The "Middle East and Terrorism" Blog was created in order to supply information about the implication of Arab countries and Iran in terrorism all over the world. Most of the articles in the blog are the result of objective scientific research or articles written by senior journalists.
From the Ethics of the Fathers: "He [Rabbi Tarfon] used to say, it is not incumbent upon you to complete the task, but you are not exempt from undertaking it."
But dubious happy-talk can’t hide the real lesson of the Ukraine war.
The sponsors of “moralizing internationalism,” as historian Corelli
Barnett called it, are busy trying to spin the Russo-Ukrainian war as a
crisis that has renewed European unity. For globalists, Russia’s return
of Europe to its benighted past of invasions, destruction, and
slaughters––horrors that the “rules-based international order”
supposedly ended––has instead strengthened and highlighted two show-case
institutions of that order, the European Union and NATO. Globalists
claim that rather than an indictment of globalism’s failures, the war is
restoring both institutions and confirming the superiority of
supranational institutions in keeping order and creating prosperity.
But all the spin can’t hide the real lesson of the war: that the
centrifugal, conflicting nationalist self-interests that wrecked the
League of Nations and reduced the UN to an arena for maximizing those
interests, remains the critical factor in interstate relations.
A good example of this dubious happy-talk about “unity” appears in a
recent column by Thomas Freidman, a long-time Davos man and cheerleader
for technocratic, antinationalist globalism. Take this sentence:
Russia’s brutal invasion “explains why practically overnight, Germany’s
government dispensed with nearly 80 years of aversion to conflict and
maintaining the smallest defense budget possible, and announced instead a
huge increase in military spending and plans to send arms to Ukraine.”
The key word, of course, is “announced.” Action is another thing. As James Snell writes in Spectator World:
“And yet, as the war ends its first hundred days, German weapons
deliveries to Ukraine have very visibly failed to materialize. For more
than a month, the delivery of fifty Flakpanzer Gepard self-prepared
anti-air systems has been authorized by Berlin. They have not arrived.
Nor have the seven 155mm howitzers of German manufacture which have been
promised. No German tanks, long a subject of Ukrainian requests and
promises from other countries, are on the way.” According to documents
leaked to the newspaper Die Welt, “deliveries from Berlin to Kyiv have slowed to a crawl, and then a trickle––all of this deliberately.”
Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf
Scholz are keeping the line to Putin open, apparently hoping to mediate
between the two sides, even though they have no leverage: “They have
nothing to bargain with, yet still reduce their contributions to the
Ukrainian effort in some bizarre one-sided quid pro quo,” Snell writes.
This behavior has troubled Ukraine and its supporters. According to the Wall Street Journal,
“Public statements by the leaders of France and Germany and comments by
those countries’ officials suggest they are skeptical Kyiv can expel
the invaders and they have called for a negotiated cease-fire,
triggering complaints from Ukraine that it is being pushed to make
territorial concessions,” including ratifying Putin’s 2014 annexation of
Crimea.
Other Western European nations as well, the Journal writes,
are “losing appetite for sustaining a war they think is unwinnable and
has reached a bloody stalemate that is draining European resources and
exacerbating a looming recession” caused in large part by high energy
costs brought about by sanctions on Russian oil.
So much for “unity.” As the Journal headline on the above story reads, “Cracks Show in Western Front against Russia’s War in Ukraine.”
Speaking of sanctions, Friedman’s celebratory metaphor that describes
them as a “precision economic-sanctions missile right into the center of
Putin’s economy” is preposterous. Russian fossil fuels are still being
purchased by the Europeans, and further reductions are scheduled for the
end of the year. If the conflict drags on until winter, the reduction
in available energy for heating European homes will put even more
pressure on governments to settle the conflict and reopen the Russian
pipelines.
This premature touting of European unity is clearly globalist wishful
thinking. But it’s nothing new. It reflects the long, unresolved problem
that has bedeviled the idealism of the “rules-based international
order”––the incoherence of an international structure created by
treaties among sovereign nations that sign them not because of some
lofty shared principles or “harmony of interests,” but because they
serve each nation’s interests.
The conflict between idealism and interests was obvious in the
Versailles settlement and the creation of the League of Nations a few
years after its birth. In 1923, League member Italy bombed fellow member
Greece’s island of Corfu, killing 15 Greek and Armenian refugees from
Turkey. Greece appealed to the League for justice, but in the end, was
forced to pay Italy reparations. The Secretary-General of the League,
Sir Eric Drummond, commented that this unjust outcome “has brought into
question the fundamental principles which lie at the root of the new
world order [NB!] established by the League.”
Drummond was prescient, as the following two decades saw not just the
principles of the League, but also the terms of idealistic multinational
treaties like the Locarno Treaty (1925) and the Kellogg-Briand pact
(1928) that “Bar[red] War Forever,” as a New York Times
headline announced. Both would be serially violated by League Members
and signatories of the treaties Italy, Japan, and Germany. Along with
disarmament, pacifism, reduced military spending, and growing social
welfare spending, this naïve reliance on “parchment barriers,” as James
Madison called them, paved the way for the most destructive war in
history.
The history of those two decades between world wars alone should have
been enough to confirm the wisdom of George Washington: “No nation can
be trusted farther than it is bounded by its own interests.” The
histories of NATO and the EU likewise illustrate the primacy of national
interests over obligations to a treaty.
For example, the problem of NATO states, including rich ones like
Germany, failing to spend adequately on their militaries––a violation of
Article 3 of the Washington Treaty, which requires members to fund
militaries large enough to “maintain and develop their individual and
collective capacity to resist armed attack”––has been going on for half a
century. That’s why in 2006 NATO members pledged to spend at least a
modest 2% of GDP on their militaries, which only a third of members
reach today. The reason is obvious, given that the U.S. is willing to
bear the brunt of military spending, and that most members prefer
spending on social welfare and entitlements.
Since the Russo-Ukrainian war broke out, Germany has excited globalists
like Friedman by pledged to meet that requirement. Whether it actually
does and continues to after the current crisis abates, is doubtful given
how thoroughly pacifism had shaped Germany’s national identity since
World War II. But even if it does, 2% is shamefully low for a country as
rich as Germany, one within easy reach of Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
Some EU states have also ignored rules that conflict with their
national interests, especially economic ones. This bad habit became
obvious during the 2007-8 Great Recession. The rule prohibiting
bail-outs, which Article 125 of the Lisbon Treaty created, was violated
in order to rescue Greece and other economically distressed members.
Before then, the 1998 Stability and Growth Pact put a 3% of GDP limit on
budget deficits, and a 60% limit on national debt. In subsequent years,
every member except three has at some point violated those rules. In
2021, the average national debt of EU states was 88%, and 95% for the
Eurozone.
The primacy of national interests is not the only impediment to the
“rules-based international order.” National interests differ, and often
collide, because of the great diversity of nations, which reflects
differences in language, history, law, customs, mores, and religion.
Eastern Europe’s history of Muslim occupation, for example, and its
Orthodox faith spurred a different reaction to Muslim immigration than a
mostly secular Western Europe’s. Similarly during the Great Recession,
talk of the South’s poor work ethic compared to Germany’s, fueled
resentment against what was seen as an arrogant, condescending surcharge
added to the economic assistance. For all the EU’s talk of unity,
Greeks are still Greek, and Germans are still German.
