FresnoZionism.org — ציונות פרסנו

The Israeli Knesset has belatedly become aware of the huge amount of money that is flowing into Israeli non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from European governments and other sources with anti-Israel agendas. Prof. Gerald Steinberg of the organization “NGO Monitor” spoke at the Knesset yesterday, saying in part,

As Israeli citizens, we do not know how much money is involved – it is at least tens of millions of euros – or the names of all the organizations that receive these funds. In most cases, we are also not informed of European government funding behind rallies in support of one policy or in protest to another.

The same is true for academic conferences on human rights, occupation, or international law; large advertisements on the front page of a Friday newspaper (at the cost of tens of thousands of shekels); when the High Court pronounces on a case regarding the location of the separation barrier or security checks at the airport; submissions to the United Nations committees condemning Israeli responses to terror; and in many other crucial issues that affect our lives and the policies of our democratically elected government.

The nature and scale of this manipulation is unprecedented in relations between democratic countries – in no other case does one government (or groups of governments) use taxpayer money to support opposition groups in another democratic country. And there is no precedent for allowing these groups to use foreign government money to influence and manipulate the civil societies, political discourse, legal process and foreign policies.

Imagine the French response [to] an American government program that secretly gave one billion dollars to anti-abortion campaigners in Paris, or to promote human rights in Corsica. Or the Spanish response to funds from foreign governments that promote Basque issues.

Some of the organizations that receive this funding are simply — there’s no other way to describe them — enemies of the Jewish state. For example, Physicians for Human Rights – Israel (PHR-I) worked  closely with Human Rights Watch (HRW) to develop the medical ‘evidence’ for Israeli ‘war crimes’ that were supposedly ‘documented’ in a tendentious HRW report that I called a “blood libel”. This report was then used as one of the sources for the Goldstone Commission’s slanderous report, which may be used to prosecute Israelis for ‘war crimes’.

Where does PHR-I get its money? NGO Monitor reports that

Funders include the NDC (Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, and the Netherlands: $125,000 in 2008-9), Diakonia (SEK 1.02 million in 2008-9, from the Swedish government), EU (722,000 NIS in 2007), NIF ($155,000, 2007), Oxfam (211,000 NIS, 2007), Christian Aid (151,000 NIS, 2007), and other foundations and church groups (2007 information from the Israeli Registry of Non-Profits).

The NIF is the New Israel Fund, a left-wing American charity which I’ve discussed here. The 1.02 million Swedish Kroner is about $148,000. There are numerous such NGOs. Steinberg continues,

Externally, officials who run these ostensible “civil society” organizations speak in United Nations sessions on human rights, as well as in churches and university campuses around the world, condemning Israel for racism, ethnic cleansing, genocide, discrimination, war crimes, and other such accusations.

Many lead the BDS campaigns – boycotts, divestment and sanctions – based on the Durban NGO Forum strategy of isolating Israel.  The Alternative Information Center, which is funded by Sweden, among others, denounces cooperation between Israeli and the Palestinian Authority as “normalization.” In a June 2008 conference, co-founder Michael Warschawski asserted that “one has to unequivocally reject the very idea (and existence) of a Jewish state, whatever will be its borders.”

What possible excuse is there for the use of European taxpayer funds for this political warfare being waged against Israel? A very small group of Israelis are seen to give them legitimacy, but fail to add a warning – these views have almost no support within the Israeli civil society, and paid for by European governments.

The degree of imperialist chutzpah displayed by the Europeans is incredible. This is an assault on Israel’s sovereignty which must be stopped. It’s bad enough that international NGOs like HRW slander and propagandize against Israel, but these are NGOs based in Israel.

The unifying theme seems to be anti-Zionism:

Ir Amim, which receives 67% of its budget from foreign governments, advocates and campaigns for the Palestinian narrative on Jerusalem, and directs these campaigns at influencing non-Israeli journalists, diplomats and opinion makers. It produced a film series, Jerusalem Moments, that has been described as “an exercise in the bludgeoning documentation of Palestinian victimhood and of allegedly mindless Israeli cruelty and aggression,” and a “skewed misportrayal.”

Other NGOs have used European support to oppose the Jewish character of the State: Adalah’s 2007 “Democratic Constitution” – based on the vision of “a one-state solution” – attempts to limit immigration of Jews for “humanitarian reasons” only; Mada al-Carmel’s “Haifa Declaration,” which has the European Union logo on it, calls for a “change in the definition of the State of Israel from a Jewish state” and accuses Israel of “exploiting” the Holocaust “at the expense of the Palestinian people.”

