Who Profits: Exposing the true face of BDS - Nadav Shragai

Under a policy of strict anonymity, an Israeli NGO provides anti-Israel groups with research on companies operating in "occupied territories" • NGO Monitor exposes the true face of Who Profits, an organization considered to be "spearheading global BDS."

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
15 April '16..

Galshan Shvakim, a company that provides personal security and guard services, has never been secretive about providing services to many local authorities in Judea and Samaria. In early November 2015, one of the company's guards was attacked by a female terrorist at the entrance to the settlement of Beitar Illit. The guard was lightly hurt in the incident, but not before shooting and neutralizing his assailant. Three months later, another of the company's employees chased away a car full of terrorists who had opened fire on an Israeli bus at the Ramot intersection near Jerusalem. On the whole, Galshan security personnel work in many locations in Judea and Samaria, like Givat Ze'ev, Gush Etzion, Adam and Kiryat Arba.

Three months ago, however, the CEO of the company, Moran Raz, learned that someone really doesn't like the fact that his company is financially invested in Judea and Samaria, or that it provides security to Israeli citizens living there. In January, a letter arrived at his desk, signed by an organization named "Who Profits from the Occupation," informing him that Galshan Shvakim has three months to respond to information obtained by the organization suggesting that the company operates in the "occupied territories."

The team working for Who Profits informed Raz that they intended to add his company to a blacklist of companies and Israeli institutions that operate in settlements or anywhere in Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights or east Jerusalem.

Unlike other recipients of this form letter, Raz was not overly concerned by this veiled threat. His company has no business dealings outside Israel and therefore there was little chance of damage to the business should someone outside of Israel peruse this blacklist, see the company's name and decide to boycott its nonexistent dealings abroad.

On the other hand, for Israeli companies that do operate abroad, like the cosmetics giant Ahava, or international companies that operate in Israel like the security company G4S, Who Profits' campaign and others like it can actually deal a serious blow. In 2012, businesswoman Abigail Disney announced that she was waiving her profits from the Ahava factory in which she had invested after Who Profits accused Ahava of "extracting their mud from occupied Palestinian territories" and "exploiting Palestinian natural resources."

The European Parliament canceled its contracts with the international security company G4S, which they had employed since 2008, after receiving letters and being subjected to pressure by various NGOs going by Who Profits' data.

In a joint report compiled by Who Profits and the Coalition of Women for Peace, German railway company Deutche Bahn was listed as one of the companies involved in the train project connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. In the report, the company was described as having abandoned the project after learning that part of the train route was to pass through areas outside the Green Line.

Who Profits, together with the Coalition of Women for Peace, also lobbied the EU to cancel the EU-Israel trade agreement relating to the Israeli pharmaceutical industry. The Coalition of Women for Peace in fact led the lobbying and campaigning in the European Union in the period leading up to the vote on the agreement and trade protocol with the Israeli pharmaceutical industry.

Who Profits does not take direct action. It provides information and publicizes data on Israeli companies with financial dealings in Judea and Samaria, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. And yet, the significance of the organization's activity is profound. Being added to the Who Profits blacklist means almost immediate exposure to BDS campaigns and active lobbying designed to undermine the company's business.

Concealed identities

This week, the organization NGO monitor issued a comprehensive report on Who Profits, in which the group was described as "spearheading global BDS." For years, NGO Monitor has been generating and distributing critical analyses and reports on the activity of various nongovernmental organizations that operate under various pretenses to reject Jewish rights, to enact anti-Israel boycotts and even reject the existence of the State of Israel.

In their latest report, NGO Monitor focused on the little known fact that the database that serves as the foundation of the global BDS movement is actually based in Israel and that its founders, at least according to Israeli records, are Israeli. Itay Reuveni, who compiled the report on Who Profits, remarked that the fact that Who Profits is an Israeli organization lends it particular credibility among BDS supporters around the world.

The Who Profits project began in 2007. It started as "a research project of the Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP) -- a feminist, Palestinian-Jewish organization devoted to the struggle against the occupation" and "in response to the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement" against Israel. Six years later, Who Profits became an independent organization, but continues to closely cooperate with the Coalition of Women for Peace.

The members of Who Profits do not reveal their identities and their names are not mentioned on the Who Profits website or in any of the organization's official correspondence. According to the Justice Ministry's Registrar of Nonprofit Associations, Who Profits was founded by Esther Mitzenmacher, Rona Moran, Yara Saadia, Ines Elias, Deborah Lerman, Anat Matar and Hannah A'mori.

How NGOs Became a Weapon in the War on Israel - Prof. Gerald Steinberg

...The intense rhetoric of the NIF reflects their genuine concern that, by highlighting the massive European funding for its associated NGO network, the organization will lose standing and influence on the Israeli center and center-Left. From this perspective, the stakes are even higher than the question of foreign funding for NGOs. They and their patrons believe the NGO bill threatens a political structure they have built up over almost four decades. For Israel itself, however, the stakes are even higher. In question is Israel’s right to reassert its national sovereignty in the face of foreign manipulation, demand transparency from unelected groups that campaign intensely against the policies of its elected government, and counter an international campaign of hate and defamation that potentially threatens Israel’s very existence.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg..
Tablet Magazine..
Issue 35 February '16..

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are very big business in Israel. Various NGOs—most of them from the Left and claiming to promote human rights and democracy—are very active in the Knesset, in filing lawsuits with the Supreme Court that seek to overturn government policies, and in the media. They receive hundreds of millions of shekels from large foundations and foreign governments—primarily European. While the activities of these NGOs are criticized by the Israeli Right, much of the mainstream Israeli media supports them. As a result, the “halo effect” that protects these NGOs from independent investigation is particularly strong.

But that halo was shattered recently when the popular Israeli television news program Uvda featured a hidden-camera expose of a little-known “peace group” known as Ta’ayush, led by activist Ezra Nawi. The footage showed Nawi, along with Nasser Nawaja, a Palestinian employee of the NGO B’Tselem, plotting against an Arab who was negotiating to sell private land in the West Bank to Jews. They were trying to lure the Palestinian into a trap where he would be captured by the Palestinian Authority’s security services. As Nawi coldly noted in the video, under PA law, the sale of Palestinian land to Israelis is punishable by death.

