Doc's Talk: The Powerful anti Israel Lobby‏

Friday, July 31, 2009

The Powerful anti Israel Lobby‏

NGO Monitor
July 30, 2009

On July 22-24, 2009, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People held an NGO conference “to discuss questions related to Israeli violations of international humanitarian law.” The context of Palestinian attacks was not on the agenda.
Participants in this exercise included Palestinian NGOs such as Badil, PCHR, and Al Haq, as well as Human Rights Watch and Israeli NGOs Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I), Keshev, and Adalah. HRW promoted the campaign to prevent Israel from purchasing weapons, led by Amnesty International, and demanded “on-going international pressure” on Israel. HRW’s participation provides further evidence of bias against Israel.
One speaker from the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency accused Jews of “buying everything” and controlling a “global machine, money,” and another expressed “extreme disappointment” that Palestinian war crimes were even mentioned in passing.
Most NGO representatives expressed support for “lawfare” cases in European courts and international forums against Israeli military and government officials.
On July 22-24, 2009, the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People held an NGO conference, involving Human Rights Watch (HRW), and several European and NIF-funded NGOs, examining “Responsibility of the international community to uphold international humanitarian law to ensure the protection of civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in the wake of the war in Gaza”. The objective was “to discuss questions related to Israeli violations of international humanitarian law during the recent hostilities in the Gaza Strip” [emphasis added].

Participants discussed strategies designed to promote “individual and collective action by Governments,” most notably, imposing boycotts and sanctions against Israel, as well as “lawfare.” Core human rights violations by Hamas, including the deliberate targeting of Israeli civilians with continuous rocket attacks and the extensive use of human shields in Gaza, were not on the agenda. The session represents yet another UN framework used to attack Israel, in which many EU- and European- funded NGOs play a central role. This event was timed to coincide with the Goldstone mission hearings and supported by the tendentious reports issued by HRW, Amnesty International, Breaking the Silence, and other NGOs.
Presenters included:
Bill Van Esveld, HRW, Israel and PA researcher, Middle East and North Africa Division;
Charles Shamas, partner in the Mattin Group, co-Founder of Al Haq, and HRW board member;
Raji Sourani of the EU-funded PCHR (he is also a vice-president of FIDH);
John Dugard, former UN rapporteur, leader of the Arab League’s “fact finding” mission that accused Israel of “genocide” and “war crimes”;
Pierre Galand – Belgian anti-Israel activist;
Ron Yaron, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (EU- and European go vernment-funded);
Daphna Golan, co-founder of B’Tselem, researcher at the Minerva Center for Human Rights of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, consultant to pseudo-academic study organized by Dugard and Al Haq, claiming Israel is an “apartheid” state;
Rania Al-Madi of Badil (funded by Irish and Scandanavian governments);
Fatmeh El Ajou from Adalah (EU and NIF funded);
Yizhar Be’er from Keshev (EU funded)
The Central Role of Human Rights Watch
Human Rights Watch (HRW) was featured prominently at this blatantly one-sided event, which took place amidst the controversy over HRW’s anti-Israel agenda and the emphasis on defeating “pro-Israel pressure groups” during a May fundraising dinner held in Saudi Arabia.
Several participants referred to HRW’s reporting on the Gaza war, and Esveld repeated HRW’s unsubstantiated charges that Israel used white phosphorous and drones unlawfully. He claimed that HRW’s “researchers” found no military justification for the use of the phosphorus as a smoke screen, as there were no Israeli forces on the ground at the time.” Media reports and military analysts have refuted HRW’s allegations.

Esveld repeated HRW’s unsubstantiated claims that Israel’s actions against Hamas exceeded “any conceivable military necessity” and amounted to “collective punishment.” He also bolstered the campaign to prevent Israel from obtaining military equipment, led by Amnesty International, by emphasizing more than once that the weapons used by Israel were manufactured in the US. He concluded that it was critical to ensure “on-going international pressure” on Israel.

Israeli NGO Participants Contribute to the Campaign
As noted, several Israeli NGOs participated in the meeting. Analysts have noted the attempt to legitimize anti-Israel and anti-Zionist positions by highlighting agreement from individual Jews, including Israelis, who profess these positions.

