Europe's Unaccountable Palestinian Aid

By  Michael Theurer*  April 9, 2014

http://tinyurl.com/p93mcvm

(“BIG” Editor comments -The government is considering subtracting from the monthly tax revenue it transfers to the Palestinian Authority the amount the PA pays to terrorists and their families, a government official said on Wednesday.

Holding back the monthly tax revenues – or a part of them – is one option Israel is considering, the official said, in response to the PA ’s unilateral application last week to join 15 international conventions and treaties, a move that sent the diplomatic talks into a tailspin.

According to a document released from the Prime Minister’s Office, the PA transferred $153.5m. in 2012 to terrorists in Israeli prisons and to their families, as well as to families of deceased terrorists, including suicide bombers. This amounts to nearly 16 percent of all foreign aid to the PA .

It should also be noted that the Palestinians owe in excess of $300 mill. to the Israeli Electric Co. )

The government in the West Bank is the only body receiving EU funds regardless of its human-rights record or economic performance.

At a time of austerity and belt-tightening, the European Union remains the biggest donor to Third World countries. EU assistance to the developing world serves European values and objectives—but only if EU institutions abide by the highest standards of accountability in managing European taxpayers' money. As a recent report by the European Court of Auditors found, that hasn't always been the case with respect to EU aid to the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

Since the 1994 Oslo Agreement, which created the Palestinian Authority, the EU has offered generous financial assistance to Ramallah to help advance a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis. The EU is today the largest donor to the Palestinian Authority, which relies mainly on foreign donations. But European lawmakers have a duty to ensure that EU funds aren't diverted from the noble purpose for which they're intended.

In its report, issued in December, the European Court of Auditors revealed major dysfunctions in the management of EU financial support to the Palestinian Authority, and called for a serious overhaul of the funding mechanism.

Among other things, the court criticized the absence of any conditions for EU aid to the Palestinian Authority, an approach that reduces the potential leverage of the EU to push for more reforms from the Palestinian Authority. This is a surprising exception to the EU's famous "more-for-more" principle, according to which the EU offers stronger partnership and more incentives to countries that make more progress toward democratic reforms. This principle applies to every other recipient of EU aid in the world. In other words, the Palestinian Authority is the only body that receives EU funds regardless of its human-rights record or economic performance.

The court also revealed that, since 2007, "a considerable number" of Palestinian Authority civil servants in Gaza have received their salaries partly funded through EU aid—even though they "were not going to work due to the political situation in Gaza." How exactly does this contribute to peace-building? And how can the EU preserve its credibility back home when it pays salaries to people who don't work, while millions of European citizens are unemployed?

The court also found that the EU paid insufficient attention to the fungibility of the funds it provided to the Palestinian Authority. There is reason to believe that EU financial assistance has allowed the Palestinian Authority to use its own general budget to support terrorist or criminal activities.

The Palestinian Authority, for example, allocates a significant portion of its budget to paying salaries to Palestinian prisoners convicted of terrorism offenses. These salaries are up to five times higher than the average salary in the West Bank. Prisoners also receive large grants from the Palestinian Authority. According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in 2012 the Palestinian Authority's payments to convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons and to the families of deceased terrorists (including suicide bombers) together accounted for more than 16% of the annual foreign donations and grants to the budget of the Palestinian Authority. In February this year the Palestinian minister for prisoners' affairs announced that €30 million will be allocated to current or former prisoners in 2014.

One of the Palestinian Authority's main challenges is its widespread reputation for graft. That reputation has contributed to the success of Hamas, an EU-designated terrorist organization. Very simply, the more the PA is perceived as corrupt by the Palestinian people, the greater their support will be for Hamas. Thus, to promote peace and stability, Brussels must help the Palestinian Authority build strong and transparent institutions. This can't be achieved as long as the EU fails to set clear conditions for aid.

How can we ensure that EU financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority helps advance peace and stability in the region, while also promoting freedom, democracy and the rule of law? How can we guarantee no EU funds are used to reward terrorism? How can we be sure that EU money meant for public investment doesn't wind up in private Palestinian bank accounts?

