Even Perfidy is Now Gutless in Albion.

 

by Melanie Phillips

It appears that these days Albion doesn't even have the courage to admit to its perfidiousness.

 

The UN Human Rights Council last week voted overwhelmingly to condemn Israel for war crimes on the back of the Goldstone report. This was hardly a surprise, given that Goldstone – whatever his protestations since – was given a brief by the Israel-bashing UNHRC specifically premised on the advance condemnation of Israel for committing the war crimes the evidence of which his 'fact-finding mission' was ostensibly supposed to discover.

 

As has been detailed in previous posts, his report was a travesty of justice, recycling as fact the unverified propaganda of Hamas and its patsies in the NGO world, ignoring the most heinous crimes of Hamas while giving a spurious air of even-handedness by condemning it just a little, and most disgustingly of all accusing Israel of deliberately trying to harm the civilian population of Gaza during Operation Cast Lead.

 

Having thus obtained its objective, the demonisation of Israel in Gaza, the UNHRC duly voted to endorse the Goldstone report and send it on to the UN Security Council.

 

Now look at what the former British commander in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, told the UNHRC about Israel's actions in Cast Lead:

 

Mr. President, based on my knowledge and experience, I can say this: During Operation Cast Lead, the Israeli Defense Forces did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Israel did so while facing an enemy that deliberately positioned its military capability behind the human shield of the civilian population.

 

Hamas, like Hizbullah, are expert at driving the media agenda. Both will always have people ready to give interviews condemning Israeli forces for war crimes. They are adept at staging and distorting incidents. The IDF faces a challenge that we British do not have to face to the same extent. It is the automatic, Pavlovian presumption by many in the international media, and international human rights groups, that the IDF are in the wrong, that they are abusing human rights.

 

The truth is that the IDF took extraordinary measures to give Gaza civilians notice of targeted areas, dropping over 2 million leaflets, and making over 100,000 phone calls. Many missions that could have taken out Hamas military capability were aborted to prevent civilian casualties. During the conflict, the IDF allowed huge amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza. To deliver aid virtually into your enemy's hands is, to the military tactician, normally quite unthinkable. But the IDF took on those risks.

 

Despite all of this, of course innocent civilians were killed. War is chaos and full of mistakes. There have been mistakes by the British, American and other forces in Afghanistan and in Iraq, many of which can be put down to human error. But mistakes are not war crimes.

 

More than anything, the civilian casualties were a consequence of Hamas's way of fighting. Hamas deliberately tried to sacrifice their own civilians.

 

Mr. President, Israel had no choice apart from defending its people, to stop Hamas from attacking them with rockets. And I say this again: The IDF did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare. Thank you, Mr. President.

 

Now look at how Col Kemp's own British government behaved in the UNHRC vote on Goldstone. It had not wanted to support Israel, but to abstain. The reason it wouldn't support it was that it said it took Goldstone's allegations of war crimes seriously. But it also apparently thought the UN resolution was unfairly biased against Israel. Indeed, even Goldstone himself thought so, complaining that it

 

'...includes only allegations against Israel. There is not a single phrase condemning Hamas, as we have done in the report'.

 

After all the trouble he had gone to in order to massage his hideously loaded brief, the UNHRC went and stuck to its terms! Tsk!

 

So the Brits decided to abstain. But then, as theTimes reported

 – horror of horrors:

 

But that position began to unravel yesterday morning when it became apparent that other European members on the council, including Italy and the Netherlands, were planning to vote against. That would have left Britain and France looking exposed and out of step with the rest of Europe.

British officials said that Mr Brown and President Sarkozy of France decided to back Mr Netanyahu if he would move on three concessions that they believed could help to rescue the peace process: a freeze on all settlement activity, an independent Israeli investigation and an immediate lifting of the blockade on Gaza.

Those last-minute efforts, however, were thwarted by Egypt, a co-sponsor of the resolution, which refused two French appeals for a two-hour delay, forcing a vote before any concessions could be wrung from Israel. Britain and France therefore failed either to cast a vote or abstain.

 

The Goldstone blood libel is part of the UNHRC's strategy of delegitimising Israel to soften up the world for its eventual destruction. In the teeth of the opinion of one of Britain's most senior military experts in asymmetric warfare that Israel had done

 

more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare

 

the British government, whose own record in Afghanistan most certainly does not reach Israel's standards for protecting civilians, not only refused to support Israel against this demonisation of its defence of its own citizens but didn't even have the bottle to register that it was abstaining in that disgusting vote. It simply ran away.