These still potent national differences and interests, particularly
among European non-elites, ensure that European unity will remain
fragile, except for the cognitive elites who run the EU, and nationalism
will continue to trump supranational rules and interests. Those
globalists hoping that the current crisis will unify Europe will be
disappointed.
Bruce Thornton is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
The United Methodist Church is hemorrhaging congregations over LGBTQ rights and church government
Several Methodist leaders said the third-largest Protestant denomination
in the United States is facing a growing divide as conservative clergy
push back against liberals they claim are being disobedient to the
church.
"[Liberal clergy] are the ones who are
not abiding by the pronouncements of our General Conference, which
speaks for the entire church," Rev. Keith Boyette told Fox News Digital.
"So they're acting in violation of the provisions of our Book of
Discipline, which undermines the effectiveness of the church."
Boyette,
who serves as a top staff person at the newly established Global
Methodist Church, calls it a "rebellion" by some liberal clergy who
refuse to abide by the church's rules, resulting in an inevitable split.
The
North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church (UMC) voted
last Thursday to allow 70 churches in the state to disaffiliate largely
over LGBTQ issues, and more are expected to depart as 35 congregations
in Arkansas and over 100 in Florida are in the midst of a discernment
process to consider following suit.
Protesters chant during the United Methodist Church's special
session of the General Conference in St. Louis, Missouri, on Feb. 26,
2019.
(AP Photo/Sid Hastings)
Some
are slated to join the Global Methodist Church, which is a conservative
international Methodist denomination that formally began May 1.
At
a special session of the General Conference in 2019, the UMC voted
438-384 to uphold the church’s ban on ordaining LGBTQ clergy and
officiating at or hosting same-sex marriages.
The UMC also adopted
a disaffiliation agreement that year providing a path for churches to
leave the denomination through the end of 2023 "for reasons of
conscience" related to the practice of homosexuality or the ordination
or marriage of "self-avowed practicing homosexuals," which is forbidden
in the church's Book of Discipline.
Several conservative members of the Methodist clergy
told Fox News that far from settling the issue, however, the 2019 vote
was disregarded by many liberal leaders within the UMC who decided to
remain in the denomination while commissioning openly gay clergy and
officiating same-sex weddings anyway.
An LGBTQ+ flag flies over Union United Methodist Church in the South End of Boston on Jan. 5, 2020.
(Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Boyette
said debate has been waged over various issues within the UMC for half a
century and could have continued were it not that those who disagree
with the church's teachings are "blatantly disobeying" them in ways that
bring dishonor on the institution and sow chaos in its administration.
"The church has been impotent to address those acts of rebellion and dysfunction," he added.
Rev.
Thomas Lambrecht, the vice president of the denomination's
traditionalist Good News caucus, echoed Boyette's assertions, saying the
centrists and progressives in the UMC who chose to defy the church
instead of leaving rendered it "essentially ungovernable."
Several
clergy members told Fox News that while the sexuality debate is
important, they see it as a "presenting symptom" of deeper divisions
that have been simmering within the denomination for decades.
Rev. Cynthia Good, pastor at Calvary United Methodist Church in
Arlington, Massachusetts, speaks to her church during Sunday services on
Jan. 5, 2020.
(Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images)
Bishop
Scott Jones, a Houston-based prelate who serves as the resident bishop
of the UMC's Texas Annual Conference, said many believe the fundamental
disagreement among Methodists hinges on biblical interpretation and
church doctrine.
"There
are people who believe that reason and experience should have a higher
level of influence on how the Bible is read," he said of liberals.
"Conservatives tend to emphasize the authority of Scripture."
Rev.
Tom Berlin of Floris United Methodist Church in Herndon, Virginia,
pushed back against Methodists he suggested are leaving because they
have not gotten their way.
Berlin, who classified himself within
the centrist wing of the church, emphasized the complexity that comes
with having a diverse denomination of 10 million members around the
world.
"If you choose to be in a denomination that large, that is
global in nature, you have to face the fact that in different cultures,
people will be doing different things that may be offensive to you
personally, your taste in how Scripture is read," he said.
Rev. Tom Berlin of Herndon, Virginia, delivers remarks during the
2019 Special Session of the General Conference of the United Methodist
Church in St. Louis, Missouri, on Feb. 26, 2019.
(AP Photo/Sid Hastings)
Stressing
the importance of reading Scripture within the context "of the lives
people really lead," Berlin contrasted his own approach with fellow
Methodists he claimed, "believe that anytime someone does something that
they disagree with strongly, they don't want to be in that church."
"There
are United Methodists who believe that if any gay couple is married in
any Methodist church anywhere, they no longer want to be in the
denomination," he said. "And I suppose if that issue is that important
to you, then probably the logical thing to do would be to go and leave
and find a new place to be the church together."
All
the clerical sources who spoke to Fox News saw the fracture within the
UMC as part of a larger battle over sexuality that has played out in
every other mainline Protestant denomination in the United States.
Several noted, however, that the Methodists are the last to face the
split, a fact they attributed to its global nature, which allows conservative congregations in Africa, Asia and elsewhere to hold the traditionalist line.
The First United Methodist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, displays a rainbow decoration.
(dlewis33 via Getty Images)
Ryan
Danker, a church historian and director of the John Wesley Institute,
noted that much of the liberalism in the UMC is confined to the United
States and predicted that the conservative Methodist congregations
splintering off will find themselves better aligned with Christians
globally.
"Theological
commitments, I think, are stronger now than denominational ones,"
Danker observed. "Conservative Anglicans, Methodists and Presbyterians
would have more in common than they would with progressives in their own
denominations."
"So we'll see a shift, I think, where the UMC
becomes much more American-focused, and the Global Methodist Church will
really, truly be global," he added.
Biden and the Democrats have been notably silent about Erdogan opening hostilities against the Syrian Kurds.
On June the 1st, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced
that he intended to use his military to once again move against the
multi-ethnic Syrian Democratic Forces in northern Syria. The Syrian
Democratic Forces are the armed wing of the Rojava government, a sort of
autonomous region that broke from the main Syrian government in 2014.
The Rojava region is not wholly unfriendly to the Syrian Arab Republic,
but is also not quite part of it. It is also not a party to the “Syrian
Rebels” who have largely been absorbed by the Turkish occupation of northern Syria or the al-Qaeda presence in Idlib province.
Once again, the SDF have been in opposition to both the rebels and the
Syrian government, but have been more likely to cooperate with the
Syrian government in the past.
The SDF are probably most famous for
being the ground forces who, supported by U.S. air cover, drove the
Islamic State from its capital of ar-Raqqa in 2017. I say these forces are multi-ethnic because, though the biggest component is Kurdish, the SDF
also has many Arabs, Assyrians, Turkmen, and Armenians within. It is a
nice snapshot of the ethnic diversity of Northern Syria and Iraq.
However, the SDF are largely referred to as “Syrian Kurds” in the news,
and this has seemingly been used by their enemies. I refer to how the
Kurdish association allows the conflation the Kurdish-led SDF with the
Kurdish Marxist terrorist organization, the PKK.
The PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party) are Kurdish rebels in Turkey who fight for an autonomous Kurdistan in southern Turkey. Since 2015,
the PKK have purportedly killed hundreds of people in sniping, IED
attacks, and rocket attacks. I want to make clear that I believe the
state of Turkey has the right to defend itself against PKK terrorists.
