in Christian Science Monitor with the headline:
"Why New Israeli Settlements Draw Ire".
As a result of CAMERA contacting them about the error, the headline was changed to:
"Why New Building in Israeli Settlements Draws Ire" -- with a note at the end of the article noting the correction.

Other examples of similarly incorrect headlines:
So now it is clear that Israeli settlements are not the issue here.
Housing Construction in Settlements is Down
Having established how few settlements have been constructed, we have to assume that everyone is actually referring not to construction of settlements, but rather to construction inside the settlements, that is, the construction of houses.

Back in 2014, President Obama claimed in an interview
 "If you see no peace deal and continued aggressive settlement construction -- and we have seen more aggressive settlement construction over the last couple years than we've seen in a very long time." [emphasis added]At the time of Obama's claim about "aggessive settlement construction", Evelyn Gordon rebutted Obama's claim with the following facts:
During those five years [2009-2013], housing starts in the settlements averaged 1,443 a year. That’s less than the 1,702 a year they averaged under Ehud Olmert in 2006-08, who is nevertheless internationally acclaimed as a peacemaker (having made the Palestinians an offer so generous that then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice couldn’t believe she was hearing it). It’s also less than the 1,652 per year they averaged under Ariel Sharon in 2001-05, who is similarly lauded internationally as a peacemaker (for having left Gaza); the fact that even Sharon out-built Netanyahu is particularly remarkable, because his term coincided with the second intifada, when demand for housing in the settlements plummeted. And it’s far less than under Ehud Barak, who is also internationally acclaimed as a peacemaker (for his generous offer at Camp David in 2000): One single year under Barak, 2000, produced more housing starts in the settlements (4,683) than the entire first four years of Netanyahu’s term (4,679). [emphasis added]Haaretz, a fan of neither of Netanyahu nor the settlements, looks at houses built from 2009 to 2014 and still comes to the same conclusion: fewer houses have been built under Netanyahu than his predecessors:
According to data from the Housing and Construction Ministry, an average of 1,554 houses a year were built in the settlements from 2009 to 2014 — fewer than under any of his recent predecessors.

By comparison, the annual average was 1,881 under Ariel Sharon and 1,774 under Ehud Olmert. As for Ehud Barak, during his single full year as prime minister, in 2000, he built a whopping 5,000 homes in the settlements.There has been no aggressive increase in Israeli settlements.
There has been no aggressive increase in Israeli houses within the settlements.
Maybe the issue is the increase in the settlement population?

The Number of Houses Built in Settlements Don't Even Meet the Need
Sure enough, that is exactly what the Associated Press claimed in 2014: Netanyahu Years See Surge in West Bank Settlements

But again, the headline is misleading. The reference is actually to the population in the settlements and the impression you get is that the comparison is with the years before Netanyahu started his term in 2009. But if you make it to the 6th paragraph, you find out that the story is very different:
The rate of settler population growth slowed slightly under Netanyahu, from 31 percent during the previous five years under his predecessors Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert. Olmert especially took relatively little heat for the settlements because he was seen as a moderate. [emphasis added]The surge referred to in the article is not based on past years. Instead, the surge is based on a comparison with the increased population of Israel as a whole, noting that the increase in the settlement population is more than double that in the country as a whole -- and that population growth itself has actually slowed, not surged.

So let's go with that comparison between the settlement and national populations, keeping in mind that the Haaretz article quoted earlier notes that 74% of the increase in the settler population from 2009 to 2014 was due to the birthrate and not an influx.

In an article in the Jewish Press in 2014, blogger Joe Settler followed the AP's lead and compared the growth of populations in the settlements and compared it to Israel as a whole.

He found that the construction of houses in the settlements lags behind the rest of Israel:
  • Since 2010, under Netanyahu, the settlements’ share of housing completions has declined.

  • From 2010 to 2013, while the settlement population grew by about 50,000 people, the total number of new homes built was only 6,062 – falling short of the population’s needs.

  • From 2010 to 2013, settlers averaged 4.19% of the national population, yet only represented 3.23% of national house starts and 4.1% of national housing completions.

  • In 2013, the settlers were 4.28% of the national population, but only 3.37% of national construction was completed in Judea and Samaria.

  • Bottom line, under Netanyahu, settlements did not receive their fair share of new homes in comparison to the rest of the population.
Construction Completions: Comparing Judea and Samaria to the National Average 2010 - 2013.
Credit: Joe Settler, based on Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics 
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Population Sizes: Comparing Judea and Samaria to the National Average 2008-2013.
Credit: Joe Settler, based on Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics 
The increase in the number of settlers is a natural increase, and the number of  houses that are being built do not even meet the demand.

Settlements Take Up Only 1% of the "West Bank"
That brings us to another misconception.

With all the talk by both the White House on the one hand and the media on the other, just how much land do the settlements take up in the "West Bank / Judea and Samaria?

Not a lot.

In 2002, the settlements took up less than 2% of the West Bank
B'Tselem claimed that settlements took up 1.7% of the area
Peace Now claimed settlements took up 1.36% of the land

And in 2011, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, claimed settlements took up 1.1% of the West Bank.

So again, why the fuss?

Peace Now's Argument Debunked
According to Peace Now, that 1% is deceptive:
The "one percent argument" is a classic example of how supporters of the status-quo use a fraction of the truth to misrepresent the truth on the ground in the West Bank. Yes, the actual built-up area of West Bank settlements takes up only a little more than 1% of the West Bank. But the settlements' built-up area is just the tip of the settlements iceberg. The impact of the settlements goes far beyond this 1%.

