On the Congressional blog, Dennis Kucinich decries the (surprisingly) overwhelming approval of the House resolution against the Goldstone Report on Tuesday (Hat Tip: Red Tulips). The resolution before us today, which would reject all attempts of the Goldstone Report to fix responsibility of all parties to war crimes, including both Hamas and Israel, may as well be called the "Down is Up, Night is Day, Wrong is Right" resolution.
Because if this Congress votes to condemn a report it has not read, concerning events it has totally ignored, about violations of law of which it is unaware, it will have brought shame to this great institution.
How can we ever expect there to be peace in the Middle East if we tacitly approve of violations of international law and international human rights, if we look the other way, or if we close our eyes to the heartbreak of people on both sides by white-washing a legitimate investigation?
How can we protect the people of Israel from existential threats if we hold no concern for the protection of the Palestinians, for their physical security, their right to land, their right to their own homes, their right to water, their right to sustenance, their right to freedom of movement, their right to the human security of jobs, education and health care?
Israeli Navy commandos seized a cargo ship last night en route from Iran to Syria. It contained 10 times the arms that the Karine A attempted to deliver from Iran to the Palestinians in 2002, enough weapons, according to the head of the Israeli Navy, to keep Hezbollah supplied in a hot war for a month. Along with 3,000 rockets, the ship contained:
107-millimeter rockets, 60-millimeter mortars, 7.62-rifle Kalashnikov-ammunition, F-1 grenades and 122-millimeter Katyusha rockets. On the side of some of the cases inside the containers the words “parts of bulldozers” was written.
The Syrian foreign minister, Walid Moallem, soared to Baghdad Bob levels of hilarity by trying to deny the reality of what the Israelis discovered.
“Unfortunately there are official pirates disrupting the movement of goods between Iran and Syria,” he told reporters on a visit to Teheran. “I stress, the ship was not carrying Iranian arms bound for Syria, nor was it carrying material for manufacturing weapons in Syria. It was carrying [commercial] goods from Syria to Iran.”
Moallem says there were no arms on board. The IDF has released a video of the ship’s weapons being unloaded in the port of Ashdod — rows and rows of mortar shells, rockets, and crates filled with grenades.
What will Obama say about all this? Being that evidence of Iranian-Syrian hostile intent complicates the administration’s desire for “engagement,” whatever that means anymore, the answer is: probably nothing.
What will the human-rights hustlers say? Where is Judge Goldstone? Where is the flurry of outraged press releases from Human Rights Watch? These weapons are intended for one purpose only — to terrorize Israeli civilians and drag the region into war. Shouldn’t this be an easy call for peace-loving human-rights activists? HRW has condemned Israel for violating international law over the way it funds public schools. I would bet a large sum that HRW will say nothing about the 500 tons of arms Iran just tried to send to Hezbollah. Priorities, you see.
And where is the UN Security Council? The arms ship violates numerous UNSC resolutions banning Iran from exporting weapons and forbidding the arming of Hezbollah. Don’t expect any leadership from the Obama administration on this score, either; to make a big deal out of Iranian bad faith would be tantamount to admitting that the engagement policy is the stuff of fantasy.
As shown below, the three main themes repeated by HRW’s defenders are: balance, methodology, and “open” and “closed” societies. These responses are misleading and do not address Bernstein’s most serious claims, including HRW’s role in “turn[ing] Israel into a pariah state” and its loss of “critical perspective” on Iran’s support for Hamas and Hezbollah.
1) “They say we disproportionately focus on Israel, and neglect other countries in the Middle East... Israel is a small fraction of what we do.” [1]
This response from HRW greatly distorts Bernstein’s statement that “in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region.” Bernstein specifically discusses Israel within the context of the Middle East, where even HRW’s misleading response admits a disproportionate focus.
HRW claims that “Israel accounts for about 15 percent of our published output on the region.” [2]
Assuming this were correct, it would mean that HRW’s Middle East division, which covers 17 countries, focuses significantly more than the proportionate level of resources (6 percent) on Israel.
But the data show that this claim of 15 percent is highly misleading. In 2009 (through November 2), HRW has published 284 documents on the Middle East and North Africa. 88 (31 percent) of these documents have dealt with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Gaza. In comparison, only 39 documents focus on Iran. Of the 88 documents on Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and Gaza, 5 are full-length reports, versus only 3 on Saudi Arabia, 2 on the United Arab Emirates, and 1 each for seven other countries. ( HRW had completed and planned to publish yet another report, on “wanton destruction” by Israel in Gaza, in parallel to the Goldstone report. But the publication was shelved following the growing criticism. This is a tacit admission that the level of resources targeting Israel is excessive and unjustified.)