That said, the PKK, to their credit, did help with the liberation of
Northern Iraq and Syria from the Islamic State. However, just to
demonstrate how complicated the Kurdish situation is, the Iraqi Kurdish
Peshmerga disassociated from the PKK after rising tensions.
I
have not seen President Joe Biden say anything in condemnation of the
announced Turkish offensive against Syria’s Kurdish-led SDF. I
intentionally waited for seven days after the announcement to give him
the chance. I suppose I should not be surprised, it was Joe Biden who
gave his approval of the first such encroachment in 2016. Secretary of State Antony Blinken
said the current attack might, “…undermine regional stability (and)
provide malign actors with opportunities to exploit instability.”
However, nobody would have let Donald Trump off the hook for letting
somebody else speak his indignation, so there is no need to give Joe the
benefit of the doubt here. Considering how desperately NATO needs Turkey’s approval right now, I would not expect much.
Then again, I remember how the Democrats could not have cared less about those allies of ours until it provided them an opportunity to criticize Donald Trump in 2019. In particular, I remember the remarks of then former-vice president Joe Biden
saying that Donald Trump, “betrayed our word as a nation” and that
Trump was following the whims of “a fellow strongman.” He even felt the
offense was enough to warrant an impeachment of the America First
President.
Why bring up only Biden’s hypocrisy? There have been plenty others. Photojournalist Jason Motlagh
was quite incensed against Donald Trump’s betrayal of the Kurds in
2019, but has remained noticeably silent this time. Since Motlagh is
often reporting from warzones, perhaps he is just too busy. I might be
able to accept such an excuse from him. However, I know that David Ignatius of the Washington Post does not have that excuse, nor does the editorial board of the Times of San Diego.
Regardless of the hypocrisy, the journalists mentioned have done
perfectly respectable work in the past and perhaps should be cut some
slack for not paying attention to the Mideast while there is a war going
on in Europe.
How about Donald Trump’s political foes? Chuck Schumer had some pretty strong words about betraying the Kurds in 2019, how about now? The only statement I found from him on June 1st was celebrating Pride Month. The same could be said of Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, and even Lindsey Graham. To be fair to Lindsey, this criticism of Putin
might be seen as a tacit condemnation of Turkey, but I doubt it. The
round of criticism for these people’s silence is strangely tepid with
only a fewpeople doing such.
Mitch McConnell
criticized Trump for “only [benefitting] Russia, Iran, and Assad.”
However, I suppose abandoning the Kurds only benefits Russia when Trump
does it. Then again, the SDF has expressed interest
in getting closer to the Syrian government if the Turks attack, which
was not something they did in 2019. I may not have been a fan of Donald
Trump’s decision in 2019, but it seems to me that the ramifications
could well be much more serious this time around. Of course we will not
hear the thunders of condemnation of President Biden for his silent
approval of Turkish encroachment; that would be in violation of the “America’s back!” narrative.
I will let the sitting President describe my opinion on this matter in his own words:
“[He]
sold out the Syrian Democratic Forces -- the courageous Kurds and Arabs
who fought with us to smash ISIS’s caliphate -- and he betrayed a key
local ally in the fight against terrorism. But that’s not all -- he
betrayed our brave troops, who sacrificed alongside them. He betrayed
our word as a nation -- raising doubts among our allies around the world
about America’s security commitments.”
Does the Biden administration really want as its legacy that it backed, encouraged and funded unscrupulous, violent regimes – the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Chinese Communist Party, the state sponsor of terrorism Iran, the illegitimate rule of Venezuela's Maduro – and the corrupt government of Mahmoud Abbas?
While Hamas and the Houthis
target Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, in addition to
that, continues to act against the interests of its own people. PA
President Mahmoud Abbas appears to be encouraged by the unconditional
support he is receiving from the Biden administration, to the point
where he feels free to continue denying his people good governance and
judicial due process.
All signs now indicate that most people in the region are fed up
with the anti-peace camp in the Arab and Muslim world, especially with
Iran's proxies Hamas, the Houthis and Hizbollah, all of which have
offered the region, including the Palestinians, nothing but violence and
bloodshed.
Whenever Abbas feels encouraged by the US, he sees that support
as a green light, this time from the Biden administration, to impose
more suppression on his people and to whip up violence in the region.
Does the Biden administration really want as its legacy that it
backed, encouraged and funded unscrupulous, violent regimes – the
Taliban in Afghanistan, the Chinese Communist Party, the state sponsor
of terrorism Iran, the illegitimate rule of Venezuela's Maduro – and the
corrupt government of Mahmoud Abbas?
Meanwhile, Iran's proxy, Hamas -- whose charter calls not only
for the elimination of peace but also of all Jews -- continues to urge
Arabs and Muslims not to normalize their ties with Israel.
Iran, among other atrocities, imprisons attorneys for defending
human rights, executes minors, and criminalizes human rights activism.
If that is how Iran's regime treats its own people, what makes anyone
think it will treat other countries -- in the region or in Europe -- any
better?
And in a rare occurrence, according to the veteran Iranian
journalist Amir Taheri, demonstrators in Iran have recently been
publicly calling for regime change.
The Pakistani minister, however, is mistaken if she thinks that
firing a journalist will support the rights of the Palestinians. Such
myopic measures only support and embolden the enemies of peace,
stability and human rights in the Middle East: Hamas, Hezbollah,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey
and Iran.
People who say they care about the Palestinians can genuinely
support them by defending journalists and human rights activists who are
being persecuted, harassed and even killed by the Palestinian
Authority. People who claim they are "pro-Palestinian" can truly help
the Palestinians by coming to the West Bank and defending freedom of
speech and the press, and teaching Palestinians about democracy and
respect for human rights. Spreading hate against Jews does not make one
"pro-Palestinian."
The Pakistani government's decision is a big prize to despots and
tyrants in the region, such as Iran and its many proxies, and a severe
blow to attempts to build bridges between Arabs and Muslims and
Christians and Jews.
A sure-fire way for Biden to get immediate and full cooperation
from the Saudis would be, on his planned visit, to commit to entirely
eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons program. The US has the capability,
apparently just not the will. To begin with, any country that is
officially on the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations should not
be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, period. It is what all
serious discussions in the region are about. For everyone in the region
except fundamentalist Qatar -- and including the Iranian people, the
mullahs' regime is a mortal threat.
If Biden, as the leader of the Free World, would totally remove
this threat, it would not only go a long way to preventing a nuclear war
and regional arms race, and persuade the Saudis to export more oil, but
after the threat is eliminated, it would send a message of
deterrence to Russia, China, North Korea and other adversaries about
what they could expect, and turn Biden's poll numbers around overnight.
These increased efforts to foil peace are the main reason that
the Biden administration needs to work toward strengthening and
expanding the entities in the Middle East who want peace. President Joe
Biden's planned visit to Saudi Arabia is a praiseworthy first step.
Saudi Arabia may not be perfect -- no country is -- but at least it not
aggressively trying to take over its neighbors.
It is crucial that the Biden administration throw its full weight
behind encouraging Saudi Arabia to be a leader for peace, stability
and, as it has been doing, if slowly, advancing human rights.