The broadcast became headline news and the fallout continued for weeks. Nawi was arrested at Ben-Gurion Airport when he tried to flee the country. A few days later, a follow-up program aired more hidden-camera footage, this time showing Nawi with officials from two other prominent “human rights” NGOs—Breaking the Silence (BtS) and Rabbis for Human Rights (RHR). Both groups were shown giving money to Nawi, who then handed out checks to Palestinians, apparently for taking part in violent demonstrations. RHR claimed that Nawi was paid for providing transportation services. BtS denounced everyone involved in the program as “Stasi,” a reference to the notorious East German intelligence service.

The report was particularly explosive because Nawi had been an iconic hero to the far-Left in Israel and beyond—a gay Sephardi peace activist and pacifist who embodied Western orientalist myths. Prominent leftists like Noam Chomsky and Naomi Klein described him as “one of Israel’s most courageous human rights activists.” David Shulman, who writes highly critical articles on Israel in The New York Review of Books and happens to be a member of Ta’ayush, referred to Nawi as an Israeli Gandhi. In 2009, after Nawi was convicted of assault following a demonstration, he became the focus of an international campaign, including a sympathetic portrayal in Time magazine. The fiercely anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace claimed to have collected 20,000 signatures on a petition to save him from jail. But in 37 minutes, the Channel 2 program destroyed Nawi’s image.

In a wider context, the timing of the reports was damaging to the entire NGO establishment in Israel. It came in the middle of an intense controversy over the role of Israeli NGOs in the worldwide campaign to demonize Israel through the use of terms such as “apartheid,” the rise of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, and the use of “lawfare” to charge Israeli officials with war crimes and other supposed transgressions of international law.

Prior to the Uvda broadcasts, BtS and its patrons were the particular focus of growing anger among many Israelis on the Right, center, and even the center-Left. This anger followed a major jump in the visibility of BtS, which reflected the group’s million- dollar budget. BtS events in churches, universities, and national parliaments around the world featured “anonymous testimony” that alleged systematic immorality by IDF soldiers, with no corroborating evidence.

That the PLO can’t be fixed is a given, therefore... - by Vic Rosenthal

...The PLO and its creature the PA has proven to be a failure – a failure as a peace partner, and a failure as a governing authority for the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria. Israel could root out and destroy this cancer by removing the PLO from power, disarming its militias, and going back to its pre-Oslo position that it would only negotiate with non-terrorist entities. This might end up with Israel in full control of the territories again, something that many Israelis see as a burden they are loathe to undertake. But in the long term there is no alternative.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
24 January '16..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2016/01/the-plo-cant-be-fixed/

It has been revealed that a secret deal kept Switzerland free of PLO terrorism:

According to the author, Swiss journalist Marcel Gyr, Switzerland was in turmoil after a spate of Palestinian terror attacks, including the February 1970 bombing of a Swissair flight from Zurich to Tel Aviv, which killed all on board shortly after takeoff. Gyr recounts that in the wake of the attacks in 1969 and 1970, then-foreign minister Pierre Graber contacted the PLO clandestinely and without informing his fellow ministers, the BBC reported Friday. …

Graber, through a Swiss member of parliament, purportedly reached an agreement with the PLO to free those charged for [a deadly 1969 attack on an El Al plane in Zurich] in return the release of the hostages in Jordan. Furthermore, he agreed that Switzerland would “quietly shelve” the investigation into bombing of the Swissair plane, and make a diplomatic push for international recognition of the PLO.

The Swiss MP, Jean Ziegler, now 81, confirmed that he had been the go-between and said “This might be absolutely shocking, but the reward was that there were no more attacks.”

Shocking? No, it was standard operating procedure. Take Italy for example:

…former Italian President Francesco Cossiga revealed that the government of Italy agreed to allow Arab terrorist groups freedom of movement in the country in exchange for immunity from attacks in Italy. Cossiga wrote that the government of the late Prime Minister Aldo Moro reached a “secret non-belligerence pact between the Italian state and Palestinian resistance [sic] organizations, including terrorist groups,” in the 1970s. According to the former president, it was Moro himself who designed the terms of the agreement with the foreign Arab terrorists. Ironically, Moro later met his death at the hands of homegrown Italian terrorists, the Red Brigades, in 1978.

Even Germany, with its “special relationship” to Israel, sold its soul. Matt Rees, in his book Cain’s Field: Faith, Fratricide, and Fear in the Middle East (p. 100) explained,

Arafat put Zakaria Baloush in charge of European operations and contacts. He built a fine relationship with Italian antiterrorist intelligence. His biggest coup, however, was a secret mission to West Germany. Through Libyan intelligence, West Germany asked the PLO for a deal. In 1980 Zakaria went to West Germany with a delegation of PLO officials. They agreed not to carry out any attacks on West German territory. In return they were allowed to operate in West Germany and exchange information with the West Germans.

Today European governments and the European Union provide a hefty part of the cost of running the PLO-based Palestinian Authority, spend millions of Euros financing illegal Arab construction in Area C – the part of Judea/Samaria that according to the Oslo Accords is under full Israeli control – and of course provide tens of millions to Israeli left-wing NGOs which act as a fifth column inside Israel. These NGOs, which have been called “wholly-owned subsidiaries” of the EU and European governments, provide raw material for anti-Israel UN resolutions, ‘lawfare’ against Israeli leaders and IDF soldiers, and provoke violent confrontations to try to destabilize the country. There is no doubt that this anti-state movement would barely exist were it not for European subsides.

The hypocrisy of claiming to oppose terrorism while giving its greatest perpetrators a free pass is obvious. It is no less hypocritical to oppose Israeli construction in disputed areas while paying for illegal Arab building there, and to require products of Judea/Samaria to have special labels while products of countless other “occupied” and disputed territories in the world need not be labeled.

Defending Israel against the EU’s ‘soft weapon’ - by Vic Rosenthal

...The ‘soft weapon’ of NGO money is wounding Israel no less than the suicide bombings of the Second Intifada. Like the security fence that stopped terrorist infiltration, we can build a legal fence against it. The squeals of those feeding at the trough of EU money must be ignored, and the Transparency Law passed by the Knesset.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
15 January '16..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2016/01/defending-israel-against-the-eus-soft-weapon/

When Israel built its security barrier back in 2003, the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters squealed like pigs. Despite numerous changes to its path to accommodate Arab complaints, some ordered by Israel’s Supreme Court, it became a cause célèbre for them, a symbol of alleged ‘apartheid’ and the focus of often violent demonstrations that continue to this day.

The reason is simple. The barrier stymied one of their best weapons, the suicide bombing. It’s often said that the Second Intifada was ended by Operation Defensive Shield, in which the IDF (despite the name) went on the offense against terrorist nests in places like Jenin and cleaned them out. But according to a member of the security forces who spent those dark months frantically racing from place to place to intercept human bombs before they could explode in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the fence, while not impermeable, greatly reduced the number of possible entry points and made it much easier to stop them.

