Saturday, October 30, 2021

Top US official: We cannot reopen consulate without Israeli approval - Ariel Kahana

 

​ by Ariel Kahana

Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon acknowledges that under US and international law, the Biden administration cannot go ahead with the highly contentious move unless the Israeli government gives its consent first.

 

Report: US, PA hold talks over consulate branch in east Jerusalem
The building that used to house the US mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem | File photo: Oren Ben Hakoon

The United States cannot reopen its consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem unless Israel gives its consent first, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon said Wednesday.

McKeon appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and was asked by Senator Bill Hagerty – who proposed a bill earlier in the week to block the consulate from opening – about the move.

The United States cannot reopen its consulate for the Palestinians in Jerusalem unless Israel gives its consent first, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Brian McKeon said Wednesday. Follow Israel Hayom on Facebook and Twitter McKeon appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and was asked by Senator Bill Hagerty – who proposed a bill earlier in the week to block the consulate from opening – about the move.

"I just want to confirm something, on the record – is it your understanding that under US and international law the government of Israel would have to provide its affirmative consent before the United States could open or reopen the US consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem?" Hagerty asked McKeon.

"Or does the Biden administration believe it can move forward to establish a second US mission in the Israel capital city of Jerusalem without the consent of the government in Israel?"

McKeon responded: "Senator, that's my understanding – that we need the consent of the host government to open any diplomatic facility."

The Biden administration has pledged to reopen the mission, garnering criticism from senior Israeli officials and members of Congress who argue it will harm Israeli sovereignty over the capital.

According to US sources involved in the matter, the Biden administration will try to reach an agreement with Israel, and if it does not succeed, it may take a unilateral step after the Knesset approves the state budget, bringing stability to the coalition.

Israel has argued that if Washington is interested in opening a diplomatic mission to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, it should do so outside of the municipality's jurisdiction, for example, in the neighborhood of Abu Dis. The US has rejected that proposal outright.

Former US President Donald Trump shuttered the mission in 2019. It currently serves as the official residence of the US ambassador to Israel.

 

Ariel Kahana

Source: https://www.israelhayom.com/2021/10/28/top-us-official-we-cannot-reopen-consulate-without-israeli-approval/

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Israel or Biden Admin: Who's Telling the Truth About Terror Linked Groups Crackdown? - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

The wording, as usual, is a tell. When officials feel the need to insert 'lawyerisms', you know that they're not being honest.

 


The short version is that Israel cracked down on 6 anti-Israel groups with ties to the PFLP terrorist group. The Biden administration and its media condemned the move and complained that Israel had not informed it beforehand. Israel however says that it did.

The Foreign Ministry insists it informed the US prior to designating six Palestinian NGOs as terrorist organizations last week, despite US State Department spokesman Ned Price saying otherwise.

Foreign Ministry Deputy Director-General for Strategic Affairs Joshua Zarka on Monday said he had spoken with an official in the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism ahead of the move.

The Biden admin is doubling down.

During a daily press briefing on Sunday, Price said: “We are currently engaging our Israeli partners for more information regarding the basis for these designations.”

“It is, to the best of our knowledge, accurate that we did not receive a specific heads-up about any forthcoming designations,” he said days after multiple Israeli government sources had said the opposite.

The wording, as usual, is a tell. When officials feel the need to insert 'lawyerisms', you know that they're not being honest.

Price throws in to "the best of our knowledge" (a plausible deniability classic) and "a specific heads-up" (an admission that sounds like a denial). 

What's he actually saying? The only reason to throw in "to the best of our knowledge" is if you're lying or unsure about what you're saying and you want an option for weaseling out of it later without being called a liar. But then "a specific heads-up" is a virtual admission that the Biden administration had been informed of something. Otherwise why specify a "specific heads-up"?

What Price is really saying is that the Biden regime was informed, but not in the way that it wishes it had been informed. Except that instead of saying that, Price falsely accused Israel of not informing it. That's sloppy, stupid, and typifies the way that the third term of the Obama administration is repeating the same tactics of picking a fight over a non-issue and then trying to make it look like Israel's fault.

The obvious explanation after eight years of this is that the whole point of this game is picking fights in order to fracture the relationship with the Jewish State.

 

Daniel Greenfield

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/point/2021/10/israel-or-biden-admin-whos-telling-truth-about-daniel-greenfield/

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AG Merrick Garland’s outrageous Senate testimony sparked ringing denunciations from GOP senators - Thomas Lifson

 

​ by Thomas Lifson

A stand-up guy for the mob that sees the Constitution as an obstacle to their power grab.

Attorney General Merrick Garland yesterday demonstrated that he is unfit for office as the nation’s chief law enforcement officer, much less as a justice of the Supreme Court. Whatever reservations you may have about Mitch McConnell, be grateful that kept this hack off the Supreme Court.  

Garland basically stonewalled on all the difficult questions that he faced. He defended his now-notorious memo to the FBI, written in response (in 4 days!) to a letter from the National School Boards Association, even as GOP senators repeatedly pointed out that the NSBA now has apologized for it.

No apologies were forthcoming from Garland. Nor were yes or no answers to questions posed to him by Republicans who wanted straight answers. A number of times, he used the “I can’t remember” or “I didn’t know” dodge.

  Good example is this brief (under 4 minutes) interaction with Senator Tom Cotton, in which he defended the letter and failed to answer the basic point of why he called for the National Security Division of the FBI (which handles terrorism) to investigate those who complain about school boards.

Watch Tom Cotton grilling AG Garland 

Transcript via Grabien:

