Foreign ministers from the 28 EU member states decided at a Monday meeting to appeal the decision taken by the General Court of the European Union on December 17, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.
The EU ministers were meeting in Brussels to discuss how to boost cooperation in the face of a growing Islamist militant threat following deadly Paris attacks and anti-terror raids in Belgium.
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Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas slammed as “immoral” Monday an EU appeal to keep it on the bloc’s terror blacklist, a month after a European court ordered its removal.
“The European Union’s insistence on keeping Hamas on the list of terrorist organisations is an immoral step, and reflects the EU’s total bias in favour of the Israeli occupation,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri told AFP.
“It provides it (Israel) with the cover for its crimes against the Palestinian people,” he added.
Foreign ministers from the 28 EU member states decided at a Monday meeting to appeal the decision taken by the General Court of the European Union on December 17, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said.
The ruling by the EU’s second highest court had said that the blacklisting of Hamas in 2001 was based not on sound legal judgements but on conclusions derived from the media and the Internet.
Hamas, which has dominated the Gaza Strip since 2007, had appealed against its inclusion on the blacklist on several grounds.
Israel’s closest ally the United States has urged the EU to keep up its sanctions on Hamas, saying the US position had “not changed” and Hamas is still a “designated foreign terrorist organisation.”
Hamas fired thousands of rockets at Israel during a 50-day war last summer in which the Jewish state pounded Gaza with thousands of its own strikes.
The war killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 73 on the Israel side, mostly soldiers.
The EU ministers were meeting in Brussels to discuss how to boost cooperation in the face of a growing Islamist militant threat following deadly Paris attacks and anti-terror raids in Belgium.
EU “considering a ban on Islamophobia” after Paris attacks
After the Charlie Hebdo and related attacks, the European Union is being presented with proposals to ban Islamophobia, so as to stem a perceived backlash against Muslims. Eurocrats are sympathetic but do not believe they are practicable
Diplomatic and NGO sources in Brussels say that the European Union is now considering proposals from Muslim groups to strengthen laws against “hate speech” following the fatal attacks in Paris at the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine and a Jewish Supermarket.
The proposals are based on fears that the attacks by Islamists could provoke a backlash against Europe’s growing Muslim community, leaders of which uniformly condemned the killings, while simultaneously protesting against denigration of Muhammed.
Mainstream Muslim leaders have close contacts with the European Union and its related institutions, as do the leaders of other faith groups.
The sources, consulted in the last two days, who insisted upon anonymity, said that senior EU officials were sympathetic to calls for libel and hate-speech laws to be strengthened, but were sceptical of getting support from member governments or from the European Parliament where Right-leaning parties increased their presence at last year’s European elections.
One well-informed member of a non-governmental orgainsation in Brussels said:
“The conversation is going on. In fact, it’s the only game in town after Paris. But you aren’t going to get anyone to go on the record right now. Everyone’s too scared, and I don’t mean scared of the Islamists, I mean scared of being accused of being politically correct, even if they are. ”
“The Jewish groups are terrrified, but let’s face it, how many Jews are there in Europe against the number of Muslims? But, yes, they are considering a ban on Islamophobia”.
Opinion polls show that the majority of European Union Muslims want Sharia law for their communities, but do not believe that that should extend to the non-Muslim majority. However, they do believe that insulting the Muslim Prophet should be against the law.
In 2003, the EU suppressed a report on anti-Semitism in Europe which concluded that attacks on Jews were mainly perpetrated by young Muslims.
[T]here is no clear path back to sanity, nor is there a clear path to the end of the obsession with Israel.
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It has been a pretty typical week on the hate Israel front. A European Union Court has decided that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, and their previous designation as such had not been justified by real evidence that Europeans had developed, as opposed, say, to information supplied by the United States or Israel. An international court in Geneva is hearing evidence of Israeli human rights violations. The United Nations Security Council has been considering a resolution developed by the Palestinian Authority, as well as one by the French that would effectively lay out the terms for Israel’s capitulation over the next few years. Israel’s peace camp has been working with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, encouraging a delay in consideration of the Security Council resolutions, since any action before the upcoming Israeli parliamentary elections could benefit the right-wing parties in Israel. In other words, there is not even an attempt to hide anymore that the United States is putting its foot down for one particular side in the Israeli election. Various European countries are endorsing Palestinian statehood on the terms demanded by the Palestinian Authority. Academic groups, unions, and churches in Europe and the United States are endorsing the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement. Certain European communities are now “Israeli-frei” – free of Israeli goods (or at least those they can identify and care to avoid). The U.N. Human Rights Council and the General Assembly, as well as specific agencies whose only task is to bash Israel, are set to get back to work, creating more resolutions and condemnations of the Jewish state.
As Joshua Muravchik makes clear in his outstanding new book, Making David Into Goliath, this obsession with Israel by most nations of the world and the United Nations – or as they are collectively known, “the international community” – as well as by “the global left,” could not have been imagined a half-century back, prior to the Six-Day War. At that time, Israel was championed by Socialist political parties, and viewed sympathetically as a beleaguered democracy fighting for its existence against a collection of larger anti-Western Arab tyrannies. There was residual sympathy for Jewish survivors of the Holocaust, many of whom had moved to Israel. There was no movement for Palestinian nationhood, though certainly violent actions by Arabs aimed at Israel and Jews in the region had been going on for decades.
Muravchik’s book attempts to explain what has happened during this period and why. A lot changed after the 1967 war, when, instead of little Israel facing off with 21 Arab nations, the conflict was recast with Israel as the big dog, oppressing the Palestinians and occupying their land. Since the left tends to root for the underdog, Israel no longer fit the bill. The description of the conflict in the post-1967 telling is of course neither factual nor historical, since there had never been a unique nation of Palestinian Arabs, denied their nationhood – say, the way the Tibetans or the Kurds have been for sixty years, or forever. The Palestinians became refugees because their leaders refused to accept half a loaf – a state on half of the mandate territory in 1947 – and instead chose to go to war to deny the Zionists their state. The Arabs of Palestine, even with the support of armies from their Arab neighbor states, lost the war.
When you start a war and lose, there are consequences.