 

This shocking episode demonstrates with crystal clarity that in the great civilisational war now in progress, Britain is on the wrong side – as it has been in the Middle East, in fact, for the past nine decades.

 

Melanie Phillips
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Israel, the U.S. and the Goldstone Report.

 

by John Bolton

 

Joining the U.N. Human Rights Council was a mistake Obama should correct.

 

The U.N.'s Human Rights Council (HRC) voted overwhelmingly on Friday to endorse the recommendations of the lopsidedly anti-Israel Goldstone Report. The report, named for former South African judge Richard Goldstone, who chaired the underlying investigation, concluded that Israel's 2008-2009 military campaign against the terrorist group Hamas was actually aimed against Gaza's residents as a whole. Thus it was an illegitimate exercise of "collective punishment," an extraordinarily amorphous legal concept.

The report alleges numerous specific human rights violations by both Israel and Hamas. But by attempting to criminalize Israel's strategy of crippling Hamas, the report in effect declared the entire antiterrorism campaign to be a war crime. Mr. Goldstone recommended that Israel and the Palestinians should each conduct their own investigations, failing which the Security Council should refer the entire matter to the International Criminal Court for possible prosecution.

In the month since the report's release, it has roiled the Middle East peace process. An Israeli spokesman said "it will make it impossible for us to take any risks for the sake of peace," perhaps foreshadowing Israeli withdrawal from negotiations while the report remains under active U.N. consideration.

The HRC resolution endorsing the report's recommendations repeatedly lacerated Israel, leading Mr. Goldstone himself to cringe, saying he was "saddened" the resolution contained "not a single phrase condemning Hamas as we have done in the report." A U.S. State Department spokesman conceded that the adopted text "went beyond even the scope of the Goldstone Report itself."

The U.N. General Assembly created the HRC on March 15, 2006, to replace the discredited Human Rights Commission, which had spent much of its final years concentrating on Israel and the U.S. rather than the world's real human rights violators. The Bush administration voted against establishing this body and declined to join it, believing, correctly, that it would not be an improvement over its predecessor. President Barack Obama changed course, and the U.S. won election to the HRC in May. Mr. Obama argued that engagement would be more effective than shunning the HRC and attempting to delegitimize it.

The Goldstone Report thus provides a stark test of Mr. Obama's analysis. Predictably, the administration blamed the report's underlying mandate and its stridently anti-Israel tilt on America's earlier absence from the HRC when the investigation was authorized and launched. Yet the new administration's diplomacy had no discernible impact on the HRC's disgraceful resolution.

Twenty-five of the Security Council's 47 members voted for the resolution (including Russia and China), six voted against (Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine and the U.S.), and 11 abstained (Japan, South Korea and several European governments among them).

Five didn't vote at all, including Great Britain and France. Press reports indicated that London saw its inaction as a "favor" to Israel, a position simultaneously inexplicable and gutless. It is hard to know just how much real politicking the Obama administration did before this vote, but the loss of key allies is telling.

The Goldstone Report has important implications for America. In the U.N., Israel frequently serves as a surrogate target in lieu of the U.S., particularly concerning the use of military force pre-emptively or in self-defense. Accordingly, U.N. decisions on ostensibly Israel-specific issues can lay a predicate for subsequent action against, or efforts to constrain, the U.S. Mr. Goldstone's recommendation to convoke the International Criminal Court is like putting a loaded pistol to Israel's head—or, in the future, to America's.

Mr. Obama has now met the new HRC, same as the old HRC, thus producing a "teachable moment," a phrase he often uses. Quasi-religious faith in "engagement" and the U.N. has run into empirical reality. When the administration picks itself up off the ground, it should become more cognizant of that organization's moral and political limitations.

Although it will be hard for Mr. Obama to swallow, the logical response to Friday's debacle is to withdraw from and defund the HRC. Otherwise the Goldstone Report will merely be the beginning, next time perhaps with Washington as its unmistakable target.

Mr. Bolton, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "Surrender Is Not an Option: Defending America at the United Nations and Abroad" (Simon & Schuster, 2007).

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Turkish Syndrome : Appeasement at its Worst.

