Ray Cook - As I See It

Israel, Zionism and the Media

Tag: palestine (Page 3 of 11)

‘Pinkwashing’ Deconstructed

06/11/2011 / / 7 Comments

This is a superb guest post by Scott Piro (@ScottPiro)  which exposes the utter hypocrisy of the  ‘pink-washing’ slur on Israel. (RC)

In 2007, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs initiated a nation-branding campaign informally known as ‘Beyond the Conflict.’ The goal was to change people’s perception of Israel from a war zone populated by the ultra-religious into a more normal place – rich with culture, dominated by high-tech and scientific achievement and grounded in identifiable, Western values.

American nonprofit organizations joined the effort by making sure non-conflict stories saw the light of day – everything from Israeli companies being listed on the NASDAQ and Israeli-made computer chips powering everyday products, to stories about Tel Aviv’s nightlife and Israeli model Bar Rafaeli gracing the cover of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Issue.

Nation-branding is practiced by many states, from established democracies like the U.S., Canada, France, Japan, South Korea, South Africa and New Zealand to developing countries like Tanzania, Colombia and Guatemala. It’s not unique to Israel.

In addition to the cultural and technology stories, the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs sought ways to emphasize Israeli values. Israel’s record on LGBT rights was smartly identified as a way to highlight its societal tolerance and diversity, and draw contrast with more repressive regimes in the region and around the world. In reality, Israel is the only Middle Eastern country where people are not persecuted because of their sexual or gender identity. Here are the facts for LGBTs in Israel:

  •  Anti-discrimination laws protecting LGBTs
  •  Recognition of same-sex marriages performed abroad
  •  Legalized LGBT adoption rights
  •  LGBT soldiers serve openly in all military branches, including special units; discrimination is prohibited
  •  Same-sex couples have the same inheritance rights as heterosexual, married couples

LGBTs enjoy these rights nowhere else in the Middle East. In fact, every other Middle Eastern country makes homosexuality a crime punishable by death (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen) or jail time (Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Morocco, Algeria), or LGBTs face risks of violence, torture and “honor killings” by militias or their own families (the West Bank, Iraq, Turkey) or harassment and crackdowns from the government and non-state actors (Bahrain, Jordan). In fact, when compared to states outside the region – including most Western democracies – Israel has one of the strongest records for LGBT rights in the world.

Israel’s enemies recognized how favorable this record was for Israel, and that it threatened their efforts to demonize the Jewish state. So they shrewdly maneuvered to use it against her, and link promotion of Israel’s LGBT record to the conflict in the West Bank and Gaza – even though there is none. The idea that the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ campaign is part of a diabolical scheme to cover up abuses of ‘the occupation’ is completely anti-Israel queer activists’ invention; it is their great lie.

Beginning in Toronto in 2008, and later in San Francisco and New York, LGBT anti-Israel groups formed and sought to make being anti-Israel a queer value. Some of these activists are anti-Semitic – whether or not they admit it, even to themselves. The frustrating thing is that many more of them work to brand Israel an ‘apartheid state’ for all the right reasons. They are being manipulated by the combination of deceptive Palestinian leadership, biased Western media and anti-Semites into believing a counterfeit narrative where Israelis are the aggressors and Palestinians are her ultimate victims. It exploits LGBTs’ natural empathy for the oppressed.

Activists who claim to not hate Israel and say they support her right to exist, yet still accuse her of brutal oppression and apartheid, are complicit in preventing a peace deal, propagating terror, and endangering Jews and the State of Israel.

The sad reality is that LGBT anti-Israel groups are throwing our queer Palestinian brothers and sisters under the bus. LGBT persecution in the disputed territories is horrendous – it comes from Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, militias and even the victims’ own families. In the academic report “Nowhere to Run: Gay Palestinian Asylum Seekers in Israel,” there is testimony from Palestinian LGBTs who escaped to Israel to seek asylum status. The torture they received in the West Bank is shocking (pages 13-17). For example, one man recounts a horror story of being dragged from his home by PA officers because he was gay, then submerged in sewage water up to his neck for five hours at a time, every day for three weeks (pg. 15). The report comes from Tel Aviv University’s Public Interest Law Program, but it shouldn’t be dismissed for that reason; it’s critical of Israel for not accepting more LGBT Palestinian refugees.

Once peace comes and the IDF pulls out of the West Bank, Palestinian queers will be much worse off. Palestinian LGBT testimony confirms this is what happened when the PA took over Gaza in 2005 (pg. 10). Eighty-two percent of Palestinians support making homosexuality illegal. Many more queers will die in Palestine once a state is achieved. I am not advocating for the status quo, but I do believe energy from queer anti-Israel activists would be better spent educating straight Palestinians not to kill their LGBT brothers and sisters once Israelis leave, instead of vilifying Israel.

Elsewhere in the region, Iran executed three men in September, 2011 for being gay (and two in 2005). The Assad regime in Syria has now murdered over 3,000 of its own people. And Palestinians in Lebanese, Syrian, Egyptian and Jordanian refugee camps face conditions much more akin to apartheid than anything experienced within Israel (where they are citizens with the same rights as Jewish Israelis) or the disputed territories (where they are governed by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas). Yet where are the Queers Against Iranian Persecution, Queers Against Syrian Torture and Queers Against Lebanese Apartheid groups?

“Palestine is a queer issue,” Israel’s LGBT critics insist. But Iranian torture and execution of LGBTs is not a queer issue? Syrian brutality against its own people is not a queer issue? Lebanese apartheid against Palestinians is not also a queer issue? Why not?

The fact that no LGBT groups protest any of these human rights abuses, but we see a proliferation of queer groups against Israel, meets one of the key criteria in Alan Dershowitz’s list of “factors that tend to indicate anti-Semitism“: “Singling out only Israel for sanctions for policies that are widespread among other nations, or demanding that Jews be better or more moral than others because of their history as victims.” The rest of Dershowitz’s list is worth reading, and he contrasts it to “factors that tend to indicate legitimate criticism of Israel.”

Also worth reading is this letter from Senior Editor of Middle East Quarterly, former professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies at Edinburgh University and non-Jew Dr. Denis MacEoin: “It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death…Thinking it’s better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?”

Ironically, some of Israel’s loudest queer critics are Palestinian LGBT organizations. How can this be true, given the documented atrocities LGBTs face from their own government and families inside the Palestinian territories? Perhaps they are looking to gain respect from homophobic, straight Palestinian organizations by bashing Israel, so that conditions for LGBTs inside the future Palestinian state will not meet the worst case scenario. How’s this for hypocrisy – do you know where the Palestinian queer group alQaws for Sexual and Gender Diversity in Palestinian Society held their “Palestinian Queer Party” on October 21, 2011? At a Tel Aviv club! Was the reason because it’s not safe for LGBTs to congregate inside a public place in the West Bank at a pre-announced time and place?

Israel’s queer enemies can hurl ‘Pinkwashing!’ claims at her all they want. I, for one, celebrate the fact that the Israel’s government is proud enough of its LGBT rights record to use it for nation-branding. What would happen if the governments of Libya, Iran, Palestine and Syria bragged about their LGBT rights records, too? It would mean more LGBTs around the world would be protected and safe.

Israel’s queer foes are the real pinkwashers, because they conveniently ignore the horrors committed against LGBTs throughout the Middle East in order to focus only on the Jewish state. If the term “pinkwashing” is about covering up facts to push one’s agenda, then anti-Israel queer activists are choking on their own hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

BBC News website MidEast Desk is surely beyond the Pale

01/11/2011 / / 1 Comment

This is a short blog just to demonstrate the complete one-sided and biased reporting that is being spewed from the BBC website.

