Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

ElderToons: Where human rights and Muslim sensitivities clash

07/27 Links Pt2: ICC prosecutor won’t reopen flotilla probe; UK's Irreconcilable Policy on Islam

From Ian:

ICC prosecutor says she won’t reopen probe into flotilla deaths

The International Criminal Court will not open another investigation into the deaths of 10 Turkish citizens aboard a Gaza blockade-busting ship in 2010, despite a pretrial chamber ordering the prosecutor earlier this month to reconsider her decision to close her initial probe into the case.
In response, the Israeli Foreign Ministry released a statement, lauding ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda’s decision to appeal the order by a three-judge panel to reconsider her closing of the investigation.
“The ICC never had any business to deal with this event to begin with,” an Israeli official said. “Israel acted out of self-defense according to international law.”
The Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound vessel in May 2010 led to a bloody clash with activists aboard the ship, leaving 10 Turks dead and a number of Israeli soldiers injured.
The incident was initially probed by an Israeli committee headed by jurist Jacob Turkel with the participation of international observers, the Israeli official noted.
There was no official word from the ICC, but a document shared on Twitter and signed by Bensouda, calling for the probe to be closed, seemed to confirm the report. (h/t Yenta Press)

ICC Urges Prosecutor to Stop Appeal on Reopening Flotilla Case

The International Criminal Court called on Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda on Monday to go back on her decision to appeal the reexamination of the IDF's conduct during the raid a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010.
In response to Bensouda's decision to appeal, Israeli officials said that "to start with, there was no place for the court to deal with this issue. Israel acted in self-defense and in accordance with international law."

Douglas Murray: Britain's Irreconcilable Policy on Islam

Two very interesting things happened in Britain over the last two weeks. What makes them more interesting is that they are wholly contradictory.
Abroad, Britain's foreign secretary, Philip Hammond, put his nation's name to the P5+1 agreement with Iran, lifting sanctions against the Islamic Republic, unfreezing its assets, lifting arms controls on the regime and much, much more, all in exchange for having potential oversight -- with permission requested weeks in advance of any inspection -- of the country's nuclear sites. Britain's signature on this deal appears to have been an accepted and acceptable outcome with no significant opposition from any senior political figure of either main political party, and very little objection in the national press.
A few days later, Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, gave his best speech to date on the threat of Islamic extremism at home and abroad. In that speech, the Prime Minister defined the challenge that Islamic extremism poses to Britain's way of life and cohesion as a society. He outlined the problem better than perhaps any other Western leader to date:
"What we are fighting, in Islamist extremism, is an ideology. It is an extreme doctrine. And like any extreme doctrine, it is subversive. At its furthest end, it seeks to destroy nation-states to invent its own barbaric realm. And it often backs violence to achieve this aim... mostly violence against fellow Muslims -- who don't subscribe to its sick worldview. But you don't have to support violence to subscribe to certain intolerant ideas which create a climate in which extremists can flourish. Ideas which are hostile to basic liberal values such as democracy, freedom and sexual equality. Ideas which actively promote discrimination, sectarianism and segregation."
So how does the Prime Minster's domestic speech on extremism fit with the foreign policy goals currently being pursued by the British government? The most straightforward answer is: They don't. Take that lowest rung of what David Cameron rightly sees as an ideological ladder. That is, the ideas which do not pertain to the destruction of whole nation-states but nonetheless demonstrate an extremist mind-set.

New Arab Claim on Susiya: History Begins When Arabs Settled

Even if the claim were valid, it does not mean that Arabs can build without permits, but it would allow them to use the land for agriculture.
Haaretz noted that previous deeds from a century ago are problematic because they do not clearly define land boundaries.
The claim of a document from 1881 is strange because the Jabri family was one of the heads of the city of Hebron, 12 miles away by road. Susiya was not exactly Boardwalk on the Hebron land board; it was not even on the board at all.
The southern Hebron Hills is a barren mountain desert area. A family in Hebron would have no apparent reason to buy or lease land in Susiya.
But if the deed really is true, it exposes the Palestinian Authority as claiming that history begins only when Arabs settle land.
If Arabs wants to start digging into history before the re-establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, then all recorded documents have to be honored.
For example, using 1881 as a starting point, there are dozens of recorded land purchases by Jews of land in such places as Gaza, Gush Etzion and the Silwan Valley in “eastern Jerusalem.”

US caved on requirements for Iranian possible military dimensions reporting

From the WSJ:

An Obama administration assessment of the Iran nuclear deal provided to Congress has led a number of lawmakers to conclude the U.S. and world powers will never get to the bottom of the country's alleged efforts to build an atomic weapon, and that Tehran won't be pressed to fully explain its past.

In a report to Capitol Hill last week, the administration said it was unlikely Iran would admit to having pursued a covert nuclear weapons program, and that such an acknowledgment wasn't critical to verifying Iranian commitments in the future.
Details of the report, which haven't been previously disclosed, indicate the deal reached this month could go ahead even if United Nations inspectors never ascertain conclusively whether Iran pursued a nuclear weapons program—something Tehran has repeatedly denied.

