Why the Media Don't Cover Jihadist Attacks on Middle East Christians

(Liberals constantly and fanatically ignore Muslim atrocities against Israel and the West. If Israel can't be blamed, then nothing is happening. As a result, we never see "flotillas" or "flytillas" to anywhere that has nothing to do with Israel. No protests or demonstrations. Thundering silence in the UN and other international forums. Israel isn't involved, no one has any interest!

It is impossible to fathom this appalling Western apathy toward ongoing Muslim persecution of Christians and other "infidels" like the Baha'i, Hindus and gays. Liberals will tell us that we are "jaded" (if not worse) about Arabs and other Muslims. And the Muslim barbarism continues.- Editor’s comment.)

by Raymond Ibrahim - The Torch, http://tinyurl.com/o59xxbb (page28) Winter 2014

"To their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting Him to public disgrace"—Hebrews 6:6

The United Nations, Western governments, media, universities and talking heads everywhere [i.e. the "enlightened international community" - DA] insist that the Palestinians are suffering tremendous abuses from the state of Israel. Conversely, the greatest human rights tragedy of our time—radical Muslim persecution of Christians, including in Palestinian controlled areas—is devotedly ignored.

The facts speak for themselves. Reliable estimates indicate that anywhere from 100-200 million Christians are persecuted every year; one Christian is martyred every five minutes. Approximately 85% of this persecution occurs in Muslim majority nations. In 1900, 20% of the Middle East was Christian. Today, less than 2% is.

In one week in Egypt alone, where my Christian family emigrated, the Muslim Brotherhood launched a kristallnacht—attacking, destroying and/or torching some 82 Christian churches (some of which were built in the 5^th century, when Egypt was still a Christian-majority nation before the Islamic conquests). Al-Qaeda's black flag has been raised atop churches. Christians—including priests, women and children—have been attacked, beheaded and killed.

Nor is such persecution of Christians limited to Egypt.

 From Morocco in the west to Indonesia in the east and from Central Asia to the north to sub-Saharan Africa to the south; across thousands of miles of lands inhabited by peoples who do not share the same races, languages, cultures, and/or socio-economic conditions, millions of Christians are being persecuted in the same pattern.

Muslim converts to Christianity and Christian evangelists are attacked, imprisoned and sometimes beheaded; countless churches across the Islamic world are being banned or bombed; Christian women and children are being abducted, enslaved, raped and/or forced to renounce their faith.

Far from helping these Christian victims, U.S. policies are actually exacerbating their sufferings. Whether in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt or Syria, and under the guise of the U.S.-supported "Arab Spring," things have gotten dramatically worse for Christians. Indeed, during a recent U.S. congressional hearing, it was revealed that thousands of traumatized Syrian Christians—who, like Iraqi Christians before them are undergoing a mass exodus from their homeland—were asking "Why is America at war with us?"

The answer is that very few Americans have any clue concerning what is happening to their coreligionists.

Few mainstream media speak about the horrific persecution millions of people are experiencing simply because they wish to worship Christ in peace.

There is of course a very important reason why the mainstream media ignores radical Muslim persecution of Christians: If the full magnitude of this phenomenon was ever known, many cornerstones of the mainstream media—most prominent among them, that Israel is oppressive to Palestinians—would immediately crumble.

Why? Because radical Muslim persecution of Christians throws a wrench in the media's otherwise well-oiled narrative that "radical-Muslim-violence-is-a-product-of-Muslim-grievance"—chief among them Israel.

Consider it this way: because the Jewish state is stronger than its Muslim neighbors, the media can easily portray Islamic terrorists as frustrated "underdogs" doing whatever they can to achieve "justice." No matter how many rockets are shot into Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah, and no matter how anti-Israeli bloodlust is articulated in radical Islamic terms, the media will present such hostility as ironclad proof that Palestinians under Israel are so oppressed that they have no choice but to resort to terrorism.

However, if radical Muslims get a free pass when their violence is directed against those stronger than them, how does one rationalize away their violence when it is directed against those weaker than them—in this case, millions of indigenous Christians?

The media simply cannot portray radical Muslim persecution of Christians—which in essence and form amount to unprovoked pogroms—as a "land dispute" or a product of "grievance" (if anything, it is the ostracized and persecuted Christian minorities who should have grievances). 