This is what passes for journalism on the UK’s premier news site. A brilliant website which I use a lot, but something has to be done about this crude anti-Israel propaganda that passes for balanced comment.

Here is the headline from Sunday:

New Israeli air strike into Gaza after ‘ceasefire’

Now what to you think that implies?

It implies that Israel broke the ceasefire. LIES. There was never any ceasefire despite the vaunted Egyptian brokerage. Islamic Jihad kept firing and ignored it.

One Palestinian was killed in a new Israeli air strike in Gaza, hours after Egypt apparently brokered a ceasefire.

Those perfidious Jews are at it again – they cannot be trusted to sit by and watch rockets fired at cities of more than 200,000 people and they completely ignore the BBC’s attempts to mendaciously and cynically make its readers believe Israel is at fault.

Then there’s a picture of Israeli fire crew dousing a car. What do you think their caption should be? Maybe ‘Israeli cities under constant barrage, hundreds of thousands in bomb shelters, schools closed’?

No. This is what the caption says:

Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel, after five militants were killed in an Israeli air strike

So what does that imply, pray tell? It implies, dear reader, that the ‘militants’ are responding to an Israeli air strike. It does not tell you that this very air strike was in response to ‘rockets’ – read missiles – being fired at Israeli cities.

The BBC turns this deadly attack on Israel into a schoolyard game of ‘he started it, miss’.

So for those of you who still are not sure, here’s the actual truth:

There would be no Israeli air strikes if there were no missiles from Gaza.

Now if you read the article I am referring to, it actually gives a reasonable account – so why do they spoil it by letting someone from Respect write the headlines and the captions? Am I contradicting myself? No. Anyone who does not know the realities of this conflict would read the headline first, have their opinion formed for them, then read the rest in the light of that headline.

And the BBC know it. The same person who wrote the article surely did not write the headline. Someone is saying ‘hmm, a balanced article, let’s see what I can do to spin it against Israel and still get away with it’.

SACK THEM!

Ron Prosor tells the UN a thing or two

30/10/2011 / / 1 Comment

I just loved this statement to the the UN Security Council by former Ambassador to the UK, Ron Prosor.

In a few sentences it starkly exposes the UN for what it has become, an instrument of anti-Israel sentiment which is seriously failing to address properly many of the world’s most urgent conflicts and problems because of this obsession with one country and one conflict.

I cannot resist quoting it virtually in full because it says almost everything that needs to be said

Thank you, Mr. President.

Let me begin by reminding this Council that the name of today’s debate is the “Situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question” – and not vice versa. This morning I’d like to take the unusual step of actually focusing on the situation in the Middle East.

Let me assure you that I will give proper attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. However, first, let’s look at the facts: the Middle East is in turmoil. Thousands of innocents have been gunned down in the streets. People are calling for their freedom and demanding their rights. Yet, month after month, this Council focuses disproportionately on one and only one conflict in our region.

I don’t claim that this Council does not deal with the situations of specific countries in the Middle East. It does. However, I think it is time to start connecting the dots so that we can face the bigger picture.

For generations, the Arab world has failed miserably to address the needs of its own people. The United Nations Development Program has sponsored five “Arab Human Development Reports” since 2002. Year after year, the Arab researchers who write these reports offer a glimpse into the real world of the Middle East. Young people struggle without access to jobs and education. Women are denied basic rights. Free expression is repressed. Minorities are persecuted. Elections are a sham.

And with their world in flames, Arab leaders continue to blame Israel and the West for all their problems. For years, it’s the only explanation that they have been able to offer to their own people. From time to time, they spice up the story. When a shark attacked a tourist in the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh, the local Egyptian governor suggested that the Mossad was using sharks to harm Egyptian tourism. Everything wrong in the Middle East, according to many Arab leaders, is simply Israel’s fault. If it’s not the Mossad, it’s the CIA, or MI6, or some other “foreign force”.

Today the people of the Middle East demand real answers for their plight. We have seen their brave stands in public squares. We have heard their cries. And we have witnessed the deadly response to these calls for freedom.

In Hama, Daraa and Latakia, the Syrian regime slaughters its citizens in a desperate bid to hold onto power. Some members of this council remain blind to Assad’s brutality.

In Libya, the reign of Moammar Qaddafi is over after more than 40 years of repression and many months of bloodshed. The Libyan despot’s violent end illustrated what Churchill once described as a signal disadvantage of the dictator: what he does to others may often be done back to him. This truth haunts the minds of many leaders in our region – and Qaddafi’s fate rings an alarm for them.

In Iran, an Ayatollah regime represses its own people as it helps other tyrants to butcher theirs. Last week, UN Special Rapporteur Shaheed briefed the General Assembly, offering a chilling picture of daily life in Iran. His report highlighted “a pattern of systemic violations of… fundamental human rights… including multifarious deficits in relation to the administration of justice… practices that amount to torture… the imposition of the death penalty in the absence of proper judicial safeguards… the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, and the erosion of civil and political rights.”

Iran remains the world’s central banker, chief trainer and primary sponsor of terror. Recent events have shown that its state-directed terrorist activities extend from the Persian Gulf to the Washington Beltway, with targets that range from innocent protestors to foreign soldiers to official diplomatic representatives. This is the way the regime behaves today. One can only imagine what it would do with a nuclear capability – with the dangerous combination of extremist ideology, advanced missile technology and nuclear weapons.

IAEA reports make clear that Iran continues to march toward the goal of a nuclear bomb in defiance of the international community. We cannot allow it to place the entire world under the specter of nuclear terrorism. The world must stop Iran before it is too late.

Yes, Mr. President,

The Middle East is trembling. Its future is uncertain. And two roads stand before us.

There is the future offered by Iranian and Syrian leaders – a future of more extremism, greater violence and continued hate. Their vision will not liberate human beings, it will enslave them. It does not build, it destroys. And there is another road – a path of progress, reform and moderation.

The choice before us is clear – and it has never been more critical to make the right choice for the future of the Middle East and all its inhabitants. It is time for this Council to stop ignoring the destructive forces that seek to keep the Middle East in the past, so that we can seize the promise of a brighter future.

Mr. President,

Make no mistake: it is important for Israel and the Palestinians to resolve our longstanding conflict. It is important on its own merits, so that Israelis and Palestinians alike can lead peaceful, secure and prosperous lives. But it will not produce a sudden outbreak of stability, harmony and democratization from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean Sea. And seriously addressing the underlying problems of the Middle East will be essential for advancing Israeli-Palestinian peace.

The road to peace can only be built on a foundation of mutual recognition and dialogue.

A month ago, President Abbas stood in this building and said the following:

“I come before you today from the Holy Land, the land of Palestine, the land of divine messages, ascension of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the birthplace of Jesus Christ (peace be upon him).”

He denied 4,000 years of Jewish history. It was not a small omission. It was not an oversight. The Palestinian leadership attempts to erase the connection between the Jewish people and the Land of Israel.

Others in the Arab world have offered a different message. For example, in 1995, King Hussein came to the United States and said: “For our part, we shall continue to work for the new dawn when all the Children of Abraham and their descendants are living together in the birthplace of their three great monotheistic religions.” Let me repeat this. King Hussein said three monotheistic religions, not one or two.