A similar situation exists today, as Israel moves to render one of our enemies’ most important ‘soft weapons’ impotent. I refer to the Transparency Law that is presently being considered in the Knesset to limit the ability of hostile foreign powers to conduct stealth delegitimization and demonization of Israel by funding Israeli non-governmental organizations. These NGOs, usually claiming to be ‘human rights’ groups, develop and disseminate tendentious data accusing Israel and the IDF of violations of international law and generally atrocious and ugly behavior.

For example, Breaking the Silence collects anecdotes from soldiers accusing the IDF of war crimes. But these stories often cannot be corroborated, are hearsay, exaggerated, or lack context. BTS refuses to give details to the IDF so they can be checked out and actual violations prosecuted. B’Tselem does the same with accusations that Israel violates the rights of Arabs in the territories, relying on one-sided testimony from Arabs and anti-Israel activists.

This material is then used as ‘evidence’ in dishonest legal proceedings against IDF soldiers and officers, and in UN reports and resolutions condemning Israel. It is used to turn popular opinion against her, so that the ‘international community’ and the US can pressure her for concessions to the Arabs and against muscular responses to terrorism and aggression. It is used as a justification for sanctions on Israel, such as the labeling of settlement products.

Every group that wants to attack Israel, from Students for Justice in Palestine to the Obama Administration, partakes of the false, exaggerated and context-free ‘facts’ created by these NGOs. In addition, the large anti-state community that is supported by this massive pot of foreign money is an internal political danger, and a challenge to Israel’s sovereignty.

Israel has only recently awakened to the damage that is being done to it on a daily basis. The dimensions of the enterprise are massive. Prof. Gerald Steinberg of NGO Monitor, which tracks foreign money in Israeli NGOs, notes that

Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, Who is the Ugliest of Them All?

...The leftist organizations' long-standing claim is that they are holding a mirror up to Israeli society that shows its "ugliness." And here, now that a group has shown up to smear their faces in the same manner, the glaziers are all of a sudden calling to break that mirror.

Dror Eydar..
Israel Hayom..
17 December '15..

1. I don't like the Im Tirzu clip. It's too chilling and has clear connotations that tie the figures that represent leftist organizations to a knife in the nation's back. It's inappropriate.

The need to spark public debate through provocation is understandable, but it's possible to speak harshly without stepping over the line to the point where people aren't listening to what you have to say, but rather are scared of you. It would have been better if the clip had never been made, but now that it's out in the world, we should probe it and the public discussion it has awoken.

I hear the cries of "incitement, incitement." The leaders of Im Tirzu are being admonished that they will be responsible for any harm that, heaven forbid, might befall the figures featured in the clip. The concern is clear and the debate must remain a verbal one. But what about the harm to the IDF and the citizens of the state? Are we relieving the leftist groups of any responsibility here? If we're so awful, such thugs, murderers and thieves, then not only is the armed struggle against us permissible, it's a precept -- jihad sponsored by the Yahud (Jews)!

How the Israel Fixation Feeds Terror by Evelyn Gordon

...After 20 years in which repeated territorial concessions have brought only more terror rather than peace, most Israelis can no longer be persuaded to buy this nostrum. So instead, these foreign-funded NGOs work to drum up anti-Israel sentiment overseas in the hope of generating international pressure and sanctions on it....In other words, this money goes mainly toward trying to circumvent Israeli democracy by forcing its government to do something most voters oppose.

Evelyn Gordon..
Analyses from Israel..
10 December '15..

Several commentators have pointed out recently that, had the West not spent decades treating terror against Jews and Israel as an “understandable” outgrowth of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, it might have less of a terrorism problem today.

Liel Leibovitz of Tablet detailed links between people who perpetrated attacks on Jews and people who later perpetrated attacks on non-Jews in the same countries. His analysis suggests that, had the original attacks on Jews been investigated more thoroughly, the later attacks might have been preventable. Gil Troy argued in the Jerusalem Post that the West’s consistent response to Palestinian terror – capitulating to the terrorists’ demands and pressuring Israel to do the same – persuaded subsequent generations of Islamic terrorists that terror is an effective means of furthering their goals. But there’s a third way in which the West’s attitudes toward Israel have contributed to its terrorism problem: Its conviction – in defiance of all evidence – that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was the Mideast’s central problem led it to focus obsessively on this issue, at the expense of all the real problems that are coming back to haunt it now. And nothing better illustrates this than the seemingly trivial issue of NGO funding.

Both Europe and America, but especially the former, grant tens of millions of dollars a year to Israeli NGOs for the ostensible purpose of promoting “democracy” and “human rights” in the one Middle Eastern country that already does a reasonable job of protecting both. However, they spend far less on promoting democracy and human rights in other Mideast countries. A document obtained by the Israeli newspaper Makor Rishon, for instance, showed that in 2010, the British government gave £600,000 to Israeli NGOs; if you exclude Iraq, that’s six times as much as it gave NGOs in all other Arab countries combined. Nor does the West lavish this kind of money on NGOs in other fellow democracies: According to NGO Monitor, “No other democracy gets nearly as much foreign government funding” as Israel does.

Why this peculiar obsession with democracy and human rights in Israel, alone of all the world’s countries? The answer, of course, is that the donations aren’t primarily motivated by concern for democracy and human rights at all. They go almost exclusively to organizations dealing in some way with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – or, to be precise, organizations striving in some way to get Israel to adopt the West’s recipe for solving it: ever more concessions to the Palestinians.

After 20 years in which repeated territorial concessions have brought only more terror rather than peace, most Israelis can no longer be persuaded to buy this nostrum. So instead, these foreign-funded NGOs work to drum up anti-Israel sentiment overseas in the hope of generating international pressure and sanctions on it (see, for instance, Breaking the Silence, which travels worldwide to accuse Israel of “war crimes” but refuses to cooperate with Israeli law enforcement agencies so its allegations could actually be investigated, or B’Tselem, which eagerly cooperated in UN efforts to smear Israel as a war criminal, inter alia, by supplying inflated statistics about civilian casualties). In other words, this money goes mainly toward trying to circumvent Israeli democracy by forcing its government to do something most voters oppose.

Excellent Question. Who’s Funding Pro-Palestinian Israeli ‘Human Rights’ Groups?

