An Open Letter to the Honorable Emmanuel Macron, President of France - by Dexter Van Zile

Why does France allow its sovereign territory in Jerusalem to be used as a staging ground for attacks on Jewish sovereignty in Israel?

Dexter Van Zile..
TOI Blog..
22 January '20..
Link: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/an-open-letter-to-emmanuel-macron-president-of-france/

To the Honorable Emmanuel Macron, President of France:

I just saw a video of your confrontation with the Israeli police at St. Anne’s Church in the Old City of Jerusalem. It was a brief vignette posted on Twitter, so I don’t know exactly what happened, but it looks like you were protecting the status of the church as sovereign French territory. It seems to be one of the goals you had for yourself before your current trip to Jerusalem.

I hope Israelis will reserve judgement about the confrontation. Like you said in the video, “Nobody has to provoke nobody.”

Words to live by!

I also hope the confrontation between you and the Israeli security officials doesn’t turn into a contretemps that gets distorted to make modern day Jews look like the folks who stoned St. Stephen all those years ago. Given that you praised Israeli security officials for protecting you while walking through the Old City, I don’t think it will.

But you never know. There’s a lot of demand for that sort of narrative these days and a lot of people in Jerusalem make a living meeting that demand. In fact, one person who has provided that sort of narrative, Yusef Daher, runs the Jerusalem Inter Church Center (JICC) whose office is located in St. Anne’s compound. While he’s there, Daher enjoys the protection of French sovereignty, which you so ardently defended.

In the past, Daher has portrayed legitimate Israeli security measures at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as a huge act of oppression against Christians worldwide. For example, Daher has unfairly portrayed Israeli efforts to prevent a stampede outside the church as an evil act against Christians in Jerusalem.

But I digress . . .

Let’s face it. The Old City is a stressful place to be. It is imbued with a lot of religious meaning and for the unprepared, Jerusalem can be a rough place to visit. Part of the shock is to see all these ordinary people, sovereign Jews especially, living out their daily lives in a city that is as central to the Western imagination and memory as Athens, Paris and Rome.

As a wise Christian friend of mine who lives in the Holy Land once told me, “People come to the Holy Land with a lot of baggage. When they get off the plane in Tel Aviv their baggage gets multiplied by a factor of 10,” he said. “And when they step into Jerusalem it gets multiplied by 100.”

Given that French sovereignty over St. Anne’s dates back to the 1800s, it’s likely the Israelis will have some sympathy for you. They know the importance of protecting sovereignty. If there is one group of people who know the dangers of losing sovereignty even better than the French, it’s the Israelis.

It’s interesting to note that that one of your predecessors, Jacques Chirac generated some controversy when he visited St. Anne’s in 1996. Apparently, St. Anne’s is a pretty neuralgic place for French Presidents.

Vraiment!

I don’t mean to add to your headaches, but given that you just defended French sovereignty over St. Anne’s in the Old City of Jerusalem, I feel compelled to ask you some questions about how France administers the property. The central issue is this: Why does France allow its sovereign territory in Jerusalem to be used by the JICC, which is led by Daher, as a staging ground for ideological and theological attacks on Jewish sovereignty in Israel?

If you pardon the expression, that doesn’t seem . . . kosher.

I raised this question with the folks in France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2018 and no one got back to me.

I even asked officials from the White Fathers, the Catholic religious order that operates St. Anne’s. They were pretty tight-lipped, but the one thing they did say is that St. Anne’s Monastery enjoys diplomatic protection, “just like an embassy.”

So, here is the relevant text of an email that I sent to the folks in France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs in an email sent, interestingly enough, on June 6, 2018:

I am currently writing an article about an organization called the Ecumenical Accompaniment Program in Palestine/Israel (EAPPI). EAPPI is an institution of the World Council of Churches (WCC) that sends activists into Israel and the West Bank. The organization has come under increasing scrutiny and criticism from a number of institutions and commentators in Israel and elsewhere for its tendency to promote anti-Israel propaganda both in the Holy Land and in the home country of EAPPI activists.

EAPPI is closely affiliated with another WCC institution — the Jerusalem Interchurch Center — whose general secretary, a Palestinian Christian by the name of Yusef Daher, has posted ugly anti-Israel propaganda on his Facebook page.

Jordanian lawmakers' vote shows why Israel's defensible borders still matter - by Evelyn Gordon

Visceral hatred of Israel is common even in countries with which it has peace treaties. Not only does this hinder peacemaking, but it creates a real risk that treaties won’t survive an autocrat’s fall.

Evelyn Gordon..
JNS.org..
22 January '20..

If you want to understand the true obstacle to Mideast peace, look no further than the Jordanian parliament’s unanimous approval last week of a bill to ban natural-gas imports from Israel, just days after the gas began arriving.

Energy-poor Jordan needs a stable, affordable fuel supply, which the Israeli deal provides. When it was signed in 2016, the Jordanian government said it could save the country $500 million a year—almost 4 percent of Jordan’s 2019 budget and more than half its projected deficit for that year (the actual deficit was apparently higher). In short, the deal would let the kingdom redirect significant amounts of money to some of its other crying needs.