Those who seek peace do not negate the narrative of the other side. On the contrary, they recognize its existence and choose to sit down and negotiate peace in good faith. This is what President Sadat did. This is what King Hussein did.

The ancient Jewish bond to the land of Israel is unbreakable. This is our homeland. The UN recognized Israel as a Jewish state 64 years ago. It is time for the Palestinians and the more than 20 Muslim countries around the globe to do the same.

Let there be no doubt: Israel wants peace with a future Palestinian state. Let me repeat that: Israel wants peace with a future Palestinian state. In word and in deed, my government has demonstrated time and again that we seek two states for two peoples, living side-by-side in peace.

Prime Minister Netanyahu stood in this hall last month and issued a clear call to President Abbas. Let me reiterate that call today to the Palestinians. Sit down with Israel. Leave your preconditions behind. Start negotiations now.

The international community has called on the Palestinians to go back to negotiations. Israel has accepted the principles outlined by the Quartet to restart negotiations immediately, without preconditions. We are waiting for the Palestinians to do the same.

Mr. President,

The Palestinians suggest that settlements are the core cause of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It’s an interesting assertion considering that our conflict was raging for nearly a half century before a single settlement sprung up in the West Bank. From 1948 until 1967, the West Bank was part of Jordan, and Gaza was part of Egypt. The Arab world did not lift a finger to create a Palestinian state. And it sought Israel’s annihilation when not a single settlement stood anywhere in the West Bank or Gaza.

The issue of settlements will be worked out over the course of negotiations, but the primary obstacle to peace is not settlements. This is a just a pretext for the Palestinians to avoid negotiations. The primary obstacle to peace is the Arab world’s refusal to acknowledge the Jewish people’s ancient connection to the Land of Israel – and the Palestinian’s insistence on the so-called right of return.

Today the Palestinian leadership is calling for an independent Palestinian state, but insists that its people return to the Jewish state. It’s a proposition that no one who believes in the right of Israel to exist could accept because the only equation in political science with mathematical certainty is that the so-called right of return equals the destruction of the State of Israel. The idea that Israel will be flooded with millions of Palestinians is a non-starter. The international community knows it. The Palestinian leadership knows it. But the Palestinian people aren’t hearing it. This gap between perception and reality is the major obstacle to peace. The so-called right of return is the major hurdle to achieving peace.

Since the Palestinian leadership refuses to tell the Palestinian people the truth, the international community has a responsibility to tell the Palestinian people about the basic compromises that they will have to make.

Mr. President,

The many issues that remain outstanding can only – and will only – be resolved in direct negotiations between the parties. Israel’s peace with Egypt was negotiated, not imposed. Our peace with Jordan was negotiated, not imposed. Israeli-Palestinian peace must be negotiated. It cannot be imposed. The Palestinians’ unilateral action at the United Nations is no path to real statehood. It is a march of folly.

Today the Palestinians are far from meeting the basic criteria for statehood, including the test of effective control. The President of the Palestinian Authority has zero authority in the Gaza Strip. Before flying 9,000 kilometers to New York to seek UN membership, President Abbas should have driven 50 kilometers to Gaza, where he has been unable to visit since 2007.

In the same breath that they claim their state will be “peace-loving”, Palestinian leaders speak of their unity with Hamas, an internationally recognized terrorist organization. Hamas and “peace-loving”? There is no greater contradiction in terms. This month, on a fundraising excursion for terrorism with his Iranian patrons, Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh stood in front of an audience in Tehran and said, “the correct strategy to liberate our country and Jerusalem is violent resistance.”

Under Hamas rule, Gaza remains a launching ground for constant rocket attacks targeting Israeli civilians, which are fueled by the continuous flow of weapons from Iran and elsewhere. Israel has the right to defend itself. As the Palmer report made clear, the naval blockade is a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea.

When it is not attacking Israelis, Hamas is oppressing its own people. In Gaza, civil society is nonexistent, political opponents are tortured, women are subjugated, and children are used as suicide bombers and human shields. Textbooks and television glorify martyrdom and demonize Jews. Incitement against Israelis also continues in the West Bank and in the official institutions of the Palestinian Authority, which names its public squares after suicide bombers.

The unresolved questions about a future Palestinian state cannot be simply swept under the carpet. They go to the core of resolving our conflict. They have to be addressed. Let me be clear: for Israel, the question is not whether we can accept a Palestinian state. We can. The question is what will be the character of the state that emerges alongside us and whether it will live in peace.

Mr. President,

The Palestinians’ unilateral action at the UN breaches the Oslo Accords, the Interim Agreement, the Paris Protocol and other bilateral agreements that form the basis for 40 spheres of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation – all of which could be jeopardized by a unilateral action at the UN. This unilateral initiative will raise expectations that cannot be met. It is a recipe for instability and potentially, violence. Members of the international community should be clear about their responsibilities:  You vote for it, you own it. All those who vote for unilateral recognition will be responsible for its consequences.

At this critical juncture, the Palestinians’ true friends will encourage them to put aside the false idol of unilateralism and get back to the hard work of direct negotiations.

Speaking of friends, the many so-called Arab champions of the Palestinian cause have a responsibility to play a constructive role. Constructive support from the Arab world is vital for building the civic and economic structures necessary for real Palestinian statehood and peace. Instead of simply adding to the chorus of state-bashing, the Palestinians true supporters will help advance state-building.

Arab donors provided just 20 percent of the international funds for the Palestinian Authority’s regular budget last year. Let me put this in perspective: last year, Arab donations to the regular PA budget accounted for a little more than half of what Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin-Talal spent on his newest personal luxury jet. People in Washington, London, and Paris are struggling with an economic downturn, but still providing the bulk of support for Palestinian institutions, while Arab states saturated in petrol dollars don’t even give the Palestinians crumbs off the table.

Mr. President,

In the Jewish tradition, we are taught: “Whosoever saves a single life, saves an entire universe.” This sacred principle forms the backbone of Israel’s democracy. It drives our government’s policy. We witnessed a clear reflection of these values last week – as all of Israel welcomed home our kidnapped soldier, Gilad Shalit, after more than five years in Hamas captivity. It was a moment of great joy, but it came with tremendous costs.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Secretary-General personally and some of the countries represented here today that played an important role in the release of Gilad Shalit.

For us, the supreme value of a single human life justified releasing more than a thousand terrorists and criminals covered in the blood of innocents.

The values inherent in such an act shine bright in our region. Many took note. On Twitter, one Syrian blogger, Soori Madsoos, wrote “Their government is prepared to pay the ultimate price for one citizen, while our government kills us like we are animals and our Arab neighbors say that it’s an internal matter.” Time and again, Israel has shown that it is ready and able to make bold and courageous decisions to preserve life, to uphold human dignity and to pursue peace.

Mr. President,

Sustainable peace must be negotiated. It must be nurtured. It must be anchored in security. It must take root in homes, schools and media that teach tolerance and understanding, so that it can grow in hearts and minds. It must be built on a foundation of younger generations that understand the compromises necessary for peace. A brighter future in the Middle East must be forged from within, when we are open and honest about the challenges before us – and resolute in our determination to meet them together.

Thank you.

BBC, Panetta, Israel and the blame game

07/10/2011 / / 0 Comments

Good ol’ Beeb are at it again.

It seems even the most simple message is spun against Israel, lacks context and distorts intentions.

This was the headline in an article posted earlier this week:

Israel risks Middle East isolation, warns US official

The BBC News website has long touted lies and half-truths which have become accepted ‘facts’.

