Why Putting Turkey, Qatar in Charge of Gaza is a Farce

                          

Michael Freund, full article at  https://tinyurl.com/52dn9b9b

The article argues that the Trump administration’s reported plan to place Turkey and Qatar on a “Board of Peace” to oversee Gaza is fundamentally flawed and dangerous. The author contends that both countries are not neutral mediators but active enablers of Hamas: Qatar is described as Hamas’s main financial patron and host of its leaders, while Turkey, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, openly defends Hamas, rejects its designation as a terrorist organization, and uses extreme anti-Israel rhetoric.

According to the article, neither Ankara nor Doha has ever called for Hamas to disarm, relinquish control of Gaza, or abandon its charter. Instead, Hamas is portrayed as strategically useful to both states as a proxy against Israel and a source of Islamist legitimacy. Expecting them to dismantle Hamas is therefore, in the author’s view, unrealistic and absurd.

The piece concludes that any Gaza “peace plan” that does not begin with the complete dismantling of Hamas is doomed to fail. By elevating Turkey and Qatar—without prior consultation with Israel—the U.S. is said to be undermining Israel’s security and rewarding Hamas’s backers. The author warns that this approach will not bring peace, but rather entrench Hamas further and pave the way for future conflict.

When the next round of violence erupts – as it inevitably will – no Board of Peace and no communiques or diplomatic euphemisms will obscure those who enabled it or the responsibility they bear for the consequences.

The Eighth Front – How BOTs Acted to Influence the Israeli Public with Hamas Messages.

The Great BOT Purge on the X Network (Twitter): Who Is Behind Them.

A BOT is an automated software program designed to perform repetitive tasks over a network, often imitating or replacing human actions, but at a much faster speed and higher accuracy. These programs can be helpful, but they can also be malicious, used for tasks like sending spam or launching denial-of-service attacks. 

 

BOTs run independently based on a specific set of instructions, without needing a person to manually start them each time.

They are ideal for performing tasks that would be tedious or time-consuming for humans, such as communicating with users.

Today, after the hostage-release deal is behind us and the X network (formerly Twitter) removed overnight a wide range of accounts that were impersonating an individual in one simple and ingenious move of revealing the operator’s location such as Qatar, Turkey, Bangladesh, Pakistan and others, none of whom were in Gaza as they purported to have one believe.

The public in Israel, were a target for foreign attacks - the eighth front in its full force!

The campaign strategy is to flood messages on social networks on a large scale, utilizing the Hamas propaganda messages. High-quality messages formulated by the management layer of initiator, with a deep understanding of Israeli society, with emphasis on a very rapid response to current events, using well-crafted profiles that appear to be Israeli or Gazans but are not.

a. Many groups of user-operators participated in running the network uploaded thousands of tweets on to X (Twitter):

b. By adopting a political identity, the user identified the issue of the hostages and opposition to the government as points through which there is potential to bring the war to an end and lead the campaign to ‘adopt’ an Israeli opposition political identity.

d. Almost all the fake profiles of the campaign adopted the identity of left-wingers, opponents of the government, and supporters of a deal for the release of the hostages.

e. The campaign’s messages were formulated in an attempt to align with the messages of the hostage families and the opposition in Israel, in order to create identification and cause them to share the messages.

f. Comprehensive monitoring of the campaign revealed that there is no activity in it to spread right-wing messages or support for the government.

g. The initiators studied Israeli society - what its values are, who the tribes composing it are, and who its key figures are - in order to find the cracks through which they could promote messages that would tilt Israeli public opinion toward supporting a halt to the war.

h. The network operated to publish statements of the spokesperson of Hamas’s military wing, despite Israeli censorship, in order to bring the harsh content to the knowledge of the public in Israel and assist Hamas’s influence and psychological warfare efforts and tilt Israeli public opinion.

For the full article go to https://abualiexpress.com/en/en62305/

 

The Illusion of Palestinian Peace

written by Fiamma Nirenstein November 4, 2025 

The orgy of blood on Oct. 7, 2023, and everything that followed should have inspired a dream of peace. For anyone with a conscience, the horror would be enough to say: “Never again.”

Yet that isn’t what happened. When you ask Israelis how they are, their automatic “Fine, thank you” is no longer true; it’s merely a social convention. Their souls remain shaken.