COTTON: “All right. All right. Judge, you’ve repeatedly — you’ve repeatedly dissembled this morning about that directive. For instance about The National security division. Chuck Grassley asked you a very simple question why you would sic The National security division of the Department of Justice on parents? John Cornyn asked you the same thing. You said it was in your October 4th memorandum, it was in another office’s memorandum. It wasn’t another office’s memorandum, judge, it was in a press release from your office. Right here in front of me, October 4th 2021 for immediate release you’re going to credit task force hat include The National security division. What on earth does The National security division have to do with parents who are expressing disagreements at school boards?”
GARLAND: “Nothing in this memorandum or any memorandum is about parents expressing disagreements with their school boards. The memorandum makes clear that parents are entitled and protected by the First Amendment. Vigorous debates, we don’t — the Justice Department is not interested in that question at all.” [crosstalk]
COTTON: “OK. So even in that case, what is The National security division, judge? These are people that are supposed to be chasing jihadist and Chinese spies. What does The National security division have to do with parents at school boards?”
GARLAND: “This is not, again, about parents at school boards, it’s about the threats of violence.”
COTTON: “OK. Let me — let me turn to that because you’ve said that phrase repeatedly throughout the morning, threats, violence and threats of violence, violence and threats of violence.”
GARLAND: “Yeah.”
COTTON: “We have heard it a dozen times this morning. As Senator Lee pointed out the very first line in your October 4th memorandum refers to harassment and intimidation. Why do you continue to dissemble in front of this commitee that you’re only talking about violence and threats of violence when your memo says harassment and intimidation?”
GARLAND: “Senator, I said in my testimony that it involved other kinds of criminal conduct and the — and I explained to Senator Lee that the statutory definitions of those terms and the Constitutional definitions of the terms involve threats of violence.” COTTON: “OK. Let’s look at one of the statutes you cited.”
GARLAND: “Yeah.”
COTTON: “Section 223.”
GARLAND: “Yeah.”
COTTON: “That statute covers the use of not just phones but telecommunications devices to annoy — to annoy someone. So, are you going to sic your U.S. attorneys and the FBI on a parents group if they post on Facebook something that annoys a school board member, judge?”
GARLAND: “Well, the answer to that is no. And the provision that I was particularly drawing to his attention was 2261 a wich was to engage —“
COTTON: “I wasn’t talking about 2261 a. I know you mentioned that. You also mentioned 223, that’s what I mentioned.”
GARLAND: “Yeah. But the —“ [crosstalk]
COTTON: “Judge you also told — you also told Senator Klobuchar that this memorandum was about meetings and coordination.”
GARLAND: “Yeah.”
COTTON: “Meetings and coordination.”
GARLAND: “Yeah.”
COTTON: “What I have in my hand right here, that I’ll submit to the record, a letter from one of your U.S. attorneys to all of the county attorneys to the attorney general to all sheriffs, to the school board association of his state in which he talks about federal investigation and prosecution. It’s not about meetings, it’s not about coordinations, it’s about federal investigation and prosecution.”
GARLAND: “I —“
COTTON: “Did — did you direct your U.S. attorneys to issue such a letter?”
GARLAND: “I did not. I have not seen that letter. My —“ [crosstalk]
COTTON: “It’s got three pages. It’s got three pages —“
GARLAND: “My memorandum —“
COTTON: “— of spreadsheet about all the federal crimes that a — that a parent can be charged with, to include the one you cited. Did — did —“
GARLAND: “My memorandum —“
COTTON: “Did main justice make this spreadsheet, judge?”
GARLAND: “I don’t have any idea. My memorandum speaks specifically about setting up meetings and I’ll just read it again, convene meetings —“
COTTON: “Judge, we — we’ve all read your memorandum.”
GARLAND: “Then you know what I —“
COTTON: “We’ve also heard you dissemble about your memorandum.”

Garland looked old and sometimes his voice shook a little, but he was basically unflappable, as if he knew that he could never be impeached, and he was doing the dirtywork that the establishment wants.

The highlights for me were the denunciations he received from several Republican senators.

Here is Josh Hawley, who was particularly impressive:

And here is Ted Cruz, who really ripped into Garland toward the close of the hearing.

 

There were others, including Mike Lee and John Kennedy, who did good work exposing the slipperiness of Garland.

But in the end, he stood his shaky ground and never lost his cool.

He’s a stand-up guy for the mob that sees the Constitution as an obstacle to their power grab.

Photo credit: YouTube screengrab

 

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/ag_merrick_garlands_outrageous_senate_testimony_sparked_ringing_denunciations_from_gop_senators.html

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The Role of Iran's Palestinian Mercenaries - Khaled Abu Toameh

 

​ by Khaled Abu Toameh

Sami Gemayel, head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party: "Are you ready now to face the truth?"

  • Hamas and PIJ, it seems, want to continue receiving funds and weapons from Iran, but they do not want to be seen by Arabs and Muslims as mercenaries serving Iran's interests in the Middle East.

  • Hamas and PIJ want the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs and Muslims to believe that their only goal is to "liberate all of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea" -- a euphemism for driving the Jews out of Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state.

  • That is most likely why both Palestinian terror groups were quick to issue statements denying that their main goal is to defend Iran and serve its interests in the Middle East.

  • "Take your armies and go with them back to Iran, where you can fight your battles away from the peoples you occupy to achieve your agendas," said Sami Gemayel, head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. He also criticized the failure of Lebanese leaders to respond to the admission that Hezbollah was created to serve Iran, and not Lebanon: "Are you ready now to face the truth?"

  • The Iranian commander's [Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid's] statements coincide with the Biden administration's delusional commitment to the fiction that the US will somehow convince Iran to abandon its plans to acquire nuclear weapons.

  • While the Biden administration is talking about "diplomacy" as the best way to rein in Iran's nuclear program, the mullahs are preparing for war and advancing their scheme to annihilate Israel and, with the help of their six "armies," occupy still more Arab countries.

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, it seems, want to continue receiving funds and weapons from Iran, but they do not want to be seen by Arabs and Muslims as mercenaries serving Iran's interests in the Middle East. Pictured: Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists parade with Bader 3 rockets in Gaza City, on May 29, 2021. (Photo by Thomas Coex/AFP via Getty Images)

Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are embarrassed: Iran just admitted that both of those terrorist groups serve as mercenaries for the mullahs in Tehran.

For Hamas and PIJ, the admission is yet another sign that the truth can be painful and inconvenient, especially when it comes from a major ally such as Iran.

Recently, Maj. Gen. Gholam Ali Rashid, Commander of Iran's Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters, stated that his country has armies that operate outside of Iran.

Rashid was referring to Iranian-backed groups such as Hamas, PIJ, Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, the Syrian army and the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, and other militias in Iraq and Syria. These groups, he said, "have ideological tendencies" with the mission to defend Iran.

Rashid pointed out that the former commander of Iran's Quds Force, Gen. Qasem Soleimani, said three months before his death that he had "organized six armies outside the territory of Iran."

Soleimani, who was assassinated on January 3, 2020, in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport, had been in charge of Iran's extraterritorial and clandestine military operations.

After his assassination, Hamas and PIJ revealed that Soleimani had been responsible for providing the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip with many types of weapons to assist them in their war against Israel.

Hamas official Osama Hamdan, for instance, was quoted earlier this year as saying that his group had "deep relations" with Soleimani, who sent Russian Kornet anti-tank guided missiles to the Gaza Strip.

Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar reported in December 2020 that during their first meeting in 2006, Soleimani gave him suitcases filled with $22 million in cash.

PIJ secretary-general Ziyad al-Nakhalah revealed that Soleimani had sent 10 ships loaded with weapons, including long-range missiles, to the Gaza Strip.

Rashid, the commander who disclosed the connection between the terror groups and Iran's six "armies," claimed that the US and Israel are angry and concerned about his country's growing regional power.

The "belligerent American and Zionist regime's forces are angry about the extreme power of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the region," he said. He added that Iran has indeed bonded with some nations and governments, "creating regional powers and religious-popular powers," according to the Iranian Mehr News Agency.

These groups, Rashid said, "represent a deterrent force for Iran and are ready to defend it against any foreign aggressor."