Israel is becoming increasingly isolated in the Middle East, US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta has warned.

Didn’t anyone notice that, apart from Turkey, it has always been isolated despite two cold peace treaties. ‘Isolated’ should really be ‘threatened’, but no-one will say that. It’s not diplomatic. So they have to put the blame on Israel.

US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta did, indeed, say this but here is what he said verbatim:

“It’s pretty clear that this dramatic time in the Middle East, where there have been so many changes, that it is not a good situation for Israel to become increasingly isolated, and that’s what’s happening,” Mr Panetta told journalists aboard a US Air Force plane en route to the Middle East

As reported later in the article. But the BBC has to editorialise, of course.

He said Israel should restart peace talks with the Palestinians and restore good relations with Turkey and Egypt.

Can you see what they did there? The verbatim quote states a fact and provides the reason for this isolation; the BBC spin on this puts the entire onus on Israel to initiate diplomatic procedures.

But what is the reality?

1. He said Israel should restart peace talks with the Palestinians

Yes, and Israel has repeatedly stated that they are willing to negotiate without preconditions. Prime Minister Netanyahu said so at the UN. It is the Palestinians who are refusing to talk because they want Israel to  stop building settlements, the convenient excuse provided to them by the same President Obama who came out, at last, (nothing to do with re-election, of course) on Israel’s side on the question of a Palestinian unilateral declaration of statehood at the UN last month.

But wait, the BBC acknowledges…

Israel has agreed to participate in such talks, but the Palestinians want Israel to stop building more homes for settlers in the occupied territories.

Israel announced last week it planned to build 1,100 more homes in a settlement in occupied East Jerusalem

So it is Israel’s fault because they are building homes. In fact the ‘settlement’ in question is Gilo which is a contiguous suburb of Jerusalem and would remain part of Israel in any final settlement agreement. Everyone knows that.

In fact there have been no new settlements, just additions to existing ones. And, as I have always wondered, if Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas genuinely believes that settlements will one day be part of Palestine, then surely Israel is building his future state for him. The whole idea of settlements, love ’em or hate ’em, is a complete red herring which was never an impediment to ‘peace talks’ previously.

It’s also a convenient one – for the Palestinians. If Israel were indeed to stop building, why should we believe that Abbas won’t do what he did last time; Israel had a 10 month moratorium on settlement building on the West Bank (but not Jerusalem, granted) and in the 9th month Abbas said he would agree to talks only if that moratorium were extended.

So who’s stopping the talks? You judge.

The argument is ‘how can we negotiate with someone who is building on our land?’ But the point of the negotiations is to decide whose land it is. And wouldn’t you want to negotiate sooner rather than later if you believe that ‘facts on the ground’ are being changed.

2. …and restore good relations with Turkey

I have dealt with Turkey on previous occasions. Turkey wants Israel to apologise for the deaths aboard the Mavi Marmara, pay compensation to the families of the IHH terrorists  who tried to lynch Israeli soldiers, and lift the maritime blockade of Gaza. Only then will Turkey restore relations with Israel.

So not only does Turkey want Israel to apologise for its soldiers’ attempt to save their own lives, they also want Israel to commit suicide by allowing Iranian missiles free passage to Gaza.

And Turkish Prime Minister Recep Erdogan continues to try bully Israel and provoke Israel into an action which will provide him with his apparently sought-after military conflict.

So it is Israel, then,  according to the BBC spin, that must mend the fences with a country which not only severely downgrades diplomatic, military and economic co-operation but does so because it, Turkey, failed to protect its then ally, Israel, from assault by its citizens planning to break a legal maritime blockade (Palmer Report conclusion).

With friends like this…

3. … restore good relations with … Egypt.

Eh? Who’s responsible for this cooling of relations then?

Was it Israel who allowed the gas pipeline from Egypt to Israel to be blown up six times?

Was it an Israeli politician who said that the treaty between the two countries is not necessarily valid for all time?

Was it Israelis who attacked Egypt’s embassy and almost lynched six Egyptian nationals?

Was it Israel who allowed its citizens to carry out a terrorist attack near a southern Egyptian town?

Was it Israel who childishly prevented the sale of palm leaves for a religious festival (subsequently sourced from Gaza, ironically)?

Who is it that has Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elder of Zion freely available, widely read and almost universally believed?

However Panetta did say:

As they take risks for peace, we will be able to provide the security that they will need in order to ensure that they can have the room hopefully to negotiate

Now that could be read as putting the onus on Israel. I read this as an Obama-ese way of saying “If you halt settlement building, we’ll ensure the security of the state post final settlement agreement”. The ‘how’ is moot.

It could mean, as the BBC spins it:

Mr Panetta said the US would make sure Israel maintained its military superiority in the region, but should use this advantage to press for peace.

It is rather ignorant to believe that military superiority will stop missiles and suicide bombers.

So it’s Israel who should make the first move, right? Israel has to make the concessions whilst it is obvious to anyone of any intelligence that the Palestinians just want one concession from Israel: Israel.

As long as that does not change, Israel will have no security and every concession strips it of another layer of protection.

Who’s more isolated – Turkey or Israel?

28/09/2011 / / 0 Comments

This week we witnessed Mahmoud Abbas presenting his bid for recognition of a state of Palestine  to the United Nations General Assembly.

We heard the rapturous applause he received entering the UNGA.

We heard the rather less rapturous greeting received by Israel Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu whose few supporters in the UNGA tried desperately to raise the decibels of applause.

It was clear that whatever the outcome of the Palestinian bid, there is no doubt it was a PR success for Abbas and has highlighted Israel’s growing isolation.

So let’s first look at Israel’s standing in the popularity stakes versus Turkey’s; once good friends, now anything but.

Israel’s support from the US was bolstered by President Obama’s speech where he signalled his country’s intention to use the veto in the UN Security Council, if necessary and a strong affirmation of the need to settle the conflict via negotiations. Canada has also come out strongly on Israel’s side.

The Europeans are fence-sitting, but Spain’s unexpected declaration confirming Israel as the Jewish national home was a welcome plus for Israel.

The UK is waiting to make its decision in the UNSC but will probably abstain whilst making the usual noises about Israel’s right to security. Other European countries, including France, have made similar declarations.

Any vote in the UNGA to enhance the Palestinian status from observer to non-member state will clearly demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of UN member states recognise the State of Palestine.

In short, the UN shennanigans of the PLO have further highighted Israel’s isolation and its reliance on the USA.

Recently, in Egypt, as a result of the Arab Spring, the long-standing peace agreement with Israel, a legally binding agreement, has been questioned. The pipeline which provides Israel with 20% of its gas has been blown up for a sixth time.

A terror attack near Eilat a few weeks ago was launched via Egypt and some of the participants may have been Egyptian. The subsequent tragic death of Eagyptian border police during the Israeli pursuit of the murderers of eight innocent people further enflamed sentiments in Egypt.

The attack on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo which almost resulted in the lynching of six Israeli security officers has emphasised an undercurrent of anti-Israel anti-Jewish sentiment in Egypt which is bubbling to the surface as new freedoms materialise.

Egypt will not even sell palm leaves to Israel for the Succot festival which comes immediately after Yom Kippur. A mean and childish act which pretty much tells you what ‘Cold Peace’ means.

In Jordan, King Abdullah appears to be keen to bolster his popularity in a country which is 80% Palestinian and whose people are also making noises about their own peace treaty with Israel.