But that doesn’t interest Jordanian lawmakers. What they care about is that this is “the gas of the enemy,” to quote protesters against the deal.

They also don’t care that Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty 25 years ago. As last week’s vote made clear, every single Jordanian lawmaker still views Israel as an enemy with whom trade is anathema, even if Jordan itself would benefit greatly. That stance is wildly popular: Almost all Jordanians have an unfavorable view of Jews and similar views of the Jewish state.

Israel’s egregious efforts to accommodate Jordan’s anti-Israel sensibilities didn’t help, either. The gas comes from a field developed by an Israeli company, Delek, in partnership with an American one, Noble Energy. But to enable the deal to move forward, the partnership acceded to the Jordanian power company’s demand that no Israeli entity be party to the contract. Officially, therefore, the contract isn’t with Israel, but with Noble’s American marketing subsidiary.

The deal will most likely go ahead despite parliament’s objections because though King Abdullah is happy to let his lawmakers spout anti-Israel rhetoric, he rarely lets them interfere with anything that he considers an important Jordanian interest. And for now, despite the country’s growing unrest, Abdullah’s grip still seems firm.

But regardless of what happens to the gas deal, the vote shines a spotlight on two errors that have consistently undermined Western peacemaking efforts.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Like to know what the Palestinian “Prayer Intifada” is all about? (Hint: not about prayers) - by Yishai Fleisher

It’s time for Israel to reverse the misguided Dayan doctrine and send a clear message that Palestinian “liberation” of the Temple Mount and the Tomb of the Patriarchs will utterly fail.

Yishai Fleisher..
JNS.org..
21 January '20..

There’s a new Palestinian intifada in the works, one that specifically targets the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

Called the Great Fajr (Muslim pre-dawn prayer), it’s roused thousands of Palestinians to converge on the holy sites for Friday prayers—which also double as anti-Israel rallies. The large turnouts, despite the cold and rain, have surprised police in both Jerusalem and Hebron.

The Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh reports that the prayer demonstrations are being organized by both Hamas and Fatah. Last Friday, a third jihadist organization, called Hizb ut-Tahrir (Party of Liberation), an Islamic State-like pro-Caliphate movement, led Temple Mount worshippers in chants of “O coward settler, Aqsa [Mosque] won’t be humiliated” and “With blood and spirit, we will liberate Al-Aqsa.”

Palestinian leaders claim the protests are aimed at stemming the growing tide of Jewish visitors to the Temple Mount and thwarting Israel’s decision to build a new Jewish neighborhood in Hebron.

But these are just excuses.

The truth is that the Palestinian national movement is deflated and is looking for a religious kick-start.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Before visiting Ramallah, a pit stop at Yad Vashem - by Prof. Shmuel Trigano

Europe turns a blind eye to Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism in the belief that the Arab world is not responsible for the Holocaust, and that Europe oppressed the Palestinians by contributing to the establishment of the Jewish state.

Prof. Shmuel Trigano..
Israel Hayom..
20 January '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/on-the-way-to-ramallah-a-pit-stop-at-yad-vashem/

What a strange idea it was for President Reuven Rivlin to invite European leaders to Yad Vashem to denounce the rejuvenation of anti-Semitism, particularly in Europe. Despite the political importance of the event, the entire endeavor reflects the degree to which Israelis are deluding themselves in relation to the Old Continent. The notion that the memory of the Holocaust needs to be refreshed in order to fight modern anti-Semitism is pointless, as Israel itself is now accused of turning the Holocaust and its memory into a tool with which to achieve its goals, while the anti-Zionists alter its "lesson" to benefit the Palestinian cause – by equating it to the Nakba (the Palestinian national "catastrophe" caused by Israel's creation).

It is a strategic mistake to view the anti-Semitism of our time as an extension of the anti-Semitism of 30 years ago. To be sure, it still exists among the classical far-right; but is blossoming primarily in the form of anti-Zionism within Muslim and far-left post-colonialist circles. The deeper problem is turning the "lessons of the Holocaust" into the moral basis for fighting anti-Semitism. As an explanation, it favors victimhood over the political: Jewish suffering is put on display as a call to end hatred, instead of presenting Israel's status as a sovereign country as a counterweight to the new anti-Zionistic anti-Semitism. When the justification for Israel's existence is predicated on the memory of victimhood, Europe can view the state as a type of humanitarian tent for Jews, and less as a sovereign country. Consequently, Israel is not permitted, in the eyes of Europe, to realize its legitimate right to self-defense. The moment the Israeli soldier ceases being the emaciated extermination camp survivor, he morphs into a monster in the eyes of the Europeans.

