David Singer: Palestine – A Stone’s Throw Away From Syria

Here is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

'It boggles the imagination that Australia’s national broadcaster the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) could have been involved in a joint investigation between its premier Public Affairs show – Four Corners – and one of Australia’s leading newspapers – The Australian – in producing a 45 minute television documentary – "Stone Cold Justice" – examining the treatment of Palestinian children in Israel’s military court system.

ABC News announced that:

“Children are being intimidated and forced into false confessions by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank, according to allegations to be broadcast tonight on the ABC's Four Corners program.

A joint investigation between Four Corners and The Australian newspaper has examined the treatment of Palestinian children in Israel's military court system. Four Corners looks at claims the Israeli army is arresting hundreds of Palestinian children during night raids for alleged crimes, such as throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and settlers.

Israel's security services have also been accused by lawyers and youth workers of using Palestinian children to gather intelligence.”

The news item went on to reveal that:

“700 Palestinian children [are] detained each year by the Israeli army…”

Any allegations concerning the mistreatment or abuse of children should be vigorously questioned and exposed – but the allocation of substantial resources by the Australian taxpayer funded ABC to investigate allegations that relate to 700 children a year in the West Bank must be seriously questioned.

There are certainly far more serious abuses being suffered by children – most notably in Syria for the last three years – that deserve detailed investigation by national broadcasters like the ABC.

The impotency of the United Nations and its “humanitarian” agencies in allowing inhumane outcomes for children resulting from member states either backing the Assad regime or those seeking to overthrow it – has been starkly revealed in a report, “Under Siege: The devastating impact on children of three years of conflict in Syria” – issued by UNICEF this week

The Report reveals that:

1. Since March 2013, the number of children affected by the crisis in Syria has more than doubled from 2.3 million to more than 5.5 million.

2. The number of children displaced inside Syria has more than tripled from 920,000 to almost 3 million.

3. The number of child refugees has more than quadrupled from 260,000 to more than 1.2 million. Of these children, 425,000 are under the age of five

4. One in 10 children – over 1.2 million – have fled the country to become refugees in neighbouring countries. And these numbers are rising every day. By the end of January 2014, 37,498 Syrian children had been born as refugees.

5. As of January 2014, more than 10,000 children have lost their lives to Syria’s violence reflecting a blatant disregard for civilian lives by all sides to the conflict. Most have reportedly died in the last 24 months - and there is evidence that children are being directly targeted.

6. Boys as young as 12 have been recruited to support the fighting, some in actual combat, others to work as informers, guards, or arms smugglers

7. According to a recent UN report, children as young as 11 are being detained with adults. In some cases, they are being subjected to torture and sexual abuse to humiliate them, force confessions, or pressure relatives to surrender

8. According to UN field estimates- one in ten refugee children is thought to be working – whether as cheap labour on farms, in cafes and car repair shops or as beggars on city streets.

9. Malnutrition and dangerous vitamin and mineral deficiencies – so-called “hidden hunger” - have been slowly undermining children’s ability to develop and thrive over the last three years.

10. Since the confirmation of a polio outbreak in the governorate of Deir Ezzour in October 2013, 25 cases of the disease have been confirmed in the north and east of the country. Despite a massive immunization programme since - polio remains a threat, especially to an estimated 323,000 children under the age of five in areas under siege or that are hard-to-reach

Australia currently occupies a seat on the United Nations Security Council – positioning it to take a lead role in demanding that an armed UN force be sent to Syria to implement an imposed cease fire to end this mayhem and slaughter – if the warring parties do not agree on a cease fire within a specified time frame.

If Australia’s national broadcaster has been moved to investigate the abuse of 700 children in the West Bank – surely it should be similarly motivated to produce a series of 45 minute documentaries interviewing UNICEF officials and those on the front line in Syria named in UNICEF’s report detailing the abuses being visited on 5.5 million children.