Since 1967, the Palestinians and their allies have been trying to reverse not just the war of 1967, but the 1948 war as well. Refugees from the 1948 war (and there are not many of them left) are still in refugee camps, unlike any other refugees from any other conflicts then or in the years since, and the descendants of the original refugee population, now from three generations, demands a “right of return” to homes in Israel where they never lived and in fact to a country where they have never been.
The 1948 war produced a population exchange – a larger number of Jews were driven out of Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, Yemen, Iraq, Libya, and other countries than Arabs who left their homes in what became Israel. Most of the Jewish refugees moved to Israel, where in relatively short order they were out of any temporary refugee camps and absorbed as regular citizens of the state. That the Arabs have sacrificed generations of their own people to maintain their inflexible hatred of Israel is all one needs to know about why there has been no resolution of the conflict despite serious efforts over the years to accomplish this.
Muravchik, who was once a leftist himself, spends a fair amount of time in the book documenting the impact of Edward Said , who with his disciples has mentored the current U.S. president, Barack Obama. Said, despite his faked personal history, has had enormous impact introducing moral relativism to studies of the regions, declaring that the West cannot understand “the Orient” and has no right to judge the regimes, the religions, the people. What the West calls a terrorist group is instead viewed as a resistance fighting for freedom. The combination of mosque and state is what those in the region know and prefer, not Western parliamentary systems. Israel is not a beacon with much to offer those in the region, but an imperialist creation and a predator. Muravchik outlines how in Israel itself, a part of the population is at war with Zionism and is in fact in league with Israel’s external enemies, assisting viperish non-governmental organizations (often funded by European nations) and bigoted journalists. An increasing number of left-wing Jews in the United States behave as if Israel is an embarrassment, claiming that Israel’s behavior is “not in its name” and calling for an end to the “racist, apartheid“ state.
At one time, the United Nations consisted primarily of democracies who had fought the Axis powers. With the decolonization of Africa and Asia after the war, dozens of new nations, since dubbed “the Third World,” became the dominant block at the U.N., particularly in the General Assembly and other international organizations. These new nations included many Arab and Islamic countries, and their power in numbers shifted these organizations into full-blown assault forces directed at Israel. Three quarters of all U.N. General Assembly resolutions that are directed at a single country are rebukes of Israel. It is fairly obvious that the international community considers Israel the worst country in the world (or at least the closest thing to a piñata for the purposes of diplomatic assault) and has ignored the human rights disasters at play in Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Libya, Saudi Arabia, and dozens of other easy targets, since there is no real interest in fairness, and Israel is always held to a different standard.
The Palestinians and their allies have also scored with the terror weapon and the oil weapon. One nation after another demonstrated that cowardice was the preferred policy for dealing with Palestinian terror groups, rather than risking confrontation with them, and many nations thought they could buy peace and security by becoming harsh critics of Israel and allies of the Palestinians. In countries with large populations of Arab or Muslim immigrants, taking on Israel politically, and ignoring violence directed against Israel or threats against Jews, was seen as a safety valve to prevent terrorism and violence directed against such countries’ own citizens. After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, OPEC, dominated by Arab oil producers, began a more systematic effort to use the threat of cutting off oil deliveries to force changes in policy by oil-importing nations, particularly in Europe.
Muravchik is an honest historian of the conflict, and he documents how Israel contributed to changing the narrative of the conflict. Some of Israel’s leaders were poor spokespersons for the country. The invasion of Lebanon in 1982, followed by the attacks carried out by Christian Phalangists in Sabra and Shatila to avenge the assassination of their leader by Palestinians, with Israeli forces seemingly looking the other way, were particularly damaging. Many Israelis, not all on the hard left, have opposed the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria. Muravchik makes clear, however, much as Caroline Glick has done in her book The Israel Solution, that to a large extent it is irrelevant what Israel has offered in any peace process to achieve a deal. In essence, the country has entered a bidding war against itself.
Muravchik has laid out why Israel is now in the dock, facing more critics on more fronts all the time. But what is most depressing is that there is no clear path back to sanity, nor is there a clear path to the end of the obsession with Israel. In fact, the momentum is all with those ganging up on the Jewish state. In the United States, Barack Obama is a president more comfortable with the thinking of the international community than any prior president since Israeli statehood in 1948, and he seems anxious to end America’s isolation on this issue (since it alone has stood in Israel’s corner for several decades) and move American policy so we are more in line with Sweden or Spain with regard to the conflict.
Muravchik calls for vigilance (Obama will be around only another two years and one month), but with America’s rapidly shifting demography, and the takeover of so many parts of the culture by the left – most of the media, the arts, the universities, Hollywood, many churches and synagogues – the struggle for those who stand with Israel will be uphill.
Although the EU court has said that its controversial decision was “technical” and was not a reassessment of Hamas’s classification as a terrorist group, leaders of the Islamist movement believe that the move will eventually earn them legitimacy in the international arena.
The EU court’s decision represents a “severe blow to the Palestinian Authority and Egypt,” according to Palestinian political analyst Raed Abu Dayer.
Any victory for Hamas, albeit a small and symbolic one, is a victory for the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalist groups, and causes tremendous damage to those Muslims who are opposed to radical Islam.
Hours before the EU court’s decision was made public, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar announced that his movement would never recognize Israel, and that Hamas seeks to overthrow the Palestinian Authority and seize control of the West Bank.
The EU court’s decision also coincided with a rapprochement between Hamas and Iran. Now, the Iranians and other countries, such as Turkey and Qatar, are likely to interpret the EU court’s decision as a green light to resume financial and military aid, including rockets and missiles, to Hamas — not only to Gaza but to the West Bank as well — to support those Palestinians whose aim it is to eliminate Israel.
Less than 48 hours after a top European Union court ruled that Hamas should be removed from the bloc’s list of terrorist groups, supporters of the Palestinian Islamist movement responded by firing a rocket at Israel. The attack, which did not cause any casualties or damage, did not come as a surprise.
Buoyed by the EU court’s ruling, Hamas leaders and spokesmen see it as a “political and legal achievement” and a “big victory” for the “armed struggle” against Israel.
Musa Abu Marzouk, a top Hamas leader, issued a statement thanking the EU court for its decision. He hailed the decision to remove his movement from the terrorist list as a “victory for all those who support the Palestinian right to resistance.”
When Hamas leaders talk about “resistance,” they are referring to terrorist attacks, such as the launching of rockets and suicide bombings against Israel. In other words, Hamas has interpreted the court’s decision as a green light to carry out fresh attacks as part of its ambition to destroy Israel.
