Greetings from London Heathrow. I'm on my way home.
Hamas executed three 'murderers' at dawn on Tuesday. Two were executed by firing squad, while the third, a 'policeman' was hanged.
Last week, Amnesty International called for the 'attorney general' of Gaza to intervene in these cases.
Gaza's Attorney General must halt planned executions, death penalty is inhuman punishment & will not deter crime pic.twitter.com/PRRUNYk2Gx
— AmnestyInternational (@AmnestyOnline) May 23, 2016
Of course, Amnesty said nothing of Gaza's 'justice system.' Richard Goldstone of the Goldstone Commission once endorsed Hamas' 'court system,' but it goes without saying that Gaza does not have an 'attorney general' and that Amnesty's call is ludicrous.
Hamas does have Abu Mazen, who is supposed to approve any death sentences, but since Hamas broke Gaza off from the more 'moderate' terrorists of Fatah in 2007, they no longer ask Abu Mazen to approve their death sentences.
But just give them a 'state' and they'll sort it all out....
Must see: The video that proves Amnesty International is lying about Israel
This video shows how Amnesty International edited a video to make it seem that Israel destroyed a Gaza building immediately after a roof knock last summer, when in fact the IAF had given residents five minutes to escape... and escape they all did.
Let's go to the videotape.
To see the original video and how it was edited, go here.
The motion was table by Amnesty member Andrew Thorpe-Apps in March
who said it was defeated at the International AGM on Sunday by 468 votes
to 461.
Mr Trope Apps said: “It was the only resolution to be defeated during the whole conference.”
Amnesty International UK press officer Neil Durkin said: "After a
really interesting debate where everyone condemned discrimination
against all ethnic and religious groups, our membership decided not to
pass this resolution calling for a campaign with a single focus.
Funny, they don't seem to have a problem with campaigns that focussolelyonIsrael.
Mr Thorpe-Apps said he put forward the motion because “I recently joined and I believe passionately about human rights.
“I was aware that the organisation has been outwardly pro-Palestine
in the past but it hasn’t stood up for the Jewish population and I think
it would be good if they did that.
“I’m not Jewish myself but I’ve been appalled by what I’ve seen in
the press facing the Jewish community and an organisation like Amnesty
should really add their voice to that as they do with other human rights
issues.”
I think Mr. Thorpe-Apps has to find another outlet for his passions about human rights. Amnesty clearly doesn't make the cut.
The fact that this was probably inevitable does not make it any less of a farce. The International Criminal Court has opened an 'investigation' into Israel's actions this past summer in Gaza.
"A preliminary examination is not an investigation but a process of
examining the information available in order to reach a fully informed
determination on whether there is a reasonable basis to proceed with a
(full) investigation," Bensouda was quoted as having said.
Depending on her findings, Bensouda will decide at a later stage
whether to launch or quash the investigation, based on the initial
probe, the report added.
Israel condemned the decision as "scandalous", as Prime Minister
Binyamin Netanyahu said in a statement that since “Palestine” is not a
state, the ICC had no jurisdiction over it, according to the court's own
rules.
The probe is "absurd" since "the Palestinian Authority cooperates
with Hamas, a terror group that commits war crimes, in contrast to
Israel that fights terror while maintaining international law, and has
an independent justice system," Netanyahu pointed out.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman added that the sole purpose of the
preliminary examination was to "try to harm Israel's right to defend
itself from terror."
In a statement he said the decision was "solely motivated by
political anti-Israel considerations," adding that he would recommend
against cooperating with the probe.
"It is a tragic irony that Israel, which has withstood thousands of terrorist rockets fired at its civilians and its neighborhoods, is now beingscrutinized by the ICC," US State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said in a statement.
In 2009, the ICC opened an investigation into Israel's actions in Operation Cast Lead. That probe was closed in 2012 because 'Palestine' was not a state. Since then, with Western complicity, the 'Palestinians' status at the United Nations has been upgraded from 'observer' to 'non-member state.' That allowed 'Palestine' to join the ICC.
It's long past time for the West to make a choice: Are you with the Arab-Islamist terrorists or are you against them? So far, the West has either been incapable of choosing or has chosen to side with the terrorists - perhaps out of fear. Israel is just the canary in the coal mine. The inability to choose does not bode well for Western civilization.
This is perhaps the oddest reaction:
Rights group Amnesty International welcomed the ICC's announcement saying it "could pave the way for thousands of victims of crimes under international law to gain access to justice."
But the initial probe could lead to an investigation into crimes "committed by
all sides", Amnesty stressed in a statement, with many noting that
every missile fired on Israel by the PA's unity partner Hamas, and
indeed by PA chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah, constitutes a war crime.
'Many.' But don't spend too much time looking for Amnesty to call every rocket a 'war crime.' If they did, they would have to admit that Israel has a right of self-defense. If anything, the ICC is investigating the wrong side.
