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Monday, 26 October 2009
Israel Matzav: The Arab countries' hostages
The Arab countries' hostages
London's Independent has a lengthy report on the discrimination that the 'Palestinians' face in Arab countries. The Arab countries have done more than anyone else to perpetuate the 'Palestinians' refugee status. Reality is that even if a settlement is reached between Israel and the 'Palestinians,' the vast majority of these refugees will never 'return' to Israel or to a 'Palestinian' state. Where will they go? No one wants to discuss it. In the unlikely event that President Obama's vision of a swift and final settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict materialises, millions of Palestinians would still live in decaying refugee camps whose inhabitants are forbidden from owning land or participating in normal economic life. The only governing authority that Palestinians living in the camps have ever known is UNRWA – the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Established by the UN on 8 December 1949 to assist 650,000 impoverished Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war, UNRWA has been battling budget cuts and strikes among its employees as it struggles to provide subsidies and services to Palestinian refugees, who are defined as "persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948".
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The inclusion of the descendants of Palestinian refugees as refugees in UNRWA's mandate has no parallel in international humanitarian law and is responsible for the growth of the official numbers of Palestinian refugees in foreign countries from 711,000 to 4.6 million during decades when the number of ageing refugees from the 1948 Israeli war of independence in was in fact declining. UNRWA's grant of refugee status to the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees according to the principle of patrilineal descent, with no limit on the generations that can obtain refugee status, has made it easy for host countries to flout their obligations under international law. According to Article 34 of the UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, "The Contracting States shall as far as possible facilitate the assimilation and naturalisation of refugees," and must "make every effort to expedite naturalisation proceedings" – the opposite of what happened to the Palestinians in every Arab country in which they settled, save Jordan. For all the easy criticism that can be levelled at UNRWA, it is hard to see how many Palestinian refugees would have survived without the agency's help.
The responsibility for the legal dimensions of their fate lies elsewhere, as UNRWA Commissioner-General Karen AbuZayd made clear at UNRWA's anniversary ceremony in New York on 24 September, before an audience that included Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Queen Rania of Jordan – herself a Palestinian. "The protracted exile of Palestine refugees and the dire conditions they endure, particularly in the occupied Palestinian territory, cannot be reconciled with state obligations under the UN Charter," AbuZayd said. The result for the refugees, AbuZayd said at a forum the previous afternoon at the Princeton Club, is a "suspended state of existence" for which no one seems willing to accept political responsibility. The rest of the discussion, moderated by Ambassador Kurtner, made clear that anticipated solutions to the Palestinian refugee problem had failed to emerge – leaving a community in crisis.
"You can't ignore an entire people because it's awkward or inconvenient," says Dr Karma Nabulsi, a lecturer at Oxford and a former Palestinian representative at the UN. In the period immediately after Oslo, she added, Palestinian refugees in Arab countries hoped to be repatriated to areas governed by the Palestinian Authority. Today, despair has replaced that initial optimism. "What young Palestinian would want to resettle in Gaza or in the West Bank?" she asks.
What's unsaid in this article is why the Arab states insisted on keeping the 'Palestinians' as refugees in the first place: Because they hoped (and still hope) to use them to destroy the Jewish state of Israel. The Arab states should be forced to resolve the problem that they have created. But they won't be.
Read the whole thing, but read it critically. Most of the responsibility for the tragedy of the 'Palestinians' lies with the Arab states.
Read the whole thing, but read it critically. Most of the responsibility for the tragedy of the 'Palestinians' lies with the Arab states.
Israel Matzav: The Arab countries' hostages
Israel Matzav: Tehran holds out for more
Tehran holds out for more
On Friday, Iran refused to accept a Western offer to send 80% of its current known stock of low enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France forsufficient enrichment to be used in a medical reactor. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Western offer is even better for Iran than has previously been reported (Hat Tip: Danny A).
There are a couple problems with this theory. With the exception of the regime, no one knows for sure how much uranium Iran possesses. Given Iran's long history of lying to the world and the discovery of covert enrichment facilities (most recently in Qom) that need uranium from somewhere, a fair guess would be that Iran has more than the 3,500 pounds it has declared to U.N. inspectors.
Meanwhile, Iran insists it won't stop enriching uranium on its own, in violation of Security Council resolutions. Aside from rewarding Iran for past misbehavior by letting it use illegally enriched uranium, this deal fails to solve the problem it is intended to solve. That's because as long as the Natanz facility continues to enrich uranium at its current rate of about 132 pounds a month, Iran will produce enough low-enriched uranium within the year for a bomb. Make Natanz more efficient and the time could be cut in half.
Claims by Western officials that Iran can't convert the uranium enriched abroad for military use are less than reassuring. Though encased in a fuel rod in France, the more highly-enriched uranium returned to Iran would be simple to extract, using something as basic as a tin snipper to force open the fuel cladding, and enrich further.
