UNRWA's Palestinian Refugee Permanence, 'Pay-for-Slay'

"Once again we have witnessed the nauseating spectacle of western governments -- which sanitize, fund and pump up the genocidal Palestinian Arab cause -- expressing shock and sympathy with Israel over these attacks [while continuing] to fund the Palestinian Authority despite the PA's 'pay-to-slay[' policy of rewarding the families of terrorists for every Israeli Jew they murder, and despite its never ending incitement to murder Jews and steal Israel's land."

Melanie Phillips, British journalist

 

"It's time to admit that Palestinian institutions are broken, and that they have developmentally harmed generations of Palestinian men and women, boys and girls, by whipping them into a constant froth with violently antisemitic educational and media content that celebrate 'martyrdom' attacks against Israelis."

"The Palestinian Authority provides a financial incentive for terrorism by providing pensions to the families of those who attack Israelis."

Palestinian political analyst Bassem Eid

"We will neither reduce nor prevent [payment] of allowances to the families of martyrs, prisoners and released prisoners, as some seek, and if we had only a single penny left, we would pay it to families of the martyrs and prisoners."

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas

AN ISRAELI flag hangs as a religious man ponders at the scene of a terror attack at the entrance to Jerusalem.

(photo credit: YONATAN SINDEL/FLASH90)

This is the man who presents himself on the world stage as the aggrieved partner-for-peace while denouncing Israel as a cruel occupier of Arab land that just happens to be located on ancestral Judean geography. But then such bothersomely inconsequential details are an irritant that Mahmoud Abbas is accustomed to dealing with. As he iterates and reiterates the misconceptions of history, personally giving his assurance that this land always belonged to Arabs who were, he avers, the original Palestinians

 

Even the Roman Empire got it wrong, and out of the goodness of his heart, Abbas stands prepared to correct their misimpression and he has already started, publishing maps identifying no Judean land, only a large swath labelled 'Palestine" as he lobbies the United Nations member bodies to proceed with giving its imprimatur to a unilateral announcement of the State of Palestine becoming an honoured member of the General Assembly. Or who knows...the permanent Security Council for its expertise in war and peace.

 

As for paying the martyrs and the prisoners and ex-prisoners of justifiable and honourable 'resistance' to the occupation that annoyingly keeps resisting the violence streaming at it from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, nothing, ever, will deter their handsome emoluments for a job well done. Recently the human rights group Palestinian Media Watch revealed that recently-released prisoners Karim and Maher Younig each collected close to $100,000 for their murder of Avraham Bromberg, a corporal in the Israel Defence Forces.

Where does an incipient 'nation' given refugee status in perpetuity by the United Nations' UNRWA get the funding to award such munificent sums to its terrorists from? An Arab-administered area so penurious that the international community through the United Nations, United States, European Union and other Western countries feel obligated to fund its civil infrastructure to enable the Palestinian Authority (Fatah/PLO) and Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza to operate?

It has long been documented that the PA schedules rewards for the terrorists it incites into the martyrdom death cult, from childhood onward through school curricula to social media programs to identify Jews as their enemy, to teach the vulnerable young of their duty as Palestinians to 'resist' the 'occupation' of apartheid Israel -- with its two million Palestinian citizens, along with Christian, Druze, Baha'i, Bedouin citizens --  creating in them a passion for martyrdom.

The PA has a per capita GDP of about $3,500, and an unemployment rate of 25 percent. Many Palestinians find employment and a working wage through jobs offered them in Israel where they can earn more than working in the West Bank or Gaza, if they can find jobs there.  Without outside funding for civic services, for hospitals, schools and social programs, there would never be finances available to pay for the PA's well-institutionalized 'pay-for-slay'.

 

That funding arrives through the generosity of the United States, its largest funder which provides hundreds of millions to the PA and Hamas through UNRWA. Canada too is a large contributor to the extended programs that effectively pay salaries to terrorists or to their families should they die in the line of duty to kill Israeli Jews. The countries that gasp in horror at the atrocities committed in Jerusalem against Jews are those very countries that fund the actions of the murderers.

 

In the very week, scant days afterward, of the slaughter of 7 Jews after Friday prayer at a synagogue  and the wounding of many others, the U.S. Secretary of State on a Middle East visit to Israel and the West Bank handed an additional $50 million over to the PA, over and above the $300 million recently given UNRWA. Funding that was revoked by Canada's former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and by former U.S. President Donald Trump in acknowledgment of UNRWA's role in transferring funds used to fund murder.

 

Funding that was speedily restored by their successors, U.S. President Joe Biden, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Both of whom give no thought whatever to what it is they are actually funding.

The family of Mohammed Tarayreh, who stabbed to death a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her bed, is now eligible for a monthly stipend from the Palestinian “Martyrs’ Fund.”
(AP Photo)

Russia, the Moral Outcast

"Now, I do not see any possibility for diplomatic contacts. And the more the conflict goes on, the more difficult it will be to have a diplomatic solution."