The report from the European Court of Auditors is a wake-up call on the need for stricter supervision of how EU funding to the Palestinian Authority is spent. The plenary of the European Parliament last week passed a resolution calling for greater transparency in EU aid to the Palestinian Authority.

As chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control and a contributor to that resolution, I'm proud of my colleagues. But much more needs to be done: A useful next step would be the imposition of clear benchmarks and conditions that the Palestinian Authority would have to meet in order to receive additional EU funds. These should include improving the state of human rights in the West Bank, cracking down on corruption and cutting off subsidies to convicted Palestinian terrorists.

In these hard times, Brussels shouldn't tolerate blatant misuse of EU taxpayers' money.

* Mr. Theurer is chairman of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control.

EU right about Western Sahara but wrong about Israel

Eugene Kontorovich  November 21, 2013

http://tinyurl.com/q3p6xbt

Commentary: The European Union makes up its own rules for engaging with occupied territories.

 JERUSALEM — The European Union recently affirmed that there is no international legal problem in signing a deal with an occupying power that extends to the territory it occupies, or from foreign companies doing business in occupied territory.

It did so when it provisionally approved a fisheries agreement earlier this month with Morocco that extends into the territory of occupied Western Sahara, which is beyond Morocco’s recognized sovereign territory.

Moreover, the EU actually pays Morocco for European access to Western Saharan resources. On all these points, the agreement directly contradicts what the EU, in negotiations with Israel, calls fundamental principles of international law.

In recent years, Europe has contested Israel’s insistence that its EU agreements do not apply to Israel’s activities in the West Bank. The EU stance has been celebrated by some as an example of European commitment to international law. The EU’s new deal with Morocco appears to be contradicting those principles.

Moreover, the European Parliament’s legal advisor issued a formal opinion earlier this month making it clear that it is the EU’s treatment of Morocco, not Israel, that accords with international law.
By inventing rules of international law, the EU actually sends the message that Israel might never “comply” with international law, because where Israel is concerned, this “law” is a moving target, that can be concocted from thin air.

Morocco invaded Western Sahara in 1975 and has occupied it since, claiming it as its own territory. The Security Council has condemned Morocco’s presence and demanded a complete withdrawal.
In the face of this demand, Morocco has initiated an aggressive settlement policy. As a result, Moroccan settlers may now be the majority in the territory.

The EU, like the rest of the world, does not recognize Western Sahara as part of Morocco, but this has not stopped EU from extending its agreements with Morocco to cover Western Sahara. The Polisario Front is the generally recognized representative of the indigenous people of Western Sahara, and it vigorously opposes the EU deal.

The Moroccan agreement contradicts two central elements of the EU’s legal approach to Israel. The EU says that any application of agreements to the occupied territories would violate international law by “recognizing” Israel’s control. Yet while the EU also refuses to recognize Moroccan claims to Western Sahara, it sees no tension between this and extending its agreements with Morocco to that territory.

The EU says it cannot spend a cent on Israeli-sponsored activities in the occupied territories, while in Western Sahara, Europe will actually pay Morocco for its exploitation of natural resources there.
The controversy over EU deals with Morocco led to a ruling from the European Parliament’s legal advisor. In brief, the official opinion says international law does not prevent Morocco from exploiting the natural resources of the occupied territory, or for the EU to pay Morocco to exploit the resources of occupied territory.

The EU position regarding Western Sahara is consistent with prior international law, including a 2002 opinion by the Security Council’s legal advisor, and a ruling of the French Court of Appeals this summer, as well as the general practice of nations.

The EU is right about Western Sahara — which means it is wrong about Israel.

To be sure, there are differences between the EU’s policies toward Western Sahara and the West Bank; the former is much worse.

In Western Sahara, the EU has licensed the exploitation of scarce natural resources. In the West Bank, the EU seeks to punish pure academic and business activity that do not exhaust resources but only create jobs and opportunities for Arabs and Jews
.
Moreover, Israel’s economic activity in the West Bank is confined to areas under Israeli jurisdiction by agreement with Palestinian authorities under the Oslo Accords. Morocco’s activities have no limitations, because unlike Israel, it has not turned over most of the territory to Polisario rule.
Ironically, the inconsistency in European policies sends exactly the opposite message from that intended by Europe. In its dealings with Israel, the EU wants to make clear that it opposes settlements
.
Fair enough. But implicitly, Europe is telling Israel that the problem is not its presence in the disputed territories, but rather that it does not have enough presence; in particular, not enough economic enterprises.