In short, the Iranian commander is threatening that his country will unleash its six "armies" against the US and Israel in any future war or military confrontation.

It is no secret that Hamas and PIJ have long been funded and armed by Iran. The leaders of the two groups have even boasted of their ties with Iran, especially Tehran's support for the jihad (holy war) to eliminate Israel.

Hamas and PIJ, however, do not like to be portrayed as puppets or proxies of Iran, which continues to meddle in the internal affairs of a number of Arab countries, including Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen.

Hamas and PIJ, it seems, want to continue receiving funds and weapons from Iran, but they do not want to be seen by Arabs and Muslims as mercenaries serving Iran's interests in the Middle East.

Apparently, Hamas and PIJ are concerned that Rashid's statements could harm their relations with Arab countries that already feel threatened by Iran's ongoing attempts to destabilize their security and stability.

Hamas and PIJ want the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs and Muslims to believe that their only goal is to "liberate all of Palestine, from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea" -- a euphemism for driving the Jews out of Israel and replacing it with an Islamist state.

That is most likely why both Palestinian terror groups were quick to issue statements denying that their main goal is to defend Iran and serve its interests in the Middle East.

According to PIJ, its sole mission is to fight Israel:

"The resistance of the Palestinian people has existed since the establishment of the Zionist project and its occupation of Palestine, and it is not linked to any other goal. The resistance forces, including Iran, stand together against the Zionist enemy and its allies."

Echoing a similar position, Hamas thanked Iran for its longtime support for the jihad to destroy Israel. Hamas stated that this was the only "battle" it wished to be involved in, and hinted that it was not created to defend Iran. According to a statement issued by the terror group:

"[Hamas] affirms the depth of the relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and its appreciation and thanks to it as one of the most prominent supporters of the resistance project in Palestine, and confirms that this support and this relationship is in the context of our battle as a nation against the occupation Zionism, and not in the context of any other battles."

In Lebanon, a country effectively controlled Hezbollah, some politicians reacted with fury to Rashid's talk about the six "armies."

"Take your armies and go with them back to Iran, where you can fight your battles away from the peoples you occupy to achieve your agendas," said Sami Gemayel, head of the Lebanese Kataeb Party. He also criticized the failure of Lebanese leaders to respond to the admission that Hezbollah was created to serve Iran, and not Lebanon: "Are you ready now to face the truth? Your silence is a great betrayal."

Some Arab analysts believe that, regarding the Iranian commander's talk about Tehran's six armies, particularly two, Hamas and PIJ, aim to thwart efforts by Egypt to reach a long-term ceasefire between Palestinian groups and Israel. Iran seeks to demonstrate to the Egyptians and other international parties that Tehran is a major player in the Palestinian arena, especially the Gaza Strip, and that it is fully capable of foiling any deal that would stop terror attacks against Israel.

The Iranian commander's statements coincide with the Biden administration's delusional commitment to the fiction that the US will somehow convince Iran to abandon its plans to acquire nuclear weapons.

While the Biden administration is talking about "diplomacy" as the best way to rein in Iran's nuclear program, the mullahs are preparing for war and advancing their scheme to annihilate Israel and, with the help of their six "armies," to occupy still more Arab countries.

  • Follow Khaled Abu Toameh on Twitter

 

Khaled Abu Toameh is an award-winning journalist based in Jerusalem.

Source: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17840/iran-palestinian-mercenaries

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Hating Jews is Becoming a Leftist Purity Test - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

The Jewish groups that failed to fight campus anti-Semitism are about to live under it.

 


When Sunrise Movement DC issued its ultimatum that either the Jews had to be kicked out or it would boycott a D.C. statehood rally, it was a familiar purity test. And, like most purity tests, was about testing a willingness to hate people and endorse a new extremist position on demand.

Purity tests that have no constructive purpose except to undermine and oust a leadership that is insufficiently radical have become commonplace in the Reign of Terror era of American politics.

When Democrats adopt socialism, endorse the elimination of the police, tear down the statues of Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln, champion critical race theory, and insist that there’s no such thing as men and women, it’s as the result of an escalating series of purity tests.

Hating Jews is just the latest progressive purity test.

Sunrise DC declared that it would not participate in events with what it falsely claimed were Zionist groups, but were actually, mostly fellow leftists who hate Israel as much as they do.

The National Council of Jewish Women, one of the three groups singled out by Sunrise DC, had supported or allied with Linda Sarsour, Peter Beinart, and Rep. Ilhan Omar. The NCJW had gone as far out of its way to align with the Hamas caucus as it was possible without actually turning into an anti-Israel protest group. Revealingly, nothing it had done was good enough.

It never is.

Why beat up on Sarsour and Omar’s pals? Sunrise DC was actually imposing an anti-Semitism purity test on the Declaration for American Democracy, a pro-election rigging coalition. And true to form, its ultimatum was met with an uncomfortable refusal by other leftist groups and politicians to either condemn anti-Semitism or condemn the Jews. The purity test had succeeded.

Black Lives Matter D.C. swiftly jumped in to declare that Sunrise D.C's "statement wasn't anti-Semitic, no matter how many times oppressors want to repeat it." This was as much a threat to any leftist, prog, or liberal who might want to stand up to anti-Semitism, as it was to Jews. Fail the anti-Semitism purity test and Black Lives Matter will damn you as an oppressor.

Even before the BLM threat, the message had been received. And the outcome noted.

The same Democrat establishment that tossed away American history, including its own, opposition to racism, support for women’s rights, and dozens of other things that it used to claim were principles, but actually turned out to be mere shibboleths, was ready to throw Jews on the bonfire of its convictions. Not that it should have surprised anyone except Jewish leftists.

The anti-Semitism purity test was inevitable based on the history of the last two centuries and a much more recent history of modern institutional anti-Semitism at colleges and universities.

Sunrise DC and BLM DC were running the same play that their members had likely taken part in on college campuses where Jewish students are routinely ousted from student government and campus positions on the pretext that they must be Zionists. Like safe spaces and pronoun police, what happens on campus doesn’t stay on campus. Only now the entire civic space is playing the role of the helpless university administrators who don’t want to offend the radicals.

The leap of these anti-Semitic purges from the campus to major leftist advocacy groups foreshadows the next stage of the leap when they become a fundamental reality of public life in the institutions, private and public, controlled by the new generation of identity politics leftists.

Hating Jews, under the putative guise of opposing Zionism, is about to become a core progressive value. And those values have become the moral code of the ruling class.

The Jewish groups that failed to fight campus anti-Semitism are about to live under it.

A movement like this is not just the product of a few activists with a social media account. Nor is the evolution of the anti-Semitism purity test a tantrum being thrown by a few obscure groups.

When you follow the money, it becomes all too obvious what is really taking place here.

The Sunrise Movement is funded by George Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, among others. Soros and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund are the premier funders of the anti-Israel movement in America. It’s unlikely that the Sunrise Movement, an environmental group that previously showed little interest in Israel, suddenly decided to boycott a completely unrelated rally because organizations with the “J” word in their name were going to be present.