And, most importantly, Israel’s long-standing friendship with Turkey is not only in ruins, but Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is pursuing a series of belligerent measure against Israel politically, economically, juridically and militarily.

Turkey’s actions are ostensibly in response to Israel’s refusal to apologise to Turkey for the death of nine Turkish passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara when Israel intercepted their boat in order to enforce its blockade of Gaza. But relations have been cooling for some time. The national affront which Turkey cites as its reasons for punishing Israel may be covering its drift away from Ataturk secularism toward a form of democratic Islamism.

However, Israel’s loss of Turkish friendship may have released it to forge other friendships which highlight Turkey’s growing isolation.

On the principal, it seems, that my enemy’s enemy is my friend, Greece, a country not previously known for its affection for Israel, has strengthened ties.

The forty-year-old festering European sore that is the division of Cyprus, which somehow remains firmly under the world’s radar, is an important issue for Greece and Turkey.

Israel has signed agreements with the (Greek) Cypriot’s to co-operate on gas exploration in the Eastern Mediterranean, angering the Turks who have made more belligerent noises about Turkish Cypriot rights to the potential bonanza in the seeming belief that only Turkey has any rights in this field.

Israel’s gas exploration is at a juncture of Lebanese, Israeli and Cypriot waters which Lebanon is disputing and Turkey, naturally, supports Lebanon’s position against Israel.

Israel has also been active in the new state of South Sudan quickly establishing diplomatic and commercial ties.

In West Africa there is a surprising rapprochement with Nigeria, a country with a large Muslim population and sectarian divisions.

Israel is a major trade partner with Turkey’s neighbour Armenia and has recently supported moves for recognition of the Armenian genocide, a move which Turkey cannot be expected to approve given its 100 yer denial of  being the perpetrator of that genocide. Israel’s break in relations with Turkey have released it from the fear of causing offence to its former friend.

Moves by Prime Minister Erdogan to pressurise Azerbaijan to cut ties with Israel have, so far, not succeeded. Azerbaijan is an important link in the oil pipeline to Israel. Any moves to cut off that oil would be in contravention of international law and would have to be seen as an Act of War by Israel if Turkey should pursue that particular enterprise.

Israel remains one of only two countries whose citizens do not require visas to visit Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile the perceived thuggishness of Erdogan and his attempted bullying of Israel have done him no favours.

He has threatened the EU should Cyprus take the chair of the EU next year; a somewhat hollow threat coming from a country which still has plans to join the EU.

Turkey’s relationship with Iran is strained as both vie for power in the region and disagree about policy toward President Assad in Syria.

Recently, Turkey agreed to the placing of a NATO radar system as part of the West’s defence against, presumably, Iran furthering that country’s suspicions of its neighbour.

Erdogan’s visit to Egypt had a mixed reception once he berated them about democracy.

Turkey’s new policy to actively patrol the Eastern Mediterranean will send warning signs to Greece and Cyprus as well as Israel. The UK and Italy may also be nervous.

Incidents at the UN between Erdogan’s body guards and UN security as well as an attempted attack on Erdogan by an unknown assailant have all shored up the impression of his being part Mafioso part head of state.

So Turkey still has one foot in the West and one in the East and is playing the game well to the extent that the US and NATO seem unfazed by Turkey’s belligerence toward Israel and have asked the two countries to patch up their disagreement.

The US has agreed to drone sales to Turkey to replace its Israeli ones and NATO is shtum when it comes to the problematical membership of a country which has ties with Islamist regimes inimical to NATO.

But how many real friends does Turkey now have? Not Syria, not Iran, not Israel or Greece. If it carries on it will soon alert the Europeans and the US to pressurise it further to tone things down.

Turkey’s new-found nationalist pride which presents itself in the form of sabre-rattling and muscle-flexing on the international scene is a direct result of America’s and Europe’s perceived weakening due to financial disasters, low growth, potential inflation and increasing civil unrest. And you can add to that two pretty disastrous excursions in Iraw and Afghanistam which make further military adventures improbable.

Countries like Turkey and Iran sense a growing power vacuum and are testing the waters, literally, to see how far they can push before they meet resistance.

Any economic recovery in America and Europe would be a severe blow to countries waiting in the wings to pick the bones of Europe and the USA.

If Turkey sullies its good relations with Russia by trying to punch above its weight, then isolation would become a reality. However, recent commercial deals and mutual interests in the Caucasus make this a remote possibility. Nevertheless, Russia has sent warships to the Eastern Mediterranean to protect Cypriot gas exploration. Turkey will not want to confront Russia.

Turkey also has problems with Kurdish separatists, the PKK, and tensions with Iran or even Iraq could be problematical.

Turkey is in a unique position geographically and is seen and behaves as a conduit between the West and the Muslim world.

But if you judge each country by its real friends (whatever friend means in international relations) then it’s pretty even between Israel and Turkey.

It is a tragedy that a great country like Turkey seems to be determined to make waves in the Mediterranean as well in diplomatic circles rather than nurturing its ties with Israel, mending fences and performing an important role as a bridge between the West and the Islamic world.

Erdogan’s behaviour is anything but statesmanlike. His recent speech in the UN stating that Israel is still trading off the Holocaust as well as claims that Israel has killed hundreds of thousands of Palestinians place him as borderline antisemitic.

Although he may be a hero to those who like bashing Israel, to the rest of the world he is a dangerous man who could light the fuse of a new war in the Middle East.

It will be interesting to see how the two countries fare over the coming months as things develop in the Middle East, Europe and in the USA where President Obama’s hoped for second term looks to be in serious trouble.

Are we are seeing the beginning of a new polarised alignment of powers as the former hegemonies of the US and Europe are diluted?

A period of dangerous instability with Israel at the epicentre may be upon us.

“Mourning Under Glass” A book by Dr Naftali Moses

27/09/2011 / / 0 Comments

I was honoured to receive an email from Dr Naftali Moses who lost is firstborn son Avraham David in the attack on Mercaz HaRav in 2008.

Naftali writes about his book, “Mourning Under Glass“.
Nothing can prepare one for the loss of a child. Nothing can prepare a parent to hear the news of a terror attack and slowly discover that his son is among the eight shot down in cold blood. Nothing can prepare a father for the heartrending pain that burying his firstborn son brings. On March 6, 2008, my sixteen-year-old 
son, Avraham David, was killed while studying in the Mercaz HaRav library in Jerusalem. On that day my life changed forever.

In the first year of mourning my son, I often felt torn between the intimacy of loss and its public expression. In one tragic moment, my son had become a “martyr,” and I, a “bereaved parent.” Having already buried his body, I worried how I could ever preserve his memory under the frequently too-bright lights of public attention. Mourning Under Glass explores the tensions between memory and memorial, between private pain and public mourning. Can any of our attempts at memorial adequately recall an extinguished life? Can any give voice to the nearly ineffable pain of loss?


Dr Moses website is here:

www.tragic-death.com

He will be presenting at Limmud this year.

 

Palestinian Recognition at the UN? What about Israel’s?

21/09/2011 / / 1 Comment

It is a little-known fact that of all the nations with full member status of the United Nations, Israel alone is singled out for special treatment.

In a damning report from the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Alan Baker describes an intolerable situation whereby Israel is treated like no other state at the UN and is effectively denied equal rights to membership of several UN bodies the chief cause being the built-in anti-Israel majority in these bodies, populated as they are, by several nations with appalling human rights violations.