Any efforts to cozy up to Iran will only be seen as hugging and
empowering ruthless despots. It is more important to seek allies,
wherever they can be found, that are eager to discard aggression and
violence. Failing to do so will just plunge the region into a massive
war -- which Iran, its terrorist groups and the US administration
unfortunately seem to be working toward day and night.
Whenever
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (pictured) feels
encouraged by the US, he sees that support as a green light, this time
from the Biden administration, to impose more suppression on his people
and to whip up violence in the region. (Photo by Alaa Badarneh/Pool/AFP
via Getty Images)
The enemies of peace in the Middle East are continuing their efforts to destroy any effort to normalize relations between Israel and the Arab and Muslim countries.
The enemies of peace want Arabs and Muslims to remain in a continual
state of war with Israel. They want more violence and bloodshed, not
Arabs and Muslims and Jews working together in various fields, including
technology or anything that might bring economic prosperity.
Does the Biden administration really want as its legacy that it was the first in American history to be for oppressors and against human rights, freedom and prosperity for the downtrodden?
There are no human rights to speak of in entities such as Iran, Pakistan or the Palestinian Authority.
Iran, on the US list of State Sponsors of Terrorism since 1984, has been called by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken a "leading sponsor of state terrorism" -- as detailed just weeks ago by America's own State Department. On April 13, the United States Institute of Peace reported:
"Iran's human rights record was extremely poor in 2021, the State Department reported.
Security, judicial and political officials carried out extrajudicial
killings, conducted torture and arbitrary detention, restricted free
expression and religious freedom, recruited child soldiers and
discriminated against women and minority groups, among other offenses.
'The government took few steps to identify, investigate, prosecute, and
punish officials who committed human rights abuses or corruption,' the
2021 Country Report on Human Rights Practices report said.
"'Governments are growing more brazen in reaching across borders to
threaten and attack critics,' Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted. 'Iranian intelligence agents plotted to kidnap an Iranian American journalist from her home in Brooklyn.'"
Iran, among other atrocities, imprisons attorneys for defending human rights, executes minors, and criminalizes
human rights activism. If that is how Iran's regime treats its own
people, what makes anyone think it will treat other countries -- in the
region or in Europe -- any better?
And in a rare occurrence, according to the veteran Iranian journalist
Amir Taheri, demonstrators in Iran have recently been publicly calling for regime change.
The Lebanese, last month, voted
that they have had enough of Iran's proxy, Hizbollah. The only question
now remains what to do with Hizbollah's masses of "peaceful" weapons.
Another Iranian proxy, Yemen's Houthis, showed their gratitude to the US for removing them from the US List of Foreign Terror Organizations, by attacking Abu Dhabi with drones and missiles and striking a Saudi oil depot.
All signs now indicate that most people in the region (for instance, here, here , here, and here)
are fed up with the anti-peace camp in the Arab and Muslim world,
especially with Iran's proxies Hamas, the Houthis and Hizbollah, all of
which have offered the region, including the Palestinians, nothing but
violence and bloodshed.
The enemies of peace sense that the Biden administration is weak,
so apparently they are now feeling confident to increase their
campaigns of terrorism and intimidation against those Arabs and Muslims
who would like their countries to enjoy "a new era of peace, stability,
and prosperity across the region," as the Emirati trade minister, Thani
al-Zeyoudi, said on Twitter.
Iran continues to encourage its proxies to launch terrorist attacks against neighbors in the Middle East such as Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates. Iran, too, seems to view the Biden administration as being weak and obsequious.
While Hamas and the Houthis target Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA) leadership, in addition to that, continues
to act against the interests of its own people. PA President Mahmoud
Abbas appears to be encouraged by the unconditional support he is
receiving from the Biden administration, to the point where he feels
free to continue denying his people good governance and judicial due process.
Last year, Abbas called off
the PA general election after realizing that Hamas's chances of winning
the vote were higher than those of his Fatah faction. Shortly after,
Abbas's security officers beat to death an anti-corruption activist, Nizar Banat, in the city of Hebron. The murder was followed by protests
from Palestinians "calling for the resignation of the Palestinian
president." Fourteen officers involved in the murder have gone on trial,
but the family of the slain activist and legal experts say that the
trial is moving too slowly, is "incomplete," and that the PA security forces are harassing and intimidating some of the witnesses.
Whenever Abbas feels encouraged by the US, he sees that support as a
green light, this time from the Biden administration, to impose more
suppression on his people and to whip up violence in the region.
Does the Biden administration really want as its legacy that it
backed, encouraged and funded unscrupulous, violent regimes – the Taliban in Afghanistan, the Chinese Communist Party, the state sponsor of terrorism Iran, the illegitimate rule of Venezuela's Maduro – and the corrupt government of Mahmoud Abbas?
Meanwhile, Iran's proxy, Hamas -- whose charter
calls not only for the elimination of peace but also of all Jews --
continues to urge Arabs and Muslims not to normalize their ties with
Israel.
Here is what Hamas's charter says: "Israel will exist and will continue to exit until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before."
Its charter also warns against any attempt by Arabs and Muslims to make peace with Israel:
"Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and
international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the
Islamic Resistance Movement [Hamas]. Abusing any part of Palestine is
abuse directed against any part of the religion." (Article 13, Hamas charter)
A few months ago, Hamas praised Mauritania for refusing to establish relations with Israel. Last month, Hamas praised the Iraqi parliament for passing a law that criminalizes normalization with Israel.
Alarmed by the rapprochement between Israel and the Arab countries, a
number of Palestinian and Arab researchers earlier this month recommended the establishment of an "Arab and Islamic Front" to boycott Israel and oppose normalization with it.
This came during a virtual conference held in the Gaza Strip by the
Council of International Relations in partnership with the
Palestine-Malaysia Center for the Strategic Initiative and the
Anti-Normalization Campaign.
The participants of the conference , held under the banner of "The New Wave of Normalization, Repercussions and Confrontation Strategies," stressed the need to:
"... reject, criminalize and prohibit normalization with
the [Israeli] entity in all fields, and work to activate popular
resistance in all regions of Palestine and the diaspora along with armed
resistance, in addition to activating Palestinian diplomacy in
defending the interests of the Palestinian people."
They also called
on the Arab League to prevent Arab countries from concluding
normalization agreements with Israel, support Islamic countries that
reject normalization, work to cancel peace agreements signed with
Israel, and issue decisions and legislation that prevent governments
from normalizing with it.
Senior Hamas official Ahmed Bahr said
at the conference that Israel was seeking to "penetrate the Arab
cultural heritage through cultural and economic normalization."
The head of the Council of International Relations and head of the boycott and anti-normalization campaign, Basem Naim, called for devising new strategies to counter Israel's alleged effort to "penetrate" the Arab and Muslim countries.
Sadly, some countries such as Pakistan have also begun to heed the
calls to prevent peace. The Pakistani government announced that a
journalist and broadcaster, Ahmed Quarishi, working for its official
television outlet, had been dismissed from his job after visiting Israel, despite subsequent calls to rehire him.
The announcement was made by Pakistani Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb, who said that Pakistan's policy is clear and that it will not accept any kind of normalization.
According to Aurangzeb, "the reported visit in question was organized by a foreign NGO which is not based in Pakistan."