...In total, more than 40% of the West Bank is under the direct control of settlers or settlements and off-limits to Palestinians, regardless of the fact that only a small portion of this land has been built on by settlers.Let's put aside that in 2010, Dani Dayan, then chairman of the settlers council, countered that settlements control only 9.2 percent of the West Bank.

The point Peace Now is making is that settlements and the control they have over land is an impediment to peace.

Blogger Elder of Ziyon counters that recent history demonstrates that the argument by Peace Now is a red herring:
Somehow, the 40% Israel controls didn't stop Barak and Olmert from offering nearly the entire West Bank for a Palestinian state. If they could offer it, so could the current Israeli government. So the 40% figure is a red herring, meant to obscure the fact that the intransigent party is the Palestinian side.Settlements did not stand in the way of Netanyahu's predecessors from offering major concessions in the interests of peace -- offers that fell through not because of the settlments but because the Palestinian Arabs, including Abbas, have turned down the offers.

So Why All The Fuss Over the Settlements?So far, we have seen:
  • There has been no aggresive growth in the number of settlements built
  • The number of houses built has decreased and don't meet the need
  • The growth in the number of settlers is due to the natural increase of the birthrate
  • The settlements take a little more than 1% of the area
  • The settlements have not stood in the way of peace deals being offered in the past.
  • The reason Israel has not offered a peace deal recently is because Abbas refuses to negotiate.
So why all the fuss over the settlements?
Evelyn Gordon again offers an answer:
In short, if settlement construction were really the death blow to the peace process that Obama and his European counterparts like to claim, Netanyahu ought to be their favorite Israeli prime minister ever instead of the most hated, because never has settlement construction been as low as it has under him. The obvious conclusion is that all the talk about settlement construction is just a smokescreen, and what really makes Western leaders loathe Netanyahu is something else entirely: the fact that unlike Rabin, Barak, Sharon and Olmert, he has so far refused to offer the kind of sweeping territorial concessions that, every time they were tried, have resulted in massive waves of anti-Israel terror.At issue is more than just the sloppy confusion of settlements, houses and settler population. The hyperbole used by both the White House and the media pushes an agenda that clouds what is at stake and puts responsibility for peace on one party alone - Israel.

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8 Reasons Why Friday's UN Resolution 2334 Is Counterproductive and Just Plain Wrong

dim, 25/12/2016 - 20:29
In the aftermath of Obama's support for UN Resolution 2334 condemning Israeli, reactions have not been short in coming -- and there are cogent arguments against the resolution.

Beyond what is being said about Obama and his motives or against the United Nations itself and the way the resolution was carried out, the fact remains there are reasons why the UN resolution may have many results -- but none of the ones it claims to support.

Here are some of those arguments being made:


Israeli Settlements Are Not What Is Preventing Peace
UN Resolution 2334 focuses on Israeli settlements. As I've mentioned before on this blog, Obama sabotaged Middle East peace talks early on by letting Abbas know that the President of the United States would unilaterally pressure Israel on the settlements. So its not surprising that in 2014, Abbas Sabotaged American-Sponsored Peace Talks just as Abbas rejected discussing Olmert's offer in 2008.

Now, in its editorial following passage of the resolution, The Washington Post was explicit on this point when it came out with an editorial that The Obama Administration Fires a Dangerous Parting Shot. The Washington Post is no fan of Israeli settlements, but points out that
Nevertheless, settlements do not explain the administration’s repeated failures to broker an Israeli-Palestinian peace. The Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas proved unwilling to negotiate seriously even during the settlement freeze, and it refused to accept a framework for negotiations painstakingly drawn up by Secretary of State John F. Kerry in 2014. In past negotiations, both sides have acknowledged that any deal will involve the annexation by Israel of settlements near its borders, where most of the current construction takes place — something the U.N. resolution, which was pressed by the Palestinians, did not acknowledge or take into account.The UN sole fixation on Israeli settlements merely picks up where Obama's failed foreign policy leaves off

Peace -- Abbas-style, 2013-2014. Credit: The Israel Project
The UN Resolution Removes Any Reason for Abbas to Negotiate
David Gerstman, writing for The Israel Project's The Tower, explains how Anti-Israel UN Resolution Would Undermine Peace Talks
If the resolution passes, it will signal that the international community has abandoned one of the most important underpinnings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks: the idea that peace can only come through direct negotiations.

...Passage of the Security Council resolution will mean that the United Nations has rewarded Mahmoud Abbas, the increasingly authoritarian president of the Palestinian Authority, for his refusal to negotiate with Israel and his internationalization of the conflict. Abbas admitted that his plan was to expand legal warfare against Israel in a 2011 New York Times op-ed. “Palestine’s admission to the United Nations would pave the way for the internationalization of the conflict as a legal matter, not only a political one,” he explained. “It would also pave the way for us to pursue claims against Israel at the United Nations, human rights treaty bodies and the International Court of Justice.”Abbas knows which way the wind is blowing. Credit: Jewish Business News
The UN Has Proven Itself To Not Be An Honest Broker
Prior to the resolution, Senator Charles Schumer noted that the UN was unfit to discuss peace between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs:
“Whatever one’s views are on settlements, anyone who cares about the future of Israel and peace in the region knows that the UN, with its one-sidedness, is exactly the wrong forum to bring about peace,” the New York Democrat said in a statement.

