05/15/15

Vatican Facilitates Russia’s Designs on the Middle East

Pope Francis has formally recognized a Palestinian state, even though it does not exist. While the media have noted that the Vatican’s curious action has created some controversy, there has been little discussion of whether “Palestinians” actually do exist, where the modern-day concept of a “State of Palestine” came from, and which major power benefits from the creation of a nation under the control of the Palestine Liberation Organization in the Middle East.

American-Israeli political commentator and journalist Sha’i ben-Tekoa told Accuracy in Media, “Starting with Chapter 2:1 of the Pope’s own Holy Writ, Christian Scripture refers to Judea 42 times, Samaria 11 times, never to ‘Palestine,’ ‘Palestinians’ or the ‘West Bank.’ The Arabs in Judea and Samaria meet not one of the international legal requirements for statehood.”

He is referring to Matthew 2:1, which refers to Jesus being born in Bethlehem in Judea.

Many commentators, with little or no access to major U.S. media, argue with justification that the Arabs in Judea and Samaria are squatters, with no legal right to even be there.

“Most of the so-called ‘Palestinians’ are in fact interlopers and squatters from Syria—and other places—mostly in the 1920s and 1930s who simply took possession of pieces of land in Israel,” says commentator Rockwell Lazareth. William Mayer, editor and publisher of PipeLineNews.com, says “the so-called Palestinians” are in fact “Arab colonial squatters” who have been used to wage war against Israel.

Commenting further on the Vatican’s recognition of a so-called Palestinian state, Ben-Tekoa tells AIM, “This business of recognizing a phantom state for a phantom nation that screws the Jews is an outrage. It is this generation’s version of Jew-hatred. The Pope should lead, not follow the enemies of Israel.”

Ben-Tekoa’s book, Phantom Nation: Inventing the ‘Palestinians’ as the Obstacle to Peace, argues that “Palestinians” are an “invented” people whose purpose is to serve as the means through which the destruction of Israel and the Jews will ultimately be achieved.

If so, the fingerprints of the old Soviet Union and today’s Russia are all over the plan.

In his scholarly paper, “Soviet Russia, Creator of the PLO and Inventor of the Palestinian People,” Wallace Edward Brand documents how the term “Palestinian People” was concocted by the “Soviet disinformation masters” in 1964 when they created the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO.

Soon, the United Nations adopted the cause. Dr. Harris Schoenberg’s 1989 book, A Mandate for Terror: The United Nations and the PLO, describes how the world body came to endorse and embrace the terrorism campaign of the PLO. The UN General Assembly voted in 2012 to recognize Palestine as a non-member state, giving it the same status as the Vatican. The only countries voting against this initiative were Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Panama, and the United States.

Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court (ICC) accepted “Palestine” as a State Party to the Rome Statute, the ICC’s founding treaty. The court’s chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, is currently probing alleged Israeli war crimes during last summer’s war in Gaza with the Hamas terrorist group.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the chairman of the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, who is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis on May 16, is widely considered to be a key Russian asset in the Middle East.

Abbas speaks fluent Russian as a result of his KGB training at the KGB’s Patrice Lumumba University, where he wrote a report claiming that there was no Holocaust, and that the Jews who were murdered during World War II were actually killed by Zionists working with the Nazis. It is now called the People’s Friendship University.

Former KGB officers and intelligence analysts say that the PLO’s long-time chairman, Yasser Arafat, was an also an agent of the Soviet intelligence service.

The links between various Arab and Islamic terrorist groups and the Russians are said to continue. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking defector from the former Soviet bloc, says KGB dissident Alexander Litvinenko, who was living in London, was assassinated by the KGB in 2006 because he spilled the beans on how Soviet intelligence spawned Islamic terrorism and even trained al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri.

Marius Laurinavius, Senior Policy Analyst in the Policy Analysis and Research Division of the Eastern Europe Studies Center, argues in his paper, “Do traces of KGB, FSB and GRU lead to Islamic State?,” that it is impossible to understand the rise of the Islamic state without paying attention to the links between the Russian secret services and Arab/Muslim terrorists, including in the Russian region of Chechnya.