Daphna Golan-Agnon, a senior researcher at Hebrew University’s Minerva Center and founder of B’Tselem, alleged that Israel cynically uses international law to pose as a “democratic state” when, according to her, it is not. She asserted that Gaza is an “artificial,20invented zone controlled by Israel,” claimed that Israel “controls” the “population registry” and “legal system” that are run by Hamas, and advocated for a bi-national state. As mentioned, Golan-Agnon was a consultant to a pseudo-academic study initiated by John Dugard (see below) that demonized Israel as an “apartheid” state. [1]

Ha’aretz columnist Gideon Levy also participated, referring to Israeli society as “immoral” and comparing it to a “drug addict” that required “institutionalization.” Levy argued the only ways for Palestinians to end the “occupation” were through “terrible bloodshed,” “sanctions,” or by making Israelis “feel uncomfortable,” and said rocket attacks on Israeli civilians did not merit military action by Israel.

Ron Yaron spoke on behalf of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-I).-- and EU- and Swedish-funded NGO, whose political agenda includes assistant to protesters “in solidarity with their struggle against Israeli occupation”. Yaron castigated the IDF investigations as “whitewash” and not reliable. Yaron admitted that “Hamas had systema tically used medical facilities and ambulances as a cover for its military operations,” but summarily and without evidence dismissed what he termed “justif[ications]” of the Israeli army.

Yizhar Be’er, Executive Director of the EU-funded Keshev, accused the Israeli media of demonization, militancy, and incitement, and criticized local newspapers for highlighting the destruction of rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, in particular children. Keshev works in concert with Miftah, a Palestinian NGO which promotes anti-Israel demonization, supports boycotts of Israel and was very active in the infamous 2001 Durban conference.

Fatmeh El Ajou of the EU- and European-funded Adalah claimed the war in Gaza was illegitimate because it was “intended to get rid of the democratically-elected Hamas.” Additionally, she declared that Palestinians have no remedy in the Israeli justice system, erasing the fact that the Israeli Supreme Court hears hundreds of cases related to Palestinian rights, including many suits initiated by Adalah,. She also endorsed a bi-national state, which is consistent with Adalah’s “Democratic Constitution” that demands the end of Israel as a Jewish nation-state.

“Lawfare” from international and Palestinian NGOs
Pro-Palestinian activists and Palestinian NGOs bolstered the political warfare conducted20by the other participants. One Palestinian media representative concluded his speech with an antisemitic rant accusing Jews of “buying everything” and controlling a “global machine, money.” A member of the Third World Network referred to Ahmedinejad as a “so-called Holocaust denier,” and a Swiss NGO representative expressed “extreme disappointment” that Palestinian war crimes of firing rockets into civilian areas of Israel were mentioned, even in passing, at the three-day event.

International Ideologues
John Dugard, the former UN rapporteur, accused Israel of “war crimes,” “crimes against humanity,” “genocide,” and “terrorizing” the citizens of Gaza. Dugard made the absurd claim that that Israel had no right to self-defense in the face of Hamas rocket attacks on its civilians. He also sought to argue that international laws regarding combating terrorism and its financing had no relevance to his legal analysis of the war. Dugard ended his presentation by calling for “lawfare” prosecutions of Israeli military and political figures. In February 2009, Dugard headed the Arab League’s “Fact Finding Mission” on the Gaza War, which made the same politicized conclusions.

More calls for “lawfare” came from Pierre Galand, a Belgian radical and chairman of the European Coordination of Committees and Associations for Palestine. He portrayed Israel as part of the West’s “colonial and imperialist ideology”, stating that Israel “like France and the UK, continually lies.” Galand mentioned that he, Dugard, and Sourani (see below) were planning a “Russell Tribunal” against Israel (such fringe tribunals found the US guilty of “war crimes” in the 1970s, in the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, and the 2003 Iraq War).

Palestinian NGOs
Charles Shamas – head of the Mattin Group, HRW board member, and co-founder of Palestinian NGO Al Haq – called for sanctions against Israel. He focused on pressing the European Union to suspend trade agreements and block aviation traffic with Israel.

