Massacres under Syria's new Regime

 

SYRIAN CHAOS GROWS - The new regime led by al-Julani, which received the blessing of the democratic governments, European countries, the UN, and Turkey, have accelerated massacring Alawites who had been massacring Sunnis for years.  Videos of massacres, murder and humiliation are being shared widely on Arab channels, as well as looting and kidnapping of women. 

 Condemnations? None. UN Security Council sessions? None. Intl. Court of Justice or Criminal Court warrants? None. 

 Compare to the responses for Israel’s defensive actions.  Hypocrisy abounds.

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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EU Gives Millions Supporting War Crimes against Israel

Video Of The Week -Foreign Gov-Funded NGOs Brainwash Israeli Children https://tinyurl.com/3d8sxrje

EU countries gave NIS 50m. to Israeli NGOs supporting war crimes charges 

Foreign governments gave Israeli groups over NIS 185,000,000 in 2017-2019.

By LAHAV HARKOV   MARCH 9, 2021

Foreign governments were major funders of Israeli organizations making the charge that the International Criminal Court should investigate Israel for war crimes, a new report from NGO Monitor revealed this week.

The report, by the research institution focused on nongovernmental organizations and their funding, analyzed the annual financial reports from 2017-2019 of the 35 Israeli NGOs involved in political advocacy that receive foreign government funding. They received a total of NIS 319,466,917 (about $100 million), 58% of which (NIS 185,387,008) came directly or indirectly from foreign governments.

Germany was the largest government donor, providing NIS 43,636,794 ($13 million), followed by the EU and the Netherlands.

The New Israel Fund was the largest private donor, followed by the London-based Sigrid Rausing Trust and billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundation.

A significant amount of the funds went to organizations that supported an ICC investigation against Israel, which was announced last week.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda referred to three B’Tselem documents in her brief in which she argued that the court has jurisdiction over Israel, even though it is not a member of the court and has an independent judiciary.

About half of B’Tselem’s funding, NIS 19,680,303 (about $6 million), in 2017-2019 came from foreign governments, including the EU, Spain, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and others.

A Dutch government document from that period stated that “B’Tselem regularly refers to the [Israeli] Supreme Court as one of the main mechanisms that permits the ongoing occupation and human rights violations by granting judicial legitimacy to Israel’s policies.”

A March 2020 email from left-wing group stated: ”We hope the court will make the right decision to back the Prosecutor’s position and rule: There is jurisdiction and there will be an investigation.” 

B’Tselem decided earlier this year to label Israel an apartheid state.

Yesh Din received 91% of its funding – NIS 14,560,839 or $4.3m. – from foreign governments.

In 2018, the Netherlands gave Yesh Din a grant to ensure that the “issue of impunity of [Israeli security forces personnel] in cases of offenses committed against Palestinians in the West Bank and in Jerusalem remains on [the] international agenda.”

On Jan 30, 2020, a statement from Yesh Din claimed that “the State of Israel is unable or unwilling to take resolute action in keeping with its legal duties to eradicate violence and harm to Palestinians and their property,” adding that “The international community, which shares in the responsibility for protecting the rights of Palestinians living under occupation, has an obligation to intervene and take action.”

Other organizations taking similar positions include Adalah, which received 49.665% of its donations, amounting to NIS 5,800,767 ($1.7m.), from foreign governments, and Breaking the Silence, which is 55.61% foreign government-funded (NIS 12,125,833 – $3.6m.).

The New Israel Fund provided B’Tselem, Yesh Atid and Adalah with NIS 4,063,396 ($1.2m.) in 2017-2019, telling Makor Rishon last month that it “can no longer 100% support” a “resolute statement that Israel has an independent judiciary that investigates itself without bias.”