Nevertheless, it seems that the PLO has been successful in its campaign, as even the United States government, first under President George W. Bush and now under President Barack Obama, has accepted a so-called “two-state solution” of Israel and a Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in 2009 that he was prepared to recognize a “demilitarized” Palestinian state of some kind, subject to security conditions and their recognition of Israel as a Jewish state. However, a document outlining the approach of Netanyahu’s new coalition government did not include any intention of establishing a Palestinian state.

The publication Foreign Policy says Obama has decided to review the “diplomatic protection” it has offered Israel in the United Nations against anti-Israel resolutions as a way to pressure the Jewish state, and that “There is a growing movement at the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution outlining a roadmap for future peace talks.” Such a “roadmap” would force Israel to accept a Russian-influenced Palestinian state.

The five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council are China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, has already announced that Russia will back a resolution calling for a Palestinian state.

With the Vatican endorsing statehood for Palestine, the Russians, working with Obama, may see their chance to put more pressure on Israel.

This will likely work out to the benefit of Russia and its Palestinian agents, not the United States or Israel.

In his 1971 book, Red Star Over Bethlehem: Russia Drives for the Middle East, former diplomatic envoy Ira Hirschman argued that the Soviet Union voted in the U.N. to establish the state of Israel in 1947, only to oust “the last vestiges of British power in the land-bridge area linking Europe, Africa, and Asia,” and that its strategic objective has been to make possible the long-awaited dream of Catherine the Great to establish Russian warm-water ports in the Mediterranean and the Middle East.

02/5/15

Response and Defense

Arlene from Israel

My mother used to say, “Enough is enough, and too much is plenty.” Well…we passed the “plenty” mark a long time ago where terrorism and threats by terrorist entities are concerned. But what I see is that the excesses of terrorists are beginning to stiffen backs a bit. In the face of acts that are increasingly obscene, there is a growing recognition that tough stances are necessary. Not nearly enough yet, mind you, but growing.

The most obvious example at the moment of a nation being pushed to a new stance by terrorist excesses is Jordan. As most of my readers undoubtedly know, ISIS has executed a Jordanian pilot by locking him in a cage and burning him alive; this was captured on videotape. Jordan is part of the US-led alliance against ISIS, and their pilot, Lt. Mouath al-Kasaesbeh, was captured when his plane went down over Syria. There are no words for the inhumanity of what was done to him, and the Jordanians are beyond furious. Thus have critics of action against ISIS now joined the chorus of rage.

The first thing Jordan did was to execute (apparently by hanging) two al-Qaeda connected Iraqi prisoners – already convicted and, as I understand it, sentenced to death, but being held long term in prison. Now King Abdullah is quoted as saying:

“We are waging this war to protect our faith, our values and human principles and our war for their sake will be relentless and will hit them in their own ground.”

And a Jordanian government spokesman has spoken about intensifying “efforts to stop extremism and terrorism to undermine, degrade and eventually finish Daesh [the Islamic State].” (Emphasis added)

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4623133,00.html

Rhetoric in part, perhaps, because honor is involved. But a welcome perspective, none the less. And Jordan is already increasing bombing.

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Here at home, I’ve noted a number of ways in which the responses of our government seem to me to be increasingly tough. These responses have nothing to do with declarations of war, and may seem relatively minor, but are not. They send an important message regarding our strength, our rights, and our readiness to take action to protect ourselves. Constant vigilance is required on a number of fronts:

Israeli-Arabs who leave Israel – apparently getting into Syria via Turkey – to join ISIS are being tracked and arrested on their return. In ISIS camps they are trained in torture and weapons use. After being interrogated, they are indicted, and, if found guilty sentenced. Although it appears from news reports that sentences remain too lenient, European nations might take a lesson from this practice.

