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A building in central Israel hit by a Hamas long-range missile launched from Gaza last November

B’tselem whines,

There are 40,000 to 50,000 individuals currently living in the Gaza Strip without ID cards recognized by Israel, and they have no official status anywhere else in the world. Some of them were born in the Gaza Strip but were never recognized as residents by Israel; some fled the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war, or left Gaza for various reasons after 1967 and returned later. A small number of these individuals were born in the Gaza Strip and have never left it, but do not have ID cards for various reasons. Other stateless individuals in the Gaza Strip are Palestinians from abroad who married Gaza residents, entered Gaza with visitor permits and remained after their permits expired.

Individuals who live in the Gaza Strip without status and without an ID card or a passport of any country find it difficult to lead normal lives. They cannot leave the Gaza Strip for any reason, including studies, work, visiting family or pilgrimage to Mecca (al-Hajj). They cannot hold down jobs that require travel outside the Gaza Strip. Any stateless individuals in need of medical treatment not available in the Gaza Strip cannot go to Egypt to receive treatment and very rarely do they receive permission to enter Israel for this purpose. All of this is compounded by the constant overall sense of insecurity experienced by people who have no official status. This feeling is linked, among other things, to fear of an Israeli incursion into Gaza which may result in their deportation.

On what planet must Israel be responsible for the IDs of Hamas-ruled Gaza Arabs? Should it also provide certificates of competence in rocket launching?

Gaza is ruled by a gang whose basic premise is that genocide is good, and which has built up a huge stockpile of rockets to shoot at Israeli civilians when it’s ready for the next round.

The status of Gaza is ‘interesting’ from a legal point of view, but it’s hard to make a case that it is occupied by Israel. For one thing, no Israelis, military, civilian or even dead bodies (which were disinterred when Israel withdrew in 2005) are in it.

Yes, Israel controls its own border with Gaza (but not Gaza’s Egyptian border) and out of necessity blockades its waters and controls its airspace. That isn’t ‘occupation’, it’s self-defense. Issuing ID cards is exactly what an occupier might do, which is one reason Israel isn’t doing it.

Gaza was invaded and occupied by Egypt in 1948, which ruled it in a brutal and exploitative manner. When Israel gained control in 1967, it tried to ameliorate some of the truly awful conditions, particularly for the refugees living in camps there, but in many cases was stymied by the UN and the PLO, which wanted the refugees as miserable and angry as possible.

Palestinian voters elected a Hamas-led government in 2003, but the PLO did not allow it to take office because the Western donor nations that keep the Palestinian Authority alive refused to fund the frankly terrorist Hamas. Then in 2007, Hamas seized control of Gaza from the PA in a bloody military coup.

Israel, by the way, still provides water and electricity to Gaza, which recycles it in the form of rockets and mortar shells. Some years ago, a Hamas sniper shot and wounded an Israeli Electric company employee working on a tower near the border. The irony was palpable, but the electricity continued to flow.

B’tselem, a radical Israeli NGO funded by the New Israel Fund, the EU and individual European states, wishes to keep up the pretense that Gaza is ‘occupied’ so that it can make Israel responsible for everything that happens to its residents. And of course also so it can blame Israel whenever the terrorism emanating from Gaza reaches a point that it has to hit back — as it did after Israel’s 2008-9 campaign against Hamas. B’tselem was the single largest contributor of the (almost entirely false) accusations of Israeli ‘war crimes’ that appeared in the tendentious Goldstone Report.

So why doesn’t Hamas, which actually can claim to be the legitimately elected government of the Gaza Strip — after all, the PA did overrule a popular election and the coup simply reversed that — issue its own ID cards? Ask B’tselem:

In an attempt to resolve the plight of stateless individuals in the Gaza Strip, in January 2008, the Hamas government began issuing temporary internal ID cards to Gaza residents who are not listed in the Population Registry. This measure was implemented in order to help these individuals in leading their daily life within the Gaza Strip and enable them to do things like open a bank account, enroll children in school or acquire medical insurance. According to figures collected by the Ministry of Civil Affairs in Gaza, there are currently about 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza who hold these temporary ID cards. However, these cards are not valid at the crossings into Israel or at the Rafah border crossing to Egypt, currently managed by Hamas and Egypt.

