Gaza - Hamas Evil Must Be Confronted And Defeated

[Published 10 August 2014]


One month of fierce fighting between Israel and Hamas has resulted in an enormous propaganda victory for Hamas as horrific pictures of dead and wounded Gazan children and civilians, their destroyed homes and other buildings have appeared daily in social media and newspapers around the world.

Why these tragedies need never have occurred has been lost - as racial incitement is fuelled by articles sensationally headlined:

1. “South Africa Compares Gaza Operation to Nazis’ Actions”,

2. "The Nazis Are in Gaza",

3. "Turkey’s Erdogan Compares Israel Gaza Offensive to Hitler" and

4. "Letter from America: Israel’s Nazi-like criminal campaign in Gaza."

Israelis have been represented as Nazis inflicting war crimes on Gazan Arabs - just as war crimes were inflicted on Jews by the Nazis.

Jews have been attacked in Paris, London, Sydney, Rome, Frankfurt and Austria.

The South African Jewish Board of Deputies has been told by a leading trade union official:

“If the Jewish Board of Deputies wants to advance a Zionist agenda, they should leave South Africa and go advance their agenda elsewhere”

Hamas is attempting to gain continuing success in its campaign to denigrate and demonize Israel.

Hamas rejected the continuation of a 72-hour ceasefire that ended at 8.00 am on 8 August — hoping to again induce Israel into retaliating against Hamas and the myriad other terrorist groups embedded in Gaza as they continue their indiscriminate firing of more than 3300 rockets so far into Israeli population centers from rocket launchers positioned in Gazan civilian population centers.

Gazan civilians have unwillingly become the sacrificial lambs in Hamas’s evil objective of eliminating the only Jewish State in the world.

Gregory Baskin summarises how the propaganda war is so far removed from the reality:

“In the current foray into the Gaza Strip, Israelis have killed approximately 1,200 Palestinians. To be clear, Hitler and his army of hypnotized worshippers not only killed millions of people but murdered them, meaning that lives were terminated and family lines severed on purpose. Anyone not consumed with their own anti-Semitism understands the distinction

Many Arab civilians have died in the Gaza Strip. At the least, Israel has made attempts to avoid this by warning civilians ahead of its bombing strikes with the use of dummy bombs, text messages and telephone calls. (Perhaps it is true, as has been reported, that the human shields Hamas puts in harm’s way are not allowed freedom of movement, thus generously contributing to the death toll.) Even the United States and Commander-In-Chief President Obama do less than this when U.S. drones kill terrorists in far off lands. Like so many guerrilla armies before it, Hamas fighters hide amongst the people it purports to protect and represent.

Again, yes, the deaths in the Gaza Strip have been undeniable and horrific. But by no means is what has, and is happening, there a Holocaust. What it is, most unfortunately, is a moment for anti-Semites to express their hatred. Logic is pushed aside as bigotry converts to delirium and then inevitably inflates in magnitude. Again: 1,200killed compared with 6 million-plus murdered.”

Hamas is openly honest about its intentions — as these three extracts from its Covenant make very clear:

1. “Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.”

2. “The basic structure of the Islamic Resistance Movement consists of Moslems who have given their allegiance to Allah whom they truly worship, - “I have created the jinn and humans only for the purpose of worshipping” - who know their duty towards themselves, their families and country. In all that, they fear Allah and raise the banner of Jihad in the face of the oppressors, so that they would rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils.”

3. “The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that.”

The London Times has refused to run an advertisement featuring Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel speaking out against Hamas’ use of children as human shields — because:

“the opinion being expressed is too strong and too forcefully made and will cause concern amongst a significant number of Times readers,”

This advertisement has run in The New York Times, Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, among other U.S. newspapers

Wiesel’s message is clear and unequivocal:

“What we are suffering through today is not a battle of Jew versus Arab or Israeli versus Palestinian. Rather, it is a battle between those who celebrate life and those who champion death. It is a battle of civilization versus barbarism.”

The events in Gaza over the past month would have been avoided if Hamas had accepted the ceasefire proposed by Egypt on 16 July.

Hamas is evil — it must be confronted, and defeated.

Palestine - Violating Vatican Vows

[Published 27 December 2012]


Diplomatic relations between Israel and the Vatican are set to considerably cool following the Pope granting a private audience to Mahmoud Abbas on 17 December.

Their meeting came at a time of growing political crisis engendered by the passage of the UN General Assembly resolution on 29 November that reaffirmed

“the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and to independence in their State of Palestine on the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967;"

The Pope seemingly overlooked any discussion of the implications of this integral part of the resolution that also recognised the State of Palestine as a non-member observer state in the General Assembly - a view confirmed by the following communique issued by the Vatican

“The cordial discussions made reference to the recent Resolution approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations by which Palestine was recognised as a Non-member Observer State of the aforementioned Organisation. It is hoped that this initiative will encourage the commitment of the international community to finding a fair and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which may be reached only by resuming the negotiations between the Parties, in good faith and according due respect to the rights of both.”

