Unfortunately for the Israeli government, who consistently denied the truth of the France 2 report from the start, the twelve year old lie hasn’t quietly died away. In fact the incident and its notorious accompanying image have been used innumerable times to delegitimise and demonise the Jewish state. From suicide bombers in their farewell speeches to Osama Bin Laden and his deputy, terrorists of all shapes and sizes have used the “Al Durrah affair” to mobilise hatred against Israel.

Realising that the lie was not going to go away, Israel’s government finally commissioned an inquiry into the France 2 report in September 2012. The report of that inquiry, the “Kuperwasser Report”, was published on 21st May this year. Contrary to her detractors’ claims, Israel is generally very thorough in investigating claims against its armed forces and a number of IDF soldiers have been disciplined over the years when claims against them have been verified. In the Al Durrah case, however, Israel has resolutely maintained that her soldiers did not target the father and son and has now produced many pages of solid evidence and testimony to back up this position. Further, Israel has also consistently cast doubt on the testimonies of the cameraman and the reporter he was working for (who, incidentally, was not even at the scene of the incident). The cameraman, by the way, was a Palestinian who is said to have stated that he went into TV film work to defend Palestine!

The Kuperwasser Report (view or download here), makes for uncomfortable reading for the West’s anti-Israel groups, who have themselves made full use of the “motif” of Mohammed Al Durrah’s supposed death (the report finds that the released film footage nowhere shows a dead boy). It should also make salutory reading for every journalist tempted to slant a story in the direction he would like it to go in rather than presenting the truth unvarnished by political bias.

The Middle East conflict does seem to throw up more doubtful and biased reportage than almost any other conflict zone and the main reasons for this are not to hard to find. Firstly, the Israel-Palestinian conflict has been going on for over 60 years and the terrorist groups that make up the opposition to Israel have had a long time to perfect their publicity and media strategies.

Secondly, in places where Western film crews have to make use of local “fixers”, they are vulnerable to the possibility that the fixer will find them situations and incidents that support his agenda, or that of his political chiefs. Sadly, journalists sometimes play along although to be fair they risk not being able to work at all if they don’t. Add to this locally appointed photographers, reports and editors working for international media agencies and you have a recipe for the potential twisting of news items to suit the agenda of terrorist organisations or anti-West regimes.

Examples of this abound, from the notorious “green helmet man” in Israel’s 2006 Lebanon conflict to the dead baby in Gaza reported as having been killed by Israeli shell fire when in fact he was killed by a Hamas rocket falling short. We have seen photographs retouched to suggest an inferno of Israeli missiles and murdered Syrian children made out to be casualties of Israeli attacks on Gaza. The Kuperwasser Report essentially places the Al-Durrah incident into the same category of staged tragedy to support terrorist publicity aims.

Reporting from a combat zone is never going to be the easiest work and the reporters who do so make immense sacrifices and often place themselves in harm’s way to bring us important news. Only those who have been in a war zone can fully empathise with the situation of a John Simpson, a Kate Adie or an Alex Crawford (all journalists of the greatest integrity). But on shoulders  such as theirs lies the responsibility of bringing us news; not a political statement or staged fictitious footage that fits someone else’s politics or nationalism. Fortunately for us, most “journos” have the integrity to do that. Media regulators and editors (including some in the UK!), however, should crack down heavily on shoddy or biased reporting so that an incident like the Al Durrah one cannot get out of hand and cause death and misery over many years.

Following the 1979 Islamic revolution the Ayatollahs refused to place all their trust in the Iranian Army, perceiving it as tainted by association with the deposed Shah. Accordingly they established the IRG, all of whose members swear allegiance to the revolution and are dedicated to protecting the Islamic regime above everything else. They are direct agents of the Grand Ayatollah in consolidating the extremist Shiite Islamic revolution internally and extending it (and therefore the influence of Shia Islam) far beyond Iran’s borders. It is this external aspect of IRG operations that places it firmly in the category of a terrorist organisation. 

For us in the West, it is not always an easy matter to discern IRG influences behind specific terror attacks or operations, but a collation of intelligence reports made public throws up some uncomfortable reading.

The IRG is accused of supplying tens of tons of weaponry to the Taliban in Afghanistan, some of which was captured en route. They have also been accused of supplying sophisticated arms to Yemeni rebels. In 2012, an attempt on the life of the US ambassador to Azerbaijan was made by IRG operatives and the same year two members of the IRG were arrested (and have now been convicted) for terror-related offences in Kenya. Also in 2012, the Indian Government concluded that IRG members were behind a bomb attack in Delhi aimed at the Israeli ambassador and in 2011 the US Attorney General implicated the IRG in a failed assassination attempt on the Saudi ambassador in Washington.