....The documents included classified and unclassified sections on the verification process that will be used to ensure Iran is abiding by the agreement. The package also includes a section on Iran's future nuclear research and development plans.

On Iran's alleged past weapons work, the Obama administration said it concluded: "An Iranian admission of its past nuclear weapons program is unlikely and is not necessary for purposes of verifying commitments going forward," said a copy of the assessment viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

"U.S. confidence on this front is based in large part on what we believe we already know about Iran's past activities," the report said. "The United States has shared with the IAEA the relevant information, and crafted specific measures that will enable inspectors to establish confidence that previously reported Iranian [weaponization] activities are not ongoing."

Omri Ceren of The Israel Project released a quick list (via email) of previous administration promises to ensure that PMDs were fully investigated in any agreement:

-- Wendy Sherman, Undersecretary of State, Dec 12 2013 -- There are three places in the agreement that speak to the possible military dimensions of Iran's program. In the first paragraph, it talks about having the comprehensive agreement address all remaining concerns. That is a reference to their possible military dimensions. It talks about the need to address past and present practices, which is the IAEA terminology for possible military dimensions, including Parchin... So we have had very direct conversations with Iran about all of these. They understand completely the meaning of the words in this agreement, and we intend to support the IAEA in its efforts to deal with possible military dimensions, including Parchin.(http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-113shrg87828/html/CHRG-113shrg87828.htm)

-- Wendy Sherman, Undersecretary of State, Feb 4 2014 -- "We raised possible military dimensions.... in the Joint Plan of Action, we have required that Iran come clean on its past actions as part of any comprehensive agreement in three very critical ways... First... we expect, indeed, Parchin to be resolved.... Secondly, the plan says before the final step, there would be additional steps in the -- in between the initial measure and the final step, including addressing the U.N. Security Council resolutions, which require... dealing with issues of past (ph) concerns."(http://www.shearman.com/~/media/Files/Services/Iran-Sanctions/US-Resources/Joint-Plan-of-Action/4-Feb-2014--Transcript-of-Senate-Foreign-Relations-Committee-Hearing-on-the-Iran-Nuclear-Negotiations-Panel-1.pdf)

-- John Kerry, Secretary of State, April 8 2015 -- "They have to do it. It will be done. If there’s going to be a deal; it will be done."(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/iran-must-disclose-past-nuclear-military-activities-final-deal-says-kerry/)

-- Marie Harf, State spokesperson, April 23, 2015 -- QUESTION: But you can’t say with definitive clarity at this point that, for example, inspectors will be allowed into Parchin? -- MS. HARF: Well, we would find it, I think, very difficult to imagine a JCPA that did not require such access at Parchin. (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/04/240324.htm)

-- John Kirby, State spokesperson, June 17 2015 -- And again, I'd tell you that that interpretation of his comments is incorrect. Let me, if I could, read to you what he actually said to you in your question: 'On something like possible military dimensions' – this is from yesterday – 'the JPOA refers to that and says that it’s got to be addressed in the context of the final product. And that remains true; it has to be. And we have to resolve our questions about it with specificity. Access is very, very critical. It’s always been critical from day one; it remains critical. And we defined that at Lausanne, and those are sorts of fundamental outlines, if you will.' Within that context, there is leeway to define further certain things, but not this one.(http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2015/06/243942.htm)

The western-left today thinks that the Jews are oppressive to Muslims in the Middle East. They believe that Jewish Israelis are brutalizing and ethnically-cleansing the innocent "indigenous" population.

In previous decades the so-called "Palestinian narrative" has taken hold of the western imagination. Within that narrative, vicious and militaristic Jews marched out of Europe and violently displaced the native population in the early-middle of the twentieth-century. Jews pushed "Palestinians" out of their native land where, as "Palestinians," they had been living for many thousand of years. Mahmoud Abbas even laughably claimed that the "Palestinians" have a 9,000 year history on that land. He said, "Oh, Netanyahu, you are incidental in history; we are the people of history. We are the owners of history."

If the "Palestinians" are the "owners of history" it must be a secret history that they keep entirely to themselves. I have never heard of a people with a secret history before! The "Palestinians" have lived on that land for 9,000 years and, yet, somehow, history seems to have passed them by. It is a profound mystery. There are no records of a "Palestinian" state on that land. There are no records of the great "Palestinian" artists or leaders or scientists that thrived in the Land of Palestine for all those thousands of years. Yet the foundation of Arab and western-left hostility toward the Jewish Israelis is the idea that they violently displaced the native population. Jews, we are to understand, are illegally "Occupying" - with the Big O - Judea, a land that belongs to Palestinian-Arabs, not Jews.

There is always a charge against the Jews among westerners in every generation.