In other words, Hamas IDs can’t be used to permit terrorists to cross into Israel or Egypt (since the overthrow of Morsi, Hamas has been skirmishing with the Egyptian army). Are you surprised?

It is long past time for the everyone to realize that the ‘plight’ of the Palestinian Arabs is entirely the making of their own leadership — al-Husseini, Arafat and Abbas, and also Hamas and other even more radical factions — as well as the leaders of the rest of the Arab world. And even the Palestinian Arabs themselves, who have overwhelmingly voted for the PLO and Hamas when given a chance, have shown that they support the rejectionist position that prioritizes the destruction of Israel over the welfare and even the lives of Palestinian Arabs.

Technorati Tags: B’tselem, Israel, Gaza, Hamas

Here is a good example of why Americans are misled about Mideast issues. In today’s local paper, I came across a  story headlined “Israelis may vote on peace deal.” It began as follows:

JERUSALEM (AP) – Israel’s premier announced Monday he is fast-tracking legislation that would allow him to put any peace deal with the Palestinians to a national referendum – an apparent attempt to silence hard-liners in his party and coalition government. …

Netanyahu said Monday that a referendum is necessary to prevent a rift in Israeli society. Polls have suggested a majority of Israelis support the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, but many groups are vehemently opposed, including hard-liners among Israel’s West Bank settlers. [my emphasis]

The impression given is that although a majority of Israelis favor an agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA), the PLO-controlled Palestinian ‘government’, to withdraw from most of Judea and Samaria and perhaps eastern Jerusalem, and turn them over to become a Palestinian state, the peace process is being stymied by “hard-liners.”

The truth does not remotely resemble this. A majority of Israelis know that the PA has little support from the residents of the areas that it controls and none at all in Gaza, where 40% of the Palestinian Arabs live. They also know that the security consequences of a withdrawal from the territories would be unacceptable, and that while the PLO is sincere about wanting to get Israel out of the territories, it is not sincere about making peace.

The poll results mentioned in the story are based on questions like this: “Would you favor the establishment of a peaceful Palestinian state alongside Israel?” Of course a majority of Israelis would agree! Who doesn’t want peace? But at the same time, most realize that under today’s circumstances, an Israeli withdrawal would lead to anything but a peaceful state. They have the continuing example of Gaza, in case they forget what a sovereign Palestinian state is like.

In addition, they know that the gaps between Israel and the PLO on such issues as refugees, Jerusalem, borders, etc. are as wide as ever — perhaps even wider than in 2000 or 2008, when an agreement could not be reached. They know that the PLO has preferred to get its way be manipulating the UN, the Europeans and the US, rather than in meaningful negotiations with Israel in which they might have to give something up. They know that the PLO has avoided talks for years by placing impossible preconditions on them. So they understand that talks are most likely only a way to pressure Israel to make concessions without much chance of success.

And they know that the PLO has sponsored terrorism against Jewish civilians consistently since its beginnings, and that terrorism generally increases when negotiations are taking place. They know that the PA never lets up on its incitement, or on its glorification of the most vicious mass murdering terrorists as heroes.

They know that many of the 118 prisoners that are about to be released as a good-will gesture to bring the Palestinians to the table have murdered Jews for political reasons, and that they will return home to hero’s welcomes. They will comprise a direct affront to the honor of Israel and the Jewish people, demonstrating that we are too weak to punish the murderers of our brothers, sisters and children.

Recent bad ideas, like Oslo and the Gaza withdrawal, were implemented without public approval. Oslo was dropped on Israelis after secret maneuvers by politicians who did not represent them, and after they elected a Prime Minister who opposed a Palestinian state (and who, even after Oslo, opposed withdrawing from much of the territories and opposed granting full sovereignty to the proposed Palestinian entity).

