WarSclerotic

I am starting to really like Kushner.

My personal style (and preference) would be more direct and hardened, but he is operating in the world of diplomacy.

He has a smart head on his young shoulders.

Good luck to him as he continues the fight in the background, moving around in the shadows…

Kushner said pushing to close UNRWA, end refugee status for Palestinian millions

https://www.timesofisrael.com/kushner-said-pushing-to-end-refugee-status-for-millions-of-palestinians/

Report quotes Palestinian official saying US peace envoys asked Jordan to move toward halting UNRWA’s operations there as part of wider apparent efforts to shutter agency

Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law, has been pushing to remove the refugee status of millions of Palestinians as part of an apparent effort to shutter the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, a report on Friday said.

Under Trump, the US has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or UNRWA, with the US president linking the decision to the Palestinians’ refusal to speak with his administration after he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

According to emails published Friday by Foreign Policy magazine, Kushner has been highly critical of UNRWA, with he and other White House officials weighing its closure as part of their peace efforts.

“It is important to have an honest and sincere effort to disrupt UNRWA,” Kushner wrote in an email dated January 11, just days before the US froze $65 million in funding for UNRWA. “This [agency] perpetuates a status quo, is corrupt, inefficient and doesn’t help peace.”

“Our goal can’t be to keep things stable and as they are… Sometimes you have to strategically risk breaking things in order to get there,” he added in the email, according to Foreign Policy.

Uniquely, UNRWA grants refugee status to all descendants of Palestinians who left or fled Israel with the establishment of the state in 1948, swelling the number to an estimated five million at present, when the number of actual refugees from that conflict is estimated to be in the low tens of thousands. In peace talks, the Palestinian leadership has always demanded a “right of return” to Israel for these millions — an influx that, if accepted by Israel, would spell the end of the Israel as a majority Jewish state.

Israel argues that the Palestinian demand is an UNRWA-facilitated effort to destroy Israel by demographic means. The Palestinians also seek an independent state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. Months of ongoing violent protests fueled by Hamas at the Gaza border with Israel were initiated under the banner of a “March of the Return,” and encouraged by Hamas leaders with the declared ultimate goal of erasing the border and destroying Israel.

Israel argues that an independent Palestinian state, if agreed upon in negotiations, would absorb Palestinian refugees and their descendants, just as Israel absorbed Jewish refugees from Middle Eastern and north African countries over the decades.

In an email from later in January, an adviser to Jason Greenblatt — Trump’s Middle East peace envoy — suggested UNRWA’s closure as part of the US peace push.

“UNRWA should come up with a plan to unwind itself and become part of the UNHCR [UN High Commissioner for Refugees] by the time its charter comes up again in 2019,” wrote Victoria Coates.

Coates described the proposition as one of the “spitball ideas that I’ve had that are also informed by some thoughts I’ve picked up from Jared, Jason and Nikki,” referring to Haley, the US ambassador to the UN.

Other proposals raised were moving UNRWA to a monthly operating budget and coming up with “a plan to remove all anti-Semitism from educational materials.” [Ha ha ha, good luck with that! There would be no education materials left…]

The report also quoted Palestinian officials saying Kushner and Greenblatt in June asked Jordan to remove the refugee status of some 2 million Palestinians in order to end UNRWA’s operations in the country.

“[Kushner said] the resettlement has to take place in the host countries and these governments can do the job that UNRWA was doing,” said Palestinian Liberation Organization official Hanan Ashrawi, according to Foreign Policy.

“They want to take a really irresponsible, dangerous decision and the whole region will suffer,” she added, claiming the White House wanted Gulf states to pick up the tab for whatever this would cost Jordan.

Shortly after the reported request, top Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat accused Kushner and Greenblatt of seeking the “termination” of the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency.

“They want to terminate the role of UNRWA by proposing direct aid to the countries hosting the Palestinian refugees and sideline the UN agency,” Erekat said at the time. “On top of this, they are planning financial aid to the Gaza Strip worth one billion dollars for projects, also separate from UNRWA and under the title of solving a humanitarian crisis.”

He added: “All this is actually aimed at liquidating the issue of the Palestinian refugees.”

The White House would not directly comment on the Foreign Policy report, though an official told the magazine that the US position on UNRWA “has been under frequent evaluation and internal discussion. The administration will announce its policy in due course.”

Israel, which has also sometimes accused UNRWA of employing Palestinians who support terrorism, says UNRWA’s definition of Palestinian refugees helps to perpetuate the Palestinian narrative of Israeli illegitimacy. It notes that UNRWA’s policy of granting refugee status to the descendants of Palestinian refugees, even when they are born in other countries and have citizenship there, does not apply to the refugees cared for by the UN’s main refugee agency, UNHCR, which cares for all other refugees worldwide. The population of Palestinian refugees thus grows each year, even as other refugee populations in the world shrink with each passing generation.