The Palestinian Media Forum, a group affiliated with Hamas, expressed
its "great appreciation" for the decision to expel a journalist for
visiting Israel., stating:
"This step reflects the authenticity of the Pakistani
position in support of the Palestinian people and their just rights, and
a rejection of the media normalization policy with the Israeli
occupation."
The Pakistani minister, however, is mistaken if she thinks that
firing a journalist will support the rights of the Palestinians. Such
myopic measures only support and embolden the enemies of peace,
stability and human rights in the Middle East: Hamas, Hezbollah,
Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthis, the Muslim Brotherhood, Turkey
and Iran.
Contrary to her belief, boycotting Israel and combating normalization
with it do not contribute to "lasting peace" or the "two-state
solution." On the contrary, such moves harm any prospect of achieving
peace and security in the Middle East and play right into the hands of
those seeking aggression, instability and destruction.
People who say they care about the Palestinians can genuinely support
them by defending journalists and human rights activists who are being
persecuted, harassed and even killed by the Palestinian Authority.
People who claim they are "pro-Palestinian" can truly help the
Palestinians by coming to the West Bank and defending freedom of speech
and the press, and teaching Palestinians about democracy and respect for
human rights. Spreading hate against Jews does not make one
"pro-Palestinian."
The Pakistani government's decision is a big prize to despots and
tyrants in the region, such as Iran and its many proxies, and a severe
blow to attempts to build bridges between Arabs and Muslims and
Christians and Jews.
These increased efforts to foil peace are the main reason that the
Biden administration needs to work toward strengthening and expanding
the entities in the Middle East who want peace. President Joe Biden's
planned visit to Saudi Arabia is a praiseworthy first step. Saudi Arabia
may not be perfect -- no country is -- but at least it not aggressively
trying to take over its neighbors.
It is crucial that the Biden administration throw its full weight
behind encouraging Saudi Arabia to be a leader for peace, stability and,
as it has been doing, if slowly, advancing human rights.
A sure-fire way for Biden to get immediate and full cooperation from
the Saudis would be, on his planned visit, to commit to entirely
eliminating Iran's nuclear weapons program. The US has the capability,
apparently just not the will. To begin with, any country that is
officially on the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations should not
be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, period. It is what all
serious discussions in the region are about. For everyone in the region
except fundamentalist Qatar -- and including the Iranian people, the
mullahs' regime is a mortal threat.
If Biden, as the leader of the Free World, would totally remove this
threat, it would not only go a long way to preventing a nuclear war and
regional arms race, and persuade the Saudis to export more oil, but after the threat is eliminated,
it would send a message of deterrence to Russia, China, North Korea and
other adversaries about what they could expect, and turn Biden's poll
numbers around overnight.
Any efforts to cozy up to Iran will only be seen as hugging and
empowering ruthless despots. It is more important to seek allies,
wherever they can be found, that are eager to discard aggression and
violence. Failing to do so will just plunge the region into a massive
war -- which Iran, its terrorist groups and the US administration
unfortunately seem to be working toward day and night.
Bassam Tawil is a Muslim Arab based on the Middle East
The group blames 'selective enforcement of outrageously outdated laws' for continuing to allow the PA to exploit Israel.
The Regavim movement released a statement stating that
the recent failure of the government to pass the Judea and Samaria
Regulations Law was "but a small part of the overall problem" and that
Israel needed to formulate a concise policy with regards to the future
of Jewish life in Judea and Samaria or risk losing it all.
At the beginning of the week, the Knesset plenum voted down what has been a standard piece of legislation for some five decades.
The
first reading of the bill to extend emergency regulations in Judea and
Samaria for another five years failed to pass, for the first time since
1967: 52 MKs voted in favor, 58 opposed. The emergency regulations apply
Israeli law to citizens living in Judea and Samaria, and mainly concern
the powers of Israel’s judiciary and executive branches regarding
Israelis who have committed crimes in Judea and Samaria, including areas
under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction.
These regulations make
it possible for Israel to carry out orders and enforce punishments on
Israeli citizens and creates a framework for legal cooperation between
Israel and the relevant arms of the Palestinian Authority.
The
emergency regulations will expire at the end of this month, which may
complicate matters for law enforcement authorities as well as for the
residents of Judea and Samaria. In the opinion of the Deputy Attorney
General, "This will create legal and practical difficulties in
conducting complex or joint investigations, which is a significant
factor and a vital element of the powers vested in the Military
Governor, impacting governance of the area and maintenance of public
order and security."
"[But] the real story here is the ongoing
failure of Israeli governments to formulate policy, to articulate a
national vision, and to demonstrate governance," says Avraham Binyamin,
Director of the Regavim Movement's Policy Division.
"The only
thing that has prevented Israeli governments since 1967 from applying
Israeli law in Judea and Samaria is their own reticence – actually,
their timidity. This has led to a chaotic reality that harms the
security and quality of life of the residents of Judea and Samaria, Jews
and Arabs alike, and the security of the State of Israel as a whole,"
says Binyamin.
“These
regulations deal mainly with criminal law and civil rights. The various
technical clauses reveal the official policy of the State of Israel to
criminality in Judea and Samaria, but what they do not include may be
even more telling: In completely ignoring the issues of proprietary
rights – real estate law and ownership - they lay bare the government's
failure to protect the basic rights of the State and its citizens," he
continues.
"Proprietary rights in Judea and Samaria remain under
the Jordanian and Ottoman systems, and these laws are outdated,
ineffective and in some cases even antisemitic. Even worse, perhaps, is
the selective manner in which these laws are enforced by the Israeli
judicial and military systems. Selective enforcement of outrageously
outdated laws has enabled - and continues to enable - the Palestinian
Authority to exploit the Israeli system, to annex vast areas of Judea
and Samaria, to redraw the map, and to lead the entire region toward
violent confrontation. Continued reliance on emergency legislation may
be the lesser of evils, but it is most certainly not the solution."
In the midst of social chaos, the voters again pick Newsom. Here's why.
Here’s a brief history of New York City during the last half century.
Under a series of incompetent and ideology-driven mayors, it turned from
a glittering jewel into a cesspool of crime, corruption, poverty,
narcotics, prostitution, and homelessness. Heroically, Rudy Giuliani
restored it to glory. And Bill de Blasio, mayor from 2014 to 2021,
turned it back into a hovel. Last November, voters had a chance to
reverse their city’s alarmingly fast decline. A scandal-ridden machine
Democrat, Eric Adams, who was chummy with Louis Farrakhan and who, when
speaking in public, sounded like an imbecile, was running against a
local hero: Curtis Sliwa, who, as founder of the non-profit Guardian
Angels, a highly regarded anti-crime group consisting mostly of black
and Hispanic men, began patrolling the city’s unsafe subways in the
1970s. In short, Sliwa, now a 68-year-old radio talk-show host, has
spent his entire adult life exhibiting an unselfish dedication to the
people of New York. So naturally New Yorkers elected Adams in a 67% to
28% landslide. And in the months since his inauguration, while the city
has experienced record-breaking levels of violence, Adams could be seen
partying it up with celebrities at the Met Gala, flying to Los Angeles
to attend a lavish, star-studded dinner, and turning to hapless Chicago
mayor Lori Lightfoot, of all people, for advice on fighting crime.