The Pope was apparently unaware that the only matter left to be negotiated between the parties as a result of “this initiative ” was the timing of the eviction of 600000 Jews currently living in this ” State of Palestine” as defined by the General Assembly.

Abbas had made this racist view very clear on 28 July 2010 when Wafa - the official Palestinian news agency - reported the following remark by Abbas in Cairo:

“I’m willing to agree to a third party that would supervise the agreement, such as Nato forces, but I would not agree to having Jews among the Nato forces, or that there will live among us even a single Israeli on Palestinian land.”

Could the Pope have failed to understand that the Resolution also left no room for negotiating the boundaries of this “State of Palestine” - that the General Assembly had preemptively determined that it should comprise 100% of the territory won from Jordan by Israel in the 1967 Six Day War?

Would cordial discussions have occurred had the Pope taken the opportunity to urge Abbas to recognise Israel as the Jewish National Home and offer Palestinian citizenship to those Jews who did not want to leave their current homes?

Resumption of negotiations by “the Parties in good faith and according due respect to the rights of both” in such circumstances is a pure pipe dream.

The Abbas audience was a papal faux pas for several reasons.

Firstly - the Pope should not have blessed the audience with overt political significance by accepting from Abbas the gift of a mosaic of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem bearing the inscription that it was presented to him by “the President of the State of Palestine” - a farcical nomenclature that had only been sanctioned that very day by the Chief of Protocol at the UN - Yeocheol Yoon.

Secondly - the Pope was clearly violating clause 11(2) of the 1993 Fundamental Agreement Between The Holy See And The State Of Israel which provides:

“The Holy See, while maintaining in every case the right to exercise its moral and spiritual teaching-office, deems it opportune to recall that owing to its own character, it is solemnly committed to remaining a stranger to all merely temporal conflicts, which principle applies specifically to disputed territories and unsettled borders.”

Remaining a stranger to this temporal conflict would have allowed the Pope to escape any criticism as a result of this inappropriate audience.

Thirdly - Article 2.2 of the Fundamental Agreement further avers:

“The Holy See takes this occasion to reiterate its condemnation of hatred, persecution and all other manifestations of antisemitism directed against the Jewish people and individual Jews anywhere, at any time and by anyone”

Failing to condemn the “President of the State of Palestine” during the audience for his known manifestations of anti-semitism makes a mockery of the Fundamental Agreement.

Fourthly - The Pope’s political foray no doubt inspired his own appointed nominee as the top Roman Catholic cleric in the Holy Land - the Latin Patriarch Fouad Twal - to also make a political statement in his annual pre-Christmas homily.

Archbishop Twal told his followers at his headquarters in Jerusalem’s Old City that this year’s festivities were doubly joyful, celebrating:

“the birth of Christ our Lord and the birth of the state of Palestine. The path (to statehood) remains long, and will require a united effort,”

Archbishop Twal - who was born in Jordan - had told Vatican Radio on 21 June 2008:

“The majority of our priests, nuns, schools families are in Jordan. We need a link to Jordan…,”

That link will certainly not come from the State of Palestine designated by the UN General Assembly - since its realisation is simply not going to eventuate.

Archbishop Twal also told www.custodia.org in an interview on 22 June 2008:

“If you want to touch Jews, Muslims, Christians, Jordanians, Palestinians, Cypriots, Europeans all together ..then you have to consider every comma”

The Archbishop would have done well to have remembered this sage advice before uttering his Christmas Eve message - understanding that what he said would not touch at least 600000 Jews - but cause them immeasurable hurt.

Indeed those who are playing charades with the newly crowned President of the State of Palestine are engaging in a world of make believe - where the words and commas in the Mandate for Palestine, the Montevideo Convention, Article 80 of the United Nations Charter, Security Council Resolution 242, the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap - are apparently no longer worth the paper they are written on.

One can now add the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and the State of Israel to these discarded international agreements.

This does not bode well for any possible peaceful resolution of the long running conflict between Jews and Arabs.

The last Pope to bear Pope Benedict’s name - Benedict XV - enthusiastically endorsed the Jews’ right to reconstitute their national home in what was then Palestine when he told Zionist leader Nahum Sokolov at an audience in 1917 :

“Nineteen hundred years ago Rome destroyed your homeland and when you seek to rebuild it, you seek a path which leads via Rome…Yes this is the will of Divine Providence, this is what the Almighty desires.”

Violating Vatican vows this time round is certainly not going to entice Israel to beat a path to Rome as it continues to reconstitute the Jewish National Home in its ancient, biblical and internationally sanctioned homeland.

Palestine - UN Special Rapporteur Fostering Jew-hatred Again

[Published 3 August 2012]


Richard Falk - UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights on Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 - appears to have landed himself in hot water once again - as his web site “Citizen Pilgrimage” - has hosted a series of posts that contain comments that are highly offensive and insulting of Jews.