"[The UN has become mired in] politicization [because of the war and that has] damaged the authority of the UN and its organizations."

"We do not have any contacts with the Western delegations. On the protocol side we do not see each other. Privately we do not have any contacts, unfortunately ... we simply do not talk to each other."

"And so they will fight until the last Ukrainian."

"[Western countries are using the war] as a matter of pressure on Russia, as a tool of isolation of Russia .. damaging our position, economically, politically."

"They do not care about the Ukrainian people, the Ukrainian soldiers."

Gennady Gatilov, Russian permanent representative to the UN, Geneva

Tank barriers are seen in front of a barricade in Zaporizhzhya, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

 

Ukraine has always stated it is prepared to discuss an end to the conflict; it is the victim, Russia is the aggressir. Offers by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to meet personally with Russian President Vladimir Putin have gone unanswered. Russia's main complaint is that its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is being condemned by Western democracies, leaving it in bad odour in Europe, and alarming its near neighbours that they might be next on Russia's agenda for a ;special military operation' aimed at them.

Ukraine's victimization, as far as the Kremlin is concerned is its own fault, for its pro-Nazi, fascist government. It proved itself to be just that when Ukrainians rejected Moscow's choice for President of Ukraine in favour of their own selected alternative, loyal to Ukraine, not to Russia. An event which led to an insurrection by ethnic Russians who mostly populated eastern Ukraine, declaring themselves leaders of a new Luhansk and Donetsk, one allied with Russia, and with Russian assistance fought a conflict to occupy part of the Donbas, enabling Putin to declare he had every right to seize the Crimean Peninsula.

A view of the Russian navy Frigate 'Pytlivyy' docked in the port of Sevastopol. Photograph: Filippo Monteforte /AFP /Getty

Russia's UN Ambassador Gatilov complains bitterly that the UN has failed to support Russia's claim that it has acted with honour intending to liberate Ukraine from the clutches of its neo-Nazi government. It is, in his estimation, the United Nations accepting the Western allies of Ukraine asserting that Ukraine is a sovereign nation with the right, internationally recognized, to make its own decisions how it will align itself and who its allies would be. 

It is the West, he avers, responsible for Ukrainian deaths, not Russia, for encouraging Ukraine in its unreasonable decision to defend itself against a larger, better equipped neighbour, and inciting it to fight the Russian military rather than accept the inevitable, as Moscow sees it; surrendering the eastern provinces to Russia and allowing itself to once more assume the position of satellite state to Russian hegemonic imperialism.

 

A firefighter works at the site of a Russian military strike, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, in Mykolaiv, Ukraine. Photo: State Emergency Service of Ukraine/Handout via Reuters

 

Ukraine will admit to having lost an estimated nine thousand servicemen in the defence of their country, to date. Western intelligence puts Russian losses at an approximately similar number, with the added loss of a surprising number of elite commanders. Russia is apoplectic with outrage that Ukraine has managed to hit its military and destroy its materiel by explosives hitting behind Russian lines. With the use of drones and long-range missiles supplied by sympathetic countries, Ukraine is holding its own.

 

As brutal and as brazen as Russia is in ordering its military to shell civilian infrastructure, giving them free rein to bomb schools and hospitals, to mutilate and murder ordinary Ukrainian civilians, Moscow is still in a state of disbelief that Ukraine would dare aim over its border into Russian towns to blow up weapons and gas depots. Ukrainian towns and villages are disposable, Russian ones are inviolate.

 

A Ukrainian serviceman rides atop a tank near a front line in Mykolaiv region on August 10, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues. Photo: Reuters

 

The Kremlin and Vladimir Putin have embarked on a mission to re-write the rules and regulations of international conflict striving to ensure they are as humane as possible in protection of civilian lives along with non-combatants, while Russia seems intent on opening the floods of wartime derangement of human values to encompass all civilians as long as they're Ukrainian.

In the initial month of the occupation, the Russian military was tasked with entering Kyiv and either killing or taking prisoner the government of Ukraine. Likely to stand trial, if they survived, charged with being Nazis deserving of capital punishment. Ukrainian pride and resolve in protecting its own, pushed them back to eastern Ukraine. Now the shortage of regular troops sees Russia releasing criminals from long sentences, to fight in the front lines.

 

Ukrainian soldiers from the Azov Battalion who surrendered at besieged Mariupol: "Some had needles inserted into their wounds, some were tortured with water", said Vladyslav Zhaivoronok, who lost a leg. "They undressed us, forced to squat while we are naked. If any of the boys raised their heads, they began to beat them immediately", added Denys Chepurko.

 

Russia's intelligence agency claims a woman from the Azov regiment planned and carried out the assassination of 29-year-old media personality Darya Dugina, daughter of Vladimir Putin's principle adviser on the Ukraine conflict, Alexander Dugin, who shares all the potent hatred that Putin has been quoted with in his 'reasons' for despising the notion that Ukraine is a nation, claiming it has no culture and is a den of Nazi scorpions. 