If I’m ruminating all these months later on the election of this
buffoon as mayor of New York, it’s because the voters of California have
now served up a similar heartbreak. The Golden State, of course, is in
very much the same boat as New York: the parks and streets of its once
storied cities are full of tents, human feces, used condoms and
syringes; as the state fills up with illegal aliens, the middle class
flees to Texas and elsewhere. Yet last September, Governor Gavin Newsom,
the empty suit who’s responsible for this nightmare, and who became
world-famous for violating his own stringent lockdown rules by attending
a party at the French Laundry in the Napa Valley ($350 a head for
dinner), fought back a recall effort with 62% of the vote. The man who
wanted to replace him, the brilliant and deeply principled Larry Elder,
later wrote a piece
for FrontPage about an encounter at a West L.A. restaurant with two
women who’d pulled the lever for Newsom. He asked them about their views
on crime, homelessness, schools, etc. On every issue, they turned out
to be on the same page as Elder. But they’d voted for Newsom. Why? He
told them why: they simply couldn’t bring themselves to vote Republican.
They admitted he was right. .
In the primary elections on June 7, Californians had another chance to
ditch Newsom. This time around, in a system whereby the top two
vote-getters in the primary face off in the general, he was up against
an obscure Republican and a high-profile independent, Michael
Shellenberger. A long-term Democrat, Shellenberg has the kind of
credentials that coastal Californians love: after spending a high-school
year in Nicaragua in solidarity with the Sandinistas, he studied Peace
and Global Studies in college, became a radical left-wing activist, and
was named a “Hero of the Environment” by Time Magazine.
Recently, however, he’s made enemies on the left by criticizing
sustainable development and “environmental alarmism.” And in San Fransicko: How Progressives Ruin Cities, which I reviewed
in November, he takes aim at the left’s “pity narrative” on
homelessness and its favorite approach to the problem, a policy called
Housing First, whereby cities hand out free apartments on the assumption
that the root cause of homelessness is financial difficulty. In fact,
as Shellenberger discovered, homelessness is almost always caused by a
combination of medical ailments, psychiatric disorders, and (above all)
substance abuse - a trifecta of problems that can’t be solved by giving
out apartments. What to do, then? After studying approaches around the
world, Shellenberger recommends housing homeless people in temporary
shelters on the condition that they submit to the treatments they need.
As he shows, it works in the über-liberal city of Amsterdam, which you’d
think would make Californians eager to give Shellenberger a try.
Nope. In the gubernatorial primary, with 49% of the ballots counted,
Newsom won 56.3%of the vote, GOP nominee Brian Dahle, a farmer and state
senator, received 16.8%, and Shellenberger got a measly 3.7%. What
happened? The same thing that happened in the New York mayoral race. To
explain it, it’s useful to glance at a May 15 op-ed for the San
Francisco Chronicle by Zachary Siegel, identified as “a
freelance journalist who covers public health and drug policy.” Writing
with the objective of warning voters against Shellenberger, Siegel provided
a perfect account of just how a typical progressive mind responds to
someone like Shellenberger. To wit: Shellenberger was a “zealot” who
lacked “awful human emotions like empathy and compassion” and whose
“facile” and “glib” analysis of homelessness led to “cruel and harsh
solutions” that blamed people’s difficulties on “bad life choices” and
sought to cure them with “a hefty spoonful of tough love, tough policing
and personal responsibility,” thereby appealing to “reactionary anger
among an aggrieved electorate.” For a self-respecting California
progressive, of course, it’s sheer barbarism to blame problems like
homelessness even partly on individuals rather than on society - let
alone to expect those individuals to take on a degree of responsibility
for improving their own situation. As far as Siegel was concerned,
Shellenberger’s plan for shelters and treatment - which, again, is based
on the successful approach taken by Amsterdam - amounted to “a bizarre
Big Brother-style structure of mass institutionalization” whereby the
state would “round up the unhoused and coerce them into a system of
shelters and ‘treatment.’”
Bottom line: if you were even considering casting your vote for
Shellenberger, then you, like him, were lacking in “empathy and
compassion.” In at least some parts of California, that’s what Election
Day is all about. Yes, the rest of the year, you can gripe as much as
you like about the state’s continued failure to solve its ever-growing
crime and education and addiction and homelessness problems, about how
your taxes are skyrocketing while your standard of living is taking a
dive, and about the way in which the barbarians keep pouring in even as
civilization collapses all around you. But on Election Day, in spite of
all this, and in spite of the specifics of policy analysis and the
statistics that indicate which approaches work and which don’t, you head
for your polling place - on the way stepping carefully, of course,
around the people sleeping on the sidewalk and over the mounds of human
excrement and used needles and assorted garbage - and pull the lever for
the Democrat, thereby demonstrating that, in spite of every temptation
to cross over to the dark side, you’re still on the side of good.
Because, remember: it’s not about actually fixing problems. It’s about proving, in the midst of the maelstrom, that you still care.
Bruce Baweris a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
A politician's true political beliefs are often hidden beneath the rhetoric of a campaign. Speech is tailored to what the crowd wants to hear rather than what the candidate truly believes.
A
politician's true political beliefs are often hidden beneath the
rhetoric of a campaign. Speech is tailored to what the crowd wants to
hear rather than what the candidate truly believes. (Image source:
iStock)
Ever look at a sausage package?
How about baby formula?
A candy bar? Yogurt? Cereal?
Virtually everything you consume is obligated to have an ingredients
label on it that tells you what's inside. After all, you are putting it
in your body. Accordingly, long ago, Washington rightfully decreed that
food processors had to truthfully and factually label their products'
ingredients.
This requirement by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, does not extend to politics.
A politician's true political beliefs are often hidden beneath the
rhetoric of a campaign. Speech is tailored to what the crowd wants to
hear rather than what the candidate truly believes. Sadly, the truth
that we demand from the food on our dining room table is absent in
Washington and our nation's democracy suffers as a result.
While the full truth may still be obscured, we can get closer to the
reality by closely examining a politician's credentials, affiliations,
and the source of campaign donations. It is these "ingredients" that
accurately reflect who we are being asked to vote for. Through diligent
online searches, cross checking with reliable and verified sources, and
researching official filings there is the opportunity for a more
complete disclosure.
But there are still actions whose genuine motives are shrouded. Take,
for example, our nation's current diplomatic engagement with Saudi
Arabia. Is the president's upcoming visit meant to improve America's
security and role in the Middle East, or is it a ploy for cheap energy
at a time when gas on Main Street is more than $5 a gallon. Are efforts
to cut a nuclear deal with Iran intended to slow the pace of the
regime's access to atomic weapons, or are they a strategy to suggest
White House leadership at a time of dismal poll ratings?
Unfortunately the "wrapping" on this "sausage" does not exist. For
that reason, we should do what we always do when food is suspect. Smell
it to see if it is rotten.
Lawrence Kadish serves on the Board of Governors of Gatestone Institute.
This UN exercise in historical revisionism seeks to invent a narrative of powerless Arab victims and criminal Jewish perpetrators, invert who violated the rights of whom, and challenge the moral imperative of the modern Jewish state. It is far more than an outrage.
Institute for Contemporary Affairs
Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation
No. 656, June 8, 2022
The Commission of Inquiry created in 2021 by the UN Human Rights
Council issued its first report on Tuesday. The three commissioners
appointed to conduct the inquiry were on record accusing Israel of
apartheid, and urging boycotts and criminal prosecution – in advance of
investigating anything. At least two reports annually may be expected to
pound a steady drumbeat of modern anti-Semitism, namely, delegitimizing
Israel.