“I have spoken directly to the Administration numerous times … and in the strongest terms possible urged them to veto this resolution. I am strongly opposed to the UN putting pressure on Israel through one-sided resolutions. An abstention is not good enough. The Administration must veto this resolution,” the statement said.
Unilateral Demands That Leave Palestinians Out of the Equation Cannot Bring Peace
AIPAC came out against the resolution, but was not opposed to the supposed goal -- just the means:
By adopting this resolution, the United Nations has once again served as an open forum to isolate and delegitimize Israel—America’s lone stable, democratic ally in the Middle East. The Palestinian leadership has refused to return to talks with Israel and has continued to incite violence. Today’s destructive UNSC resolution only rewards this negative strategy and undermines efforts to truly pursue a lasting peace.

The best way to further the peace process with the goal of a two-state solution—which we support—would have been for the international community to do everything in its power to persuade the Palestinians to return to direct, bilateral negotiations without preconditions with Israel. Unfortunately, the UNSC today irresponsibly adopted a ruinous resolution that can only make the goal of peace even more elusive. [emphasis added]
The UN Resolution Singles Out Israel With Demands That Cannot Be Met
The Israeli government of course is opposed to the resolution. Opposition leader Yair Lapid noted that the UN resolution that denied Israel its indigenous connection to the land:
Lapid added that there was “no coalition or opposition” in the Israeli government when it came to this issue, as the entire political establishment holds similar views. He noted that the resolution condemns Israeli activity in eastern Jerusalem, where the Western Wall and Temple Mount are located, and “there is no Israeli government, ever, that can accept that.”
The UN Resolution Ignores Israel's Legal Claim to Both Gaza and the West Bank
Richard L. Cravatts, past president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) writes about
Defective law and moral incoherence in the UN Security Council vote on the Israel settlements
More to the point, it is erroneous to overlook the fact that not only all of the land that is current­-day Israel, but also Gaza and the West Bank, is part of the land granted to the Jews as part of the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, which recognized the right of the Jewish people to “close settlement” in a portion of those territories gained after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I. According to Eugene V. Rostow [in Legality of the Israeli Settlements], the late legal scholar and one of the authors of UN Security Council Resolution 242 written after the 1967 war to outline peace negotiations, “the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors,” something which Israel’s intransigent Arab neighbors have never seemed prepared to do.

Moreover, Rostow contended, “The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the same provisions of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem before the State of Israel was created,” and “the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live there.” The Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel recaptured Gaza and the West Bank, including Jerusalem, resulted in Israel being cast in another perfidious role—in addition to colonial usurper of Arab land, the Jewish state became a brutal “occupier” of Arab Palestine, lands to which the Jews presumably had no right and now occupied, in the opinion of many in the international community, illegally. But that “unhelpful” view again presumes that parts of the territory that may someday comprise a Palestinian state is already Palestinian land, that the borders of the putative Palestinian state are precise and agreed to, and that Jews living anywhere on those lands are now violating international law.

When did the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem become Palestinian land? The answer is: never.
The UN Resolution Fails to Address Israeli Security Concerns
Elliott Abrams, former deputy national security adviser in the George W. Bush administration and Michael Singh, managing director at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy write that by ignoring Israeli concerns, The United States Just Made Middle East Peace Harder:
Yet the resolution is conspicuously silent on Israeli concerns. There is no call for other states to recognize Israel’s existence — much less its status as a Jewish state — and end the conflict against it. On incitement and terrorism, it strikes a false balance by calling on “both parties” to refrain from them, despite the fact that Israel prosecutes its citizens who resort to terrorism while the Palestinian Authority lionizes them.
The UN Resolution Plays to Its One Strength: Encouraging Antisemitism
Writer Phyllis Chesler notes that Resolution 2334 amounts to nothing more than another UN resolution that encourages Antisemitism:
The UN has been unable to stop--or to effectively prosecute--a single atrocity, including genocide, that member nations have committed since the UN came into being. It has never even attempted to punish those who practice gender and religious apartheid. The most barbaric Muslim-on-Muslim violence and Muslim-on-infidel violence has never been addressed by the United Nations.

Indeed, as I have written many times, the UN has been effective in only one thing: Legitimizing and legalizing Jew-hatred in the world."Keep a Close Eye on Them" Cartoon by Patrick Mellemans, The Israeli Cartoon Project
The issue of UN Resolution 2334 is not about Obama's revenge against Netanyahu or the failures of his foreign policy. The point is that when examinging the UN resolution on its own merits, the resolution itself does far more harm than good. UN Resolution 2334 puts the peace that it claims it is designed to achieve that much further out of reach.
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How Long Should Arab Anger Be A Deterrent To Moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem?

ven, 16/12/2016 - 20:35
The messages the West sends to the Middle East matter.

Just ask President Obama -- or better, ask Jackson Diehl, Deputy Editorial Page Editor of The Washington Post. Back in 2010, Diehl described How Obama sabotaged Middle East peace talks:
So why does Abbas stubbornly persist in his self-defeating position? In an interview with Israeli television Sunday night, he offered a remarkably candid explanation: "When Obama came to power, he is the one who announced that settlement activity must be stopped," he said. "If America says it and Europe says it and the whole world says it, you want me not to say it?"

