David Singer: "Kerry Oblivious to Demise of Palestinian Authority"

The latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer is titled "Palestine – Kerry Oblivious To Demise Of Palestinian Authority".

Writes David Singer:

US Secretary of State John Kerry and the US State Department continue to cling to the illusion that the Palestinian Authority still exists – despite PLO insistence that it does not following this Decree on 3 January 2013:

Decree No. 1 for the year 2013

On the use of the name of the State of Palestine and its emblem on letterheads, seals and related official documents

President of the State of Palestine

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization

Based on the Statute of the Palestine Liberation Organization

And after reviewing the Fundamental Law of 2003, as amended

Based on the Resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations No. GA 11317, deciding to upgrade the status of Palestine to the status of observer state in the United Nations Organization.

Based on the recommendations of the Palestinian Committee in charge of the steps to be taken in this regard, and based on the powers vested in us, and in conformity with the public interest,

We decided the following:

Article (1)

Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads of the Palestinian National Authority official and national institutions shall be amended by replacing the name 'Palestinian National Authority' whenever it appears by the name 'State of Palestine' and by adopting the emblem of the State of Palestine. The relevant authorities shall be in charge of monitoring the implementation of this Decree, taking into account the requirements of use.

Article (2)

Official documents, seals, signs and letterheads in the embassies of the State of Palestine and its missions abroad shall be amended by keeping the name 'State of Palestine' and emblem only and the name of 'mission' afterwards. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs shall be in charge of implementing these amendments. Dealing with States who do not recognize the State of Palestine shall also be taken into consideration.

Article (3)

No amendment shall be made to the name and emblem in official documents, seals, letterheads and signs of the institutions of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Article (4)

All competent authorities, each in their respective area, shall implement the provisions of this Decree starting from its date. This Decree shall be notified to those it may concern and shall be published in the Official Gazette.

Mahmoud Abbas

President of the State of Palestine

Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization

[Translated from Maan News].

Kerry and the State Department’s inability to appreciate this major change in PLO policy became very apparent following Kerry’s visit to Paris last week to meet “President of the State of Palestine” and “Chairman of the Executive Committee of the PLO” – Mahmoud Abbas.

The State Department web site described Kerry’s visit in these terms:

“In Paris, Secretary Kerry will meet with Palestinian Authority President Abbas to discuss the ongoing negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis.” 

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in Abu Dhabi – where Kerry was meeting United Arab Emirate officials:

"Secretary Kerry will meet with Palestinian Authority President Abbas in Paris, France on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis"

 Lebanon’s Daily Star – obviously embarrassed to report such Kerry and State Department nonsense – went so far as to deliberately hide Psaki’s reference to the Palestinian Authority:

“State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed the meeting, saying they would "discuss the ongoing negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis".

Wily long time PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat was, however, prepared to let Kerry wander along his path of blissful ignorance with these amazing remarks reported in Xinhua:

“A Palestinian official warned on Monday that the failure of the current Palestinian-Israeli peace talks will lead to the collapse of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

The failure of negotiations means that things will go back to zero point," chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erikat told the official Voice of Palestine radio.

This may lead Israel to reoccupy the Palestinian territories and thus the PNA will collapse," he said, adding that the PNA will approach the international organizations including the International Criminal Court (ICC) to sue the state of Israel if the talks do not succeed.

It is the first time a Palestinian official warns of a possible collapse of the PNA if the US-backed negotiations fail.”

Marie Harf, Deputy State Department Spokesman – in her daily press briefing on 19 February – still thought Kerry was meeting with the Palestinian Authority Chairman – the party to negotiations with Israel under the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap:

“Today, Secretary Kerry is in Paris, where he has had meetings with French Foreign Minister Fabius and Jordanian Foreign Minister Judeh. Later tonight, he’s scheduled to meet with Palestinian Authority President Abbas.”

Kerry’s Public Schedule maintained the fiction for 20 February:
“2:00 p.m. LOCAL Secretary Kerry meets with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, in Paris, France.” 