Russia, proud of what it considers to be military 'victories', speaks with heated contempt of base Ukrainian motives in resisting the Russian occupation. A country, as far as Vladimir Putin is concerned, that has no right to exist outside of Russia's orbit, and one he is doing his damndest bit by bit to destroy. So far, close to 6,000 Ukrainian civilians dead, towns and cities in rubble, food and energy shortages beleaguering the poorest countries of the world as well as the most advanced.

Ukrainian military officers travel on a wheeled-BTR fighting vehicle in Kramatorsk in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on 22 August. Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

Threat to Peace and Stability : Islamic Republic of Iran

"The fake Zionist regime is the mother of all calamities and the root-cause of problems in the region and, therefore, the few regional countries that move toward normalizing ties with this fabricated regime are acting against the security and interests of the region and the Muslim ummah."

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian 

 

"Without swift progress, in light of Iran’s fast-forwarding of its nuclear program, the JCPOA will soon become an empty shell."

"There has been some technical progress in the last 24 hours, but this only takes us back nearer to where the talks stood in June."

E3 Diplomats

 

"We have had many hours of engagement, and all delegations have pressed Iran to be reasonable [over stalemated talks]."

"As of this moment, we still have not been able to get down to real negotiations. We are losing precious time dealing with new Iranian positions inconsistent with the JCPOA that go beyond [a] clearly visible [outline tentatively agreed during the previous round of talks in June]." 

"But time is running out. Without swift progress, in light of Iran’s fast-forwarding of its nuclear program, the JCPOA will very soon become an empty shell."

Senior European Diplomats

The delegations are expected to head back to the Austrian capital in about a week with an aim to move forward on restoring the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action [EU Delegation in Vienna/EEAS/Handout via Reuters

 

This is the foreign minister of the Islamic Republic of Iran as he congratulates Ismail Haniyeh on the occasion of the anniversary of the founding of the "resistance movement" known as Hamas. Iran and Hamas would not under other circumstances have anything approaching friendly relations; their ancient sectarian enmities; Shi'ia Islam under Iran and Sunni Islam representing Hamas's Islamism would have kept them at vitriolic loggerheads. Both, however, have a solid link to a common denominator: the state of Israel.

The United Nations whose formation and constitution were based on upholding human rights, peaceful negotiation, and equality between nations provided a platform for former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to expound on Iran's position of vitriolic opposition to the existence of the state of Israel in the Middle East. Iran shares no borders with Israel, has no business to conduct with Israel, but takes the implacable position that no land once consecrated to Islam may be occupied by any other religion.

This, despite Israel's ancestral origins in the Middle East, well documented and historically evidenced, long predating Islam. The Iranian brand of Shia Islam nurtured by Ayatollah Khomeini in his Iranian Revolution -- that brought fundamentalist Islam to Iran and ousted the Pahlevi dynasty that had been modernizing Iran, and had good relations with the Arab Sunni nations and with Israel -- has since alienated most of the Arab nations while focusing on Israel as a future target for total elimination.

During Lebanon's civil war period when its shared governance with its major populations of Sunni, Shia, Druze and Christian leaders fell into violent disarray, Iran's Republican Guard Corps al-Quds division covertly entered Lebanon -- along with Syria's military and government agents at a time when Israel had invaded to stop cross-border attacks from Palestinians living on the border, and France and the U.S. were installed on a UN peacekeeping mission -- and Hezbollah was born.

The "Party of God" was nurtured, trained and armed by the Islamist al-Quds of the Republican Guard as a functional ally of Iran, a proxy militia that Iran would control. Known for its links with and support for terrorist groups, and for the part it plays in dispatching them to international destinations to mount atrocities against Jewish institutions, Iran is fixated not only on destroying Israel, but Jewish lives anywhere they exist.

This is the theocratic government that the UN, the EU and the US have been busy negotiating with in an effort to slow down the Republic's nuclear program. Sanctions imposed on Iran linked to its illicit uranium enrichment program, failed to stop Iran's burgeoning ballistic missiles program as it became more technologically advanced and capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

In efforts to restore the original 2015 nuclear agreement during which time Iran steadily, surreptitiously continued its uranium enrichment, its threats against its neighbours, its dispatch of Shia militias into Syria to aid in Bashar al-Assad's vengeance attacks on Syria's majority Sunni population, the Western negotiators have re-discovered Iran's penchant for duplicity. Even more so, Iranian negotiators are now less ostensibly willing to negotiate in good faith.

The very concept of good faith is risible in the face of a regime that practices taqqiya -- offputting an adversary for the greater goal of eventually gaining advantage; in this case denying any intention of posing a threat to the region much less gaining the goal of nuclear weaponry, arguing it would be for peaceful, civil purposes only, the while at every level of authority threatening the existence of Israel; its presence an intolerable affront to Islam.