See here, for example:

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4595249,00.html

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And speaking of ISIS, seven Arab Israelis were arrested recently for attempting to set up an Islamic State cell in the Nazareth area.

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Last month, the Shin Bet and a special police unit, working together, identified and then closed down three Israeli NGOs that were funneling money to activities intended to “inflame tensions on the Temple Mount.”

These groups were established last October by the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel “with the purpose of funding activities meant to disrupt the security of visitors to the Temple Mount and in order to inflame tensions and cause disturbances, while harming the sovereignty of the State of Israel at the site.”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Israel-police-Shin-Bet-close-three-Islamic-charities-for-causing-unrest-on-Temple-Mount-387507

There are groups of Arabs – often women – who have been paid to come up on the Mount and harass Jews both verbally and physically.

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Last Saturday night, an IDF unit in the Shomron came upon Palestinian Arabs throwing firebombs at on-coming cars. The army opened fire on them, and one of the Palestinian Arabs was killed.

It is critical to consider the attacks upon cars – whether by firebombs or rocks and bricks, all of which can maim and kill – with utmost seriousness.

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This is a very modest response (TOO modest a response, in my opinion). But, as it is a first, it is a step in our asserting ourselves: The Israel Electric Company is now cutting back on service to the PA areas because of the enormous unpaid electric bill. Service will be cut in half for two hours every day.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4620683,00.html

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The organization Im Tirtzu – “if we will it,” from Herzl – is staunchly Zionist, and prepared to expose those who are not. B’Tselem, on the other hand, is an Israeli NGO that poses as a human rights group, but is in fact enormously politicized, and anti-Israel. B’Tselem just released a report, allegedly documenting “war crimes” committed by Israel during our recent war with Hamas, Operation Protective Shield. Their findings will be used by what was at least until this week referred to as the Schabas Commission, which has a UNHRC mandate to “investigate” Israel’s behavior during the war (more on Schabas below).

Now Im Tirtzu has exposed the fact that B’Tselem received funding for this report from Ramallah, from “a Palestinian foundation that, among other things, finances organizations related to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.”

Says Im Tirtzu: “Israeli citizens and the international community who will read B’Tselem’s report have a right to know that this report does not represent an objective investigation of truth with justice as its guiding principle. Rather, this is the result of a political agenda and the negative attitude toward Israel.”

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/190804#.VM9kvpv9nIV

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On Monday, William Schabas – the Canadian legal academic who had been appointed to head the UN Human Rights Council investigation on Israel’s “war crimes” in Gaza this past summer – resigned. He had been exposed:

Turns out that in 2012, he wrote a legal opinion for the PLO and was paid for doing so.

He apparently did not see this as a conflict of interest that would disqualify him. In fact, he declared, all innocence, that “this work in defense of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks.” He assumed the position, he maintained, with full commitment to “act with independence and impartiality. I have fully respected that undertaking.”

As Anne Bayefsky, who directs the Touro College Institute on Human Rights, wrote, “”Yea, right.”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Analysis-The-indelible-stain-on-the-UN-committee-once-chaired-by-William-Schabas-389928

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The UNHRC might have scrapped the work of the investigatory commission, but that would have been expecting too much. One day later, Schabas’s successor – former NY judge Mary McGowan Davis – was appointed. Davis, already a member of this commission, had served as well on the Goldstone Commission, the findings of which were subsequently repudiated by Goldstone himself.

As Bayefsky points out (emphasis added):

“Israel’s achievement in this whole affair…is not that it brought to light damning information about Schabas that compelled him to step down.

”Rather, the achievement is that, now that he has stepped down because of incontrovertible evidence of bias, it will be easier for Israel to dismiss the report as completely one-sided and useless when it does come out.

”This incident also provides real-time evidence to those tired of hearing Jerusalem argue that it does not get a fair shake in international organizations, that – indeed – it does not get a fair shake in international organizations.

”…Schabas has lost his credibility, and as a result so has the commission that he chaired, even before the paper it is working on even sees the light of day.”