Not only has Donald Bostrom reiterated his bodysnatching charge against the IDF, Sunday's Aftonbladet reported (and Haaretz picked up on) that the Swedish daily has been in contact with
"a woman in Geneva whom, together with a lawyer, is preparing a letter to the UN concerning 15 illegally autopsied Palestinians, of whom eight have been proven to have missing organs - as late as in 2008."
Haaretz elaborates:
The piece, written by culture section editor Åsa Linderborg, claims that the material has not yet been disclosed as the Palestinian families in question are scared to death of Israeli reprisals.
Linderborg referred to a recent organ trafficking case in Haifa, in which two men were jailed, and the case of Yehuda Hiss, Israel's chief state pathologist and former director of the Abu Kabir forensic institute, who admitted to have taken tissue from a deceased Israeli soldier in 2001.
"Two months after the publication by Aftonbladet, the first verdict hits [in the Israeli organ affair]. There will be more," said the piece.
The Haifa incident was indeed shameful, and the case of Yehuda Hiss even more so. But Aftonbladet's attempt to link them (and the New Jersey scandal) to the IDF is based on no evidence.
The same Haaretz report also describes a telling exchange between Bostrom and one of his Swedish critics:
Economist Anna Vider also attacked Boström's working methods, citing his use of witness reports solely from Palestinians, his failure to follow up with the Israeli authorities, the lack of interviews, and research. She also slammed him for linking a 1992 incident to allegations of organ trafficking in New Jersey in 2009.
"It takes a lot of research, it´s not just something you do in a week," Vider said: "As a journalist, he [Boström] should have taken it further. I think it's dishonest."
Boström rebuffed the criticism by saying: "I'm a reporter, not an investigator."
"He links the events, but refuses to discuss the connection," Vider continued. "It is indecent to wait for the scandal in New Jersey before publishing it. Why didn't he do it in 1992? This article has great impact on how Israelis look on Sweden and our involvement in the conflict."
Whoa! Bostrom's shirking off a reporter's basic responsibility of fact checking. As every student learns in Journalism 101: "If your mother says she loves you, check it out."
Related: Anatomy of a Swedish Blood Libel
If you want a comparison that illustrates the difference between the United States and Europe on attitudes to Israel in particular and basic standards of moral clarity in general, consider the following. Yesterday, the US House of Representatives passed a resolution deriding the Goldstone Report on Gaza as “biased and unworthy of further consideration” by 344 to 36, not much short of a 10-1 margin. That’s moral clarity.
Representing the European Union, Britain and France by contrast will be dancing through hoops at the United Nations General Assembly today with assorted dictatorships and tyrannies in a desperate attempt to massage and amend a motion based on the odious UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) October 16 resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report and effectively throwing Israel’s right to self-defence out of the window. The French and the Brits could not even be bothered to turn up to vote at the HRC session in October, but under pressure from Israel and the United States now say they might possibly vote against the resolution in the General Assembly. Then again, they might vote in favour if they can get a couple of changes to the text. And then again (again) they might just abstain if they can’t make up their minds. That’s not moral clarity. It’s a moral dunghill.
But how quaint can I get? Moral clarity, Europe, and Israel all in the same sentence?
Read the rest of this entry »
Well gang, I'm back from my U.S. tour. I spoke for two important American organizations: the ZOA and CAMERA. I was also able to deliver my first presentation as a Yale Fellow at YIISA (the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism)YIISA is a lone, shinning light on the western Academic scene.
Today's cartoon covers some recent activities of the anti-israel machine.
With a financial mechanism reminiscent of the Oil For Food scam, it seems Iran is using a United Nations office headquartered in Tehran to skirt U.S. sanctions. Once again, a rogue regime appears to be abusing a U.N. body in obtaining access to hard currency. The White House and the Financial Action Task Force - set up by the G-7 to combat money laundering and terrorist financing - have so far failed to identify this threat.
The Asian Clearing Union was established in Iran in 1974 as a U.N. initiative to expand trade and forge closer banking relations among ACU members. The organization's primary goal is to "facilitate payments among member countries," which include the central banks of Iran, India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Burma.
Iran has used the organization to route over $13 billion overseas in 2008 and over $5.6 billion so far in 2009 to pay for many of its goods and services, according to the ACU's financial documentation.