 

by Raphael Israeli

 

We have become accustomed at  being outrageously bashed by countries whose standards of international behavior  leave much to be desired, when the same matters concern them, they cynically and hypocritically  absolve themselves but criticize Israel as if she were an international outlaw. We are not talking about  Arab and Muslim countries, from whom no one expects correct standards of conduct, but about some of the closest friends of Israel like the US, Britain and lately Turkey :  On the same day that  the US (erroneously) murdered 40 civilians in a wedding ceremony in Western Iraq, it had the nerve to attack Israel for defending its life in Rafah and even let a Security Council resolution pass which harshly criticized Israel for the destruction of houses which sheltered terrorists. Apparently, the destruction of real estate has become more condemnable that the loss of life. And official Israel  swallowed  the outrage and said nothing.

 

Prior that, it was Foreign Secretary  Jack Straw of Britain, who as Home Secretary had let thousands of terrorists take shelter in his country, and now as a member of the government which has eliminated hundreds of innocent civilians in Iraq, that had never remotely threatened the security of his country,  came out harshly against Israel who had dared to defend itself against armed terrorists who threaten her, day-in-day-out on her very border. America and Britain, who have been seeking, arresting, incarcerating, trying and eliminating leaders of terror, are reproaching  Israel  for acting  similarly, when eliminating heads of terror, in what Israel persist to call "targeted assassination" implying a criminal offense, while their destruction of entire villages in search for Bin Laden and his likes, and their (non-targeted) murder of hundreds of innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq, goes down as a "collateral damage", not worth mentioning. Again, Israel appeases and keeps quiet in the face of this outrage.

 

And now it is the turn of Turkey to bash Israel for its "mistreatment" of the Palestinians and for behaving like a "terrorist state" because of the  Rafah  events, which involved the killing of  "innocent civilians" and the destruction of their houses. That those innocents were armed or that their houses served as bases  of terror, or that it was the Palestinians who declared the Intifadah, is of no consequence to the Turkish government, who have demolished hundreds of Kurdish villages, deprived the Kurdish people of their freedom for a hundred years and eliminated thousands of them brutally, not to speak of the Armenian genocide which remains as  a stain on their national conscience, and which they continue to deny instead of repenting, paying indemnities and  beg for forgiveness. They have even threatened to recall their Ambassador from Israel, as if his presence here were a favor and grace.

 

Israelis should be aware that the Turkish alliance with Israel is not iron-clad. Its revival in the 1990's, after decades of cold shoulder relations, was prompted by  a rare convergence of strategic and economic interests, that were bolstered by the generous assistance that Israel  poured on the most hard-hit areas of Turkey during the 1999 earthquake. But Turkey is a Muslim country, in spite of its commitment to maintain secular rule. No one could foresee the rise to power of Necmettin Erbakan precisely in those years of the summit in the honeymoon, but no one could forget either, that the army swiftly removed him  and banned his party when he  imprudently came too close to Iran. The army, who remained the arbiter of the correct behavior of the government, could by the same token threaten Syria with invasion and war if the latter did not desist from its support to Kurdish Turks.

 

The Islamic movement took a new name, and under Erdogan it won a sweeping majority, giving it a command of the government, the Parliament and the country, an indication of the depth of Islamization there, in spite of the illusory mitigations that we hear from all sorts of experts who assure us of the tenacity of the alliance between Turkey and Israel. For starters, the new government did what President Ozal would not have dared to do a decade earlier, when Turkey was a main base of attack against Iraq in 1991, when it refused American troops the opening of a second front during the 2003 war, something that shocked the Americans and forced them to revise their war plans and to alter their schemes.  They could not break with Israel by the same breath, because the army prevailed on them and threatened them that their fate might be similar to Erbakan's if they went too far and trashed the strategic collaboration with Israel. But they also understood that they could not interfere brutally with Erdogan who was elected in such a landslide, as long as he swore allegiance to the West-NATO-EU and he maintained the close relationship with Israel.

