| The UN Commission of Inquiry says Israel's legal basis is UNGA 181. That is not true at all. (But they are lying for an anti-Israel reason.) noreply@ | | UN investigator Miloon Kothari gave a half-hearted, obviously insincere apology for his statements from over a week ago that the "Jewish lobby" controlled social media and his questioning of Israel's legality altogether, saying "I would go as far as to raise the question as why are they [Israel] even a member of the United Nations."
His response to that was, I also wish to clarify that my comment on Israel's membership of the United Nations was made to highlight the fact that every member of this body should uphold. and respect findings and recommendations issued by it. in accordance with relevant UN General Assembly resolutions. What I wanted to highlight is the non-compliance of Israel with UN decisions related to its obligations under international law, a concern the Commission extensively covered in its first report to the Human Rights Council. At no place in the interview did I question the existence of the State of Israel. On the contrary, in several instances, during the media interview in question, I have defended the existence of the State of Israel. This is fully consistent with the position of the Commission, as also stated in our first report and stressed in the letter of our Chair to the President of the Council: "The Commission does not question the status or United Nations membership of either of the concerned states of its mandate. The foundations for the legality of the State of Israel...Read More |
From Ian: Bernard-Henri Levy: Socialism for Imbeciles Just a few days after the miserable provocation—in the midst of commemorating the Vel' d'Hiv' Roundup—by Mathilde Panot, the head of the left-wing party La France Insoumise in the Assembly, 38 of her colleagues from La Nupes (the New Ecological and Social People's Union left-wing alliance) piled on in abjection. The resolution they were planning to present must have been truly disgusting for it to have disappeared from the National Assembly's site. But agencies have provided enough extracts for us to know that we were dealing with an unprecedentedly violent attack against the "apartheid regime" supposedly imposed by Israel on the "Palestinian people," calling for BDS-style reprisals. We should first note that such calls for boycott are illegal in France: Two memorandums said this in 2010 and 2012 … it was confirmed in 2020 in a dispatch dedicated to the "suppression of discriminatory calls for boycotts of Israeli products …" Then we might note that the delegitimization of the State of Israel is also not very legal: Doesn't it go against a resolution initiated by President Macron that, using the definition of antisemitism promulgated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, criminalizes anti-Zionism? And so we observe that we have, in France, 38 elected legislators whose first initiative would have...Read More |
Amnesty issued a report yesterday about Ukrainian forces violating international law: Ukrainian forces have put civilians in harm's way by establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals, as they repelled the Russian invasion that began in February, Amnesty International said today. Such tactics violate international humanitarian law and endanger civilians, as they turn civilian objects into military targets. The ensuing Russian strikes in populated areas have killed civilians and destroyed civilian infrastructure. As far as I can tell, Amnesty has never said anything close to this concerning Hamas purposefully placing its rockets, tunnels, command and control centers and ammunition depots within or underneath residential areas. To be sure, they say that Hamas shouldn't do this, but they never say the (accurate) statement that placing military objects in civilian areas change the areas themselves into military targets. Military targets are valid targets under international law. Of course, the attacker must do everything possible to minimize civilian deaths and damage, and weigh the value of the target against the expected damage to civilians. But they are...Read More |
Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory. Check out their Facebook page. Jericho, August 4 - A high-ranking functionary of Mahmoud Abbas's government blamed Israel for exacerbating the shortage of natural and agricultural resources, observing that to keep his spa, garden, and swimming facilities functioning, he has no choice but to deplete those public resources, all thanks to Israeli policies that fail to maintain sufficient supply for both his needs and those who must drink, bathe, wash, and cook. Palestinian Authority Deputy Assistance Minister for Prisoner Affairs Fashla Sharmuta lamented the desperate state of water resources available to Palestinians, with the situation so dire that by the time he fills the Olympic-size pool at his home, plus his four jacuzzis, his wading pool, his wave pool for surfing practice, his backup lap pool, his decorative fountains and ponds around his property, and irrigation for his expansive lawn, not enough remains for ordinary Palestinians to access what they need for agriculture, food, and basic hygiene. "It's the Occupation's exploitative water policies," he explained in an interview. "They take all the water from the aquifer and divert streams for their illegal settlements." Israel's water sources come in the main from desalination, the Sea of Galilee (Kinneret Lake), rain reservoirs...Read More |
From Ian: Dennis Ross and David Makovsky: Sunni Arab Leaders Are No Longer Willing to Wait for the Palestinians In speaking to Arab leaders of nine states in Jedda, Saudi Arabia, President Biden said that "we will operate in the context of the Middle East as it is today: a region more united than it has been in years....Increasingly, the world is seeing the Mideast through the lens of opening and opportunity." As he told an Israeli television interviewer, "the more Israel is integrated into the region as an equal and is accepted, the more likely there is going to be a means by which they can eventually come to accommodation with the Palestinians down the road." Biden is saying that ties with the Arabs give Israel a gateway to an Israeli-Palestinian deal. For Sunni Arab leaders, what began as under-the-radar cooperation against terror and traditional security threats is now expanding to include domestic economic needs. With Israeli business people now doing business in Saudi Arabia, albeit on second passports, the phenomena is clearly not limited to the countries that have made formal peace with Israel. What the Palestinian leadership has failed to realize is that the needs of Arab states now mean they are no longer willing to wait for the Palestinians, particularly because they doubt the Palestinian leadership is capable of doing anything to help resolve...Read More |
By Daled Amos Representative Andy Levin's defeat in the Democratic primaries has brought out his defenders, who staunchly defend his Jewish bonafides. Like Mehdi Hassan, for example: Because nothing establishes the unassailability of your position on Israel like being a synagogue president. Sheesh, indeed. If you do a search on Twitter, it seems that everyone knows that Levin was a synagogue president, and thinks it actually means something. Twitter doesn't track how many tweets come up, but in a Google search, over 9,500 hits come up. More dishonest is Hassan's deft little twist that the opposition to Levin must be based on his support for Palestinian human rights -- a nice touch. Peter Beinart certainly agrees: Left unsaid is the fact that Jewish opposition to Levin was not about his support for Palestinian human rights. Israel-supporters were more concerned with backing for the rights of Israelis in their homeland. After all, Levin is the one who introduced the...Read More |
Yisrael Medad found this ad in Haaretz from 1935: It days that Ramallah is the nicest place in Eretz Yisrael, and invites people who want to escape the heat and enjoy the clean air to visit the Grand Hotel Ramallah. The hotel featured dances and tennis as well as running water.
I found the equivalent ad in English in the Palestine Post: It turns out that hotels in Ramallah before 1948 enjoyed holding dance contests on weekends. Here's an ad for the Harb Hotel Kit-Kat Casino from 1933: The interesting thing is that while these ads attempted to attract Jews to the hotels, the main clientele for the dances was Arab. Just as in Egypt, the social scene for Arabs in Palestine in the 1930s and 1940s was far more liberal than today.
The Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah today has a pool, but there are restrictions on who can go, as this 2019 poster (the most recent one I could find) states in the small print: A woman visiting the hotel alone who wants to swim is out of luck. And you simply cannot find photos of people swimming in that pool because photos of women swimming would cause an uproar.
A mixed-couples dance is severely restricted under Palestinian rule today - in fact, the rare times it happens, trouble follows, and the dance scene there is mostly under...Read More |
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