The danger is that the ACU is potentially being used as a classic money laundering instrument. Iran might be using the U.N. body as a third party to circumvent the U.S. sanctions program, which prohibits with limited exceptions, such as for certain foodstuffs, textiles and medicine, American-Iranian business deals. The sanctions program does not only target domestic companies, however. Unless specifically allowed under the sanctions act, U.S. financial institutions are supposed to freeze all Iranian dollar transactions - including those involving Iran's non-American business partners.
The ACU mechanism is deceptively simple and described in detail on the ACU Web site (www.asianclearingunion.org). An Iranian company or government office initiates a transaction for the purchase of a foreign product or service by remitting Iranian rials via a local Iranian bank. The money is then transferred to the Central Bank of Iran, which then sends the funds to any ACU member using "Asian Monetary Units," the currency of the ACU. Each of these units is equal to either one U.S. dollar or euro, depending on the customer's preference. Once the Iranian money is in the ACU pot, it is difficult, if not impossible, for foreign banks to know whose money it is. Unlike the Iranian Central Bank, the other ACU members' central banks can transact freely with any U.S.-based correspondent bank.
Imagine the Iranian regime wants to buy machinery from an Indian company that insists on getting paid in dollars. A U.S. correspondent bank should theoretically be involved because the American government owns the greenback. Normally, the money would be sent from an Iranian bank via a U.S. correspondent bank to the company's account. But because this type of transaction is not specifically allowed under the sanctions regime, the U.S. correspondent bank would be obligated to freeze the money instead of sending it on to the company.
Page 12 of Amnesty's "Troubled Water" report alleges that Israel has almost entirely frozen development of water infrastructure in the Palestinian areas. The report states:
Under the new Israeli military regime imposed in the OPT, Palestinians could no longer drill new wells or rehabilitate or even just repair existing ones, or carry out other any water-related projects (from pipes, networks, and reservoirs to wells and springs and even rainwater cisterns), without first obtaining a permit from the Israeli army. In theory such permits for drilling or rehabilitating wells could be obtained after a lengthy and complicated bureaucratic process; in practice, most applications for such permits were rejected. Only 13 permits were granted in the 29 years from 1967 to 1996 (when the PWA was established), but all of these were for projects for domestic use only and they were not sufficient to make up even for the replacement of wells that had dried up or fallen into disrepair since 1967. . . .
The regime put in place by the Israeli army not only prevented the development of new Palestinian wells and infrastructure, but also limited the use and upkeep of existing ones. It prevented the rehabilitation of old wells. . . (Emphasis added)
First, Amnesty ignores significant development in infrastructure since 1995. As the World Bank states:
The water and wastewater sector [in the West Bank and Gaza] has come a long way since 1995:
* A capable national institution, the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), has been built.
* The foundations for policy and operational coordination with Israel have been established;
* Several existing municipal distribution networks have been rehabilitated, new networks developed, and supplies improved; and several new wells have been drilled and many rehabilitated.
* Backbone primary network of bulk-water carriers are under construction in the West Bank and ready to be launched in Gaza;
* In Gaza not only have municipal networks and systems have been significantly upgraded, under an internationally recruited management contractor, effective managerial and operational systems have been established. . .
To be sure, the World Bank goes on to list more work that still needs to be done.
Second, what about Amnesty's claim that only 13 new wells were drilled from 1967 to 1995? As reported earlier by CAMERA here, during this period Israel drilled or permitted the drilling of over 50 new wells for the Palestinian population, laid hundreds of kilometers of new water mains and connected hundreds of Palestinian villages and towns to the newly built water system (Background: Water, Israel and the Middle East, Israel Foreign Ministry 1991; Marcia Drezon-Tepler, "Contested Waters and the Prospects for Arab-Israeli Peace," Middle Eastern Studies, Vol 30, No. 2, April 1994)
Washington does not accept the legitimacy of the West Bank enclaves and wants to see their construction halted "forever."
. Amazon offers, among others, this review:"A message of this remarkable work is that the Holocaust did not only discredit anti-Semitism. In a sinister way, the murder of six million Jews has also inspired fantasies of completing what the Third Reich had begun, and has led to widespread defamation of Israel by equating its policies with Nazism. The grim case that Robert Wistrich advances in A Lethal Obsession is overwhelming. In the awesome scale of its research, in its moral and literary force, and in its compelling political urgency, there is no book quite like it."—Stephen J. Whitfield, Professor of American Civilization, Brandeis University.
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