European recognition of Israel is based, therefore, on feelings of guilt toward the Jews – implying that the same guilt applies to the Palestinians. Europe turns a blind eye to Arab-Muslim anti-Semitism – which is the main source of modern anti-Semitism – in the belief that the Arab world is not responsible for the Holocaust, and that Europe oppressed the Palestinians by contributing to the establishment of the Jewish state. Isn't it only natural, therefore, that some of the participants of the Yad Vashem will visit Ramallah immediately after it ends? The reliance on the Holocaust in this regard means strengthening even further the myths that breed the new anti-Semitism – Nakba, occupation, original sin.

Keeping an eye out for Israel Derangement Syndrome - by Juliet Moses

IDS-sufferers see themselves as actors in a morality play in which Palestinians are simply props. It’s an orientalist, post-colonialist colonialism, that dictates how Palestinians must behave. They are only permitted agency through violence, and must otherwise be victims.

Juliet Moses..
Spectator Australia..
18 January '20..

I am not a psychiatrist, but I’ve observed a kind of psychosis in far-left activists of the West who claim to be progressives championing the Palestinian cause: Israel Derangement Syndrome, or IDS.

Sufferers of this insidious illness don’t rationally advocate for Palestinians and criticise Israeli policies, in the same way they’d criticise other states. They are doctrinaire cultists possessed of an unadulterated, unhinged hatred for Israel, which they see as a uniquely evil state that must be eradicated. Until then, it will be their all-consuming, defining cause; never mind the Uyghurs, Kurds or Iranian women. In indulging in the delusion that the end (of Israel) goal will eventually occur, they are complicit in perpetuating the conflict and emboldening the despotic regimes that act against the interests of the very people they purport to champion, the Palestinians.

Corbynism is the most recent prominent example of IDS. While we will no longer be bombarded with its leader’s sneering visage, the animosity towards Israel that its dogmatism exemplifies, replete with conspiracism and terrorist sympathising, is unlikely to fade. And it is rising across the Atlantic.

The hallmarks of this anti-Israeli posturing cult include such garb as ‘free Palestine’ t-shirts, keffiyehs, and snazzy accessories daubed with Palestinian flags. Their social media is flooded with memes and Electronic Intifada articles about evil Israel, and little else. They proudly quote token anti-Israel Jews like Noam Chomsky. In their special language ‘peace and justice’ is code for ‘end of Israel’ and ‘resistance’ is code for ‘terrorism’. And they think they’re clever, rhyming ‘resistance is justified’ with ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ in their street mob chants.

(Continue to Full Article)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise? UNRWA nervous over Israel offering free education for Arab "refugees" in Jerusalem - by Elder of Ziyon

...Also, Israeli schools are unlikely to teach students that Israel will be destroyed by their fire and blood. Apparently, this is a problem for UNRWA.

Elder of Ziyon..
17 January '20..

We reported that Israel was pouring millions of dollars into building schools as alternatives to the UNRWA schools in Arab sections of Jerusalem that teach kids to support terror and aspire to be "martyrs."

UNRWA's new acting commissioner is not happy with Israel providing "refugee" children with a choice:

[Interim head of UNRWA] Christian Saunders said Israel was seeking to replace United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) services for Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem with those of its own.

He said UNRWA was feeling "the pressure in East Jerusalem in particular", saying that Israel was in the process of building schools and institutions "to compete" with the agency and stop it from operating there.

"The important thing to remember here is that UNRWA has a mandate from the [UN] General Assembly, from the rest of the world, the member states, to provide services to Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem," Saunders said.

The UNRWA mandate does not say that Palestinians cannot choose their own schools! For an agency with budgetary problems, UNRWA should welcome anything that eases its burden - if it was an objective agency tasked with helping Palestinian Arabs. But in fact it is a political organization dedicated to keeping the "refugee" problem festering forever so it can stay in business.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Elections, the Palestinians and Europe's Not So Secret Agenda - by Khaled Abu Toameh

The European Union is said to be pressuring the Palestinians to hold long overdue presidential and parliamentary elections. It is not clear, however, how the Palestinians would hold new elections at a time when the PA and Hamas are busy in the West Bank and Gaza Strip locking up their political opponents.

Khaled Abu Toameh..
Gatestone Institute..
16 January '20

For many years, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and other Palestinian parties have been reporting on a daily basis about Palestinians who are arrested by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. These Palestinians are arrested on suspicion of involvement in anti-Israel security offences. There is nothing unusual about these arrests, which have been taking place for decades and are even publicly announced by the Israeli authorities.

While Israel apprehends Palestinians suspected of involvement in various anti-Israel activities, including terrorism, many other Palestinians are being arrested on almost a daily basis by the PA security forces in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. These arrests, however, are infrequently publicized by the PA and Hamas. Palestinians learn about the arrests by the PA and Hamas from social media postings or non-Palestinian news websites.

The PA and Hamas do not like to talk about the Palestinians targeted by their security forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Why? Most of these Palestinians are arrested for their political affiliation and opinions, and not for violating the law or involvement in violence and terrorism.

Palestinian human rights organization and activists describe the detention of these Palestinians as "political arrests." That means that the Palestinians are being arrested by the PA and Hamas only for "politically motivated" reasons.