A spokesman for the Israel Embassy in Washington, Elad Strohmayer, told Foreign Policy: “We believe that UNRWA needs to pass from the world as it is an organization that advocates politically against Israel and perpetuates the Palestinian refugee problem.”

The Foreign Policy report came as US officials say the Trump administration is staffing up a Middle East policy team at the White House in anticipation of unveiling its long awaited but largely mysterious Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

The National Security Council last week began approaching other agencies seeking volunteers to join the team, which will work for peace pointmen Kushner and Greenblatt, according to the officials.

The creation of a White House team is the first evidence in months that a plan is advancing. Although Trump officials have long promised the most comprehensive package ever put forward toward resolving the conflict, the emerging plan has not been described with even a small amount of detail by Kushner, Greenblatt or any other official.

Source: Footage emerges of Corbyn saying BBC ‘biased’ toward ‘Israel’s right to exist’ | The Times of Israel

In 2011 interview with Iran’s Press TV, which surfaced Tuesday amid party’s anti-Semitism row, Labour leader accuses Israeli government of undue ‘pressure’ on broadcaster

UK Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in an interview with Iran’s PressTV in 2011. (Twitter screenshot)

British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, accused by the Jewish community of tolerating anti-Semitism in his party’s ranks, once told Iranian state media that the BBC “has a bias towards saying that…Israel has a right to exist.”

In the 2011 interview with Iran’s PressTV, posted on Twitter Tuesday by the British political blogger The Golem, Corbyn explains that “there’s pressure on the BBC from, probably, [then-BBC director general] Mark Thompson, who seems to me to have an agenda in this respect. There seems to be a great deal of pressure on the BBC from the Israeli government, from the Israeli embassy, and they are very assertive towards all journalists and toward the BBC itself. They challenge every single thing on reporting the whole time.”

That Israeli pressure and bias from the likes of Thompson, Corbyn goes on to say, mean the corporation leans in favor of Israel’s existence.

“I think there is a bias towards saying that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East, Israel has a right to exist, Israel has its security concerns,” he says in the 36-second clip.

The Golem notes in a follow-up tweet that Corbyn’s statements may run afoul of Labour’s own code of conduct on anti-Semitism, which he quotes as saying, “The Party is clear that the Jewish people have the same right to self-determination as any other people. To deny that right is to treat the Jewish people unequally and is therefore a form of antisemitism.”

The comments are only the latest round in a long-running crisis for the party with a constant stream of members and prominent officials being forced out or chastised for making anti-Semitic and virulent anti-Israel comments. The fracas has seen excoriation from rabbis, including Britain’s chief rabbi, as well as from some of Labour’s own MPs charging that the party seemed unable or unwilling to decisively excise anti-Semitic members and sentiments from its ranks.

A response from a party spokesperson published by Jewish News, a partner site of The Times of Israel, seemed to double down on Corbyn’s comments.

“Jeremy was arguing that despite the occupation of Palestinian territory and the lack of a Palestinian state, Israeli concerns and perspectives are more likely to appear prominently in news reporting than Palestinian ones,” the spokesperson said. “Jeremy is committed to a comprehensive peace in the Middle East based on a two-state solution – a secure Israel alongside a secure and viable state of Palestine.”

Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Britain’s opposition Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, outside the British Houses of Parliament in central London, on March 26, 2018. (AFP Photo/Tolga Akmen)

At the same time, “the Israeli government is well known to run an effective and highly professional media operation,” the spokesperson added.

Jewish leaders were quick to respond to the newly-surfaced Corbyn comments.

Jennifer Gerber, head of Labour Friends of Israel, slammed the “deplorable remarks,” saying, “not only does Jeremy Corbyn use another appearance on Iranian state TV to engage in further wild conspiracy theories about Israel, he also questions the Jewish state’s right to exist. Is it any wonder he has resisted so hard adopting the full IHRA definition of antisemitism?”

After Labour’s response, Gerber added on Twitter: “The Labour party is now defending Jeremy Corbyn peddling wild conspiracy theories and questioning Israel’s right to exist on Iranian state TV. Let’s be clear: for a party which aspires to be in government, this is not normal behavior.”

Simon Johnson, head of the Jewish Leadership Council, tweeted, “Sorry Mr Corbyn. Do you therefore think that Israel is NOT a democracy, does NOT have a right to exist and does NOT have security concerns? And that an organisation is biased if it DOES believe these things? Wow. That seems to differ somewhat from the policy of the party you lead.”

Members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, with left to right, Gillian Merron, Jonathan Arkush, Jonathan Goldstein, and Simon Johnson speak to the media outside Britain’s parliament following a meeting with Britain’s opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn Tuesday April 24, 2018. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP)

Also Tuesday, a top Jewish Labour MP charged that party leaders were working to silence criticism within the party over its handling of anti-Semitism accusations.