This picture, this picture and this picture on the State Department website – recording photo-ops with “Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas” – clearly indicate that Kerry is unaware that:

1. The Palestinian Authority no longer exists
2. The State of Palestine exists on the soil of Palestine
3. The Palestinian Arabs are no longer stateless or homeless
4. Negotiations under Oslo and the Roadmap have become meaningless

Kerry and the State Department will have a lot of explaining to do if his framework agreement fails to take these crucial PLO changes into account.

“Kerry cops caning” would make an excellent headline.'

Antisemitism in its Broadest Sense, Vicar?

Pro-Israel Christians in London

In a letter to the Church of England Newspaper, headed "The real antisemitism of today", Jeremy Moodey, CEO of the Israel-bashing NGO Embrace the Middle East (formerly BibleLands), has noted, inter alia:

"Many Jewish people feel that criticism of the State of Israel is intrinsically antisemitic, especially when Israel is singled out as being the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Since such criticism has increased in recent years, particularly in the context of Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories, the humanitarian crisis caused by its blockade of Gaza, and the seemingly relentless expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, it may follow in the minds of some Jewish people that antisemitism is on the increase."

Pro-Israel non-Jews in Australia

The perception that Mr Moodey identifies (and with which he disagrees) is of course one that has been articulated in recent days by Binyamin Netanyahu, when he said:

"In the past anti-Semites boycotted Jewish businesses and today they call for the boycott of the Jewish state, and by the way, only the Jewish state.  I think that it is important that the boycotters be exposed for what they are, they are classical anti-Semites in modern garb."

 On Facebook Mr Moodey had expressed exasperation with the newspaper over the fact that his letter had appeared in the newspaper somewhat truncated, which prompted his friend the Reverend Stephen Sizer, in linking to Moodey's letter on the Embrace the Middle East website to write:

"I gave up on the CEN for news on the Middle East a long while ago - apart from Jeremy's articles and the occasional letter. Very sad."

Soon afterwards, on the same thread, Sizer added his ten cents' worth on the nature of antisemitism:

Many Jewish people feel that criticism of the State of Israel is intrinsically antisemitic, especially when Israel is singled out as being the main obstacle to peace in the Middle East. Since such criticism has increased in recent years, particularly in the context of Israel’s continued occupation of the Palestinian territories, the humanitarian crisis caused by its blockade of Gaza, and the seemingly relentless expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, it may follow in the minds of some Jewish people that antisemitism is on the increase. - See more at: http://www.embraceme.org/blog/real-antisemitism-today#sthash.en7hD7Nf.dpufMoodey is not best pleased, since the editor of the said newspaper truncated his letter. Reverend Stephen Sizer has treated his Facebook followers to a brief disquisition on antisemitism.

"Antisemitism in its broadest sense is real. It is latent in much political rhetoric and religious conviction and it is explicit in the agenda of groups like the BNP and EDL. But diluting the term to include BDS or legitimate criticism of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians will only lead to complacency. Racism is evil in what ever guise it manifests itself."

It's noteworthy that he makes no mention of Islamic antisemitism, which as we know is rife and deep-seated, and of ancient lineage.  Perhaps this omission is not surprising, given that the Reverend Sizer seems to have many Muslim allies in his crusade (as it were!) against Christian Zionism; indeed, I gather that he attended the "Islamophobia" Awards ceremony, an IHRC fund-raising event that took place at the Holiday Inn, Wembley, on Friday evening.

But let's come back to that thread:

Does the vicar condone the distasteful remarks of/links from some of his followers?  Does he regard  as "antisemitism in its broadest sense" comments such as these, all, coincidentally, by ladies (though examples by male followers also abound):

(Update: that's an example of one from a male made after this post was published)

The Truth About The UN: Explaining its hypocritical hatred for Israel (video)

Israel is fortunate to have a communicator of the calibre of former deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon.  In this newly uploaded video the personable Mr Ayalon summarises what's wrong with the Israel-demonising UN, and how it got that way.

To quote the uploader:

"Ambassador Danny Ayalon spreads the truth about the UN. Hypocrisy and cynicism have taken over the United Nations, the delegitimization perpetrators and Israel boycotters take advantage of the UN's image as an advocate of human rights in order to pass anti-Israeli resolutions which attempt to isolate Israel. It is important to spread the truth that the UN has been transformed into a political arena by undemocratic states who trample on human rights, and UN resolutions must be treated accordingly".