A recent report by the Human Rights Institutions Association (HRIA) revealed that in the past three months, the PA security forces have stepped up politically motivated arrests in the West Bank. The group noted that the arrests came despite PA President Mahmoud Abbas's initiative to hold new Palestinian general elections.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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It’s not something trivial to know Bethlehem isn’t in a non-existent nation - by Jonathan S.Tobin

The game show “Jeopardy!” courted controversy when giving a clue to which there can be no definitive answer as long as the Palestinians reject peace.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
14 January '20..

There’s no escaping controversy any time that Israel or the Palestinians are mentioned. That’s a lesson the producers, writers and star of the long-running “Jeopardy!” television game show learned to their detriment this past week when a clue involving the location of the Church of the Nativity was used in an episode that aired on Jan. 10, though it was taped last fall.

In a category titled “Where’s That Church?” contestants were asked to identify the location of the house of worship that Christians believe to be the birthplace of Jesus. Katie Needle, a retail supervisor from Brooklyn, N.Y., and the show’s defending champion at the time, answered (in the form of a question, as the game’s rules require), “What is Palestine?” But to her surprise, longtime host Alex Trebek told her she was wrong. Another contestant named Jack Maguire countered, “What is Israel?” and won $200 for answering correctly.

The show then went to commercial break, and reportedly, after the producers and chief writer Billy Wisse huddled with Trebek, the question about the Church of the Nativity was eliminated. A new one was substituted, and the show went on with Needle ultimately defending her title. But when the show eventually aired, the deleted sequence mentioning Bethlehem was the one that viewers saw in a mistake that the show says it regrets.

It led to an avalanche of criticism against the game show, Trebek and Wisse (who is the son of Ruth Wisse, the distinguished Jewish scholar and eloquent advocate for Zionism) on social media from critics of Israel who saw it as an example of Zionist propaganda that sought to erase Palestine from the map.

Adding to the storm over the segment is the fact that Needle is actually a supporter of the Palestinian cause and has defended the anti-Semitic Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), while also criticizing Israel and proclaiming “Palestine should be free” on Twitter.

But while Alex Trebek won’t decide the fate of the Middle East, the correct answer to the question he posed isn’t a matter of trivia.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Israel, settlement activity and the hypocrisy of Sarah Leah Whitson of @HRW - by Eugene Kontorovich

The acceptance of settlement activity by supporters of sanctions on Israel suggest they know that the international law they claim to enforce against the Jewish state is not international law at all.

Elder of Ziyon..
14 January '20..

Since this is behind The Wall Street Journal's paywall, here is the entire article:

Hypocritical attacks on Israel are common, but Sarah Leah Whitson takes them to a new level. As Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch, she is one of the sharpest critics of the Jewish state’s presence in the West Bank, promoting boycotts and international prosecution for the supposed crimes of occupation and settlement. Yet elsewhere Ms. Whitson strongly supports settlements in occupied territories—suggesting that she and her colleagues don’t take their own legal claims against Israel seriously.

The settlements Ms. Whitson supports are in Nagorno-Karabakh, an area that was within the borders of post-Soviet Azerbaijan until 1994, when Armenia occupied the region after a protracted war. Since then, the Armenian leadership in Yerevan has actively encouraged the movement of settlers into the area. Many Armenians regard Karabakh as their historic homeland. But the United Nations, international courts and the U.S. all consider it occupied Azeri territory.

Ms. Whitson, who is from an Armenian family, served as master of ceremonies at a 2018 fundraiser for the Armenian National Committee of America, a pro-settler charity that views Karabakh as an “integral part of the Armenian homeland.” Even as Ms. Whitson led Human Rights Watch’s campaign to boycott Israeli economic activity in the West Bank, she took to Twitter to promote Armenian wines, including from the occupied territories.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Israel and the EU’s Misuse of Language for Diplomatic Advantage - by Barry Shaw

...many countries and leading institutions say that UNRWA have gone beyond their sell-by date decades ago. Why should this UN body maintain its existence in perpetuity when there is another UN refugee body whose role has been to implement the reduction of refugees globally Why must Palestinians, living under Palestinian rule, be nurtured into their fifth generation by the UN and EU?

Barry Shaw..
TOI Blogs..
13 January '20..

I have recently been offering a presentation on the Strategic and Diplomatic Challenges for Israel 2020.

In this presentation I include the linguistic trend, used by the international diplomatic community, away from Israel’s original territorial legitimacy through the term “disputed territory” and arriving into “occupied Palestinian land,” an incorrect, devious and dangerous change of language to suit a narrative.

And, lo and behold, this morning I read that the EU just changed their official definition of Judea & Samaria from “occupied or disputed lands” into a shorter, simplistic “occupied lands.” This fails to admit that Israel is occupying its legitimate land. On the contrary, it is part of the push to delegitimize Israel on its ancestral land in favor of an amorphous, undefined, “Palestinian” entity.

This is the new, contrived, anti-Israel definition of EU foreign policy under its new foreign official, Josep Borrell.