Indeed, all national broadcasters – especially in those democratic countries forming part of the “The Friends of Syria Core Group of countries – the ‘London 11’” – the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey – should be actively demanding a cease fire to end the suffering of these innocent children.

The other members of the London 11 – Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates must be prepared to join such an international force to end this genocidal assault on Arab children.

Russia, Iran and Hezbollah need to accept such a cease fire immediately.

The world must intervene without further delay.Syria is only a stone’s throw away from the West Bank – not on another planet.'

" Israel Has Paradoxically Saved The Palestinian National Movement From Complete Oblivion": Middle East scholar

Fancy a scholarly, footnoted, but eminently readable overview of Arab culpability for the plight of those of their people known, as the result of one of the most brilliant propagandistic rebrandings in history, as "The Palestinians"?

Then look no further than this article by the always interesting Professor Efraim Karsh, in the Spring 2014 issue of the Middle East Quarterly, of which he is editor.

Here are some morsels to whet the appetite:

'.... Had Israel lost the [1948-49] war, its territory would have been divided among the invading Arab forces. The name Palestine would have vanished into the dustbin of history. By surviving the pan-Arab assault, Israel has paradoxically saved the Palestinian national movement from complete oblivion.  [Emphasis added here and below]

Having helped drive the Palestinians to national ruin, the Arab states continued to manipulate the Palestinian national cause to their own ends. Neither Egypt nor Jordan allowed Palestinian self-determination in the parts of Palestine they occupied during the 1948 war. Upon occupying the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria, [Jordan's King] Abdullah moved to erase all traces of corporate Palestinian Arab identity.  On April 4, 1950, the territory was formally annexed to Jordan to be subsequently known as the "West Bank" of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. Its residents became Jordanian citizens, and they were increasingly integrated into the kingdom's economic, political, and social structures. And while Egypt showed no desire to annex the occupied Gaza Strip, this did not imply support of Palestinian nationalism or of any sort of collective political awareness among the Palestinians.

 The refugees were kept under oppressive military rule, were denied Egyptian citizenship, and were subjected to severe restrictions on travel. "The Palestinians are useful to the Arab states as they are," President Gamal Abdel Nasser candidly responded to an enquiring Western reporter. "We will always see that they do not become too powerful. Can you imagine yet another nation on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean!" Had these territories not come under Israel's control during the June 1967 war, their populations would have lost whatever vestiges of Palestinian identity they retained since 1948. For the second time in two decades, Israel unwittingly salvaged the Palestinian national cause....

The political manipulation of the Palestinian cause was mirrored by the dismal treatment of the Palestinian refugees based in Arab states since the 1948 war. Far from being welcomed, the new arrivals were seen as an unpatriotic and cowardly lot who had shamefully abdicated their national duty while expecting others to fight on their behalf, and this attitude was entrenched and institutionalized over time. Yet with their desire to offload their Palestinian guests matched by the lingering dream of Israel's destruction, the Arab states as well as the Palestinian leadership rejected U.N. General Assembly resolution 194 of December 11, 1948, which conditioned repatriation on the attainment of comprehensive peace and partial refugee resettlement in the host Arab states. The resolution's subsequent transformation into the cornerstone of an utterly spurious claim to a "right of return" has only served to perpetuate the refugee problem as the Arab states used this "right" as a pretext to prevent Palestinian assimilation into their societies in anticipation of their eventual return to their homeland....

Not only have the host Arab states marginalized and abused their Palestinian guests, but they have not shrunk from massacring them on a grand scale whenever this suited their needs....

Much has been made of the Palestinian exodus of 1948, but during their decades of dispersal, the Palestinians have been subjected to similarly traumatic ordeals at the hands of their Arab brothers....

....Self-serving interventionism under the pretence of pan-Arab solidarity has transformed the bilateral Palestinian-Israeli dispute into a multilateral Arab-Israeli conflict, thereby stirring unrealistic hopes and expectations in Palestinian political circles and, at key junctures, inciting widespread and horrifically destructive violence.