In a written statement, Raji Sourani, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR – funded by the EU, Norway, Ireland, and Denmark), leveled accusations of “collective punishment,” “illegal siege” and Israeli “impunity.” As reflected in PCHR’s labeling of terror attacks as “resistance,” he did not criticize Hamas for aggression or “war crimes.” Sourani called for more “lawfare” cases against Israelis, even though every one of PCHR’s cases has been dismissed as being without merit. At the July 24 NGO session, other NGO representatives echoed Sourani’s remarks, noting their plan to harass with lawsuits UK nationals who have served in the IDF.

Badil (funded by Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands), this “right of return” NGO accused Israel of “colonial and apartheid policies,” and repeated the canard that Israel was created solely out of “European guilt over the Holocaust.” In order to hold Israel “accountable for its crimes,” Badil called for a general boycott and an arms ban on Israel, as well as suspension of the EU-Israel upgrade agreement.

Conclusion
In contrast to the marginalization of radical NGOs in the UN’s Durban Review Conference (April 2009), this conference shows that the power of these NGOs in UN remains significant. Such smaller, less visible meetings may not register in the international media, but they provide a forum for “sharing common practices” in the intensification of the Durban Strategy. Timed to coincide with the Goldstone investigation, the July 2009 “Question of Palestine” event indicates the ongoing legal warfare instigated by NGOs in response to the Gaza conflict.

Human Rights Watch’s participation in this “mini-Durban” conference reflects the organization’s further radicalization and the absence of professionalism and objectivity.
< br> It also highlights this powerful NGO’s influence in the anti-Israel NGO network and the UN. HRW, with its very large resources, media connections, and international reputation, legitimates and amplifies campaigns initiated by Palestinian NGOs – such as the concerted effort to criminalize Israel’s actions in the Gaza war. Radical Israeli NGOs, funded by European governments and NIF, add to this campaign by repeating unsupported claims and promoting a Palestinian narrative. Finally, the UN promotes these campaigns, providing one-sided forums – including the Goldstone commission – for advancing NGO strategies and attacks.

Notes
[1] See 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism, by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, American Jewish Committee, 2007, www.ajc.org/atf/cf/.../PROGRESSIVE_JEWISH_THOUGHT.PDF

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The IDF’s Minorities in Numbers and Pictures

In honor of IDF Diversity Week, we present diversity through numbers and pictures. Each year, more and more Muslims, Christians, Druze, Bedouin and immigrants from around the world take on the responsibility of defending Israel.

MUSLIMS:

Muslim Arab Israelis are not required to draft in the IDF, but there are many who volunteer. In 2013, there were over 200 Muslims serving in the IDF and over 300 in the reserves.

Bedouins:

Bedouins are nomadic Muslims who were in Israel when modern borders were set in place and are now considered Israeli citizens. They are not required to draft but a growing number choose to enlist. In 2012, there were over 1,400 Bedouin Muslim soldiers doing regular IDF service and almost 1,500 in the reserves.

Read more:http://www.idfblog.com/2014/02/27/truth-idf-numbers-pictures/#more-34027

Are you aware that in 2013, Middle class taxes go up-significantly?

In January of next year, the federal income tax rate for middle-class taxpayers is scheduled to rise from 25 percent to 28 percent, and the payroll tax is scheduled to rise from 13.3 percent to 15.3 percent… This drives the marginal tax rate based on the aforementioned three taxes to 48.12 percent. Add in state and local property, corporate, excise, and other state and local taxes, and the percentage of each additional dollar that is taxed hovers around 50 percent… When half of each additional dollar earned is taxed away, taxpayers experience a disincentive to start businesses or expand existing ones. This leads to fewer jobs being created.

Why is HAMAS Inside Tampa Schools?

Clare Lopez

Kelly Miliziano, who teaches history classes at Steinbrenner High School in the Tampa, Florida area apparently thinks it’s perfectly OK to invite a senior official of a HAMAS-affiliated organization into her classroom to discuss Islam with her students. According to local media reports, not only has this been going on for years, but in spite of the civil and criminal proceedings that could result from such reckless negligence, the Hillsborough County school superintendent, Mary Ellen Elia, and the chairman of the school board, Candy Olson, also expressed approval for students under their responsibility to be exposed repeatedly to guest speaker, Hassan Shibly, who is the Executive Director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in the Tampa area.
More...