The bias against Israel has been a noticeable feature of EU foreign policy for several years, particularly emphasized under the foreign policy leadership of Federica Mogherini, a former Arafat groupie and disciple of Italian Communist, Massimo D’Alema. Mogherini rose through the rank of the Italian DS party, which emerged out of the Italian Communist Party. As such, her political dogma included sympathy for arch-terrorist, Yasser Arafat and a desire to reduce Israel’s legitimacy in order to create a balance favorable to a belligerent Palestinian ideology.

This EU formula continues to today.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Who would've thought? PA denounces Israel's seizure of "Pay-for-Slay" funds from Israeli Arab terrorists - by Maurice Hirsch, Adv.

The PA wants Israel to stand idly by and permit the PA to pay financial rewards to Israeli Arab terrorist prisoners who murdered other Israelis or otherwise participated in terrorism against Israel, and all under the pretext that the payments “provide their families with a living, a place to live, health, education, and so on.”

Maurice Hirsch, Adv...
Palestinian Media Watch..
07 January '20..

The reaction of the Palestinian Authority to the order of Israel’s Minister of Defense Naftali Bennett to seize the monies paid by the PA in salaries to Israeli Arab terrorist prisoners highlighted the false nature of the PA’s claims regarding its “Pay-for-Slay” policy. The decision of Minister Bennett to seize the funds followed the recommendation of Palestinian Media Watch days prior.

Condemning the order of Israel’s Minster of Defense to seize funds paid by the PA to eight Israeli Arab terrorists, Director of the Commission of Prisoners and Released Prisoners' Affairs Qadri Abu Bakr said that the “decision is blatant robbery and open theft” and repeated the claim that the salaries are welfare for the families. He also promised to continue paying the terrorists their monthly salaries:

“The salaries that the commission is paying the prisoners, independent of their place of residence, are allowances that provide their families with a living, a place to live, health, education, and so on, and we will not relinquish this obligation regardless of the extremist Israeli ways of thwarting them [the allowances], seizing them, or stealing them like highway robbers.”

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Dec. 26, 2019]

The PA wants Israel to stand idly by and permit the PA to pay financial rewards to Israeli Arab terrorist prisoners who murdered other Israelis or otherwise participated in terrorism against Israel, and all under the pretext that the payments “provide their families with a living, a place to live, health, education, and so on.”

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Hmm. Opposes Iran sanctions, but supports BDS against Israel? - by Jonathan S. Tobin

Another lesson about why anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism from Ilhan Omar.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
JNS.org..
09 January '20..

The rising tide of Jew-hatred that is sweeping around the globe is no laughing matter. So the idea of having a vote to determine who is the “Antisemite of the Year” may strike some as more of a publicity stunt than a sober attempt to deal with the problem. But whatever one may think of such a dubious label or whether it treats the subject with the requisite seriousness, the point of the Internet vote in which thousands took part was to call attention to the plague of anti-Semitism and how it is being legitimized. More to the point, it turned out that within days of the announcement, the “winner” of the title justified the choice with a statement that helped illustrate the way anti-Zionism is just another form of anti-Semitism.

The effort was sponsored by StopAntisemitism.org, which also recently published “The New Anti-Semites,” an authoritative report on the way the BDS movement is steeped in hatred of Jews, as well as the way its left-wing supporters receive vocal support from the far-right. And the result of the poll was in keeping with that theme. Though she had steep competition from the Nation of Islam’s Louis Farrakhan, Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke and white-supremacist Richard Spencer, the person who received the most votes was Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.).

In a year in which armed white supremacists have attacked synagogues killing and wounding Jews at prayer, and in which thugs have turned violent attacks on ultra-Orthodox Jews in the Greater New York area a near daily occurrence, does Omar deserve the title?

You can make a good argument that, like the other publicity hounds that make “the Squad” of left-wing members of Congress, especially Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Omar has been given far too much attention by the national press. Yet it’s hard to ignore a member of Congress with 1.8 million Twitter followers that spews anti-Semitic invective about Jews having dual loyalty and buying Congress to support Israel. Even harder to ignore is that fact that Omar and her allies were, despite their humble status on Capitol Hill as insignificant congressional freshmen, powerful enough to force House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to back off from efforts to censor Omar for her public anti-Semitism. And it can also be asserted that she and her colleagues have helped set the agenda for their party on issues like the Green New Deal, even if most House Democrats remain supportive of Israel rather than backers of BDS, as is the case with Omar and Tlaib.

Still, Omar deserves credit this week for illustrating not merely the hypocrisy of BDS, but how it treats Israel differently from other countries.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Why doesn’t the New York Times want people to know the truth about Pal. Islamic Jihad? - CAMERA.org

Why did New York Times editors scrub a reference to the West’s view of Islamic Jihad as a terror organization?

CAMERA..
08 January '20..
Link: https://www.camera.org/article/camera-video-why-is-ny-times-downplaying-islamic-jihad/

Why did they later cast the murderous group as “nettlesome” and “unruly,” as if describing a stray tuft of hair and not terrorists responsible for targeting innocent men, women, and children at malls and on buses?