The statement confirmed something that many Mideast watchers have suspected for a long time: that the settlement impasse originated not with Netanyahu or Abbas, but with Obama -- who by insisting on an Israeli freeze has created a near-insuperable obstacle to the peace process he is trying to promote. [emphasis added]
Abbas had a point -- why bother to get involved in negotiations with Israel that would require concessions on both sides, when Obama telegraphed to the Arab world that a major demand of the Arab world could be forced out of Israel by Obama without Abbas ever having to come to the table? If Obama was signalling to the Arab world he would do their work for them, why not just sit back and wait?

Abbas -- no time for negotiations. Credit: Flash90Even when Netanyahu agreed to suspend building in the settlements for 10 months, as an opening concession to bring Abbas to the negotiating table, Abbas waited until the last month before showing up -- and then demanded an extenstion. When he didn't get it, he left.

Obama thought the message he was sending to the Arab world would strenghen his street cred with the Arab world and bring Abbas to the negotiating table.

It had the exact opposite effect.

Enter MSNBC's Chris Matthews.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews. Source: Elder of Ziyon
Matthews is upset with the idea of moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as per President-elect Trump's promise. Matthews claims:
Why are we moving the embassy to — to Jerusalem at a time that the whole place over there could blow up? Why do we something that's right in the face of the Palestinians, right in the face of the Jordanians, the Saudis, the Egyptians. The one thing they say is leave you know, the Dome of the Rock alone, leave our — the hopeful capital of a Palestinian state alone. Don't desecrate it by saying it's the capital of Israel at this point?Elder of Ziyon points out that when you take away the emotionalism of his outburst, Chris Matthews doesn't have much of a reason not to move the US embassy to Jerusalem

Note that Mathews
  • does not argue there is a legal reason not to move the embassy
  • does not argue the move would violate Islamic law
  • does not seem to realize the US embassy would be moved to the part of Jerusalem that has been under Israeli control since 1948
Instead, what Matthews argues is nothing should be done that might make the Arabs angry, and that assumed anger should dictate the actions of both Israel and the US.

And that is the problem -- the pre-conceived assumption that moving the US embassy to Jerusalem would infuriate the Arab world.

But that is all it is.
An assumption.

Elder of Ziyon points out:
I just did a quick search in Arabic news sites to see if there is any anger over this possible move of the embassy. There is very, very little. For the most part, this is not even a story, although some Arab news outlets are covering it dispassionately.

Of all the things for Arabs and Muslims to worry about in an impending Trump administration, moving the US embassy from one part of Israel to another part within the Green Line is not even on their radar.Matthews is making a bigger deal out of the US embassy move than the Arabs are.
Of course, Matthews is not the only one predicting an angry Arab response.

Aaron David Miller is a former advisor to Republican and Democratic Secretaries of State on Arab-Israeli negotiations, and he feels the same way. When he describes Why Trump’s Plan to Move the U.S. Embassy in Israel Is Unwise.

Miller writes that the move would damage US interests and credibility -- though one might argue that seeing the US pursuing the interests of an ally might increase credibility, given the novelty of the idea of the US standing behind its allies after 8 years.

He also argues that such a move could "chill" or "kill" efforts by a Trump administration to pursue peacemaking in the area. Even Miller recognizes the current comatose state of negotiations. He just doesn't want to kill it outright. Fair enough, but just how long should decisions and actions by Israel and the West be held hostage, waiting for Abbas to show willingness for honest negotiations?

Finally, Miller believes that moving the US embassy would undercut Israel's recently improved relations with several Arab states. Those improved negotiations are a result of Israeli initiatives and years of preparation. If Israel feels that it is worth the potential Arab backlash for the US embassy to be in Jerusalem, with the political validation it brings to Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, then let Israel make the choice.

The message Matthews and Miller are sending, like Obama's hint to Abbas that the US would force concessions from Israel, serves to strengthen the hand of those Arab leaders who exert influence by doing nothing, and letting the fear of their potential angry response keep the West in line.

The West has worked hard not to upset the apple cart.
There are those in the Arab world who do not share philosophy.
The current situation in the Middle East is the result.

Strenghening Democratic allies might not be such a bad idea after all.


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Why Would Any Arab Country Buy A Rocket From Hamas?

lun, 12/12/2016 - 09:08
That is the question that arises based on a post by Elder of Ziyon that Hamas offers to export Qassam rockets to any Arabs willing to shoot them at Israel:
Hamas official Fathi Hammad said that the terror group is s ready to export Qassam rockets to Arab armies in order "to fight the Zionist entity."

Hammad said that the rocket is comparable in quality to those produced by other international military rocket factories.Speaking of quality, just what kind of quality do these Arab customers of Hamas have a right to expect?


Hamas rocket crashes into Gaza -- see video below
Breitbart reported back in 2014 that Scores of Hamas Rockets Fall Short in Gaza, Killing Innocents. On Wednesday, July 30th, for example, Hamas terrorists fired 140 rocket into Israel, of which 81 hit Israel and 9 were intercepted by Iron Dome. However 50 of those rockets fell short and landed inside Gaza itself -- that's 36% of Gazan rockets hitting Gaza.

And this was not a one-time thing either.

Among other examples of Hamas misfires:
  • July 28: When Hamas terrorists fired rockets at Israel from a highly populated area, two of the rockets hit a hospital and refugee camp inside Gaza, killing over a dozen Palestinians.

  • July 13: A rocket fired by Hamas successfully hit Israel -- but ending up a power plant, knocking out power for over 70,000 Gazans.

  • February 2008: When a Qassam missile was launched near a home in Gaza, flying shrapnel killed an infant.