And because the media cannot articulate radical Islamic attacks on Christians through the "grievance" paradigm that works so well in explaining the Arab-Israeli conflict, their main recourse is not to report on them at all.

In short, Christian persecution is the clearest reflection of radical Islamic supremacism. Vastly outnumbered and politically marginalized Christians simply wish to worship in peace, and yet still are they hounded and attacked, their churches burned and destroyed, their women and children enslaved and raped. These Christians are often identical to their Muslim co-citizens, in race, ethnicity, national identity, culture and language; there is no political dispute, no land dispute.

The only problem is that they are Christian and so, Islamists believe according to their scriptural exegesis, must be subjugated.

If mainstream media were to report honestly on Christian persecution at the hands of radical Islamists so many bedrocks of the leftist narrative currently dominating political discourse would crumble, first and foremost, the idea that radical Islamic intolerance is a product of "grievances," and that Israel is responsible for all Jihadist terrorism against it.

Abbas at the UN: Decoding the Babble

September 27, 2013 By Arlene Kushner

http://tinyurl.com/oht5z6l  

Mahmoud Abbas – putative president of the Palestinian Authority – addressed the UN General Assembly on Thursday, focusing on the negotiations between the PA and Israel. How eminently reasonable was the tone he attempted to project.  There he stood on the dais, expressing his intention to work hard for peace, even pleading for peace.

“Our quest is supportive of the path of peace,” he assured those assembled.

“I affirm before you that… we shall continue [the negotiations] in good faith and with open minds, strong determination and an insistence on success…we shall …foster the most conducive atmosphere for the continuation of these negotiations…”

Ah! That he should truly be what he would have us believe he is. But an even cursory look at his words tells us that he is not.  The leopard has not changed his spots.

We might start with that bit about fostering “the most conducive atmosphere…” Khaled Abu Toameh has just described the atmosphere that Abbas fosters:

“Although Abbas and some of his aides have been telling Israelis, Americans and Europeans that they are opposed to violence and terror attacks against Israel, they continue to incite Palestinians against Israel on a daily basis.”

The irony is that Abbas himself provides an example of this incitement in his talk, as he refers to almost daily attacks on the Al-Aksa mosque.  This is pure and outrageous fabrication.  The reality is that Jewish visitors on the Temple Mount – which is where the mosque is located – are sometimes accosted by stone-throwing Arabs, and sometimes prevented from visiting at all because of threats of Arab riots.

“The objective of the negotiations,” he explains,

“is to secure a lasting peace accord that leads immediately to the establishment of the independence of a fully sovereign State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, on all of the Palestinian lands occupied in 1967, so that it may live in peace and security alongside the State of Israel, and the resolution of the plight of Palestine refugees in a just agreed upon solution, according to United Nations resolution 194, as called for by the Arab Peace Initiative.”

This run-on sentence must be unraveled. What we are seeing here is the Palestinian Arab “narrative”: A host of claims without legal or historical basis that have been repeated so often that much of the world believes them.

There is no “occupation.”  “Belligerent occupation” applies only when a sovereign state moves into the territory of another sovereign state.  This was not the case here, when Israel took Judea and Samaria in a defensive war in 1967.  What is more, and perhaps more significantly, this area is historically the cradle of the ancient Jewish nation. This fact – the reality of the region as the heritage of the Jewish people – was recognized in the Mandate for Palestine, an international legal document mandating establishment of a Jewish homeland from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

Prior to the ‘67 war, Jordan was the presence on the other side of the Green Line, not “the Palestinians.”  And so, in no event should that land be referred to as “Palestinian land.”: And, it should be noted here, that Green Line was merely an armistice line, which Jordan, when signing the armistice agreement, concurred would be temporary only.

UN Security Council Resolution 242, passed shortly after the war in ’67, recognized that Israel would not move back behind the Green Line, as this would not provide a secure border. That resolution referred neither to a “Palestinian state” nor to a “Palestinian people.”