Every generation they tell us just why Jewish kids deserve a good beating. In previous generations, of course, we were either guilty of killing Jesus or of giving the world Jesus and are, therefore, responsible for the failings of Christianity. We were sometimes thought of as the heinous agents of greedy capitalism or the heinous agents of totalitarian socialism. And, needless to say, in the early part of the twentieth-century, we were the wrong "race." We were considered inherently, essentially, bad people.

In this generation, however, the charge is that we are mean to Arabs.

There are around six million Jews in Israel and something between three hundred and four hundred million Arab-Muslims surrounding them in the Middle East. For reasons having to do with theocratic bigotry, Muslims in that part of the world traditionally despise the Jews and often teach their children to throw stones at us. Throwing stones at Jews in Israel is not a manifestation, as is often claimed, of righteous push-back against the "Occupation," but is a time-honored tradition within Arab culture, grounded in the rankest form of bigotry and persecution of the despised "other."

It was Caliph Omar Abd al-Azziz, who reigned between 717 and 720 CE, who codified the rules of dhimmi status, sometimes referred to as the Pact of Omar or Covenant of Omar, but which I like to think of as Jim Crow for Jews. The first and foremost rule was the paying of jizya tax and acceptance of the conditions of ahl al-dhimma. In Martin Gilbert's In Ishmael's House, we read:

There could be no building of new synagogues or churches. Dhimmis could not ride horses, but only donkeys; they could not use saddles, but only ride sidesaddle. Further, they could not employ a Muslim. Jews and Christians alike had to wear special hats, cloaks and shoes to mark them out from Muslims. They were even obliged to carry signs on their clothing or to wear types and colors of clothing that would indicate they were not Muslims, while at the same time avoid clothing that had any association with Mohammed and Islam. Most notably, green clothing was forbidden...

Other aspects of dhimmi existence were that Jews - and also Christians - were not to be given Muslim names, were not to prevent anyone from converting to Islam, and were not to be allowed tombs that were higher than those of Muslims. Men could enter public bathhouses only when they wore a special sign around their neck distinguishing them from Muslims, while women could not bathe with Muslim women and had to use separate bathhouses instead. Sexual relations with a Muslim woman were forbidden, as was cursing the Prophet in public - an offense punishable by death.

Under dhimmi rules as they evolved, neither Jews nor Christians could carry guns, build new places of worship or repair old ones without permission,or build any place of worship that was higher than a mosque. A non-Muslim could not inherit anything from a Muslim. A non-Muslim man could not marry a Muslim woman, although a Muslim man could marry a Christian or a Jewish woman.

Martin Gilbert, In Ishmael's House: A History of Jews in Muslim Lands (New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2010) 32 - 33.

The unacknowledged foundation of the conflict is Arab-Muslim Koranically-based bigotry against Jews... we children of orangutans and swine. Were it not for Islam, there would be no conflict. Or, another way of putting it is that if Israel was not a Jewish state, but yet another Muslim state, there would be no conflict based on a supposed need for a "two-state solution." In fact, not only would there be no conflict, there would not even be any "Palestinians." The reason for this is because the designation "Palestinian" only came into being so that Arab-Muslims could make their hysterical claims upon historically Jewish land. The great majority of local Arabs did not consider themselves "Palestinian" until the latter third of the twentieth-century. And some even remain skeptical concerning it to this day.

"Palestinian" does not represent an ethnicity any more than "Saharan" represents an ethnicity or "Californian" represents an ethnicity. If we must use outdated terms, then anyone who lives in Israel - a part of the former British Mandate of Palestine - must be considered a "Palestinian." There are Muslim Palestinians and Jewish Palestinians and Christian Palestinians and Rosicrucian Palestinians and Rastafarian Palestinians and Atheist Palestinians. To claim that only Muslims and Christians can be "Palestinian" would be something akin to claiming that only Rastafarians and Rosicrucians can be "Californians." As someone who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, it sometimes seems as if California is, in fact, run by Rastafarians and Rosicrucians, but no one would ever suggest that only some people can be Californian.

Furthermore, it must be understood that "Palestinian," as an ethnic designation, was artificially constructed or contrived. It did not emerge, as other ethnicities have, organically, but was primarily a creation of Yassir Arafat and the Soviets. Even Rashid Khalidi in Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness only finds the first quiet notions of the idea emerging around the turn into the twentieth-century, but everyone who understands the history of the conflict knows that most "Palestinians" only came to see themselves as "Palestinian" in the 1960s with the creation of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Many would suggest that, contrived or not, "Palestinian" as an ethnic or national designation now exists and that as a matter of general human decency, if not liberal ideology, it must be acknowledged. And, of course, the world has acknowledged the "Palestinians" as a distinct people with a history and with rights. What I fail to understand, however, is just why it is that Jewish people are under any moral or ethical obligation to acknowledge a people who only recently came into existence as a people for the purpose of undermining, and eventually destroying, Jewish national autonomy?

Jews may acknowledge the "Palestinians" or we may not. Jews may negotiate with "Palestinians" or we may not. It may even be in Israel's best interest to both acknowledge and negotiate with "Palestinians" or, maybe not. But just why in this world are we under any sort of ethical obligation to acknowledge a people who only emerged as a people for the sole purpose of destroying Jewish freedom on our own land?