Did You Know... Ignoring the Call to Islam will Bring Jihad

‘Conquest through Da’wa [proselytizing] that is what we hope for. We will conquer Europe, we will conquer America! Not through sword but through Da’wa.’
-- Yousef al-Qaradawi , Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader The Arabic word ‘Da’wa’ means the “call to Islam.” But do not think that Da’wa is the same thing as an invitation to an optional holiday event. The classical Islamic doctrine of jihad mandates that enemies must be given the opportunity to convert to Islam or pay the jizya tax before it is permissible to attack them.
Clare M. Lopez

Who is being discriminated-facts tell the truth

Religious bias

Hate crimes motivated by religious bias accounted for 1,409 offenses reported by law enforcement. A breakdown of the bias motivation of religious-bias offenses showed:

65.4 percent were anti-Jewish.
13.2 percent were anti-Islamic.
9.5 percent were anti-other religion, i.e., those not specified.
4.3 percent were anti-Catholic.
3.8 percent were anti-multiple religions, group.
3.3 percent were anti-Protestant.
0.5 percent were anti-Atheism/Agnosticism/etc.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/hate-crime/2010/narratives/hate-crime-2010-incidents-and-offenses.

On March 31, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw published an interview

with PLO executive committee member Zahir Muhsein. Here's what he said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct "Palestinian people" to oppose Zionism.

For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

In March 1977, Zahir Muhsein, a PLO executive, said:

"The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism."

"For tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan."

The Arab Apartheid

Ben-Dror Yemini
In 1948, the Arab countries refused to accept the UN partition proposal and they launched a war of annihilation against the State of Israel which had barely been established. All precedents in this matter showed that the party that starts the war - and with a declaration of annihilation, yet - pays a price for it. Between 550,000 and 710,000 Arabs fled because of the war and a larger number of 850,000 Jews were expelled or fled from Arab countries (the "Jewish nakba").
Population exchanges and expulsions were the norm at that time, occurring in dozens of other conflict points and affecting about 52 million people. In all the population exchange precedents that occurred during or at the end of an armed conflict, there was no return of refugees to the previous region, which had turned into a new national state.
Only the Arab states acted completely differently from the rest of the world. Instead of assimilating the refugees, they crushed them despite the fact that they were their coreligionists and members of the Arab nation - instituting a regime of apartheid. So the "nakba" was not caused by the actual dispossession, which had also been experienced by tens of millions of others. The "nakba" is the story of the apartheid, oppression, abuse and denial of rights suffered by the Arab refugees at the hands of the Arab countries. (Maariv)

International Law and Military Operations in Practice - Col. Richard Kemp

"Islamist fighting groups study the international laws of armed conflict carefully and they understand it well. They know that a British or Israeli commander and his men are bound by international law and the rules of engagement that flow from it. They then do their utmost to exploit what they view as one of their enemy's main weaknesses. Their very modus operandi is built on the correct assumption that Western armies will normally abide by the rules, while these insurgents employ a deliberate policy of operating consistently outside international law. "

Lost Historical Moments

What Rabin’s last Knesset speech really said:repudiation of a Palestinian state

Rabin ruled out a fully sovereign Palestinian state :

“We view the permanent solution in the framework of State of Israel which will include most of the area of the Land of Israel as it was under the rule of the British Mandate, and alongside it a Palestinian entity which will be a home to most of the Palestinian residents living in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. We would like this to be an entity which is less than a state, and which will independently run the lives of the Palestinians under its authority.”

Rabin ruled out a total withdrawal from Judea and Samaria and thus a return to the pre-June 1967 borders :

“The borders of the State of Israel, during the permanent solution, will be beyond the lines which existed before the Six Day War. We will not return to the 4 June 1967 lines.”

Rabin ruled out withdrawing form the Jordan Valley:

“The security border of the State of Israel will be located in the Jordan Valley, in the broadest meaning of that term.”