Baker tells us that it is:

the most elementary and basic right of all states: to be regarded and accepted, and to conduct itself vis-à-vis other states on the basis of full equality

And that:

During the initial drafting of the Charter of the United Nations, the expert in jurisprudence Hans Kelsen, in an article in the 1944 Yale Law Journal, makes reference to the Moscow Declaration of October 1943 in which the governments of the United States, the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, and China jointly declared that they recognized “the necessity of establishing at the earliest practicable date a general international organization, based on the principle of sovereign equality of all peace-loving States and open to membership by all such States, large and small for the maintenance of international peace and security.

It is interesting to note how the concept of ‘peace-loving’ was a prerequisite of membership and how a significant number of current UN members are anything but. Furthermore, there appears to be no mechanism or will to expel member states that fail to meet that criterion, as ill-defined as it is.

So, under international law, Israel has complete equality with all and any other state. This refers to ‘juridical equality’ and enshrines the important concept that states, by use of their economic or military power cannot make claim to special rights and privileges that are not afforded equally to all states, be it Palau or Russia, Montenegro or China. Like citizens of a democracy, each state is subject to the same treatment before the law, that is international law, without exception.

In theory, at least.

This right is a fundamental principle of the UN charter itself.

Baker goes on to tell us that these rights were given further clarification in 1970:

All States enjoy sovereign equality. They have equal rights and duties and are equal members of the international community, notwithstanding differences of an economic, social, political or other nature.

In particular, sovereign equality includes the following elements:

(a) States are judicially equal;
(b) Each State enjoys the rights inherent in full sovereignty;
(c) Each State has the duty to respect the personality of other States;
(d) The territorial integrity and political independence of the State are inviolable;
(e) Each State has the right freely to choose and develop its political, social, economic and cultural systems;
(f) Each State has the duty to comply fully and in good faith with its international obligations and to live in peace with other States.

It does not take too much head searching to realise these noble concepts are observed more in the breach by a large number of states.

We are then told by Baker that these rights are clearly only ‘theoretical’ and that the UN itself does not treat all states as equal, despite its own charter.

And can you guess the principle, indeed, unique recipient of this unequal treatment?

Israel.

in Israel’s case where the assumptions inherent in sovereign equality –

judicial equality, equality of voting, equality in participation in all UN activities and processes, and equality in membership in all fora – break down and leave Israel isolated and discriminated against.

How is this discrimination achieved and how and why is it allowed to continue?

Baker refers us to the Regional Group System which underpins much of the UN’s work which was designed, ironically, to give ‘equitable geographical representation’.

The regional group system has become the central mechanism for the representation and participation of UN Members in the UN system. Membership of a regional group is the only way full participation in the  work of the UN system can be ensured.

So exclusion from your regional group means exclusion from the major organs of the UN and international representation.

Israel, being geographically in a group dominated by enemies and Islamic countries never manages to have a representative elected. This is because these groups have autonomy and exclude Israel in contravention of the principles of the UN, whilst some of the most putrid and criminal nations on earth have representation.

Since Israel is excluded from its geographical regional group – the Asian Group (by vote of the Arab and Muslim members of that group) – and is not accepted as a full member in the Western European and Others Group, and does not enjoy any other special or ex-officio position in the United Nations, Israel is, to all intents and purposes, denied its Charter-guaranteed equality.

(my emphasis)

This has serious consequences:

In such a situation Israel can never put up its candidacy for membership of the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, or the other major UN organs such as the International Court of Justice, it is denied any chance of having its jurists chosen as candidates for the major juridical institutions, tribunals, and courts within the UN system, and it cannot participate in consultations between states, organized within the regional group system, to determine positions and voting on issues, resolutions, and other matters.

Even world-renowned experts are denied a voice. The UN itself has recognised this anomaly. The Secretary General stated in 1998:

Israel could do much more for the United Nations were it not for a significant obstacle:

its status as the only Member State that is not a member of a regional group, which is the basis of  participation in many United Nations bodies and activities

Israel cannot sit on the Security Council – the only nation thus excluded. Similarly, membership of International Court of Justice is also denied.

The attempts to have Israel to be part of another regional group have not met with any great success. Nor does there appear to be any remedy for this anomaly.

What is even more ridiculous is the thought that if a state of Palestine were given full membership it would be afforded the rights denied to Israel.

This isolation is not confined to the UN.

This filters down through the BDS campaign to exclude Israeli goods, academics and even performing artists from international forums and events.

When it comes to soccer, Israel has to qualify in the European groups because FIFA never had the guts to exclude nations who would refuse to play Israel or include it in the Asian associations. At club level, Israeli teams have to play in the European Championship and Europa Cup.

Iranians refuse to compete against Israelis in the Olympics or to acknowledge them on the same podium.

Two year ago Shachar Peer was denied entry to Qatar to play in a tennis tournament.

Israel is truly the Jew among the nations of the world yet many of those opposing this tiny country and the Jewish nation continue their absurd and antisemitic claims of Jewish world hegemony, financial power and malign conspiracies.

And all this whilst Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe, Libya, Syria, Burma, China, Somalia, Yemen and any number of tyrannical serial human rights abusers suffer no such treatment.

It is surprising that Israel does not do more to find its voice at the highest levels of international discourse.

Its exclusion is a disgrace and diminishes the UN and its many organs to mouthpieces of hypocrisy, antisemitism and genocide.

Before you vote for Palestinian statehood read this

15/09/2011 / / 0 Comments

This is a cross post with gracious permission from Elder of Ziyon 

Let there be no doubt about the true intention of the Palestinian statehood bid after this. [RC]

**********************************************************************************

Palestinian Arab “refugees” wouldn’t be citizens of “Palestine” – even if they live there!

Did you think that 63 years of Arabs using the “refugees” as political pawns would end if there was a Palestinian Arab state?

If you want to know the depths of cynicism of the Palestinian Arab leadership towards their people, you must read this article in The Daily Star Lebanon:

Palestinian refugees will not become citizens of a new Palestinian state, according to Palestine’s ambassador to Lebanon.

From behind a desk topped by a miniature model of Palestine’s hoped-for blue United Nations chair, Ambassador Abdullah Abdullah spoke to The Daily Star Wednesday about Palestine’s upcoming bid for U.N. statehood.

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Let’s read that again, shall we?

“Even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

People who live in camps in their own state would be barred, by their own leaders, from becoming citizens of that very state!

Why? Because, to Palestinian Arab leaders, the “refugees” are not an oppressed group who must be helped. They are human weapons in a never ending war against Israel. Giving them citizenship removes their status as weapons.

The most important issue to the Palestinian Arab leadership is not to end the suffering of their people, or achieving independence. It is to destroy Israel, using the nonexistent “right of return.” Nothing could be more obvious – yet most of the world refuses to believe that Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies could possibly be so indescribably cruel and callous to their own people.

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.

Neither this definitional status nor U.N. statehood, Abdullah says, would affect the eventual return of refugees to Palestine. “How the issue of the right of return will be solved I don’t know, it’s too early [to say], but it is a sacred right that has to be dealt with and solved [with] the acceptance of all.” He says statehood “will never affect the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”

The right of return that Abdullah says is to be negotiated would not only apply to those Palestinians whose origins are within the 1967 borders of the state, he adds. “The state is the 1967 borders, but the refugees are not only from the 1967 borders. The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

And make it easier for Palestinian Arabs to achieve their real goal – the end of the Jewish state.