I suppose that I am trying to slam the barn door only after the horses have escaped, but I am one of those who has come to the conclusion that the very biggest mistake that Israel ever made was in acknowledging a distinct "Palestinian" people and, therefore, agreeing to negotiate with their alleged representatives, the PLO terrorist organization. Were it up to me Israel would only agree to negotiations with legitimate state actors. Israel may legitimately negotiate with Iran, but it certainly should not negotiate with the Islamic State (IS), which Barack Obama deceptively refers to as ISIL in order to veil the Islamic nature of the group. And just as Israel should not negotiate with the Islamic State, so it should not negotiate with either Hamas or the Palestinian Authority.

Neither represent legitimate state actors and both are entirely riddled with genocidal anti-Semitism.

As we are seeing with the Iranian bomb situation, Israel can no longer afford to allow itself to be pushed around. People respect those who respect themselves and letting the murderers of Israelis out of Israeli prisons, as a concession to Mahmoud Abbas and Barack Obama, does not suggest self-respect, but its opposite. The only way for Jews to have self-respect, however, is to see through the "Palestinian narrative" for the tissue of lies that it represents. Otherwise both Israeli Jews and diaspora Jews must, by necessity, see themselves as complicit in a terrible crime against the innocent indigenous population.

I recommend against it and history backs us up.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

07/27 Links Pt1: Sharansky: Jews stood up to the US government 40 yrs ago, and should again on Iran

From Ian:

Natan Sharansky: Jews stood up to the U.S. government 40 years ago, and should again on Iran

As difficult as this situation is, however, it is not unprecedented. Jews have been here before, 40 years ago, at a historic juncture no less frightening or fateful than today’s.
In the early 1970s, Republican President Richard Nixon inaugurated his policy of detente with the Soviet Union with an extremely ambitious aim: to end the Cold War by normalizing relations between the two superpowers.
Among the obstacles Nixon faced was the USSR’s refusal to allow on-site inspections of its weapons facilities. Moscow did not want to give up its main advantage, a closed political system that prevented information and people from escaping and prevented prying eyes from looking in.
Yet the Soviet Union, with its very rigid and atrophied economy, badly needed cooperation with the free world, which Nixon was prepared to offer. The problem was that he was not prepared to demand nearly enough from Moscow in return. And so as Nixon moved to grant the Soviet Union most-favored-nation status, and with it the same trade benefits as U.S. allies, Democratic Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington proposed what became a historic amendment, conditioning the removal of sanctions on the Soviet Union’s allowing free emigration for its citizens.
By that time, tens of thousands of Soviet Jews had asked permission to leave for Israel. Jackson’s amendment sought not only to help these people but also and more fundamentally to change the character of detente, linking improved economic relations to behavioral change by the USSR. Without the free movement of people, the senator insisted, there should be no free movement of goods.

Watchdog Says Obama Administration ‘Inventing’ Iran Concessions Under Nuclear Deal

According to TIP, four points in the infographic leave out information from the deal. The first claims that Iran has agreed to use only light-water nuclear reactors indefinitely, aside from the existing heavy-water reactor in Arak. TIP said that this “brand new claim” actually “contradicts past statements by President Obama.”
In the President’s post-Vienna speech he noted, “For at least the next 15 years, Iran will not build any new heavy-water reactors,” and not indefinitely, the group said.
The second concession claimed by the State Department is that Iran agreed not to cooperate with other countries on developing uranium enrichment technologies for 15 years. TIP alleges that this is also a “brand new claim,” and “can’t be true because the JCPOA obligates the Russians to cooperate with Iran on nuclear technology at Iran’s underground enrichment bunker at Fordow.”
The third concession listed in the infographic is that Iran has agreed to let the IAEA monitor the production and stockpiling of all heavy water in Iran. TIP points out that this is not a new concession, and was included under the Lausanne framework agreement, which said, “Iran will not accumulate heavy water in excess of the needs of the modified Arak reactor, and will sell any remaining heavy water on the international market for 15 years.” The JCPOA merely repeats this obligation, according to TIP.
The fourth claim was that Iran had agreed not to develop proficiency in uranium or plutonium metallurgy for at least 15 years, which would prevent it from producing the necessary components for a nuclear weapon. TIP claims that “the Iranians have had that proficiency since at least… 2009.”
One of the State Department-listed concessions was that Iran committed not to “engage in certain activities that could be used to design and develop a nuclear weapon.” The Israel Project acknowledged that this clause was included in the JCPOA, but, the group said, it is “100% unenforceable.” TIP quoted former IAEA official Olli Heinonen as saying that there’s “not really even an inspection procedure for that, I think it’s zero. It’s not even one.”
The State Department fact sheet also included two Iranian concessions that TIP said were “widely expected, and were aimed at fixing glaring and well-known loopholes left in the Lausanne text.”