Months ago the Iranians let it be known that they built an underground missile complex they called a "missile city". Imaging company Planet Labs Inc. took satellite images showing launch preparations at Iran's Imam Khomeini Spaceport; a clear defiance of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, whereby Iran is not to take action of any kind involving ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

But this kind of arsenal is critical to Iran's plans to achieve Middle East dominance and in the process destabilizing the region. Non-Arab Iran's Shi'ism while a dominant strain of Islam is in the minority; most Arab countries are Sunni-dominant. Iran's plans to control the Middle East stem from its ancient preeminence in the region, along with its political-weight sectarian authoritarianism.

Reality as Opposed to the Narrative

“The designation decisions published by the National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing of Israel list extremely vague or irrelevant reasons, including entirely peaceful and legitimate activities such as provision of legal aid and 'promotion of steps against Israel in the international arena'."

UN Human Rights Office, Ramallah

 

"The Israeli government did not give us advance warning [that the Palestinian groups would be blacklisted'."

"We believe respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms and a strong civil society are critically important to responsible and responsive governance."

Ned Price, spokesman, U.S. State Department

 

"Those organizations [six named Palestinian NGOs] were active under the cover of civil society organizations, but in practice belong and constitute an arm of the [PFLP: Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] leadership, the main activity of which is the liberation of Palestine and destruction of Israel."

"The security organizations will continue to act and intensify the strikes against terrorism and the terrorist infrastructure everywhere, and by all means."

"I call on the countries of the world and international organizations to assist in this fight and to avoid contact with companies and organizations that supply materials to terrorism."

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz 

 

"Those funds [received from EU member states and the United Nations] served the Popular Front for payments to security prisoners’ families and martyrs, wages for activists, enlistment of activists, promotion of terror activity, promotion of the Popular Front activity in Jerusalem, and distribution of the organization’s messages and ideology."

Israel’s Ministry of Defense

 

"[The announcement by the Israeli government] confirms what our research has shown for years—this time six Palestinian NGOs were designated as terrorist organizations as part of the PFLP network."

"All are funded by European [governments] and deeply involved in political warfare against Israel."

NGO Monitor, watchdog group tracking anti-Israel nonprofits  

PFLP terrorists Abdul Razeq Farraj (l) and Ubai Aboudi (r) at Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah, Feb. 2, 2017. (Facebook)

Now that's unexpected, is it not? Israeli intelligence sources identify the background commitment of  ostensible charitable and human rights organizations for the Palestinian cause, a cause dedicated to ultimately succeeding in demolishing the presence of the Jewish state to enable Palestinians to claim 'all clear' in their assumption of creating a Palestinian state "from the river to the sea". The culmination of their public relations campaigns capturing Western support claiming and finally attaining the sovereign status on the entire area occupied by Israel, that tiny sliver of land representing a mere portion of Judean geographic heritage.

 

On Friday, Israel's Defense Minister Benny Gantz captured immediate international attention -- mostly from the sources that so generously fund the Palestinian Authority's corrupt regime with its 'pay for slay' program, glorifying the exploits of deadly attacks against Jews by Palestinian 'martyrs' exemplifying commitment to 'resistance' against the 'occupier', on territory that the State of Israel through its military defence against Arab states' attack in 1967 gained. And where all other countries in the world once success in defence is achieved, gains are absorbed, where Israel is concerned this is unacceptable.

 

Palestinian victimization is a narrative beloved of Israel's critics, and they are legion. Israel's willingness in one successive government after another to come to a bargaining table to make concessions for peace made no inroads whatever in the Palestinian mind, incited by leaders who committed to aggravated assault against Jews in their midst, vowing never to live among Jews, while Palestinian Arabs who remained on their land with the re-creation of the State of Israel do live among Jews, as citizens of the country, unwilling to live under PA or Hamas rule in the West Bank or Gaza, but resentful regardless.

The European Union, the United Nations, the United States and Canada among others sanctimoniously fund the Palestinian 'refugees' living in the West Bank and Gaza, knowing full well, proof amply given, that there is no end to corruption, to incitement of violence against Israel; that celebration of the martyrs to the 'cause' will see their families given monthly financial awards, street and social center naming ceremonies. That school curricula, television programs and songs lionize 'martyrs' to inspire children to hate and to aspire toward vengeance.

 

Palestinian celebrate during a rally marking the 46th anniversary of the founding of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinian (PFLP), in Gaza City, 7 December 2013. (Emad Nassar/Flash90)

 

Israel is called to account when it identifies and designates the funding connection between Palestinian charities and Palestinian terrorist groups. Any group can identify themselves as human rights organizations, groups whose specific aim is to demonize the real victims of Palestinian violence. Groups that excel in currying favour with western financial granting bodies who legitimize them, and continue portraying themselves as victims of violence while supporting those who mete out violence to Israel's civilian populations.

 

Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on Friday that six named civil society groups have been designated terror organizations, on the basis of their having effectively operated as enablers for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group which most European and North American countries list as a terrorist group. A backlash took no time in response, with the European Union, the Palestinian Authority, progressive Democrats, US Jewish groups, and international human rights organizations expressing outraged criticism. 