As to the “refugees,” Palestinian Arabs and their supporters routinely point to Resolution 194 as proving that they have a “right to return” to lands in Israel they left in 1948.  But this is a misrepresentation of the facts.  That was a General Assembly resolution, and GA resolutions are merely recommendations – not binding and without weight in international law. What is more, while one phrase in the resolution speaks of “return,” when one reads the entire resolution, it becomes apparent that this was only one option mentioned, along with resettlement.

Israel has never agreed to the Arab Peace Initiative, for it was a “take it or leave it” deal that is nothing more than a formula for her destruction – precisely along the lines that Abbas spells out here.  Recently there were suggestions by representatives of the League that “minor” adjustments “might” be made but were never approved by the League.

The initiative consists of a two-part plan. First, to push Israel back behind the indefensible armistice line.  And then to push on that “right” of refugees to return to their villages of  65 years ago, thereby inundating Israel with a hostile population.

We see this two-track theme in Abbas’s speech. In one place he refers to the “injustices” of 1948, and in another, the “occupation” of 1967. There is a reason why Palestinian Authority textbooks routinely reflect “Palestine” from the river to the sea.

Abbas indicates that if Israel signs on to the deal he outlines, there will be recognition from 57 Arab and Muslim states, but this is simply not the case.  The Organization of Islamic Cooperation has 57 members, but by no stretch of the imagination have they all signed on to recognition of Israel, whatever the parameters of an agreement.  The Arab League consists of 22 members.

What must be emphasized here is that Israel would, ostensibly, be recognized. But not Israel as the state of the Jewish people.  This is more than a technicality, for it is the intention of supporters of the Palestinian Arabs to push for Israel as the “state of all its residents,” by which is meant that its Jewish character would be erased.

Lastly here I note the outrage of Abbas instructing Israel that it is time to “stop relying on exaggerated security pretexts and obsessions.”

In 1967, the Security Council recognized Israel’s need for secure and defensible borders.  How much more so is this the case in the volatile Middle East of today.  Nightly operations by the IDF in Palestinian Arab areas of Judea and Samaria control the threat of terrorism.  Radical Islamic groups would have a field day, were the IDF no longer able to enter within the borders of a Palestinian state. What is more, should Jordan fall to Islamists, there would be risk from farther east.

Where Israel’s borders are set is of enormous, existential, import.

How UNRWA Steals Money from Those Who Need It Most

Evelyn Gordon 04.18.2013 http://tinyurl.com/cfpmpok

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees is threatening to end relief operations for Syrian refugees - who currently number 1.3 million and counting - if it doesn’t receive the necessary funds soon. The agency says it has received only a third of the $1 billion it needs to mfund its work through June, and only $400 million of the $1.5 billion donors pledged earlier this year. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has warned explicitly that without more funds, UNHCR will have to stop distributing food to refugees in Lebanon next month. And Jordan, which has the largest largest of Syrian refugees, is threatening to close its borders to new entrants unless more aid is forthcoming urgently.

Meanwhile, another UN agency enjoys comfortable funding of about $1 billion a year to help a
very different group of refugees - refugees who
- generally live in permanent homes rather than flimsy tents in makeshift camps
- have never faced the trauma of flight and dislocation,
- having lived all their lives in the place where they were born often
 - have jobs that provide an income on top of their refugee benefits
- enjoy regular access to schooling, healthcare and all the other benefits of non-refugee life.

In short, these “refugees” are infinitely better off than their Syrian brethren - yet their generous funding continues undisturbed even as Syrian refugees are facing the imminent loss of such basics as food and fresh water. I am talking, of course, about UNRWA.

It has long been clear that UNRWA - which deals solely with Palestinian refugees, while UNHCR bears responsibility for all other refugees on the planet - is a major obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace. Since, unlike UNHCR, it grants refugee status to the original refugees’ descendants in perpetuity, the number of Palestinian refugees has ballooned from under 700,000 in 1949 to over five million today, even as the world’s non-Palestinian refugee population has shrunk from over 100 million to under 30 million. Moreover, while UNHCR’s primary goal is to resettle refugees, UNRWA hasn’t resettled a single refugee in its history: by its definition, refugees remain refugees even after acquiring citizenship in another country. It has thereby perpetuated and exacerbated the Palestinian refugee problem to the point where it has become the single greatest obstacle to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Quite simply, Israel cannot absorb five million Palestinian refugees (though it could easily absorb the fewer than 50,000 original refugees who still remain alive); yet under UNRWA’s rules, refugee status can’t be ended except by resettlement in Israel.