Rabin ruled out uprooting settlement blocs, like the Gush Katif bloc in Gaza (which was subsequently uprooted by former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon):

“The establishment of blocs of settlements in Judea and Samaria, like the one in Gush Katif.

AND

Rabin ruled out removing any settlement before coming to a full peace agreement with the Palestinians:

“I want to remind you: we committed ourselves, that is, we came to an agreement, and committed ourselves before the Knesset, not to uproot a single settlement in the framework of the interim agreement, and not to hinder building for natural growth.”

Rabin insisted on Israel retaining full security control of the borders with Egypt and Jordan, contrary to Israel’s relinquishment of the Philadelphia Corridor on the border with Egypt:

“The responsibility for external security along the borders with Egypt and Jordan, as well as control over the airspace above all of the territories and Gaza Strip maritime zone, remains in our hands.”

Correcting Oslo Myths-Part 2

3) Kuttab laments that the post-1993 Oslo process resulted in a Palestinian Authority "whose ministers and legislators are not guaranteed passage between Gaza and the West Bank ...."

Before free passage or other perquisites, PA leaders were obligated, among other things, to eliminate the terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, end anti-Israeli, antisemitic incitement in schools, mosques, and communications media, and resolve all outstanding issues through peaceful negotiations. They met none of these commitments, sometimes bolstering terrorism and greatly increasing incitement.

4) Kuttab complains that under Oslo the PA got "lightly armed police ---- but no real sovereignty over the land or contiguity between our communities in Gaza and the West Bank."

Oslo agreements repeatedly were revised, regardless of Palestinian non-compliance, until the authorized number of police grew from 8,000 to 40,000. Though they were to be the only armed forces in the territories, Israeli estimates early in the second intifada put the number of gunmen - police, "security services," terrorists, and armed gangs - at 85,000. Their armament reportedly included not only heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades, but also anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles.

Sovereignty was to be negotiated in the envisioned 1998 "final status" talks - after a five-year period of confidence-building. Palestinian leadership chronically undermined the process. Palestinian terrorism made the 1993 - 1998 Oslo period more deadly for Israelis than the 15 years preceding it.

The United States doesn't have contiguity between the lower 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii; territorial contiguity between the West Bank and Gaza Strip - that is, through the 20 miles of Israeli territory between them - was never promised and would destroy Israeli contiguity.

5) "Palestinians have been made to endure hundreds of checkpoints in the West Bank, an eight-foot wall deep in our territories, and tight Israeli control over borders."

The security barrier is not "deep in Palestinian territories," but rather encompasses less than 8 percent of Judea and Samaria, and is mostly a fence, rarely a wall; the land in question is not "our [Palestinian] territories" but disputed territory to which, according to the authors of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, Jews as well as Arabs have claims; and there are no international borders, only the 1949 armistice lines with Jordan. Under 242, borders remain to be negotiated. As for checkpoints - like the security barrier and "tight Israeli control" - Palestinian Arabs precipitated these measures themselves. No terrorism and there would be no fence or tight Israeli control and few checkpoints - like before the first intifada.

Correcting Some Oslo Myths

1) In Oslo "Israeli, Palestinian and other world leaders promised that ... Palestinian sovereignty would be solidified."

No, they didn't. The 1993 Declaration of Principles and subsequent Oslo agreements outlined a process by which final status negotiations about the West Bank and Gaza Strip would be reached. The process required an end to anti-Israel terrorism and incitement and a commitment to peaceful negotiations. The PA, Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and other terrorist groups, sabotaged the process from the start.

2) "The reality is that, in defiance of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242, which states that it is inadmissible to occupy land by force, Palestinian territories are still under foreign military occupation."
Wrong again. Resolution 242 (1967) does note "the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war." It also affirms the right of every state in the area "to live in peace with secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force." There were no "Palestinian territories." Jordan occupied the West Bank, Egypt controlled Gaza. Israel did not have "secure and recognized boundaries," so retention of some of those territories was possible under 242. Israel is not a "foreign" military occupier in the West Bank but, pending final negotiations, the lawful military administrator as a result of a successful war of self-defense.

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