Their greatest strategic asset is the knowledge that, however
outrageous their behavior, large segments of the press and political
class (especially in Europe), and the “human rights” and international
communities led by the United Nations will effectively side with them,
directing their wrath primarily at Israel, and protecting them from
total defeat, so that they can proclaim victory from the ruin and
devastation they authored.
Hamas knows that, despite the consistent evidence of their mendacity,
their fabrications will be widely disseminated as facts by news and
human rights groups. These lies inflict enormous damage on Israel even
when the truth later emerges. Any honest observer appreciates that the
Israel Defense Forces exert greater efforts to minimize civilian
casualties than any army in history, and actually have a
civilian-to-fighter casualty ratio that is relatively low for modern
warfare (despite the fact that Hamas designs its chosen battlefield
specifically to maximize civilian damage).
But Hamas knows that the press will gleefully play the body-count game,
as though its infographics speak to causation or moral culpability.
They also know that every conflagration they provoke causes the world’s
oldest hatred to bubble up again, more virulently each time.
These are the carcinogens that feed this cancer and fan the flames of
violence in the region. When Kenneth Roth, head of Human Rights Watch
(HRW), arguably the world’s most powerful human rights organization,
tweets that, “Tunnels used to attack or capture soldiers isn't [a human
rights violation],” Hamas is encouraged to dig more tunnels.
When MP David Ward says that he would fire a rocket if he lived in
Gaza, Hamas is urged to fire more rockets.When Business Secretary Vince
Cable decides to suspend UK arms export licences to Israel when Hamas
violates cease-fires and Israel retaliates, Hamas is incentivized to
violate cease-fires.
When Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East and North Africa director
declares it, “abhorrent that Israeli forces are . . . blatantly
violating the laws of war" (based solely on interviews with Gaza
residents), when the United Nations Human Rights Commission orders yet
another lopsided anti-Israel “fact-finding” mission, and its High
Commissioner Navi Pillay offers platitudes of moral equivalence accusing
“both sides” of “indiscriminate killing of civilians,” when
empty-headed celebrities blabber incoherently about Israeli “massacres”
and “genocide,” then Hamas knows that its diabolical tactics are
working.
The blood of those Palestinian children (and Israel’s children) is on
the hands of those who irresponsibly, even if unwittingly, give Hamas
such support, hope and inspiration.
“Suspend transfers to Israel of munitions, weapons, and related
equipment including crowd control weapons and devices, training and
techniques,” Amnesty said in a 74-page report titled “Trigger- Happy:
Israel’s use of excessive force in the West Bank” that it issued on
Thursday.
Arms transfers by the United States, the European Union and other
countries should only be resumed once Israel can ensure that they will
not be used to violate international humanitarian law and international
human rights law, Amnesty said.
“Without pressure from the international community, the situation is
unlikely to change any time soon,” said Philip Luther, director of the
Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty International.
“Too much civilian blood has been spilled. This long-standing pattern
of abuse must be broken. If the Israeli authorities wish to prove to
the world they are committed to democratic principles and international
human rights standards, unlawful killings and unnecessary use of force
must stop now,” Luther said.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said the report “smacks of bias, discrimination and racism.”
He accused Amnesty of wanting to deprive Israel of the right to self-defense.
“Amnesty takes to making up its own laws. In their frenzied public
relations stunt to grab a quick headline, they innovate in the legal
realm: no right of self-defense under fire [for Israelis],” he said.
“Amnesty lies by omission, and otherwise.”
The IDF said that Amnesty was ignoring the substantial increase in
Palestinian violence against Israel in the last year. In 2013,
Palestinians injured 132 Israelis, almost double the number of those
harmed in 2012, the IDF said.
It noted that this was “no surprise, considering that over 5,000
incidents of rock-hurling took place, half of which were toward main
roads.”
It added that “there were 66 further terror attacks, which included
shootings, the planting of [improvised explosive devices], blunt weapon
attacks and the abduction and murder of a soldier.”
The report, it said, also showed “a complete lack of understanding as
to operational challenges the IDF is posed with in the West Bank.
“Where feasible, the IDF contains this life-threatening violence using
riot dispersal means, including loud sirens, water cannons, sound
grenades and teargas.
Only once these tools have been exhausted, and human life and safety
remains under threat, is the use of precision munition authorized,” it
said.
“Amnesty International accusations are
reckless, blatantly biased, and reflect the lack of a credible research
fact-finding methodology,” said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO
Monitor. “Amnesty lacks the expertise and credibility to analyze or
assign blame for deaths in the context of violent confrontations in the
West Bank. As in the past, the allegations in this report repeat
unverifiable Palestinian ‘testimony.’”
Indeed, in a February 10 interview with Al Jazeera,
Amnesty International’s Secretary General Salil Shetty acknowledged
that “we are not an expert (sic) on military matters. So we don’t want
to, kind of, pontificate on issues we don’t really understand.”
In its report, Amnesty makes numerous non-specific claims without any
supporting evidence, such as “Palestinians killed by Israeli soldiers
did not appear to be posing a direct and immediate threat to life” and
the use of “arbitrary” force. In contrast, other monitoring groups such
as B’Tselem acknowledge
that the majority of Palestinian casualties occurred during combat or
violent clashes and confrontations with Israeli security personnel.