Likewise, it’s implausible that the Movement for Black Lives, a BLM umbrella group, launched its support for BDS and opposition to the Jewish State, for reasons unrelated to its close ties to the Ford Foundation whose own funding of anti-Israel and anti-Jewish activities are legendary.

The rise of what some have called a new anti-Semitism was not simply an activist phenomenon. Nor is it especially clear that there is an authentic grassroots leftist movement that can be separated from the billionaire donors and foundations who finance the groups that fund it. Much as Soviet front groups couldn’t be properly detached from the Old Left, the foundations that serve a similar role can’t be detached from the New Left. Tracing the money is difficult enough, but determining when the foundations fund ideas or originate them can be all but impossible.

What is clearer is that leftist anti-Semitism is a top-down, not a bottom-up, phenomenon.

American Jews have tried to convince themselves that individual incidents, first on campuses and then in the streets, violence and vandalism under the guise of political correctness, did not make a pattern. They have gone on trying to ignore these “random events” while refusing to connect the dots, and trying to silence those who were connecting the dots for them.

And when they finally do connect the dots, they’re eager to blame Israel, not the anti-Semites.

But the Left was purging Jews before there was a modern State of Israel on the grounds that they were reactionaries, bourgeois, cosmopolitans, or any number of similar accusations.

Zionism is just the latest politically correct excuse for hating Jews. And it’s not the only one.

The National Council of Jewish Women, much like the anti-Israel activists of the Religious Action Center of the Reform movement, might wonder why they were targeted. If they had any sense of history, including that of their own, they would know that the whole point of purity tests is to reduce the base to mindless radicalism by convincing them to embrace what they once knew to be wrong. That includes convincing people to hate others and to hate themselves.

Each purity test passed destroys the morals, principles, and basic decency of human beings. It’s how normal people turn into the howling mobs we read about in history books or watch in historical newsreels. “What kind of people could do that?” we wonder.

The answer is all around us.

Compelling people who used to be Democrats, then liberals, then progressives, and finally dogmatic leftists to jump through one more hoop makes them more willing to do anything.

And if there’s anything that history teaches about the Left, from Stalin to Mao, from Che to Pol Pot, from Kim Jong-Il to Mengistu there will come a time when ordinary people will indeed be expected to do “anything”, whether it’s to kill or to be killed in the name of the revolution.

Anti-Semitism is just one more stop on the extremist expressway. Like critical race theory and much of the rest of identity politics, it divides people into those who deserve to be beaten and those who deserve to do the beating to distract everyone from the fact that the leftist ideology of victims and oppressors is really about creating plenty more of both as grist for its political mill.

The Sunrise Movement claims that the planet is on the verge of destruction and Black Lives Matter insists that the greatest threat to black people are police officers, both are absurd lies, but like anti-Semitism they’re really weaponized distractions for a massive power grab.

Meanwhile the same American Jewish establishment that was convinced that the answer to anti-Semitism was social justice can’t help but double down on it even as it is becoming inescapably obvious that social justice isn’t the answer to anti-Semitism: it is anti-Semitism.

Organizations like NCJW or RAC embrace the extreme margins of the Left and are baffled when the anti-Semitism from those margins not only intensifies, but burns hotter than ever. The purity tests intensify with each concession: each willingness to embrace Sarsour, Omar, and whatever leftist social justice bigot follows on their heels only leads to worse hatred.

The leftist anti-Semitism that began on college campuses is defining a leftist America.

 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/hating-jews-becoming-leftist-purity-test-daniel-greenfield/

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Joe Biden Wants to Help Women by Freeing Rapists - Daniel Greenfield

 

​ by Daniel Greenfield

Pedophiles and rapists benefit from Biden’s new “gender equity” push to eliminate bail.

 


Earlier this year, Frankie Harris, 38, a vicious criminal attacked a 64-year-old woman in Harlem from behind, strangled her for three minutes, and then pulled her to the ground and raped her.

Then he left her in a pool of her own blood. When the police caught him, he claimed it was “consensual”.

His victim died after spending a week in a coma.

The monster who attacked her (pictured above) had been set loose twice after previous attacks that same year, including forcible touching and sex abuse, and was sent into supervised release programs, instead of being safely locked up because New York Democrats had eliminated “cash bail”.

The pro-crime program of eliminating bail protections has led to a wave of assaults on women.

While New York City judges have released rapists without bail, including an illegal alien child rapist, it’s become the new normal around the country where the combination of pro-crime “criminal justice reform” and Soros DAs has effectively dismantled the criminal justice system.

Now Joe Biden, who has been accused of sexual assault by a former aide, claims that he wants to “help” women by ending cash bail and setting countless rapists loose to prey on women.

Biden had run on a plan to free criminals by ending bail, vowing that he would "lead a national effort to end cash bail" and now as crime is hitting new highs, he's preparing to advance his pro-crime program under the guise of protecting women by empowering their abusers.

Biden and Kamala Harris, who had been accused of covering up sexual harassment by her close aide and personal friend, announced the creation of a White House Gender Policy Council earlier this year. The council is co-chaired by Jennifer Klein, the former chief strategy and policy officer at the disgraced Hollywood sexual harassment cover-up group, Time's Up.

The former CEO of Time’s Up had to resign after her son was accused of sexual assault, the group was accused of suppressing sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden, hip-hop producer Russell Simmons, and Andrew Cuomo, among others. Klein and her organization had praised serial predator Andrew Cuomo for his “leadership” in protecting women.

So it's not especially surprising that the Council's National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality report warns that “we will work to end cash bail and reform our pretrial system, recognizing the harm these processes cause, particularly for black women and families.”

Last year, black women were the only group who suffered more rapes than the year before.

The dismantling of bail protections has repeatedly put sexual predators and rapists back on the street to reoffend. Kamala Harris, who has advocated for the Gender Policy Council, ought to know that better than anyone else. Or at least she would if she had a conscience.

Kamala Harris had urged her supporters to donate to the Minnesota Freedom Fund which exists to bail out criminals.

Kamala helped raise millions to set loose monsters in Minnesota. The beneficiaries of the attack on bail protections for victims included Timothy Wayne Columbus, a child rapist accused of sexually assaulting a little girl, and Christopher Boswell, who had raped two women, hitting one over the head and trying to run her over, before assaulting his latest victim with a glass bottle.

Others included George Howard, bailed out for domestic assault before shooting a driver, Donavan Dexter Boone, accused of choking his ex-girlfriend in front of her children, Marcus Marshun Butler, of beating his girlfriend with a closed fist, Tyrone Thomas Shields, of leaving a "larger than golf sized bump” on his wife's head, and Davlin Devonte Gates, of choking his girlfriend until she lost consciousness, after four previous domestic violence convictions.