Why do Times reporters feel comfortable noting that a tiny but racist Israeli political party is “anti-Arab,” but not that Islamic Jihad is “anti-Jewish”? Why do they frequently suggest Israeli building in the West Bank is a violation of international law, but generally avoid saying the same about Islamic Jihad’s indiscriminate rockets fired into Israeli towns? And why do they pretend Islamic Jihad opposes the “occupation,” and not… “Israel’s existence”?

Why doesn’t the New York Times want people to know the truth about Islamic Jihad?

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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A few of the discredited Mideast myths, that ‘Experts’ perpetuate again and again - by Stephen M. Flatow

For more than a century, people have been trying to pay the Palestinian Arabs to make peace with the Jews and pretend that some terrorist gangs were more “moderate” than other ones.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
07 January '20..

No matter how many times the think-tank “experts” are proven wrong in their predictions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict, they keep promoting the same old myths.

They must think that the public has a very short memory.

The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) last week unveiled its recommendations for Israeli policy in 2020. The men and women who make up its roster have impressive credentials in their fields.

Yet remarkably, they keep promoting policy positions that have been discredited again and again and again.

Myth #1: Palestinian Arab Terrorism is caused by poverty.

In 2020, “Palestinian disgruntlement will be mainly channeled into international diplomatic moves against Israel, not to violent unrest—unless the economic situation in the territories worsens,” according to the JISS.

Call it the “Barack Obama Theory of the Causes of Terrorism.” In an interview on CBS-TV’s “This Morning” on Dec. 4, 2015, then-President Obama explained his view of what causes terrorism: Climate change is straining natural resources around the world, and “when people are not able to make a living or take care of their families,” they become “desperate,” and “as human beings are placed under strain, then bad things happen.”

Many of the modern-day Zionist pioneers involved in rebuilding the Land of Israel in the late 1800s and early 1900s likewise believed that the Palestinian Arabs would drop their opposition to the Jews once they saw how much they would benefit from Jewish immigration.

Jobs. Running water. Electricity. Trains. They were followed by refrigerators, telephones, mail service and automobiles. Arabs from Syria, Egypt and across the Jordan River poured into the country and enjoyed better jobs, better homes and better food. But it didn’t stop them from hating Jews. In 1920, 1921, 1929, and continuously from 1936 to 1939, Palestinian Arabs shot, stabbed and bombed Jews throughout the country, even when it undermined their own economic well-being.

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Who would've thought? Palestinian terror groups mourn loss of key supporter Qassem Soleimani - by Joe Truzman

“The martyr Soleimani supervised, for two decades, the direct support to Palestine, and the transfer of security and military expertise to its fighters.“

Joe Truzman..
Legal Insurrection..
05 January '20

The killing of the Iran Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Qods Force chief, Qassem Soleimani, in Baghdad, Iraq Friday morning was a severe blow to many of the Iranian-backed proxy groups in the region including Gaza’s militant groups.

What has their reaction been to losing one of chief supporters? Does all of Gaza’s people support the militant groups’ position regarding the death of Soleimani?

In an al-Hadath report, a mourners tent was erected by members of the Joint Operations Room which comprises a majority of the militant factions in Gaza. A banner at the front of the tent displayed the face of Qasem Solemani and the inscription “Joint Operations Room. Mourning the martyr General Qasem Soleimani and his brothers.”

The reaction by Palestinian militant groups such as al-Qassam Brigades, Mujahideen Brigades, and Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, all which benefit from Iranian support, has mostly been by condolence messages in the form of martyr banners with the image of Soleimani.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Who would've thought? Amnesty, UNHRC, UNICEF turn blind eye to abuse of Palestinian children - by Itamar Marcus

"Jerusalem is ours, our weapon is our Islam, and our ammunition is our children. And you, O my son, are meant for martyrdom."

Itamar Marcus..
Palestinian Media Watch..
05 January '20..

What does it mean for a little boy to be “ammunition”?

That is the question the UN Human Rights Council, UNICEF and every Palestinian child should be asking now that Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah has declared that Palestinian boys should forget toys, forget childhood, and forget having a future – because they are merely “ammunition” and destined for “martyrdom.”

That is the unimaginable message that Palestinian Media Watch uncovered in a tale recited by a young Palestinian girl in a video that Fatah posted on its official Facebook page.

The tale starts with a little boy excitedly awaiting a gift that his mother promised him for finishing his food. However his mother shocks him: Instead of handing him a toy she hands him a rifle.

These are the appalling words that follow:

“He shouted loudly: ‘O Mommy! Mommy! What is this? Is this the gift?’

“She picked him up, hugged him, and said: ‘My son, we were not created for happiness.... They are cursed. Jerusalem is ours, our weapon is our Islam, and our ammunition is our children. And you, O my son, are meant for martyrdom.”