Spanish and French businesses, interested in opportunities in the Western Sahara, are pressing the EU to sign the deal with Morocco.

The Moroccan precedent suggests that if significant Israeli defense, high-tech or biotech enterprises were located in the West Bank, the EU would reduce diplomatic pressures on Israel.

The message Europe wants to send Israel through its tough diplomatic line is that the occupation of the West Bank and settlements are the source of its diplomatic problems. But by not holding any other occupation to the same standard, Europe sends another message: it is not the settlements that bother Brussels — rather, it is Israel itself.


Eugene Kontorovich is a professor of international law at Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago and a senior fellow at the Kohelet Policy Forum in Jerusalem

Funds from European governments support an ‘erase Israel conference’

By Yitzhak Santis 30 Sept. 2013

 http://tinyurl.com/nh2e2cz

When "peacemakers" incite to conflict they make murder respectable.

It has become axiomatic in some circles that the sole cause of the Arab- Israeli conflict is Israel, by which is really meant Israel’s existence. For many holding this view the “solution” is a single “binational” state as opposed to the two-state solution favored by the international community. These “one state” proponents also insist on a “right of return” for 1948 Palestinian refugees and their millions of descendants, amounting to a call for the elimination of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.

A conference promoting this vision, funded mostly by Protestant and Catholic groups, is being held this week in Tel Aviv. These Christian groups are themselves largely funded by European governments that officially support the two-state solution. The conference, then, undermines these governments’ own policies.

The event, “From Truth to Redress: Realizing the Return of Palestinian Refugees,” is organized by Zochrot, a tiny Israeli fringe group.

Israeli one-state advocates are so few that they have neither a constituency nor influence in Israel. For Zochrot, foreign funding is their lifeline; the conference was “made possible thanks to the generous support of: Misereor, Christian Aid, HEKS-EPER, CCFD, Finn Church Aid, Broederlijk Delen, AFSC, Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Mennonite Central Committee, Trócaire, St. Het Solidariteitsfonds, Oxfam GB and private donors.”

NGO Monitor wrote each of the sponsors, and we received several replies.

France’s CCFD and Germany’s Misereor (both Catholic) wrote identical messages – including the same grammatical mistakes. They affirmed they are a “funding partner of Zochrot” and declared “refugee issues and refugee rights all over the world are of utmost importance to us.” But regarding funding they opted for fogginess: “Our privacy policies do not allow to disclose (sic) the amounts given to recipients.”

Belgium’s Broederlijk Delen, also Catholic, wrote a similar response: “We support the work of Zochrot as we believe refugee rights are important in any context and should be openly discussed.”

But regarding funding, they also chose murkiness: “With regard to details on funding, we wish to respect our partners’ privacy.”

What seems to be lost on these Christian groups is they are supported by public funds.

In 2012 Misereor received 114 million euros from the German government, CCFD received 1.1 million euros from the EU and another 368,000 euros from France, the Swiss government gave $12.7 million to HEKS and Broederlijk Delen received 6,891,347 euros from Belgium taxpayers.

As for the one-state formula itself, the onus for proving that this “solution” is workable is on the shoulders of its advocates. In Europe binational states have an unhappy history.

Czechoslovakia was one state, now it is two. Yugoslavia’s multi-national experiment ended in a horrific war that gave the world the term “ethnic cleansing.” Belgium, Spain and the UK each have strong national separatist movements (Flemish, Basque and Scottish respectively).

IN THE Middle East, the region most relevant to this discussion, concrete models of binational entities do not exist. The rights of non-Arab and non- Muslim minorities in Arab states are severely repressed, sectarianism is rending Syria, Iraq and Lebanon asunder, and the upsurge of violence against the region’s Christians should serve as a warning. Israel is the only Middle East country where democratic institutions are strong and minorities enjoy by right the full protection of the law.