In the case of Gaza, Ariel Sharon held a referendum among members of his own Likud party, 65% of whom rejected his plan — which he put into effect anyway, even after saying that he would respect the views of party members!

If there were a referendum on any proposed agreement with the PA, these are the considerations that would be taken by ordinary Israelis who are not politicians, media personalities or academics. It is hard to imagine that an agreement like the ones that were rejected by the Arabs in 2000 and 2008 would stand a chance among the general public today.

So I don’t think Netanyahu needs a referendum to ‘silence hard-liners’. Rather, I think he wants it as more ammunition to prevent the US from railroading Israel into an agreement that would prove disastrous.

Technorati Tags: Israel, PA, peace negotiations, referendum

John Kerry testifies at Senate Foreign Relations Committee about alleged US atrocities in Vietnam, 1971

Human reason works in part by finding patterns in experience, developing models based on the particular patterns, and then projecting the consequences of possible actions based on the models. This worked well for our ancestors who learned to recognize the patterns in the tracks of different animals, and applying models of the behavior of prey animals and predators. If done correctly, this enabled them to eat the former and escape from the latter.

But international politics are more complicated than tigers and water buffalo. It’s easy to create inaccurate models, and when we act on them the results are not what is expected. Here are two examples relating to our Secretary of State:

Bad model no. 1: linkage

I have been writing about the false and dangerous ‘linkage theory’ since my very first blog post in 2006. Since then, events have shown with more and more clarity that the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict’ (a misnomer in itself) is certainly not the ‘core issue’ of instability in the Middle East. But John Kerry, for whatever reason — I would suspect him of looking forward to Saudi largesse in retirement if he weren’t already richer than Croesus — feels it necessary to shut his eyes tightly and proclaim the mantra, as he did in Jordan on Wednesday:

Peace is in the common interest of everybody in this region. And as many [Arab League] ministers said to me today in the meeting that we had – many of them – they said that the core issue of instability in this region and in many other parts of the world is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

As many analysts have pointed out over and over, most of the chaos in the Middle East has absolutely nothing to do with Israel and the Palestinians. The incredibly vicious civil war in Syria whose casualty count is close to 100,000; the political upheavals and economic collapse of Egypt, with accompanying violence against Christians and women; the conflict in Lebanon between Hizballah, which is intervening in Syria, and its opponents; the struggle of the Kurds for independence; the Sunni-Shiite conflict in Iraq; the frustration of the Westernized Turkish people with the heavy-handed Islamism of the AKP; and last but not least, the Iranian program to dominate the region (and incidentally destroy the Jewish state) by nuclear means — none of these are driven by Israeli-Palestinian issues.

Bad model no. 2: there’s a technical solution to the Israeli-Arab conflict

Mr. Kerry is returning from the Mideast after having his latest ‘peace’ proposal slapped down by the PLO, which apparently wants a guarantee that the borders of its new state will approximate the 1949 armistice lines, as well as a freeze on construction in settlements and a release of terrorist prisoners in Israeli jails as a precondition of negotiations.

Kerry’s model is one in which the PLO’s agreement would result in two peaceful states living side by side. It assumes that a) the PLO and its factions actually desire such a peaceful outcome, and b) that Hamas and other radical groups would allow it. Both of these assumptions are false. They ignore the oft-repeated statements to the contrary by the PLO and others, as well as the continued anti-Jewish incitement and terrorism coming from them.

These models place a double whammy on US policy. Not only is it not possible to attain peace by an additional partition of the Jewish national home, but even if it were, it would do little to quiet the more serious conflicts in the region.

So let’s look at some of the real causes of instability.

One is Sunni-Shiite enmity, which the US can do little to affect. Another is the internal conflicts between more and less extreme Muslims, for example the fighting in the Sinai between Salafists and the Egyptian Army. Again, the US has little leverage on this.