The UN handed the Commission a search warrant unrestricted to any
period of time, to seek “all underlying root causes” of the conflict and
hunt for “systematic discrimination and repression.” So we submitted
the names of the 600,000 Jewish refugees and victims of Arab persecution
in Middle East and North African nations in the past 75 years.
We submitted the names of 4,220 civilians – Israelis and foreign
visitors – killed by unremitting Arab violence from the beginning of
modern Zionism until today. We submitted the names of 24,092 Israeli
military and security forces who have fallen in defense of their country
against the Arab goal to eradicate the modern Jewish state.
We gave the Commission documentation that the Palestinian Authority
pays bounties for killing Jews – an amount that increases the more
deadly the attack. We presented irrefutable evidence that the
Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza maintain a system of racist
indoctrination demonizing Jews and inciting violence against Jews – in
schools, official television programming, summer camps, public displays
and public honors.
Our submissions contained evidence of the ceaseless, unrelenting,
violent attacks on Jews prior to Israel’s independence and until today.
War after war, terror attack after terror attack, suicide bombing,
kidnapping, torture, arson; with rockets, mortars, grenades, pipe bombs,
drones, firebombs, stones, bullets, vehicles, and knives, decade after
decade; with one goal: the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jordan
River to the Mediterranean Sea – the ultimate violation of human rights.
Yet the report finds no Palestinian terrorism.
This UN exercise in historical revisionism seeks to invent a
narrative of powerless Arab victims and criminal Jewish perpetrators,
invert who violated the rights of whom, and challenge the moral
imperative of the modern Jewish state. It is far more than an outrage.
Unless stopped, it has and will continue to breathe oxygen into a highly
flammable cauldron of modern anti-Semitism.
The United Nations and its top human rights body, the UN Human Rights
Council, is now engaged in an active campaign to destroy the state of
Israel – by way of lethal politics.1 The tool is a “Commission of Inquiry,”2 created last year by the Council,3 which has just reported for the first time.4
Its opening salvo: the Jewish state is a racist state, and
discrimination by Jews of non-Jews is a driver and root cause of the
Israeli-Palestinian Arab conflict.5
The three commissioners appointed to conduct the “inquiry,” chaired
by former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, were on
record accusing Israel of apartheid, and urging boycotts and criminal
prosecution – in advance of inquiring or investigating anything.6
Extraordinarily, even for the UN, their job description has no end date,7 and the process has been financed in perpetuity.8 At least two reports annually will pound a steady drumbeat of modern antisemitism, namely, delegitimizing Israel.
Israel itself will not be voluntarily appearing before the firing
squad. But when the UN announced it would open the door to submissions,
an historic campaign was launched by NGOs to fill the UN inbox with what
its Council and inquisitors didn’t expect or want to hear.
To date, more than five million unique submissions and individual
names of Jewish victims of Arab incitement and violence have been
delivered.9
The UN handed the “Inquiry” a search warrant unrestricted to any
period of time, a license to seek “all underlying root causes” of the
conflict, and a green light to hunt for “systematic discrimination and
repression.”10
So we submitted 4,812,829 named victims of Jew hatred advocated and
spread with the assistance and participation of the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini. This Nazi collaborator and propagandist is
the man Palestinians themselves called “Palestine’s national leader,”
“our hero,” and “the voice of the Palestinian people.”11 He remains a singular role model to the Palestinian terrorists and political leaders of today.
Actually looking for a root cause? Under al-Husseini’s leadership,
the strategy of equating the Jewish presence in the land of Israel with
an existential threat to the Muslim faith become an Arab template for
attempting to achieve the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East
throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.12
How about systematic discrimination and repression and its victims?
We submitted the names of each of six hundred thousand Jewish
refugees and victims of Arab persecution in Middle East and North
African nations in the past seventy-five years.13
Jewish refugees from the land of Israel were the longest-standing
refugees in human history. Exiled to Arab and Muslim countries from
their indigenous homeland, they were subject to systematic
discrimination and repression and lived as second-class citizens for
thousands of years.
But against all odds, they persevered, retained their religious
identity, and more than 800,000 returned to their ancestral homeland
after the rebirth of Israel in 1948 – following huge sacrifices,
harrowing escapes, systematic robbery, and racist expulsion.
And then there are the violations of human rights – starting with the right to life.
We submitted the names of 4,220 civilians, Israelis and foreign
visitors, killed – gunned down, blown apart, knifed, stoned, rammed – by
unremitting Arab violence from the beginning of modern Zionism until
today.14
We submitted the identities of 24,092 Israeli military and security forces who have fallen in defense of their country.15
Those who made the ultimate sacrifice protecting Israel’s inhabitants
from attacks driven by one overriding Arab goal: to prevent, deny,
reject and eradicate the modern Jewish state.
The “inquiry” advertised that it would “adopt a victim-centered approach in all of its work.”16
So we sent over 5.4 million identified victims of Jew hatred,
encouraged or incited or celebrated or perpetrated by Palestinian Arabs
and their Arab brethren.
Also submitted were 46,862 submissions17
containing detailed accounts of developments on the ground, weekly
situation reports, video and photographic evidence, legal documentation
and analysis, and meticulous demonstrations of Palestinian antisemitism,
remorseless violence directed at Jews, and the unrelenting attempt to
commit genocide since Israel’s modern founding.
The “inquiry” said it wanted evidence of “overall patterns, policies,
historical legacies and structural inequalities that affect the
enjoyment of human rights.”18
So, we gave them documentation that the Palestinian Authority pays
bounties for killing Jews – a dollar amount that increases the more
deadly the attack. Irrefutable evidence that the Palestinian Authority
and Hamas in Gaza maintain a system of racist indoctrination demonizing
Jews and inciting violence against Jews – in schools, in official
television programming, summer camps, public displays and the selection
of public honors. And we gave them quotes from Palestinian leader
Mahmoud Abbas and former longtime Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb
Erekat insisting that Jews will not be permitted to live in a
Palestinian state.
The inquisitors declared they wanted to know about “systematic
discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or
religious identity.”19
So, we showed them the Palestinian Penal Code saying that
Palestinians are forbidden from selling land to Jews on pain of “life
imprisonment with hard labor.”20
Sent evidence that Jews who make a wrong turn in their automobiles, and
find themselves in “Palestinian territory,” risk losing their lives –
and have. Evidence that Abbas has referred to Jews as “filth,”21
unclean, undeserving to comingle with others. A copy of the Hamas
Covenant, the governing document of the Palestinians running Gaza,
demonstrating its grotesque antisemitism and unabashed call for genocide
against the Jews.
And then there is their quest for those allegedly elusive “underlying root causes.”22
Our submissions contained evidence of the ceaseless, unrelenting,
violent attacks on Jews prior, during and after Israel’s independence in
May 1948 until today. War after war, terror attack after terror attack,
suicide bombing, kidnapping, torture, arson…With rockets, mortars,
grenades, pipe bombs, drones, firebombs, stones, bullets, vehicles,
knives…23
Almost every day, decade after decade. With one goal: the ethnic
cleansing of Jews from the river to the sea. Genocide – the ultimate
violation of human rights.
We sent all these submissions. And then what happened?