"With 19.75 enriched feed"—as opposed to the 3.5% that Iran now manages—"the level of effort or time Iran would need to make weapons grade uranium would drop very significantly," from roughly five months today "down to something slightly less than four weeks," says Henry Sokolski of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
Iran may also welcome the Russian-enriched uranium because its own technology is less advanced. The October 8 edition of the trade journal Nucleonics Week reports that Iran's low-enriched uranium appears to have "impurities" that "could cause centrifuges to fail" if Iran itself tried to enrich uranium to weapons-grade—which would mean above 20% and ideally up to 90%. In this scenario, the West would be decontaminating the uranium for Iran. Along the way, Iranian scientists may also pick up clues on how to do better themselves.
It looks like Obama is about to be taken to the cleaners at the bazaar as he was by the Russians a few months ago.
What could go wrong?
What could go wrong?
Israel Matzav: Tehran holds out for more
Israel Matzav: Hezbullah MP: 'Without Hezbullah, Damascus could fall to Israel within hours'
Hezbullah MP: 'Without Hezbullah, Damascus could fall to Israel within hours'
MEMRI translates an al-Quds al-Arabi interview with Hezbullah MP Walid Sukariyya. The interview appeared on October 19, 2009. "Syria cannot abandon Lebanon, [Sukariyya says.] This option does not exist, for reasons that have to do not with politics but with the security and military [considerations]. Syria's front [with Israel] stretches from Jabl Al-Sheikh [Mount Hermon] to the Jordanian border, and [all the way] to the Lebanese front and the Mediterranean. This is why Damascus supports the resistance - because it dos not want to confront the enemy itself, [so] supporting the resistance is its only way for it to defend Al-Sham [i.e., Greater Syria].
"From a military standpoint, Damascus has no [other] way to delay the Israeli army and to impede its advance [into the Syrian heartland]. Since the withdrawal of the Syrian army from Lebanon, the entire Beqa' region has become exposed [to an Israeli attack]. Therefore, the value of the resistance [in Syria's eyes] is that it can delay an Israeli invasion into Syrian soil. Without the resistance, Israel would be able to enter the Al-Masna' area [in Syria] within hours. Sukariyya explains that Syria needs a steadfast force on the Israeli border in the Al-Qa'im region - not in order to interfere in Lebanon's [internal] politics, as the simple folk believe, but for a clear military and strategic reason, namely in order to defend Damascus. Without the resistance [i.e., Hizbullah], Damascus will be as good as fallen, from a military standpoint. Syria's direct lines of defense will be exposed, and it will take only a few hours to surround Damascus and take it. The situation [in Lebanon] is different from the one in the Golan, where [Syria's] military lines are [defensible]."
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"Sukariyya admits that the resistance in the Lebanese region... may not prevent a forceful ground offensive by Israel aimed at taking Damascus. However, [Hizbullah's] presence will delay the Israeli army should it decide to attack. As everyone acknowledges, this is a great advantage in a military campaign, and it will be of considerable value to the Syrians now that they have withdrawn from the Beqa' region. This, Sukariyya believes, is why... Syria naturally pursues a strategy of directing [the activity of] the resistance in Lebanon and supporting it. Also, according to him, this is why it is no longer a secret that the missiles that destroyed the Israeli tanks during the July [2006] aggression were actually Syrian."
Yet another reason why Israel was so foolish not to attack Syria in 2006 when it had a green light from the US and Hezbullah was reeling.
Read the whole thing.
Read the whole thing.
Israel Matzav: Hezbullah MP: 'Without Hezbullah, Damascus could fall to Israel within hours'
Israel Matzav: 15 years of 'peace': Jordanians support rocket attacks on Israel 2-1
15 years of 'peace': Jordanians support rocket attacks on Israel 2-1
Monday will mark the 15th anniversary of Israel's 'peace treaty' with Jordan. In connection with the 15th anniversary, the Israel Project commissioned a poll of Jordanians that reached what is probably an unsurprising conclusion: Jordanians favor rocket attacks on Israel by a 2-1 margin. The poll, face-to-face interviews of 250 Jordanians, was conducted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (GQRR) as part of a larger study for TIP that included interviews with 250 Gazans, 250 people in the West Bank and 500 Egyptians.
The poll found that the Jordanian public, comprised largely of Palestinians, is opposed to accepting and engaging Israel. Not a single respondent gives Israel a favorable rating, a level of rejection that GQRR has never seen toward anyone or any entity in its 29-year history as a firm. In Jordan, Israel gets 99 percent very cool ratings (ratings between 0-25 on a scale that ranges from 0 to 100).
Even 15 years after peace was made between Israel and Jordan, Jordanians have not reconciled themselves to the existence or permanence of Israel as a Jewish state. Less than a quarter of respondents in Jordan think Israel has the right to exist, and three-quarters think Israel is “not necessarily here to stay as a permanent Jewish state.” It is not surprising, therefore, to find that most Jordanians also oppose the country’s diplomatic relations with Israel.
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While a slight majority believes the Palestinians should negotiate directly with Israel, the Jordanians continue to support terrorism and targeting civilians. In Jordan, three-quarters agree that targeting Israeli civilians or sending suicide bombers is justified to fight the occupation and defend the Palestinians.
And while the Gaza crisis produced support for stopping the rocket attacks among Egyptians and Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, Jordanians are an outlier, supporting the continuing use of rocket attacks by a 2-1 margin.