But an even more basic reason for abolishing UNRWA is the harm it does to the world’s most vulnerable people - real refugees like the Syrians. Were the Palestinians handled by UNHCR like all other refugees are, UNHCR would have the budgetary flexibility to temporarily divert aid from the Palestinians who need it far less to people who need it more, like the Syrians today. Instead, it is forced to watch helplessly as Syrian refugees go roofless and hungry while $1 billion in aid is squandered on Palestinians with homes, jobs, and all the comforts of settled life.

Anyone who claims to have a shred of genuine humanitarian concern for refugees ought to be agitating for UNRWA’s abolition and the Palestinians’ transfer to UNHCR’s auspices. Unfortunately for the Syrians, it seems that many of the world’s self-proclaimed humanitarians prefer harming Israel to helping those who need it most.

UN: Return Golan Residents to Syrian Slaughterhouse “Forthwith”

Evelyn Gordon @evelyng1234

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/12/21/un-return-golan-residents-to-syrian-slaughterhouse-forthwith/

The UN General Assembly, as Elliott Abrams noted yesterday, just passed nine resolutions in a single day condemning Israel, mainly for its treatment of the Palestinians, while completely ignoring the real disaster that befell the Palestinians this week: the Assad regime’s bombing of the Yarmouk refugee camp near Damascus, which reportedly killed dozens of Palestinians and caused about 100,000 to flee. But the situation becomes even more surreal when one examines the actual content of the resolutions–because it turns out that while the UN is voting to condemn Israel, its alleged victims are voting the opposite with their feet.

One resolution, for instance, slams Israel’s 1981 annexation of the “occupied Syrian Golan” and demands that Israel “rescind forthwith its decision.” Given what’s happening across the border in Syria, where the ongoing civil war has killed over 44,000 people and created over 500,000 refugees, I suspect most of the 20,000 Syrian Druze on the Golan are thanking their lucky stars to be living safely under Israel’s “occupation.” But you needn’t take my word for it: According to the Hebrew daily Maariv, whose report was subsequently picked up the Winnipeg Jewish Review, Israeli government statistics show that the number of Golan Druze applying for Israeli citizenship (for which the annexation made them eligible) has risen by hundreds of percent since the Syrian civil war erupted, after 30 years in which very few did so.

“More and more people comprehend that this [Israel] is a well-managed country and it’s possible to live and raise children here,” one Druze who acquired Israeli citizenship explained. “In Syria there is mass murder, and if [the Druze are] under Syrian control they would likely be turned into the victims of these atrocities. People see murdered children and refugees fleeing to Jordan and Turkey, lacking everything, and ask themselves: Where do I want to raise my children. The answer is clear–in Israel and not Syria.”

But what the Golan’s own residents want, of course, is of no interest to the UN: It would rather Israel return the area, and its Druze, to the Syrian hellhole “forthwith.”

Then there was the resolution condemning Israel for violating “the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” But in East Jerusalem, too, the number of Palestinians requesting Israeli citizenship has risen sharply in recent years (West Bank and Gazan Palestinians aren’t eligible for citizenship, since Israel hasn’t annexed those areas). And while the number of Palestinians actually receiving citizenship remains small, Haaretz reports, “everyone involved agrees” it would be higher if Israel’s notoriously slow Interior Ministry would just process the applications faster.

The number of East Jerusalem Palestinians registering for the Israeli matriculation exam rather than the Palestinian one has also recently risen by dozens of percent, meaning these young Palestinians aspire to study at an Israeli university and work in Israel rather than studying and working in the Arab world. This, too, is a sea change: For years, Palestinians refused to allow their children to study the Israeli curriculum; now, private preparatory schools are springing up to enable these children to pass the Israeli exams.

Moreover, repeated polls have shown that if Jerusalem were redivided, many Palestinians–at least a sizable minority, and possibly a majority–would want to remain in Israel. But again, what East Jerusalem residents want is of no interest to the UN.