But across the divide, in the Palestinian territories, the picture is far more disturbing. According to a recent survey by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 59% of Palestinians living under the Palestinian Authority—that is, in Judea and Samaria—believe that the decision to carry out the Oct. 7 massacre was “correct.” In Gaza, 44% agreed.

Even more shocking, 54% blame Israel for Palestinian suffering, while only 14% blame Hamas. And so, we must ask: what peace are we talking about? The one preached endlessly by the U.N., by Europe, and by French President Emmanuel Macron — “two states for two peoples”? Not only does it lack realism; a majority of Palestinians reject it outright.

The same survey shows that 40% of Palestinians believe an independent state must come through armed struggle, not negotiation; in Gaza, 35% say the same. These are not marginal numbers—they represent a society still enthralled by the myth of “resistance,” not the idea of coexistence.

As Israeli journalist Amit Segal has noted, Shany Mor’s essay “Ecstasy and Amnesia” explains this phenomenon well: the intoxication of violence, the inability of parts of the Islamic world—and the Palestinian one in particular—to separate history from religious emotion.

The “ecstasy” of jihad was visible on Oct. 7, in videos of young men calling their parents to boast about killing Jews with their own hands, and in the mobs cheering as kidnapped Israeli girls were paraded through Gaza’s streets.

Even academics in the West, such as Cornell’s Russell Rickford, revealed the same moral sickness when he called the massacre “exhilarating.”

Arab–Palestinian wars have always followed this script: an initial eruption of homicidal and suicidal ecstasy, followed by crushing defeat—the War of Independence (1948), the Six Day War (1967), the Intifadas, and now the war of Oct. 7. Yet from each failure, what remains in memory is the thrill of violence, not the price of it.

 

 

Douglas Murray: A Time of War

 When we planned this episode of Honestly, I thought we would be looking back at the past year from a slightly quieter vantage point. We were going to release it on October 7. But quiet is the last thing happening in the Middle East right now.

Gazan Civilians Actively Abet Hamas

 Video - Son of Hamas Leader Speaks Out - https://tinyurl.com/mrxp5brh

 For the full article by Nadav Shragai go to - https://tinyurl.com/ypjhxw7x

The "uninvolved," many thousands of them, "demonstrated" at the border fence on the eve of the massacre. They planted explosive charges along the fence and marked off the weak points. They participated in the great deception that Hamas pulled off more successfully than it had ever imagined.

Some 20,000 "uninvolved" workers from Gaza used to enter Israel every day until the slaughter. They did so for months and months. They worked in the communities of the Gaza border, in Sderot, and in Ofakim, and some of them took detailed notes about their destinations: how many houses there were, where the living rooms, the bedrooms, and the security rooms were, how many family members lived in each house, whether they had a dog, where their cars were parked. They documented everything. And all of it went to Hamas. It was part of the infrastructure of the pogrom – the contribution of the "uninvolved" to the atrocity.

After the civilians were slaughtered, Salah Arouri of Hamas tried to defend his fighters by claiming that they weren't the ones who did it. It was the residents of Gaza, he said. "When the Gaza Division fell apart," Arouri explained, "people from the Strip went in and clashed with the settlers. As a result, people were killed."

The "uninvolved," many thousands of them, "demonstrated" at the border fence on the eve of the massacre. They planted explosive charges along the fence and marked off the weak points. They participated in the great deception that Hamas pulled off more successfully than it had ever imagined.

Tens of thousands of "uninvolved people" just like them – hundreds of thousands in the army's count – took part in "marches of return" along the fence over the years, lobbing charges and firebombs onto our side, launching incendiary balloons and setting our fields afire. Their hearts seethed with hatred and entertained a dream – to return to Ashkelon, Lod, Acre, and Ashdod, and to replace us. Today, one hopes, many more of us believe them. Our true friend in the White House, Joe Biden, still remains unconvinced, but at some point, he'll figure it out, too. The Palestinians have creative ways of explaining it.

The "uninvolved" danced like dervishes around the trucks that hauled away the abducted children, the old men and women, and the young men and women, crying "death to the Jews" and helping Hamas to place them in hiding. The "uninvolved" helped Hamas to move its rockets to concealment. "Uninvolved" mothers proclaimed that they were proud to send their children into battle in order to turn them into shahids (martyrs). And "uninvolved" teachers taught the children of Gaza that it's a religious obligation to kill Jews. Hundreds of thousands of "uninvolved" Gazans took part in the funerals of the arch-murderers whom Israel eliminated over the years. For those who really want to go back there – Google and watchdogs like MEMRI and Palestinian Media Watch will provide the terrifying texts that were read out at those funerals, the masses roaring their agreement.