“Jordan has a very large Palestinian population, but they are out of the line of fire in the West Bank and Gaza. On a number of measures, Jordanians are very rejectionist and stand out from their neighbors,” said Stanley Greenberg, Ph.D., the chairman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner.
Said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, “The data show that most Jordanians get their information on Israel from the Arab media – and the attitudes resulting from what they see are catastrophic. It is critical for Jordan to open up their TV shows to the reality of the many coexistence projects that are enabling Jews and Arabs to work together to create jobs and hope.”
Well, don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen.
In Jordan, as in Egypt, the problem is that Israel made peace with a leader (King Hussein) and not with his people. When the leader passed away (in this case of natural causes) soon after signing the treaty, there was no one interested in following through on positive relations.
Peace can only be made with nations, and not just with leaders. Leaders come and go, whether naturally or unnaturally. While successive Israeli governments have prepared Israelis for peace with our neighbors, our neighbors have no reciprocated. Until the 'Palestinians,' the Syrians and others stop inciting against Israel and start preparing their people to live in peace with it, there is no point to any further discussions about peace.
The only other way to make peace - and in this case seemingly the only way - is for Israel to totally defeat the surrounding Arab nations and the 'Palestinians' militarily.
In Jordan, as in Egypt, the problem is that Israel made peace with a leader (King Hussein) and not with his people. When the leader passed away (in this case of natural causes) soon after signing the treaty, there was no one interested in following through on positive relations.
Peace can only be made with nations, and not just with leaders. Leaders come and go, whether naturally or unnaturally. While successive Israeli governments have prepared Israelis for peace with our neighbors, our neighbors have no reciprocated. Until the 'Palestinians,' the Syrians and others stop inciting against Israel and start preparing their people to live in peace with it, there is no point to any further discussions about peace.
The only other way to make peace - and in this case seemingly the only way - is for Israel to totally defeat the surrounding Arab nations and the 'Palestinians' militarily.
Israel Matzav: 15 years of 'peace': Jordanians support rocket attacks on Israel 2-1
Israel Matzav: Robert Bernstein on Human Rights Watch on Robert Bernstein
Robert Bernstein on Human Rights Watch on Robert Bernstein
You will recall that last week, I posted a New York Times op-ed by Human Rights Watch founder Robert Bernstein in which he castigated Human Rights Watch for its vilification of Israel. On October 21, the Times ran a response letter from Jane Olson, current chair of Human Rights Watch and Jonathan Fanton, past chair. This is Bernstein's response which, unfortunately, will not appear in the New York Times (I received it by email and have been asked to publicize it as widely as possible). October 24 2009
In their October 21st letter to the editor, Jane Olson, current chair of Human Rights Watch and Jonathan Fanton, past chair wrote that they “were saddened to see Robert L. Bernstein argue that Israel should be judged by a different human rights standard than the rest of the world.” This is not what I believe or what I wrote in my op-ed piece.
I believe that Israel should be judged by the highest possible standard and I have never argued anything else. What is more important than what I believe, or what Human Rights Watch believes, is that Israelis themselves believe they should be held to the highest standard.
That is why they have 80 Human Rights organizations challenging their government daily. Does any other country in the Middle East have anything remotely near that? That is why they have a vibrant free press. Does any other country in the Middle East have anything remotely near that? That is why they have a democratically elected government. That is why they have a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political societies, etc etc etc.
I have argued that open societies , while far from perfect, have ways to correct themselves and that is particularly true in the case of Israel. Millions of Arabs, on the other hand, live in societies where there is little respect for or protection of human rights.
The current argument is whether Human Rights Watch’s facts and judgments about the Gaza conflict are correct.That is certainly a necessary and legitimate discussion.
I should add that over the years I have had the highest regard for Human Rights Watch’s work around the world and from what I know, with the notable exception of the Middle East, that is still the case.
Robert L. Bernstein
Bernstein still has his head on straight.
Israel Matzav: Robert Bernstein on Human Rights Watch on Robert Bernstein
Israel Matzav: Brazilian Jews to wear yellow star
Brazilian Jews to wear yellow star
Brazilian blogger David Bor informs me (via email) that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is going to be in Rio de Janeiro on November 23, and that the local Jewish community plans to greet him wearing yellow stars like the one pictured at top left.I wonder if Ahmadinejad will understand the
Israel Matzav: Brazilian Jews to wear yellow star
Israel Matzav: Leftist blog accuses Caroline Glick(!) of not being interested in Israel's survival
Leftist blog accuses Caroline Glick(!) of not being interested in Israel's survival
At Legal Insurrection, William Jacobson reports that leftist blog Lawyers, Guns and Money is accusing Caroline Glick - Caroline Glick! - of not being interested in Israel's survival. Now Robert Farley, another LGM blogger, lashes out at Caroline Glick (and indirectly me by linking to my post about Glick) for pointing out in a recent article that Turkey has slipped into the Islamist orbit.
Glick is a strong supporter of Israel who lives in Jerusalem. But her politics make her a target for the Left. Just check out her blog and bio:
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If there is anyone on this earth who is pro-Israel and interested in Israel's survival, it is Caroline Glick.