...But the Palestinians themselves claim the West Bank and Gaza constitute a single Palestinian entity, which means that in their own understanding, the Birzeit faculty who decided to award those grants to B’Tselem and BTS were on Hamas’s side in this war. Effectively, therefore, these two groups solicited and received money from an enemy during wartime in order to produce propaganda against their own country. It might be legal, but morally, it stinks. And it ought to put both B’Tselem and BTS permanently beyond the pale.

Evelyn Gordon..
Commentary Magazine..
27 August '15..

Granted, everyone is (justly) preoccupied with the Iran deal right now, and, granted, the original scoop was in Hebrew. But I still can’t believe this news has gotten so little attention: During last summer’s war with Hamas in Gaza, two Israeli “human rights” organizations – B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence – requested and received special grants from Palestinian middle men in order to finance reports accusing Israel of war crimes.

Under most circumstances, taking money from the enemy in wartime to produce propaganda against your own side would be considered treason. In this case, legally speaking, it definitely isn’t. But morally speaking, it’s not merely skirting close to the edge; it’s well over the line.

The news was first reported by Gidon Dokow on the Hebrew-language news site NRG. But you needn’t take Dokow’s word for it; he helpfully included a link to the funding organization’s English-language annual report.

The organization goes by the unwieldy name of the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat. According to its annual report, it is “a project implemented by NIRAS NATURA AB – Sweden, and the Institute of Law, Birzeit University, Birzeit, Palestine, with generous support from the governments of Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Switzerland.”

In other words, the money itself is European. But the ones who decide what to do with it are Niras Natura – which describes itself as an international consultancy firm in the field of sustainable development – and the faculty of Birzeit. And since the Birzeit people are the ones actually on the ground, they presumably have considerable influence over how the money is spent.

The Secretariat’s main job appears to be funneling money to other organizations. According to the annual report, it had 24 “core grantees” and 19 “project grantees” last year. Nine of the former and two of the latter are Israeli; the rest are Palestinian.

When the war broke out in July 2014, the Secretariat put out a call to its core grantees soliciting emergency funding requests. “The emergency funding call focused on activities related to monitoring and documentation of IHL [international humanitarian law] and human rights violations in the Gaza Strip, arising from the then ongoing war,” the report said. Requests were received from 11 organizations, including three Israeli ones, and the Secretariat decided to fund nine of them, including two Israeli groups – B’Tselem and BTS.

But the money was intended for “monitoring and documentation” of alleged violations by one side only – Israel. That’s crystal clear from the report’s summary of its emergency grantees’ “achievements”: Not one of the nine says a word about the massive Palestinian violations of international humanitarian law.

The section on Breaking the Silence is particularly blatant. The Secretariat would have considered its money well spent, the report declared, had BTS managed to scrounge up even a single anti-Israel testimony from Israeli soldiers:

Israeli ‘Human Rights’ Groups and How They Threaten Our Very Existence

...The appropriate name for these organizations is actually “organizations for the exploitation of the issue of human rights as a political objective.” Not only the State of Israel, but also its supporters all over the world, must understand the threat that hangs over it from foreign funding intended to prejudice the country’s identity.

Shimon Ohayon..
The Algemeiner..
12 May '15..

The State of Israel was established during a period of intense focus on human rights issues. All the leading political movements during that period dedicated a significant part of their platforms to human rights.

The institutions and laws established in Israel reflect the central place of human rights at the heart of the State’s ideological foundations. It is therefore not surprising that human rights organizations have always been prominent and active in Israeli society.
However, in recent years we have seen the rise of new organizations which, while they call themselves “human rights organizations,” are in fact of a completely different ilk from the tradition. Contrary to what one would assume, these organizations’ activities raise questions as to the sincerity of their concern with human rights, questions that are motivated by the agendas and goals that are guiding them.

These organizations constitute a coordinated coalition, and they have selected a limited number of core issues in which they have invested the greater part of their resources. One major issue is that of the migration of infiltrators into the State of Israel. ‘Human rights’ organizations are doing everything possible to eradicate the Israeli State’s ability to stop this flow of illegal migrants: petitions to the Supreme Court, demonstrations, information centers, and categorical opposition to any law that imposes sanctions on people who cross the border.

Masterminding these efforts is the New Israel Fund, which has created a forum in which members of organizations such as ASSAF (Aid Organization for Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Israel), Physicians for Human Rights, the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants, and others can work together and sometimes operate as a single entity. The stated purpose of the forum is to grant permanent resident status to these migrants. The funding for this forum comes from foreign entities such as the EU, the U.S. State Department, and from the budgets of various European governments.

The result has been the accumulation of approximately 100,000 illegal migrants in Israeli cities, living in poverty and dire conditions and turning entire neighborhoods into hubs of crime. Despite the clear evidence that indicates that these infiltrators were not being persecuted by the regimes in their home countries (for example, masses of migrants were guests at an event in their support held at the home of the South Sudanese Ambassador), these organizations have chosen to present them as “refugees,” and have demanded that Israel should grant them permanent status.

Ironically, recent findings only confirm the true ideological agenda of these organizations. In late march the British Home Office issued a report stating that Eritreans, by far the largest component of the infiltrator population, are actually not subject to persecution in Eritrea by virtue of their having left the country to escape military service.

They are able to return, subject to paying a tax for the service they missed. And since the infiltrators make far more money in Tel Aviv than they would in Eritrea (their real reason for being here), paying a tax is no impediment to their return.

This undercuts the idea that these people are endangered refugees, rather than economic self-seekers. Yet to Israeli NGOs they are stateless, helpless refugees. Of course, what they really represent to these NGOs are ways to diminish the Jewish character of Israel, the ultimate agenda of the NIF and its many funded human rights NGOs.

Surprised? The Troubling Historical Context of European funded Breaking the Silence

...As has been noted in this blog many times before, the Palestinians in the West Bank and even in Gaza are not anywhere near the most deprived or suffering group in the Middle East. With unmitigated atrocities occurring all over the region, the unchanging focus by these so-called humanitarian groups on alleged Israeli actions, backed up by vast funds handed over to groups that engage in overt political agitation against the region's only functioning democracy, is morally indefensible.

Steven Stotsky..
CAMERA Snapshots..
06 May '15..