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ICC Gives Itself Authority to Adjudicate Israeli "War Crimes:"

 Video Of The Week - ICC - MK. Bennet says "Charge me First" https://tinyurl.com/1egc9tmn

For the full article by Daniel Pomerantz go to -  https://tinyurl.com/i5c70jic 

Last Friday the International Criminal Court (also referred to as “the Hague”) announced its decision to exercise jurisdiction over Israel and within “Palestine” for the purpose of prosecuting Israel for alleged war crimes.

Despite the legalistic sounding name of the “court” it actually functions as a political body: in this case a body that on Friday granted itself the authority to bring politically driven prosecutions against any country in the world, whether or not that country has agreed to be a part of the ICC’s activities.

This prosecution will set a dangerous precedent not only for the Jewish state, its leaders, soldiers and private citizens, but also for citizens of all nations that may potentially become the next victims of this growing international populism. Friday’s decision may change the very nature of international law in a manner that stands to harm our growth as a global community.

The International Criminal Court is not a “court”

The words “International Criminal Court” are seductively misleading: they give the impression that the ICC is a body that interprets legislative law. It is not.  Certainly, in theory, the ICC is supposed to perform like a court. In practice, however, it functions as political body that carries out decisions based on the interests of its members.

Case in point: prosecutor Fatou Bensouda came to the ICC after her tenure as Minister of Justice of Gambia, where she presided over and enforced the country’s laws and practices in favor of torture, arbitrary arrest, legal rape, sex trafficking and female genital mutilation.  Despite a 2018 US State Department report detailing these practices, and despite the fact that Gambia is a signatory to the Rome Statute, prosecutor Bensouda has not seen fit to prosecute the leadership of her homeland, including herself.

Other parties who have never been prosecuted at the Hague include leaders of Syria who are responsible for the largest loss of human life in recent history, Turkey, which in the last decades murdered thousands of Kurds; China, which is holding millions of Muslims in “reeducation” camps; Iran, which is behind the war crimes being perpetrated in Yemen, and many more.

The sheer number of human lives that might have been saved by a proper application of the ICC’s mission is in the millions.  Instead,  the ICC, an unelected, undemocratic political body is attempting to apply unchecked global power based on political agenda. This stands to injure global trust in international institutions and the very nature of international law, thus posing serious and long-term harm to our world’s growth as a cooperative global community.

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ICC prosecutor rejects PMW report

Video Of The Week- Lies About Israel Lead to Lies About Everything-https://tinyurl.com/yd2uk7tr

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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ICC and War Crimes

Video Of The Week “BREAKING THE SILENCE”- https://tinyurl.com/seqh7l5

 By JPOST EDITORIAL   DECEMBER 22, 2019

Israel does not commit war crimes.

That is the message Israel needs to send the world, in light of the recommendation on Friday by the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, to investigate Israel regarding alleged war crimes stemming from 2014’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza; settlement activity since then; and the IDF’s response to weekly riots along the Gaza border fence.

Bensouda, in what seems like little more than a fig leaf, wrote that there is also a “reasonable basis” to believe that Hamas and “Palestinian armed groups” committed war crimes. As if there is any doubt that the indiscriminate firing of thousands of rockets on Sderot, Ashkelon and communities nearby – or purposefully setting alight thousands of dunams of agricultural land and forests – is anything but a war crime.

But it is obscene for Bensouda to place Israel and terrorist organizations on equal footing. Unlike Hamas – and what Bensouda called in sanitized language “Palestinian armed groups” – Israel does not intentionally harm civilians in Gaza or anywhere else.

Yes, civilians are harmed in Gaza by IDF actions, but they are not the target.

In 2015, a blue ribbon panel of former top military leaders and generals from eight democratic countries wrote a report after conducting an investigation into Operation Protective Edge. Their conclusion: Israel’s conduct in the conflict “met and in some respects exceeded the highest standards we set for our own nations’ militaries... The IDF not only met its obligations under the Law of Armed Conflict, but often exceeded these on the battlefield at significant tactical cost.”