But there is one place from which much of the chaos emanates. That place, of course, is Iran, which is engaged on a long-term project to become the regional hegemon of the area. In addition to developing nuclear weapons, it is arming and supporting the Assad regime in Syria and Hizballah in Lebanon, as well as radical Palestinian factions. It is sponsoring world-wide terrorism through its Hizballah franchise, which incidentally has a strong presence in South America that directly threatens the US homeland.

Unfortunately the Iranian project has gone too far to be stopped by talking, unless diplomacy is backed up by a credible threat of military action. But in my opinion there is nothing that could do more to stabilize the Middle East and reduce the amount of terrorism in the world than action to stop the Iranian nuclear weapons program and to disarm Hizballah.

The status quo between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs is, despite what you hear, not such a bad thing. There is no mass murder taking place as it is in Syria, nor endemic ethnic and political violence as in Egypt. Palestinian Arabs are economically better off than Arabs anywhere else in the Mideast — except for Arab citizens of Israel  — and despite the lies spread by the European and left-wing media, are not victims of apartheid.

The US should stop wasting effort on futile attempts to solve a problem which will not be solved until the Arabs — both the Palestinians and the Arab nations — decide that it is more important to develop their economies than to destroy Israel. This won’t be in the near future, unfortunately.

Rather, it should take whatever steps are necessary against Iran and Hizballah. I’m sure Israel would be happy to cooperate.

Update [1317 PDT]: Now it looks like Kerry’s negotiations will continue. Nothing changes.

Technorati Tags: John Kerry, US Mideast policy

EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton with former Palestinian PM Salam Fayyad. Courtesy Jewish Press. Ashton appears to be waving the foot of a huge chicken, perhaps in celebration of European courage.

On September 1, 1939, German aircraft bombed the town of Wielun, Poland. Five minutes later, a German battleship bombarded the free city of Danzig, and several hours after that German infantry and armor invaded on three fronts.

On September 3, the UK and France declared war on Germany (of course Britain did little until Churchill became Prime Minister in 1940, but that’s another story).

Note that they did not declare war on the Kriegsmarine, the Luftwaffe, or the Heer. Even Neville Chamberlain understood that the struggle was against the Nazis, and Germany’s armed forces were simply instruments thereof. But today’s European Union (EU) politicians aren’t even Chamberlains, not to mention Churchills.

There is indisputable evidence that Hizballah has been responsible for world-wide terrorism over the past three decades, including several attacks in EU nations — the latest being the bombing of a tour bus carrying Israelis in Burgas, Bulgaria. Hizballah also carried out the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. It was directly responsible for the Second Lebanon War with Israel, and is on track to start another one.

Despite this, the EU has been so far unable to decide to call Hizballah a terrorist organization. But riding to the rescue is Churchill-like Catherine Ashton, the head of EU Foreign Policy:

European governments have been deadlocked over the issue since May when Britain asked for the Shi’ite Muslim group’s military wing to be put on the EU terror list, citing evidence it was behind a deadly bus bombing in Bulgaria last year.

Several EU capitals had objected, arguing such a move could destabilize Lebanon where Hezbollah is part of the government, and questioning whether there was sufficient evidence linking the group to the attack in the seaside resort of Burgas [nonsense — ed.]

Before further talks on the issue in the coming days, the EU’s Catherine Ashton suggested a compromise that could allay concerns that a blacklisting would complicate the EU’s relations with Lebanon.

Two EU diplomats told Reuters the proposal suggests including a statement the EU “should continue dialogue with all political parties in Lebanon” and maintain funding to Beirut.

This is one of those propositions that is so utterly moronic that it’s hard to present it with a straight face in order to refute it! Ashton would like us to think there is a political wing of Hizballah which does, er, politics, and a military wing which blows people up and starts wars. She does not explain who tells the military wing whom to blow up.

In case you are wondering, here is an organization chart for Hizballah. Having Allah and Muhammed at the top is a nice touch:

Hizballah organization. Courtesy Wikipedia, Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh

The truth is that the EU is so frightened of Hizballah and its patron and puppet-master Iran, that this absurd distinction is the best it can do — if it even goes this far.

