JCPA Study: International Law and the Fighting in Gaza
The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs has published a timely study by Justus Reid Weiner (international human rights lawyer) and Avi Bell (Director of the Global Law Forum at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) on International Law and the Fighting in Gaza (PDF format):
In every flare-up of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the air is thick with accusations of violations of international law. Yet criticism of Israeli behavior lacks any basis in international law. By contrast, criticism ought to be voiced about illegal Palestinian behavior for launching rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli civilians.
Melanie Phillips: Refugees from whom?
So let’s get our head round this: Palestinians committed to the destruction of Israel fled from other Palestinians committed to the destruction of Israel into Israel, which is providing them with sanctuary and medical treatment, while the president of their putative state who bases his claim against Israel on its alleged refusal to admit Palestinian ‘refugees’ refused to allow actual Palestinian refugees fleeing Palestinian violence access to that same putative state, while Israel agonises over whether to grant them permanent asylum. Surreal, or what?
Dennis Prager: Why Do Palestinians Get Much More Attention than Tibetans?
The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.
But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.
Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world’s oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.
Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere. Indeed, “Palestinian” had always meant any individual living in the geographic area called Palestine. For most of the first half of the 20th century, “Palestinian” and “Palestine” almost always referred to the Jews of Palestine. The United Jewish Appeal, the worldwide Jewish charity that provided the nascent Jewish state with much of its money, was actually known as the United Palestine Appeal. Compared to Tibetans, few Palestinians have been killed, its culture has not been destroyed nor its mosques looted or plundered, and Palestinians have received billions of dollars from the international community. Unlike the dying Tibetan nation, there are far more Palestinians today than when Israel was created.
Joanna Chandler: A New Dreyfus Affair
On September 12, 2007, Philippe Karsenty of Paris will present his appeal of a judgment for defamation rendered in favor of Charles Enderlin, Jerusalem Bureau Chief for France 2, the television station responsible for airing the Mohamed Al Durah hoax which was adopted, at birth, as official informatiom in nearly every corner of the world. Karsenty, editor of Media-Ratings, www.m-r.fr, an internet service that monitors the French media, questioned Enderlin’s veracity and challenged him to explain obvious defects and inconsistencies in the Al Durah story. Initially, the Israeli government had taken responsibility for the boy’s death, but later concluded that it had reliable evidence that the case was a fraud. Daniel Seaman, Director of Israel’s Government Press Office, openly calls the alleged “murder†of Al Durah a hoax. France 2 is holding 27 minutes of raw footage of the incident, which could resolve the controversy once and for all. But it refuses to release the tapes. The trial court, finding in favor of Enderlin, disregarded the evidence Karsenty presented. Instead, the judge relied on a two-year old letter from former French President, Jacques Chirac, that did not refer to the Al Durah incident at all, but simply complimented Enderlin as a journalist. Politics aside, the evidence stands on its own. Reminiscent of the Dreyfus Affair that occurred more than 100 years earlier, few have stepped forward to assist Karsenty in rebutting this lie—a lie with sufficient currency to defame every Jew alive in the world today. It is not really Karsenty, the individual, who is on trial, but the State of Israel and the Jewish people—for a staged “murder†that the world chose to accept as true. Seven years after the supposed “crime,†the lie persists as if it had a life of its own. But, the real crime, the crime that did, in fact, occur and for which no one has been charged, nor punished, is the crime of defaming Israel and the Jews—a crime that has unleashed murder and terrorism in its wake and that has compromised the integrity of every journalist and public servant who has ever chosen to report the hoax as true. Some did so, deliberately, and without shame. Some disobeyed their conscience and chose convenience over honor. Still others went along with the hoax out of slothfulness, simply failing to exercise the diligence required of their profession. None can be excused for acting in good faith because the evidence was, and is, clear and unambiguous—impossible to ignore. Moreover, the evidence is substantive and overwhelming. The fact that the Al Dura story is a hoax is apparent to anyone who cares to cast a critical eye on the unedited, raw footage of the incident that has so far become available.
Dore Gold: The Dangers of ‘Peace’ Making
The U.S. and other Western powers are pushing for a new Israeli-Palestinian breakthrough, to help contain Iran and undercut the appeal of al Qaeda and radical Islam. A grand-scale Middle East peace conference is planned for this fall.
The underlying assumption is that radical Islam has something do to with Israel-related political grievances. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has made this argument repeatedly. If he and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice roll up their sleeves and work toward a permanent settlement of the Palestinian issue, so the logic goes, they will be providing a powerful diplomatic antidote to the jihadism threatening the security of the entire Western alliance.
But is this really the case? In August 2005, the international community embraced Israel’s unilateral disengagement from Gaza, largely for these very reasons. The “occupation,” which they tirelessly argued was polarizing the Middle East, would be rolled back. The Palestinians would take over Israeli greenhouses and export cherry tomatoes to the European Union. They would pump gas from lucrative off-shore gas fields being developed by British Gas to bring in huge revenues to the Palestinian people.
Ms. Rice also pushed hard for the “Rafah Border Crossing Agreement,” which was supposed to facilitate trade between Gaza and the rest of the world while keeping terrorists out. EU observers were deployed.