 

In 2006, hundreds of thousands of Gazans who had the right to vote cast their ballots for the Hamas terror organization, whose charter calls for the annihilation of the Jews and the State of Israel, and gave it eighteen of the twenty-four seats that were up for direct election in the Strip. When it was done, Hamas won 43% of the votes as against 33% for Fatah. Hamas also won in eastern Jerusalem and performed handsomely in Nablus, Hebron, and elsewhere. In a departure from the norm, these were sound democratic elections. Some 250 European Union observers confirmed it. They accurately reflected the preferences of the residents of Gaza and Judea-Samaria. Admittedly, seventeen years have passed since then but Hamas' strength in Gaza, and in Judea-Samaria as well, has not only held up but has grown.

Hamas and the Gazans are one and the same – in elections, in their hearts, in their actions, and in their assistance. Many of them knew about the war preparations, furthered them, and kept them secret. The IDF is a moral army. It will not line up a civilian population in the crosshairs of its rifles, tanks, artillery, and aircraft, but if this population unintentionally comes to harm, heaven forbid, it's worth our while to know exactly whom we're dealing with.

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"BBC" Laps Up Amnesty’s Latest Anti-Israel Hit Job

Video Of The Week - PA. Does NOT Control Jenin https://tinyurl.com/3r2yc25h

 Carrying on its long tradition of unfairly attacking Israel, Amnesty International has published another hatchet job masquerading as a serious investigation this week.

 The report, “Israel/OPT: Civilian deaths and extensive destruction in latest Gaza offensive highlight human toll of apartheid,” accuses Israel of committing a war crime in its pursuit of Islamic Jihad terrorists in the Gaza Strip last month.

 As is the usual fashion when it comes to Amnesty, the 1,300-word denunciation of Israel exercising its legally-sanctioned right to defend itself is replete with hyperbole, distortions and outright lies — the latter demonstrated in Amnesty repeating its well-worn libel that Israel is an apartheid state.

 Given that Amnesty so clearly has an anti-Israel axe to grind, one would think that reputable news organizations, like the BBC, which prides itself on its commitment to impartiality, would take anything published on the Amnesty website with a pinch of salt.

 Alas, not so.

 Instead, the BBC has regurgitated almost word-for-word Amnesty’s most damaging allegations surrounding Israel’s role in the May conflagration, including Amnesty’s claim that the IDF mounted “disproportionate air strikes which killed Palestinian civilians.”

 Of course, and this should go without saying, there is nothing disproportionate about killing terrorists who are planning to launch attacks on Israeli civilians.

 In the piece, ‘Amnesty: Possible war crimes in recent Israel-Gaza fighting,’ the BBC’s Middle East desk correspondent David Gritten quotes at length Amnesty’s repeated claim that Israeli strikes to take out Islamic Jihad commanders were excessive, as well as the NGO’s malicious assertion that the risk to civilians in Gaza was “likely disregarded” by those in Israel who “planned and authorised the attacks.”

 While Amnesty may have convinced most journalists that it is an unimpeachable source of information, the BBC should really have examined the organization’s sad and sorry history of getting things wrong or letting its ideologically-driven leanings interfere in conflicts that it apparently knows very little about.

 For example, Amnesty was widely criticized last year when it released a report that accused the Ukrainian military of endangering civilians by “establishing bases and operating weapons systems in populated residential areas, including in schools and hospitals” — apparently forgetting that Ukraine was forced to position soldiers in urban areas to avoid being completely overrun by invading Russian troops and to protect those very Ukrainian civilians in the path of Russia’s military.

 Unsurprisingly, when Islamist terrorists plant rockets inside and underneath civilian centers in Gaza, Amnesty has very little to say in the way of condemnation.

 However, the most worrying aspect of the article is Gritten’s abject failure to probe the veracity of Amnesty’s allegations, as any serious journalist should.