  • December 2008: A Hamas rocket fired towards Israel hit a house in Gaza and killed a 5-year-old girl and her 12-year-old cousin.
Similarly, Amnesty International issued a report in 2015 that Palestinian rockets killed more Gazans in 2014 war. According to the report, rockets aimed at Israel in that July 28 attack fell short and killed at least 13 civilians in Gaza, 11 of them children.

The reaction of Hamas was to claim the report was biased and accuse Amnesty International of being a "Zionist organization".

The BBC also reported on Hamas rockets crashing into Gaza -- and had it on video:




Maybe it would be a good idea for any Arab country or terrorist group interested in taking Hamas up on their offer to get a written guarantee that the rockets they buy won't stop short and crash near where they are launched.

And after they get that guarantee, they better cross their fingers.

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How The J Street Grinch Stole Hanukkah

jeu, 08/12/2016 - 15:55
It looks like J Street is at it again.

You really have to admire how a group that claims to be dedicated to Israel can find the time to involve itself in petty politics.

This time, J Street is taking a stand on where the Conference of Presidents can celebrate Hanukkah:
TELL CONFERENCE OF PRESIDENTS MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS: DON'T CELEBRATE HANUKKAH AT TRUMP HOTEL.

The Conference of Presidents purports to speak for the American Jewish community. Tell its member organizations: Speak out and make it clear that the Trump Hotel is an inappropriate place to celebrate Hanukkah.

It’s almost too outrageous to believe: An umbrella group that claims to represent the American Jewish community plans to host its 2016 Hanukkah Party at Trump Hotel.

Trump's campaign rhetoric and policy positions are an affront to some of the most core values of American Jews. To hold a Hanukkah party under the Trump banner is shocking in its wrong-headedness.


That's right. The same J Street that defends Keith Ellison and accuses those who bring up his past statements and actions of being guilty of smearing -- that same J Street is getting a head start on what may very well be its strategy, for the next 4 years, of driving a wedge between a President Trump and the Jewish community. Consider this a preview.

This is the same Donald Trump who, unlike Ellison, actually has proven his support for Israel. Trump
But then again, this is not the first time J Street has put personal politics before the welfare of the Jewish community.

Back when it was trying to make a name for itself in 2008, J Street decided the best way to get street cred was to keep Sarah Palin from speaking at an event organized by major Jewish organizations to protest Iran's Ahmadinejad's speaking at the UN:
STOP SARAH PALIN AT NON-PARTISAN IRAN RALLY
September 18, 2008

Sarah Palin is scheduled to headline Monday’s rally in New York of Americans Jews concerned about the threat Iran poses to the United States and Israel.

Sarah Palin at a rally to unify American Jews on Iran? Really?

Palin stands diametrically opposed to the majority of American Jews on nearly all issues – including on Iran. With just a few days left before the rally, we have no time to lose.The superficiality of J Street's attack on Palin to silence her is revealed in the statement by its online director at the time that "Sarah Palin’s views on abortion, the environment, and just about every other issue are out of step with the American Jewish community." [emphasis added]
So its better to take a potshot at a Republican and draw attention to J Street than it is to draw attention to an issue of concern to Israel?

Similarly, J Street at the time did other work on behalf of the Democratic party in order to silence Republicans -- J Street ran a campaign to keep newspapers from running ads from the Republican Jewish Coalition:
A dovish pro-Israel group launched a campaign to get Jewish newspapers not to run some Republican Jewish Coalition ads.

J Street revealed the campaign after a number of U.S. Jewish newspapers were blasted Tuesday with letters urging them not to run the ads attacking the Democratic presidential candidate, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) The vast majority of the papers had not run such ads.

A listserve of Jewish journalists revealed that J Street was behind the campaign and mistakenly had provided software to its members that blasted all the newspapers instead of a select few that had run the ads. So there really is nothing new here. J Street is just going back to doing what it does best -- working on behalf of the Democratic Party to silence and undercut Republicans.

Its a dirty job, but J Street is ready to do it.



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Secretary of State John Kerry: The End of an Error

mer, 07/12/2016 - 15:16
MR. KELLY: I mean, we’re not – but it’s – we are less than a year into this Administration, and I think we’ve accomplished more over the last year than the previous administration did in eight years.

QUESTION: Well, I – really, because the previous administration actually had them sitting down talking to each other. You guys can’t even get that far.
Daily press briefing, November 17, 2009, with State Department spokesperson comparing accomplishments on Israel-Palestinian peace

It's only natural that the Obama administration would want to sell what it thinks is the superiority of its policies. As his term in office wore on, Obama certainly got better at it -- to the extent that he was able to push through a deal with Iran, despite opposition by Congress and a majority of Americans.

But drawing opposing parties like Israel and the Palestinian Arabs into an agreement has proven to be far more difficult than merely running roughshod over native opposition.

Just ask John Kerry.


John Kerry having one of those...years Credit: AP
Making the Iran deal a reality turned out to be only the beginning. Since then, every effort has been made by the Obama administration to maintain the agreement by overlooking the Iranian violations, ignoring its aggressive behavior, and conceding to Iran's hostage demands.

This has turned out to be something of a pattern. As journalist Eli Lake describes in Secretary of State John Bolton Would Be the Anti-John Kerry, for the past four years Kerry has been bending over backwards in order to meet America's adversaries halfway.