 

But now Erdogan is getting stronger, well-established and unchallengeable. IN a few years, after a new command is constituted of newly nominated officers loyal to the Islamic regime, the time will come when the Islamic Party under its new garb, will be able to dare a foreign policy independent of the military. And although for the moment economic and strategic interests are still serving as a glue in maintaining the ambiance of alliance and cooperation, the warnings are ominous when a country that threatened to invade Syria in the past is attempting to mend fences with it, dubs Israel, its "close ally" a  "terrorist state", elects to see Yassin ravage Israel with terrorism than to see him go, openly and blindly takes the Palestinian side in any conflict with Israel, and has been frantically busy to improve relations with the Arab and Islamic world. The Islamization of Turkey will be pursued, not blocked, under the Islamists, not only under pressure of the populace, but mainly because Islamization has been part of the political platform of  that party. Appeasing Turkish rulers, by passively absorbing their bashing in silence, will not alter their growing hostility anymore than the same passivity has served Israel's relations with the US and Britain.

 

Raphael Israeli

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Could they distinguish between a democratic state and a terrorist entity? Clearly not.

 

by David A. Harris

 

Today's vote in the mistakenly-named UN Human Rights Council is the latter. Although denunciations of Israel have become commonplace in the Council, this vote provides a window into the souls of those 47 member states that currently belong to this Geneva-based body, and what we see will be long remembered.

 

In effect, the countries were asked a rather simple set of questions.

 

Could they distinguish between a democratic state, Israel, and a terrorist entity, Hamas?

 

Could they recall that one nation, Israel, had left Gaza completely in 2005, while another group, Hamas, had seized control two years later, ousting the Palestinian Authority and strengthening ties with terrorist-funding, weapons-supplying Iran?

 

Could they recognize the legitimate right of a nation, Israel, to self-defense against a non-state actor, Hamas, that openly declares a desire to obliterate it?

 

Could they differentiate between the arsonist in the conflict, Hamas, and the firefighter, Israel?

 

Could they grasp the inherent challenge for a military, in this case Israel's, to uproot a terrorist infrastructure, that of Hamas, which had deeply embedded itself in a civilian population?"

 

Could they acknowledge what was obvious to a top British military officer, Colonel Richard Kemp, that one party to the conflict, Israel, had gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties?

 

Could they admit that the UN Human Rights Council was so viscerally anti-Israel, as evidenced by the stunning fact that 80 percent of its resolutions adopted over the past three years have focused on Israel alone, that it could not be deemed an objective body?

 

Could they recognize that the mandate of Judge Richard Goldstone and his three colleagues, including one who had publicly convicted Israel before joining the group, was inherently biased, charged with investigating what were already deemed to be Israeli "war crimes," while ignoring the thousands of Hamas missile and mortar attacks that preceded Israel's entry into Gaza?

 

And could they accept that the resolution before them spoke only of Israel, not of Hamas?

 

The verdict is now in.

 

Twenty-five countries voted for the resolution.

 

In most cases, there were no surprises.

 

All the members of the Arab League and most of the Organization of the Islamic Conference voted in lockstep to condemn Israel. No news there.

 

And the worst offenders against human rights, quite naturally, supported the resolution, happy to have attention once again deflected from their own shameful records. Again, no news there.

 

But there were a few unhappy surprises, particularly Argentina, Brazil, and Chile.

As democratic countries, they should have known better. Was there more to gain by opposing Israel than supporting it, or, at the very least, abstaining? Or were they motivated by some fanciful notion of human rights in the abstract that was completely detached from the reality on the ground thousands of miles away in the Middle East?

 

Then there were the six countries - Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Slovakia, Ukraine and the United States - that stood up to the mob and voted against the resolution. Their moral clarity and political principle were on display. They deserve appreciation and recognition.

 

We should remember these six countries, just as we recall those that stood up to the herd mentality in Geneva at the so-called Durban II conference in April which similarly singled out Israel for denunciation--Australia, Canada, the Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland and the United States.

 

And then there are the other 16 countries that did not vote in favor of the resolution, some abstaining, others absenting themselves.

 

In a multilateral setting, those actions can at times be acts of bravery. Not always, however.

 

It was regrettable that Britain and France, with their profound understanding of Middle Eastern realities, were not in the hall to cast a "no" vote. They should have been.

 

On the other hand, kudos to Mexico and Uruguay, the only Latin American countries on the Human Rights Council not to vote in favor.

 

And it was gratifying to see several African nations - Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, and Gabon - break group ranks and not endorse a one-sided resolution that even Richard Goldstone himself condemned today for its inherent unfairness.

 

Courage and principle are always in short supply.

