UAE says “Not Speaking To Israel Is Not Getting Us Anywhere”

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Anti-Semitism: The World's Oldest Virus - https://tinyurl.com/yc2ml74s

By RAPHAEL AHREN from Times of Israel

For the full article go to: https://tinyurl.com/y7en6yrz

A senior official from the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday called for increased cooperation with Israel and explained his country’s ongoing rapprochement with Jerusalem, saying it wanted to separate disagreements over the Palestinian issue from the mutual benefits of cooperation in other fields.

Addressing a major US-Jewish online conference, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash reiterated his view that the decades-long Arab boycott of Israel has not yielded the desired results and advocated for “open lines of communications” and increased liaison with Jerusalem in various areas, such as technology and health.

His statements appeared to mark a significant turnaround from just days earlier, when a senior Emirati diplomat warned in an Israeli newspaper that annexation would spell the end of any rapprochement between Israel and the Gulf.

Gargash reiterated Abu Dhabi’s opposition to Israel’s planned unilateral annexation of parts of the West Bank, but underlined his country’s policy of “decoupling the political from the non-political.”

“Can I have a political disagreement with Israel but at the same time try and bridge other areas of the relationship? I think I can. I think that is fundamentally where we are,” Gargash said during an interview for the American Jewish Committee Virtual Global Forum.

Egypt, Jordan and Turkey already have formal relations with Israel, and Qatar and other Gulf states “led the way on having more normal relations with Israel,” he went on.

Gargash, a member of the UAE’s federal cabinet, said there was no reason not to cooperate with Israel on efforts to bring medical aid to Palestinians suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. Such collaboration, which last week led to the second of two Emirati airliners landing in Tel Aviv, does not affect his country’s opposition to Israel’s planned annexation, he stressed.

The Palestinians oppose any attempts by the Arab world to normalize ties with Israel before a peace deal is signed. The Palestinian Authority has refused to accept the UAE supplies on the planes.

Gargash noted that decades of Arab hostility toward Israel has only bred animosity that now makes it harder to work together for the common good.

“The UAE is clearly against any annexation as is being proposed by the current Israeli government. Having said that, that is the political domain. Do I have to really look at all the other domains and make them almost static because of the political domain? We have tried that, as a group of Arab countries, over many years, and I don’t think it has really led to what we want in terms of bringing stability to the region,” he told the interviewer.

The Emirates wants to promote stability in the Middle East,  “What we see today is that negotiations, and having lines of communications open, actually will yield better results for us and for the Israelis,” he said.

The traditional Arab policy of “stonewalling and closed lines of communications” has only radicalized the Israeli-Palestinian crisis, the senior diplomat added.

During the 45-minute interview, which the AJC hailed as “a historic public appearance by a senior Arab government official before a global Jewish organization,” Gargash referred to Israel’s much-maligned plan to apply sovereignty over the Jordan Valley and all settlements in the West Bank three times.

As opposed to the UAE ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, Gargash did not explicitly warn that annexation would spell the death of the recent rapprochement between Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi.

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Improper Use Of EU Funds

Video Of The Week-Are the Gazan Protests Peaceful? https://tinyurl.com/ycq5eu36

  From Israel Hayom - https://tinyurl.com/y7tzm4pn

Report by Israeli watchdog triggers EU turmoil over funding of NGOs linked to terrorist groups.

NGO Monitor data prompts Brussels to order its envoys in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to investigate if EU funds are reaching organizations affiliated with Palestinian terrorist groups. EU Ambassador to Israel Emanuel Joffre: If there is evidence of improper use of EU funds we will investigate them.

The EU on Tuesday ordered its representatives in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to investigate whether EU funds are reaching organizations affiliated with Palestinian terrorist groups.

The move follows a report by NGO Monitor, a watchdog group that promotes greater transparency among foreign-funded nongovernmental organizations operating in Israel.

The watchdog recently exposed an EU letter to an umbrella organization of 142 leading Palestinian NGOs assuring them that, even if a Palestinian NGO applying for EU grants is an affiliate of EU-designated terrorist groups or employs individuals from these groups, the EU will still provide the organization with funds and legitimacy.

After the information became public, EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi stated that the EU "will have to conduct an in-depth review, and if there is any concern we will act immediately. ... This [funding terrorism] will not be tolerated. And if it happens it will have to be rectified."

The Commission for Neighborhood and Enlargement is in charge of overseeing the accession process of prospective member states and relations with states bordering the European Union. The commission's policy is directed towards candidate states along the EU's eastern border and on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

Following the exposé on how the EU was potentially skirting the ban on financing terrorism, the Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem had summoned EU Ambassador to Israel Emanuel Joffre, asking for clarifications on the matter.