Amnesty’s removal of this essential context and abuse of the term
“civilian” further highlights the lack of credibility.
Likewise, NGO Monitor has shown
that Amnesty’s “research” team on Israel comprises two individuals with
backgrounds in anti-Israel political activism, not military and legal
expertise.
Yes, but unfortunately, I'll bet a lot more people read Amnesty's report than the criticism, and that more headlines will reflect Amnesty's views than the critics' views.
Amnesty International springs into action, protests execution of 'Palestinian criminals'
And they call themselves a 'human rights' organization.
Amnesty International is urging Hamas not to execute 'Palestinian criminals' as part of their celebration of Eid al-Fitr. The executions are planned as a 'crime deterrent.'
“This and other recent announcements by Hamas authorities that they
will carry out further executions are deeply disturbing,” said Philip
Luther, Director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at Amnesty
International.
“We acknowledge the right and responsibility of
governments to bring to justice those suspected of criminal offenses,
but the death penalty is cruel and inhuman, and there is no evidence
that it deters crime more effectively than other punishments,” Luther
added.
According to Amnesty International, several of the
'criminals' slated for execution confessed to their crimes under extreme
duress.
This suggests a possible breakdown in Hamas' judicial system.
Luther
said, “Hamas should pursue justice by prosecuting people accused of
internationally recognizable crimes in fair trials without recourse to
the death penalty and ensuring all allegations of torture are
investigated."
However, whether or not the crimes were indeed
committed by those accused, Luther slammed the concept of public
executions calling them "degrading" and adding that they "compound the
cruelty of the death penalty."
Richard Goldstone could not have said it better. The problem here is that Amnesty insists on treating Hamas as a credible, legitimate 'government,' and not as the brutal, repressive thugocracy that it really is.
A thesis titled ‘The politicization of the Oslo water agreement’
written by Lauro Burkart a Swiss graduate of the Institute of
International and Development studies in Geneva gives a more accurate
and impartial picture of the topic of the scarcity of water in the
Palestinian Authority.
Burkart interviewed many key players in the water conflict,
Palestinians and Israelis as well as representatives of NGOs and the
donor countries. He also examined many original documents such as the
minutes of the meetings of the joint Israeli Palestinian Water Committee
(JWC).
...
Here are some of the most important conclusions in Burkart’s thesis.
The goals of the Oslo 2 water agreement have been reached regarding
the quantities of water provided to the Palestinian population (178
mcm/year in 2006). The Oslo water agreement estimated that the needs
would eventually be 200 mcm a year. The Joint Water Committee
functioned well in the first years following signature of the agreement,
but since 2008 cooperation has come to a halt
The facts disseminated by the Palestinians, international
organizations and donors about the root causes of the water scarcity in
the West Bank are incorrect.
Burkart writes: ‘It is not the Israeli occupation policy but the
Palestinian political resistance against joint management and
cooperation that is responsible for the relatively slow development of
the Palestinian water sector and the deteriorating human rights
situation in the Palestinian Territories’ and ‘There is convincing
evidence of mismanagement within the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA).’
He cites the pro-Palestinian NGO AMAN who concluded that there is ‘no
clear legal separation between the political and executive levels
within the Palestinian water institutions. To date there is no real
functioning water law. Furthermore the National Water Council is not
meeting and not functioning well’.
Although the PWA embarked on an institutional reform process in
reaction to international critics such as the World Bank this did not
solve the issue of mismanagement within the institution. The head of the
Palestinian Hydrology Group called the reform a ‘fundraising
mechanism’. The PWA also did not manage to gain control over many
municipalities (where Israel has no control) due to the autocratic and
undemocratic manner in which they are managed. These power holders did
not want to lose control of the water systems since it was one of the
main services provided by the municipalities. As a result the water
supply is not centralized and illegal drilling is rampant.
The fact that the PA pays for most of the water bills of the
Palestinian population gives no incentive for saving and leads to an
unreasonable use of water in the domestic sphere as well as in the
agricultural sector.
Where were they when the anti-expulsion protesters were being beaten in the streets
The hypocrites at Amnesty International woke up and noticed the police in Tel Aviv on Saturday night. Amnesty has condemned the police for the manner in which they put down a violent demonstration that included blocking a major highway and severe property damage.
The letter, signed by Amnesty Israel's director Yonatan Gher, said the organization condemned violence "of all types," and criticized vandalism on the part of social justice protesters.
"However, there is much evidence that... serious violence used by police on Friday and Saturday night went beyond 'reasonable use of force,' especially in cases when it was directed... indiscriminately," the letter continued.
"In addition, despite the unfortunate violence on the part of protesters, violence by police officers should not be seen in an equal light, since the former constitutes a breaking of the law, while the latter constitutes a violation of human rights," Gher said.