"[The] declared organizations received large sums of money from European countries and international organizations, using a variety of forgery and deceit", stated the Israeli defence ministry, while pointing out the funding supported activities of the PFLP who even though declared a terrorist group in many western countries is still viewed sympathetically, while at the same time European funding agencies balk at being tangentially linked with funding their activities. To accept Israel's findings is to proclaim themselves guilty.

Pro-Palestinian protesters march outside the White House, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2021 in Washington. (AP/Amanda Andrade-Rhoades)

And while not denying ties to the six groups identified by Israel as funneling funds to the PFLP, Kayed Al Ghoul, an official with the group, said they maintain relations with civil society organizations across the West Bank and Gaza: "It is part of the rough battle Israel is launching against the Palestinian people and against civil society groups, in order to exhaust them", he maintained. And he should know; it is part of the violent battle the PFLP launches against Israel in hopes of exhausting its will to survive.

Arctic Sovereignty Rivalry

"All of the countries involved [Arctic nations] recognize that there will have to be boundary negotiations at some future point."
"Why bother spending hundreds of millions of dollars mapping the seabed in an area you know will fall to the other country at the conclusion of negotiations?"
"Our scientific claim might be valid. The North Pole is on the Danish side of an equidistance line."
Michael Byers, professor of international law, University of British Columbia

"It [Canada's scientific argument of Arctic sovereignty] totally validates it [Canada's claim to an extended Arctic area]. If you actually have a look at what has been submitted, it is a substantial chunk."
"You had to determine you had a continental shelf. That was the first and necessary step. If we'd only gone up to the North Pole, to a very large degree we would be ceding everything the Russians and Danes were putting within their claims."
"It doesn't mean you're going to get everything you want, but now it becomes much more possible."
Rob Huebert, Arctic expert, University of Calgary

"I'm pleased Canada has done this work."
"Defining and asserting Canadian sovereignty takes many forms. Inuit know this as we have been used to assert Canadian sovereignty historically."
Monica Ell-Kanayuk, Inuit Circumpolar Conference

Lake Hazen on Ellesmere Island in Nunavut.  Igor Lehnherr/The Canadian Press

The UN Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf has its work cut out in studying and verifying the science-and-geography-based claims to sovereign areas of the vast Arctic, submitted for its perusal and affirmation by Canada, the United States, Russia, Denmark (Greenland), Sweden, Iceland, Finland and Norway. Once the Commission has completed its work, negotiation between the Arctic nations will commence, the expectation being that of years passing before firm boundaries are set.

Canada has just now completed a $100-million scientific survey, its submission to the Commission years later than anticipated because then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper ordered a re-write under the condition that Canada's submission merited a much larger area to be claimed. The submission just handed to the Commission on Limits of the Continental Shelf represented 1,200 pages of evidence proving the continental shelf from the High Arctic islands extends past 200 nautical miles from shore.



A contested section of sea floor stretching from the top of Ellesmere Island to the Pole along an undersea ridge, passing it by over 200 kilometers is contested by Russia, which claims the very same undersea ridge actually originates in Russia. The Lomonosov Ridge has long been claimed by Russia to begin in Siberia and stretch to the North Pole, hence marking it as Russian territory, part of its continental shelf. All the sea floor alongside the ridge from the coast of Russia to past the Pole.

Denmark, on the other hand, contests that claim, both by Russia and by Canada, claiming the ridge is linked with Greenland, making it Denmark's territory, right up to Russian territorial waters. Professors Byers and Huebert speak of negotiations to come that will be based on the principle of equidistance more than undersea geography. The principle whereby a maritime boundary is drawn along a line equidistant from the shores of neighbouring nations.

Professor Huebert cites the research as proof of a need for the Arctic nations to indulge in critical negotiations to reach reasonable concessions, while Dr. Byers points out the equidistance principle is more likely to give the Pole to the Danes which Canada's submission acknowledges tacitly, since Canada's claim stops partway along the ridge.

Canada consulted widely with its Inuit population, as the people who actually live in the Arctic. And the submission handed to the Commission had the full approval of the Inuit Circumpolar Conference.

© RIA Novosti. G. Nadezhdin

Syrian Aid Apathy

"The situation in Syria is as close to hell as we are likely to find on this Earth."
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

"After almost five years of fighting, it's pretty incredible that as we come here in London in 2015, the situation on the ground is actually worse."
"With people reduced to eating grass and leaves and killing stray animals in order to survive on a day-to-day basis, that is something that should tear at the conscience of all civilized people and we all have a responsibility to respond to it."
"We have agreed that we are engaged in a discussion about how to implement the ceasefire specifically as well as some immediate, possible confidence-building steps to deliver humanitarian assistance."
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry

"What they [Syrian regime, Russian forces, Iranian al Quds forces] want to do in Aleppo today is exactly what they did in Madaya before, a siege of starvation."
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu 

Syrians fleeing Aleppo gather in front of the Bab al-Salama border crossing with Turkey

The UN sponsored a meeting in London where world leaders pledged over ten billion in aid of refugees from the Syrian civil war. At the same time they indulged in the rhetoric of bumph of ending that brutal conflict, hoping that a peace process could take place which appears to be going nowhere, to no one's surprise. The rebels have insisted, with good reason, that they would consider attending only if and when the regime stopped its bombing. And the regime said they would attend, but they continued murderously bombing.