Then and Now, Leftists Bowed Before Iranian Anti-Semites

Andrew Young, the ambassador to the United Nations under the Carter Administration, said that Khomeini was "a saint, a Social Democrat saint" and compared his revolution in the name of Allah to the American movement for civil rights. The Ambassador to Tehran, William Sullivan, compared the imam to Gandhi. The consultant of Jimmy Carter, Bill James, wrote that Ayatollah had to be admired "as a man of integrity."
Richard Falk, jurist from Princeton and future UN envoy in the Middle East, led the American mission in the suburb of Paris and hailed Khomeini as "a new model of popular revolution based, in large part, on nonviolent tactics". The Iranian expert Richard Cottam in the Washington Post called Khomeini "moderate, centrist", a hermit who was not interested in power. who would, once he defeated the Shah, retire in the holy city of Qom.
The exact opposite is, of course, what happened.
As Houchang Nahavan, former minister of the Shah and author of "Iran, the Clash of Ambitions" said: "Many leftist movements of Europe sent their delegations to the international conference held in Tehran in favor of the operation of the hostages of 4 November 1979." From France, the gay poet Jean Genet, unaware of what the mullahs did to homosexuals, expressed great sympathy for Khomeini because he had dared to oppose the West.
The journalist André Fontaine, director of the Monde, compared Khomeini to John Paul II in an article entitled "The Return of the divine" while the philosopher Jacques Madaule, re-defining the role of Khomeini, said that "his movement will open the doors to the future of humanity", defining Khomeinism as a "clamor from the depths of the times" who refuted "slavery."
Michel Foucault, in the famous articles in the Corriere della Sera and the Nouvel Observateur, was able to commend the impressive achievement of Khomeini as "the first of the Grand insurrection against global systems, the most modern form of revolt". The same Jean-Paul Sartre, guru of the Left, decided to go in person to Tehran to sustain publicly, with a great reinforcement of publicity, the wild-eyed imam.

Today's absurd Amnesty claim against Israel

Amnesty's Gaza Platform keeps revealing more and more bias. Here is their event #2668:

At approximately 08:00 [July 26, 2014], the body of Anwar ‘Abdul Qader Hassan Yousef, 2, was evacuated to the hospital. He died from a heart attack when Israeli forces shelled the vicinity of his family’s home in al-Nussairat refugee camp.

Now, there had been (according to the same tool) well over 50 airstrikes in the same area of the Nusseirat camp by that point. Yet PCHR, and Amnesty, knows for certain that one of the ones from that day caused the child to have a fatal heart attack.

Pediatric sudden cardiac arrest is a real problem that kills thousands of children a year, including - statistically speaking - between 5 and 30 in Gaza children every year.

But Amnesty has a rule that is sacrosanct: if Israel can be blamed, it must be blamed.

Amnesty, hell-bent on demonizing Israel, is planning to release another tool (together with the same haters at Forensics Architecture) this coming Wednesday that claims to document events in Rafah last year following the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier. (received via email)

Amnesty International, will host a press conference in Jerusalem to mark the launch of a new online report, ‘Black Friday’: Carnage in Rafah during the 2014 Israel/Gaza conflict, on Wednesday 29 July 2015. The online report, produced in cooperation with Forensic Architecture, will present cutting edge new analysis featuring photos, videos and satellite imagery to reconstruct the events in Rafah between 1 and 4 August 2014. The report sheds new light on violations of international law committed and the vast level of destruction and killing in the days following ‘Black Friday’ after the capture of Israeli soldier Lieutenant Hadar Goldin. Speakers at the press conference will include spokespeople from Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture.

Based on what we have seen so far from these two organizations, this "cutting edge new analysis " will be another slick interface on top of one-sided, unverifiable and outdated data.

Someone should really ask Amnesty how much money they are pouring into these anti-Israel campaigns, and how many actual lives could have been saved if they decided that, say, Africa is as much of a priority for their "human rights researchers."

The UN lies about international law. What a surprise.

A press release from the UN last Thursday says:

Today, the Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory, Robert Piper, visited Susiya, a Palestinian herding community in Area C in the southern West Bank, where homes and community structures are at imminent threat of demolition. He was accompanied by senior officials from the Governments of Norway, Switzerland and Italy.

...

“The destruction of private property in an occupied territory is prohibited under international humanitarian law. I call on the Israeli authorities to suspend all demolitions of Palestinian structures in Area C and to provide its residents with a planning and permit regime that allows them to meet their needs," he added.

The destruction of private property in occupied territory is permitted in cases of military necessity. But that's not the reason Israel is allowed (and even obligated) to demolish the buildings in Sussiya.

The reason is that under international law, even if you consider Area C to be occupied, the occupier must continue to use existing laws from before the occupation for zoning and the like. In this case, it means that Israel must enforce the zoning laws under Jordanian and British and even Ottoman regimes that were in effect in 1967.

And Israel is doing exactly that.