 

When they're on display, as several countries demonstrated in Geneva, they should be acknowledged. But when they are overridden, and injustice and expediency become norms of the day, we must speak out loud and clear.

 

David A. Harris

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Amnesty International UK branch signals support for anti-Zionist extremism with endorsement of Israel apartheid analogy.

by Robin Shepherd

In a deeply disturbing move that marks the end of any pretence at impartiality as well as another new low in British attitudes to Israel, Amnesty International's UK branch has now indicated that it endorses the notion that Israel is an apartheid state.

For an event scheduled for October 28 entitled "Discriminatory and unsustainable: Water and politics in Israel & the Occupied Palestinian Territories" Amnesty has revealed that its keynote speaker will be Ben White, author of "Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner's Guide" which was published in June by Pluto Press.

On its website, Amnesty is promoting White's book and describes him as "a writer and freelance journalist specialising in Palestine/Israel."

In fact, White is an anti-Israeli ideologue whose book is riddled with distortions aimed at smearing the Jewish state by association with apartheid South Africa. In promoting his book and honouring him as keynote speaker, Amnesty has endorsed the legitimacy of the apartheid analogy in relation to Israel and thus placed itself inside the extremist wing of the anti-Israel camp.

Amnesty has simultaneously put itself in the company of far-Left and militantly anti-Zionist groups such as the charity War on Want which has been the subject of investigations by the UK's main charity watchdog, the Charity Commission, after it too promoted White's book at an event over the summer.

Until recently, the use of the apartheid analogy to demonise and deligitimise Israel was the preserve of mavericks on the fringes whom mainstream organisations would have shunned as untouchable.

But in the last few months and years it has gradually gained currency in the mainstream through the efforts of NGOs, Muslim groups, the Guardian newspaper and high profile international figures such as former U.S. president Jimmy Carter.

The Nazi analogy has also begun to move from the fringes towards the centreground and was widely used to attack Israel during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009.

A once respected human rights organisation (of which I was once a member), Amnesty International's credibility has been severely damaged by its anti-Israel stance as many observers, including Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, have remarked.

However, the latest move marks a point of departure since it takes Amnesty out of the ranks of NGOs which are merely characterised by anti-Israeli leanings and places it inside the realm of anti-Israel activism.

Human Rights Watch has moved in a similar direction. It admitted earlier this year that it had used its disputes with pro-Israel groups as a marketing tool for its fund raising efforts in Saudi Arabia.

As I have remarked before, the anti-Israeli agenda is not simply a problem for Israel. Its adoption also has the effect of corrupting those who participate in it. Few examples are more illustrative of such dangers than the corruption of the global human rights agenda by Human Rights Watch, the UN Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International.

It is a depressing and shameful state of affairs. But since so few people (in Britain and Europe at least) seem motivated to do anything substantial to address it, it is likely to get worse rather than better as time goes by. I really wonder where this is all going.

Anyone who wants a fuller discussion of such matters should get a copy of my new book, A State Beyond the Pale: Europe's Problem with Israel.

 

Robin Shepherd
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

Presbyterian Peacemakers Promote Hezbollah Website and Anti-Israel Incitement.

by Dexter Van Zile

The Israel/Palestine Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA), is promoting anti-Israel incitement from a number of different sources, including Al Manar, a Hezbollah-controlled television station which was designated as a "Global Terrorist Entity" by the U.S. Department of Treasury in 2006. The Israel/Palestine Mission Network (IPMN) was established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in 2004.

In addition to mainstreaming Hezbollah's Al Manar to Presbyterians and to the general public, the IPMN is also promoting false allegations about Israel tunneling beneath the Temple Mount – allegations which in the past have incited violence. The IPMN is also relaying a false report of Palestinians attacking right-wing Jews who had entered the Temple Mount to pray the day before Yom Kippur. In fact, Palestinians had attacked non-Jewish French tourists.

IPMN promoted the articles in a blog entry dated Oct. 11, 2009. The entry reports on the alleged "decline of sovereignty by Palestinian Muslims over the Haram al-Sharif Mosque on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem." The entry depicts the presence of Israeli Jews in Jerusalem as an alien intrusion that results in the "culture of Palestine slowly being displaced by immigrants from Europe and the US."

Accompanying this thinly disguised xenophobia were links to ten articles, most of which dealt with the recent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police near the Temple Mount. The IPMN encouraged its readers to view the articles under the heading "Articles of the Week."