Of course, for an on-going in-depth analysis of the UN's odious attitude towards Israel, UNWatch and its videos are required reading and viewing.

Spain's Citizenship Offer to Sephardim: Muslims demand parity

Welcoming Spain's offer of Spanish citizenship to the descendants of Jews who were expelled from the country by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, the founder and chairman of Shavei Israel/Israel Returns (motto: "Find our lost brethren") notes in the Jerusalem Post  inter alia:

'[I]n recent years, Spain has focused its efforts primarily in the direction of tourism and commerce, such as encouraging the creation of a network of “Juderias,” or Jewish quarters, throughout the country to appeal to Jewish tourists.

And there is no doubt that an economic rationale also lies behind the new law on citizenship.

Spain has suffered enormously since the global financial crisis hit in 2008. Its current unemployment rate is 25 percent, a growing number of young people are emigrating and the country endured a double-dip recession from which it is only now beginning to emerge.

The prospect of forging anew a link with potentially millions of people of Sephardi ancestry, and the possible windfall that might ensue as a result of increased investment and tourism, was surely not lost on the decision-makers in Madrid when considering the citizenship bill.

And that, of course, is what makes this development so decidedly ironic: the Expulsion happened in part because Spain wanted the Jews’ assets, and now they are welcoming Jews back for the same reason.

Nonetheless, regardless of their motivations, the governments in Madrid and Lisbon are to be commended for the gesture. These are historic moves, signifying that tangible steps are at last being taken to address the injustices that were perpetrated on Iberian Jewry in the 15th century.

Coming at a time of rising anti-Semitism across Europe, it is refreshing to see European states making an effort to welcome Jews so openly.

This sends a strong signal to other countries on the continent, and underlines how Europe’s historical connection with the Jewish people truly does stretch back over the centuries....' [Emphasis added]

Portugal, which expelled its Jews in 1497, has a similar law to the one Spain has introduced, and the prospect of acquiring Iberian citizenship is reportedly proving irresistible to many Sephardim, including Israelis and yordim (a fact which has not been lost on anti-Israel fanatics on social media, who envisage a mass exodus of people of such a background out of the Zionist Entity).

It's entirely natural that people whose ancestors left the Iberian peninsula under terrible duress should welcome the posthumous defeat for Ferdinand and Isabella that the legislation provides.

But if such people expect to re-enter a Golden Age for Iberian Jewry such as existed in medieval Spain pre-Expulsion they may be disappointed.  For not every Spaniard is a Jose Maria Aznar, that staunch friend of Israel and Jewry, as this report on antisemitism in Spain indicates. (For Portugal see here)

Meanwhile, Spanish Muslim voices, claiming that the new legislation in favour of Jews is discriminatory, are demanding a comparable right of return, and they have their supporters. 

Reports Ha'aretz:

'Spanish Muslims are urging their government to grant citizenship to descendants of Muslims who were expelled from Spain, following a bill granting that right to Jews whose ancestors were forced to leave during the Inquisition.

The demand was made this week in a statement by the Association for Historical Legacy of Al-Andalus, the Spanish news agency EFE reported on February 17.

“The Spanish state should grant the same rights to all those who were expelled, otherwise their decision is selective, if not racist,” Bayi Loubaris, the association’s president, told EFE.

The association named several families currently residing in North Africa as candidates for receiving Spanish citizenship.

Several other prominent Muslims and legal experts accused the Spanish government of pursuing a double standard following the approval on February 10 of a bill proposing to naturalize descendants of Sephardic Jews, which the governments said was to atone for the expulsions 500 years ago....

“Recognition of the Sephardic community is symbolic, necessary and just. The same applies to those who have kept their Andalus-Moorish identity in exile,” Manuel Antonio Rodríguez, a professor of law at the University of Cordoba, told the El Confidencial daily on Sunday.

In 2006, the United Left party in the parliament of the autonomous Spanish region of Andalusia submitted a bill which proposed recognizing the rights of descendants of Muslims who were expelled but the bill never made it to a vote.'