In fact, a major paper written to oppose Israel's policies in Area C by JLAC, quoted often by Israel-haters, doesn't dispute that Israel follows the original laws - it demands that Israel change those laws, something that would itself violate the Geneva Conventions!

Beyond that, the Oslo Accords gives Israel explicit permission to control land development in Area C.

It is absurd to assert, as the UN does, that anyone under occupation has the right to build anything without limitation and it is protected as "private property."

Moreover, the Israeli Supreme Court, which knows a thing or two about the law, ruled in favor of the demolitions. I have yet to see anyone find a problem in its legal reasoning.

So the UN is lying about international law.

In a normal world, this would be scandalous. But in the bizarre world where anything anti-Israel is OK and anything Israel does is defined as illegal before any legal analysis is done, this is par for the course.

By the way, Israel does allow numerous projects for Arabs in Area C that conform to the law. This booklet details dozens of such projects from 2012 alone.

The Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was signed by Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1995. The agreement divides Judea and Samaria into three sections: A, B and C.

Area A, which includes most of the large Palestinian population centers, is mostly under Palestinian Authority (PA) civil and security control.

Area B is mostly under PA civil control and Israeli security control.

Area C is mostly under Israeli security and civil control, although the PA has authority in civil matters not related to land.

The government of Israel, through the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), promotes development and improved living standards for the Palestinian population in Area C. This population totals some 90,000 people, roughly 3 percent of the Palestinian population in Judea and Samaria.

Israel meets all of its obligations to the Palestinian population in Area C, as required by the Oslo Accords and derived from Israel's security control of the area and her authority over infrastructure, land, and planning.

Beyond the responsibilities designated in the agreements, Israel provides additional assistance to the Palestinians in Area C, in areas such as agriculture and health. Israel also supports projects in Area C that serve all populations in Judea and Samaria, such as waste disposal sites and waste water treatment plants.
...
The statutory process for construction projects in Area C is complex and lengthy, but it is necessary. Proper planning preserves the rights of individuals well as the public interest, especially in regards to the protection of the environment, the use of natural resources and the preservation of archaeological sites. In order for the Civil Administration to approve a project, the plans must undergo this statutory process and adhere to the time frames stipulated in the law.

Many construction projects in Area C are illegal and poorly planned. Such activity damages the environment and creates long-term problems that lower the standard of living for residents. Illegal construction projects that ignore master plans undermine the possibility for future expansions and create problems for electrical, sewage and water systems.

COGAT welcomes initiatives for projects in Area C, and works to ensure their success, but only as long as they adhere to the law. We encourage the international community to continue to work with us so that projects can be executed in a legal and efficient manner.

Furthermore, we call your attention to those projects that the Civil Administration has approved but have not yet been implemented because they do not have a sponsor (see Appendix B). Our shared goal is to continue to secure financing and to develop projects that benefit Palestinians living in Area C.

The Palestinian Legislative Council warned of new policies for UNRWA to reduce refugee services. The PLC considers is "a declaration of war on refugees."

The president of the Council said in a press statement issued on Sunday, "It was clear that the new orientation of UNRWA is serious and worrying".

He continued, "We fear the re-creation of the resettlement project, which the agency tried to implement it at the beginning of the fifties, which was rejected by the Palestinian people with all their might and they still insist on the resistance."

He called on the masses of the Palestinian people everywhere, particularly in the Palestinian refugee camps, to stand united in the face of this plot, to address what he called a "conspiracy."

If you read between the lines, this unnamed official (it could be Hamas' Aziz Duwaik or Fatah's Azzam al Ahmad) is saying that Palestinian Arabs have no right to attempt to become citizens of their host countries, since their leaders fear the idea that they may be resettled elsewhere and therefore cannot be used as excuses to vilify Israel for coming generations.

And he admits that UNRWA's original purpose included resettling refugees, as it says in the part of UNGC resolution 194 that those who insist on a "right to return" never quote: "Instructs the Conciliation Commission to facilitate the repatriation, resettlement and economic and social rehabilitation of the refugees."

In short: Palestinian Arab leaders continue to actively work to keep millions of people stateless. And they are afraid that UNRWA night revert to its original mandate to reduce the number of refugees, not perpetuate them.

In a sane world, UNRWA's financial woes should should make people realize that its remit cannot go on forever as long as it insists on its increasingly unsustainable and false definition of "refugees" as being perpetually granted to future generations until Arabs declare they are happy. It can solve its financial problems by:

Taking those who are Jordanian citizens off its rolls
Taking those who live in the land they are supposedly "refugees" from off their rolls
Using parts of its budget to ease the transition of "refugees" into becomingequal citizens of those entities
Holding a transparent referendum for Palestinians in other countries asking them if they would like to become citizens of their host countries
Working with Arab countries to allow Palestinians who want to become naturalized citizens, the same as any other Arab can.

But since no one at UNRWA actually wants to solve the problem they were meant to solve, no media outlets bother to document how badly Palestinian Arab "refugees" are being discriminated against in Arab countries and the world wants to place the blame for these stateless people's plight on Israel rather than the corrupt Arab leadership, no one will do anything until UNRWA collapses and things get much, much worse.