“A big part of my career has been about protecting women and children,” Kamala Harris has falsely claimed. There are a whole bunch of women in Minnesota who would disagree.

Did Kamala learn anything from lending her support for releasing rapists and abusers without bail? The National Strategy on Gender Equity and Equality makes it clear she did not.

Even as crime is soaring, the Biden-Harris administration is doubling down on pro-crime. And it’s trying to pass off its program of putting more criminals back on the street under the guise of helping women. But if there’s any group of people who have collectively done more damage to women than Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Time’s Up... it would be the Taliban.

To whom Joe Biden and Kamala Harris turned over the women and girls of Afghanistan.

Now, Biden and Kamala would like the rapists and sexual abusers in this country to be able to do to the women and girls of America what the Taliban are doing to the women and girls of Afghanistan. And, like the Loudoun County School Board, they want to call it “equity”.

Beyond releasing rapists, Biden’s White House Gender Policy Council comes after women by demanding that men be able to compete against female athletes “free from discrimination” and vows that it will work to end “harmful gender norms”. Which seems to be all gender norms.

None of this helps women, but then again it’s no longer the Council on Women and Girls, instead the Biden-Harris administration erased women and renamed it to the Gender Policy Council, turning it into an extension of their own private war on the female gender.

The National Strategy on Gender Equity pushes every unrelated leftist agenda from global warming to welfare programs, while neglecting the female victims of its pro-crime policies.

In 2019, 262,296 women fell victim to various crimes. In 2020, the year of the massive Black Lives Matter crime wave, 316,885 women became victims.

Those extra 54,589 women are a statistic the media makes sure we don’t hear about.

What impact did the various crimes they endured have on their incomes, their health, their sense of security, their mental state, their ability to learn a living, and on their lives?

That’s a question that the pro-crime Gender Policy Council has no interest in addressing.

705 more women were murdered in the year of BLM when pro-crime policies became the law of the land and criminal justice systems were dismantled.

Over 2,000 more were robbed. 78,676 more suffered property crimes than in the previous year.

51,936 more women experienced aggravated assaults in 2020 than in 2019.

And the Biden administration has made it clear that it will go on championing the pro-crime policies that have made 2021 even worse for crime victims than even 2020.

"He said, 'I want to f--- you,'" Tara Reade recalls Joe Biden telling her before he assaulted her.

Eight women have accused Biden of inappropriate behavior. There are no doubt many more.

But as dangerous as Biden was to women, the Biden administration is even more so. Unsatisfied with the awful toll that his personal misconduct has inflicted on women, Joe Biden wants the women and girls of America to be terrified in their homes and their communities. He wants to eliminate bail and set rapists and sexual predators loose across this country.

And Biden claims he’s doing it to help women.

 

Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism.

Source: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/joe-biden-wants-help-women-freeing-rapists-daniel-greenfield/

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Israel-Hamas Prisoner Swap - Hugh Fitzgerald

 

​ by Hugh Fitzgerald

It's getting closer.

 


Many will remember the prisoner swap ten years ago, when Israel agreed to free 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including many who had committed terrorist murders, in exchange for exactly one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. Many of those 1,027 returned to their murdering ways, killing Israelis who would not have been killed had the swap never taken place. Some Israelis vowed that such a lopsided deal must never again be entered into, but according to news reports, that’s exactly what is about to happen.

A report on the soon-to-be-announced prisoner swap is here: “Israel, Hamas reach ‘understandings’ on prisoner swap – report,” by Khaled Abu Toameh, Jerusalem Post, October 23, 2021:

Important and positive developments have unexpectedly occurred in secret negotiations between Israel and Hamas towards reaching a prisoner exchange agreement, Egyptian sources revealed on Friday.

The sources told the Rai al-Youm online newspaper that the Egyptians have “accomplished many points related to the prisoner swap deal, which may be announced within a few weeks.”

According to the sources, the Egyptians received “official and clear guarantees from Hamas and Israel that comply with the broad outlines of the deal.”

“There are understandings on many points, and Cairo has completed more than 70% of the deal, and the rest may be related to the details of time, place, guarantees and other logistical matters,” the sources said.

Hassan Yousef, a senior Hamas official in the West Bank, was quoted as saying that there are “significant surprises” that will be part of the prisoner exchange deal between Hamas and Israel.

The enthusiasm of Hamas is palpable. But what are the “significant surprises” that he refers to? I would hazard a guess that one of those “surprises” will be the freeing of Marwan Barghouti, the most famous of the terrorists now imprisoned. Barghouti is serving five life terms for five murders. Now Israel may have decided to let him go. A big mistake.

The second “significant surprise” is, I suspect, the freeing of the six prisoners who in September escaped from the high-security Gilboa Prison; they were all recaptured within a week but during that week, they were lionized by Palestinian society for their breakout and still are; even the rusty spoon they used to dig their escape tunnel has become a symbol of the “resistance.” It would be quite an achievement for Hamas to obtain their release, as well as that of Barghouti, and quite a slap in the face of Mahmoud Abbas, whose failure to obtain the release of a single prisoner (Israel’s previous release of 1,027 prisoners was also made with Hamas), is testament to his impotence.

The discussions that are taking place are very secretive and in the hands of the [Hamas military wing Izzaddin] Al-Qassam Brigades, and important developments have taken place,” Yousef told Rai al-Youm.

The deal, he added, “will fulfill the aspirations of our prisoners in Israeli prisons.”

Aside from the freeing of Marwan Barghouti and the six Gilboa Prison escapees, I would assume that Hamas would not be so enthusiastic about the deal unless they have been guaranteed that Israel is willing to free roughly the same number of prisoners as were released in the prisoner swap for Gilad Shalit, that is, about a thousand.

Last week, Hamas said that the issue of the prisoners remains at the top of its priorities and it will not rest until they are all released from Israeli prisons.

“Liberating our detainees from the occupation’s prisons is a religious, national, and humanitarian duty,” Hamas said in a statement on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Gilad Schalit prisoner exchange agreement….

Hamas is holding the bodies of IDF soldiers Oron Shaul and Hadar Goldin, who were killed during the 2014 war in the Gaza Strip. Hamas is also holding two Israeli citizens, Avera Mengistu and Hisham al-Sayed, who entered the Gaza Strip on their own in 2014 and 2015.

This is likely to be as lopsided and dangerous a deal as the one Israel agreed to in order to obtain the release of Gilad Shalit. After that deal was made, Hamas enjoyed a great increase in popularity among the Palestinians, a morale booster that led to more attacks by the terror group. By 2015, at least ten Israelis had been murdered, and more wounded, by terrorists who had been freed in the Shalit prisoner swap. In the six years since then, while totals have not been released, assuming that the same rate of terrorist murders by those freed in the 2011 swap has continued since 2015, then a dozen more Israelis are likely to have been killed, giving a total of 22 Israelis killed by prisoners whom Israel freed in order to obtain the release of one soldier. Was it worth it?