Tuesday saw Joffre reiterate that "if there is evidence of improper use of EU funds we will investigate them."

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Does The Term 'Annexation' Even Apply?

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From Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. https://tinyurl.com/y9p72489

Is it correct to label Israeli actions with respect to the West Bank "annexation?" Can you annex territory that has already been designated as yours?

It so happens that this year is the 100th anniversary of the San Remo Conference, where the victorious Allied powers from World War I divided the Ottoman Empire and proposed Mandates for the former territories of Ottoman Asia. The territory that was to become British Mandatory Palestine was designated as a future Jewish national home already then. British diplomacy in 1920 set the stage for not only the emergence of Israel in 1948, but also the entire system of Arab states.

This history is pertinent to the debate that has emerged about Israel retaining parts of the West Bank this year in fulfillment of the Trump plan. It is commonly referred to as "annexation" and states have pointed out that they oppose the annexation of someone else's territory. The statute of the International Criminal Court in fact defines as one of the acts that constitute the crime of aggression specifically as the annexation of the territory of another state.

So is it correct to label Israeli actions with respect to the West Bank "annexation?" Can you annex territory that has already been designated as yours?

Indeed, annexation resulting from aggression is unacceptable. The Turkish invasion of Cyprus was an act of aggression. The Russian invasion of Crimea was an act of aggression. Israel in the West Bank is an entirely different story.

In addition to the designation of these territories as part of the Jewish national home, one must remember that the West Bank was captured by Israel in a war of self-defense in 1967. That makes all the difference. The great British authority on international law, Sir Elihu Lauterpacht, drew a distinction between unlawful territorial change by an aggressor and lawful territorial change in response to an act of aggression.

It would be more correct not to use the term "annexation" but rather "the application of Israeli law to parts of the West Bank."

The idea that the Jewish national home applied there was backed by much of the international community from San Remo onwards. Even Article 80 of the United Nations Charter established that national rights from the period of the League of Nations carried over to the newly established United Nations.

In 1920 British leadership under Prime Minister Lloyd George was pivotal in protecting Jewish national rights. Today, 100 years later, British leadership should follow that example.

Thus, the foundations of Jewish legal rights established through San Remo were preserved for the future.

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Israeli boy, 6, finds 3,500-year-old artifact

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From i24NEWS 25-5-2020

The object is a clay tablet depicting a captor leading a naked and humiliated prisoner,

A six-year-old boy made the discovery of a lifetime after unearthing a rare artifact thought to be more than 3,500 years old. 

Last March, while touring the northern Negev archaeological site of Kibbutz Re'im in Tel Jemmeh, six-year-old Imri Elya stumbled upon a small, square clay object engraved with two figures engraved on it.

Curious about the small discovery, Elya's parents decided to send it to the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) and the National Treasures Department for more answers. After photographing and documenting the artifact, archaeologists were surprised to realize that this was a unique and rare find that had not been discovered until today in any other archaeological excavations in Israel.

    According to the IAA, the object is a clay tablet depicting a captor leading a        naked and humiliated prisoner, dated to the Late Bronze Age between the            12th and 15th centuries BCE.

Archaeologists note that during this period, the Egyptian Empire ruled Canaan. The latter was divided into "city states" ruled by local kings. From letters sent by Canaanite kings of that period to Egypt (known as the El Amarna letters), it is known that internal struggles and control conflicts existed between Canaanite cities.

Researchers reason that "the scene depicted on the tablet is taken from descriptions of victory parades; hence the tablet should be identified as a story depicting the ruler's power over his enemies. This opens a visual window to understanding the struggle for dominance in the south of the country during the Canaanite period," the IAA said in a statement. 

"Antiquities are our cultural heritage, and each find adds to the entire puzzle of the story of the Land," said Pablo Betzer, an archaeologist from the Southern District of the Israel Antiquities Authority.

"There is great importance in turning archaeological findings over to the National Treasures Department to be researched and displayed for the entire public to enjoy. The delivery of the tablet to the Antiquities Authority indicates value education and good citizenship on the part of Imri and his parents."