All of which just goes to show, if anyone had any doubts, that the UN and its member states have no interest whatsoever in the actual wellbeing of those under Israeli “occupation.” All they’re interested in is bashing Israel.

HRW Contradicts Prior Promises

By Hillel Neuer 15th Dec.2012
http://www.unwatch.org/cms.asp?id=3660519&campaign_id=63111

GENEVA - Minutes after the U.N. voted on Nov. 29 to call “Palestine” a state, the New York-based group Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a press release urging the Palestinians to use their new status to pursue Israel in the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Yet few noticed that HRW’s lobbying contradicted its own promises that this scenario would never happen.

In 2001, when Americans were debating whether or not to support the ICC, Human Rights Watch published “Myths and Facts About the International Criminal Court.”.

As part of its campaign to get the U.S. to ratify the Rome Statute and join the ICC, Human Rights Watch affirmed that the new court would never be used “to pursue politically motivated cases against Israel.” This concern was nothing but a “myth,” insisted HRW.

This was because “Future actions on Israeli or Palestinian territory will be covered only if the ICC treaty is ratified by Israel or by a broadly recognized Palestinian state.” And as HRW explained, in a Washington Post op-ed, “That will not happen until after a peace agreement, in which case the likelihood of Israeli military action against Palestinians greatly diminishes.”

Fast forward several years. Suddenly, HRW is lobbying for the Palestinian bid to become a U.N. state and an ICC member before a peace agreement — and indeed while the Palestinians have refused to even sit at the negotiating table with Israel.

What happened to HRW’s “that will not happen”promise?

The truth is that over the past several years, HRW has actively lobbied to make happen everything that it assured Americans would never happen.

On September 16, 2009, less than 24 hours after Judge Richard Goldstone released his infamous U.N. report accusing Israel of war crimes (which he retracted some 18 months later), Human Rights Watch published a detailed press release that “supported the fact-finding mission’s call for the Security Council to refer the Gaza conflict to the ICC”; argued that the ICC was “the obvious international tribunal for war crimes committed during the Gaza conflict”; and documented all of the possible ways that Israeli political and military leaders could be hauled before the ICC, including “if the ICC prosecutor acts positively on a declaration by the Palestinian National Authority requesting the court’s authority over crimes committed in Gaza.”

While HRW was sometimes cagey on expressing outright support for the formal ICC request submitted by the PA, there was no mistaking where they stood: “Human Rights Watch called on the ICC prosecutor to make a prompt legal determination on the Palestinian National Authority request, consistent with the ICC’s mandate to end impunity.” The latter phrase could only mean HRW wanted the ICC to decide in the affirmative.

Similarly, in a September 2010 speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council, HRW called on the 47-nation body to “urge the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to determine in a prompt manner whether he believes the court has jurisdiction over the Gaza conflict. Such a determination will clarify the avenues of international justice available.”

Again, HRW made it clear how they wanted the jurisdiction question to be decided: “The parties... have thus far not shown a willingness to conduct investigations up to international standards, so international prosecutions may be required.” Peace talks, said HRW, “in no way lessen the need for accountability. On the contrary, justice [i.e., ICC prosecution] for serious violations should be part of the discussion.”

On Nov. 6, 2012, Human Rights Watch director Ken Roth tweeted his objection to a New York Times editorial that had opposed the Palestinian U.N. statehood gambit.

According to Roth, the Times ignored the key salutary effect of the upgrade: the possibility of the Palestinians joining the ICC and “deterring both sides’ war crimes.”

Disingenuously, Roth and Human Rights Watch pretend that any international or UN-affiliated process on Israel would be fair and objective.

In fact, the greatest supporter of the Goldstone Report’s call for ICC prosecutions, apart from HRW, was the Hamas terrorist organization. One recalls the “Goldstone” scarves that were popularly sold in Gaza stores, next to posters of Hamas leaders. If Hamas cheered the call for ICC action, how can one logically claim that Hamas would be “deterred” by it?

By actively lobbying for Palestinian statehood prior to a peace agreement, and by urging Palestinians to pursue Israel in the ICC, Human Rights Watch promotes the Hamas agenda and the politicization of international law.

More than that, HRW breaks its word, and undermines the credibility of its organization.