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This is unreal, but not unexpected:

Maj.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the Israeli coordinator for government activities in the territories, is in Europe to discuss better relations with the EU. He was scheduled to meet with European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Israel, which is responsible for “maintaining and developing Parliament’s contacts and relations with the Knesset.”

The invitation to Parliament members said that his visit presented an “excellent opportunity to carry an open dialogue, as well as raise issues of mutual interest.” But that visit never happened. In the face of objections by left wing members, it was cancelled.

”Portuguese parliamentarian Marisa Matias, from the European United Left–Nordic Green Left grouping, was quoted as saying that ‘giving him [Mordechai] a platform to host a lecture would legitimize his violations of international law and human rights. Rather than giving a warm welcome to those who stand for repression and apartheid, the EU institutions should pressure the Israeli government to abide by the rules of international law and UN resolutions. We must bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.’”

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Leftists-in-European-Parliament-torpedo-meeting-with-visiting-IDF-Major-General-390032

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Sigh…

What this tells me is that the Legal Grounds Campaign has quite a task to do, to set the record straight. There is no such thing as “the occupied Palestinian territories.” Nor is Israel remotely apartheid. These are terms bandied about for political purposes with less than no respect for truth.

01/19/15

Without Recourse

Arlene from Israel

It should be, even in our less than perfect world, that international courts were bastions of ethical judgment and impartiality. OK, maybe that’s expecting too much. Shall we say, just institutions that model some degree of ethical judgment and impartiality. But even this is expecting too much in today’s climate of severely distorted perceptions and values.

The court I have in mind, of course, is the International Criminal Court, which is just one more corrupt – and politically correct – international body. As today’s JPost editorial has it: the court is unable to “differentiate between good and bad.” Ah, yes.

On Friday, Court prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced her decision to initiate a “preliminary probe” into alleged war crimes committed by Israel this past summer during the war in Gaza (Operation Protective Edge). This is to determine whether prosecution is appropriate.

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In order to do this, she had to stretch credibility in several regards. First, she had to determine that, for purposes of the Court, the Palestinian Authority was a state. Never mind that the PA does not meet all the criteria of a state, the General Assembly – another upstanding institution – has accorded the PA status as an observer state. The ICC says that’s enough.

And then, she had to maintain the fiction that Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas – a terrorist organization, is part of that “Palestinian state.” This was necessary, because a state that accepts the ICC’s jurisdiction can only bring charges in crimes committed within its own borders.

Lastly, she had to overlook the fact that the IDF routinely does investigate charges regarding behavior in the field and pursues prosecution when this is deemed necessary. The IDF – the most moral army in the world – is, in fact, super-scrupulous in this regard. But the Court, you see, is only supposed to step in if such systems are not in place.

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International lawyer Alan Baker continues to say this will come to nothing, and that we only serve Abbas’s purposes when we become agitated about this situation. So we will not be agitated.

Prime Minister Netanyahu called the Court decision “absurd,” which it is. The Prime Minister’s Office released a statement that said, in part:

“We see here something truly tragic. The lofty goals of the ICC are being turned upside-down. The court was founded to prevent a repeat of history’s worst crimes, foremost among them the genocide of six million Jews. Now the Palestinians are cynically manipulating the ICC to deny the Jewish state the right to defend itself against the very war crimes and the very terror that the court was established to prevent.” (Emphasis added)

http://www.pmo.gov.il/English/MediaCenter/Spokesman/Pages/spokehage170115.aspx

But the Court cannot be “manipulated” without its consent. Bensouda could have ruled that the PA was not a state. I see something very perverse in Palestinian Arab involvement with international organizations, which are prepared to voluntarily distort their essence or their mandates in an effort to be politically correct. The PA is such a very minor player in the scheme of world affairs. What gives it this power?

The State Department, I must note, said, “We do not believe that Palestine is a state and therefore we do not believe that it is eligible to join the ICC.”