Margaret Hodge, a former minister in Labour governments, recently weathered a party investigation herself after she called Corbyn “an anti-Semite and a racist” during a parliamentary debate. The probe ended on Monday.

Now she is defending fellow Labour MP Ian Austin, saying the party’s investigation of an alleged confrontation between him and Corbyn-supporting lawmakers in Parliament in mid-July was part of a “new style of politics” consisting of “bullying and intolerance.”

“I have absolutely no doubt that there are those in the [Labour] leadership who want to get rid, whether it is through deselection or disciplinary action, of any opposition. The new style of politics is bullying and intolerance, not gentle and inclusive,” Hodge told The Guardian newspaper.

“Arguing passionately for what you believe in should be encouraged and celebrated, not punished. That’s what Ian was quite properly doing, and trying to close down the issue by disciplining him is tantamount to bullying,” Hodge said.

Austin’s attorneys called the investigation “a farce and a disgrace. It has plainly been designed to silence our client for his legitimate, honestly held criticisms of Mr Corbyn’s failure to address the scourge of antisemitism in the Labour party,” they wrote.

MP Margaret Hodge. (YouTube screenshot)

At the heart of Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis is the party’s refusal to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism, instead leaving out four of the 11 examples included in the definition. All four relate to unfair singling out of Israel or questioning the loyalty of Jews who support Israel.

The party was called to task on the issue Tuesday by the British delegation to the IHRA, saying in a statement published by the Guardian that “any ‘modified’ version of the IHRA definition that does not include all of its 11 examples is no longer the IHRA definition. Adding or removing language undermines the months of international diplomacy and academic rigor that enabled this definition to exist. If one organization or institution can amend the wording to suit its own needs, then logically anyone else could do the same. We would once again revert to a world where antisemitism goes unaddressed simply because different entities cannot agree on what it is.”

The left-leaning British daily also reported Tuesday on the challenges and foot-dragging underway in Labour’s National Executive Council over expelling members who express or facilitate anti-Semitic sentiments in the party.

Of the 70 cases of anti-Semitic expressions by party members sent to the NEC by party officials for consideration, “only a minority were considered by the NEC because of time constraints,” the Guardian says.

The complaints included Labour members who claimed that the Israel lobby had invented the anti-Semitism crisis, or that Hitler’s policy on Zionism “might not be mutually exclusive with his later actions” (i.e., the extermination of Europe’s Jews), among others.

One unnamed Labour source assured the paper that efforts to expel offending members would be sped up in the near future.

“The new code of conduct means we will not have to go to the full NEC disputes committee, but a smaller antisemitism subgroup. It will mean we have the potential to kick people out super fast, instead of waiting months for a full disputes meeting and just getting through 11 of 70.”

Source: Russia and Israel reach understanding on Golan border line – Middle East – Jerusalem Post

Israel’s ambassador to Russia said Israel insisted on the full withdrawal of Iranian troops from Syria.

An old IDF tank barrel from the Yom Kippur War looks out over the Syrian side of the Golan from a hilltop a few hundred meters from the border. (photo credit: SETH J. FRANTZMAN)

Israel and Russia have reached an understanding to ensure the preservation of the 1974 cease-fire line on the Golan Heights, according to Israel’s Ambassador to Russia Gary Koren.

According to a TASS Russian News Agency report, Koren – who met with Russian journalists in Stavropol in southern Russia Monday – said, “we coordinated the arrangement under which Russia pledged to make sure, as it were, that the Syrian Army will not cross the cease-fire line established under the 1974 agreement. It looks like everything is functioning for the time being. I hope it will be so in the future, as well.”

Koren said Israel insisted on the full withdrawal of Iranian troops from Syria.

The 1974 Separation of Forces Agreement between Israel and Syria, which followed the Yom Kippur War, separated Israel and Syrian troops and created a 235-km. buffer zone in the Golan Heights. Israel demands the buffer zone be respected, even as it is deeply concerned that Iranian or Shia forces moving south with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s troops may try to violate it.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stressed during his visit to Moscow in July that respecting the Separation of Forces Agreement was a red line for Israel in Syria.

UN peacekeepers, augmented by Russian military police, returned to the border last week to carry out patrols. The day before, Alexander Lavrentiev, Russian president Vladimir Putin’s special envoy on Syria, said Iran and Shia militias have withdrawn 85 km. from the border on the Golan.

“There are no units of heavy equipment and weapons that could pose a threat to Israel at a distance of 85 km. from the line of demarcation,” Lavrentiev was quoted as saying in TASS.

Israel’s stated position remains as the removal of all Iranian forces and their proxies from Syria, although Netanyahu made clear during his Moscow talks the immediate priorities were to move these forces away from the border, to remove Iran’s long-range missiles from throughout Syria, and to ensure the separation agreement will be honored in full.