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ICC prosecutor rejects PMW report

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Maurice Hirsch Adv. and Itamar Marcus  | May 14, 2020

For The Full Article Go To - https://palwatch.org/page/17911

In a highly irregular tweet, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Fatou Bensouda responded to the content of Palestinian Media Watch’s recent report, which demonstrated her improper collusion with the Palestinian Authority. Based on numerous sources, PMW documented different aspects of her interactions with them, including pictures from the meeting of Bensouda with PA Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh. Among other things, PMW cited statements of PLO official Saeb Erekat, who chairs a special PA committee responsible for follow up with the court, which includes members of Hamas and other Palestinian terrorists groups. Shtayyeh’s meeting cited above with Bensouda, was after the prosecutor had already been notified that the PA committee included members of Hamas. (See below.)

Bensouda’s response does not mention PMW’s report, nor did she deny any of the evidence PMW supplied. Her tweet merely claimed that her “office is executing its mandate with utmost professionalism, independence & objectivity,” without explaining the need to all of a sudden emphasize that. However, referring to the public criticism following PMW’s report, she added: “Any insinuation or assertion to the contrary is simply misled and unfounded.” [Twitter account of Int’l Criminal Court, May 8, 2020] 

Specifically, she did not refute her contacts with the Palestinians, nor did she relate to the fact that the special PA committee headed by Saeb Erekat, whose purpose is to be the liaison with the ICC, includes members of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – both internationally recognized terrorist groups. Both these terror groups have unquestionably committed crimes for which they could be prosecuted in the ICC. 

She did not deny the allegation in the Jordanian news report that she told PA officials that her application to the court was a sham, submitted only to protect the “ICC's public image” or that the decision of the court “is a foregone conclusion”. 

  

Similarly, she did not deny meeting with Palestinian PM Shtayyeh, who may himself be a suspect in the criminal court as the one who is personally responsible for the payment of financial rewards to terrorists. Bensouda herself has already confirmed that by paying terrorists the PA has “encouraged and provided financial incentives for the commission of violence through their provision of payments to the families of Palestinians who were involved, in particular, in carrying out attacks against Israeli citizens, and under the circumstances, the payment of such stipends may give rise to Rome Statute crimes.” (ICC Prosecutor Report on Preliminary Examination Activities, 2019)

     

In an interview with the Times of Israel after submitting her original request to the court, Bensouda was asked: “The PLO’s Saeb Erekat has said publically that the Palestinian committee dealing with the ICC was made up of all Palestinian factions, including Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Did you or members of your office meet with Hamas or PFLP representatives?” Bensouda responded: “My office has not met with any individuals identified as representing Hamas or the PFLP.” [Times of Israel, Jan. 13, 2020]

However, one month later, she violated that pledge. When Bensouda met in February 2020 with PA Prime Minister Shtayyeh (see picture above) it was already after she had been made aware that the PA committee to the ICC included recognized terrorists. Why did the ICC prosecutor agree to meet with Shtayyeh when she knew that the PA committee his government established and represents is made up of known Hamas and PFLP terrorists? This of course in addition to the fact that he is a potential defendant himself for his own crimes of paying salaries to terrorists.

It’s time for the ICC prosecutor to publish a serious response in which she doesn’t just claim impartiality and professionalism, but in which she answers all the serious questions pointing to collusion with the PA that PMW has raised.

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San Remo – the Zionist Vision becomes International Law

Video Of The Week - 100 Years Since San Remo - https://tinyurl.com/yck7fcty

For the whole video go to - https://tinyurl.com/y95t4ex3

By Dr Cynthia Day Wallace

It is widely believed that the State of Israel was born as a result of United Nations Resolution 181 of 1947 (the UN Partition Plan). The truth is that the legal rights of the Jewish people and Israel as a nation find their foundations solidly embedded in international law well before the very existence of the United Nations, dating back to international legal instruments agreed by the Principal Allied Powers of World War I, meeting at Villa Devachan in San Remo, Italy, from 18 to 26 April 1920, as a follow-up to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

It was at this place and time that the historical claim to a “Jewish national home”, as set out in the Declaration of Lord Balfour, became “essentially legal in character.” The transformation of a British political document into an international legal instrument was given impetus through its incorporation into the submission of the World Zionist Council to the Paris Peace talks. The issues regarding the break-up of the Ottoman Empire being too complex to resolve at the Peace Conference itself, an extension of the peace talks was arranged at San Remo for the Supreme Council of the Principal Allied Powers (Britain, France, Italy and Japan, with the newly non-interventionist United States as observer). One of the primary aims of the four members of the Supreme Council—who had the power of disposition over the territories that made up the defeated Turkish Ottoman Empire—was to consider the submissions of the claimants at Paris and to deliberate and make decisions on the legal recognition of each claim.