The Inquiry’s first report says: “the Commission has received several thousand written submissions.”24
Except we carefully logged all our submissions, even as the UN
refused to acknowledge them. Meaning millions of submissions challenging
the UN routine of Israel-bashing and anti-Israel bias didn’t make the
cut in a report that claims to present “an overview of the wide range of
violations and abuses at the heart of the conflict.”25
Moreover, the report repeatedly cites “stakeholders” but the tiny
subset of stakeholders featured turn out all to be Israel-bashers.26
The report finds no Palestinian terrorist, no Palestinian terrorist
organizations, and no Palestinian terrorism. The furthest the grand
inquisitors ventured was to speculate the actions of Gaza’s “de facto
authorities” and anonymous “Palestinian armed groups” “could spread terror among the civilian population in Israel.”27 As for “Hamas,” they’re only named definitively as engaging in the “exercise of government-like functions.”28
In this la-la land, Israelis interact and react to Palestinians
differently in a security vacuum. Therefore, Jews must be racists. The
report repeatedly claims that Jews discriminate against non-Jews and
couldn’t come up with a single instance the other way around. And
there’s no mention of the fact that Arabs have more rights and freedoms
in Israel than in any Arab state, including the would-be Palestinian
one.
The report takes direct aim at Israeli laws granting every Jew the
right to return to their indigenous homeland and find safe harbor from a
world that allowed the Jewish people to fall victim to the gravest
atrocity in human history.29
In other words, they interpreted the fulfillment of Jewish
self-determination – a Jewish homeland for the Jewish people – not as an
event two thousand years overdue, but as a wrong to non-Jews.30
The report delivered exactly what the Human Rights Council wanted and
what the inquirers had opined before they inquired: (1) The underlying
root cause of the conflict is “the occupation”31
– that is, it’s Israel’s fault; (2) “discrimination” by Jews of
non-Jews is responsible for feeding resentment, fueling tensions, and
driving violence;32 (3) the solution is “individual criminal responsibility”33 (International Criminal Court here we come34); and (4) alleged duties of “third parties” and “private actors”35 (BDS) are high up on the inquiry’s to-do list.
Perhaps the central UN pathology at work here is the cyclical nature
of this attack on right and wrong and common sense. The “inquiry” was
designed to identify and then parrot “the similarities in the findings”36
of decades of prior anti-Israel, grossly biased UN reports, statements
and resolutions. And then to turn around and blame Israel for failing to
“implement” those noxious findings.37
Hence, the report’s overriding standard of “proof” that the Jewish
state is allegedly a moral affront to humankind is this: the UN said so.
Not only did the report lean on a system of entrenched prejudice,
Pillay relied heavily on prior UN hatchet jobs in which she herself
played a key role.
In short, this UN exercise in historical revisionism seeks to invent a
narrative of powerless Arab victims and criminal Jewish perpetrators,
invert who violated the rights of whom, and challenge the moral
imperative of the modern Jewish state. It is far more than an outrage.
Unless stopped, it has and will continue to breathe oxygen into a highly
flammable cauldron of modern antisemitism.
* * *
Notes
* Thank you to Sarah Willig for her excellent research in the
preparation of submissions and creation of a public database on all
aspects of the “Inquiry” at https://hrvoices.org/pillays-pogrom/
2
Formally entitled: “The United Nations Independent International
Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including
East Jerusalem, and in Israel,”
https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/co-israel/index
3
See for the vote on the Human Rights Council resolution: Human Rights
Voices, http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/pillays-pogrom/the-mandate/
4
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022, https://undocs.org/en/A/HRC/50/21
5
While the report states in various places that the Inquiry is just
warming up, it does claim that “the report offers primarily an overview
of the wide range of violations and abuses at the heart of the
conflict.” Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry
on the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and
Israel, A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7,
2022, para. 28
6
The “Inquiry” Members, The UN’s “Commission of Inquiry,” Human Rights
Voices,
http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/pillays-pogrom/the-inquiry-members/
12 See for instance:“Hajj Amin al-Husayni: Arab Nationalist and Muslim Leader,” United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hajj-amin-al-husayni-arab-nationalist-and-muslim-leader;
Jeffrey Harf, “Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Nazis and the Holocaust: the
Origins, Nature and Aftereffects of Collaboration,” Jewish Political
Studies Review, Fall 2014, Vol. 26, No. 3/4, pp. 13-37, at p. 17
17
See for submissions of Palestinian Media Watch, MEMRI, the Meir Amit
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the Jewish Virtual
Library (a project of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise
(AICE)), the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America
(CAMERA): Human Rights Voices, https://hrvoices.org/pillays-pogrom/submissions-submit-here/; this page also contains links to the submissions of other NGOs and individuals.
20
Decision Number 20 of 2014 Regarding an Amendment of Penal Code Number
16 of 1960 and its Amendments, signed by Mahmoud Abbas, Ramallah,
October 20, 2014
24
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
para. 26
25
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
para. 28
26
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022, See
for instance: paras. 47, 48. The one variation merely lamented “the
continuing political division between the Fatah and Hamas movements” –
“notwithstanding the occupation.” Report of the Independent
International Commission of Inquiry on the occupied Palestinian
Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, A/HRC/50/21, dated May
9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022, para. 48
27
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
para. 40
28
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
para. 24. The report speaks of Hamas as the “de facto authorities in
Gaza” and not as definitively carrying out terror attacks itself – in
marked contrast to the treatment of Israel throughout the report. Para.
40 states in full: “The commission of inquiry investigating the conflict
in Gaza in 2014 further called upon the de facto authorities in Gaza
and Palestinian armed groups to respect the principles of distinction,
proportionality and precautions, including by ending all attacks on
Israeli civilians and civilian objects, and stopping all actions that
could spread terror among the civilian population in Israel, and to take
measures to prevent extrajudicial executions and eradicate torture and
cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Elsewhere in the report, they
say in general terms: “The de facto authorities in Gaza show little
commitment towards upholding human rights, and little adherence to
international humanitarian law.” (para. 75)
29
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
para. 46
30
In fact the report only speaks of the “enjoy[ment]” of the Palestinian
“right to self-determination.” UN Human Rights Council resolution
A/HRC/RES/2-30-1, adopted May 27, 2021, para. 2(e), https://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=A/HRC/RES/S-30/1&Lang=E;
See also Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry
on the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and
Israel, A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7,
2022, para. 30.
31
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022, see
for instance: paras. 69, 70
32
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
paras. 13, 74
33
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
para. 78
34
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022, see
for instance: para.25
35
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022,
para. 79
36 UN Human Rights Council resolution A/HRC/RES/2-30-1, adopted May 27, 2021, para. 2(e), https://daccess-ods.un.org/access.nsf/Get?OpenAgent&DS=A/HRC/RES/S-30/1&Lang=E;
See also Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry
on the occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and
Israel, A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7,
2022, Summary, page 1, para. 11, Section VI. See also para. 28: “…the
findings and recommendations relevant to the underlying root causes were
overwhelmingly directed towards Israel, and the report therefore
reflects this.”
37
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the
occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel,
A/HRC/50/21, dated May 9, 2022 but actually published June 7, 2022, See
summary, page 1.
Prof. Anne Bayefsky is the Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, and President of Human Rights Voices.
Then again, I remember how the Democrats could not have cared less about those 