The clashes began on Sept. 27, 2009 when Palestinians attacked a group of non-Jewish French tourists (whom they had likely mistaken for Israeli Jews intent on praying on the Temple Mount). Israeli police officers intervened, rescued the tourists, arrested some of the Palestinians involved in the attack and then blocked off the compound. The compound remained closed to allow for the peaceful celebration of Yom Kippur at the Western Wall, or Kotel, which is at the base of the Temple Mount. (Agence France Press, Sept. 27, 2009)

On Oct. 3, 2009, Israeli officials imposed another closure on the site in an effort to prevent further violence after Palestinian religious leaders called for further protests against an alleged Jewish "takeover" of Haram Al-Sharif. Prior to closure, imposed the day before a Sukkot celebration at the Western Wall, Israeli police had discovered wheelbarrows filled with stones at a number of sites on the Temple Mount. (UPI, Oct. 5, 2009).

Given the tensions surrounding the Temple Mount (or the Haram Al-Sharif as it is called by Muslims), IPMN's peacemaking agenda would seem to require that it post links to factual articles about the confrontations and encourage people of all faiths in Jerusalem to remain calm.

Instead, the organization directed its readers to articles promoting false charges designed to provoke hostility toward Israel and to justify continued violent acts by the Palestinians.

For example, the IPMN promoted an article published by Ma'an News, a Palestinian news agency that falsely reported that the violence that began on Sept. 27 started after "right wing religious Jews entered the Al-Aqsa compound ahead of the holy day of Yom Kippur." In fact, Palestinians attacked non-Jewish French tourists, as noted above.

The IPMN also promoted an article falsely accusing Israel of digging a tunnel under the Al Aqsa Mosque. This charge is regularly leveled at Israel in an effort to promote hostility toward Israel.

Al Manar

These links are outrageous enough, but what is even more shocking is the IPMN's decision to promote an article published by Al Manar, which is controlled by Hezbollah. This article titled "Palestinians Stand Up to Israeli Attempts to Desecrate Al-Aqsa" speaks of "Israel's continuous bids to desecrate the Muslim site." The article also reports that Israeli settlers have allowed Jewish settlers to enter the compound and desecrate the holy site." In fact, Israeli officials have worked to prevent Jewish groups from setting foot on the site.

What makes IPMN's decision to promote this article shocking is that Al Manar has been designated by the U.S. Department of Treasury as a "Global Terrorist Entity."

Al Manar raised funds for Hizballah through advertisements broadcast on the network and an accompanying website that requested donations for the terrorist organization. As recently as late 2005, Hizballah-affiliated charities aired commercials on al Manar, providing contact information and bank account numbers for donations. Moreover, Hizballah Secretary General Nasrallah publicized an invitation for all Lebanese citizens to volunteer for Hizballah military training on al Manar and al Nour [a Lebanese radio station].

In addition to supporting Hizballah, al Manar has also provided support to other designated Palestinian terrorist organizations, including the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, notably transferring tens of thousands of dollars for a PIJ-controlled charity. PIJ is listed as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist and a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the U.S. Government, and is also named on the European Union's list of terrorist entities.

Hizballah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah, along with Hizballah's Executive Council, managed and oversaw the budgets of al Manar and al Nour.(Emphasis added.)

By portraying Jewish settlement in Israel in such xenophobic terms and by promoting propaganda broadcast by a known supporter of anti-Israel terrorism, the IPMN has revealed its true colors.

It is not a peace organization.

It is an anti-Israel organization that promotes the lies told by groups in the Middle East to justify attacks on Israeli civilians.

 

Dexter Van Zile
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Window of Opportunity is Now Closed and Locked Down: Passing Goldstone Resolution Marks End of Peace Process Era.

by Barry Rubin

The UN Human Rights Council has now endorsed the Goldstone Report. There are important implications to this decision that make it a turning point.

It means the first make or break test for Obama's foreign policy. There is no easy way out. The president must either block a disastrous UN resolution through effective diplomacy in the UN corridors, accept a bad resolution in order to avoid a confrontation, or veto such a resolution an accept the price in unpopularity. Oh, and it also marks the end of the peace process era that began in 1993, showing both sides why they don't want a compromise deal.