Portugal has rejected such demands:

'Portuguese lawmakers who drafted the country’s law on Sephardic Jews rejected calls to naturalize the descendants of Muslims who were expelled, citing the fact that the expulsion of the Muslims was part of a war to end the occupation of Spain by North African invaders.

“Persecution of Jews was just that, while what happened with the Arabs was part of a conflict,” Jose Ribeiro e Castro, a Spanish lawmaker who drafted Portugal’s law of return, said. ”There’s no basis for comparison.”

As for Spain, read this and meditate ...

Nice One, Professor!

Here's a nice anecdote that Israeli Barry Shaw (author of this highly recommended resource) has shared on Facebook:

"Nobel Prize winner, Dan Schechtman, candidate to be Israel's next president visited Sweden to give a lecture.

 At the end he was asked about Israel's attitude to her Arab population.

 In response he asked if it were true that Finns constituted about 10% of Sweden's population.

 He then asked if Finnish is an official language in Sweden as Arabic us in Israel? Negative answer.

 He then asked if there were any programs in Sweden to enable the Finnish community to develop? Again, a negative answer.

 Professor Schechman then enlightened his audience of the special projects in Israel for our minority populations.

Surprising how hypocritically critical some superior-minded people can be in Europe."

For  more on Professor Schechtman's presidential bid see here

"These Jews Are A Danger To The Jewish People": Steyn on those who avoid 'the "M" word'

London calling!

Nominations for the annual "Islamophobia" Awards are in, and include predictable  and not so predictable names.

Among the predictable nominees are Geert Wilders, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, Daniel Greenfield, Douglas Murray, and Daniel Pipes.

Among the less unpredictable are Barack Obama, Aussie Prime Minister Tony Abbott, and Aussie Senator Cory Bernardi, the latter "for claiming that Christianity is under siege from both the political Greens party and the religion of Islam"; (streuth! wherever did the senator get that idea?).

And again ...

The Awards event has received some warm and fuzzy messages of support from, among others, a non-Muslim female professor (how heart-warming it is that a high-powered woman can overlook the horrendous amount of sexual grooming by Muslim gangs preying on underage non-Muslim girls that's been occurring in Britain lately; if only the pesky tabloid press which insists on reporting the grooming would do the same!), from the former Archbishop of Canterbury, that druidic-looking bloke who once described as inevitable the adoption of aspects of sharia law by Britain (does Rowan Williams not realise that  his fellow-Christians are suffering persecution and death at the hands of Islamists in the Middle East?), and from an academic of Jewish birth who's been one of the official denouncers of Israel on "Al Quds Day" in Londonistan.

In New York City

The UK-based nominees include "Raheem Kasaam (Student Rights), for demonising Muslims on issue of gender segregation" (yep, don't let the rights of those uppity members of the inferior sex who demand the right to sit where they please in the public space of the secular academy get in the way of a good whinge) and MEP "Gerard Batten, for saying British muslims should sign charter rejecting violence" (bit rich that, eh?; I mean, doesn't Batten realise that Islam is a religion of peace?)

One man missing from the list of nominees is  Canadian columnist Mark Steyn, whose insightful articles on the danger posed by militant Islam to Jews, Israel, and to western democracy used to grace the London Daily Telegraph and, as I have remarked before, are much missed.

Mr Steyn may have made the list had his no-holds-barred attack on soon-to-retire long-serving ADL chief Abe Foxman not narrowly missed Friday's deadline for nominations (results will be announced from London on the 21st of this month).

California dreaming

What's infuriated Mr Steyn is Mr Foxman's Islam-free contention that  "nationalists, anti-government people, neo-fascists, neo-Nazis of anti-immigration and anti-government" are driving present-day antisemitism.

Writes Steyn, inter alia, of  Foxman and Jewish communal leaders like him, who fail to give Muslim judeophobes their due share of the blame:

"These Jews are a danger to the Jewish people.

Their denial is so thick and so amoral that it is difficult sometimes to find the words to express my utter disgust and contempt.

By fighting the last war against the German Nazis over and over in their heads, they endanger living Jews. But they will never learn...."