The release of a United Nations [UN] report on the deaths of Gazan civilians in UN shelters during the summer 2014 war between Israel and Hamas has served as the launching pad for another campaign to smear Israel. Breaking the Silence, a group that travels the world undermining Israel's moral standing by presenting alleged testimonies of Israeli soldiers committing unconscionable acts against Palestinian civilians, is saturating news outlets with articles promoting its 240-page report consisting of testimonials alleging Israeli cruelty and reckless disregard for the safety of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

Breaking the Silence is funded by a roster of organizations that seek to undermine Israel's moral standing and force it into making concessions that would leave it vulnerable. Among the major donors are the Royal Norwegian Embassy, the European Union, several European Catholic organizations, including the German-based Miseroer and Flemish-based Broederlijk Delen, George Soros's Open Society, and a number of organizations funded by the far-left New Israel Fund. These organizations fund a bevy of groups dedicated to defaming and undermining the Jewish state. A Swiss organization, Pro Victimis claims that its special emphasis is addressing violence against women. But somehow it found 273,000 NIS to donate to Breaking the Silence.

Really! Hands off my country!

...I do have a problem with the US and European governments meddling in Israel’s politics and attempting to influence its elections to change our government to one which will be more compliant to their interests — interests which often oppose the continued existence of Israel as a Jewish state.

Vic Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
10 March '15..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2015/03/hands-off-my-country/

Supporters of the Obama Administration, like Eric Yoffie of the the Union for Reform Judaism, pretend to be angered and offended by the “wildly inappropriate” action of PM Netanyahu in accepting the invitation of the Speaker of the House to address Congress. They insist that protocol was broken, that the speech was a an attack on the President and that Netanyahu didn’t offer an alternative to Obama’s policy. And they view the speech as unwanted interference in American partisan politics.

All of these complaints are false, and one can only assume that, like their president, they didn’t bother to listen to the speech. But the part about “interference” makes me laugh. There is simply no comparison. The US and Europe have been meddling in Israel’s affairs for years, and have recently taken it to a new level. And they don’t do it openly, by making speeches (indeed, Obama declined to speak to Israel’s Knesset in 2013, possibly because it would constitute recognition that Jerusalem is our capital).

As we approach our March 17 election, the flow of foreign money into groups trying to defeat PM Netanyahu continues unabated. The V15 organization is assiduously working to get out the anti-Netanyahu vote, in the cities and Arab towns. And they are not the only foreign-backed organization trying to influence the election against the PM. The Likud made a complaint to the Election Commission against V15, but unfortunately they shot from the hip and failed to establish a direct connection between V15 and the PM’s electoral opponents.

This is nothing new. For years, the EU, individual European governments and the US-based New Israel Fund (NIF) have been funding non-governmental organizations in Israel which work against the interests of the state to the tune of millions of dollars. These NGOs provided the raw material for the libelous accusations of war crimes against Israel made by the UN Human Rights Commission in the tendentious Goldstone Report about the 2008-9 Gaza War (since repudiated by the jurist whose name it bears) and the forthcoming Schabas Report about the more recent 2014 conflict.

The NGOs include some that engage in “lawfare” against Israel, including legal attacks against IDF soldiers and commanders; others that support boycott-divestment-sanctions (BDS); some that generate propaganda to demonize the state and the IDF; and some that engage in protests and vandalism in the territories.

The European-funded warfare on Israel’s courts

...it has become necessary to rethink the role of foreign-funded NGOs in the Israeli legal system. While I continue to believe in the legitimacy of NGOs in challenging government policy in domestic courts, when this process becomes a deliberate campaign of sabotage, this becomes anti-Israel lawfare, and needs to be treated as such....

Anne Herzberg..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
01 March '14..

When I first introduced the concept of “lawfare” against Israel in 2008, focusing on attempts by NGOs (non-governmental organizations) to have Israeli officials arrested abroad for alleged war crimes, people would frequently ask why I did not include the myriad of litigation brought by NGOs in Israeli courts. My typical response was that it was legitimate for NGOs to challenge government policy in domestic courts, and this did not constitute anti-Israel lawfare.

However, I am rethinking this position.

NGO Monitor has discovered massive funding provided by the UK, the EU and Norway to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which in turn is funneled to local NGOs in order to flood Israeli courts with hundreds of lawsuits.

Since 2011, these governments have provided the NRC with a staggering $20 million in taxpayer funds to wage legal warfare on Israel. This funding is directed toward the NRC’s “Information Counselling and Legal Assistance” (ICLA) project. According to documents examined by NGO Monitor from the British government, the aim of the project is to manipulate Israeli democracy to achieve “changes in Israeli policy and practice” and to provide “evidence and analysis to form the basis for international pressure on Israel.”

In practice, NRC has used its millions to finance a flood of lawsuits before Israeli courts and administrative bodies. The scope of NRC’s interference in the Israeli legal system is unprecedented. With its EU and European government financing, the NRC has funded at least 700 cases in Israeli courts. Documents show that NRC is responsible for 51 percent of all “house demolition” cases in Area C and 35% of all legal cases dealing with housing, land and property claims in east Jerusalem and Area C.

These cases have included some of the most controversial and contentious issues relating to the Arab-Israeli conflict, including Sheikh Jarrah, and deny pre-1948 Jewish property claims in east Jerusalem, the Cliff Hotel case, the route of the security barrier in the Cremisan Valley (near Bethlehem), and the validity of military orders.

The full list of lawsuits, and the NGO partners and lawyers bringing them, has been kept secret by both the NRC and its government funders, but NGO Monitor research has uncovered the involvement of some of the most active political advocacy NGOs involved in lawfare, including Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Yesh Din, St. Yves Society, as well as NGO attorney Michael Sfard.

Moreover, statements made by those associated with the program suggest another, more nefarious goal of the NRC lawfare project – one that is consistent with the campaign to delegitimize Israel, particularly in legal frameworks. In a public presentation, an NRC-affiliated lawyer commented that the strategy behind the project is to undertake “every possible legal measure to disrupt the Israeli judicial system... to increase the workload of the courts and the Supreme Court to such an extent that there will be a blockage.”

In other words, the objective is to sabotage the Israeli justice system. (It is notable that this very strategy was laid out in a 2010 report issued by leading lawfare NGO Al Haq).

Why are European powers (and Oxfam) funding a radical Israeli group like Breaking the Silence?

While there are definitely some points I would take clear exception to, this reporter had approached Breaking the Silence with a fair degree of open-mindedness but walked away clearly disillusioned by what he found. Regarding Breaking the Silence this piece may be considered quite an ouch, but certainly not undeserved and an eye-opener for those not familiar with their antics.  Y.

Jake Wallis Simons..
Telegraph.co.uk..
17 December '13..
H/T Elder of Ziyon..