 If he had, he would have noted that Amnesty’s claim that Israel started the five days of fighting, is complete and utter fiction. As HonestReporting has repeatedly pointed out, Operation Shield and Arrow was launched in response to a barrage of rocket fire from the Strip after Islamic Jihad terrorist Khader Adnan eventually died in an Israeli prison following a protracted hunger strike in a bid to secure his release.

 Gritten also appears to go to great lengths to clean up Islamic Jihad’s image, particularly by not bothering to mention that the group is an internationally-recognized terrorist organization that has been proscribed by pretty much the entire Western world, including the United Kingdom where the BBC is based.

 Indeed, Gritten even prominently features the group’s “spokesman” Tariq Salmi saying Islamic Jihad welcomed Amnesty’s report, which “proves that the occupation [Israel] was the one that began the aggression by committing grave crimes.” This, while not mentioning the fact that the group’s sworn goal is the annihilation of the Jewish state using “the Jihad solution and the martyrdom style as the only choice for liberation.”

 As an independent organization, Amnesty International is free to publish as many unfair screeds about Israel as it likes.

 As a state-funded broadcaster tasked with delivering non-partisan news coverage to millions, the BBC should robustly challenge Amnesty’s biased bilge. 

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IDF Exposes vast Hamas Network under Civilian Infrastructure

 Video Of The Week- Hamas Terrorist Tunnel Route - https://tinyurl.com/2p82hbyp

If the tunnels collapse, hospitals, mosques, universities, or factories will also collapse with them, the IDF warned.

For the full article By Aryeh Savir, TPS go to https://tinyurl.com/49zbsrdj

The IDF exposed a vast network of tunnels, essentially an underground city, dug by the Hamas terror organization under crucial civilian infrastructure, while warning that these buildings are at risk if the terror organization attacks Israel.

Hamas’ use of civilian settings for its weapons warehouses and training bases has been known for over a decade, as well as its use of human shields, in contravention of all international conventions.

What the IDF revealed on Wednesday are underground networks that were built within the various neighborhoods in the Strip.

The tunnels pass under buildings necessary for civilian life, with Hamas knowing that Israel’s attacks on these military targets would be very problematic.

If the tunnels collapse, hospitals, mosques, universities, or factories will also collapse with them, the IDF warned.

A recent example is the underground terror tunnel dug by Hamas in the Tufah neighborhood in Gaza City. The tunnel is used for the storage of explosives and for the movement of Hamas terrorists, and is located near the “Pepsi” factory operating under a franchise, and the UNRWA-run “Draaj” elementary school, which is used in times of emergency as a declared shelter for 2,500 people.

Also, a weapons cache and the entrance to a terrorist tunnel shaft were located in the homes of two of the organization’s operatives. The first is Mahmoud Salah Muhammad Abu Ali, an operative in Hamas’ production system, who has a weapons storage facility on the roof of his house.

The IDF noted that it’s not just his house that he is endangering – the house is surrounded by other residences and is located next to the UNRA clinic, which is across the road and provides medical care to about 15,000 people.

The second activist is Amer Awni Muhaisen, a Hamas commander in charge of training in the Al-Shujaiya Brigade, whose house has an entrance to a terror tunnel shaft dug 60 meters away from a school with about 20 classes and which is used as a shelter for refugees during an emergency, and 30 meters away from a mosque.

Another tunnel passes near the main ambulance center in Gaza, which includes 14 ambulances.

“The locations where these infrastructures were discovered present a difficult and sad picture, where exploitation and inhumanity are a course of action,” the IDF stated. “The enemy hides under the noses of innocent people the infrastructure for the next war, thus putting them, against their will, at the front of the next campaign.”

The Israeli military shared that commanders from all the IDF units in the sector are faced with significant dilemmas because of the complex situation.

“They operate with the knowledge that if they do not act – those places will be used for terrorism. This is how the surgical and pinpoint strikes that the IDF is known for were created,” the IDF explained.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz toured Israel’s southern border on Wednesday and visited the IDF’s Gaza division. He stated that the IDF has “revealed examples that show how Hamas endangers Palestinian civilians. Hamas launches attacks from within population centers towards population centers.

“The whole world must see this crime against humanity. Israel will operate with precision and force against terror targets, and defend the citizens of the State of Israel.”