This conference resulted in the codification of the Balfour Declaration in two binding international legal instruments, the San Remo Resolution of 24 April 1920 and the Mandate for Palestine, as unanimously adopted on 24 July 1922 by the Council of the League of Nations, whose 51 Member States represented the international community of nations at the time. The Mandate actually went beyond the Balfour Declaration of 1917 by adding the concept of reconstitution of the Jewish national home.

The Mandate system had been set up under Article 22 of the Covenant of the newly formed League of Nations that had arisen out of the Paris peace process to deal with such post-war emerging territories. At San Remo, the Mandate for Palestine was entrusted to Great Britain as a “sacred trust of civilization”, and the language of the Balfour Declaration was enshrined in both the San Remo Resolution and the League Mandate, which stand on their own as valid international legal instruments with the full force of treaty law.

The League of Nations proved largely ineffective, and with its dissolution in 1946, the provisions of all League Mandates were explicitly protected under Article 80 of the Charter of the newly formed United Nations. Accordingly, the UN General Assembly in 1947 passed Resolution 181, recommending the termination of the British Mandate and its replacement by a Jewish and an Arab State. The Resolution, inter alia, would have made Jerusalem a corpus separatum under a UN-administered “special international regime”.

Nonetheless, as Resolution 181 represented the first official proposal of a Jewish State, the Zionists accepted the Resolution. The Arabs did not, desiring rather the whole of the territory and responding almost immediately with an armed attack against the Jewish population, thus rendering the Partition Resolution a ‘dead letter’. Actually, the separation of Jerusalem from the proposed Jewish state would have been a breach of the Mandate and therefore of international law.

Under the final Mandate instrument, all but only the territory called “Palestine” west of the Jordan River was designated for the Jewish national home. This was reconfirmed by Churchill immediately following the British Colonial Office’s Middle East Conference in Cairo in 1921, where the unilateral decision was made to “partition Palestine” at the Jordan River, despite the Zionist claim at Paris, which clearly and unambiguously included that part of Eretz Yisrael on the east bank of the Jordan, historically inhabited by ancient Israeli tribes, as generally understood at San Remo.

Following the failure of Resolution 181, Britain announced to the United Nations that it would be terminating its role as Mandatory Power, and accordingly, on 14 May 1948, evacuated the territory. The same day, David Ben-Gurion declared the State of Israel, to take effect at midnight.

The following day, the armies of five surrounding Arab nations attacked the new Jewish State (the “Arab-Israeli War”). The Arabs met defeat, though Jordan illegally occupied and afterward annexed Judea and Samaria, renaming them the “West Bank” (including the eastern part of Jerusalem, the historic “Old City”), to convey the sense of contiguity with Jordan’s east bank. The annexation was never recognized by any government other than that of Great Britain, Iraq and Pakistan—not even by the Arab League itself. Nonetheless, it was nearly twenty years before Israel gained full control over her legally mandated territory, in a war of self-defense (the 1967 “Six-Day War”), again involving her surrounding Arab neighbours. Israel once again prevailed, with a swift and decisive victory, at last enabling her to exercise full sovereignty over those parts of the Jewish national home that had been captured in 1948/1949 in an illegal war of aggression.

To sum up: the primary foundations in international law for the “legal” claim based on “historic rights” or “historic title” of the Jewish people in respect of Palestine remain the Covenant of the League of Nations of 28 April 1919 (Art. 22), the San Remo Resolution of 24 April 1920, and the Mandate for Palestine of 24 July 1922. And despite the fulfillment in May1948 of one of the Mandate’s fundamental objectives, namely, the “reconstituting” of the Jewish national home, ultimately as a “self-governing” political entity—i.e., a sovereign state—the Mandate’s relevant provisions remain valid and legally binding to this day.

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Jordanian vote shows why defensible borders still matter

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By Evelyn Gordon https://tinyurl.com/ydbnmgqh

If you want to understand the true obstacle to Mideast peace, look no further than the Jordanian parliament’s unanimous approval last week of a bill to ban natural-gas imports from Israel, just days after the gas began arriving.

Energy-poor Jordan needs a stable, affordable fuel supply, which the Israeli deal provides. When it was signed in 2016, the Jordanian government said it could save the country $500 million a year—almost 4 percent of Jordan’s 2019 budget and more than half its projected deficit for that year (the actual deficit was apparently higher). In short, the deal would let the kingdom redirect significant amounts of money to some of its other crying needs.

But that doesn’t interest Jordanian lawmakers. What they care about is that this is “the gas of the enemy,” to quote protesters against the deal.