Why we must challenge double standards on Israel

 It is dangerous to dismiss threats to destroy the Jewish state as empty rhetoric.
Carol Hunt Sunday July 22 2012

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/carol-hunt-why-we-must-challenge-double-standards-on-israel-3175286.html 

'WHEN my father was a little boy in Poland, the streets of Europe were covered with graffiti, 'Jews, go back to Palestine', or sometimes worse: 'Dirty Yids, piss off to Palestine'. When my father revisited Europe 50 years later, the walls were covered with new graffiti, 'Jews, get out of Palestine'." Israeli author Amos Oz.

On the slopes of the Mount of Remembrance, outside Jerusalem's Old City, sits Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust Museum -- a reminder to the world that evil exists.

When we, an Irish press group, visit on a warm July afternoon, our guide tells us of the recent arrest of members of an extreme Jewish, anti-Zionist group. They had sprayed the museum with slogans such as: "Thanks, Hitler for the wonderful Holocaust you organised for us! Only because of you we received a state." These fundamentalist Jews are not alone in refusing to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Israeli nation -- few of its neighbours choose to do so.

On a trip to the oft-bombarded southern Israeli town of Sderot, retired colonel Miri Eisin tells us of an interview on Irish radio last year, where the "sin" of the foundation of the Israeli state was put to her to discuss, a priori. Irish politicians, we were informed by a senior foreign ministry official the day before, increasingly push an "anti-Israeli line" in the corridors of Brussels and Strasbourg.

We take a helicopter and view the "apartheid wall" between the two peoples. We are surprised to learn that only 4 per cent of the "wall" is concrete, the rest is a thin security fence, which was reluctantly erected by the Israeli government after more than 1,000 of its civilians were killed by suicide bombers coming over the border. The bombings have since been dramatically reduced.
Near the border, a young major points to where one of his soldiers was shot the previous week. He explains the moral dilemmas faced by the Israeli Defense Forces as they struggle to isolate terrorists from innocent women and children. He recalls: "My soldiers were answering a shot from an upstairs window when the front door suddenly opened ... and a child of about four years of age stepped out."

A group of young soldiers at a "simulated guerrilla camp" expand on the moral problem of entering terrorist areas when children are sent to deter and distract. "There are some decisions you can only take in the moment," they say.

Since its conception in 1948, Israel has repeatedly had to defend its right to exist as a place where people of Jewish ancestry can find refuge. In doing so, it has stood accused of being a criminal state, a violator of human rights, a proponent of apartheid and the main barrier to peace in the Middle East. Not just by hostile neighbours, but by Western governments, the United Nations, intellectuals and human rights campaigners worldwide as well as a great many Irish people.

This is despite the fact that Israel is the only democracy in the region (the jury is still out on Egypt); the only country which grants its citizens, male and female, gay and straight, equal human rights; the only state where all religions can practice their faith in safety; the only country where people can openly protest and oppose their government without fear of their lives. And most sinister of all, this is despite the fact that the fundamentalist Iranian regime, after brutally crushing its pro-democracy movement, has been training and funding terrorist groups like Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah. Its aims? The total destruction of Israel plus the establishment of a Shiia theocracy in Lebanon and elsewhere.

"But what about the Palestinians in Gaza?" you ask.
Yes, you're right. The people of Gaza are entitled to a decent living, access to their workplaces, and a future for their children. The Palestinian people are also entitled to freedom from an oppressive, terrorist regime. And yes, Israel has sometimes made mistakes, over-reacted and lacked generosity toward its neighbour. Many Israeli citizens would be first to acknowledge this.

It is shameful that Palestine remains dependent on charity from the UN and similar agencies and also, one has to add, that neighbouring oil-rich Arab countries have repeatedly refused to address their misery. Last month Jordon refused to take in Palestinian refugees fleeing Syria. Palestinian leaders have three times rejected the two-state solution -- the most practical and just way to end their woes -- as it requires a recognition of Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state (most recently at Camp David and Taba in 2000, when Israel offered to give up claims to both Gaza and the West Bank). And the terror that their supposed Arab 'allies' inflicts on them far surpasses any actions that Israel has been guilty of when trying to defend its own people.