He called on the public security minister to swiftly formulate instructions to police to ensure that basic human rights of protesters are safeguarded.
Yarkon police sub-district commander Yoram Ohayon on Sunday denied reports that police used excessive violence in dealing with protesters. "Police brutality is not a term in our lexicon," he said. Responding to activists' complaints that the authorizes have decided to silence the movement, Ohayon says: "There is no change in policy in dealing with the protest."
Tel Aviv police spokesman Moshe Katz said Sunday that demonstrators ignored police calls to disperse the marches and continued to block the roads and confront police officers. By the end of the night police announced the arrests of 85 protesters, including over 30 who were seen being driven away from the City Hall in a Dan bus that had been commandeered by police. On Sunday afternoon, 15 suspects were to be brought before a court for a remand hearing.
Let's go to the videotape.
It seems like the protesters are giving as well as they are getting, doesn't it? (At least if the video works - I had a lot of trouble getting this one to play).
Where was Amnesty when the anti-expulsion protesters were being beaten in the street? They had nothing to say about this.
If we imagine a continuum of authoritarian systems, they tend to be defined by two extremities. At one extremity are systems where the absolute reference when it comes to the law, or what passes for law, is the leader. At the other are systems built on a scaffolding of regulations and state bodies lending legitimacy to repression. Most authoritarian leaderships combine the two: There are domains controlled by the leader, but there are also those where a judicial veneer is in place to stifle dissent, but also to avoid the inevitable resort to force. For a long time Syria was such a place. In order to perpetuate his own rule and that of his minority Alawite community, the late Hafez Assad adopted multiple layers of behavior, bureaucracy and ideology to bolster his regime. Arab nationalism, in the guise of Baathism, was there partly to detract from the minority status of the leadership, and to act as an instrument to co-opt large swathes of Syrian society. The conflict with Israel bought the Syrian president Arab credibility and funding, while Syria’s hegemony over Lebanon earned it regional leverage. Syrian prisons were full, but when offered a choice between violence and negotiations to resolve his problems, Assad usually preferred the latter – albeit negotiations destined to assert his will. And yet there was never any doubt who was the final arbiter on most issues. Syrian institutions had no latitude to question Assad. The army and security apparatus was there to defend the Assads and their political-military clique, not Syrian society. Outside the reach of the ruling family there was virtually no autonomous political space.
Young argues that Bashar Assad made his control over the population too obvious and used force where his father would have finessed matters, which resulted in his losing control.
In Assad's Sectarian Strategy, Tony Badran argues that Assad is trying to reassert control of Syria by inextricably tying his fate to the rest of Syria's Alawite community.
The Assad regime’s Alawite-dominated forces are already little more than a sectarian militia. By arming Alawite villages and using them as launching pads for attacks against Sunnis, as he did in Houla and al-Qubayr (and possibly Haffeh), Assad is hardening the sectarian boundaries and implicating the entire Alawite community in the murder of Sunnis, further bonding its fate to his. If the Sunnis retaliate, as he surely must have counted they would, all the better. Some commentators have speculated that by perpetrating these massacres, Assad was trying to reinstate fear in the hearts of his opponents. However, at this point in the game, we are well past that. This is no longer about putting the Sunni genie back in the bottle. Rather, this is about sealing Alawite solidarity and widening the target of Sunni animosity. By covering the collective hands of the Alawite community with Sunni blood, Assad is creating total identity between his family and the broader sect, while simultaneously heightening its existential fears and feeding its primordial hatreds. “It is natural,” one Alawite woman told a reporter from The Telegraph recently, “[T]hey have to defend their sect.” “We have no future, at least not one that is worth looking forward to,” explained an insightful Alawite blogger known as Karfan in 2005. That is exactly what Assad sought to enshrine with the Houla massacre.
The development of non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) within Israel as advocates for the Palestinians which gave Western journalists a ready and credible source which could be used to criticize the Israeli government.
According to Lewis the NGO's are "credible," but he offers no evidence of this. It's just something he takes on faith.
Recently in Amnesty's credibility problem, Gidon Shaviv wrote of two Amnesty International activists, Deborah Hyams and Saleh Hijazi, who have obvious conflicts of interest (not in Israel's favor)
Hyams joined Amnesty in 2010, after a long record of pro-Palestinian activism. In 2001 she volunteered as a “human shield” in Beit Jala, near Bethlehem, to deter Israeli military responses to recurrent gunfire and mortar attacks targeting Jewish civilians in Jerusalem. In a 2002 Washington Jewish Week article, “Hyams said that while she does not condone suicide bombings, she personally believes they ‘are in response to the occupation.’” In another instance she defended the use of violence, stating “occupation is violence… and the consequence of this action must result in violence.” This background precludes any reader of Amnesty’s report from accepting it at face value. As with the case of Hyams, if Amnesty wants to maintain impartiality, it should disqualify Saleh Hijazi from working on Israeli issues. Hijazi, a Palestinian born in Jerusalem and raised in Ramallah, has a clear lack of objectivity in this regard. In 2005, he worked as a Public Relations officer for the Office of the Ministry of Planning in Ramallah and in 2007 he was listed as contact for the NGO “Another Voice” – under the group's signature “Resist! Boycott! We Are Intifada!” Hijazi has a “special” conflict of interest with regards to administrative detention in particular. On March 9, 2011, while as a researcher for Human Rights Watch, he spoke at a UN conference where he described how his father was supposedly arrested by the Israeli authorities “when the Israeli military could not find an activist neighbor.” How can Hijazi be impartial when he is simultaneously claiming to be a victim of the very same country on which he is reporting?