Yet for the crime of expressing a view which is not in sync with left-wing delusions about how best to promote human rights, Glick stands accused by Farley of not being interested in the survival of Israel due to her criticisms of Turkish conduct (emphasis mine):Here's the problem: Beating the bejeezus out of Gaza, whatever merits it may have had for Israeli security, also had costs. People, even in relatively friendly states, didn't think that the operation was sensible, or that it was conducted in a civilized manner. Endless bullying on the Goldstone Report won't change that fact. Support for every aspect of Israeli policy does not constitute the central divide between Western and Islamic civilization; Operation Cast Lead was just as unpopular in Europe as it was in Turkey, and Turkey's recent exclusion of Israel from military maneuvers only highlights the fact that Turkey has maintained a closer military relationship with Israel than just about any European country. Moreover, there's a reason why the Israeli leadership is unwilling to go as far as Caroline Glick in calling Turkey out; they are, by and large, far more concerned than she with the survival of the Israeli state.
Read the whole thing. To claim that Caroline Glick is not interested in Israel's survival, one must be Orwellian.
Israel Matzav: Leftist blog accuses Caroline Glick(!) of not being interested in Israel's survival
Esser Agaroth: The Price Of "Arab" Olives
The Price Of "Arab" Olives
7 of the Eighth Month 5770
I have written about Jews getting pushed around over the masiq (olive harvest) so many times, I have decided to add an "Olive Harvest" label to Esser Agaroth.
Each fall, Jews are kicked out of their homes, have their movements restricted, separated from their families and jobs, for fear of interference in the Yishma'eli (Arab) harvest of olives on Land which is not even theirs.
Army Bans Land of Israel Activists From Home
Hillel Fendel 24 Tishrei 5770/12 October 09 04:41
(IsraelNN.com) In response to the abrupt announcement that three activists may not return to their homes in Samaria for six months, residents say leftists have taken over the army’s Central Command.Early Monday morning, IDF Central District Commander Maj.-Gen. Gadi Shamni issued orders banning two prominent Land of Israel activists from returning to their homes, or anywhere in the Shomron (Samaria), for the next six months. The two are Ariel Gruner and Akiva HaCohen, both fathers of four children and residents of Yitzhar in the Shomron.
This is not the first time for either of them: In July 2006, Gruner - whose youngest son is now ten days old - was placed in prison for seven weeks under administrative detention orders generally employed against Arab terrorists. He was then placed under “caravan arrest” in a small Jordan Valley community for three months, followed by a three-month ban on entering Judea and Samaria. In August 2008, HaCohen was banned from the Shomron, where he lives, for four months.
A Third Expellee
Several hours later, Shamni issued similar orders against a third Yitzhar resident, Eliav Eliyahu, 19, who has been married for less than a year.
The official explanation for the latest orders: “Information has been received of their involvement in violent and illegal activity… and in light of the genuine danger foreseen from them to security and public order.” (Read more...)
"Information?" What the hell is THAT supposed to mean?! Where's the "evidence?" Oh, that's right they don't have any, and they don't need any.
MK Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) criticized what he called the “thought police,” and asked why it is that pro-Arab activists and anarchists in the Bil’in and Naalin protests “who throw rocks at soldiers” never receive such orders.
MK Ben-Ari, I believe have the answer to that. "They" (the Israeli Government) side with Yishme'el (Arabs) and Esau (The West/Christians), and have forsaken the Land of Israel, for they have no connection to it. "They" are Erev Rav.
"They" have no clue and no connection with the Torah, which clearly predicts...
דברים ו
י וְהָיָה כִּי יְבִיאֲךָ יְהוָה אֱלֹהֶיךָ, אֶל-הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לַאֲבֹתֶיךָ לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב--לָתֶת לָךְ: עָרִים גְּדֹלֹת וְטֹבֹת, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-בָנִיתָ. יא וּבָתִּים מְלֵאִים כָּל-טוּב, אֲשֶׁר לֹא-מִלֵּאתָ, וּבֹרֹת חֲצוּבִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא-חָצַבְתָּ, כְּרָמִים וְזֵיתִים אֲשֶׁר לֹא-נָטָעְתָּ; וְאָכַלְתָּ, וְשָׂבָעְתָּ.
Deuteronomy 6
10 And it shall be, when the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land which He swore unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee--great and goodly cities, which thou didst not build, 11 and houses full of all good things, which thou didst not fill, and cisterns hewn out, which thou didst not hew, vineyards and olive-trees, which thou didst not plant, and thou shalt eat and be satisfied--
No, we are prevented from fulfilling our destiny, not only to take full possession of the heart of our homeland, but also to reap its benefits.
After living in Binyamin and the Shomron, I can attest to the fact that 100 percent of the olives never get picked. Even if I approved of sharing with the Yishma'elim, which I most certainly do not, there are plenty of olives to go around.
Ideally, Jews would go into the groves in full force, harvest everything, and have an amazing stockpile of organic olive oil for food, medicinal purposes, cosmetics, and for export.
Instead Jews are removed from their homes, families, land, and jobs, while Yishma'elim are given free reign to harvest the olives on our Land, in contradiction to countless sources in Jewish Law.