The results?
As he finishes up his tenure, Iran tests missiles, arrests Americans and still demands new concessions from the U.S. China builds artificial islands in the South China Sea. And Russia continues to bomb civilians in Syria. Meanwhile, the Israelis and Palestinians are further away from a negotiated settlement than they were when Obama took office.And speaking of Israel and the Palestinians, David Horovitz examines Why John Kerry failed to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, noting the growing turmoil in the Middle East during Obama's terms in office -- turmoil that only got worse during Kerry's tenure as Secretary of State:
  • Terrorist groups gained footholds in Syria, Jordan, and Iraq
  • Iran has grown emboldened -- and richer
  • After Egypt's Hosni Mubarak was allowed to fall from power, his successor, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, was not supported in his battle against Muslim extremism
  • The US failed to intervene effectively in Syria -- even after Assad crossed Obama's red line and started gassing his people
  • The millions who fled Syria in turn added to the refugee crisis in Europe
The difference with Israel appears to be in part that Israel is an ally -- and while Kerry has shown a unique ability to bend over backwards for our enemies, friends are another matter.

At the Saban Forum last week, Kerry did not hesitate to criticize Israel.

The question though is whether those criticisms were even accurate.

In response to Kerry's comments, Joe Settler writes about John Kerry, Straw Men and the Saban Echo Chamber in The Jewish Press.
I was honestly baffled at Kerry’s absolute insistence that an Israeli peace with the other Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan, is predicated on peace with the “Palestinians.”

Kerry insisted that while the Arab countries need Israel’s expertise in areas like agriculture, technology and finance, they refuse to take it because of the “Palestinian” conflict.But, as the article notes, Kerry's comments just do not fit the reality:
  • Jordan takes Israel’s water, its parliament just approved a natural gas deal with Israel and Israelis manage agricultural farms there
  • Egypt is discussing major cooperation projects with Israel, where Israel will provide aid to Egypt in such areas as solar energy, agriculture, desalination, and expanding tourism
  • Kurdish controlled Iraq provides oil to Israel
  • Turkey's Erdogan is making deals with Israel, especially regarding Israel’s natural gas.
As for other Arab countries which are nowhere near to having peaceful relations with Israel:
Lebanon, for as long as it remains controlled by the Hezbollah terrorist organization and the Islamic regime in Iran, will never make any peace.

Syria, doesn’t exist anymore as a country, and no one is rushing there to eat Hummus in Damascus.

Iraq? Yemen? The Islamic State of Iran (who aren’t even Arabs, and don’t care about “Palestinians”)?

We already have quiet business happening with some of the Gulf states.

That pretty much just leaves Saudi Arabia, and personally, besides overflight permission for El Al, I could pass on them.If anyone is wondering why Kerry applied only the carrot and not the stick to Iran, it seems to be because he was too busy using it on Israel. But the inaccuracies in his criticisms of Israel are part of the reason why taking Kerry as a serious negotiator has been problematic, just as the willingness of the Obama administration to appease just about everybody else led to the Arab world not taking it seriously.

In his closing weeks, Obama will try to trumpet his triumphs, but many will not take him seriously.
As for Kerry, the one accomplishment which might arguably be called a success -- the Iran deal -- is even now, before Donald Trump assumes office, showing signs of unraveling.


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Castro Is Dead -- What Can You Say About a Dictator?

dim, 27/11/2016 - 02:32
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar.
The Life and Death of Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare Act III, Scene II
Fidel Castro is dead, leaving it to the leaders of world democracies to say a word or two.

John Avlon of The Daily Beast reminds us of some of Castro's accomplishments as Fidel Castro Finally Dies, But His Apologists Live On

History will not absolve Castro for repeated assaults on freedom clothed in populist garb. Whether it was torturing and executing political opponents, rounding up homosexuals, creating neighborhood networks to spy on fellow citizens, or encouraging the Soviet Union to nuke the United States, he was a bully and a thug: the latest in a long line of self-interested opportunists who rule through fear and pretend that it is love.

...His apologists will soon look as foolish as those folks who praised “Uncle Joe” Stalin and Mao’s Great Leap Forward, always arguing that “you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet”—while skipping over the fact that the eggs in this equation were people.Che Guevara (left) and Castro, photographed by
Alberto Korda in 1961. Source: Wikipedia
While it is true that Castro took power by toppling a dictator, his rule was itself a dictatorship.
While it is true that Castro took measures that benefited his people, there is a context to those actions.
It is true that Fidel Castro raised literacy rates across Cuba. It is also true that he severely restricted what the people could read.— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) November 26, 2016The singular statement by Obama leaves it to the reader to decide whether Castro is destined for hell or for sainthood:
At this time of Fidel Castro’s passing, we extend a hand of friendship to the Cuban people. We know that this moment fills Cubans - in Cuba and in the United States - with powerful emotions, recalling the countless ways in which Fidel Castro altered the course of individual lives, families, and of the Cuban nation. History will record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him. Obama's claim that relationship between the US and Cuba "was marked by discord and profound political disagreements" seems more apropo as a description of my home growing up.