Over 4.6-million Syrians have so far filtered desperately out of Syria to find haven in neighbouring countries such as Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, straining those countries' humanitarian resources to their limits. They have gone on to perilous journeys at sea and overland to invade Europe, looking for shelter from the disasters their lives have become, and Europe is desperately attempting to cope with their destabilizing endless surge for safety.

Donor countries are finding their capacity for giving to be near depletion, but they are pledging anew regardless. The universal and collective vehicle whereby intervention could take place to halt the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from destroying his own Sunni Syrian citizens' lives has simply not been discovered; necessary resolute action at an early stage was bypassed and now the world is in the throes of witnessing medieval butchery on a grand scale carried out by a sovereign head of state.

In Kuwait last year the amount raised to support Syrian refugees and the countries sheltering them came to half of its target which meant that cuts to refugee food aid resulted. "Humanitarian aid is always just a quick fix, and never enough", said Peter Maurer, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, deploring the obvious; that the world had demonstrated a "lack of political action and ambition to resolve the crisis."

A Syrian man comforts a boy amid the rubble of buildings following a reported air strike on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Al Kalasa in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on February 4, 2016. Thaer Mohammed/AFP

While 30 heads of government or heads of state attended the London gathering, Russia felt the event insignificant enough to merit only the presence of its ambassador to London, Alexander Yakocenko; neither President Putin nor any senior minister was available to show their concern for the unspeakable humanitarian crisis. Of course, Russia is now hugely adding by its military presence supporting the regime, to that same crisis.

But Moscow did alert all those who might be interested that in their opinion "reasonable grounds" exist to suspect that Turkey is preparing for a military invasion across the border into Syria. Images in their possession show that transportation infrastructure has been built on the border that could accommodate troop movement, according to spokesman Maj.Gen.Igor Konashenkov. And Russia knows all about troop buildups at borders threatening neighbouring states.

Faulted For Existing

"The extent of the devastation and human suffering in Gaza was unprecedented and will impact generations to come."
"There is also ongoing fear in Israel among communities who come under regular threat."
Mary McGowan Davis, UN report into 2014 Gaza war

The Human Rights Council in Geneva (photo credit: UN/Jean-Marc Ferré)

"Israel does not commit war crimes. Israel defends itself against a terrorist organization that calls for its destruction and carries out many war crimes. We will continue to act forcefully and determinedly against those who seek to harm our citizens and we will do this according to international law."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"We will not accept a comparison between terrorists and IDF soldiers. We will not agree to IDF soldiers and terrorists being mentioned in the same breath, and this distinction is important for any country fighting terrorism."
"IDF soldiers are fighting terrorists, even if sometimes civilians are hurt. Terror organizations do not discriminate and kill civilians and soldiers."
Tzipi Livni, co-leader, Zionist Union

"It is well known that the entire process that led to the production of this report was politically motivated and morally flawed from the outset."
Israeli Foreign Ministry

Israel as a 'light unto the world' is obviously expected to sit tight, twiddle its fingers and patiently await the time when its neighbours will accept its presence without threatening to destroy it. That Israel does as any other country under international law will do, and responds to attacks against its population and its territory, enrages those who feel that the country has no right to exist in the first place.

Historical antecedents apart, heritage and proof of unending and durable existence in a land that living history made their own evidently does not serve to support Israel's insistence on its right of existence.

The finding of the UN report on the last war between the Israel Defence Forces and the Hamas terrorist group holding a million Gazans prisoner to their charter declaration purposing to destroy Israel, is that both the terrorist group and the State of Israel are guilty of war crimes. Equating the existential right of a country to defend itself against incessant violent attacks has become, unique to Israel, a war crime.

The fact that Hamas commonly launches its attacks from crowded civilian enclaves including hospitals, hotels, schools and apartment buildings, inviting a response back from Israel that will exact a number of civilian casualties in an effort to destroy the rocket launching sites is of no account, it seems when the UN sanctimoniously denounces Israel for responding to such assaults and in so doing placing civilians in danger.

No other military of any other country comes to mind that advises those inhabiting areas meant to be bombed in advance of the bombing, to enable the populace to clear out and to reduce the potential for civilian death to a minimum.

Balance that against the Hamas initiative to imbue nobility in death, inciting Gazans to defy the pre-warnings and to assemble on the very rooftops of any targeted areas, courting martyrdom for the 'cause' of Hamas's victory against the 'oppressor' whose status as such has been determined by unending assaults against its sovereign territory.

Over 2,200 Palestinian Gazans were killed, most of them aligned with Hamas as fighters, along with the unfortunate deaths of hundreds of civilians when the conflict began in July of 2014 after Israel had warned that the ongoing barrage of rockets targeting border settlements like Sderot would no longer be tolerated, and after Hamas had arranged for the kidnapping and murder of Israeli teenage boys.