For 63 years, three generations of Palestinian Arabs are being brought up being told that they must return to a non-existent state that their ancestors came from, and nothing else is acceptable. And the potential establishment of a Palestinian Arab state would ironically make their wishes to become citizens even more remote.

If there is to be a Palestinian Arab uprising, it should be against leaders like these who are happy to tell their own people to stay in hell – and to be happy about it.

 

 

Apartheid and ethnic cleansing the Palestinian way

14/09/2011 / / 2 Comments

In an announcement that gives hypocrisy a good name, the Palestine Liberation Organisaiton ambassador to the United States announced yesterday, as reported by USA Today:

that any future Palestinian state it seeks with help from the United Nations and the United States should be free of Jews…

After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated

So opined Maen Areikat without an ounce of irony. He played it with a straight bat.

It must be true that the very best bigots are so unaware of their own bigotry that they can let drop statements like this with complete sang froid.

Such statements would be common currency in Apartheid South Africa or the Deep South of the United States in the heyday of Jim Crow.

It’s not that we hate and have spent 100 years trying to annihilate the Jews, it’s just that the very sight of them in a Free Palestine might freak the children.

Yet it is Israel that is constantly accused of being Apartheid and racist, claims which are demonstrably false. The perpetrators of this lie point to the Israeli-only roads on the West Bank, the ‘Apartheid Wall’. They don’t mention the complete equality under law of all Israeli citizens or the fact that West Bank Arabs are not Israeli citizens and the West Bank has never been annexed.

Now, as I have frequently written, I am not a fan of settlements. I do favour land swaps for Israeli towns along the Green Line that are contiguous with Israel.

I am well aware that there are ‘frictions’, that some settlers behave abominably, that acts of vandalism occur, that the Palestinians are an inconvenient reality to many Israelis and that their are restrictions and, yes, abuses of human rights.

I am also aware that the separation is necessary because of security but that the status quo is not supportable and cannot go on forever.

So when it comes to a Palestinian state, I support two states living side by side with mutual respect and co-operation. But we ain’t there yet.

But let’s go back to Mr Areikat:

it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated

Is this not what was proposed in 1947? Have not similar statements from Israelis when speaking of land swaps and voluntary transfer invoked howls of ‘racists’, ‘Apartheid’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’?

But look at what is being proposed: a Palestinian state without a single Jew and a Jewish state with 20% non-Jews.

And what’s more, the creation of a Palestinian state would not end the claims for a Right of Return for several million Arabs to live in Israel.

If the Palestinians can ethically cleanse their land of Jews, why not the Israelis of Arabs? Of course, they have no such intention.

As Oren Dorell in the USA Today article goes on to tell us:

Such a state would be the first to officially prohibit Jews or any other faith since Nazi Germany, which sought a country that was judenrein, or cleansed of Jews, said Elliott Abrams, a former U.S. National Security Council official.

Israel has 1.3 million Muslims who are Israeli citizens. Jews have lived in “Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name for the West Bank, for thousands of years. Areikat said the PLO seeks a secular state, but that Palestinians need separation to work on their own national identity.

‘Work on their own national identity’? What does that mean. Maybe Israel had to work on its national identity in 1948, then. How can it be right to perpetrate the very acts that the Palestinians and the world at large has been accusing Israel of for the last 63 years?

This is not just double-standards it’s moral bankruptcy, racism and anti-Semitism masquerading as nationalism. Now where have we hard that before? I think Elliott Abrams in the quote above will give you are clue.

I really cannot wait to see the far Left’s reactions and justifications for a judenrein Palestine. I bet there’ll be some good’uns.

And all this in the context of the Palestinian Authority’s bid for recognition this month in the UN General Assembly.

One should also recall that the PLO was formed in 1964 before Israel’s ‘occupation’. So what was it trying to liberate? Answer: Israel. Then as now the intention of the PLO, Hamas and Fatah has been to eliminate Israel.

Today the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced the UK was pulling out of Durban III, a modern-day pogrom without physical casualties. A UN sponsored human rights conference starring Iran’s Ahmadinejad and a bevvy of hate-spitting human rights abusers who want to tell the world that it is Israel, not they who are racists.

So Cameron’s action sounds good, but it could be the good news before the bad news.

The bad news may be that the UK will decide to support the bid for Palestinian statehood. See Melanie Phillips for her analysis of the government position and why the bid is anti-peace.

HMG have frequently asserted that the UK will not take sides and make up its mind when it sees the context of the bid.

But the UK should take sides.

How can a democratic country support the creation of a terrorist racist state next door to its supposed ally?

The answer is fairly simple: realpolitik. The conflict is like a wound that won’t heal. The world wants to get rid of it at any cost, including the cost of Israel. There is a demented belief that the Israel-Palestine conflict is the linchpin to securing better relations with the Arab and Muslim world.

To enable themselves to agree to such a monstrosity the UK and other Western governments have to believe their own rhetoric; they must paint the Palestinians as victims who deserve an end to their suffering. Israel is the aggressor and a stubborn one. So Accords and agreements and UN resolutions which are always used to beat Israel with can now be thrown on to the garbage heap, airbrushed from history, because the Palestinians want a state without negotiating one.

The fact that the PA admits that this is just a tactic, a first step on the road to the annihilation of Israel is dismissed or ignored. The fact that Hamas doesn’t want a state, because that might mean giving up claims to Israel, passes them by. The fact that Hamas and the PA are not unified is also ignored. The fact that they want a judenrein Palestine because, poor dears, the sight of a Jew will retard their ability to form a national identity is accepted.

They will not have a state at the end of the process. They will have a propaganda victory. But worse, those amongst them for whom international law and the UN GA is somewhat of a mystery will conveniently claim that they now have a clear UN mandate to expel the Jews from their country, Palestine, even though no such country will exist any more than it does now. The result will be disastrous.

All this stunt will do is cause more killing and suffering. But that’s OK for the Palestinians and their supporters; the more they are killed the more they suffer, the more they can claim victim-hood and go with their bleeding hearts to the International Court of Justice (which their new status may allow) with pictures of dead babies and take out lawsuits against the Jewish ‘settlers’.

Israel will be further isolated and made a pariah.

Israel will truly be the Jew among states. Or maybe now I should say ‘Palestinian’.

 

Flotilla II – The Audacity of Hype

28/06/2011 / / 0 Comments

Remember the Flotilla that set sail for Gaza one year ago?

Remember the Mavi Marmara?

Remember the worldwide outrage when the IDF killed 9 IHH members on board?

Israel was accused of piracy on the high-seas and murder.

I wrote about it here here and here.

Well, the flotillaniks are at it again.

So what’s it all about? What are the real objectives of the “Peace Flotilla”?

StandWIthUs have put together extensive information.

First there are Ten Quick Facts

This is elaborated here.

The US State Department issued a statement you can see here.

So what’s my blog title about?

Well, one of the US ships has been named ‘The Audacity of Hope’ mocking President Obama’s book of that name. This venture was trailed as a massive new Flotilla and the Israelis would have problems stopping it this time by sheer weight of numbers.

Yet we find to day that the number of participants will be approximately 300. There were 600 on the Mavi Marmara alone.

So the whole purpose of the flotilla is not humanitarian aid; that lie can easily be countered by the fact that both Egypt and Israel have offered ports where cargo can be checked and aid sent through to Gaza. In any case, Gaza does not need this aid.