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West Bank Security Fence - Israel's Lifesaver

Video Of The Week - Underground Barrier Stops Gazan Terrrorists - https://tinyurl.com/acrx3nvb

By HERB KEINON 9-7-2022

For the full article go to - https://tinyurl.com/4m6pw4rj 

Semantics matter in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Is it the West Bank or Judea and Samaria? Are the areas Israel gained control over in the Six Day War “occupied” territories or “disputed” ones? Do Jews beyond the Green Line live in “settlements” or “communities?”

More often than not, the word selection reflects a worldview 

In the same vein, how one refers to the meandering fence built close to the Green Line at the height of the second intifada says much about a person’s politics. Call it the “separation barrier,” and you likely believe in a two-state solution and want to “separate” from the Palestinians. Call it the “security fence” or “security barrier”  and you likely see it as a defensive barrier meant to save lives.

Refer to it as the “Apartheid Wall,” and it is abundantly clear where you stand. Roger Waters calls it the apartheid wall, as does – most likely – the chairperson of Ben & Jerry’s board of directors.

Numbers are useful in deflating claims  and the numbers are straightforward.

There were more than 3,000 attacks that originated from Judea and Samaria from September 2000 until the end of 2006 that resulted in the deaths of 1,622 people killed inside the Green Line in terrorist attacks.

From 2007, when most of the existing fence was up, until today, he says there have been 141 attacks from Judea and Samaria inside Israel, that led to the killing of some 100 people.

Those numbers tell the whole tale. The fence wasn’t set up as a border or as a means of suppressing the Palestinians, but rather to save lives. And the numbers show it succeeded in fulfilling that objective.

The decision to build the fence was part of three pronged approach to the wave of terror.

The first prong was a military operation – Defensive Shield. This was an offensive military campaign that brought the IDF back into the Palestinian cities from which it had withdrawn under the Oslo accords.

The second prong was to prepare a security barrier as a defensive tool.

And the third prong was to prepare a political horizon, which culminated in a speech by then-president George W. Bush delivered at the end of June 2002, in which he said that if the Palestinians changed their leadership, reformed their institutions and fought error, then the US would work toward the creation of a two-state solution.

There were hardships , but great efforts were made to ease the hardships. Also, he notes, not one Palestinian home was demolished in building the barrier.

“The fence is only a temporary security route that will be changed the minute we sit and negotiate and agree on a border,” he says. “Israel has always said, even after negotiations with the Palestinians after the fence was built – at Annapolis [in 2007] – that the fence is not a border, but a defensive measure.

The fence, like the other obstacles, is a security measure. It does not establish a border, political or otherwise.”

Some 470 km. of the barrier has been erected. Various routes of the fence have been proposed, with the original route planned to be some 740 km. The route was modified several times over the years by the High Court of Justice following petitions from human rights groups representing Palestinians.

For most of its length, the barrier is a chain-linked fence with sensors, surveillance cameras, barbed wires and patrol roads. Only some 5% of the barrier is actually a 9-meter tall concrete wall, and most of that is in urban areas – such as Jerusalem – where a wall takes up much less space to build.

Tellingly, the mini-wave of terror earlier this year, during which 19 people were killed in six weeks starting in late March, led to a decision to repair the barrier where it had been damaged, and plug holes through which some of the terrorists who carried out those attacks moved across the Green Line.

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Nakba? Arab Regimes Told "Leave Your Homes"

Video Of The Week -Shireen's Death - "BLAME" Israel - https://tinyurl.com/yt4ss76f

For the full Article by MEMRI go to: https://tinyurl.com/sh4hzaw2

On Nakba Day this year (May 15, 2022), Ibrahim Al-Madhoun, a Gazan journalist affiliated with Hamas, published an article on the Hamas website palinfo.com discussing the reasons for the Nakba and for the situation of the Palestinians today.

The following are translated excerpts from his article:[1]

"We are now marking 74 years since the loss of Palestine and the dispersal of its people across the world in what is known as the Nakba [literally, the catastrophe]. This [is how we refer to it] because of the torments and the [harsh] consequences that have been suffered by every Palestinian for decades, which we could not have imagined would ensue. The Palestinian people is a living people that adheres to its identity and its land, is rebellious by nature, makes sacrifices and is capable of defending its land. However, the loss of Palestine for all this time raises many questions and queries.