Is this anything but child abuse? Fatah is using the social media giant Facebook to tell its quarter-million Palestinian followers that Jerusalem is “theirs”, that Islam is the “weapon,” and that Palestinian boys are the “ammunition.” And shockingly, this formula is coming from the person who should be a child’s champion, defender and source of security: his mother.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Well, the Palestinian Authority ignored J Street’s advice - by Stephen M. Flatow

The subject may come back to bite the organization with finger-pointing by the International Criminal Court regarding the presence of Jews in Jerusalem.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
03 January '19..

A few years ago, when Palestinian Arab leaders were threatening to enlist the International Criminal Court (ICC) in their war against Israel, J Street expressed “understanding” at “the Palestinians’ frustration.”

But now that the ICC is taking action that could lead to J Street’s leaders being branded “war criminals,” the J Streeters have fallen silent. What an agonizing moment this must be for the Jewish far-left!

This ugly mess began several years ago, when the Palestinian Authority began joining various international organizations and signing international treaties in order to use them against Israel. In January 2015, the P.A. signed the Rome Statute, which created the ICC.

Here’s what J Street said a few years ago: “With regard to the International Criminal Court (ICC), while we understand Palestinians’ frustration at the ongoing occupation and the lack of a path to ending it, we regard attempts to bring cases before the ICC to be unhelpful. Such action stands to set off a spiral of counterproductive actions and leave the Palestinian people no closer to freedom and self-determination.”

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Notice how J Street refused to characterize the P.A. using the ICC against Israel as immoral or wrong. In fact, J Street did not even acknowledge that such hostile actions by the P.A. are a blatant violation of the Oslo Accords. No, J Street’s only concern was that such P.A. action would lead to “counterproductive actions” by Israel.

It seems that J Street has no problem with the principle of the P.A. and its allies waging international legal warfare against Israel. It’s just concerned that the tactic might not succeed in bludgeoning Israel into making more concessions to the Arabs.

Well, the P.A. ignored J Street’s advice.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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There is no alternative but for Israel to take on the ICC head-on - by Eldad Beck

Executive Director of UN Watch Hillel Neuer talks to Israel Hayom about the challenges facing Israel in the international arena, where facts and common sense are ignored in favor of pro-Palestinian politics.

Hillel Neuer

Eldad Beck..
Israel Hayom..
27 December '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/12/27/they-say-every-jewish-settler-is-a-war-criminal/

It's doubtful there is anyone who can better describe the hypocrisy of international institutions when it comes to Israel better than Hillel Neuer. The 49-year-old Jewish legal scholar, born in Canada, has been on the frontline against the UN for more than a decade as executive director of the nonprofit watchdog group UN Watch in Geneva. He established a coalition of civil organizations that are working to promote human rights in the darkest dictatorships in the world, whose governments hold key positions in the UN.

A week ago, the hypocrisy of the international system reached a new height with the announcement that Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Fatou Bensouda had decided there were sufficient grounds to open an investigation against Israel for alleged "war crimes."

Neuer says that there is no alternative but for Israel to take on the ICC head-on. He thinks that ICC judges cannot adopt a position that contradicts that of the UN, which has recognized the "state of Palestine," and will therefore decide on an official investigation against Israel that centers on the accusation of war crimes and is expected to address Israeli settlements over the Green Line – which is why Israel declined to join the ICC in the first place.

"Over a course of a few years, the prosecutor was conducting a preliminary investigation, in which the court started to probe accusations that Israel was committing war crimes," Neuer said. "Now the main question is whether the judges will decide that the ICC has the authority to launch a full-scale investigation. Israel's position is that the Palestinian Authority is not a state, and therefore cannot be a plaintiff in the court or give it judicial prerogative. According to Israel, the PA does not meet the criteria of international law to be considered a state and therefore has no control over territory. So there is a basic debate here about the kind of judicial authority the court has," he says.

There have already been two attempts to try Israel, or rather senior Israeli officials, in The Hague. In 2012, the court rejected a suit against Israel for alleged war crimes supposedly committed during Operation Cast Lead, on the basis that "Palestine" was not a state and therefore it had no authority to discuss petitions on the issue. Since then, Israel's enemies have been working to create a situation that would allow Israel to be attacked in The Hague: at the end of 2012, the UN General Assembly recognized "Palestine" as an observer nation. Given that, despite an outcry from Israel, the PA was able to join the ICC in April 2015, and then rushed to file a suit against Israel.

A few weeks ago, the ICC rejected a petition from the Comoro Islands to discuss alleged Israeli war crimes committed during the raid on the Mavi Marmara vessel in May 2010. Turkey, which has committed plenty of war crimes itself, is not a member of the ICC and couldn't sue Israel itself, but the regime of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan took care that the flotilla of which the Mavi Marmara was part sailed under the flag of another Muslim state, which was a member of the ICC and could therefore sue Israel. But the attempt failed.

Positions that became law

Neuer explains that this week's decision by the ICC presents a more complicated challenge for Israel.