In the current deal, Israel will not be getting back a live soldier, but only two corpses, and two Israeli citizens, one of them an Israeli Arab, who are both mentally defective and wandered into Gaza at different times. Is It certain that in their permanent mental condition, they would even recognize, much less appreciate, the state of being free from their Palestinian captors? Sentimentalists would say, as they did during the run-up to the Gilad Shalit swap in 2011, that in order to get back even one Israeli being held prisoner, no number of released Palestinian prisoners is too high. But is that true? Among the 1,027 prisoners traded for Gilad Shalit, some returned to terror attacks and went on to murder nearly two dozen Israelis. Weren’t those murders predictable? What if they had killed 50 Israelis? One hundred? Is there a number that we can all agree on that would be too high a price to pay for the release of Gilad Shalit? How many murders will be committed by the prisoners who are soon to be released by Israel, in order to get back not a live soldier but two corpses, and two mental defectives?

 

Hugh Fitzgerald

Source:https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/israel-hamas-prisoner-swap-hugh-fitzgerald/

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Alaska Railroad rescinds vaccine mandate for employees - Thomas Lifson


​ by Thomas Lifson

In a stunning move, the board of directors of the state-owned Alaska Railroad has voted unanimously to rescind the vaccination mandate it had imposed on employees just days earlier.

The board of directors of the state-owned Alaska Railroad has voted unanimously to rescind the vaccination mandate it had imposed on employees just days earlier. According to the Anchorage Daily News, last Friday, it had emailed employees:

“Over the last six weeks, we’ve carefully reviewed additional EO guidelines and our interactions with federal agencies to determine if the Alaska Railroad is affected. We are. As a federal contractor, ARRC must meet this standard,” 

The railroad stands to lose millions of dollars a year in federal contracts and grants, and possibly access to Forest Service land housing some facilities. This is no small item for a company with only $209 million in revenue in 2019.

The move is a stunning turnaround and must reflect both threats of loss of vital personnel and political support for the move from the state’s politicians. 

Alaska Railroad board members who voted to block the mandate said during Tuesday’s virtual meeting that they were deeply reluctant to require vaccinations of employees.

“We’ve been put in a very difficult position by the federal government,” said John Shively, board chair. “There’s not a single board member that likes this at all,” he said.

“I think it might be premature to do something that ultimately could be harmful to Alaska railroad families and the railroad itself,” added John Binkley, the board member who proposed the stop-order.

”We have one of our U.S. senators that has implored us and others within the state of Alaska not to make these decisions until there is more certainty on what direction is the country is headed on this,” Binkley said during Tuesday’s meeting, referencing comments U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan made in a speech on the Senate floor last week.

Currently 52.6% of the railroad’s 692 employees are vaccinated, well below the national average.

According to KTUU:

Bill O’Leary, CEO of the Alaska Railroad, said on Tuesday that the board members “in no way relish” implementing a vaccine mandate, but the corporation risked losing contracts worth millions of dollars as it “certainly” fits the definition of being a federal contractor.“

Compliance with an order that has the effect of federal law, and the risk to key revenue and capital funding sources, drives us to such an implementation,” he said.

The railroad owns significant real estate holdings across Alaska. The General Services Administration, a federal agency, informed the railroad earlier in the month that its lease agreement would need to be amended to ensure all employees are vaccinated. If it wasn’t amended, the agency would not renew its contract.

The GSA contract is worth over $1 million, O’Leary said, and there are other contracts at risk. The railroad ships military goods to Fort Wainwright and Eielson Airforce Base and coal from Fairbanks.

Sullivan said via email that, without a vaccine mandate, the railroad could lose between $8-$10 million in revenue from hauling annually.

The company apparently sees legal challenges to the mandate as justifying g the defiance, at least for now:   

“The board rescinded the requirement and may revisit it, depending on what happens with the legal actions that have come to light since we (sent the letter out) late Friday afternoon,” Sullivan said, citing an amended complaint to a lawsuit filed by the Arizona attorney general to block the mandate.

“We expect that there will be other legal actions and we’re waiting to see what the courts do,” he said.

Most of the line was actually built by the United States Government, which purchased an existing financially troubled short railroad from the port of Seward and extended it inland hundreds of miles, to the town of Fairbanks. It was run by the feds until it was sold to the State of Alaska in 1985.

So far, the courts have not been kind to efforts to halt the mandate.

The AP reported:

 The U.S. Supreme Court declined Tuesday [October 19] to block a vaccine requirement imposed on Maine health care workers, the latest defeat for opponents of vaccine mandates.

The Epoch Times reported:

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday threw out a request brought by a union that represents Southwest Airlines pilots to block the company from carrying out its COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

The Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (SWAPA), which has some 9,000 members, filed a lawsuit earlier this month to prevent the carrier from mandating that its workers get vaccinated against COVID-19 by Dec. 8 under federal rules, barring religious or medical exemptions.

The union had argued that the carrier had illegally changed work rules instead of negotiating with pilots, and in doing so, violated a federal labor law—the Railway Labor Act, which governs airline-labor relations and its collective bargaining agreement.

In dismissing the union’s request to temporarily block the company mandate, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn wrote that the COVID-19 vaccination requirement for Southwest employees would “likewise improve the safety of air transportation, efficiency of Southwest’s operations.”

The mandate would also “further the [collective bargaining agreement’s] goal of safe and reasonable working conditions for pilots,” the judge wrote in her 25-page ruling on Tuesday.

“In addition, because Southwest is a federal contractor, the Vaccine Policy is required by law,” the judge added.

I anticipate this issue will eventually end up in the Supreme Court, but unless more companies follow the lead of the Alaska Railroad, it may be moot in most companies and agencies  by the time a decision is reached.

Photo credit: Frank Kovalcheck CC BY 2.0 license 

 

Thomas Lifson

Source: https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/alaska_railroad_emrescindsem_vaccine_mandate_for_employees.html

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Are the Palestinians Changing their Legal Tactics in the International Courts? - Amb. Alan Baker and Lea Bilke

 

​ by Amb. Alan Baker and Lea Bilke

There are indications that the Court is not in a hurry to take up their issue. Therefore, the Palestinian leadership appears to be changing its legal tactics and veering toward an attempt to criminalize Israel itself at the International Court of Justice at The Hague (ICJ).