After living in Binyamin and the Shomron, I can attest to the fact that 100 percent of the olives never get picked. Even if I approved of sharing with the Yishma'elim, which I most certainly do not, there are plenty of olives to go around.
Ideally, Jews would go into the groves in full force, harvest everything, and have an amazing stockpile of organic olive oil for food, medicinal purposes, cosmetics, and for export.
Instead Jews are removed from their homes, families, land, and jobs, while Yishma'elim are given free reign to harvest the olives on our Land, in contradiction to countless sources in Jewish Law.
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It has been suggested that if you think there's something wrong here, then contact every Israeli politician you know, including Ehud Barak, Minister of Defense: (dover@mod.gov.il) fax: 011 972- 2-649-6545; Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: memshala@it.pmo.gov.il, Fax: 011 972 -2- 563-2580; the Israeli Embassy in Washington: Tel: 202-364-5500; Deputy Chief of Mission: Dan Arbell, Fax: (202) 364-5560; Defense and Armed Forces Attaché Major General Benjamin Gantz Tel: (202) 364-5403 Fax: (202) 364-5503.
Esser Agaroth: The Price Of "Arab" Olives
Avi Bell on Bill Moyers on Richard Goldstone
Avi Bell on Bill Moyers on Richard Goldstone
Bill Moyers of PBS interviewed Richard Goldstone two days ago. The transcript of the interview is here. (You can also watch the interview from the same page, the link is in the upper left corner).
I haven't even read the entire Report yet, it's so long; once I eventually finish it I'll write my thoughts. However, Professor Avi Bell, law professor at Bar-Ilan and at University of San Diego, has e-mailed his responses to the interview to a list I get. (That would be the group behind the Understanding the Goldstone Report website).
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Avi Bell:
1. The Goldstone report draws its conclusions on the basis of 36 incidents it says it investigated. The report says that incidents are illustrative and therefore justify the broader conclusions made by the report. But Goldstone admits that the report lied in saying that the incidents are “illustrative” and in saying that the Mission worked according to its self-described neutral mandate rather than the official biased one. Goldstone says “We chose those 36 because they seemed to be, to represent the most serious, the highest death toll, the highest injury toll. And they appear to represent situations where there was little or no military justification for what happened.” In other words, the Mission chose incidents that were seen as NOT ILLUSTRATIVE, and, rather, most likely to support a finding of war crimes.
2. Goldstone repeatedly misstates the law in the interview.
a. Goldstone implicitly misstates the rule of distinction. Goldstone rightly says that the rule of distinction requires combatants to distinguish between “combatants and innocent civilians.” But then, he “proves” that Israel violated the rule of distinction by saying “We found evidence in statements made by present and former political and military leaders, who said, quite openly, that there's going to be a disproportionate attack. They said that if rockets are going to continue, we're going to hit back disproportionately.” Stating that a counter-attack will be disproportionate to the attack isn’t a violation of the rule of distinction. The rule of distinction requires that Israel not aim its fire at civilians as such. It has nothing to do with how much fire Israel can aim at legitimate targets.
b. Regarding the rules of distinction and proportionality, Moyers asks Goldstone, “Who is to say that? Who is to make that distinction?” Goldstone answers, “Well, that distinction must be made after the event.” That is absolutely, positively, not the law. The law is that commanders must make judgments on the basis of knowledge they have at the time, not that one second-guesses them after the event and judges them guilty on the basis of knowledge they may not have had. Thus, for example, Newton testified “In order to properly assess a real proportionality assessment therefore, the relevant question is what did the commander know? What information was available to him?”
This is not an isolated misstatement by Goldstone. Throughout the interview, he keeps giving examples of judging after the fact. For example, he says: “We spoke to the owner of a home in Gaza City. He said he looked out of his window and he saw some militants, whether Hamas or other Palestinian groups, setting up their mortar launchers in his yard. He ran out and said, "Get out of here. I don't want you doing this here. You're going to endanger my family, because they going to bomb. Get out." And in fact, they left. Whether that was typical or atypical, I don't know, we didn't, obviously, cover the field. But assuming they had disobeyed them, assuming they had launched the rockets from over the objections of the household owner, and his family, they launched the rockets and disappeared. It would be a war crime, as I understand it, for Israel to have bombed the home of that innocent household, who didn't want this to happen.” Goldstone again, is wrong. Even if the facts were as Goldstone stated them, and the owner was absolutely innocent, the launching point of rockets would still be a legitimate target, and it would be permissible to attack it if the collateral damage were proportionate to anticipated military advantage, notwithstanding the damage to an innocent owner.