 The consequence has been to increase the intensity of the conflict and make its resolution far more complex and tortuous, leaving the Palestinians stateless for over six-and-a-half decades.

The sooner the Palestinians reject this spurious link and recognize that their cause is theirs alone, the sooner are they likely to make their own peace with the existence of the Jewish state—as stipulated by the 1947 partition resolution—and win their own state at long last despite their Arab "brothers."'

"Islam Has Given Us This Wish, Capacity & Power To Destroy the Zionist Regime": Terrible Talk from Teheran

Reports the Teharan-based Fars News Agency:

'Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami underlined that Iranian military commanders are prepared to attack and destroy the Zionist regime of Israel as soon as they receive such an order.

“Today, we can destroy every spot which is under the Zionist regime's control with any volume of fire power (that we want) right from here,” Salami said, addressing a conference in Tehran on Tuesday dubbed ‘the Islamic World's Role in the Geometry of the World Power’.

“Islam has given us this wish, capacity and power to destroy the Zionist regime so that our hands will remain on the trigger from 1,400km away for the day when such an incident (confrontation with Israel) takes place,” he added.

Salami reminded that Iran is not the only country which enjoys such a capability, as even the artilleries of a number of other (Muslim) countries can also target and attack the Zionist regime today.

In relevant remarks in November, Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei warned Iran’s enemies to avoid even thinking of any aggressive move against the country, stressing that the Iranian Armed Forces are ready to give such a crushing response to any threat that aggressors will never forget.

Addressing 50,000 Basij (volunteer force) commanders in Tehran, Ayatollah Khamenei pointed to the preparedness of Iran’s military forces, and said, “The response of the Iranian nation to any foreign aggression will be regrettable for the enemy.”

The Supreme Leader underlined that the increasing threats by the enemy show that the US-led western sanctions have not been effective and they have understood it themselves.

Addressing the arrogant powers, Ayatollah Khamenei said, “Instead of threatening other countries, go and deal with your wretched economic conditions and think of you debts.”

The Supreme Leader underlined that the Zionist regime has been imposed on the region, "Anything that is gained with force will not last long and this regime will not last either."

Also in December, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari underlined that Iran will give a crushing response to any possible aggressor.

Major General Jafari deplored the US president’s repeated rhetoric of “military option against Iran is on the table, as “ludicrous” and said, “Repetition of such an absurd sentence by the officials of the US and the fake and evil Zionist regime (of Israel) sounds funny to the Iranian nation.”

The IRGC commander went on to say that the US or Israeli officials are totally incapable of taking any military action against Iran, but at the same time affirmed that any “stupid measure” by the enemies would compel Iran to consider the options it has on the table.

“Lots of options are on the table for Iran, and they (enemies) will receive crushing responses, one of which would be elimination of the Zionist regime,” he warned.'

 Another article guaranteed to induce a restful night's sleep here

"Mr Obama, Get A Backbone ..." (video)

Here's a brief new video, the creator of which comments in uploading it to YouTube:

"World dictators love President Obama's foreign policies. Russia can now invade the Ukraine and Iran sends missiles to Hamas. At the same time the USA is easing sanctions on Iran, encouraging it to test the West."

As for the threat to Israel from Iran, see here and here

The Christ at the Checkpoint Conference Roundly Denounced

Yes, the vicar's there, naturally ...

Well, here it is again, albeit in a deliberately  somewhat truncated version, the post of mine that mysteriously disappeared not long after I posted it a few hours ago:

The latest Christ at the Checkpoint Conference is taking place now, and NGO Monitor's BDS in the Pews initiative has produced a downloadable document exposing the Christ at the Checkpoint events, the main points of which are summarised thus:

 •Christ at the Checkpoint Conference (CATC) is a bi-annual event held in Bethlehem, launched in 2010 and organized by Bethlehem Bible College and the Holy Land Trust.  The second CATC conference was held in 2012, and another will take place March 10-14, 2014.