 

Are the Palestinians Changing their Legal Tactics in the International Courts?
Mahmoud Abbas (on screens) addresses the UN General Assembly (UN Photo/Cia Pak)

Institute for Contemporary Affairs

Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation

Vol. 21, No. 21

  • Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas’ desire to petition the International Court of Justice on the “issue of the legality of the occupation of the land of the Palestinian state and the relevant obligations for the United Nations and States around the world in this regard” opens a “Pandora’s box” of questions.
  • A legal situation of “occupation” is, in and of itself, not inherently illegal. On the contrary, it is a legally acknowledged situation in international law and practice.
  • To raise the question before the international court as to whether there exists a “Palestinian state” would appear to be presumptuous and even pre-empt and prejudge the outcome of the negotiation process. There exists no internationally accepted and binding document attesting to the existence of any Palestinian state.
  • It is unclear if those advising the Palestinian leadership fully understand the distinction between the status and functions of the two different international judicial bodies, the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.
  • The Palestinian leadership alleging before the UN and ICJ that Israel is violating the Oslo Accords would be ironic, in light of the long list of fundamental breaches of those accords by the Palestinians.
  • It remains improbable that the Palestinian leadership could establish any viable cause of action in the ICJ against Israel, based on the Oslo Accords.

Recent indications from the Palestinian leadership appear to point towards a change in their campaign to undermine and criminalize Israel and its representatives in the international community.

For some years, the Palestinian leadership has attempted to politically manipulate the court in order to criminalize Israel’s political and military leadership. Through a systematic policy of referring hundreds of personalized war-crimes allegations, they have managed to ceremonially present these claims to the former prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

While the former ICC prosecutor has opted to open a formal investigation following Palestinian referrals, several serious legal questions are still pending in regard to the ICC’s processing of such referrals. These include the question of the legal standing of the Palestinians vis-à-vis the Court, in light of the ICC Statute requirement that only states may be party to the statute. Similarly, concomitant questions exist as to whether the Palestinians fulfill the requirements for statehood under international law. These are pending the outcome of negotiations on the status of the disputed territories, as to whether the Court may exercise its jurisdiction vis-à-vis these areas.

There are indications that the Court is not in a hurry to take up their issue. Therefore, the Palestinian leadership appears to be changing its legal tactics and veering toward an attempt to criminalize Israel itself at the International Court of Justice at The Hague (ICJ).

From the ICC to the ICJ

The International Criminal Court was established in 1998 as an independent judicial body to try individual criminals accused of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community. The International Court of Justice is the UN’s principal judicial organ and is entrusted with solving issues of litigation between states as well, as issuing advisory opinions on legal questions referred to it by UN organs.

Logos of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice
Logos of the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice

Based on recent statements by the Palestinian leadership, they appear to be considering an appeal to the ICJ in order to question the very legality of Israel’s status and actions in the territories in the light of international law and the Oslo Accords.

This indication of a change in legal tactics is evident in the statement by Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority and head of the PLO, before the UN General Assembly on September 24, 2021, where he stated:

…we will go to the International Court of Justice as the supreme international judicial body, on the issue of the legality of the occupation of the land of the Palestinian state and the relevant obligations for the United Nations and States around the world in this regard and all will have to respect the conclusions of the Court. Colonialism and apartheid are prohibited under international law and they are crimes that must be confronted and a regime that needs to be dismantled.1

Palestinian media sources have also reported a call by the Palestinian leadership to lawyers assisting the Palestinian Authority in Europe to prepare a petition to the ICJ aimed at “obliging Israel to implement the Oslo Accords,” claiming that the accords “have international validity since they were approved by the Israeli government and its Knesset.”

It is unclear from the Palestinian statements if the intention is to try to lodge with the ICJ contentious cases against Israel, as they have done against the United States after the transfer of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem (see below), or if they intend to seek, through the General Assembly and other UN organs, non-binding advisory opinions by the court, similar to their 2004 request for an advisory opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of Israel’s Security Barrier.

It is also unclear if those advising the Palestinian leadership fully understand the distinction between the status and functions of the two different international judicial bodies, the ICC and the ICJ.

However, any such change in legal tactics raises a number of issues that require addressing.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ)

Article 92 of the UN Charter determines that all members of the UN are automatically considered to be members of the ICJ, and that non-members of the UN may become party to the ICJ statute pursuant to conditions determined by the UN General Assembly. According to article 34(1) of its statute, “Only states may be parties in cases before the Court.”

Pursuant to UN practice, states not party to the statute that wish to litigate against another state are required to deposit a declaration accepting and undertaking to respect the Court’s jurisdiction.

While the Palestinians are not members of the Court, they have already engaged the ICJ in the context of their 2004 petition to the UN General Assembly requesting an advisory opinion by the Court on the issue of Israel’s security barrier.2 In this context, the Court permitted them to enter submissions, despite their lack of status as a state.

More recently, they have submitted a substantive application to the ICJ against the United States to litigate against the relocation of the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, claiming that it violates the 1960 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.3 As part of this submission, they deposited a declaration accepting the competence of the Court in regard to disputes arising from the Vienna Convention.4

The question whether the Palestinians, lacking state status, have the capacity to deposit such a declaration, is one of the jurisdictional issues presently under consideration by the Court, which requested that the parties first address the question of the jurisdiction of the Court and that of the admissibility of the Application.5

However, the fact that they are interacting with the ICJ, representing themselves as a state, in the same manner in which they have interacted with the ICC, with claims of statehood, is indicative of their assumption that their status and their petitions will be accepted.

ICJ Jurisdiction

Should the Palestinians choose to litigate against Israel in the Court, the action would not be possible in light of the lack of jurisdiction.

While, in the 1950s, Israel informed the UN of its acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ to adjudicate international disputes subject to a number of limitations, it stipulated number of caveats:

  1. Any dispute in respect to which the parties have agreed or shall agree to have recourse to another means of peaceful settlement and any dispute or matter which is in any manner related to any such dispute;

  2. Any dispute relating to matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of the State of Israel;

  3. Any dispute between the State of Israel and any other State whether or not a member of the United Nations which does not recognize Israel or which refuses to establish or to maintain normal diplomatic relations with Israel and the absence or breach of normal relations precedes the dispute and exists independently of that dispute;

  4. Disputes arising out of events occurring between May 15 1948 and July 20 1949;

  5. Without prejudice to the operation of subparagraph (d) above, disputes arising out of, or having reference to, any hostilities, war, state of war, breach of the peace, breach of armistice agreement or belligerent or military occupation (whether such war shall have been declared or not, and whether any state of belligerency shall have been recognized or not) in which the Government of Israel are or have been or may be involved at any time.

  6. Any dispute in respect of which any other party thereto has accepted, or amended, a previous acceptance of the compulsory jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, only in relation to or for the purpose of the dispute; or where the acceptance or the amendment of a previous acceptance of the Court’s compulsory jurisdiction, on behalf of any other party to the dispute, was deposited or ratified less than12 months prior to the filing of the application bringing the dispute before the Court.6

Israel’s acceptance of the court’s compulsory jurisdiction was nevertheless revoked on November 21, 1985, when Israel notified the UN Secretary-General of its decision to terminate its former declaration. As such, Israel no longer accepts the compulsory jurisdiction of the ICJ.

Accordingly, it may be assumed that in light of Israel’s 1985 revocation of its acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction, any Palestinian attempt to litigate against Israel at the ICJ regarding the status of the territories or the implementation of the Oslo Accords would not be accepted by the Court.