"When our parents left their lands, their cities and their homes [in 1948] they left their money, belongings, clothing and jewelry behind, and took with them only the deeds to their homes and their keys, because [they thought] they were leaving only temporarily. Had they realized it would last [longer, even] for a single year, they would have preferred to die in their homes, their orchards and their fields.

"Sadly, the armies of several Arab regimes had a hand in persuading the people and the villages to leave and to abandon their homes, on the pretext of protecting [the villages] and fighting the Zionist gangs. The Palestinians believed and trusted them and the families left, hoping that the Zionist gangs would be defeated and their strength would be broken…

"Palestinians sold their wives' jewelry to buy a single rifle to defend their village, but the Arab armies collected their weapons and promised them they would fight on their behalf. They took the weapons and sent the [Palestinian] fighters away, and then they withdrew without putting up a fight.

"Had the Arab leaders only supported the Palestinian fighters with weapons and funds, or refrained from interfering and let them to do as they chose, Palestine would not have been lost. But they did not do that. [Instead] they interfered, planned, came together -- and then simply handed over the country [to the Jews].

"Today the ball and idea are back in the same court and the Arab regimes are playing the same role of colluding with the occupation. These regimes are besieging our people, fighting it and treating to it with hostility, and pressuring it to surrender its weapons and surrender to "Israel." The Arab regimes condemn our Palestinian people in Gaza for possessing weapons and insisting on manufacturing rockets and building tunnels. They [are trying to] convince it to hand over all of this, but today our people are [more] aware and experienced, and thus the Nakba will not recur as long as our people is armed and as long as the jihad fighters build their tunnels.

"The occupation gambled on the Palestinians surrendering of losing their sense of identity. Its leaders said: The adults will die and the younger ones will forget. But the next generations of Palestinians are [even] more attached and committed to their land. The Zionist idea was defeated to the core, as was the occupation's plan to diffuse the Palestinians and destroy their identity.  We are moving closer to Jerusalem with every rocket produced by a member of the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades [Hamas' military wing], with every tunnel built in the east of the [Gaza] Strip, with every knife and explosive belt in the West Bank, with every intellectual, pen and voice in the Triangle [the concentration of Israeli Arab towns and villages in northern Israel] and the Galilee, and with every voice and key in the refugee camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. Today there are more than seven million Palestinians in historic Palestine between the [Mediterranean] sea and the [Jordan] river, and another seven million outside [Palestine]. Not even one of these Palestinians who has forgotten his rights or his land or who considers forgetting Palestine or renouncing his right to return.

Today, 74 years after the Nakba and one year after the Sword of Jerusalem Campaign in Gaza [i.e. the May 2021 Hamas-Israel military conflict], and after the heroic operations carried out by individuals and by organizations in the West Bank, the ribat [mobilization on the frontlines] of the residents of Jerusalem at Al-Aqsa Mosque, the fidelity of the '48 Palestinians [i.e. the Israeli Arabs] to their national identity, the struggles of the Palestinians outside Palestine, their longing to return and their direct participation [in the struggle] – we are closer to victory and liberation. We are on the verge of the return that we discern from afar, and here we come."

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OUTRAGEOUS - The US is Offering to Pay Organizations to Defame Israel.

 Video Of The Week- UAE's FM speech at Negev Summit - https://tinyurl.com/4kx8y45e

For the full article by Lahav Harkov go to https://tinyurl.com/2kkk43a2

The US State Department has offered a grant of up to $987,654 for projects that include reporting human rights violations by Israel, raising concern about the potential for abuse by organizations seeking boycotts, sanctions and international law tribunals against Israel.

The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) announced “an open competition for projects that strengthen accountability and human rights in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza” last month, thought to be the first of its kind from Washington.

The proposals are meant to “collect, archive and maintain human rights documentation to support justice and accountability and civil society-led advocacy efforts, which may include documentation of legal or security sector violations and housing, land and property rights.”

The projects can also “take meaningful action in pursuing truth, accountability and memorialization; and/or provide psychosocial support to survivors of atrocities.”

DRL will favor projects led by local organizations with a proven ability to implement programs in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza.

The contest rules state that applications cannot “reflect any type of support for any member, affiliate or representative of a designated terrorist organization.” Projects that directly benefit foreign militaries or paramilitary groups will also not be considered.

Applicants must pass vetting to evaluate the risk that the funding will go to terrorists or their supporters, according to the State Department website.