In order to be so cautious, Walzer lists several of the IHL considerations (some of which are discussed above) that any armed force should consider before taking action; and which any organization should examine before declaring that an action, which has resulted in collateral damage, is unlawful.166 Given the many factors that need to be considered in determining whether anaction is proportionate, a case-by-case assessment of TKs is imperative. In light of this requirement, HRW’s sweeping statement alleging that all Israeli TKs are disproportionate, as quoted from HRW’s 2004 World Report, is prima facie incorrect.Indeed, as Walzer states, it appears that HRW is “not making any kind of measured judgment, not even a speculative kind. ‘Disproportionate’ violence for them is simply violence they don’t like, or it is violence committed by people they don’t like.”167 This conclusion is only strengthened when one notes that the actual collateral damage resulting from Israeli TKs is significantly less than that resulting from Western TKs. (Compare the numbers in the Israeli TK section in Appendix A with the numbers in the Western TK section located in Appendix B.) Roth’s statement was made with reference to TKs that resulted in more than “little or no harm to others [civilians].”168 While Roth’s assertion regarding these Israeli TKs may appear reasonable to an uninformed reader, it has no legal basis. The assertion implies that TKs that cause more than “little” harm to civilians automatically violate the central prescripts of IHL – discrimination and proportionality. As we have seen, such a claim is legally unsound.
Despite these records these organizations and others like them are regularly quoted uncritically in the New York Times (and other major media) as if their designation as rights organizations shields them from any scrutiny.
Consider a story that appeared in the New York Times last year, Israel Bans Boycotts Against the State. After a capsule summary of the issue in the second paragraph:
Critics and civil rights groups denounced the new law as antidemocratic and a flagrant assault on the freedom of expression and protest. The law’s defenders said it was a necessary tool in Israel’s fight against what they called its global delegitimization.
... the article later quotes from one such NGO:
The Association for Civil Rights in Israel and other human rights organizations said they were preparing to challenge the law in the High Court of Justice. The association described the law as “an antidemocratic step, intended to create a chilling effect on civil society.” Ilan Gilon, a legislator from the leftist Meretz Party, said, “I do not know of anything that creates more delegitimization of Israel abroad than these laws.” Hagai El-Ad, the executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and other opponents of the law have pointed out that Israelis had recently launched their first successful consumer boycott, bringing down the price of cottage cheese. “Why should Israeli citizens be allowed to boycott Israeli cottage cheese, as we have heard and seen in recent weeks, but be barred from boycotting the occupation?” he said in a recent statement.
It should be pointed out that though the law was passed it hadn't necessarily reached the point of implementation. The law would also be subject to judicial review. Furthermore it wasn't necessarily different from laws on the books in other Western countries. Yet the New York Times treated the passage of the law as an assault on civil rights based on the authority of an NGO!
Under the Palestinian Authority’s Penal Code, a holdover from when Jordan illegally occupied the territories, defamation suspects can be arrested and held in detention for up to six months before they are charged with a crime. Esmat Abdul-Khalik, an al Quds University lecturer and single mother of two, was arrested in late March and held in solitary confinement and denied the possibility of any visits because someone else criticized PA President Mahmoud Abbas on her Facebook page, calling him a traitor and suggesting he resign. Abdul-Khalik is not the only Arab arrested recently for Facebook page activity, at least three others have recently been picked up for daring to criticize members of the government. In September, the director of Radio Bethlehem 2000, George Canawati, was arrested for posting on his Facebook page criticism of the Bethlehem Health Department. Last month the PA judicial and executive authorities determined Canawati will be tried for defamation – a crime punishable by up to two years in prison – in the Magistrate Court of Bethlehem City. The trial was recently adjourned until September. Altogether, nine journalists have been arrested in recent weeks for exposing corruption or making critical remarks about the PA leadership on Facebook, and many others have been summoned for interrogation. When Facebook postings expose government critics to censure, you can be sure that no one will risk filing bona fide media reports about the topic.
And this intimidation is reaching Khaled Abu Toameh, one of the few independent Palestinian journalists who reports on the Palestinian Authority to the West:
So thirty years on, Khaled abu Toameh finds that the path he took away from censorship seems to have doubled back on itself. Rather than walking firmly on the precious path of western iconic freedoms of an unfettered press and uncensored speech, abu Toameh is finding that that road is rotting out beneath his feet. This rare truth-telling journalist is finding it increasingly harder to report the corruption and lack of freedoms in the PA, and as a result our news world is becoming a quieter, but certainly not a better, place. On his own Facebook Page abu Toameh posted this silent cri de coeur: “A campaign of intimidation, harassment, pressure, threats and boycotts has made it impossible for an Arab journalist to work in the Palestinian Authority-controlled territories.”