Here’s another example. Moyer prompts “so there was intention,” meaning Israel deliberately violated the rule of distinction. Goldstone responds: “Well, certainly. You know, one thing one can't say about the Israel Defense Forces is that they make too many mistakes. They're very, a sophisticated army. And if they attack a mosque or attack a factory, and over 200 factories were bombed, there's just no basis to ascribe that to error. That must be intentional.” Goldstone again is arguing that he can determine whether there was a crime by looking after the fact at what was destroyed, without any evidence of what the commander thought was the military advantage in attacking the site and what the commander thought would be the collateral damage. In Goldstone’s favor, here he at least tries to provide an excuse for his misstatement of the law: his preposterous assumption of Israeli omniscience.
c. Goldstone falsely states that the only legal way to fight in an urban area is with commando actions. Moyer asks him: “But when the terrorists, the militants, whatever one wants to call them, are known to be embedded in, as you say, those tight, complex, concentrated areas, what's the other army to do?” Goldstone says: “It's for example, to launch commando actions, to get at the militants and not the innocent civilians.” This is clearly not in line with the practice of any other state in the world.
3. Goldstone says that NATO fighting in Yugoslavia was basically legal (Goldstone’s comment: “Take the United States fighting wars in Kosovo and Iraq and Afghanistan. They have certainly at a high level, gone to extremes to protect innocent civilians. Where they've made mistakes, and mistakes have been made, in Kosovo, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, apologies have followed. The United States, in general, has accepted and tried its best, with the assistance of military lawyers, has tried its best to avoid violating international humanitarian law.”). But Israel’s government specifically said, and the report noted that “The Israeli Government states that this expression of its objectives is no broader than those expressed by NATO in 1998 during its campaign in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” (paragraph 1201). And the report responded by intimating that Israel’s objectives were therefore illegal (paragraph 1202 – “The Mission makes no comment on the legality or otherwise of NATO actions there”), before then saying explicitly that Israel’s objectives were illegal.
4. It’s interesting to see what Goldstone calls a good investigation. He dismisses the more than 100 Israeli investigations now ongoing because, he says, “it's now, what, seven months since the end of the war. There's only been one successful prosecution against a soldier, who stole a credit card, which is really almost fodder for cartoonists, in the plethora of alleged war crimes.” In other words, Israeli investigations will only be credible if they find Israelis guilty. The other reason he advances for attacking the Israeli investigations is “in those military investigations, as far as I've read, in only one cases have the military even approached the victims in Gaza. And obviously, to have a full investigation, one needs, as you say, to hear both sides.” This is rich, considering that Goldstone never spoke to any of the persons he accuses of committing crimes. Goldstone adds that Israeli investigations shouldn’t be trusted because they are done in “…secrecy? And, you know, I always quote Justice Brandeis, who said, "The best disinfectant is sunlight." And this is happening in the dark. And even with the best good faith in the world on the part of the military investigators, the victims are not going to accept decisions that are taken in the dark, and don't involve them.” But Goldstone is still refusing to refuse the evidence (written submissions, etc.) on the basis of which the report was written.
5. Goldstone states of Israel, “It's got a wonderful legal system, its got a great judicial system, its got retired judges who certainly, in my book, would earn the respect of the overwhelming number of people around the world, including the Arab world, who, if they held open, good faith inquiries, would put an end to this.” It’s worth reciting this in relation to Goldstone’s claims of the inadequacy of Israeli investigations. As paragraph 1803 of the report admits, the Israeli investigatory system ends at the High Court of Justice. Anyone who is disappointed with a decision not to investigate an incident or bring charges against an individual, or failure of a military court to convict may appeal to the High Court of Justice. This includes non-citizens, like alleged Palestinian victims, and interested observers like Goldstone himself. And the High Court of Justice has no standing requirement, so anyone may bring suit, even if they are not directly harmed. If Goldstone really cares to have new investigations, and has any real evidence to show that crimes were committed aside from the conclusory statements in the report, why doesn’t he file a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice? Why doesn’t he suggest it to any of the alleged Palestinian victims? Is he afraid to put his alleged evidence to the test of a court?
I haven't even read the entire Report yet, it's so long; once I eventually finish it I'll write my thoughts. However, Professor Avi Bell, law professor at Bar-Ilan and at University of San Diego, has e-mailed his responses to the interview to a list I get. (That would be the group behind the Understanding the Goldstone Report website).
-------------------------------
Avi Bell:
1. The Goldstone report draws its conclusions on the basis of 36 incidents it says it investigated. The report says that incidents are illustrative and therefore justify the broader conclusions made by the report. But Goldstone admits that the report lied in saying that the incidents are “illustrative” and in saying that the Mission worked according to its self-described neutral mandate rather than the official biased one. Goldstone says “We chose those 36 because they seemed to be, to represent the most serious, the highest death toll, the highest injury toll. And they appear to represent situations where there was little or no military justification for what happened.” In other words, the Mission chose incidents that were seen as NOT ILLUSTRATIVE, and, rather, most likely to support a finding of war crimes.
2. Goldstone repeatedly misstates the law in the interview.
a. Goldstone implicitly misstates the rule of distinction. Goldstone rightly says that the rule of distinction requires combatants to distinguish between “combatants and innocent civilians.” But then, he “proves” that Israel violated the rule of distinction by saying “We found evidence in statements made by present and former political and military leaders, who said, quite openly, that there's going to be a disproportionate attack. They said that if rockets are going to continue, we're going to hit back disproportionately.” Stating that a counter-attack will be disproportionate to the attack isn’t a violation of the rule of distinction. The rule of distinction requires that Israel not aim its fire at civilians as such. It has nothing to do with how much fire Israel can aim at legitimate targets.
b. Regarding the rules of distinction and proportionality, Moyers asks Goldstone, “Who is to say that? Who is to make that distinction?” Goldstone answers, “Well, that distinction must be made after the event.” That is absolutely, positively, not the law. The law is that commanders must make judgments on the basis of knowledge they have at the time, not that one second-guesses them after the event and judges them guilty on the basis of knowledge they may not have had. Thus, for example, Newton testified “In order to properly assess a real proportionality assessment therefore, the relevant question is what did the commander know? What information was available to him?”