The rocket that was fired from the Gaza Strip at Israel only days after the court decision is not likely to be the last.
Although the EU court has said that its controversial decision was “technical” and was not a reassessment of Hamas’s classification as a terrorist group, leaders of the Islamist movement believe that the move will eventually earn them legitimacy in the international arena.
Ironically, the EU court’s decision coincided with Hamas celebrations marking the 27thanniversary of its founding. Once again, Hamas used the celebrations to remind everyone that its real goal is to destroy Israel. And, of course, Hamas used the event to display its arsenal of weapons that include various types of rockets and missiles, as well as drones.
Thousands of armed Hamas troops showed off their military hardware at a Dec. 14, 2014 parade in Gaza, marking the organization’s 27th anniversary. (Image source: PressTV video screenshot)
Hours before the EU court decision was made public, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar announced that his movement would never recognize Israel. Zahar also made it clear that Hamas seeks to overthrow the Palestinian Authority [PA] regime and seize control over the West Bank.
The EU court’s decision also coincided with increased efforts to achieve rapprochement between Hamas and Iran. Recently, a senior Hamas leadership delegation visited Tehran as part of efforts to mend fences between the two sides. The main purpose of the visit was to persuade the Iranians to resume military and financial aid to Hamas. The visit, according to senior Hamas officials, appears to have been “successful.”
“There are many signs that our relations are back on the right track,” explained Hamas’s Musa Abu Marzouk. “Hamas and Iran have repaired their relations, which were strong before the Syrian crisis.” Relations between Hamas and Iran deteriorated due to the Islamist movement’s refusal to support the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Now the Iranians are likely to interpret the EU court decision to remove Hamas from the list of terrorist groups as a green light to resume financial and military aid to the movement.
Iran’s leaders recently announced that they intend to dispatch weapons not only to the Gaza Strip, but to the West Bank as well, as part of Tehran’s effort to support those Palestinians who are fighting to eliminate Israel.
Moreover, the EU court’s move will also embolden other countries that provide Hamas with political and financial aid, first and foremost Qatar and Turkey. Oil-rich Gulf countries such as Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and Saudi Arabia will now face pressure from many Arabs and Muslims to join Qatar, Turkey and Iran in extending their support to Hamas.
The biggest losers, meanwhile, are Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. Over the past few months, the two men have been doing their utmost to undermine Hamas and end its rule over the Gaza Strip.
Abbas has been fighting Hamas by blocking financial and humanitarian aid and arresting its supporters in the West Bank, while Sisi continues to tighten the blockade on the Gaza Strip and destroy dozens of smuggling tunnels along the border with Egypt.
The EU court’s decision represents a “severe blow to the Palestinian Authority and Egypt,” noted Palestinian political analyst Raed Abu Dayer. “As far is Abbas is concerned, the decision grants Hamas political legitimacy and challenges his claim to be the sole legitimate leader [of the Palestinians]. With regards to Egypt, the European court decision calls into question rulings by Egyptian courts that Hamas is a terrorist organization.”
Even if the EU court decision is reversed in the future, there’s no doubt that it has already caused tremendous damage, especially to those Muslims who are opposed to radical Islam.
Any victory for Hamas, albeit a small and symbolic one, is a victory for the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood and other fundamentalist groups around the world.
The decision has left many Arabs and Muslims with the impression that Hamas, after all, is not a terrorist organization, especially if non-Muslims in Europe say so through one of their top courts. Even worse, the decision poses a real and immediate threat to Israel, as evident from the latest rocket attack.
If the Europeans have reached the conclusion that Hamas is not a terrorist organization, then why don’t their governments openly invite tens of thousands of Hamas members and supporters to move to London, Paris and Rome? And they should not forget to ask the Hamas members to bring along with them their arsenal of weapons.
Obama condemns “wicked” U.S. imperialism for supporting American values such as freedom and democracy abroad. Simultaneously, he tries to precipitate “regime change” in Israel so that she will support His values and those of Palestinians rather than American and Israeli values of freedom and democracy.
The Palestinians have placed before the United Nations Security Council a “peace proposal” intended to force Israel to agree to creation of a Palestinian state and “an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines” by the end of 2017. Secretary Kerry has argued that the matter should not be considered until after the Israeli Knesset elections in March. According to an article in Foreign Policy,
Speaking at an annual luncheon with the 28 European Union ambassadors, Kerry cautioned that any action by the U.N. Security Council would strengthen the hands of Israeli hardliners who oppose the peace process. . . . [Emphasis added.]
“Kerry has been very, very clear that for the United States it was not an option to discuss whatever text before the end of the Israeli election,” according to a European diplomat.
The diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the luncheon was confidential, said that Kerry explained that Israel’s liberal political leaders, Shimon Peres and Tipzi Livni, had expressed concern that a Security Council move to pressure Israel on the eve of election would only strengthen the hands of Israeli hardliners, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Naftali Bennett, an implacable foe of a Palestinian state and leader of the right-wing Jewish Home party. Netanyahu is also fiercely opposed to the Palestinians effort to secure Security Council backing for its statehood drive. [Emphasis added.]
Kerry said Livni had “told him that such a text imposed by the international community would reinforce Benjamin Netanyahu and the hardliners in Israel,” as well as the hardliners in Palestine, according to the European diplomat.
The message, said another European diplomat, was that U.N. action would “give more impetus to more right-wing parties, that there was a risk this could further embolden the more right-wing forces along the Israeli political spectrum.” [Emphasis added.]
Kerry’s remarks highlight the Obama administration’s delicate balancing act when it comes to its tense relationship with the Israeli government. On the one hand, senior administration officials make little attempt to hide the personal dislike between Netanyahu and President Barack Obama or their sharp disagreements on issues ranging from the peace process to Iran. On the other hand, Kerry and other top policymakers have tried to avoid saying or doing anything that could be seen as meddling in the Israeli election in an effort to oust Netanyahu and replace him with a more centrist prime minister. [Emphasis added.]
told Dmitry Medvedev that he would have more flexibility after November’s election to deal with contentious issues such as missile defence. . . .