The Palestinian Authority has asked those countries to freeze his assets and extradite him. “Without doubt the money of the Palestinian people will return to the people, sooner or later,” promised Rafik Natche, head of the Palestinian anti-corruption commission, after the conviction. Anti-corruption campaigners lauded the case as a sign of the maturing of the Palestinian political system, although the probe also appeared to be tinged with political intrigue. Rashid made veiled threats several months ago to disclose purported secrets about the rise to power of Arafat’s successor, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Palestinian watchdogs, while praising growing government vigilance about corruption, expressed concern that investigations are at times being used selectively to settle personal scores.
This isn't an anti-corruption campaign or a sign of vigilance but some sort of grudge match. It is a matter of settling personal scores. Rashid is correct about the "secrets." As Jonathat Schanzer reports in Foreign Policy, in The Brothers Abbas (via Daily Alert)
New details are emerging of how close family members of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas, a major U.S. partner in the Middle East, have grown wealthy. Have they enriched themselves at the expense of regular Palestinians – and even U.S. taxpayers? After Abbas targeted Mohammed Rachid, an economic advisor to the late Yasir Arafat, in a high-profile corruption probe, Rachid fired back with claims that Abbas himself has socked away $100 million in ill-gotten gains. The conspicuous wealth of Abbas’ own sons, Yasser and Tarek, has become a source of quiet controversy in Palestinian society since at least 2009. Yasser owns Falcon Tobacco, which reportedly enjoys a monopoly on the sale of U.S.-made cigarettes in the Palestinian territories, while his engineering company received $1.89 million from USAID in 2005 to build a sewage system in the West Bank town of Hebron. Reuters reported in 2009 that Tarek’s principal enterprise, Sky Advertising, received $1 million in USAID funds to bolster public opinion of the U.S. in the Palestinian territories.
The mainstream media, aside from occasional general statements, has been silent about Abbas's corruption. No NGO criticizes Palestinian corruption or efforts at intimidation. Of course without the latter, the former can't very well get the publicity it deserves.
Yet the very same media and "rights" organizations spare no effort to criticize much lesser efforts by Israel to introduce some element of accountability into the way NGO's operate.
NGO's are "ready" but not "credible," unless they apply universal standards to their criticisms. News media that use them uncritically are not reporting but promoting propaganda against Israel.
In the meantime the Palestinian Authority "shoots the messengers" who would introduce any transparency to the way it operates, and this campaign is largely ignored by those who supposedly care about rights and good governance.
Amnesty and Human Rights Watch go where they're needed
With hundreds of Syrian civilians now being murdered every day by Bashar al-Assad's regime, Amnesty International and 'Human Rights Watch,' the two biggest 'human rights' organizations, are going exactly where they're (not) needed.
The story is either falsified or ancient (or both). But with hundreds of Syrians being murdered a couple of hundred miles from here every day, what does this tweet and the report about which it talks tells us about the priorities of the world's two premier 'human rights groups'?
I think it tells us two things: If the Jews aren't involved, no one gives a damn, and if Muslims kill Muslims no one gives a damn.
Any of my UK readers want to try to get into this event?
Date: Thu 26 January 2012
The event is free and will start at 6.30pm - please ensure you book to reserve your tickets (booking form below).
Ben White is a freelance journalist and writer, specialising in Palestine/Israel. His first book, ‘Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide’, was published by Pluto Press in 2009, receiving praise from the likes of Desmond Tutu, Ilan Pappe, Nur Masalha, and Ali Abunimah. Ben has been regularly visiting the Middle East since 2003 and his articles have appeared in the Guardian online’s ‘Comment is free’, Electronic Intifada, the New Statesman, Christian Science Monitor, Middle East International and many others.
'Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination and Democracy' is the new book by Ben White, and considers an issue neglected by the mainstream “peace process” and many commentators: the Palestinian minority in Israel.
What many in Israel call ‘the demographic problem’ White identifies as ‘the democratic problem’ which goes to the heart of the conflict: Israel's definition not as a state of its citizens, but as a Jewish state.
With a foreword by Member of Knesset Haneen Zoabi, and endorsements by the likes of Prof. Ilan Pappe and Booker Prize-shortlisted author Ahdaf Soueif, White's new book describes how a consistent emphasis on privileging one ethno-religious group over another cannot be seen as compatible with democratic values and that, unless addressed, will undermine any attempts to find a lasting peace.
At this special launch White will talk about the history and policies he covers in his book, field a Q&A, and sell signed copies at a drinks reception after the event.
Amnesty International UK reserves the right to refuse entry to any person for any reason deemed appropriate by us, including (but not exclusively): capacity limitations, intoxication or any conduct that we consider would be disruptive or offensive.