Of course, it says a great deal about the nature of international affairs nowadays. What does it say about the UN that it condemns Israel but says not a word and does not a deed against Hamas, which is guilty of aggression, terrorism, seizure of power by force, calls for genocide, antisemitism, indoctrination of children to become suicide bombers, oppression of women, systematic use of civilians as human shields, and a range of war crimes.

Trying to present the Goldstone report in a more favorable light, Western media overstated its “evenhandedness,” playing up a few mentions of Hamas to pretend that both sides in the conflict were condemned. The UNRC drops this pretense and only speaks of Israel, totally removing the factors that forced a reluctant Israel to launch an operation on the Gaza Strip.

This is not merely another of the many ritual condemnations of Israel but a demonization. Israel is now accused of massive war crimes on a remarkably flimsy basis. Of course it is all political but this is a step toward delegitimization. The Arabic-speaking, Muslim-majority, and left-wing governments that supported the resolution see this as a step not toward a compromise peace but an elimination of Israel altogether.

I am not saying that this is going to happen, or that the resolution will have any actual negative impact on Israel itself. Yet what is most important is that having tasted blood, these forces will not be interested in getting less. Why should they—including the Palestinian Authority—settle for a stable two-state solution when they believe they can get far more without giving up anything?

It is an accident but not a coincidence that the Palestinian Authority signed a unity agreement with Hamas in the same week that the resolution was passed. The two groups won’t actually cooperate but the document they reluctantly signed for reasons of organizational rivalry symbolizes the fact that their strategies, though not tactics, now coincide to a large degree.

This, then, is the first reason why the passage of this resolution is an important development. It marks not only the end of the peace process but the end of the peace process era. Arabic-speaking, Muslim-majority, and some states governed by left-wing governments (Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua in Latin America and others) seek a one-state solution in which Israel no longer exists. It marks a return—in thinking but not in military practice—to the pre-1993 period where there is nothing to talk about.

The most important country that voted for passing the Goldstone resolution in the UNHRC, Russia, doesn’t think that way, nor does China. European states also do not support such a development. Loud sectors in intellectual life and media do, though these do not set policy. But the point is that these countries also won’t act to stop it. The many abstentions on the vote is symbolic of the fact that most Western democracies and countries that don’t support directly endorse this campaign are, at best, bystanders, at worst, appeasers.

The second reason why this development is so important is what it tells about U.S. policy. Remember that the Obama Administration joined the UNHRC based on the explicit argument that it could moderate the radical-dominated group. This strategy has failed.

But so, on a larger-scale, is the concept that President Barack Obama’s “popularity offensive” in which he distanced himself from Israel, lavished devotion on the Palestinian cause, extolled the glories of Islam, and apologized for past U.S. policies would have some beneficial effect.

The policy has done worse than failing it has, predictably, backfired. The question is whether this will be recognized, much less reversed, by the Obama Administration.

But there’s more. The United States now faces more tests.

Step 1: Can it stop the progress of this resolution and report into implementation through judicial decisions and sanctions against Israel or not? Certainly, the United States will work to water down the ensuing resolutions. To do so it will need to use leverage and even threats in order to succeed. A “nice guy” strategy could fail miserably here.

Step 2: The next possible failure would be if the U.S. government accepted a resolution which was somewhat watered down but still too extreme. In other words, it would buy off immediate trouble in exchange for longer-term woes.

Step 3: If the resolution is still too far-out, the Administration may have to veto it. (European states know they can afford to be cowardly and leave it to America to stop the madness.)

If the United States does veto the resolution, it will have to brave condemnation and unpopularity. Does Obama have the guts for this?

[There is also another alternative being mentioned, to pass an anti-Israel General Assembly resolution if the United States vetoes one in the Security Council.]

Finally, there is the lesson for Israel. Let’s cut away all the obvious points about relying on itself, mistrusting the world, and so on. There is one item of overriding importance:

Israel knows that if it yields territory and is attacked from that territory, no matter how great the provocation, it cannot depend on international support but can rather know it will face international condemnation.

What does this say about a two-state solution? Israel pulls out of the West Bank, a Palestinian state is created (either on the West Bank or that plus the Gaza Strip), that state either attacks Israel or allows (and encourages) terrorists to do so across the border.

Israel has no response to defend itself that isn’t highly costly.