Of course there is no danger that the Jews will blow up anything or anybody in Europe, so the EU is quite courageous in its denunciations of and directives against Jews living in places that Europeans promised them that they could live in, until they decided to take back their promises.

Sound familiar? Europeans have been kicking Jews out of their homes for centuries. In a temporary fit of sanity (or humanity) they let them return to their homeland, but apparently almost immediately were seized by regrets. Now they are doing their best to shrink it, while at the same time empower the  less ‘civilized’ enemies of the Jews — like Hizballah — who want them gone entirely.

That’s apparently EU political character: abject cowardice compensated for by racist bullying. What a joke.

Technorati Tags: EU, Hizballah

The European Union of Dying States has fully embraced its Nazi past:

Last month, the EU distributed a binding directive to all member countries forbidding the financing, giving of scholarships, cooperation, research stipends and prizes to anyone residing in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem, Haaretz reported on Tuesday.

According to the directive, any future agreement signed with Israel must include a clause stipulating that the settlements are not part of the sovereign state and are not included in the agreement. It is unclear if and how any Israeli government ministers, including Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett (Habayit Hayehudi) will agree to sign on to any agreement that contains that distinction.

The directive goes into effect on Friday. [Update: not until 2014]

David Kriss, EU spokesman in Israel, confirmed the report, adding that the directive will be published on July 19 in an official EU policy publication. In a statement, Kriss said, “On June 30 the European Commission adopted a Notice containing guidelines on the eligibility of Israeli entities and their activities in the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967 for grants, prizes and financial instruments funded by the EU from 2014 onwards.

The EU’s justification for this boycott is the old “settlements are illegal under international law” argument, which, in the opinion of many competent jurists, is unsound. But many of these jurists are Jewish, and Europe doesn’t put much store in their opinions.

The text of the directive is to be released on July 19, and a lot of things aren’t clear. So I have a few questions to address to the august personages of the EU regarding this:

• Who gave you the right to determine the boundaries of sovereign states?

• What happened to UNSC 242, Oslo, the Quartet’s Road Map, etc., all of which say that borders are to be determined by negotiations between the parties? Do you repudiate them?

• What is an ‘Israeli entity’? Does an individual Israeli Jew count as an Israeli entity? Are you saying that a Jew living in Hevron is not eligible for a scholarship but an Arab is (h/t: NB)? Is this racism or what? [Update: the guidelines do not apply to individuals, only organizations]

• Will you stop making huge grants to anti-state NGOs like B’tselem who operate in the territories? Surely they are ‘Israeli entities’. [Update: no, they won’t stop. They specifically exclude groups that agree with their policies.]

• International law about terrorism is far less in dispute than the status of the territories. Yet you continue to fund the Palestinian Authority, which is ruled by the PLO, whose charter calls for the violent destruction of the state of Israel. You still haven’t declared Hizballah a terrorist entity. What’s up with that?

• Do you have a similar directive for agreements with Morocco, regarding Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara? Or do EU contracts specify sovereign borders only for Israel? How about Russia’s occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Or China’s occupation of Tibet and Aksai Chin? Or India’s occupation of Arnuchal Pradesh and Kashmir? Or Armenia’s occupation of Nagorno Karabach? Could there be a double standard? (h/t: AB)

Lest those of us who live in the US feel smug about our government’s ‘fairness’ to Israel, please note that the US Consulate in Jerusalem, which is supposed to provide services in the territories and eastern Jerusalem, also boycotts Jewish residents.

Update [1547 PDT]: The text of the EU guidelines appears here. Just to give you an idea of the flavor of it, item 15 is this:

Notwithstanding points 12-14 above, the requirements set out in section D do not apply to activities which, although carried out in the territories referred to in point 2, aim at benefiting protected persons under the terms of international humanitarian law who live in these territories and/or at promoting the Middle East peace process in line with EU policy.

So yes, they can continue to fund B’Tselem and a whole array of NGOs engaged in subversive activity.

Technorati Tags: EU, Israel