You can bet that last clause (I added the bold print) will be used to try to exclude anyone who is known to be pro-Israel. So if they don't know who you are yet and you're articulate and know how to argue our position....
Hamas and its cohorts fired more than 100 rockets at Israeli civilians since Thursday. One group that has been silent about that rocket fire is one of the world's premiere 'humanitarian' organizations, Amnesty International.
NGO Monitor takes them to task. Prof. Gerald Steinberg, NGO Monitor president, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that “instead of issuing a strong condemnation of the August 18 Palestinian terror attacks, Amnesty International’s statement draws a false equivalence between cold-blooded murder and self defense that targeted those responsible.”
He added that “from Amnesty’s statement, one has no idea that terrorists walked up to a car and brutally murdered the four passengers. Amnesty has immorally treated both the murders and the self-defense response as ‘indiscriminate and disproportionate.’ In obscuring the facts on the ground, Amnesty again makes a complete mockery of international law and human rights values.”
Citing media reports that the assailants were dressed in Egyptian military uniforms and their illegal entry into Egypt and Israel, NGO Monitor said the attacks represent a “violation of international humanitarian law. If the terrorists indeed originated from Gaza, they also violated the sovereignty of both Egypt and Israel, a detail that was also ignored by Amnesty.”
NGO Monitor criticized Amnesty for not condemning “the more than 100 rockets launched from Gaza into Israel over the weekend, killing one and injuring dozens” or acknowledging that “10 of the 13 Palestinians killed were terrorists, and that the other three were with the terrorists at the time of their death.”
When asked about NGO Monitor’s criticisms, Susanna Flood, director of media at the London-based headquarters of AI, wrote the Post on Monday, saying, “We deplore and have repeatedly condemned the firing of indiscriminate rockets from Gaza into southern Israel. We also deplore and condemn killings of Palestinian civilians when these result from indiscriminate attacks by Israeli forces in breach of the laws of war.
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AI titled its news release “Civilians At Risk Amid New Attacks in Gaza and Israel” and the statement did not contain any references to Israel’s right to defend its border against terror attacks.
Steinberg told the Post that “without any evidence, Amnesty officials also imply that Israel is in violation of the prohibition of ‘harming civilians.’ In fact, the evidence demonstrates that Israel’s response was extremely precise – targeting the terrorists responsible for the murderous attacks. In the rush to condemn Israel, Amnesty distorts the events beyond recognition.”
AI has long draw criticism from pro- Israel advocates because of the NGO’s reported bias against Israel and the organization’s association with radical Islamic terrorists. Last year, the head of AI’s Finland branch, Frank Johansson, defended his description of Israel as a “scum state” in an interview with the Post.
Johansson later apologized to Israel’s Ambassador to Finland but was ostensibly not disciplined by AI for his anti-Israel rhetoric.
AI sponsored speaking engagements for Moazzem Begg, whom the United States called “a confirmed member of al-Qaida.”
According to the British daily Telegraph news blogger, Michael Weiss, “now Amnesty has taken the next step in its easy-breezy attitude towards religious fundamentalism.
The celebrated NGO has cozied up to a Hamas-friendly magazine based in London known as Middle East Monitor Online.”
Surprise: NGO's fabricated accusations against Israel during Second Lebanon War
It's been five years since the Second Lebanon War. In fact, five years ago this past weekend, was the Qana incident, which is one of those discussed in the article to which I am about to point you. It's also where the picture at left took place.
Five years is long enough that Professors Avi Bell and Gerald Steinberg have been able to research the claims made by 'human rights' NGO's (principally 'Human Rights Watch' and Amnesty) during the Second Lebanon War. Unsurprisingly, many of the accusations against Israel by those NGO's were fabricated and baseless.
We are now completing a multi-year study of all the HRW and Amnesty allegations regarding the 2006 Lebanon war, and the results so far are shocking. In our systematic and detailed research, supported by the Israel Science Foundation, we found major contradictions as well as numerous unsupported charges, double standards and false or invented “evidence.”
In some reports, such as on incidents in the Shiite towns of Srifa and Qana - Hezbollah strongholds from which numerous rocket attacks were launched - the NGOs published wildly inconsistent civilian casualty claims within a few days of each other. Errors were overwhelmingly in one direction; almost without fail, errors consisted of exaggerated Lebanese casualties or unfounded accusations against Israel.
In many incidents, HRW and Amnesty reports initially relied both on Lebanese witnesses and the personal observations of its own “researchers” to deny any Hezbollah military presence in the area of an Israeli strike, while later publications acknowledged that Hezbollah had been present, meaning the witnesses had lied and the NGO researchers were incompetent. Regarding Srifa, even after reducing the number of reported Lebanese casualties from “at least 42” to 26 to 19 before finally settling on 22, HRW found itself forced by critics and the evidence to eventually acknowledge that most of the “civilian” casualties it had “documented” were, in fact, Hezbollah combatants.