This is not an isolated misstatement by Goldstone. Throughout the interview, he keeps giving examples of judging after the fact. For example, he says: “We spoke to the owner of a home in Gaza City. He said he looked out of his window and he saw some militants, whether Hamas or other Palestinian groups, setting up their mortar launchers in his yard. He ran out and said, "Get out of here. I don't want you doing this here. You're going to endanger my family, because they going to bomb. Get out." And in fact, they left. Whether that was typical or atypical, I don't know, we didn't, obviously, cover the field. But assuming they had disobeyed them, assuming they had launched the rockets from over the objections of the household owner, and his family, they launched the rockets and disappeared. It would be a war crime, as I understand it, for Israel to have bombed the home of that innocent household, who didn't want this to happen.” Goldstone again, is wrong. Even if the facts were as Goldstone stated them, and the owner was absolutely innocent, the launching point of rockets would still be a legitimate target, and it would be permissible to attack it if the collateral damage were proportionate to anticipated military advantage, notwithstanding the damage to an innocent owner.
Here’s another example. Moyer prompts “so there was intention,” meaning Israel deliberately violated the rule of distinction. Goldstone responds: “Well, certainly. You know, one thing one can't say about the Israel Defense Forces is that they make too many mistakes. They're very, a sophisticated army. And if they attack a mosque or attack a factory, and over 200 factories were bombed, there's just no basis to ascribe that to error. That must be intentional.” Goldstone again is arguing that he can determine whether there was a crime by looking after the fact at what was destroyed, without any evidence of what the commander thought was the military advantage in attacking the site and what the commander thought would be the collateral damage. In Goldstone’s favor, here he at least tries to provide an excuse for his misstatement of the law: his preposterous assumption of Israeli omniscience.
c. Goldstone falsely states that the only legal way to fight in an urban area is with commando actions. Moyer asks him: “But when the terrorists, the militants, whatever one wants to call them, are known to be embedded in, as you say, those tight, complex, concentrated areas, what's the other army to do?” Goldstone says: “It's for example, to launch commando actions, to get at the militants and not the innocent civilians.” This is clearly not in line with the practice of any other state in the world.
3. Goldstone says that NATO fighting in Yugoslavia was basically legal (Goldstone’s comment: “Take the United States fighting wars in Kosovo and Iraq and Afghanistan. They have certainly at a high level, gone to extremes to protect innocent civilians. Where they've made mistakes, and mistakes have been made, in Kosovo, in Iraq, in Afghanistan, apologies have followed. The United States, in general, has accepted and tried its best, with the assistance of military lawyers, has tried its best to avoid violating international humanitarian law.”). But Israel’s government specifically said, and the report noted that “The Israeli Government states that this expression of its objectives is no broader than those expressed by NATO in 1998 during its campaign in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia” (paragraph 1201). And the report responded by intimating that Israel’s objectives were therefore illegal (paragraph 1202 – “The Mission makes no comment on the legality or otherwise of NATO actions there”), before then saying explicitly that Israel’s objectives were illegal.
4. It’s interesting to see what Goldstone calls a good investigation. He dismisses the more than 100 Israeli investigations now ongoing because, he says, “it's now, what, seven months since the end of the war. There's only been one successful prosecution against a soldier, who stole a credit card, which is really almost fodder for cartoonists, in the plethora of alleged war crimes.” In other words, Israeli investigations will only be credible if they find Israelis guilty. The other reason he advances for attacking the Israeli investigations is “in those military investigations, as far as I've read, in only one cases have the military even approached the victims in Gaza. And obviously, to have a full investigation, one needs, as you say, to hear both sides.” This is rich, considering that Goldstone never spoke to any of the persons he accuses of committing crimes. Goldstone adds that Israeli investigations shouldn’t be trusted because they are done in “…secrecy? And, you know, I always quote Justice Brandeis, who said, "The best disinfectant is sunlight." And this is happening in the dark. And even with the best good faith in the world on the part of the military investigators, the victims are not going to accept decisions that are taken in the dark, and don't involve them.” But Goldstone is still refusing to refuse the evidence (written submissions, etc.) on the basis of which the report was written.