The IRG has its finger in many many more terrorist pies around the world, but the group they are best known for supporting is, of course, Hezbullah. From the earliest active days of this Shia Islamist group in Lebanon they have had active support from Iran, brought by the IRG. A conveyor belt of arms operated for years from Iran through Syria to Lebanon, with the full support of the Assad regime. IRG officers have similarly been active in “advising” Hezbullah and even had forces stationed (alongside Syrian troops) in Lebanon itself, in the Beka’a Valley. Hezbullah is today only able to threaten much of Israel with advanced missiles through the generosity and help of the IRG, gladly exporting Iranian revolutionary ideology to Lebanon’s own Shia population.

What brings an urgency to the question of banning the IRG is its implication in actions against British and other European citizens. In 2007, five British citizens were kidnapped in Iraq and only one returned alive. The Guardian ran an investigation, which revealed that the kidnap was carried out by the IRG and that the hostages had been incarcerated in an IRG prison deep in Iran from no more than two days after their capture. Furthermore, former Mossad director Ephraim HaLevy revealed in his memoirs that IRG agents had been active in Paris and London, assassinating enemies of the Tehran regime.

Hamas is on the EU’s terror list, as shortly will be (part of) Hezbullah. Proscribing the IRG will magnify the negative effect on both the other organisations, since Iranian fund-raising efforts will be greatly curtailed and existing funds frozen. Conversely, not banning this evidently terrorist organisation will enable both the other two to continue to receive illicit support from Iran. There is cross-party and international political support for this move across Europe, bolstered by campaigns such as the current one by Britain’s Zionist Federation. The grass-roots ZF campaign encourages its supporters to lobby their MPs and MEPs and calls on the UK and the EU in Brussels to proscribe the IRG. Many of the IRGs terror targets have been Jewish, and Iranian antisemitism goes without saying!

If the EU wishes to increase its influence on the world stage and enhance its relationship with other Western powers, it should join the US and Canada in banning the IRG and help to present a louder and more concerted voice against international terrorism.

 Her proudest moment was saving an Austrian Jew.

by Sara Debbie Gutfreund

When Margaret Thatcher passed away today, the tributes began pouring in from all over the world. Mrs. Thatcher was Britain’s first female prime minister, serving for 11 years starting in 1979. Known as the Iron Lady, she was a strong Conservative who changed England’s perspective on its economic and political life.

Despite her many impressive accomplishments, including fighting the Soviet communist regime, Thatcher said that her proudest moment was when she saved a Jewish teenager from Austria during the Holocaust.

In 1938, Edith Muhlbauer, a 17-year-old Jewish girl, sent a letter to Muriel Roberts, Edith’s pen pal and the older sister of Margaret Thatcher, asking if the Roberts family could help her escape from Austria. The Nazis had started rounding up Jews from Vienna and Edith knew it was just a matter of time before she would be among them.

Alfred Roberts, the father of Muriel and Margaret, was a grocer in a small town. They lived in a cold water flat above the grocery with an outhouse; the Roberts did not have the time or the money to bring Edith to their home. So Margaret, then 12 and Muriel, 17, decided to try raising money and asking the local Rotary club to help. They succeeded in bringing Edith to England where she stayed with several Rotary families, including the Roberts for the next two years before joining relatives in South America.

Edith slept in Margaret’s room and Thatcher later wrote in her memoir: “She was tall, beautiful, evidently from a well to do family. But most important, she told us what it was like to live as a Jew under an anti-Semitic regime. One thing Edith reported particularly stuck in my mind. The Jews, she said, were being made to scrub the streets.”

In 1995, after Edith had been located in Brazil, she told audiences, “Never hesitate to do whatever you can for you may save a life.”

Edith is now a Jewish grandmother in Sao Paolo who says that she owes her life and the life of her children and grandchildren to Margaret Thatcher’s family. When Thatcher visited Yad Vashem during a historic, first visit to Israel by a British prime minister in 1986, she was visibly shaken as she stood in front of a photo of a German soldier shooting a Jewish mother and child. She exclaimed, “It is so terrible. Everyone should come and see it so that they never forget. I am not quite sure whether the new generation really knows what we are fighting against.”