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Indeed, in all of the incidents, the lack of reliable sources of information for the HRW and Amnesty accusations against Israel stands out. In each case, it is clear that when HRW and Amnesty issued their initial condemnations of Israel, usually within a few hours of the incident, the organizations had little or no information about the central issues of military necessity and the nature of casualties. And later reports with altered condemnations were based more on conjecture than substantive research.
The most blatant example was the incident in Qana, where Israel responded to heavy Hezbollah rocket attacks with an air raid. One of the buildings was hit and collapsed, causing a number of deaths and injuries. Within hours, HRW blasted a press release in which Executive Director Ken Roth claimed that the "Israeli military is treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone, relating to the strike on Qana, killing at least 54 civilians, more than half of them children." HRW then launched a campaign charging Israel with war crimes, with nine separate “reports” and op-eds, as well as press conferences.
HRW’s campaign was echoed in media headlines, creating intense international pressure, and leading Prime Minister Olmert to declare a “48-hour suspension of aerial activity pending an investigation...” A unilateral halt in military action due to unverified NGO allegations was unprecedented, allowed Hezbollah forces to regroup, prolonging the war, and probably costing many lives.
Yet, as our research reveals, HRW had no credible evidence for its claims. Roth, HRW researcher Lucy Mair (who had written propaganda for Electronic Intifada before joining HRW) and others far from the battleground, had inflated civilian casualty claims and erased the Hezbollah attacks that constituted the real war crimes as well as legal justification for Israeli actions. To create the façade of “fact finding”, the initial HRW statement referred to “researchers” in Lebanon, but they provided no names or means to verify HRW’s claims. Later reports either provided no sources or attributed allegations to “witnesses” who could well have been Hezbollah allies or operatives. The allegations that Israel had criminally and deliberately bombed Lebanese civilians were unsourced and false.
As the contradictions emerged, HRW’s Mair admitted that the Lebanese Red Cross had reported 28 dead, including Hezbollah “martyrs,” but HRW chose to continue its false accusations against Israel.
12 'human rights' groups agree: Gilad Shalit should remain a hostage
Twelve 'human rights' groups issued a statement on Friday to mark Gilad Shalit's five years in captivity. Would you believe they did not call for his release?
If a better example of the utter moral collapse of the human rights community exists, it would be hard to find. The statement is one of passionless brevity — just a few sentences long — and expresses no opinion on the standing of Hamas, or on its 2006 raid into Israel, or on the legitimacy of its goals and methods. Remarkably, it doesn’t even demand the release of Gilad Shalit. The most that this allegedly courageous and principled human rights community could bring itself to say to the terrorists of Hamas is that they should improve the conditions of Shalit’s imprisonment. You can read the statement on Human Rights Watch’s website.
This was not what I had in mind when I hinted that 'peace activist' Vittorio Arrigoni may have been murdered for sleeping with someone. And while I always assumed that Amnesty International (and Human Rights Watch) are in bed with the terrorists in Gaza, I didn't really think it might literally be the case. But in the case of Amnesty, it is. Claudia Milani (pictured at left), whose position has been described on an Amnesty website as "“Israel / Occupied Territories Co-ordinator of the Italian section of Amnesty International,” was Vittorio Arrigoni's live-in girlfriend, and accepted condolences at a condolence tent after his death as per Muslim custom.
Milani and Arrigoni were very close. So close that she has been described in the Italian media as “Arrigoni’s girlfriend”.
Here she “receives condolences” for Arrigoni in Gaza. The man at the end of the row appears to be violent thug and lunatic Ken O’Keefe, a comrade of Arrigoni.
I trust that Arrigoni's Jew-hating views had on influence whatsoever on any of Amnesty's findings regarding Israel during his time in Gaza. None at all.
'Human Rights Watch' tries to absolve itself from Goldstone
Now that Richard Goldstone has kinda sorta retracted his accusation that Israel targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead, 'Human Rights Watch' is piling on, trying to claim that they never claimed Israel targeted civilians in Operation Cast Lead.
David Bernstein has analyzed 'Human Rights Watch's statements regarding Operation Cast Lead. As he puts it,
[T]he question is whether a reasonable observer, having read all of these statements and more, “would conclude that HRW publicly and loudly agreed with the premise that Israel deliberately targeted civilians during Operation Cast Lead.” Indeed, if all we are talking about is whether some rogue units or soldiers acted contrary to Israeli policy, and whether Israel could have achieved its military objectives with less damage to civilian infrastructure, it’s hard to see why HRW has devoted report after report to Operation Cast Lead, treating it as if it was the great human rights crime of the 21st century.
Where are 'Human Rights Watch' and Amnesty International?
How many Tomohawk missiles dropped by Israel on Gaza City do you all think it would take before 'Human Rights Watch' and Amnesty International would be kicking and screaming? Why are they silent now?
Oh. Silly me. This is non-Jews killing non-Jews. Nothing to see here.
And that's not to say that I'm sorry to see Gadhafi get it....
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