5. Goldstone states of Israel, “It's got a wonderful legal system, its got a great judicial system, its got retired judges who certainly, in my book, would earn the respect of the overwhelming number of people around the world, including the Arab world, who, if they held open, good faith inquiries, would put an end to this.” It’s worth reciting this in relation to Goldstone’s claims of the inadequacy of Israeli investigations. As paragraph 1803 of the report admits, the Israeli investigatory system ends at the High Court of Justice. Anyone who is disappointed with a decision not to investigate an incident or bring charges against an individual, or failure of a military court to convict may appeal to the High Court of Justice. This includes non-citizens, like alleged Palestinian victims, and interested observers like Goldstone himself. And the High Court of Justice has no standing requirement, so anyone may bring suit, even if they are not directly harmed. If Goldstone really cares to have new investigations, and has any real evidence to show that crimes were committed aside from the conclusory statements in the report, why doesn’t he file a petition with the Israeli High Court of Justice? Why doesn’t he suggest it to any of the alleged Palestinian victims? Is he afraid to put his alleged evidence to the test of a court?
Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
Dishonourable Report on "Honour Killings"
Dishonourable Report on "Honour Killings"
The Guardian website has a long (2400-word) report from its sister publication The Observer about so-called 'Honour Killings", in which Muslim men murder their womenfolk for a perceived hurt to the honour of the men.
The "news" part of the article is the claim that the British authorities are no longer willing to give the perpetrators or their society any leeway, having decided that in the UK, protection of life is more important than cultural norms, and if the two collide, the sanctity of life is the value that won't change.
So far, so good.
As you'd expect, however, the article does its best never to articulate what the problem really is: a MUSLIM cultural norm. I'm not saying murdering one's daughter or sister is something any Muslim would do, or that Sharia always advocates it, because that's certainly not the case. There must be some intersection between Muslim mores and something else, perhaps different causes in different contexts. Nor is it true that the only women ever murdered by their menfolk are Muslim. Still, having noted those obvious clarifications, it wouldn't hurt to add that the phenomenum is a deadly malaise of Islam, not of humanity in general.
The article tries its best not to say this. In it's first half, it touches the problem only once, with this quotation from a politically correct police officer:
The "news" part of the article is the claim that the British authorities are no longer willing to give the perpetrators or their society any leeway, having decided that in the UK, protection of life is more important than cultural norms, and if the two collide, the sanctity of life is the value that won't change.
So far, so good.
As you'd expect, however, the article does its best never to articulate what the problem really is: a MUSLIM cultural norm. I'm not saying murdering one's daughter or sister is something any Muslim would do, or that Sharia always advocates it, because that's certainly not the case. There must be some intersection between Muslim mores and something else, perhaps different causes in different contexts. Nor is it true that the only women ever murdered by their menfolk are Muslim. Still, having noted those obvious clarifications, it wouldn't hurt to add that the phenomenum is a deadly malaise of Islam, not of humanity in general.
The article tries its best not to say this. In it's first half, it touches the problem only once, with this quotation from a politically correct police officer:
"This crime genre transcends every nationality, religious faith or group,
nor is it unique to the UK, every country in the world has honour-based
violence. But we want to make it clear that people can come forward to us; they
will be believed."
A statement which is, of course, not true. Or at best, it's extraordinarily misleading.
Near the bottom of the article, a British Muslim women says the dire words:
Near the bottom of the article, a British Muslim women says the dire words:
"Those who are lagging behind now are the religious leaders. They may pay lip
service to change but they have networks and contacts and they are not trying to
change anything. Sharia courts are letting Muslim women down and I am sorry to
say that the British government is turning a blind eye to these courts. We have
civil laws that cover every individual; none of these religious courts provide
the same rights and protections for women."
Yet the very next paragraph balances her statement:
Irfan Chishti, a leading imam in Manchester, said the phenomenon was so
secretive that it could be hard to identify who was at risk: "It is not an
Islamic issue, it's more of a tribal tradition that cuts across several faiths,
but I can say categorically that it is not acceptable.
Yes, the Imam would be the right person to tell us about honour murders in other religions - which, we note, go unmentioned by name.
We're then treated to this mishmash of wishful thinking combined with demonstrably false sociobabble:
We're then treated to this mishmash of wishful thinking combined with demonstrably false sociobabble:
Honour-based violence can be a socioeconomic issue. Experts say there is a strong correlation between violence against women and issues such as inequality
between men. In deprived communities where men are struggling to
earn a living they can feel subordinated and lacking in respect, and so try
to get their authority back by dominating anyone below them, usually
women... Confusion in immigrant communities where people feel adrift in a
new culture and try to anchor themselves to the past is a key factor, says
Haras Rafiq, a former government adviser on faith issues and the co-founder
of the Sufi Muslim Council. "Religion becomes infused with cultural
practices and honour takes on an overinflated importance," he said.
Right. Honour killings, as we all know, are an eternal part of immigrant communites - especially in immigration countries such as Pakistan and Syria!
In Pakistan the practice of honour killing – called karo-kari – sees more
than 10,000 women die each year. In Syria, men can kill female relatives in a
crime of passion as long as it is not premeditated. It is legal for a husband to
kill his wife in Jordan if he catches her committing adultery. Crime of passion
can be a full or partial defence in a number of countries including Argentina,
Iran, Guatemala, Egypt, Israel and Peru.
The mention of Israel, of course, is pure Quatsch, as the Germans say. Nonsense. Yes, there are cases in Israel where Arab men murder their women in honour killings, but the law regards this as murder, not crimes of passion, whatever those are.
I don't know about Argentina.
Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations
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