Obama’s candid remark was considered a gaffe because He made it assuming that the microphone had been turned off and that no one other than Medvedev would hear Him. Kerry, however, candidly but intentionally told twenty-eight European Union ambassadors that it is U.S. policy to encourage the Israeli left, to diminish the Israeli right and to make it more difficult for Prime Minister Netanyahu to remain in office. Aside from his incredible naivete, why did Kerry do that?
For Obama and European leaders, Israel is reducible to the peace process. And the Israeli left depends on the support of foreign governments for its network of foreign funded non-profit organizations. The Israeli left can’t let go of its exploding version of ObamaCare [Palestine] because the left is becoming a foreign organization with limited domestic support. Its electorate isn’t in Israel; it’s in Brussels. [Emphasis and bracketed insert added.]
. . . .
Escalating a crisis in relations has been the traditional way for US administrations to force Israeli governments out of office. Bill Clinton did it to Netanyahu and as Israeli elections appear on the horizon Obama would love to do it all over again.
There’s only one problem.
The United States is popular in Israel, but Obama isn’t. Obama’s spats with Netanyahu ended up making the Israeli leader more popular. The plan was for Obama to gaslight Israelis by maintaining a positive image in Israel while lashing out at the Jewish State so that the blame would fall on Netanyahu. [Emphasis added.]
Kerry’s remarks — covered by Israeli media — seem, contrary to his intentions, likely to enhance the chances of Israeli “hardliners” on the “right,” to hurt the chances of those on the left and hence to increase PM Netanyahu’s chances of remaining in office. Even leaving that aside, how will Kerry’s remarks favoring regime change be viewed by other increasingly reluctant U.S. allies in the Middle East?
Israeli “hardliners” have already yielded to the Palestinians as much as, if not more than, they can without greatly endangering the security of Israel because there is no Palestinian entity with which peace can be made other than through Israel’s suicide.
Interestingly, the speaker doesn’t mention the longing for Palestinian statehood or independence. Instead, he talks of the establishment of the “Islamic Caliphate.” “Oh Allah’” he states, “Hasten the establishment of the State of the Islamic Caliphate,” and further rants, “Oh Allah hasten the pledge of allegiance to the Muslim Caliph.” He spews forth the latter statement three times to chants of “Amen!” from the large, approving crowd congregating around him.
These comments, which would register horror and revulsion in the West (at least in some quarters) are almost banal among Palestinians. In fact, a similar video featuring a different speaker some days earlier at the same venue, conveyed identical sentiment, expressing admiration for the Islamic State and calling for murder of Jews and annihilation of America. [Emphasis added.]
Here’s the other video referenced in the article:
Guttural anti-Semitism is ingrained and interwoven in the fabric of Palestinian society. Despite their minuscule numbers, 78% of Palestinians believe that Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars while a whopping 88% believe that Jews control the global media and still more believe that Jews wield too much power in the business world. [Emphasis added.]
Much of the blame for this can be placed squarely on the doorstep of Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which subjects the Palestinian population to a steady diet of hate-filled, Judeophobic rhetoric through state-controlled media and educational institutions. It is so well entrenched that the process of deprogramming, if it were ever attempted, would take generations to reverse. [Emphasis added.]
As noted in the Wall Street Journal article linked in the quote immediately above,
To understand why peace in Palestine is years if not decades away, consider the Palestinian celebrations after Tuesday’s murder in a Jerusalem synagogue of five Israelis, including three with joint U.S. citizenship. Two Palestinian cousins armed with meat cleavers and a gun attacked worshipers during morning prayers, and the response was jubilation in the streets.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility, while Hamas praised the murders as a “response to continued Israeli crimes.” The main obstacle to peace isn’t Jewish settlements in the multireligious city of Jerusalem. The barrier is the culture of hatred against Jews that is nurtured by Palestinian leaders. [Emphasis added.]
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas condemned the killings, but not without calling for Israel to halt what he called “invasions” of the holy Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Mr. Abbas has previously said the Temple Mount was being “contaminated” by Jews, despite assurances by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Dome of the Rock and Al Aqsa Mosque are for Muslim worship only. The Memri news service reports that the Oct. 29 issue of the Palestinian daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida was full of false accusations that Israel is damaging Jerusalem’s holy sites. [Emphasis added.]
An overwhelming majority of Palestinian Arabs support the recent spate of terrorist attacks against Israelis, an opinion pollreleased Tuesday finds, according to The Associated Press (AP).[Emphasis added.]
The poll also found that more than half of Palestinian Arabs support a new “intifada” (uprising) against Israel, and that Hamas would win presidential elections if they were held today. [Emphasis added.]
Palestinian Arab pollster Khalil Shikaki said the results reflected anger over Israeli statements about Jerusalem, as well as a loss of hope following the collapse of U.S.-brokered peace talks and Israel’s recent war with Hamas in Gaza.
Shikaki heads the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, which interviewed 1,270 people in the Palestinian Authority-assigned areas of Judea and Samaria and Gaza last week. The poll had an error margin of 3 percentage points.
“There is an environment in which violence is becoming a dominant issue,” Shikaki told AP. “This seems to be one of the most important driving forces.”
Hamas is, if possible, even worse than Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.
Both Hamas and Abbas’ Palestinian Authority seek the death of Israeli Jews and the destruction of Israel, the only democratic and free nation in the Middle East. Kerry’s ill-conceived efforts to assist them at the expense of Israel, most recently by actively seeking to promote Israel’s left wing, to diminish its right wing and hence to empower Palestinians intent upon the death of Israel, may well fail. Succeed or fail, those efforts are consistent with Obama’s preference for Islamic dictators over democracy coupled with freedom.
These European parliaments are also turning a blind eye to the fact that, under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, there is no respect for the rule of law, free speech, transparency or accountability.
These Western parliamentarians are in fact acting against the interests of the Palestinians, who are clearly not hoping for another corrupt dictatorship in the Arab world.
“The situation in Palestine does not conform at all with democracy or the rule of law… Wake up and see the loss of rights, law and security.” — Freih Abu Medein, former Palestinian Authority Justice Minister.
“Abu Mazen [Mahmoud Abbas] wants to concentrate all authorities in his hands and the hand of his loyalists. He’s acting in a dictatorial way and wants to be in control of everything, especially the finances.” — Yasser Abed Rabbo, Secretary General of the PLO.
By turning a blind eye to human rights violations, as well as assaults on freedom of expression, the judiciary and the parliamentary system in the Palestinian territories, Western parliaments are paving the way for a creation of a rogue state called Palestine.