Surely our concern for the dismal plight of the Palestinian people cannot only be expressed in conjunction with censure of Israel alone? Is this not more of the historical double standard, the unique condemnation that Jews have been subject to for millennia?

Last month Iran -- that haven of human rights -- held a cultural festival here in Dublin, seeking to further ties between our countries. Where were the protests of the pro-Palestinian groups who so energetically tried to close down last year's Israeli Film Festival, who intimidate any musicians or artists who attempt to visit Israel?

It is legitimate and necessary to question this hypocrisy without fear of intimidation or censure from these organisations because the double standard applied to Israel endangers the rule of law and the credibility of international institutions. And now Israel -- which fundamentalist Iran, Hamas, etc, repeatedly vow to wipe off the face of the Earth -- fears that it has little time before Iran's nuclear capabilities are used against it. After Israel, who could be next? The US? The EU?

Meanwhile the atmosphere in downtown Tel Aviv is one of casual cheer; the locals, with their honesty and 'just-get-on-with-it' attitude remind me very much of tough, straight-talking New Yorkers. Young beauties of all races -- Ethiopian, Scandinavian, Romanian, Russian, German, Arab and American, gay, straight, religious and secular -- sit outside the cafes and bars, enjoying the music of nearby musicians and the fading heat from a slowly setting sun.

Tiny Israel is one of the most successful economies in the world. In 2008 it attracted nearly three times the amount of venture capital funding as the US and 30 times the average of Western Europe. In per-capita innovation, Israel dwarfs all nations. What they have achieved in that tiny, arid piece of land is astonishing.

But some of Israel's neighbours have promised repeatedly that they will destroy both the state and its people. Those who insist that this is empty rhetoric; those who are determined to see no right on the side of Israel and no wrong on the side of those who wish to destroy the Jewish state and 'transfer' her population should take a visit to Yad Vashem, where the evil results of ignoring -- or indeed supporting -- the promises and ideologies of radical regimes are laid bare for all of us to see.

How Many Refugees?

by Elliott Abrams

June 20, 2012

http://blogs.cfr.org/abrams/2012/06/20/how-many-refugees/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eabrams+%28Elliott+Abrams%3A+Pressure+Points%29

Today the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (or PCBS) commemorated World Refugee Day by releasing new statistics on Palestinian refugees. Therein lies a tale.

The PCBS reported that there are now 5.1 million Palestinian refugees. Here is what it said about their age:

The Palestinian Refugees are characterized as young population where 41.7% of them are under the age of 15 years for Palestinian refugees in Palestinian territory, 35.9% of Palestinian refugees in Jordan in 2007, and 33.1% for Palestinian refugees in Syria in 2009, while 30.4% for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon in 2010.

This means, for example, that more than a third of Palestinian “refugees” in Jordan were born after 1997. That is either thirty years (if after the 1967 war) or almost fifty years (if they fled when Israel was established in 1948) after their parents or more likely grandparents arrived in Jordan. Those in Jordan have full Jordanian citizenship and vote in Jordan, which means this: a young Jordanian of Palestinian origin, whose family has lived in Jordan for thirty years and who has himself or herself always lived in Jordan, is still considered a “refugee.”

This is bizarre, and the new statistics are a reminder of the unique definition applied to Palestinian “refugees.” For every other category of refugees in the world, the 1951 UN Convention on the status of refugees clearly applies to the refugee only and not subsequent generations. This is the definition used by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees today. Only in the Palestinian case does a separate organization, the UN Relief and Works Agency, count not only those who actually left their homes but those in succeeding generations, presumably forever, and regardless of whether those progeny were born and are settled elsewhere with full citizenship.

So a young American boy of, say, ten years of age born in Chicago to American parents, but whose grandparents were Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948, is counted by UNRWA as a “Palestinian refugee.”

It is not surprising that the Appropriations Committee of the U.S. Senate on May 31 adopted an amendment defining Palestinian “refugees” the way all other refugees are defined, and rejecting the definition that produces the number 5.1 million today and who knows how many more millions as the years roll by. What’s surprising is that this effort, led by Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois–who would represent the young boy in my illustration, and his parents–was widely held to be controversial. It is common sense.