Jews living at the site of the biblical Shiloh, or in the shadow of the Western Wall and the Temple Mount, are not committing war crimes. One can argue the political wisdom of their living there, and one can say that making peace with the Palestinians is more difficult because they live there, but to say that a Jew living in Judea – the cradle of Jewish civilization – is a war criminal, is ridiculous.

And that absurdity needs to be highlighted as Israel fights Bensouda’s recommendation and works to get the court to not pursue this case. Or, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting: “To turn the fact that Jews are living in their land into a war crime is an absurdity of unimaginable proportions.”

There are many arguments Jerusalem will use to convince the Western democracies – first and foremost the US – to put pressure on the ICC to drop this case.

One argument will be that the court lacks jurisdiction in the matter because it only has standing when a state that is a signatory to the 1998 Rome Statute – which established the court – turns to it to take action. Israel’s position is that despite Palestinian claims to the contrary, and even though the Palestinian Authority signed the Rome Statute, there is no Palestinian state.

Jerusalem will also argue to the world’s democracies that what starts with Israel will not end with Israel, and that if today Israeli politicians and soldiers will be charged with war crimes for the unintentional death of innocents during a military campaign, then tomorrow the politicians and soldiers of other countries will also find themselves so accused.

Those arguments – which are strong and sound – are legalistic. They need to be presented, and they will be presented. But as they are being presented, a simple truth must be repeated over and over, because the lies about Israel committing war crimes are repeated over and over: Syria intentionally commits war crimes, Iran intentionally commits war crimes, Turkey intentionally commits war crimes – Israel does not.

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Abbas's Lies and Palestinian Child Victims

Video of the week;   Revealing Mahmoud Abbas's lies -  http://tinyurl.com/yahwhxb8

by Bassam Tawil 30-6-2017

For the full, extremely interesting article go to - http://tinyurl.com/y97w2lm2

        Hamas and human rights groups hold Abbas personally responsible for the deaths of the children and the possible deaths of other patients in need of urgent medical treatment not available in Gaza Strip hospitals. One human rights group went so far as to call for the International Criminal Court in The Hague to launch an investigation against Abbas.

        In a move of mind-bending irony, we are witnessing a Palestinian president waging war not only against Hamas, but also against the two million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip -- while Israel continues to provide the Palestinians living under Hamas with humanitarian aid.

        That is the standard operating procedure of the man who lied straight to the face of President Donald Trump, by claiming that he had stopped incitement against Israel and was promoting a "culture of peace" among his people. Will the last sick Palestinian child please stand up?

Palestinian children are the latest victims of the power struggle between the two rival Palestinian factions, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Hamas.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas has declared war on the Gaza Strip as part of his effort to prompt Palestinians living there to revolt against the ruling Hamas administration. It appears that Abbas and Hamas are determined to fight to the last ill Palestinian child.

Abbas is hoping that a series of punitive measures he has taken, which include reducing electricity and medical supplies and cutting off salaries to many Palestinians, will lead to the collapse of Hamas, paving the way for the return of his PA to the Gaza Strip. Abbas has had a grudge against Hamas ever since the Islamist movement expelled his PA and loyalists from the Gaza Strip ten years ago.

Abbas's war on the Hamas may seem justified. Nonetheless, it smacks of hypocrisy and is accompanied by a smear campaign against Israel.

Instead of accepting responsibility for their punitive actions against Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Abbas and his PA are falsely trying to put the blame on Israel. They are telling their people and the rest of the world that Israel bears the full and sole responsibility for the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. This, of course, is a wide-eyed lie as well as another blood libel against Israel.

The attempt to put the blame on Israel should be seen in the context of Abbas's ongoing incitement against Israel.

Moreover, Abbas is trying to drag Israel into his continuing conflict with Hamas, which is a purely internal Palestinian affair. Israel had nothing to do with Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip in the summer of 2007. Two years earlier, Israel had totally withdrawn from the Gaza Strip, leaving Abbas's PA fully in control of the area. Within two years, Hamas had overthrown the PA and seized control of the Gaza Strip, including Abbas's house.

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