Similarly, in his statement the president of the European Commission European Commission,
Jean-Claude Juncker, leaves much about Castro to the imagination:
Fidel Castro was one of the historic figures of the past century and the embodiment of the Cuban Revolution. With the death of Fidel Castro, the world has lost a man who was a hero for many. He changed the course of his country and his influence reached far beyond. Fidel Castro remains one of the revolutionary figures of the 20th century. His legacy will be judged by history.On the other hand, Canada's Justin Trudeau statement about Castro was more straightforward, if less honest:
“While a controversial figure, both Mr. Castro’s supporters and detractors recognized his tremendous dedication and love for the Cuban people who had a deep and lasting affection for “el Comandante”.And then there was Donald Trump.
Trump took a different approach in remarking on Castro's accomplishments:
"Today, the world marks the passing of a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades. Fidel Castro's legacy is one of firing squads, theft, unimaginable suffering, poverty and the denial of fundamental human rights," Trump said in a statement.

"While Cuba remains a totalitarian island, it is my hope that today marks a move away from the horrors endured for too long, and toward a future in which the wonderful Cuban people finally live in the freedom they so richly deserve," he added.Whether he will be quite as outspoken as president remains to be seen.
Whether political exigencies will temper a President Trump is a question yet to be answered.

But in the meantime, Donald Trump's comment  does make for an interesting contrast with other world leaders -- especially with Obama who claims that paying billions to a leader in global terrorism like Iran lines the path to peace and stability in the Middle East.

In the meantime, Cubans in Little Havana, who celebrated Castro's death by popping Champagne, finally get the last word:



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The Scarlet Letter: "A" is for Antisemite

dim, 27/11/2016 - 00:45
From the looks of the election season just passed, it seems we are returning to our Puritan roots -- labeling and seeking to ostracize those guilty of Antisemitism.

Or maybe its more like the Salem witch trials, using arcane tests to divine Antisemitic intent from articles and quotes on the one hand and the testimony of an ex-wife on the other, revealing membership in the cult of the alt-right.

Welcome to 2016.

It seems the usefulness of the "Nazi" comparison has its limitations.
Calling someone a racist in general or saying they are bigoted against African Americans and women - that works.
But labeling someone an antisemite, now there is something that has really caught on.

Who knew there were so many, who were so eager to be on the lookout to protect the Jewish community!?
From the screams of the media, you might be forgiven for thinking that antisemitism had disappeared -- and has now suddenly returned.
But we know that isn't true.

That is why Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone asks incredulously, Anti-Semitism is Back?
Being “woke” only when it’s convenient merely addresses a symptom of anti-Semitism, while letting the root cause fester. Be it from the far-right, or the left, hate in its myriad grotesque faces stems from ignorance and darkness.

President Elect Donald J. Trump. Wikipedia
Speaking of convenience, we were inundated with news that President-elect Donald Trump was supposed to be not only a racist but also an antisemite. Actually, we don't really hear as much about Trump's alleged antisemitism. Maybe that is because people have noticed, as per Slate Star Codex in You Are Still Crying Wolf, that Trump
Or maybe the reason is that there are easier targets.

Steve Bannon, Counselor Designate to the President Wikipeda
Steve Bannon, the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, was appointed by Trump to be his chief White House strategist. And that is when the media really got excited. It wasn't long before they decided that Bannon was an antisemite too. The initial proof for the accusation initially came from a claim made by his ex-wife during his divorce, that he didn't want to send his children to a school that had Jews in it. But the media didn't have much trouble finding support for their claims that he was an antisemite, a racist, and other things to boot.

The Wall Street Journal took the apparently novel approach of actually interviewing Bannon about his views and about the Breitbart website in an article about Steve Bannon on Politics as War:
Anti-Semitic? “Breitbart is the most pro-Israel site in the United States of America. I have Breitbart Jerusalem, which I have Aaron Klein run with about 10 reporters there. We’ve been leaders in stopping this BDS movement”—meaning boycott, divestment and sanctions—“in the United States; we’re a leader in the reporting of young Jewish students being harassed on American campuses; we’ve been a leader on reporting on the terrible plight of the Jews in Europe.” He adds that given his many Jewish partners and writers, “guys like Joel Pollak, these claims of anti-Semitism just aren’t serious. It’s a joke.”But just how serious is the media about uncovering and uprooting Antisemitism in America -- how wide a net are they casting?

Based on whom the media has since attacked for their apparent antisemtisim -- not very.

Ira Stoll writes about The Borking of Bannon by The New York Times and imagines what an article might look like if Hillary Clinton had won the election -- and had then decided to appoint New York Times Company chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. as counselor to the president.

Among the possible antisemtic actions of Sulzberger and The New York Times that Stoll's article come up with are that:
  • Sulzberger’s New York Times repeatedly dwells on the Jewish background of criminals
  • It has called for cutting aid to the Israeli military, a position far to the left of the political mainstream
  • The New York Times recently apologized after likening a drug dealer to a rabbi
  • It described a character in a news feature as a “decorous Jew
  • Sulzberger's newspaper editorialized against accommodating Orthodox Jewish women in New York public swimming pools by complaining about their “strong odor.”
And this is in addition to articles and events at the New York Times that reflect bias against women and African Americans as well.

Media, heal thyself!

Actually, the media has been selective in whom they tar with the antisemitic label as well. For example, it has been silent about Keith Ellison, who is in the running to become the new chair of the Democratic National Committee. Politico reports that opposition to Ellison has started to grow -- because he has not stated that he would quit his position in Congress in order to take on the job as chairman of the DNC full-time.

Congressman Keith Ellison - Next DNC Chairman? Wikipedia
What has not been focused on by the media are the charges of antisemitism that have surrounded Keith Ellison ever since he ran for Congress in 2006:
When can we expect the media to take a serious look Keith Ellison's positions and associations?