•Bethlehem Bible College (BBC) and partner Holy Land Trust (HLT) have been directly and indirectly funded by the governments of the United States, the Netherlands, UK, EU, and prominent religious institutions.

•CATC seeks to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical Christian churches, while simultaneously reviving theological antisemitic themes such as replacement theology.

•At previous conferences, multiple speakers made antisemitic comments, such as “God is continuing to have a program with the Jewish people who Paul describes as enemies of the Gospel…” and “Jesus is the true vine, not Israel. He is the faithful Israelite who will accomplish all that the nation of Israel failed to do.”  Other anti-Jewish themes promoted at CATC conferences include the de-Judaizing of Jesus and the promotion of a racial theory of Jewish origins.

•There is a total lack of financial transparency by Bethlehem Bible College regarding CATC.  Neither monetary amounts nor financial donors are available on the BBC website.  

And in a must-read article the project director of BDS in the Pews, Yitzhak Santis, asks not unreasonably:

"Why are taxpayer monies of Western democracies being used to fund anti-Jewish polemics more reminiscent of medieval disputations than 21st century pluralism?

How did government funds come to be used over recent years to enable the Christ at the Checkpoint (CatC) conference – now in its third iteration this week at Bethlehem Bible College – where such polemics were sounded in the past"

 He continues:

"The CatC conference revives medieval theological antisemitism in its discussions of how to advance the Palestinian nationalist agenda within Evangelical churches toward disrupting traditionally strong support for Israel. In support of the BDS campaigns and the wider political war to demonize Israel, replacement theology, de-Judaization of Jesus and the defamation of Judaism are consistent themes.

The BDS movement sees churches as central to achieving their objectives:

Religious institutions are seen in many communities as embodying important moral and ethical principles… Divestment campaigns that target companies such as Caterpillar have been initiated in a number of major Christian churches. Not only will successful divestment campaigns financially weaken the Occupation, but will raise both the public profile and legitimacy of the BDS campaign.

One of the main vehicles for waging this political war against Israel is to revive the themes of religious disputations of the Middle Ages, in which ecclesiastic authorities required rabbis to debate priests on whether Judaism or Christianity was the “true faith.” This stacked deck often resulted in anti-Jewish persecutions."

Towards the end of his article, which really has to be read in its entirety, he remarks:

"No visits appear to be organized to Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem nor are meetings with Israeli Jewish families listed. Moreover, there are no apparent outings to the many Jerusalem sites where Palestinians carried out suicide terrorist attacks. There is a token visit to a West Bank settlement for a “brief tour” and meeting with one Israeli settler. The only Jews apparently scheduled to speak at CatC are so-called Messianic Jews.

Presbyterian theologian Professor Stephen R. Haynes wrote, “When Christians are confronted by the word-sign ‘Jew,’ they are more likely to conjure theological types and anti-types, not to mention cultural and literary stereotypes, than to think of real individuals with the same hopes, failures and foibles as non-Jews… Jewish security is threatened whenever real Jews are associated with the ‘Jew’ of the Christian imagination."

A number of Messianic Jews, askance at the tone and direction of the conference, have issued a no-holds-barred denunciation of it which makes disturbing claims against the sponsors:

"We, the undersigned, will not attend or support the Christ at the Checkpoint Conference because of our assessment of its anti-Semitic content and undertones. We cannot remain silent at a time like this, and as a matter of conscience, we express our serious concern for both the sponsors of this conference, and over the content, message and activities of the past two conferences.

We urge all participants to check their own hearts and minds regarding their attitude towards the Jewish people and the Jewish nation. Anti-Israel politics and political correctness have emerged as focal points of this conference, to which end the state of Israel and the Jewish people have been singled out for constant and severe criticism. The conference sponsors retain connections to pro-jihadist movements or persons, whose political stances threaten the entire Middle East.  By retaining such connections, the conference has failed to uphold points #6 and #10 of its own manifesto.