And, the Coalition of Women for Peace operates the “Who Profits?” divestment website, a project that tracks Israeli and international corporations that allegedly “are directly involved in the occupation.” Who Profits? led the anti-Israel divestment campaign in Norway, and is involved with a similar project in the UK.

These organizations are engaged in psychological, political and legal sabotage. Their actions are different in kind but similar in intent to those of the Arab terrorists that infiltrate across borders in order to place explosives. The goal is the same, to damage and weaken the Jewish state so that some day it can be replaced by yet another Arab dictatorship.

Technorati Tags: Israel, NGOs, Gerald Steinberg, anti-Zionism

Could he be more wrong?

Palestinian statehood is a “vital” component necessary for regional peace, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon said, in a message to mark Monday’s annual International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People.

I’ve only recently touched on the UN, so I won’t get off on that again. I do want to mention that the “International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People” is held on November 29 for a reason. In the words of Our United Nations,

In 1977, the General Assembly called for the annual observance of 29 November as the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People (resolution 32/40 B). On that day, in 1947, the Assembly adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II)).

So I suppose this ‘solidarity’ is their way of making up for what they must view as the terrible mistake of 1947!

Just two years before, on November 10, 1975, the UN had passed the notorious resolution 3379, which asserted that Zionism was a form of racism. The sponsors of that resolution also must have had a keen sense of the significance of dates, since November 10 was also the day, 37 years before, of Kristallnacht, the day that marked the beginning of the Nazi Final Solution.

Back to Ban Ki-Moon’s remarks. It’s obvious that Palestinian statehood, far from being vital to peace, would be a cause for war.

A Palestinian state led by Fatah, Hamas or any combination thereof, would, in keeping with the words in the founding documents of these groups, be committed to violent ‘resistance’ against Israel, in order to replace it with an Arab state. Giving Fatah and Hamas and their terrorist militias the cover of a state — with the ability to make treaties, to import weapons, even to invite foreign troops onto their territory — would convert them from irritants into threats.

The history of the Oslo accords and their failure, the second intifada, the Hamas takeover of Gaza and the terrorism and (always) incitement that has characterized this period makes clear that a peaceful state alongside Israel is not the goal of the Palestinian leadership. And the climate of Palestinian politics — in which the most radical elements always get their way, by force if necessary — guarantees that in the foreseeable future there will be no Palestinian leadership that does truly want peace.

So what is actually vital to peace is not statehood, because the state that would be created would be a gangster state with gangster leaders.

Here is what Ban Ki-Moon should have said:

My vision is two states, living side by side in peace and security. There is simply no way to achieve that peace until all parties fight terror. Yet, at this critical moment, if all parties will break with the past and set out on a new path, we can overcome the darkness with the light of hope. Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership, so that a Palestinian state can be born.

I call on the Palestinian people to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. I call upon them to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty…

Today, Palestinian authorities are encouraging, not opposing, terrorism. This is unacceptable. And [we] will not support the establishment of a Palestinian state until its leaders engage in a sustained fight against the terrorists and dismantle their infrastructure.

Oops. Too late, Ban! George W. Bush said it on June 24, 2002.

Preident George W. Bush delivers his Rose Garden speech on the Mideast, June 24, 2002

Technorati Tags: Israel, Palestinians, Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations

How many times have you heard something like this:

Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land are illegal and an obstacle to peace.

The statement is misleading or false in at least three ways:

First, there is no such thing as ‘Palestinian land’ unless you mean land owned by individual Palestinians, and most Israeli ‘settlements’ in Judea and Samaria are built on state land or land purchased by Jews.

The original Palestine Mandate (and the Anglo-American Convention of 1924) specified only that there would be a ‘Jewish National Home’ within its borders; it did not specify that all of it would constitute this home. But it also did not specify that any particular part of it would be a Palestinian Arab state. One might add that in 1922, Britain split off the better part of the Palestine Mandate and gave it to the Hashemites to create an Arab state of Transjordan, which could well be considered a partition of Palestine into Jewish and Arab parts.

The 1947 General Assembly partition resolution did call for a division the land into Jewish and Arab states. But this was not accepted by the Arabs, and was not implemented as a result of the invasion by the Arab states in 1948. The Jordanian military aggression and annexation of this area was therefore illegal; in principle, it belonged to the Jews and the Palestinian Arabs.

The actual boundaries that define what the Jordanians decided to call “the West Bank”, which prior to 1950 was called “Judea and Samaria”, were entirely accidental, being the cease-fire lines of 1949. There is no treaty, Security Council resolution, or other basis in international law to say that the cease-fire lines define an Arab state. Indeed, the famous Security Council Resolution 242, as everyone knows, calls for

Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;

Termination of all claims or states of belligerency and respect for and acknowledgement of the sovereignty, territorial integrity and political independence of every State in the area and their right to live in peace within secure and recognized boundaries free from threats or acts of force;

It does not say anything about creating a Palestinian state, it deliberately does not say that Israel must withdraw from all territories it occupied in 1967, and it clearly implies that the cease-fire lines are not the permanent borders of the state of Israel, but that borders must be secure and recognized.