The purpose of the Flotilla is to embarrass Israel. It is a blatant provocation.  The organisers are Hamas supporters. They know that if they can break the blockade then it is invalidated and weapons from Iran can pass freely to Hamas. If there is a confrontation, they hope to further their aim to delegitimise the State of Israel and isolate it internationally.

The flotillaniks say that they carry no weapons, yet a report today that is going the rounds of the Twittersphere is that extremists on the flotilla have chemicals aboard and want to kill IDF soldiers.

Here is what the Jerusalem Post reported:

While the organizers of the Gaza-bound flotilla said in Athens Monday that the passengers are taking to sea “without weapons,” government sources said Israel had information that some of the passengers had hid chemicals, such as sulfur, on theboats to be used against IDF soldiers.

This is what Reuters said:

An Israeli military source said Israel had information that some activists were planning to attack soldiers with acid and lethal chemical agents if they boarded the ships.

Dror Feiler, an Israeli participant in the flotilla, denied the allegation in an interview with Israeli Army Radio and said all of the passengers had signed a pledge of non-violence.

And Ha’aretz:

Senior officials in Jerusalem said Monday that Israel has received information that organizers of the Gaza flotilla may be bringing chemical substances on the ships to use against Israeli soldiers to prevent them from boarding the ships.

The senior officials also said that Israel had been notified that several extremists among the Gaza flotilla participants had recently claimed that they intend on “shedding the blood of IDF soldiers.”

Moreover, despite earlier reports, it seems that activists from the Turkish organization IHH, which was involved in the deadly IDF raid on the Mavi Marmara in last year’s Gaza flotilla, will be joining several of the ships sailing for Gaza as part of the flotilla.

Israeli officials claim that two activists participating in the flotilla have connections to Hamas. They named the first one as Amin Abu Rashad, who they claim is one of the head Dutch organizers for the Gaza flotilla and had served in the past as the head of the Hamas’ Charitable Foundation in Holland. The foundation closed down following Dutch authorities’ probe into its involvement in funding terror activities.

The second activist is Mohammed Ahmed Hanon, which Israel claims is a Hamas activist who stands at the head of the ABSPP, which is involved in transferring funds to terrorists.

It remains to be seen whether these reports are well-founded. If they are, then any veneer of peace activism is blown out of the water.

You might also like to see this post from the Elder of Zion about the organisers of this new Love Boat.

There is also a fine article by Ruth Dudley Edwards in the Irish Independent:

Let us be clear. Whether they know it or not, that gaggle of posturing, ignorant Irish clowns who are setting sail towards Gaza on the MV Saoirse are driven by anti-Semitism. Otherwise they would be protesting against — for instance — the Islamist killings and bombings that are forcing tens of thousands of Christians to flee the Middle East, the ethnic cleansing in the Sudan, the ill-treatment of servants and women in Saudi Arabia, the hanging of gays from cranes in Iran, the massacres of protesters in Libya and Syria, the torture of Irish-trained doctors in Bahrain for tending to injured demonstrators and the vicious anti-Jewish propaganda that teaches Arab children to hate.

I also refer you to the Howard Jacobson post I wrote recently.

Meanwhile, we find that in the a UN draft report into last year’s Mavi Marmara incident found that the Israeli maritime blockade was not illegal and they were within their rights to stop the flotilla.

A draft of the report, due to be released within two weeks, was given to Israel and Turkey about six weeks ago. The committee determined that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza is in keeping with international law, and therefore its actions to stop the flotilla were also legal.

This same report states that Israel’s actions were “disproportionate” – that word again. Yes, it’s really disproportionate to make sure you kill someone who is fanatically committed to killing you or to die. But maybe that merits another post at another time. No doubt we’ll soon be looking at second UN Report and another attempted hatchet job on Israel in the coming days.

For the legal aspects also, read this by the Elder which refers to a Zeit Online article.

There has been some interesting attempts on the Israeli side to use lawfare against the ‘Peace Flotilla’ (great name for those who believe language is just another weapon of war – it’s called propaganda, usually).

First marine insurance companies were warned off insuring the boats because if it could be shown they were breaching international law, then they would in effect be liable to be sued by victims of Hamas terrorism:

A human rights group has warned insurance companies that they could be aiding terrorism if they insure ships that break the blockade of Gaza.

Israeli organisation Shurut Hadin has written to almost all major insurance companies worldwide, including Lloyd’s of London, the biggest in the world.

It warns them that they could be liable for massive damages if the ships they insure break Israel’s blockade around Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the founder of the group, explained: “We sent these letters to the largest insurance companies in the world, including Turkish companies, which represent over 99 per cent of the maritime insurance business worldwide. We warned them that, if they insure these ships, they could be sued by victims of Hamas attacks.”

Jewish Chronicle May 19 2011

Then a US citizen invoked a 220 year old law to try to try to seize the US boats intending to take part.

Dr. Alan Bauer, who along with his son Jonathan was seriously wounded in Palestinian Authority Arab suicide bombing attack in Jerusalem in 2002, filed the suit in a federal court in Manhattan. He is represented by Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, director of the Israeli-based Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center) and New York attorney Robert J. Tolchin.

Bauer’s suit seeks to confiscate 14 ships outfitted with funds “unlawfully raised in the United States by anti-Israel groups, including the Free Gaza Movement.” The lawsuit contends that furnishing and outfitting the ships, which are being used for hostilities against a U.S. ally, violates American law.

A Canadian citizen who is a resident of Sderot has taken out a lawsuit against the Flotilla organisers:

Sderot resident and Canadian citizen Cherna Rosenberg has filed a million dollar law suit against two Canadian organizations raising money to sponsor a ship – The Canadian Boat to Gaza – to join the international flotilla to Gaza.

The suit, presented by Toronto barrister and law professor Ed Morgan and New York attorney and former AIPAC executive director Neal Sher to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Monday, argues that the groups, Turtle Island Humanitarian Aid and Alternatives International, both based in Montreal, are part of a chain of conduct that “ultimately leads to the rocket attacks that have traumatized the plaintiff and caused her much suffering and loss.”

The Greeks have waded in with their own attempt to derail the flotilla sailing from Athens:

Ynet has learned that six ships that were meant to take part in the Gaza-bound flotilla are being detained by the port authority and the coast guard in Greece. Senior officials in Jerusalem have confirmed the report.

While the organizers of the maritime convoy claim that more than 1,500 activists are set to take part in the initiative, it now appears that not more than seven ships, carrying 200-500 passengers, will participate in the flotilla.

YNETnews.com 27 Jun 2011 also see the Elder again here about Shurat HaDin’s efforts to scuttle the flotilla..

Of course, the Hamas-huggers are whingeing about all these efforts because they are getting a taste of their own medicine. Too bad!

So, the Peace Flotilla, replete, allegedly, with its chemical weapons and who knows what else, sets off for Gaza, not to build a nation, Palestine, but destroy another, Israel.

How sad. How tragic. How much longer will Palestinians allow themselves to be used as the pawns of Green-Red political posturing?

How much longer will they allow themselves to be sacrificed on the altar of anti-Zionist, Jew-hatred and far Left ideological fantasising.

Audacity of Hope? Or the Morality of the Cesspit?

You decide.

 

UPDATE:

Chas Newkey-Burden (OyVaGoy) has pointed me to his own blog post on this issue.

http://www.oyvagoy.com/2011/06/28/we-want-to-bring-the-soldiers-home-safely/

FURTHER UPDATE:

http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/06/brilliant-lawsuit-to-stop-flotilla.html

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