As sincere believers in Messiah Yeshua, we cannot, and we will not, endorse this conference."

As the earliest commenters on a certain news agency report commending the conference have pointed out, hypocrisy is rife among professing Christians who indulge in perpetual Israel-bashing:

"The reality is harsh: Christians are being attacked and massacred across the middle east in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon. Christians barely exist in many other Arab countries having been forced out or killed off over time. Palestinian Christians are an endangered species and get little protection or support from the PA - that's a sad fact. Christians are abandoning Bethlehem/BJaka/BSahour not because of Israeli rule, but Fatah rule and the Hamas/IJ/Salafist threat."

The Christian communities within the State of Israel are doing well if needs be to know. just go and ask them and then also go ask them how they are being treated by the Muslim Arab community."

David Singer: Floundering Obama Needs To Grab Bibi's 1984 Lifeline With Both Hands

"Palestine – Obama Lacks Understanding and Vision" is the latest article by Sydney lawyer and international affairs analyst David Singer.

He writes:

'President Obama’s interview with Jeffrey Goldberg on 2 March exposed the President as a leader lacking in understanding and vision – bound to a 20-year-old negotiating process that has proved an abject failure and will continue to do so until Obama finally declares it dead and buried.

The President still clings to the vain hope that the framework agreement for peace being drafted by Secretary of State Kerry will be accepted by Israel and the PLO – allowing the long drawn out negotiating processes established under the Oslo Accords, Bush Roadmap and Annapolis to continue until a peace agreement is executed between Israel and the PLO – matching those signed by Israel with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.

The interview exposed Obama’s flawed knowledge concerning the following crucial issues that are critical to properly understanding the conflict and positing its possible resolution:

1. The President claimed that the conflict had gone on “for decades” – rather than for the last 130 years – indicating the President is ignoring earlier international decisions made on Palestine including the San Remo Conference and the Treaty of Sevres in 1920, the League of Nations in 1922, the Treaty of Lausanne 1923, the Peel Commission in 1937, the British White Paper 1939, the United Nations in 1945 and 1947, and the unification of Judea and Samaria with Transjordan in 1950 following the invasion of Palestine by six Arab armies in 1948.

2. The President spoke of the “Palestinian territories” – rather than the “disputed territories” - where internationally recognized sovereignty has remain undetermined since 1948.

3. The President referred to an existing “Palestinian Authority” – which had ceased to exist on 3 January 2013.

4. The President agreed with this claim by Goldberg: “It’s been the official position of the United States for decades that settlements are illegitimate”

Elliott Abrams – Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations – dismisses this urban myth:

“The U.S. position has fluctuated over time. In the Reagan years, the United States said the settlements were "not illegal." The Clinton and George H.W. Bush administrations avoided the legal arguments but criticized the settlements frequently. President George W. Bush called the larger settlement blocs "new realities on the ground" that would have to be reflected in peace negotiations.

More recently, the official U.S. attitude has been more critical. In 2011, the Obama administration vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling the settlements "illegal" but former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice then denounced "the folly and illegitimacy" of continued Israeli settlement activity. "The United States of America views all of the settlements as illegitimate," Secretary of State John Kerry said in August 2013.”

Who is feeding the President with misleading and false information to justify these comments to Goldberg?

The President’s lack of vision became obviously apparent with his following comment:

“I have not yet heard, however, a persuasive vision of how Israel survives as a democracy and a Jewish state at peace with its neighbors in the absence of a peace deal with the Palestinians and a two-state solution. Nobody has presented me a credible scenario.”

Amazingly – with the State Department evidently unable to present Obama with any credible scenarios in the event of the collapse of the “two-state solution” – President Obama then challenged Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu to come up with a plausible alternative:

“If he [Netanyahu] does not believe that a peace deal with the Palestinians is the right thing to do for Israel, then he needs to articulate an alternative approach. And as I said before, it’s hard to come up with one that’s plausible.”