Prof. Gerald Steinberg, director of NGO Monitor, which tracks funding for NGOs dealing with Israel-related issues, said he has never seen a US funding announcement of this kind.

US funding “generally was not for these more political NGOs under the headings of human rights,” he said.

Steinberg wrote a letter to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying that NGO projects of the kind described “are exploited for campaigns targeting Israel. These grantees lobby the International Criminal Court and UN frameworks – such as biased Commissions of Inquiry – to sanction Israel, promote BDS and use the ‘apartheid’ label.”

The Biden administration has opposed the ICC investigation of Israel, the use of “apartheid” to describe Israel, and the UN Commission of Inquiry against Israel.

“In light of the Biden Administration’s repeated rejection of such campaigns, we call on the State Department to reconsider this program,” Steinberg wrote. “If however the NOFO [notice of funding opportunity] proceeds, the application of clear and rigorous safeguards will be necessary to ensure that taxpayer funds are not provided to organizations advancing a discriminatory, anti-Israel agenda under the façade of accountability and human rights.”

According to Steinberg, “the language [of the NOFO] is reflective of what European governments use to justify funding organizations like Al Haq and Breaking the Silence,” Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations, respectively, that have advocated for boycotts of Israel and for Israeli officials to be tried for war crimes.

“It’s hard to see any other explanation for this type of grant,” he said.

Such human rights organizations targeting Israel are “an industry on the order of at least $50 million to Israel and Palestinian groups from European governments, plus there is UN support. It’s even more if you include Human Rights Watch and Amnesty” – which have accused Israel of being an apartheid state – “and this funding could, in theory, go to them,” Steinberg said.

Blinken recently met with Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth and Amnesty’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard, releasing only a brief tweet in which he said: “We support the important work of human rights defenders.” He commended their work in a speech about the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar.

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Amnesty International’s Obsessive Fixation with Israel

 Video Of The Week -Whoopi Gets Whipped -  https://tinyurl.com/ytp45dpa      

For the full article from JCPA by Alan Baker, go to https://tinyurl.com/ha2mppcz

·       The January 2022 Amnesty International report alleging that Israel practices apartheid against the Palestinians reveals a bitter fixation,  extreme prejudice, and blatant hatred of Israel, even to the extent of questioning Israel’s very legitimacy and right to exist.

·       The Amnesty report willfully and deliberately distorts and misrepresents the circumstances surrounding the historic development of the State of Israel. Moreover, it ignores, sidelines, and downplays the existential dangers that Israel continues to face from its neighbors since its establishment, including ongoing Palestinian terror directed against Israel’s civilian population and territory.

·        Amnesty alleges that Israel “coerces Palestinians into enclaves within the State of Israel…and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.” In every multicultural society throughout the world, people of shared cultures and languages live together in their own communities as part of their national whole. This is a natural, social inclination and such social fragmentation is not apartheid.

·        Amnesty deliberately misled its readers by claiming that Israel was “forcefully evicting Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Jerusalem in order to transfer Jewish settlers.” The issue is a long-running, civil real-estate litigation that has been under scrutiny in Israel’s courts since 1972. It involves competing property claims by Jewish owners and Palestinian tenants and squatters.

·        The Amnesty report presents the flawed claim that six “prominent Palestinian civil society organizations” are innocent human rights organizations, manipulating readers into believing that Israel randomly and illegally outlawed such organizations. Yet the Israeli decision to outlaw NGOs with direct connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terror organization was in full accordance with international law and obligations set out in international counter-terrorism conventions.

·        South African Judge Richard L. Goldstone, who headed a UN Human Rights Council investigation of the 2008-2009 Gaza War, wrote in an article in the New York Times on October 31, 2011, entitled “Israel and the Apartheid Slander”: “In Israel, there is no apartheid. Nothing there comes close to the definition of apartheid under the Rome Statute.” The central elements of apartheid, and specifically the “intent to maintain an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group,” simply do not exist.

·        The Amnesty report repeats the phrase “occupied Palestinian territory (OPT)” as a given, ignoring the historical and legal claim by Israel and the Jewish People to the territory. Yet the “West Bank” territory of Judea and Samaria has never been determined by any authoritative and binding legal document, treaty, resolution, or declaration to be “Palestinian.” On the contrary, the territory is subject to a dispute, the settlement of which is to be negotiated between the parties.

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