Yet, these Christian funders are targeting Israel, and appear to be utterly unaware of the plight of their Middle Eastern coreligionists. What makes them think that Jews would fare better as a minority once Israel is forced to be a Muslim-majority state than do Christians today in Egypt, Syria or Iraq? This point is all the more pertinent considering the ethnic cleansing by Arab governments of 99 percent of their Jewish citizens after 1948. After Arab governments stripped them of their citizenship and property most Jewish refugees fled to Israel.

That two refugee populations resulted from the Arab-Israeli conflict, one Jewish, one Arab, is ignored by this conference’s organizers and funders. With all their moralistic rhetoric of refugee rights being “of utmost importance” “in any context,” these Christian groups are mute about the rights of nearly a million Jewish refugees from Arab states, and millions of their descendants.

Peacemakers, which is how these Christian aid groups view themselves, do not support efforts to erase one side of a conflict, which is what support for this conference means. The one-state formula is a recipe for war, and its proponents are exposed as uncompromising supporters of permanent conflict.

By dressing up as “peacemakers” the Christian aid societies supporting Israel’s demise bear truth to George Orwell who wrote, “Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”

Is that how public funds ought to be spent? 

======================================================================

For the full script of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech at the UN, click on this link   http://tinyurl.com/q397d3r

BDS and Peace Talks

By EDWARD S. BECK  (Jerusalem Post 08 /01/2013)

http://tinyurl.com/kyzlhp2 

Let us be very clear: the BDS campaign does not serve the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

From the very beginning of the anti-Israel boycott, divestments and sanctions campaigns, the attempt by their advocates was not to bring about a just and lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians, but to lay the foundation for the dismantling of Israel by any means necessary, starting with what Natan Sharansky called the “3-D standards” of being demonized, delegitimized and held to a double standard.

This strategy was relatively new and reaching a far more influential level of society than were the previous shouts by radical extremist groups to “drive Israel into the sea,” but had very much the same intent.

This remains true as the calls for BDS ring loud and clear even as peace talks begin in Washington. If the BDS campaign were really about bringing Israel to the peace table to make the painful sacrifices it will need to make, the campaign would be bragging success and victory.

It is not and will press on during the peace talks and after, regardless of outcome, because of the politically pathological desire to not just demonize and hold Israel to a double standard, but to delegitimize Israel to a nonexistent state in the Middle East because of their fundamentalist extreme hatreds toward Israel, with the rationale that Jews have no claim or place in the neighborhood.

Regardless of what the European Union and others may say, this isn’t about the settlements in the disputed territories, this is about the legitimate presence of a sovereign Jewish nation surrounded by a sea of Arab sovereign states.

This is about Israel delegitimizers believing that creating the State of Israel was wrong in the first place or possibly even worse, that region was betrayed when the fledgling State of Israel when created was not wiped into the sea by her Arab neighbours to finish the job Hitler started. These people don’t want to live in peace with Jews; they don’t even want Jews in the Middle East. One only has to look at the history of Jewish expulsion from Arab countries to completely understand and accept this as truth. Jews are infidels and second-class citizens and their relative degree of inferior acceptance is dictated by imams and sheikhs and not guaranteed by the Koran.

BDS movements against other countries such as South Africa accepted that there had to be peaceful coexistence of all the parties as a goal with equal rights and standing.

No such goals exist in the present BDS campaigns. The campaign does not state what it is for in terms of peaceful coexistence, only that it is against the State of Israel’s very existence in any shape, form of fashion.

In fact the Arab concept of normalization of relations is not even yet in effect with the Palestinians, who do not even choose either religiously or politically to recognize the existence of the State of Israel, which is a starting point for any negotiations. Omar Barghouti, a Palestinian leader of the BDS campaign, can speak against normalization with Israel, yet secure an academic degree from an Israeli university. The irony is both astonishing and troubling.

I wonder, if there is a peace deal with the Palestinians will Bishop Desmond Tutu come to share a blessing, and will Stevie Wonder and Roger Waters join Alicia Keyes and Eric Burden in Celebrate Peace Concert in Jerusalem? If a peace deal is hammered out and Israel gives up a good bit of land for peace, will the EU lift its boycott of goods from the newly defined areas which may be behind the current Green Line, such as Ariel and others? Will the US State Department permit US government research and aid agencies to fund basic research and development at Ariel University, which is currently banned from receiving directly or indirectly research aid from US government agencies, thus forcing it to partner with other countries for funding for basic research from which all countries benefit? I think not.