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Actually, I shouldn’t say, as I did above, that we are “without recourse.” This is true with regard to the international institutions where we might have expected some modicum of support. But we certainly have recourse to our own sense of good and bad, and, most importantly, to the judgment of Heaven.

There are, as well, nations that are with us. I note in particular Canada – Canadian Foreign Minister Stephen Baird has just been here, lending words of support.

He told Netanyahu: “Canada doesn’t stand behind Israel; we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with it…The great struggle of our generation is terrorism and far too often the State of Israel and the Jewish people around the world are on the front lines of that struggle.” (Emphasis added)

http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/canadian-foreign-minister-baird-shoulder-to-shoulder-with-israel/2015/01/19/

Can we clone him? On his visit to Ramallah on Sunday, Arabs pelted his car with eggs because of his pro-Israel stance.

Credit: Miriam Alster/Flash 90

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Missiles fired from two helicopters struck at targets in the Syrian Golan yesterday, taking out either five or six members of Hezbollah. Israel never officially acknowledges involvement in such attacks, but I would say that here we have an instance of our relying on our own resources with excellent judgment.

Among those killed was Jihad Mughniyeh, son of Imad Mughniyeh, former Hezbollah operations chief whom we dispatched some time ago. According to western intelligence sources, Jihad was head of a large-scale terrorist cell, with direct links to Iran, that had attacked Israel in the past.

But there is more: According to various reports, also killed were six members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, including General Mohammad Allahdadi, formerly head of a Revolutionary Guard brigade. The Iranians and the members of Hezbollah were part of one convoy.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Report-Six-Iranians-killed-in-Israeli-strike-in-Syria-including-Revolutionary-Guards-general-388210

The coming together of so many high level Hezbollah and Iranian fighters at one time, near the Israeli border, strongly suggests that a major operation was imminent. It might have included rockets, infiltrations into Israel, border bombings, anti-tank fire and more. Just days ago, Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah threatened attacks on Israel.

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The attack that smoothly took out Hezbollah and Iranian high level personnel suggests superb Israeli intelligence and an operation that was pinpoint.

As I see it, this not only eliminated an immediate danger (it was essential, given the intelligence!), it enhanced our deterrence power – always a good thing. They know we are watching, and that we act in our own best interest with great skill.

There is no doubt about the fact that there was a message here for Iran, as well as for Hezbollah.

But the question now is what sort of retaliation we are likely to see. It is considered unlikely that there will be a major attack that would escalate into war to our north. But there is certainly a heightened risk of terror attacks – whether we are looking at infiltration into the north of Israel with attempts at kidnapping IDF soldiers, or attacking Israelis elsewhere in the world, as has been done before.

Whatever might be ahead, our forces are on high alert in the north now, with leaves cancelled and an Iron Dome installation moved northward.

Maj.-Gen. (res.) Eyal Ben Reuven, in a press briefing arranged via The Israel Project, outlined the sensitive situation that Israel now faces: Should, for example, an Israeli soldier be killed by Hezbollah, or should rockets be launched against civilians in our north, this would invite retaliation that might generate a significant escalation in fighting.

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The situation of Hezbollah, operating in the Golan, directly across Israel’s border to the north, is exceedingly complex. This area is no longer directly controlled by Assad. Hezbollah, said General Ben Reuven, prefers acting against Israel from this theater rather than from its home base in Lebanon. The Lebanese are not always happy with Hezbollah because of the violence unleashed on its population in response to Hezbollah actions. However, Hezbollah still has a primary goal of supporting Assad, and does not want to invite an Israeli attack inside Syria that might result in weakening him.

Right now, with some 200,000 Syrians dead in the civil war, there seems to be a standoff, with neither side achieving victory.

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I end – for now – with a good news story that is both moving and astounding:

Michael Mittwoch, 92, and his wife Marion, 90, fled the Nazis in Germany. They came to Israel, where they participated in the founding of Kibbutz Lavi in the north.

Now they have just celebrated the birth of their 100th (this is not a typo) great-grandchild.