In a grimy corner of downtown Jerusalem, tucked away on the top floor of an anonymous-looking block of offices, is the headquarters of an organisation called Breaking the Silence.

This is a group of former Israeli soldiers who have served in the West Bank, and aim to “expose the Israeli public to the reality of everyday life in the Occupied Territories”.

They accomplish this via a database of testimonies that offer first-hand accounts of human rights abuses by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). They also organise tours of the West Bank, offering “an unmediated encounter with the reality of military occupation”.

Essentially, this is another anti-settlement group. But it derives especial power from the fact that it is made up of former members of the Israeli armed forces, who are willing to confess openly to their own wrongdoing and that of their comrades.

Although I had been aware of this organisation for a long time, my first encounter with it came last summer. I was spending some time on the West Bank, carrying out interviews and research for Meet the Settlers, an in-depth Telegraph multimedia feature about the Israeli settlements.

I was looking forward to interviewing members of Breaking the Silence. The group had been highly recommended to me by various people, including a British diplomat who had taken part in one of their tours in an official capacity (a Foreign Office spokesman confirmed that “FCO staff maintain links to a wide variety of non-government organisations, including the Israeli non-profit group Breaking the Silence”).

I liked all the members personally, and at first found them to be sincere in their beliefs. But when the interviews began, something didn’t feel right.

For one thing, the majority of the testimonies seemed to reflect the roughness of the military rather than any human rights abuse. The indignity of checkpoints; the intrusion of house-to-house searches; the unpleasantness of curfews. All of this stuff is awful, but only a small percentage of it appeared to warrant court martial.

Some of the material was genuinely shocking, of course, and it is beyond dispute that IDF soldiers do indeed commit human rights abuses. This is something from which all armies suffer (to wit, Marine A); whether the Israeli military is guiltier than others is a debate for another time.

For now, my point is this: I couldn’t shake the feeling that Breaking the Silence was milking it.

It was only a hunch at first. But later, the bias of the organisation became clearer. During a break between interviews, I asked Yehuda Shaul, one of the founders of the organisation, how the group is funded. It was with some surprise that I learned that 45 per cent of it is donated by European countries, including Norway and Spain, and the European Union. Other donors include UNICEF, Christian Aid and Oxfam GB. To me this seemed potentially problematic.

When it comes to Israel and human rights Germany plays a double game

...So why did Israel decide to rejoin this tragi-comic fraud? Mostly because of pressure from Germany, which apparently committed to rectify the UNHRC’s discriminatory policy toward Israel. But how can Germany reasonably claim to act against the fraudulent and cynical politicization of human rights by the UN and by NGOs, when German political parties contribute to that very farce by funding NGOs that defame Israel and advocate the dismembering of the Jewish state in the name of human rights?

Dr. Emmanuel Navon..
I24 News..
01 November '13..

At Germany's behest, Israel renewed this week its cooperation with the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) after boycotting the controversial body for nearly two years. Its boycott was motivated by the UNHRC’s threefold discriminatory policy toward Israel: singling it out for special discussion in every human rights conference; baring its election to the council by virtue of Israel not belonging to any regional grouping; and subjecting it to more condemnations than any other country.

Israel was guaranteed that this unfair treatment will end if it renews its cooperation with the UNHRC.

The UNHRC Charter has a special article (Article 7) which stipulates that any conference on human rights must hold a separate discussion on Israel. This stipulation applies only to Israel, and no other country in the world is subject to such treatment – not even actual and horrendous human rights abusers such as Syria, Saudi Arabia, China or Sudan. This “Israel-only” clause was adopted by the UNHRC in 2007. At the time it was criticized by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who publicly voiced disbelief at such bizarre treatment of a democracy given the range and scope of human rights violations throughout the world.

The second discriminatory policy has to do with the fact that Israel is the only country that does not belong to any regional group at the UNHRC, thus making it ineligible to be elected to UN bodies. Israel does not belong to the “Asia-Pacific Group,” because this group includes the Middle East and because Arab countries refuse to accept Israel. At the UN in New York, Israel finally became a permanent member of the West European and Others Group (which includes Turkey) in 2004, but in Geneva, it is still excluded. This exclusion makes Israel the only country that is ineligible to the UNHRC. As former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said, this exclusion is inconsistent with the basic principle of equality among UN members.

The third discrimination has to do with the disproportionate condemnation of Israel by the UNHRC. In its March 2013 session, for instance, the UNHRC adopted six resolutions against Israel, and only four for the rest of the world combined (the four other resolutions condemned Syria, Iran, Myanmar and Sri Lanka). There were no resolutions about the gross and systematic violations of human rights in countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, or Zimbabwe. This disproportionate and discriminatory policy characterized the UNHRC way before Israel decided to pull out. But the fact that the UNHRC fails to condemn actual human rights offenders should come as no surprise, since many of these offenders are among the 47 elected members of the committee. Indeed, in two weeks, the UNHRC will welcome among its newly elected members China, Cuba, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

When "peacemakers" incite to conflict they make murder respectable.

...By dressing up as “peacemakers” the Christian aid societies supporting Israel’s demise bear truth to George Orwell who wrote, “Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

A protester from the World Council
of Churches demonstrates with
Women in Black in Jerusalem. 
Photo: Seth J. Frantzman

Yitzhak Santis..
Op-Ed Contributor/Post..
30 September '13..

It has become axiomatic in some circles that the sole cause of the Arab- Israeli conflict is Israel, by which is really meant Israel’s existence. For many holding this view the “solution” is a single “binational” state as opposed to the two-state solution favored by the international community. These “one state” proponents also insist on a “right of return” for 1948 Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants, amounting to a call for the elimination of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

A conference promoting this vision, funded mostly by Protestant and Catholic groups, is being held this week in Tel Aviv. These Christian groups are themselves largely funded by European governments that officially support the two-state solution. The conference, then, undermines these governments’ own policies.

The event, “From Truth to Redress: Realizing the Return of Palestinian Refugees,” is organized by Zochrot, a tiny Israeli fringe group.

Israeli one-state advocates are so few that they have neither a constituency nor influence in Israel. For Zochrot, foreign funding is their lifeline; the conference was “made possible thanks to the generous support of: Misereor, Christian Aid, HEKS-EPER, CCFD, Finn Church Aid, Broederlijk Delen, AFSC, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Mennonite Central Committee, Trócaire, St. Het Solidariteitsfonds, Oxfam GB and private donors.”

NGO Monitor wrote each of the sponsors, and we received several replies.