They also don’t care that Jordan and Israel signed a peace treaty 25 years ago. As last week’s vote made clear, every single Jordanian lawmaker still views Israel as an enemy with whom trade is anathema, even if Jordan itself would benefit greatly. That stance is wildly popular: Almost all Jordanians have an unfavorable view of Jews and similar views of the Jewish state.

Israel’s egregious efforts to accommodate Jordan’s anti-Israel sensibilities didn’t help, either. The gas comes from a field developed by an Israeli company, Delek, in partnership with an American one, Noble Energy. But to enable the deal to move forward, the partnership acceded to the Jordanian power company’s demand that no Israeli entity be party to the contract. Officially, therefore, the contract isn’t with Israel, but with Noble’s American marketing subsidiary.

The deal will most likely go ahead despite parliament’s objections because though King Abdullah is happy to let his lawmakers spout anti-Israel rhetoric, he rarely lets them interfere with anything that he considers an important Jordanian interest. And for now, despite the country’s growing unrest, Abdullah’s grip still seems firm.

But regardless of what happens to the gas deal, the vote shines a spotlight on two errors that have consistently undermined Western peacemaking efforts.

The first is underestimating the depth of Arab hatred for Israel, and therefore failing to grasp that this is the principal obstacle to peace. Westerners tend to assume that everyone the world over basically wants the same things—peace and prosperity—and therefore, all sides should be happy to make compromises for peace. But in reality, as the Jordanian vote shows, neither peace nor prosperity is a prime motivator for many people in this part of the world, whereas hatred is a very powerful motivator.

Thus when Jordanian lawmakers had to choose between a deal that would boost Jordan’s economy and a chance to publicly display their hatred of Israel, between a deal that would bolster the peace treaty and legislation that would undermine it, they unhesitatingly chose the latter. And Palestinians have repeatedly done the same.

A corollary of this, incidentally, is that the Western belief in an economic “peace dividend” is pure fantasy. Peace treaties can’t provide a significant economic boost when one signatory largely refuses to do business with the other; consequently, neither the Israeli-Jordanian nor the Israeli-Egyptian treaty has produced major economic benefits for any of the countries involved. A 2018 study by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change found that Israel’s trade with the Gulf States—with which it has no official relations—exceeds its trade with Egypt and Jordan combined.

This doesn’t mean that economic ties are useless; they undoubtedly play a positive role. Jordan has derived benefits from its peace with Israel, including the tens of millions of cubic meters of water a year that Israel is treaty-bound to provide, as well as a vital route for trade with the West (after the Syrian civil war made Jordan’s former route through Syria impassible, goods started going through Haifa Port instead). These benefits presumably contribute to Abdullah’s reluctance to capitulate to parliament’s periodic demands to scrap the treaty. But when material interests collide with Arab hatred of Jews and the Jewish state, the latter often wins.

The second major Western fallacy is that peace obviates the need for defensible borders. Granted, the Jordanian and Egyptian borders are both currently peaceful; Israel’s security cooperation with both countries is close; and both these facts will likely remain true as long as the current Jordanian and Egyptian rulers hold power. But as the Arab Spring made clear, no Mideast autocrat’s reign comes with a long-term guarantee. And given the enormous public hostility to Israel in both Jordan and Egypt, there’s also no guarantee that a new government wouldn’t scrap the treaty.

Although the treaty with Egypt did survive the Muslim Brotherhood’s brief time in power, it’s far from clear that would have remained true had President Mohammed Morsi not been ousted after a mere year in office, long before he had time to implement most of his plans. And it’s even less certain that the Jordanian peace would survive Abdullah’s fall, judging by last week’s parliamentary vote and many similar votes in the past. In that scenario, Israel’s longest border could become a hostile one overnight.

The unabated hostility to Israel among most of its neighbors, coupled with the uncertain future of any agreement signed with a dictator, means that Israel can’t afford to assume any treaty is permanent. It must be prepared to defend itself if a new Arab government scraps the treaty. Indeed, both the Jordanian and the Egyptian treaties were drafted with that in mind, and that’s also why even Israel’s main center-left party insists on retaining the Jordan Valley in any deal with the Palestinians. Yet Westerner peacemakers routinely dismiss the need for territorial depth and favorable topography, insisting that “international forces” (who will run if trouble erupts) and unspecified “technological means” provide sufficient protection.

The Jordanian vote is a reminder that hatred is strong and peace is fragile. If would-be peacemakers don’t start confronting this hatred rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, long-term prospects for peace are dim. And in the meantime, any treaty will have to include defensible borders.

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