Netanyahu had articulated an alternative approach at the United Nations on 11 December 1984 – one which apparently has gone missing from the State Department’s extensive archival records:

“Clearly, in Eastern and Western Palestine, there are only two peoples, the Arabs and the Jews. Just as clearly, there are only two states in that area, Jordan and Israel. The Arab State of Jordan, containing some three million Arabs, does not allow a single Jew to live there. It also contains 4/5 of the territory originally allocated by this body’s predecessor, the League of Nations, for the Jewish National Home. The other State, Israel, has a population of over four million, of which one sixth is Arab. It contains less than 1/5 of the territory originally allocated to the Jews under the Mandate… It cannot be said, therefore, that the Arabs of Palestine are lacking a state of their own. The demand for a second Palestinian Arab State in Western Palestine, and a 22nd Arab State in the world, is merely the latest attempt to push Israel back into the hopelessly vulnerable armistice lines of 1949.”

Netanyahu’s recounting of history, geography and demography present at least two credible – and plausible – scenarios for President Obama to consider:

1. Reunifying the heavily populated Arab areas of the West Bank (Areas “A” and “B” designated under the Oslo Accords) with Jordan – as existed between 1950-1967

2. Direct negotiations between Israel and Jordan – the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – to redraw the existing international boundary between their respective States.

Jordan’s King Abdullah needs to step up to the plate – and Obama must not let him refuse to do so.

President Obama – presently sinking in murky political quicksand – can still be saved by grabbing Netanyahu’s 1984 lifeline with both hands.' [Emphasis added]

Bigotry With An Irish Brogue (includes video)

In this video uploaded to YouTube by the praiseworthy group Irish4Israel, a hate-filled BDS bully, cheered on by similar bigots, directs an expletive-ridden tirade at Professor Alan Johnson during the latter's address against BDS at the University of Northern Ireland, Galway on 5 March.

Despite the best efforts of honourable individuals such as the professor, the following motion was passed the following day by 1,954 votes to 1054, which means that NUIG Students' Union is the first students' union in the Emerald Isle to uphold the odious BDS campaign:

“That NUI Galway Students’ Union actively supports the campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against the State of Israel.”

Watch the results being announced and the jubilation of the bigots, with references to "reactionary fascists", "apartheid", and other canards; those who've watched other videos featuring anti-Israel activity in Ireland will recognise a familiar voice towards the end:

Needless to say, Israel's arch-critics within and without Ireland are similarly cock-a-hoop. 

Martin O'Quigley, who chairs the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), widely seen as one of the most vicious of such organisations, is quoted thus:

"This is an historic victory for those who stand in solidarity with Palestinians living under the heel of Israel’s racist, apartheid system of occupation and colonisation. The IPSC salutes all those students who stood with the oppressed on the right side of history and endorsed this measure, despite a stream of venomous anti-Palestinian propaganda and dirty tricks being injected into the debate from off-campus forces, including the Israeli Embassy in Ireland’s failed attempts at using social media to influence the outcome.Particular credit is due to the NUIG Palestine Solidarity Society whose hard work lay behind the tabling and passing of the motion. We hope other universities and ITs in Ireland will now follow suit in establishing such Palestine solidarity societies and seeking to table similar motions. We cannot think of a better way to round off this year’s Israeli Apartheid Week in Ireland."

 Crows a representative the NUIG PSS:

"This is a landmark victory in Ireland for the growing international campaign to boycott Israel until it complies with international law and ends its illegal occupation of Palestine, and no doubt NUIG SU is just the first of many SUs in Ireland to endorse such a campaign.

NUIG Students decided that, in the footsteps of the successful international boycott campaign against South Africa’s apartheid regime in the past, we will not be silent towards international racism and colonialism in our own time. Alongside promoting awareness of the BDS movement more broadly, NUI Galway SU will now stand unambiguously against instances of institutional collusion between NUI Galway and Israeli oppression ..."

 Read (and see) more here