European parliaments that are rushing to recognize a Palestinian state are ignoring the fact that the Palestinians have been without a functioning parliament for the past seven years.
The Palestinian parliament, known as the Palestinian Legislative Council [PLC], has been paralyzed since 2007, when Hamas violently seized control over the Gaza Strip and expelled the Palestinian Authority [PA].
These European parliaments are also turning a blind eye to the fact that, under the PA in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, there is no respect for the rule of law, free speech, transparency or accountability.
Ironically, the EU Parliament vote coincided with an unprecedented crackdown by the Palestinian Authority leadership on the Palestinian Legislative Council and its secretary-general, Ibrahim Khraisheh, in Ramallah.
PA President Mahmoud Abbas ordered the arrest of Khraisheh for allegedly criticizing PA Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah. Following strong protests by leaders of various Palestinian factions, who described the decision as a flagrant breach of freedom of expression, Abbas was forced to backtrack.
But for Abbas, this was not the end of the story. After canceling the arrest order against Khraisheh, Abbas dispatched policemen to the parliament building in Ramallah to prevent the top official from entering the compound. The presence of the policemen at the main entrance to the parliament building drew sharp denunciations from many Palestinians.
The Palestinian Legislative Council building in Ramallah. (Image source: Alarab
Khraisheh was removed from his job because he dared to criticize the Palestinian government for arresting Bassam Zakarneh, head of the public employees’ union in the West Bank. Many Palestinians have also denounced the arrest of Zakarneh as an assault on workers’ rights and an attempt to intimidate them.
But the EU Parliament and other parliaments that voted in favor of recognizing Palestinian statehood did not see a need to comment on Abbas’s measures against the PLC and one of its senior officials.
EU parliamentarians who voted in favor of Palestinian statehood are most likely unaware of what the former PA Justice Minister, Freih Abu Medein, had to say about the rule of law and order in the Palestinian Authority.
Abu Medein drew a bleak picture of what the future Palestinian state would look like. In a damning article he published last week, Abu Medein wrote: “The situation in Palestine does not conform at all with democracy or the rule of law, because the Palestinian mentality is too coarse to cope with transparency of the law and its regulators and provisions.”
Abu Medein’s scathing attack, which is directed first and foremost against Abbas, ended with an appeal to Palestinians to “wake up and see the loss of law, rights and security” in the areas controlled by the PA and Hamas.
The former Palestinian Authority justice minister is not the only prominent Palestinian who seems to understand that a Palestinian state under the current circumstances would be anything but democratic.
Yasser Abed Rabbo, the secretary-general of the PLO who until recently was considered one of Abbas’s top confidants, was quoted last week as strongly condemning the Palestinian Authority president’s “dictatorial” rule.
Referring to Abbas by his nom de guerre, Abed Rabbo said: “Abu Mazen wants to concentrate all authorities in his hands and the hands of his loyalists. He’s acting in a dictatorial way and wants to be in control of everything, especially the finances. I don’t know what this man wants and why he’s behaving in this way. What will happen after Abu Mazen’s departure?”
The parliament members of Sweden, Britain, France and Portugal who voted in favor of recognizing Palestinian statehood do not seem to care about their Palestinian colleagues, who have been deprived of carrying out their parliamentary obligations as a result of the power struggle between Hamas and Abbas’s Fatah faction.
Nor do they seem to care if the Palestinian state would be another corrupt dictatorship where there is no room for the rule of law, transparency or freedom of speech.
Obviously, Western parliamentarians see no wrongdoing or evil in the actions of the Palestinian leadership and Hamas. They are prepared to vote in favor of a Palestinian state even if it does not appear to be headed toward democracy and transparency.
These Western parliamentarians are in fact acting against the interests of the Palestinians, who are clearly not hoping for another corrupt dictatorship in the Arab world. By turning a blind eye to human rights violations, as well as assaults on freedom of expression, the judiciary and the parliamentary system in the Palestinian territories, Western parliaments are paving the way for the creation of a rogue state called Palestine.
Hamas removed from EU terrorist list on technicality
European Union General Court annuls decision to keep Hamas on list of terrorist organizations, but temporarily maintained measures against it for three months or until an appeal was closed.
Reuters, AP Published: 12.17.14, 11:14 / Israel News
The European Union’s second highest court annulled on Wednesday the bloc’s decision to keep Hamas on a list of terrorist organizations, but temporarily maintained the measures for a period of three months or until an appeal was closed.
The General Court of the European Union said the contested measures were not based on an examination of Hamas’s “acts examined and confirmed in decisions of competent authorities” but on imputations derived from the media and the Internet.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly called on Europe to maintain the ban. “We expect them to immediately put Hamas back on the
list,” he said in a statement from Jerusalem, denouncing Hamas as “a murderous terrorist organization”.
The EU court did not consider the merits of whether Hamas should be classified as a terror group, but reviewed the original decision-making process. This, it said, did not include the considered opinion of competent authorities, but rather relied on press and Internet reports.
“The court stresses that those annulments, on fundamental procedural grounds, do not imply any substantive assessment of the question of the classification of Hamas as a terrorist group,” the court said in a statement.
It therefore ruled that the asset freezes should stay in place for three months, pending further EU actions, in order to ensure that any possible future freezing of funds would be effective.
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh (Photo: AFP)
The court’s decision followed an appeal filed by Hamas against its inclusion in the European Union’s blacklist.
The EU is considering its next steps. It has two months to appeal.
The terrorist list designation bars EU officials from dealing with the group, and requires that any of the group’s funds in EU countries be frozen.
Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq welcomed the decision. “This is the correction of an error and an injustice that was caused to Hamas, which is a national liberation movement.”
Salah Bardawil, another Hamas official, called the decision a “strong, good shift” that he said would ultimately lead to European action against Israel.
“This decision corrects a great mistake committed against the Palestinian resistance that had Hamas connected to terror,” he said.
The lawyer for Hamas, Liliane Glock, told AFP she was “satisfied with the decision.”
Although Hamas presented the decision as a victory, Israel and the EU say that the change will not have an effect on the group’s position as a terror group in Europe as the court will be given a few months to rebuild the file against Hamas with evidence that will enable the Gaza-based group to remain on the list of terror organizations.