Even dressing up is considered "resistance"

Ma'an reports:

Hundreds of Palestinians wearing traditional Palestinian dress attended marches across the West Bank and Gaza on Saturday to celebrate Traditional Palestinian Dress and Heritage Day.

In Ramallah, men, women and children marched from the municipality building in the northern town of al-Bireh to the al-Bireh cultural center, waving Palestinian flags and signs while calling for the protection of the Palestinian cultural heritage.

Lana Hijazi, who coordinated the celebrations, said that the idea of a day celebrating Palestinian traditional dress came following a discussion she had with a friend from Gaza, Mai al-Li, on the importance of the Palestinian traditional dress, heritage and civilization.

"The goal of the initiative is to remind Palestinians around the world of our heritage to maintain."

Nothing wrong with this. While I have looked hard for specific examples of "Palestinian" culture and mostly came up short, Some towns had their own unique crafts (soap in Nablus, glass in Hebron, olive wood carving in Bethlehem) but these were local, not national. But if Arabs in Judea and Samaria want to dress up in costumes and claim that they are celebrating "Palestinian culture," then it doesn't bother me.

But their justification for doing it shows that this isn't cultural, but political:

Palestinians have in the past spoken out against "cultural appropriation" by the Jewish Israeli population, citing in particular the Israeli claim to traditional Palestinian foods such as humus and falafel, as well as traditional clothing, including an Israeli redesign of the Palestinian Kuffeyeh that incorporated a light blue Star of David.

"Jews are referring our civilization and heritage to them, and we have to maintain and keep our identity,"Hijazi said.

She said that the initiative was in response to fears that the Palestinian heritage is under "attack" from Israel, that is is being stolen and falsified.

"Wearing the Palestinian traditional dress is resisting the occupation," Hijaz said. "We resist and keep our cultural heritage as part of the beauty of our Palestine."

Celebrations also took place in Gaza, where people marched to the UNESCO headquarters there, demanding UNESCO and the Palestinian Authority officially recognize July 25 as Palestinian Traditional Dress and Heritage Day.

Omar Abu Shawish, from the Gaza campaign, called on the PA to support the Palestinian heritage and urged UNESCO to respond to Israeli action against it.

There is no small bit of irony in this article. The people behind this are saying explicitly that the major reason they want a "Palestinian Traditional Dress and Heritage Day" to be recognized by UNESCO is as an act of "resistance" against Israel, not as a positive step towards strengthening their own supposed heritage.

I've mentioned before that Jews, secure in our own cultural history, are not offended that Arabs love to eat matzoh and no one would mind if they started eating Bamba or gefilte fish or dancing horas. Arabs, on the other hand, freak out when Israelis - about half of whose ancestors lived in Arab lands - embrace and often enhance Middle Eastern foods or dress.

The entire reason for "Palestinian Traditional Dress and Heritage Day" is because, deep down, Palestinian Arabs know that they have little culture to call their own that is unique from surrounding areas. The entire reason they want UNESCO to recognize a fake culture is to claim that Jews have stolen it from them.

People secure in their culture have no reason to fear others. I see no "Levant Heritage Day" or "North African Heritage Day" even though both those areas have far richer cultural influence than "Palestine" ever had.

Their framing this as "resistance" proves the exact opposite of the purported point of "Palestinian Traditional Dress and Heritage Day" - it proves that their claim to have a vibrant historic culture is bogus and nearly the entire Palestinian Arab cultural heritage is dedicated not to further one culture but to try to eliminate another.
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Fatah antisemitic cartoon, video of Jew hit in head with bottle outside Temple Mount, and more

Some random things from around the web that seem to have an underlying theme.

Here is a video showing a Jew who was walking in Jerusalem being hit in the head with a plastic bottle. He wants to go after his attackers but the police stop him.

This video shows what happened this morning before the police approached Al Aqsa Mosque - Muslims were throwing stones and possibly other things beforehand:

Other angles:

From the FatahMedia website, under the title "Judaization of Jerusalem:"

(h/t Palestinian Media Watch, whose entire article is worth reading)

07/26 Links: Thomas Sowell: Is the Iran Deal the Worst Political Blunder of All Time?

From Ian:

Thomas Sowell: Is the Iran Deal the Worst Political Blunder of All Time?

Distinguished scientist Freeman Dyson has called the 1433 decision of the emperor of China to discontinue his country’s exploration of the outside world the “worst political blunder in the history of civilization.”
The United States seems at this moment about to break the record for the worst political blunder of all time, with its Obama-administration deal that will make a nuclear Iran virtually inevitable.
Already the years-long negotiations, with their numerous “deadlines” that have been extended again and again, have reduced the chances that Israel can destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities, which have been multiplied and placed in scattered underground sites during the years when all this was going on.
Israel is the only country even likely to try to destroy those facilities, since Iran has explicitly and repeatedly declared its intention to wipe Israel off the face of the earth.
How did we get to this point — and what, if anything, can we do now? Tragically, these are questions that few Americans seem to be asking. We are too preoccupied with our electronic devices, the antics of celebrities, and politics as usual.
During the years when we confronted a nuclear-armed Soviet Union, we at least realized that we had to “think the unthinkable,” as intellectual giant Herman Kahn put it. Today it seems almost as if we don’t want to think about it at all.