The Legality of Israel’s Status in the Territories

Abbas’ desire to petition the court on the “issue of the legality of the occupation of the land of the Palestinian state and the relevant obligations for the United Nations and States around the world in this regard” raises many potential questions as to the nature of the “Pandora’s box” that he wishes to open.

A legal situation of “occupation” is, in and of itself, not inherently illegal. On the contrary, it is a legally acknowledged situation in international law and practice for which the international laws of armed conflict and international humanitarian law are set out in detailed provisions. The issue of Israel’s status in the territories since 1967 and whether such presence constitutes an “occupation” or some other form of interim administration pending resolution of the dispute regarding the territories raises many legal issues that have never been substantively resolved and are the subject of an ongoing peace negotiation process.

To raise the question before the international court as to whether there exists a “Palestinian state” would appear to be presumptuous and even pre-empt and prejudge the outcome of the negotiation process.

There exists no internationally accepted and binding document which attests to the existence of any Palestinian state. While numerous, non-binding UN General Assembly resolutions have indeed called for and recommended the establishment of such a state, there is no commitment in the peace-process documentation as to whether, if, and how such a state is to be established. On the contrary, in the still valid 1993-5 Oslo Accords, both the PLO and Israel are committed to negotiating between them an agreement on permanent status. Such permanent status could be one, two, three, or more states, a federation, a confederation, a condominium, or any other permutation.7

It is improbable that the ICJ would want to or could constitutionally involve itself in prejudging issues that are still the subject of ongoing negotiations between the parties, with the full sanction of the international community.

Violation of the Oslo Accords

The Palestinian leadership alleging before the UN and ICJ that Israel is violating the Oslo Accords would be ironic in light of the long list of fundamental breaches of those accords by the Palestinians, whether by continuing incitement, support for and advocacy of terror, economic boycott, sponsoring and supporting the BDS campaign, and refusal to resume negotiations.

Their defense and citation of the Oslo Accords are even more ironic in light of their inability or lack of will to honor a host of specific commitments pursuant to the Accords. Such basic violations include Palestinian attempts to alter the status of the territories unilaterally; their active engagement in international diplomacy in violation of their commitments not to be so involved; their accession to international treaties and organizations; their expulsion by the Hamas terror organization from any capability of governing the Gaza Strip; and their consistent refusal to return to the negotiating table with Israel.

Status of Oslo Accords

However, in any event, in order to petition the ICJ and allege violation of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinians would need to indicate the existence of jurisdiction by the ICJ to deal with the Accords and prove that the agreement constitutes an “international treaty” duly registered with the Treaties Division of the UN.

In defining an international treaty, the 1969 Vienna Convention on International Treaties defines a treaty as “an international agreement concluded between States in written form and governed by international law, whether embodied in a single instrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particular designation.”8

The Oslo Accords (1991-3) and their related documentation, inasmuch as they represent agreements between a sovereign state entity (Israel) and a non-state entity (the PLO), do not appear to fall within the definition of an international treaty as set out in the 1969 Vienna Convention. The Accords contain no provision for registration with the UN or any other international body or state.

Israel has not registered the Accords with the UN, but considers them to be more than a mere contractual arrangement with a non-state entity. It is rather a sui generis agreement, in light of the fact that they were countersigned by leading international figures such as the presidents of the United States, Egypt, and the Russian Federation, as well as by the official representatives of the EU and the Kingdom of Norway, who signed as witnesses. Several resolutions of the UN have also endorsed them.9

In light of the above, it remains improbable that the Palestinian leadership could establish any viable cause of action in the ICJ against Israel based on the Oslo Accords.

ICJ Advisory Opinion

In light of the above-noted doubts regarding an attempt to engage the ICJ in a contentious case against Israel, the issues raised by Mahmoud Abbas as a basis for engaging the court may be taken up by resolutions of the UN General Assembly or other UN body in attempts to request advisory opinions pursuant to article 65 of the ICJ Statute. This would require the Palestinians and their supporters to garner a General Assembly resolution requesting such an opinion.

Such opinions may only be on legal questions and, in any event, as with the 2004 Security Barrier opinion, are not binding.

Conclusion

Rather than seeking ways to attack and undermine Israel and its leadership through wild and hostile accusations and empty threats and by the manipulation and abuse of the various UN institutions and international judicial bodies, the Palestinian leadership should resort back to the commitment made by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat in his letter dated September 9, 1993, to Israel’s Prime Minister Rabin, according to which:

The PLO commits itself to the Middle East peace process, and to a peaceful resolution of the conflict between the two sides and declares that all outstanding issues relating to permanent status will be resolved through negotiations.10

Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, 1994
Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin, 1994 (Israel Government Press Office/Sa’ar Ya’acov)

Instead of providing the Palestinian leadership with a starring role on the international stage and encouraging their hostility, it is high time that the international community urge the Palestinian leadership to come before it with clean hands, to put its house in order, to present to the world a unified and responsible leadership capable of honoring its commitments in signed agreements and willing to resume a realistic and genuine negotiating process.

* * *

Notes

1 https://unispal.un.org/DPA/DPR/unispal.nsf/0/172D1A3302DC903B85256E37005BD90F

2 https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/131

3 https://www.un.org/unispal/document/relocation-of-us-embassy-to-jerusalem-palestine-vs-us-icj-order/

4 ICJ document “States not parties to the Statute to which the court may be openhttps://www.icj-cij.org/en/states-not-parties

5 https://www.icj-cij.org/en/case/176/press-releases For an interesting discussion on whether the Palestinians can, or cannot issue such declaration, see Marko Milanovic “Palestine Sues the United States in the ICJ re Jerusalem Embassy https://www.ejiltalk.org/palestine-sues-the-united-states-in-the-icj-re-jerusalem-embassy/ , and Alina Miron’s reply https://www.ejiltalk.org/palestines-application-the-icj-neither-groundless-nor-hopeless-a-reply-to-marko-milanovic/

[6] https://treaties.un.org/pages/ViewDetails.aspx?src=IND&mtdsg_no=I-4&chapter=1&clang=_en#3

7 See the Oslo Accords https://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/the%20israeli-palestinian%20interim%20agreement.aspx and especially Oslo 2 article XXXI(7) according to which “Neither side shall initiate or take any step that will change the status of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip pending the outcome of the permanent status negotiations.”

8 https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/1_1_1969.pdf

9 UN Doc. A/48/486, S/26460 dated 11 Oct. 2993

10 Israel-PLO Recognition-Exchange of Letters between PM Rabin and Chairman Arafat-Sept 9- 1993 https://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/peace/guide/pages/israel-plo%20recognition%20-%20exchange%20of%20letters%20betwe.aspx

 

Amb. Alan Baker and Lea Bilke

Source: https://jcpa.org/article/are-the-palestinians-changing-their-legal-tactics-in-the-international-courts/

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