He continues:

'I would like Foxman to go to Toulouse, a city the size of Jacksonville, Florida, where in recent years one synagogue has been firebombed, another set alight when two burning cars were driven into it, a third burgled and "Dirty Jews" scrawled on the ark housing the Torah, where a kosher butcher's was strafed with gunfire, and a Jewish sports association attacked with Molotov cocktails, and three Jewish children murdered outside their grade school, I would like Foxman to go to Toulouse and tell any Jew he finds there (they are advised by their rabbis not to wear identifying marks of their faith) that it's all the work of "anti-government people".

I would like him to go to Malmö - once the first Christian city in Norway and soon to be the first Muslim city in Sweden - and tell such Jews as he can find (they are abandoning the city) that the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and the ugly reinforced steel doors at the Jewish kindergarten and the rocket-proof glass in the windows of the synagogue are all the fault of "neo-Nazis". Sweden is renowned for its neo-Nazis, isn't it? Doubtless they were the reason why a year or two back at the Davis Cup the Israeli tennis players had to play their match behind closed doors, in a Baltiska Hallen stadium without a single spectator. For had they opened the doors, the seats would have filled up with Swedish "nationalists" and Swedish "neo-fascists" and all hell would have broken loose.

I would like Abe Foxman to go to Tower Hamlets in London's East End, where on Holocaust Memorial Day a couple of years ago a visiting New Yorker had to be taken to the Royal London Hospital in Whitechapel after a Jewish tour group was pelted with stones by a group jeering "If you go any further, you'll die." I would like Foxman to tell those Jews that their attackers were an "anti-immigration" group.

I would like him to go to Villiers-le-Bel, where a Jewish girl was brutally attacked by a gang shouting "Jews must die!", or to Odense, where the headmaster says his school can no longer take Jewish pupils for security reasons, and tell them it's the fault of Danish "nationalists" and French "neo-Nazis".

But I don't suppose Abe Foxman will go anywhere outside his bubble, will he? Is it really too much to expect him somewhere in that long laundry list of antiquated irrelevances to utter the "M" word? ...'

 Read Mark Steyn's entire screed here

"An Hamas terrorist has more rights inside Israel than a Palestinian in Jordan": An Arab in exile slams the BDSers

Mudar Zahran is a writer and dissident of Palestinian background from Jordan who having fallen foul of the Hashemite regime was obliged to seek asylum in London, where he's lived since 2010.

Mr Zahran is described in this interesting article as

"a secular Jordanian pro-democracy activist of Palestinian heritage that supports peace with Israel and often refers to the Faisal Wiesel Agreement by which Arabs were to turn 78 percent of historic Palestine—-today’s Jordan—into their homeland. He claims that he is well-heard and followed in Jordan, noting many incidents, for example when he called for them not to protest against the Israeli Embassy in Amman, and as he notes, the Washington Post reported less than 200 people showed up for the Jordanian government-backed anti-Israel protest."

In an interview with Canadian broadcaster Jamie Glazov  (managing editor of FrontPageMagazine), the admirable Mr Zahran has been talking a great deal of sense not only about the Kerry Peace Plan (it would, he fears, mean Israel's erasure from the map), but about the status of Palestinians in Jordan compared with their far better status in Israel, and the antisemitic nature of the Israel-is-an-apartheid-state slur.

He labels "a huge disgrace" the fact that western Israel-haters portray Israel as an apartheid state and seek to boycott it, yet (in that characteristically hypocritical way of theirs) are silent regarding the treatment of Palestinians in Jordan:

"An Hamas terrorist has more rights inside Israel than a Palestinian in Jordan"

He asks rhetorically why the BDSers do not target Islamic universities which deny education to women, and adds that antisemitism drives the western anti-Israel movement.

Denouncing both Hamas and the Palestinian authority, he notes that his relatives in Jerusalem like living under "Israeli prosperity".

There are several videos on YouTube featuring Mr Zahran ("a very brave man, a truth teller", as Jamie Glazov describes him.

See the interview that I've briefly described here

 (Hat tip: Vlad Tepes blog)

On the apartheid smear, great article here