Iranian Nuclear Deal Is a Win for Anti-Semitism

It would be a better world if anti-Semitic regimes put aside their hatreds to pursue their vital interests, but history militates against that illusion. You don’t need to invoke the famous and egregious example of Nazis diverting precious resources, trucks, and other war materials, in order to keep transporting Jews to the concentration camps. You don’t have to recall how some Nazis busily executed Jews even as they ran from the conquering allied troops. You can invoke Vichy, France, turning over the Jews who were its best and brightest, or the Soviet Union, which lost so much cultural and business acumen and capital through years of suppression. Anti-Semites cannot help themselves. To them, the injury is worthwhile if they can savage the Jews.
So without exploring the specifics of the deal, which are troubling, there is a ground-level assumption that Iran’s leaders share our fundamental interests in “having some semblance of legitimacy.” Granting that Iran is a sophisticated country, it’s also true that hatred of Israel and particularly, hatred of Jews, has proved a remarkably durable governing strategy in the modern world. How far will Iranians go, once some money is in hand, to pursue their destructive agenda? The belief that rational self-interest is a governing principle is a belief common to rational people.
In a world where countries are run by anti-Semites, being anti-Semitic is not necessarily more dangerous than misunderstanding anti-Semitism. We have just concluded a deal with people infected with the oldest and most virulent pathology of hatred the world has known. This is no time for celebration.

Jackie Mason: NYC restaurants subject to tougher inspections than Iran under nuclear deal

Legendary Jewish comic Jackie Mason joined the list of critics of the nuclear deal signed between world powers and Iran Sunday, jesting that New York restaurants face a harsher inspections regime than Iran's nuclear facilities will under the terms of the agreement.
Speaking during an interview to air Sunday night on "Aaron Klein Investigative Radio" on New York's AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia's NewsTalk 990 AM, Mason, an outspoken advocate of Israel, quipped that US Secretary of State John Kerry should pay the American people back for the cost of his airfare to and from the Iran talks.
"This secretary of state, Kerry, negotiated with them for a year-and-a-half and accomplished nothing. He ought to give us back for all the trips he made. He cost us millions of dollars in airplane fares and he came back with nothing except a bad foot."
Mason's comments did not mark the first time he has spoken out on an issue that touched on Israel's security. He emerged during last summer’s Operation Protective Edge as one of Israel’s most outspoken defenders. The long-time Republican has also been highly critical of US President Barack Obama, whom he assailed Sunday for his handling of the Iranian nuclear threat.
"The real agreement he made, I’m sure he (Obama) said to them, 'Listen, could you keep the bomb quiet for a year and a half. Because if you don’t bomb us for a year and a half, I’ll be the big winner. Everyone will see I made a fantastic agreement. If you bomb us after I leave I could always say it’s the other guy’s fault. Because if it’s not for him, this never would have happened," Mason said.

The last Gaon was murdered by Muslims

On this day of reciting "kinot" remembering the tragedies of Jewish history, here's something to add.

In Babylonia there were two great Jewish academies that both lasted an astonishing 800 years. They were the famous yeshivas of Sura and Pumbedita. Both were established in the third century CE, and they led the Jewish people throughout the time of the Mishnah, Gemara, and through the time of the Gaonim. They both lasted until the eleventh century.

Wikipedia, mostly quoting The Jewish Encyclopedia (1906) has a brief biography of the last leader of Pumbedita, Hezekiah Gaon:

Hezekiah was a member of the exilarchal family, son of David, who was son of Zakkai, who was the son of Avraham, who was the son of Nathan, son of David a Rabbi, whose father was Hazub. He was elected to the office of principal after the murder of Hai Gaon*, but was denounced to a fanatical government of the Buyyids, imprisoned, and tortured to death. With him ended his family, with the exception of two sons who escaped to the Iberian Peninsula, where they found a home with Joseph ben Samuel, the son of Samuel ha-Nagid. The death of Hezekiah also ended the line of the Geonim, which began four centuries before (see Hanan of Iskiya), and with it the Academy of Pumbedita.

I don't believe that Hai Gaon was murdered - none of his other biographies mention that - but Hezekiah II, who amazingly was both the Exilarch and the Rosh Yeshiva, was murdered by a Shiite caliph, and his murder ended the era of Babylonia/Iraq as a major center of Jewish studies. (Some details listed here are disputed in this book.)

Of course, as we read in the kinot today, Christians were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews during the Crusades, but few recall that a Muslim ruler is responsible for the end of the primacy of Babylonian Jewry at around the same time.