When Israel characterized the report as biased, it was with good reason that it took issue with the UN Human Rights Council. The Council is indeed, like much of the United Nations and its various committees, stacked with representatives of countries through enmity and provocation from Muslim states focusing disproportionately on Israel, despite their own dismal human rights records.

Many of those countries have human rights histories of desperately miserable realities, handily overlooked for the greater targeting of a democratic society embattled by its neighbours.

Hamas authorities are outraged, with senior official Ghazi Hamad insisting that the UN report was guilty of an imbalance "between the victims and the killers". Palestinians and their leaders are just so enamoured of the vision of themselves as victims. It's a credo, that of avenging their victimhood, that advances their agenda of blood-letting, an inherited tribal custom.

Hamas rockets and mortars, he insisted, were targeting Israeli military sites, not civilians, a blatant lie that can be easily disproven, but which plays well with the narrative of the innocence of Hamas of wrong-doing and its Euro-digestible public relations protocols. It is what inspires the various iterations of blockade-breaking flotillas so beloved of the international community.

That Hamas officials took shelter in sophisticated and well-appointed underground shelters to ensure their protection from the IDF response to Hamas shelling assaults, while persuading Palestinians of the nobility of martyrdom for the greater cause of Islam, speaks volumes about the morality of Hamas operatives and leadership.

That Hamas looked forward with anticipation of numbers of deaths of Palestinian children as fallout of the conflict the better to flagellate Israel in international public opinion is proven by responses from that public.

It seems clear enough that Hamas rules ruthlessly through fear and violent intimidation, and that not all Palestinians living in Gaza are enthralled with the rule thrust upon them by Hamas. Post-conflict the number of Palestinians who were accused of being collaborators with Israel and summarily killed exists as testament to the Hamas ideology of Islamist terrorism, of bloodshed and of martyrdom; not of themselves but of those whom Hamas is prepared to martyr.

The Amnesty International report on the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict : "Strangling Necks: Abduction, torture and summary killings of Palestinians by Hamas forces during the 2014 Gaza/Israel conflict" Photo: Anmesty International

Peace and Good Fellowship

"Instead of moving into peace with Israel, he's moving into peace with Hamas. He has to choose. Does he want peace with Hamas or peace with Israel? You can have one but not the other. I hope he chooses peace, so far he hasn't done so."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

"[If Hamas does join a Palestinian unity government] they would probably allow Abbas to continue talking to Israel while insisting as they have in the past that any agreements require approval from the Palestinian public in a referendum."
Mark Heller, research fellow, Institute for National Security Studies, tel Aviv University

Photo AP/ Ynet

"I cannot find any sort of strategic bridge between these two players. The Palestinians will be in a very serious problem, not only with Israel but with the Americans and the Europeans as well."
"The ideological gaps, the political gaps and the cultural gaps [between Hamas and Fatah remained too distantly opposing for reconciliation.]"
Kobi Michael, former head, Palestinian desk, Israel's strategic affairs ministry

Funding that the Palestinian Authority depends upon from the United States could be imperilled by this move; the administration has hinted as much, and it seems logical enough that the PA representing Fatah has earned a clean bill of health with the Americans, but Hamas, whose charter reads the destruction of Israel leading to the restoration of the entire geography to Palestinians is considered a terrorist group.

The European Union, which has declared a fine distinction between the Hamas 'political' wing and the Hamas-Izz al-Din al-Qassem (terrorist wing of Hamas) will find themselves able to accommodate to the situation of a reunified Fatah-Hamas PA co-jointly administering the affairs of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, rather than cut off funding to them.

Of course the larger question is whether the much-ballyhooed reconciliation will actually bond. Since there have been previous such celebrated gestures which never did solidify to actual reality, and the distance between the two Palestinian 'governments' remained an issue of concern. When Hamas undertook the violent initiative to seize Gaza from Fatah in 2007 its actions were not those of a friendly competitor.

Their base ideology differs, although their shared hatred for Israel does not. Their methodology placed them at odds with one another; Hamas openly stating and acting out its viral opposition to the existence of a Jewish state on what it maintains is land dedicated to Islam and the Palestinians. And Fatah presenting to the world at large a partner for peace, willing to accept a two-state solution while instigating behind-the-scenes for Palestinian-ears-only incitements to violence.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas insists both sides are on the cusp of forming an interim government with presidential and parliamentary elections to be held "at the earliest six months after forming the government", for which he has been assured, he can remain president. While Ismail Haniyeh, prime minister of the Hamas government of Gaza stated "We agreed on a timetable to end the split", splitting into a wide grin of self-congratulation.

There is the simple fact of economics behind much of these theatrics. Hamas is starved for funding. Its lifeline of financial support through the Islamic Republic of Iran was cut due to disagreements relating to the Syrian regime's attacks on Sunni Syrians. And with the removal of the Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi, Hamas's funding from that source was also struck, combined with its identification in Egypt as a terror group. Qatar's one-time magnanimity has never been repeated.