Bottom line: No Israeli government will make such a deal; the Israeli people will not support such a deal.

Along with myriad other reasons, the Palestinian Authority and Hamas can now argue persuasively that they enjoy broad international support for wiping out Israel altogether. They have no incentive--since both are indifferent to the welfare of their people--to make any compromise peace.

Good-bye hope for peace. I now declare the window of opportunity that had seemed to open in the late 1980s, which met and failed the test of the Oslo process, and yet which continues to inspire false hope for many people to be fully and officially closed.

 

Barry Rubin
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

 

The Case For Demographic Optimism.

 

by Yoram Ettinger

 

The all time record of daily Jewish births at Tel Aviv's Ichilov Hospital, set on  September 21, 2009, reflects the substantial rise in Israel's Jewish fertility. Delivery rooms function at 100% capacity.

 

Anyone claiming that Jews are doomed to become a minority between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean is either dramatically mistaken or outrageously misleading.

 

An audit of Palestinian and Israeli documentation of births, deaths, school and voter registration and migration certifies a solid 67% Jewish majority over 98.5% of the land west of the Jordan River (without Gaza), compared with a 33% and an 8% Jewish minority in 1947 and 1900, respectively, west of the Jordan River.

 

The audit exposes a 66% distortion in the current number of Judea & Samaria Arabs - 1.55 million and not 2.5 million, as claimed by the Palestinian Authority. In 2006, the World Bank exposed a 32% bend in the number of Palestinian births. Inflated numbers have provided the Palestinians with inflated international foreign aid and inflated water supply by Israel. It has also afflicted Israeli policy-makers and public opinion molders with fatalism and erroneous demographic assumptions, which have impacted Israel's national security policy.

 

Refuting demographic fatalism, the robust growth of Israel's Jewish fertility (number of births per woman) has been sustained during the last 15 years, while Arab fertility and population growth rate (birth, death and migration rates) experiences a sharp dive.

 

The number of Jewish births during the first half of 2009 accounted for 76% of all births, compared with 75% in 2008 and 69% in 1995. Unlike all other developed societies, the number of annual Jewish births has grown by 45% from 1995 (80,400) to 2008 (117,000), while the annual number of "Green Line" Arab births has stabilized around 39,000. The secular, rather than the religious, sector has been chiefly responsible for the Jewish growth. For example, the Olim (immigrants) from the USSR arrived to Israel with a typical Russian fertility rate of one birth per woman; today, those women are giving birth to two to three children, the typical secular Israeli Jewish rate. Moreover, the Arab-Jewish fertility gap shrunk from 6 births per woman in 1969 to 0.7 births in 2008 (3.5:2.8), converging toward 3 births.

 

Arab fertility rate in Judea & Samaria declines rapidly (toward 3.5 births), as has been the case in all Muslim countries except Afghanistan and Yemen: Jordan (twin-sister of Judea & Samaria)) – 3, Syria – 3.5, Egypt – 2.5, Saudi Arabia – 4, Algeria – 1.8 and Iran – 1.7 births per woman.

 

The swift decline in "Green Line" Arab fertility rate reflects the impressive Arab integration into Israel's infrastructure of employment, education, health, trade, finance, politics, sports and culture.

 

The sharp decrease in Judea & Samaria Arab fertility rate is the outcome of modernity. A 70% rural majority in 1967 has been transformed into a 70% urban majority in 2009, burdened by civil war, terrorism and severe unemployment. Elementary and higher Education have expanded dramatically, especially among women. Median wedding age and divorce rate are at an all time high. In addition, Judea & Samaria Arabs have experienced a high emigration rate since 1950, further eroding population growth rate.

 

The current 67% Jewish majority west of the Jordan River (without Gaza) could expand to 80% by 2035, leveraging the aforementioned Jewish demographic tailwind and the potential Aliya resulting from the global economic meltdown and the rise in anti-Semitism (e.g. half a million Olim during the next ten years from the former USSR).

 

Baseless demographic fatalism has played a key role in shaping Israel’s state of mind and national security policy. It has eroded the level of confidence in the future of the Jewish State. However, well-documented demographic optimism now confirms that there is no demographic machete at the throat of the Jewish State, that demographic scare tactics are hollow and that Israel's challenge is not a "demographic time bomb," but rather a demographic "scare crow." 

 

 

Yoram Ettinger

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.