There is nothing wrong with the media pursuing and reporting on allegations against political leaders -- after 8 years of the media handling Obama with kid gloves, that would actually be a welcome change. However, the media seems to have already forgotten that the reason it has been losing the faith and trust of its readers is its partisanship.

If the media would have us believe that it is truly concerned about the rise of antisemitism -- not only on college campuses, in protests and in the media -- but also in American politics, then it is going to have to start covering it honestly, across the political spectrum.

Or become even more irrelevant.


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Why Roger Cohen Still Refuses To Look At The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict Objectively

lun, 31/10/2016 - 13:55
I erred in underestimating the brutality and cynicism of a[n Iranian] regime that understands the uses of ruthlessness.
Roger Cohen, Iran's Days of Anguish June, 2009.
Roger Cohen writes in The New York Times about Why Israel Refuses to Choose -- an odd title, really, considering that in his entire piece, the only one who explicitly refuses to choose is an Israeli Arab who will not choose whether they see themselves as Israelis, Palestinians, Muslims, Arabs, or something else.

The implication of the title though is that Israel refuses to choose peace, a position that Cohen supports by offering his opinion of Israel and Netanyahu.

Yet, in castigating Israel and the Netanyahu government, Roger Cohen is reduced to taking a quote of David Ben-Gurion out of context. Cohen claims:

In a sense, then, Israel has won. David Ben-Gurion was right when he observed in 1949 that, “When the matter is dragged out — it brings us benefits.” Policy since then has been pretty consistent: Create facts on the ground; break the Arabs’ will through force; push for as much of the biblical Land of Israel between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River as possible.However, he leaves out the context of the complete quote, and by doing so twists what Ben-Gurion actually said. In his book The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, Avi Shlaim gives the more complete quote:
"It is true that these things should not prevent us from accelerating the peace, because the issue of peace between us and the Arabs is important and it is worth paying a considerable price for it. But when the matter is dragged out--it brings us benefits, as the mufti helped us in the past." [emphasis added]David Ben-Gurion. Credit: Pinn Hans, Wikipedia

Avi Shlaim is a critic of Israel who will never be accused of whitewashing its actions - past nor present. When you cannot quote Shlaim in context because it puts Ben Gurion -- and Israel -- in a positive light, you  have a problem. But then again, Cohen is not looking for balance.

So he writes:
Greater Israel is what Israelis know; the smaller Israel west of the Green Line that emerged from the 1947-49 war of independence is a fading memory. The right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with its contempt for Palestinians and dissenting voices in general, prefers things that way, as the steady expansion of settlements demonstrates.
The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, has lost the legitimacy, the cohesion and the will to do much about it. The cancellation of municipal elections in the West Bank and Gaza that had been set for this month was another sign of paralyzing Palestinian infighting.Put aside how Cohen has belittled the thousands of rockets out of Gaza as "sporadic Hamas rockets" while stating his indignation at "the steady expansion of settlements." Expansion is being concentrated on building homes inside the settlements, and from 1990 to 2012 Israel had approved just 3 settlements, according to Peace Now. Similarly, Haaretz reported in 2015 that an average of 1,554 houses a year were built in the settlements from 2009 to 2014 — fewer than under any of Netanyahu's recent predecessors. And don't forget that in a goodwill gesture in December 2009, Netanyahu issued a 10 month moratorium on building in the settlements to bring Abbas to the negotiating table -- but Abbas squandered the opportunity. He waited till September 2010 before sitting with Israel and promptly insisted that Israel must extend the freeze.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Credit: Twitter Page

And what about Abbas? Is Roger Cohen right that Abbas has "lost the will" to do anything about settlements? Not according to Jackson Diehl. In a meeting with the Palestinian leader in May 2009, Abbas made it clear he was content to sit back and let Obama pressure Israel:
Abbas and his team fully expect that Netanyahu will never agree to the full settlement freeze -- if he did, his center-right coalition would almost certainly collapse. So they plan to sit back and watch while U.S. pressure slowly squeezes the Israeli prime minister from office. "It will take a couple of years," one official breezily predicted. Abbas rejects the notion that he should make any comparable concession -- such as recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, which would imply renunciation of any large-scale resettlement of refugees.

Instead, he says, he will remain passive. "I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements," he said. "Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life."
[emphasis added]Mahmoud Abbas. Credit: Wikipedia

Cohen does admit that Abbas is "marking time," but he fails to see that this has been the default position of Abbas for years and is not a new development.

This lack of perspective is similar to his analysis of Iran.

Back in March 2009, Cohen defended the repressive regime of Iran, writing that:
Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it’s far from meeting these [totalitarian] criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable.Iran: un-free, brutal and repressive -- but not totalitarian! Small comfort.

A month earlier, going even further, Roger Cohen praised the Iranian government's treatment of its Jews:
Still a mystery hovers over Iran’s Jews. It’s important to decide what’s more significant: the annihilationist anti-Israel ranting, the Holocaust denial and other Iranian provocations — or the fact of a Jewish community living, working and worshipping in relative tranquillity.

Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran — its sophistication and culture — than all the inflammatory rhetoric.It was not until June of that year that Roger Cohen finally admitted he had been mistaken about Iran:
I’ve also argued that, although repressive, the Islamic Republic offers significant margins of freedom by regional standards. I erred in underestimating the brutality and cynicism of a regime that understands the uses of ruthlessness.How long will it be before Roger Cohen will finally recognize the incitement of hatred and support of terrorism against Israel by the Abbas regime?


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