Hamas rally in Gaza (Photo: Reuters)
Hamas’s military wing was added to the European Union’s first-ever terrorism blacklist drawn up in December 2001 in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States.
Hamas’s political wing was added to the EU’s list of terror organizations in 2003 after a diplomatic effort led by Israel and the US.
A few months ago, the Court of Justice made a decision to remove the Tamil Tigers, a Sri Lankan terror group, from the EU’s terrorist list because of similar reasoning. The court concluded that the file did not have sufficient legal evidence proving the group was a terror organization. However, as is expected in the case of Hamas, the court gave the EU a window of time to re-submit its request and build a stronger legal file against the Sri Lankan group.
Hamas, aware of the case of the Sri Lankan group, saw an opportunity to remove itself from the EU’s terror list which prevents all European nations from contacting the organization. Hamas appealed to the court on the same grounds as the Sri Lankan group.
Hamas rally in Gaza (Photo: Reuters)
According to reports from within Israel, some European countries, fearing the possiblity that Hamas would be taken of the EU’s terror list, have already begun collecting intelligence information that could be useful in building a strong case against the group.
Israel, on its part, has a department dedicated to the issue within the Foreign Ministry and has already been collecting incriminating evidence against terror organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
Hamas rally in Gaza (Photo: EPA)
The weakness of the current case against Hamas, and against the Tamil Tigers, was said to be due to the nature of the European process for declaring entities as terror organizations. In the European system, the list must be reviewed every six months which resulted in the Europeans using unclassified material and media publications to rebuild the files, which were then automatically approved.
The Europeans feared presenting classified intelligence material to the court, with the apprehension that the information would ultimately end up in the hands of Hamas and aid the terror group. Therefore, the Europeans relied on low-level material to build the file against Hamas. The EU now realizes that it will have to introduce more solid evidence.
Another reason for the court to have accepted the appeal by Hamas to take themselves off the EU’s terror list could be the court’s attempt to strengthen its stance within the EU – not fearing confrontation with European countries.
Yitzhak Benhorin, Itamar Eichner, Roi Kais and Elior Levy contributed to this report.
Amb. Prosor addresses UNGA debate on the Question of Palestine”
Mr. President,I stand before the world as a proud representative of the State of Israel and the Jewish people. I stand tall before you knowing that truth and morality are on my side. And yet, I stand here knowing that today in this Assembly, truth will be turned on its head and morality cast aside.The fact of the matter is that when members of the international community speak about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a fog descends to cloud all logic and moral clarity. The result isn’t realpolitik, its surrealpolitik.
The world’s unrelenting focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an injustice to tens of millions of victims of tyranny and terrorism in the Middle East. As we speak, Yazidis, Bahai, Kurds, Christians and Muslims are being executed and expelled by radical extremists at a rate of 1,000 people per month.
How many resolutions did you pass last week to address this crisis? And how many special sessions did you call for? The answer is zero. What does this say about international concern for human life? Not much, but it speaks volumes about the hypocrisy of the international community.
I stand before you to speak the truth. Of the 300 million Arabs in the Middle East and North Africa, less than half a percent are truly free – and they are all citizens of Israel.
Israeli Arabs are some of the most educated Arabs in the world. They are our leading physicians and surgeons, they are elected to our parliament, and they serve as judges on our Supreme Court. Millions of men and women in the Middle East would welcome these opportunities and freedoms.
Nonetheless, nation after nation, will stand at this podium today and criticize Israel – the small island of democracy in a region plagued by tyranny and oppression.
Mr. President,
Our conflict has never been about the establishment of a Palestinian state. It has always been about the existence of the Jewish state.
Sixty seven years ago this week, on November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land into a Jewish state and an Arab state. Simple. The Jews said yes. The Arabs said no. But they didn’t just say no. Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Lebanon launched a war of annihilation against our newborn state.
This is the historical truth that the Arabs are trying to distort. The Arabs’ historic mistake continues to be felt – in lives lost in war, lives lost to terrorism, and lives scarred by the Arab’s narrow political interests.
According to the United Nations, about 700,000 Palestinians were displaced in the war initiated by the Arabs themselves. At the same time, some 850,000 Jews were forced to flee from Arab countries.
Why is it, that 67 years later, the displacement of the Jews has been completely forgotten by this institution while the displacement of the Palestinians is the subject of an annual debate?
The difference is that Israel did its utmost to integrate the Jewish refugees into society. The Arabs did just the opposite.
The worst oppression of the Palestinian people takes place in Arab nations. In most of the Arab world, Palestinians are denied citizenship and are aggressively discriminated against. They are barred from owning land and prevented from entering certain professions.
And yet none – not one – of these crimes are mentioned in the resolutions before you.
If you were truly concerned about the plight of the Palestinian people there would be one, just one, resolution to address the thousands of Palestinians killed in Syria. And if you were so truly concerned about the Palestinians there would be at least one resolution to denounce the treatment of Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps.
But there isn’t. The reason is that today’s debate is not about speaking for peace or speaking for the Palestinian people – it is about speaking against Israel. It is nothing but a hate and bashing festival against Israel.
Mr. President,
The European nations claim to stand for Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité – freedom, equality, and brotherhood – but nothing could be farther from the truth.
I often hear European leaders proclaim that Israel has the right to exist in secure borders. That’s very nice. But I have to say – it makes about as much sense as me standing here and proclaiming Sweden’s right to exist in secure borders.
When it comes to matters of security, Israel learned the hard way that we cannot rely on others – certainly not Europe.
In 1973, on Yom Kippur – the holiest day on the Jewish calendar – the surrounding Arab nations launched an attack against Israel. In the hours before the war began, Golda Meir, our Prime Minister then, made the difficult decision not to launch a preemptive strike. The Israeli Government understood that if we launched a preemptive strike, we would lose the support of the international community.
As the Arab armies advanced on every front, the situation in Israel grew dire. Our casualty count was growing and we were running dangerously low on weapons and ammunition. In this, our hour of need, President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, agreed to send Galaxy planes loaded with tanks and ammunition to resupply our troops. The only problem was that the Galaxy planes needed to refuel on route to Israel.
The Arab States were closing in and our very existence was threatened – and yet, Europe was not even willing to let the planes refuel. The U.S. stepped in once again and negotiated that the planes be allowed to refuel in the Azores.