But moderation did not ensue. Five months after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza, Hamas won the Palestinian elections and formed a government. In March 2006, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas told the London Arabic daily Al-Hayat that al Qaeda had penetrated the area. A month later, the newspaper reported that al Qaeda operatives had infiltrated Gaza from Egypt, Sudan and Yemen.
Huge amounts of weapons and cash also poured into Gaza. And regardless of their tactical disagreements, Hamas did not fight al Qaeda but in fact joined forces with one of its Gaza affiliates, the Army of Islam (Jaish al-Islam), in kidnapping Israeli Cpl. Gilad Shalit. In July 2007, the head of al Qaeda in Egypt fled that country’s security forces to hide in Gaza.
In short, the U.S. and its Western allies thought that Israel’s Gaza pullout would establish the foundations of a Palestinian state and thus reduce the flames of radical Islamic rage. Instead they got an al-Qaeda sanctuary on the shores of the Mediterranean.
David Shalom: The Israeli Left remains the greatest threat.
With the left-wing Labour Party’s decision to teach Nakba to Israeli, Arab school-children, David Shalom’s The Enemy Within could not be better timed.
The late Rehavam Ze’evi (H.y.d.) wrote in the Hebrew-language Moledet party publication, some 14 years ago, about the menacing phenomenon of the Israeli left-winger, whose daily betrayals embitter the lives of us all. If left unchallenged, he will literally bring us all down together. As it was then, it is more so today.
The Israeli Left remains the single greatest threat to the Jewish people in their homeland. It can be argued that their actions, inactions, their spin and media manipulation, have caused more damage to Israel than those of the PLO and Hamas. It must be remembered that it was the Left that imported these terrorists to our shores through the treacherous Oslo Accords. Their goals, couched in the falsely deluding language of peace and liberalism, are inimical to those very ideals. In fact, their true path lies in the destruction of a sovereign Jewish state in the Land of Israel. It is imperative that we understand the left-wing phenomenon we face in order to decelerate the forces pushing Israel to self-destruct.
Israeli, Arab third-graders to be taught ‘Nakba’
Nakba is the Arab term for “catastrophe”, or more specifically: the establishment of the state of Israel. In fact, the most important day of the year for Palestinian Arabs is the anniversary of this “catastrophe”, called… wait for it… yup… Nakba Day.
Well, this so-called Nakba (Israel) happens to be the only plural society in all of the Middle-East, extending equal rights to all of its citizens, including Arab-Muslims. Israel is also the only nation in all of the Middle-East governed by a democratically elected government; has an independent judiciary that enforces secular laws; and freedom of the press.
Being a Jew in an Arab-Muslim country (assuming Jewish presence hasn’t been entirely prohibited) is often dangerous to one’s health. Being an Arab-Muslim in Israel means having the right to participate in anti-government dissent, without any fear of retribution. In fact, being an Arab-Muslim in Israel means you have the same opportunity as any other Israeli citizen, to participate in the government – Arab-Muslims hold seats in the Knesset. Where in the Arab-Muslim world can a non-Muslim, forget Jew, enjoy such equality?
The Palestinian Arabs have spent these last 60 years not building their own functioning society, but reveling in some sort of perpetual victimhood, while teaching martyrdom and Jew hatred to their children. Well, this diet of Jew/Israel hatred will no longer be limited to the children of the Palestinian territories; it’s coming to Israel:
Arab schoolchildren in Israel will be taught next year that the founding of the State of Israel was a tragedy (Nakba in Arabic) in accordance with a widespread Arab view of the event.
The Education Ministry, headed by Prof.Yuli Tamir (Labor), has approved adding the Arab version to the curriculum in response to calls by Arab nationalists who requested the “Nakba†version be taught in their schools.
The new directive approves a Grade 3 textbook “Living Together in Israel,” which was written by Arabs who left their homes during the 1948 War of Independence and claim that Israel took their land. The textbook evenhandedly points out that the Arab nations refused to accept the United Nations partition plan creating the Jewish State and a new Trans-Jordan country.
Definition of national suicide: allowing your enemies – who have repeatedly tried, and failed to annihilate you – to write your history books.
Fouad Ajami: The mayhem of Palestine
Five summers ago, on June 24, President George W. Bush, in a landmark speech, offered the Palestinians his and America’s commitment to support “the creation of a Palestinian state.” America was in the throes of a campaign against terrorism; the Iraq war, as we now know, was in the planning phase. It was important for the Bush administration, or so it seemed, to set the stage for these two campaigns by a generous and forthcoming policy toward the Palestinians. This was claimed to be nothing less than an American equivalent of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, which had pledged Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish “national home.” Bush’s pledge drew the right moral and political parameters. America’s support was contingent, the president said, on leaders “not compromised by terror.” The vision was generous and held out to the Palestinians the promise of normalcy: “You deserve democracy and the rule of law. You deserve an open society and a thriving economy.”
Palestinian culture of child-abuse
Two more vivid examples of the depravity that is Palestinian culture:
These are the children of a people that hope and dream of peace?
The words of former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir are even truer today than when she spoke them:
“We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.â€
See also:
- LGF’s Palestinian Child Abuse slide-show
- Palestinian Media Watch Videos