Will calls for the BDS of Israel continue? Yes. Why? Because the BDS movement will find something else endemic in Israel politics and society to protest and continue the ongoing attempt to erode any ongoing peace and legitimacy of a sovereign Jewish state. It’s in their DNA. Calls for BDS not only ratchet up the level of anti- Israelism during an incredibly important series of forward movements in peace efforts, they have the consequence of stifling the very voices in Israel that are calling for peace with the Palestinians.

To take it one step further, it has been estimated that over 15,000 Palestinians may be negatively economically affected by the EU boycott of goods produced in the disputed territories. How is putting Palestinians out of work in the territories promoting peace? It is not, and therein is the crux of the fallacy of BDS thinking.

The British academic unions are pathological in their perseverance in both publicly and silently boycotting Israeli academics and academic institutions, even though they are silencing and collectively punishing many in the academic community who are roundly in favour of peace and who work side by side with Palestinian, Israeli Arab and Arab colleagues both in Israel and internationally.

The British justice system, by scolding British academic Ronnie Fraser for his suit against the faculty union for this annual ongoing anti-Semitic effort since 2005, has not only rendered itself incapable of sanctioning anti- Semitism in Britain, but has allowed the clownish, pretentious, self-righteous, but dangerous leaders of the British academic union (more a political lot than a scholarly lot) to aid and abet those who would see an end to the state of Israel.

Let us be very clear: the BDS campaign does not serve the cause of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

The BDS campaign does not even bring justice for the Palestinians and in some cases causes them to suffer.

Whatever the real intent of the BDS campaign, the reality of it is that it serves to incite against Israel unjustly and confound efforts for peace. It is the wrong strategy for real peace and justice.

The writer is president emeritus and co-founder of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and also served as chairman of the SPME Task Force on BDS from 2004 to 2012.

================================================

We feel it appropriate to bring to your attention the development of the UN since the establishment of the State of Israel and how it has become a forum for Israel bashing to the exclusion of dealing with the major problems that exist around the world.

For a full analysis see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1pq8Fk5arU

The European Union - Hypocrisy, Hostility and Blatant Prejudice

Alan Baker 18 July 2013

http://tinyurl.com/kof7uqm

• The publication of guidelines by the European Commission on the eligibility of Israeli entities for EU cooperation is the culmination of a concerted policy initiative led by the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Catherine Ashton, directed against Israel's settlements in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] to press the Israeli government into making territorial and political concessions.

• This unprecedented and hostile EU fixation with Israel and its settlements is based on a series of long-standing and deliberately misleading and flawed legal and political assumptions regarding the illegality of Israel's settlements and the status of the pre-1967 armistice lines as Israel's border.

• Similarly, they negate the very positions supported by the European states that endorsed UN Security Council Resolution 242 from 1967 calling for "secure and recognized boundaries," and negate the EU's own commitments as signatory and witness to the Oslo Accords not to predetermine and undermine specific negotiating issues including the final status of the territories, borders, settlements, Jerusalem, and other issues.

• Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), often cited as the basis for the claim that Israel's settlements are illegal, relates to deportations of over 40 million people subjected to forced migration, evacuation, displacement, and expulsion in World War II. The vast numbers of people affected and the aims and purposes behind such a population movement speak for themselves. There is nothing to link such circumstances to Israel's settlement policy.

• The rigid fixation of the EU to assert that its agreements with Israel must reflect the non-recognition of Israel's sovereignty over any territory beyond the 1967 lines stands out in contrast to European policy toward other conflicts.

• The EU has many free trade agreements and understandings with countries whose territorial boundaries are in dispute. The EU has been negotiating a free trade agreement with India, yet its applicability to Kashmir is not under discussion. An EU fisheries agreement from 2005 allows European fisherman to operate in Western Sahara, even though the EU does not recognize Moroccan sovereignty in this territory.

Amb. Alan Baker, Director of the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, is former Legal Adviser to Israel's Foreign Ministry and former Ambassador of Israel to Canada.

For further facts and information on this subject read: http://tinyurl.com/l4pha7s  




 

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.