"On one hand, we have the military conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, especially the recent clashes in the Gaza Strip and the accusations about war crimes being committed there. In this matter, Israel can say that it has a trusted military justice system that can and is authorized to handle these accusations itself, as other democracies do. The court can only take action as a last resort in instances where there is no credible justice system that can handle accusations of war crimes. It's clear that Israel is a democracy that is willing to put its highest-ranking officials on trials when necessary, and there are very few countries in the world that do that. So Israel can easily claim that the ICC has no authority to handle these issues," he says.

When it comes to the settlements, the picture is different.

"It was decided when the founding charter of the ICC was written, under pressure from Arab and Muslim states, that the transfer of a population to occupied areas would be considered a war crime," Neuer says.

"For Israel, building settlements is not, of course, a war crime. If a Jew builds a house in the Old City of Jerusalem, that is a Jew who is returning to the homeland of his forefathers in accordance with the principles of the Balfour Declaration."

"On the other hand, the UN now sees any Jew living beyond the Green Line, even in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, as committing a war crime. There is no differentiation between Gush Etzion, Psagot, or Hebron. According to the UN, the settlements are a war crime. Israel and its courts do not see them as a war crime. Therefore, it will be difficult for Israel to argue that its legal system can investigate this matter. Here, the ICC can say, 'If you don't intend to investigate, we will.'"

In effect, the ICC judges are being asked to make a political ruling about the status of Judea and Samaria, and east Jerusalem.

"They will say they are dealing with a legal issue, but of course, if we look at the wider picture, what is happening is that since 1967 the international community has found different ways of criminalizing Israel. It didn't happen in a single day. Gradually, a [legal] infrastructure arose that decided that Jews living in their ancestral homeland are war criminals according to law. This process occurred through UN resolutions and declarations of policy from the European Union, like the recent decision about labeling settlement goods.

"These positions turned into tools that are presented as international law, particularly UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 2016, which declared that the settlements were illegal. [Then-US President] Obama not only did not prevent it from passing, he encouraged it to be adopted. Its goal was to say that any Jew living over the Green Line is an occupier, even in east Jerusalem. So according to the UN and the ICC, Israel is in violation of international law."

Unpacking the Independent's latest tale of ‘Israeli cruelty’ - by Adam Levick

...it’s important to note that Palestinian children never travel for treatment unaccompanied by a parent or (at least) a relative. COGAT informed us that “during the first half of 2019, over 2,700 permits were issued for children’s medical treatment, with a nearly equivalent number issued for accompanying parents”. The image evoked by the language in the op-ed, of children alone in Israeli hospitals without family members, is, as with the broader narrative of the Indy op-ed, pure fiction.

Adam Levick..
UK Media Watch..
01 January '20

The latest Indy tale of Israeli cruelty (My friend was banned from travelling to visit his dying mother. This is the personal, intimate price of occupation, Saleh Hizjazi, Dec. 27th) begins in the opening sentences:

On Christmas Eve I received the distressing news that the mother of my friend and colleague, Laith Abu Zeyad, passed away after a short but bitter battle with cancer. She had suffered for three excruciating months between the diagnosis and her laying to rest. She died in the Augusta Victoria hospital in occupied East Jerusalem. Her eldest son, my colleague, was not able to spend the last days with her because of a travel ban Israel has imposed on him after his involvement in human rights work.

However, Hiziazi, the deputy regional director for Amnesty Mid-East and North Africa, who, research by David Collier demonstrates, has a penchant for promoting terrorists on Facebook, fails to note reports that the travel ban imposed on Abu Zeyad had nothing to with his “human rights work”.

An article published last month in Haaretz noting the following:

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Can You Imagine? BBC Deceives on Bethlehem Again - by Ricki Hollander

The BBC, however, has no interest in exploring Palestinian responsibility for any problems in any sector of the Palestinian community– whether due to its leaders’ corruption and political ploys, or whether due to the terrorism and violence they encourage that impacts tourism and prompts Israeli security measures.

Ricki Hollander..
CAMERA..
27 December '19..

If anyone was in doubt about whether the BBC still engages in agenda-driven reporting, the recent broadcasts from Bethelehem would put any such doubt to rest.

Barbara Plett Usher, notorious for her tearful eulogy of arch-terrorist Yasir Arafat and her participation in BBC’s longtime campaign to delegtimize Israel, was sent to Bethlehem to report about Christmas there.

There is an inverse relationship between the extent of Palestinian violence and the amount of tourism in Bethlehem. In 2015-6, at the height of the so-called Palestinian knife intifada, tourism plummeted. In the years since, violent attacks have decreased and tourism has picked up tremendously. For the past few years, there has been a steady rise in the numbers of tourists visiting Bethlehem, with this year topping even last year’s record high. The city is bustling with tourists and good cheer.

Plett forces the story into an artificial one about Palestinian suffering under Israel.

This, however, was not the story the BBC wanted to convey. The media network instead delivered a fairy tale about a Bethlehem diminished by an evil Israeli occupation. Barbara Plett Usher attempted to fit her Bethlehem 2019 tale into a rigid template of Palestinians suffering under “occupation” – even when the interviewees did not provide the answers she sought.

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Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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