Second, Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, this area whose status is still undetermined, are not illegal. In fact, the settlements have the same status as Arab settlements there! They are both located in a now-disputed portion of the original Mandate. Indeed, after Jordan gave up its claims to this area in 1988, control of the region has been divided under the Oslo agreement, between Israeli and  Palestinian Authority (PA) areas, with most Palestinians living in PA-controlled areas and most Israelis living in Israeli-controlled areas.

Mainstream media often refer to “Israeli settlements in the areas that Palestinians want for a future state.” Well, yes, they want it, but absent some basis in law, they do not have a right to it. They want Tel Aviv, Haifa, etc., too. As one says in Hebrew, “sh’irtzu” — almost impossible to translate, but it means something like “so they should want” (with a rising inflection at the end).

Finally, they are not an ‘obstacle to peace’, unless any  unmet Palestinian demand is, no matter how unreasonable. Israel has withdrawn from occupied areas before, for example the Sinai and Gaza, in both cases uprooting Jews who had lived there for years, and would likely withdraw from much of Judea and Samaria in return for a real peace. But it is unrealistic to think — as President Bush agreed in 2004 — that the larger settlement blocs relatively near the Green Line, would or could be evacuated as part of a peace agreement.

The Arabs and their supporters are trying to create reality by repeating the same falsehoods over and over, in a classic big lie operation.

Indeed, the true obstacles to peace are the PA’s insistence that Israel cede “every centimeter” of the land, including East Jerusalem, for the proposed state; its refusal to recognize Israel as the state of the Jewish People; its demand to resettle hostile Arabs within Israel; and its continued of incitement of hatred and terrorism against Israel and Jews.

Technorati Tags: Israel, settlements

News item:

Voice of Palestine radio quoted Egyptian sources on Saturday as saying that in an unusual move, security around the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt has been beefed up, speculating that the added security could signal the imminent transfer of captive Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit from Gaza into Egypt…

The sources also said that when Shalit is transferred from Gaza into Egypt he will be examined by Red Cross medical teams as well as Israeli and French teams, in addition to the German mediator. Israel will simultaneously free 1,000 Palestinian prisoners, the sources said…

Senior Hamas officials said Thursday that the talks had hit a snag over some of the Palestinian prisoners the Islamic group wants freed, including Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat…

Hamas is demanding, among other the prisoners, the release of Ibrahim Hamad, head of the group’s military wing in the Ramallah area, Abdallah Barghouti, a bomb engineer, and Abbas a-Sayad, the Hamas head in Tul Karm who planned the 2002 massacre during Passover in Netanya’s Park Hotel. These three prisoners are considered responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis.

Other names mentioned in the Arab media are Hassan Salame, who was involved in planning the suicide bus bombings in the mid ’90s, and Jamal Abu al-Hijla, head of Hamas in Jenin, who was convicted of taking part in planning and funding several suicide attacks during the second intifada.

Unfortunately, Israel has close to zero leverage. Hamas has held Shalit for three years and can keep him for as long as it likes. The Netanyahu government is under tremendous pressure from the media and others to get Shalit out no matter how much it costs. Although I’m sure the families of the terrorists would like them released, Hamas can afford to be far less responsive to its public than Israel! And of course the conditions under which Palestinian prisoners are held in Israel are far better than those faced by Shalit.

So my guess is that if the exchange actually takes place, the price will be whatever Hamas is asking. Some of the freed terrorists will undoubtedly go on to kill Israelis.

Israel’s Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, recently said that there should be no negotiations with kidnappers, but that the policy couldn’t be changed while Shalit was in captivity. This is nonsense, since tomorrow they will capture another Israeli soldier or civilian.

Here’s my program to end this:

1. Institute the death penalty for convicted terrorist murderers. Then at least these will not be eligible for ‘exchange’.
2. Do not negotiate with kidnappers.
3. Institute reprisals against the leadership when Israelis are harmed. See if the big shots “love death more than we love life”.

To rescue Shalit, immediately cut off all supplies, water and electricity to Gaza until he is released. This isn’t ‘collective punishment’ because all Hamas has to do to end it is to free Shalit, whom they are holding in contravention of (real) international law. If they hurt him, see no. 3 above.

Just do it — anyone who objects will have to argue that Hamas is justified in holding Shalit. Even the Norwegians can’t say that.

Technorati Tags: Israel, Gilad Shalit, Hamas