The government and people of Israel will never forget that when our very existence was at stake, only one country came to our aid – the United States of America.
Israel is tired of hollow promises from European leaders. The Jewish people have a long memory. We will never ever forget that you failed us in the 1940s. You failed us in 1973. And you are failing us again today.
Every European parliament that voted to prematurely and unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state is giving the Palestinians exactly what they want – statehood without peace. By handing them a state on a silver platter, you are rewarding unilateral actions and taking away any incentive for the Palestinians to negotiate or compromise or renounce violence. You are sending the message that the Palestinian Authority can sit in a government with terrorists and incite violence against Israel without paying any price.
The first E.U. member to officially recognize a Palestinian state was Sweden. One has to wonder why the Swedish Government was so anxious to take this step. When it comes to other conflicts in our region, the Swedish Government calls for direct negotiations between the parties – but for the Palestinians, surprise, surprise, they roll out the red carpet.
State Secretary Söder may think she is here to celebrate her government’s so-called historic recognition, when in reality it’s nothing more than an historic mistake.
The Swedish Government may host the Nobel Prize ceremony, but there is nothing noble about their cynical political campaign to appease the Arabs in order to get a seat on the Security Council. Nations on the Security Council should have sense, sensitivity, and sensibility. Well, the Swedish Government has shown no sense, no sensitivity and no sensibility. Just nonsense.
Israel learned the hard way that listening to the international community can bring about devastating consequences. In 2005, we unilaterally dismantled every settlement and removed every citizen from the Gaza Strip. Did this bring us any closer to peace? Not at all. It paved the way for Iran to send its terrorist proxies to establish a terror stronghold on our doorstep.
I can assure you that we won’t make the same mistake again. When it comes to our security, we cannot and will not rely on others – Israel must be able to defend itself by itself.
Mr. President,
The State of Israel is the land of our forefathers – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. It is the land where Moses led the Jewish people, where David built his palace, where Solomon built the Jewish Temple, and where Isaiah saw a vision of eternal peace.
For thousands of years, Jews have lived continuously in the land of Israel. We endured through the rise and fall of the Assyrian, Babylonian, Greek and Roman Empires. And we endured through thousands of years of persecution, expulsions and crusades. The bond between the Jewish people and the Jewish land is unbreakable.
Nothing can change one simple truth – Israel is our home and Jerusalem is our eternal capital.
At the same time, we recognize that Jerusalem has special meaning for other faiths. Under Israeli sovereignty, all people – and I will repeat that, all people – regardless of religion and nationality can visit the city’s holy sites. And we intend to keep it this way. The only ones trying to change the status quo on the Temple Mount are Palestinian leaders.
President Abbas is telling his people that Jews are contaminating the Temple Mount. He has called for days of rage and urged Palestinians to prevent Jews from visiting the Temple Mount using (quote) “all means” necessary. These words are as irresponsible as they are unacceptable.
You don’t have to be Catholic to visit the Vatican, you don’t have to be Jewish to visit the Western Wall, but some Palestinians would like to see the day when only Muslims can visit the Temple Mount.
You, the international community, are lending a hand to extremists and fanatics. You, who preach tolerance and religious freedom, should be ashamed. Israel will never let this happen. We will make sure that the holy places remain open to all people of all faiths for all time.
Mr. President,
No one wants peace more than Israel. No one needs to explain the importance of peace to parents who have sent their child to defend our homeland. No one knows the stakes of success or failure better than we Israelis do. The people of Israel have shed too many tears and buried too many sons and daughters.
We are ready for peace, but we are not naïve. Israel’s security is paramount. Only a strong and secure Israel can achieve a comprehensive peace.
The past month should make it clear to anyone that Israel has immediate and pressing security needs. In recent weeks, Palestinian terrorists have shot and stabbed our citizens and twice driven their cars into crowds of pedestrians. Just a few days ago, terrorists armed with axes and a gun savagely attacked Jewish worshipers during morning prayers. We have reached the point when Israelis can’t even find sanctuary from terrorism in the sanctuary of a synagogue.
These attacks didn’t emerge out of a vacuum. They are the results of years of indoctrination and incitement. A Jewish proverb teaches: “The instruments of both death and life are in the power of the tongue.”
As a Jew and as an Israeli, I know with utter certainly that when our enemies say they want to attack us, they mean it.
Hamas’s genocidal charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the murder of Jews worldwide. For years, Hamas and other terrorist groups have sent suicide bombers into our cities, launched rockets into our towns, and sent terrorists to kidnap and murder our citizens.
And what about the Palestinian Authority? It is leading a systemic campaign of incitement. In schools, children are being taught that ‘Palestine’ will stretch from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. In mosques, religious leaders are spreading vicious libels accusing Jews of destroying Muslim holy sites. In sports stadiums, teams are named after terrorists. And in newspapers, cartoons urge Palestinians to commit terror attacks against Israelis.
Children in most of the world grow up watching cartoons of Mickey Mouse singing and dancing. Palestinian children also grow up watching Mickey Mouse, but on Palestinians national television, a twisted figure dressed as Mickey Mouse dances in an explosive belt and chants “Death to America and death to the Jews.”
I challenge you to stand up here today and do something constructive for a change. Publically denounce the violence, denounce the incitement, and denounce the culture of hate.
Most people believe that at its core, the conflict is a battle between Jews and Arabs or Israelis and Palestinians. They are wrong. The battle that we are witnessing is a battle between those who sanctify life and those who celebrate death.
Following the savage attack in a Jerusalem synagogue, celebrations erupted in Palestinian towns and villages. People were dancing in the street and distributing candy. Young men posed with axes, loudspeakers at mosques called out congratulations, and the terrorists were hailed as “martyrs” and “heroes.”
This isn’t the first time that we saw the Palestinians celebrate the murder of innocent civilians. We saw them rejoice after every terrorist attack on Israeli civilians and they even took to the streets to celebrate the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center right here in New York City.
Imagine the type of state this society would produce. Does the Middle East really need another terror-ocracy? Some members of the international community are aiding and abetting its creation.
Mr. President,
As we came into the United Nations, we passed the flags of all 193 member States. If you take the time to count, you will discover that there are 15 flags with a crescent and 25 flags with a cross. And then there is one flag with a Jewish Star of David. Amidst all the nations of the world there is one state – just one small nation state for the Jewish people.