Hamas's cozying up to Fatah will ensure it can at least share more heavily in the funding the PA receives from all its traditional sources, including the United Nations. That it will not because the funding it withheld will no doubt result in the dissolution of the bonding ceremony. Unless the PA pulls back with the realization that it too will stand to lose some of the funding it relies upon, belying its insistence that it is prepared to present to the world as an independent state, one that is incapable of funding itself.

Palestinians: We Do Not Trust The Americans

by Khaled Abu Toameh
November 6, 2013 at 5:00 am

"We want the Americans to be involved in the peace process. But the U.S. should focus its pressure on the Israelis and not on us. We want the Americans to force Israel to accept the two-state solution and dismantle all the illegal settlements." — Senior aide to Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas
The Palestinians' biggest fear is that the U.S. will try to impose a solution. That is why Abbas and his top aides have begun moves in the international community to persuade as many countries as possible to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, especially the European Union, United Nations and Russia. The last time the Americans tried to extract concessions from the Palestinians, within a few weeks the Palestinians launched the Second Intifada against Israel; Abbas has already threatened as much.

As U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry embarks on a fresh mission to prevent the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the Palestinian Authority [PA] appears to be doing its utmost to internationalize the conflict with Israel.

The Palestinians want other international parties, especially the European Union, United Nations and Russia, to play a major role in the current U.S.-sponsored peace talks.

They perceive these parties as being more sympathetic to, and supportive of, the Palestinians.
The PA's biggest fear is that Washington will try to impose a solution that would certainly fail to win the backing of most Palestinians and Arabs.

Unconfirmed reports recently suggested that Kerry was considering the possibility of forcing his own deal on the Israelis and Palestinians as early as next year.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry sits with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Amman, Jordan, on June 28, 2013. (Image source: U.S. State Department)

A forced solution, Palestinians warn, would also severely undermine the credibility of the PA leadership, whose leaders would be accused by many Palestinians and Arabs of capitulating to American pressure and threats.

The PA has come to learn that U.S. threats to cut off financial aid are not to be taken seriously. The U.S. administration has previously issued similar threats, but never carried them out. The last threat came before the PA unilaterally applied for the status of non-member observer state in the United Nations.

The PA also keeps warning the Americans that financial aid cuts would lead to the collapse of the "moderate" Palestinian camp and pave the way for a Hamas takeover of the West Bank.

Kerry and his team are evidently unaware of the fact that neither Abbas, whose term of office expired several years ago, nor any other Palestinian leader is authorized to make real concessions to Israel.
The last time the Americans tried to extract concessions from a Palestinian leader was in the year 2000, when President Bill Clinton dragged Yasser Arafat to Camp David and exerted heavy pressure on him to accept Ehud Barak's offer to hand over to the Palestinians most of the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip.

The result of the U.S. pressure was that Arafat ran away and within a few weeks Palestinians launched the Second Intifada against Israel; Abbas, in Arabic, has already threatened as much.
Today, the PA is already facing growing criticism for agreeing to return to the negotiating table unconditionally three months ago. Palestinian leaders have justified their decision by arguing that Kerry forced them to drop their pre-conditions and resume the peace talks with Israel.

"We want the Americans to be involved in the peace process," said a senior aide to PA President Mahmoud Abbas. "But the U.S. should focus its pressure on the Israelis and not on us. We want the Americans to force Israel to accept the two-state solution and dismantle all the illegal settlements."
Palestinian Authority officials say they are now convinced that the U.S. administration has no intention to force Israel to comply with all the demands of the Palestinian negotiators, including a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines. That is why Abbas and his top aides have begun moves in the international community to persuade as many countries as possible to get involved in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And that is why the Palestinians have recently been directing their criticism not only against Israel, but also against the U.S. administration.

PA leaders say they have lost their confidence in the U.S. administration's ability to serve as an honest broker in the negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel.

Hours before Kerry was scheduled to meet with PA President Mahmoud Abbas in Bethlehem, several Palestinian officials and groups issued statements denouncing U.S. "bias" in favor of Israel.

The Palestinians also called for holding protests during Kerry's visit to Bethlehem to express their opposition to U.S. policies in the region, particularly regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In fact, anti-U.S. protests have become a common occurrence in the West Bank each time a U.S. official arrives to meet with Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority's strategy now is to prove to the world that Israel is not interested in peace and the U.S. cannot be trusted with brokering a comprehensive and just solution.

The Palestinians are willing for now to pursue the talks with Israel to avoid being held responsible for the failure of the peace process.

They want to show the world that it is Israel that should be blamed for the collapse of the talks because of its refusal to comply with all the Palestinian demands. Moreover, the Palestinians are hoping, through the continued dialogue with the U.S. administration, to show the world that the Americans cannot do anything to bring about peace -- a step which they hope would pave the way for the involvement of other parties in the conflict.

Related Topics:  Khaled Abu Toameh