He apparently has not learned any lesson after having been rapped over the knuckles by UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay following his posting of an anti-Semitic cartoon on the same website last June - which drew the following admonition from Ms Pillay in a letter to UN Watch:

“Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Falk is neither a representative nor an employee of my Office, thank you for drawing my attention to the anti-Semitic image that was posted on his personal website. I utterly deplore and condemn anti-Semitism, as I do any form of incitement to hatred and racial discrimination.

I also note Mr. Falk’s series of public apologies, in which he explained his inadvertent mistake and clearly acknowledged the anti-Semitic and objectionable nature of the cartoon. I welcome the fact that he swiftly removed the image from his website, and expressed his regrets at his own “carelessness” in not examining it more carefully before posting it in the first place.”

One of Mr Falk’s apologies contained the following statement::

“My intention has never been to demean in any way Jews as a people despite my strong criticisms of Israeli policies,and some versions of “Zionist support". To be clear, I oppose any denigration of a people based on ethnicity, race, religion, stage of development, and believe in the human dignity of all people in their individual and collective identity.”

Yet one year later Mr Falk has allowed the following views (and many more) to be openly espoused on his web site in a series of separate posts:

“If Israel and the Jews hope to avoid the next shoah, they had better start learning a little empathy, because, while you are laughing now, things can change very rapidly, as we have seen in the last century (and the one before that, and the one before that….). Do you really want to be on the side that takes down our fragile civilization?”

“We can’t afford any more wars, especially ones to rescue Jews who have acted recklessly again and gotten themselves in trouble again with their big mouths and by flaunting their wealth in an unseemly manner.”

“The truth is that Jews have a terrible track record, and they seem to be obsessed with the (false) notion that people hate them for no reason. There are very good reasons for hating jews today, and that makes me sad. How can jews be acting this way so soon after the last catastrophe?"

I have been witness to these vicious posts as I endeavoured to get some responses from Mr Falk to objections I had taken to an article he had written in which he maintained that the moral and legal premises of Jewish claims in the West Bank were “without substance”.

Mr Falk’s assertion - at the time of his cartoon apology - that he opposed the denigration of people based on ethnicity - could not be possibly squared with what he was allowing to be published on his web site just twelve months later.

Mr Falk supposedly realised the seriousness of his publishing similar comments by stating:

“Recently my blog posts have attracted some venomous comments. I have somewhat reluctantly ‘approved’ of most such comments unless blatantly anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian, anti-Semitic, racist, or personally defamatory, and even with such offending comments I have leaned toward inclusion. Recently, however, I have received several critical messages (one of which I assume was from me - author) suggesting that allowing such comments demeans the quality of the dialogue generated by the blog. These messages have prompted me to reconsider my way of filtering comments,and lead me to become somewhat more of a gatekeeper.”

In a further sign of his intent to forbid posts such as those set out above - Mr Falk stated:

“ I welcome dissent, I will exclude ‘Jew haters,’ but include all who seek discussion and debate carried on in a civil tone, without bashing those whose views they disagree with.”

However, Mr Falk actually published these remarks the day before the publication of the above offensive statements. It would appear that his protestations at ending the publication of Jew-hatred posts lasted less than 24 hours.

Mr Falk might show how serious his intentions are this third time around by immediately removing the above offensive statements and many more posts in similar vein still able to be read on his site.

Will it be a case of “three strikes and you’re out” as Special Rapporteur if he doesn‘t?

These inflammatory statements have no place on the web site of a Special Rapporteur.

Perhaps he also needs to rethink his stated opinion that the Jewish People have no legal right to reconstitute the Jewish National Home anywhere in former Palestine as expressed by him in the following post:

“I regard the Balfour Declaration and the mandatory system as classic colonial moves that have lost whatever legitimacy that they possessed at the time of their utterance, and prefer to view the competing claims to land and rights on the basis either of the 1948 partition proposal or the 1967 boundaries, although if there was diplomatic parity, I would respect whatever accommodation the parties reached, but without such parity, it seems necessary to invoke the allocation of rights as per settled international law.”

Of course the partition proposal was in 1947 - not 1948 and there were no 1967 boundaries - only armistice lines.

Denying the Jews have any legal rights under the 1917 Balfour Declaration, the 1922 Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the UN Charter perhaps helps explain why so many vile comments were received on Mr Falk’s website such as this one:

“And give me a break with the nonsense about how there are 59 islamic countries but no jewish ones. Grow up, would you? Jews aren’t rich and powerful enough?“

The sooner Mr Falk acknowledges that his position requires him to uphold international law - not denigrate or demean it - the sooner he might be able to bring the prestige and influence of his office to bear in helping to end the 130 years old conflict between Jews and Arabs.

Has the leopard changed his spots or merely tried to camouflage his tracks?

I reserve my judgment.