France’s CCFD and Germany’s Misereor (both Catholic) wrote identical messages – including the same grammatical mistakes. They affirmed they are a “funding partner of Zochrot” and declared “refugee issues and refugee rights all over the world are of utmost importance to us.” But regarding funding they opted for fogginess: “Our privacy policies do not allow to disclose (sic) the amounts given to recipients.”

Belgium’s Broederlijk Delen, also Catholic, wrote a similar response: “We support the work of Zochrot as we believe refugee rights are important in any context and should be openly discussed.”

But regarding funding, they also chose murkiness: “With regard to details on funding, we wish to respect our partners’ privacy.”

What seems to be lost on these Christian groups is they are supported by public funds.

Why should Israel allow it, when Europe most certainly wouldn't?

...The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs needs to inform every country that gives aid: We embrace your norms. If you don’t fund European refugee NGOs – please don’t do it here, and don’t hide beyond the dubious excuse of “human rights.” And if you don’t understand this in a diplomatic way, as accepted between civilized countries, we will be forced to make legislation that will turn your accepted norms between European countries into our normative standards.

Ben-Dror Yemini..
Times of Israel..
29 September '13..

One of the main claims of human rights organizations is that, regarding democratic behavior, Israel should adopt the norms accepted in democratic countries. That is a justified claim. Even with the assumption that the norms are not uniform, there is a wide, common denominator. This includes freedom of speech, the rule of law, freedom of association, etc. The common denominator includes Israel. Regarding relations between states, the application must be universal. No more double standards, rather mutual norms.

Take, for example, the NGO for the rights of refugees deported from the Czech Republic or Poland under circumstances involving the total confiscation of property left behind by the refugees and acts considered war crimes. This happened at the end of World War II and afterwards. Here and there, organizations were established to deal with the refugees’ rights, such as the Federation of Expellees (BdV). Freedom of speech and association give these bodies their mandate. Those who were deported feel like victims. They think that an injustice was done to them. They demand to correct this injustice.

The question is not whether they are right. We can argue about that. The question is whether foreign countries such as France and England, or international bodies like the EU, would fund those human rights organizations in the name of universal concern for human rights and refugees. And the bigger question: Do sovereign countries have the right to monitor political grants given by foreign governments? Unlike the myths offered sometimes, there is no single answer.

When Saudi Arabia asked to donate money in order to build two mosques in Norway, the Norwegian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Jonas Gahr Store, clarified that he would happily receive the donation on condition that Saudi Arabia establishes freedom of religion, allowing for the building of churches. In France there are no limitations on donations for the building of mosques, despite the fact that French law forbids foreign government donations for political activity.

More importantly, even without legislation, there is no country that allows foreign donations for radical political NGOs that undermine the country’s founding ethos. There is not one country in Europe that dreams of funding one of the bodies in Germany dealing with the rights of refugees from central Europe. And of course, there is not one European country that would deliver money to an NGO in the Czech Republic or in Poland promoting the German right of return (if such an organization existed).

The Arab world going up in flames – but the US, EU and UN focus on Israel

Ilya Meyer..
IlyaMeyer.com
02 August '13..

The Arab world is aflame – but the US, EU and UN focus on Israel
Here’s a question: Why is it that there are no less than THREE Palestines? Three Palestines whose official policy is ethnic cleansing of Jews from their nascent territory.

Firstly there’s Palestine 1/aka Jordan, capital Amman, built on roughly 77 percent of the British Mandate area – the territory earmarked to be returned to the Jewish people as their rightful historic home. This thanks to such legally binding agreements as the Balfour Declaration, the San Remo Resolution and the UN Partition Plan for Palestine. More than 70 percent of the population of Jordan is Palestinian Arab, yet power is in the hands of the minority Hashemite ruler, King Abdullah, whose family was imported from Arabia to form an immigrant royal dynasty in the part of Palestine that was designated for Arab rule (and the exclusion of all Jews).

Then there’s Palestine 2/The Gaza Strip, capital city Gaza City. Here the extremist Islamist terror group Hamas holds sway after having removed its main political rivals – literally removed, through the simple expedient of tying their hands behind their backs and throwing them off the roofs of tall buildings. Other political opponents were hogtied and dragged behind motorcycles on public streets to send the requisite message of mutual tolerance and political diversity… Here too Jews have been ethnically cleansed – even Jewish graves were uprooted to create an Islamically pure environment for the Sharia aspirations of the proud Hamas regime.

And finally there’s Palestine 3/Most of Judea and Samaria, the historical heartland of the Jewish people, whose modern Arab capital city is Ramallah, Jewish capital city Jerusalem. This area is ruled by the non-elected rabid anti-Semite Mahmoud Abbas. He titles himself “President of Palestine”. Meantime, the Prime Minister of Palestine 1 is Abdullah Ensour, the Prime Minister of Palestine 2 is Ismail Haniyeh, and the Prime Minister of Palestine 3 is Rami Hamdallah. As recently as 2 days ago, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, on his way to “peace talks” with Israel, reiterated his long-standing demand that the Arab state of Palestine will have no Jews in it whatsoever. It is interesting to note, by way of comparison, that about 21 percent of Israel’s population consists of Arabs, both Christian and Muslim Arabs.

The European Union's closed feedback loop

Itai Reuveni..
Israel Hayom..
28 July '13..




The EU's decision to halt economic cooperation with Israeli institutions beyond the Green Line was highly influenced by lobbying efforts on the part of dozens of local political nongovernmental organizations funded by the EU.

How does an NGO turn into an extension of interested third parties, under the cover of acting to help society at large? For European countries, government funding (sometimes secret) to dozens of Israeli and Palestinian NGOs, is a central method for advancing their interests. Their goal is to change Israeli policy while circumventing democracy and diplomacy.

These same organizations work to undermine Israel's relations with the rest of the world. They want to force their agenda on the Israeli public. Any issue related to the conflict is oversimplified and used to vilify Israel. Under these absurd circumstances, senior European officials are fed unreliable, inaccurate and distorted information from organizations that they themselves fund (under the pretense that they represent Israeli "civil society"). On the basis of these falsehoods, they criticize Israel and make policy decisions that are disconnected from reality. It is a closed feedback loop that turns Europe's decision-making process into a failure. It prevents educated discussion and raises the question of whether it is appropriate for political NGOs and European governments to influence the Israeli and Palestinian publics.

This defective policy planning also manifests itself in the EU's connection to international organizations. If we study the language of the Europeans' latest directive, we cannot ignore the striking resemblance to the recommendations published by 22 European and international NGOs in a report from October 2012. Most of these organizations are funded by the EU itself. In addition, the EU itself admitted to have adopted some of the recommendations.