And for some people, that is one too many.
As I stand before you today I am reminded of all the years when Jewish people paid for the world’s ignorance and indifference in blood. Those days are no more.
We will never apologize for being a free and independent people in our sovereign state. And we will never apologize for defending ourselves.
To the nations that continue to allow prejudice to prevail over truth, I say “J’accuse.”
I accuse you of hypocrisy. I accuse you of duplicity.
I accuse you of lending legitimacy to those who seek to destroy our State.
I accuse you of speaking about Israel’s right of self-defense in theory, but denying it in practice.
And I accuse you of demanding concessions from Israel, but asking nothing of the Palestinians.
In the face of these offenses, the verdict is clear. You are not for peace and you are not for the Palestinian people. You are simply against Israel.
Members of the international community have a choice to make.
You can recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people, or permit the Palestinian leadership to deny our history without consequence.
You can publically proclaim that the so-called “claim of return” is a non-starter, or you can allow this claim to remain the major obstacle to any peace agreement.
You can work to end Palestinian incitement, or stand by as hatred and extremism take root for generations to come.
You can prematurely recognize a Palestinian state, or you can encourage the Palestinian Authority to break its pact with Hamas and return to direct negotiations.
The choice is yours. You can continue to steer the Palestinians off course or pave the way to real and lasting peace.
Adding to the concern is exiled Jordanian politician, Mudar Zahran, who confirms that Hamas is already trying to confiscate construction materials donated by the international community, with some success.
“Aid earmarked for reconstruction is turning up on the Hamas controlled black market, where it is being sold at premium prices,” Zahran recently charged, Ch. 2 said.
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Hamas in Gaza may be exploiting European Union (EU) funds to rearm instead of rebuild after its pounding in this summer’s Operation Protective Edge, according to European parliament member Arne Gericke, Israel’s Ch. 2 News said Monday night.
Gericke and other EU officials have voiced concerns over a European Court of Auditors report alleging that over 2.5 percent of the EU budget for external relations, aid and enlargement had been misappropriated.
If that percentage is applied to the more than $560 million (€450m) pledged to Gaza, that means nearly $14.7 million (€11.7m) could end up in Hamas’s hands.
The Israeli army’s 51-day foray to quell some 4,000 rockets and mortars, and destroy over 30 attack tunnels destroyed much of the Islamist group’s facilities and arsenal, according to senior Israeli officials.
Adding to the concern is exiled Jordanian politician, Mudar Zahran, who confirms that Hamas is already trying to confiscate construction materials donated by the international community, with some success.
“Aid earmarked for reconstruction is turning up on the Hamas controlled black market, where it is being sold at premium prices,” Zahran recently charged, Ch. 2 said.
Hamas has annually funneled over $300 million towards weapons and paying military salaries, according to the Shin Bet Israel Security Agency.
The Twitter page of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, photographed sitting next to Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Photo: Screenshot / Twitter.
Meanwhile, instead of offering road crews, an Iranian military commander said Monday that “Millions of Basijis (volunteer forces) are ready in Iran to be dispatched to Syria and Gaza,” to fight alongside Palestinian terrorist groups in the latter.
However, Basiji volunteer forces chief, Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Reza Naqdi, said at a press conference that “there is no need to dispatch troops to Gaza” saying that the Palestinians had sufficient abilities to “battle the Israelis,” themselves, according to Iran’s state controlled Fars News Agency.
“The most serious job is that they need to receive the necessary training and skills, as today, Gaza has its own defensive industry and they have stood on their feet; we also try to implement the same plan in the West Bank, God willing,” Naqdi said.
In the West Bank, the rival Palestinian Authority’s minister of civil affairs said Monday that reconstruction material for Qatari-funded construction projects will enter the Gaza Strip upon agreement with the Israeli side, according to Palestinian media.
Hussein al-Sheikh said in a statement that reconstruction material started flowing to Gaza on Monday, including some 100 trucks carrying 4,000 tons of supplies for road repairs, according to the Ma’an News agency.
Al-Sheikh added that asphalt will be entering the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, and said that Israel’s Civil Administration agreed to allow 100 trucks of road construction materials in daily.
The European Union and several countries have decided to no longer participate in UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) sessions that single out Israel as a violator of civil rights. The decision has many Islamic countries up in arms.
Agenda Item 7 of the UNHRC is entitled, “The Human rights situation in Palestine and other occupied Arab territories.”
Though this might imply that the many civil rights violations by the Palestinian Authority might be the topic of discussion, in fact it is Israel that is under the gun. Representative after representative typically takes the floor to condemn Israel’s activities, even though it is the only true democracy in the region, and despite its legal system and media that constantly ensure the preservation of civil rights for all.
Pakistan, speaking for the Islamic Group at the UNHRC, expressed “deep disappointment that certain member states of the Western European and Others Group had ceased their participation under agenda item 7, which [is] particularly disturbing in the light of the latest Israeli behavior.”
Other Arab countries reacted similarly. The United Arab Emirates, speaking for the Arab Group, expressed “extreme discontent about the European Union’s decision to boycott this agenda item.”
Iran, for the Non-Aligned Movement, was “deeply disappointed by the decision of certain states to cease their participation in this agenda item.”
Saudi Arabia said it saw that an increasing number of countries were insisting on boycotting agenda item 7, which was “proof of double standards concerning Israel.” It declared that “Item 7 [is] a fundamental agenda item of the Council which would stand until Israeli occupation and impunity ended.”
“Non-participation speaks loudest against bigotry”
Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of the UN Watch observer organization, took the floor at the most recent session and summed up as follows: “Today is an important day for justice at the United Nations… Today we meet under Agenda Item 7, which singles out one nation, Israel, for differential and discriminatory treatment.”
“Let us recall that in 1968, a similar form of discrimination took place in Tehran, at a UN conference celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. René Cassin, author of that Declaration, was present at that event. When he saw that one nation was being singled out, he left early in protest,” said Neuer.
“Because sometimes,” Neuer continued, “non-participation speaks loudest. Sometimes, it is the only remedy that can deny the legitimacy of a bigotry which cannot otherwise be challenged or overcome.”
Neuer noted with satisfaction that the European Union, the United States, Canada, Australia, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, and many other liberal democracies did not take the floor in the debate. “The free and democratic world, echoing the appeal of René Cassin, has spoken for justice.”
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