Time to shine a light on the NGO campaign of distortion

...Certain NGOs have upped the ante since and have sought to ensure their activities will be placed under no further public scrutiny and that even their illegitimate activities will be placed above the law.

MK Robert Ilatov..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
23 July '13..

Israel’s democracy is under threat again! This is the constant refrain heard from certain NGOs every time their taciturn and covert work comes under the spotlight. It has become so frequent and predictable it would be pitiful, if not for the nefarious and outsized effect these NGOs have on the internal and external conversation about our country and its future.

In 2011, the Knesset voted in favor of the public’s right to know the details of foreign government involvement through NGO funding, passing legislation requiring all recipients, regardless of political agenda, to report quarterly in order for this shadowy industry to work in a more transparent manner.

This simple act of legislation was fought using the NGO industry’s almost limitless resources, and political support was mobilized with claims the proposed law signaled the end of democracy. The substance of the bill was massively distorted and the bill itself was seldom referred to or referenced in this all-out attack.

Thankfully, this bill passed into law. However, smarting from the loss, certain NGOs have upped the ante since and have sought to ensure their activities will be placed under no further public scrutiny and that even their illegitimate activities will be placed above the law.

The bill I am co-sponsoring with Ayelet Shaked seeks to remedy a situation which no self-respecting democracy can endure. Any NGO which receives foreign government funding and which advocates for or carries out certain actions will be restricted to receiving no more than NIS 20,000 a year from a given nation.

The criteria which would restrict government funding are: if an NGO or member of an NGO calls for IDF soldiers to be tried in international courts; calls to boycott, divest from or sanction the State of Israel or its citizens; denies Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state; incites to racism or supports armed struggle against the State of Israel by an enemy state or terror organization.

Any and all opponents of the bill should simply state which of these criteria are problematic or offensive to them. These actions are deeply injurious to the State of Israel and its citizens and are already to a great extent illegal if performed by Israeli citizens. The question which should remain is: Why should NGOs be above the law, and why should foreign governments continue to fund these activities? Should a state allow the flow of massive funding to any organization which incites racism, supports terrorism or the dismantlement of our nation in its current form? It is time the NGOs using scare-tactics and threats answered this simple question.

Who is anti-democratic? Europe’s secret NGO wars

Dr. Gerald M. Steinberg..
Op-Ed Contributor/JPost..
14 July '13..

When is a non-governmental organization (NGO) actually an arm of state power and interest, masquerading as a non-political do-good civil society group? For starters, this absurd category, known as a GONGO – a governmental non-governmental organization – applies to the dozens of Israeli and Palestinian advocacy groups that are funded primarily by the European Union, its member states, as well as Norway and Switzerland.

For Europe, NGO funding is a major form of promoting state interests, with goal of changing Israeli policy through the political activities of these organizations.

In politics, as in nature, such hostile actions produce opposite reactions, and the impact of these Europe-funded political campaigns has alerted Israel’s democratically elected representatives in the Knesset.

These objections often take the form of proposed legislation that seeks to prevent such abuse. The latest draft would prohibit all foreign government grants above NIS 20,000 for political entities whose members or employees promote NGO political warfare against Israel. In particular, the proposal refers to NGOs that campaign for discriminatory boycotts, use false war crimes allegations to urge legal action in international courts, deny Israel’s legitimacy as a Jewish and democratic state, incite racism and support armed attacks or terrorism.

While more specific than similar legislation introduced (and withdrawn) last year, the definitions remain problematic, and the new proposal was immediately denounced as “anti-democratic.” Supporters, in turn, refer to the abuses of European soft power as anti-democratic and neo-colonial, in that they seek to use the power of unaccountable NGOs to impose their preferences on Israel.

Something truly mind-boggling - The EU’s propensity for self-harm

...Nice move Ashton. How it is possible for so much economic incompetence and political venom to be embodied in one single person defies description. In true EU style, she will no doubt be promoted to a new job in Brussels or, better still, UN headquarters in New York.

Ilya Meyer..
ilyameyer.com..
17 July '13..

100,000 civilians have been slaughtered in the ongoing Syrian civil war, and another 2.8 million – that’s 2,800,000 people – have been rendered homeless, refugees in their own state or having abandoned everything and fled to neighbouring countries such as Turkey, the Lebanon and Jordan.

The 10-million-strong Coptic Christian minority of Egypt suffered unspeakable atrocities at the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood under Morsi’s rule. Now the Islamist Morsi has been swept aside by popular sentiment (and army support) and the Egyptian civilian population is not only in political turmoil – statistics reveal that almost 15 percent of Egyptians have had to cut back on their basic food intake in a country that is collapsing politically, economically, industrially, agriculturally, morally and socially. During the 4-day revolution last month several hundred women were brutally raped in Cairo and elsewhere, some by Morsi supporters who objected to the presence of women in public places, the rest by anti-Morsi activists who celebrated their exuberance over Morsi’s removal with “recreational rape”.

In Somalia and elsewhere female genital mutilation is still practised routinely, often with fatal results – and that’s before we even consider the psychological effects on the survivors. The Taliban are increasing their presence and gaining credibility in Afghanistan, with offshoots in countries like Pakistan and elsewhere. Saudi culture still embraces the enslavement of black Africans and non-Muslim “guest workers” from overseas. The Iranian regime still routinely hangs shoplifters, gays and political dissidents in public squares. Hizbollah still reigns with impunity in the Lebanon, expanding its terrorist fiefdom there and coercing opponents into scared silence. The Egyptian army has sealed Egypt’s border with Gaza, smashing some Hamas tunnels under the border and flooding the remainder with raw sewage, drowning Palestinian Arabs like rats. The EU-funded Palestinian Authority still routinely names roads, schools and public buildings in honour of mass-murderers – even when these roads, schools and public buildings are constructed with EU funding. The Islamist Turkish regime still illegally occupies Northern Cyprus – and Cyprus is a full-fledged EU member state.

And while all this strife in the Muslim world is going on, the EU manages not to comment on, deal with or even acknowledge any of the above. Instead, it manages to focus on the world’s sole Jewish state – Israel. In a move that was both malicious in the extreme and grossly lacking in sensitivity, coming as it did on the anniversary of the date on which the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was sacked and Hitler formally ratified his project for the industrialised extermination of world Jewry, the EU announced that it has unilaterally decided on the borders of Israel and that parts of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall (the site of the Temple), will henceforth be classified as being located in “Palestine”.