Thatcher continued to be a loyal friend to the Jews as she fought the British support for the Arab boycott of Israel, protested on behalf of Jewish refuseniks in the Soviet Union and chose several Jewish leaders to be part of her cabinet. Thatcher admired the hard work and self-reliance of the British Jewish community and frequently turned to England’s late chief rabbi, Immanuel Jakobovits for spiritual back up. She even elevated Rabbi Jakobovits to the House of the Lords and he later became known as “Thatcher’s rabbi.”

Thatcher also made the following statement about Israel’s security: “Israel must never be expected to jeopardize her security; if she was ever foolish enough to do so and then suffered for it, the backlash against both honest brokers and Palestinians would be immense – ‘land for peace’ must also bring peace.”

Thatcher spoke up with such courage and strength because as she described herself, “This lady is not for turning.” When she believed in an ideal, whether it was transforming the British economy or saving a terrified Jew from Austria, she was not afraid to follow through, even if she had to stand up against popular opinions to do so.

This tribute has been reproduced exactly as received. If it is not as the original, my apologies.

A PERVERTED statement from the BBC says Israel started the 1967 Six Day War with neighbouring Arab countries. This false claim from Robin MacDonald, of the Beeb’s complaints department, underlines there is truth in the “Biased Broadcasting Corporation” nickname given to the broadcaster by Israelis and diaspora Jews dismayed by its often Arabist stances.

Mr MacDonald replied to me after I complained about BBC Two’s ‘A History of Syria with Dan Snow’ screened on March 11 in which the presenter stated: “… (Hafiz al-) Assad was (Syrian) Minister of Defence when Israel launched a series of strikes against Egypt, Jordan and Syria …”

I felt uninformed viewers would conclude that Israel was to blame for starting this war and Dan Snow, in the interests of honest reporting, should have alluded to the military build-up and belligerent statements from Arab leaders.

Mr MacDonald replied: “There is no implication as to which side was the aggressor, we merely stated that in 1967 attacks were launched by Israel, a fact which is commonly known and has been reported on many times since. We would like to add that Israel’s attack on the Egyptian air force is widely seen as the first act in the war (my emphasis), we feel it was accurate to say Israel launched attacks in this context.”

I vividly remember what happened in this period and it does not square with the comments from the BBC executive. I feared Israel would undergo another Holocaust as Arab armies massed on its borders. Peacekeeping United Nations troops had left the Sinai after being ordered out by Egypt’s President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Then came what is generally recognised by the international community as the first act of this war when Egypt illegally closed the Straits of Tiran by military force to stop Israeli ships reaching the Red Sea port of Eilat. In Nasser’s words to Arab trade unionists the ultimate “objective was Israel’s destruction.” (1) Assad forecast that the impeding war with Israel would be a “battle of annihilation.” (2) Iraq’s prime minister predicted there would be few Jewish survivors. (3)

It would have been military madness for Israel to have waited for the promised Arab attacks and so they made successful pre-emptive strikes on Egyptian, Syrian and Iraqi military airfields. Israel told King Hussein of Jordan that they had no plans to force his troops out of the illegally occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Jordan rejected the pleas for peace and began to shell communities in the Jewish state. Israel only responded in self-defence when Jordan’s air force set out to bomb its towns. It captured Judea and Samaria from which Jordan had attacked.

Subsequently the UN Security Council rejected a Soviet Union motion to brand Israel as the aggressor by 11 votes to four. The USSR got another rebuff when the UN General Assembly also voted overwhelmingly in support of Israel.

1.   Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin, eds., The Israeli-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict (New York: Penguin Books, 1984), p. 176.

2.   Michael B Oren, Six Days of War and the Making of the Middle East, p.93.

3.   Israeli historian Benny Morris quoted in Alan Dershowitz’s book The Case for Israel, p.92.

This is a brilliant and so true video by the Jerusalem Institute for Justice – released coincidentally during President Obama’s visit to Israel!

A family protesting on behalf of an Islamic Jihad prisoner in an Israeli prison. Convicted terrorist prisoners are paid a salary by the PA

It seems that the whole world knows about and acknowledges that the leaders of the Palestinian Arabs do and say some very bad things. They claim they want peace with Israel while telling their people to hate Jews and glorify terrorists; they clamour for the release of convicted terrorists in Israeli prisons while paying them salaries for being locked up; they persecute their Christian minority and drive them out of the land; they lock up journalists for daring to criticise the regime; they suppress any free speech that is not in line with the “resistance” mantra. The whole world knows this – except for the British Government, who continue to turn a blind eye and pay out millions of pounds to a corrupt, violent and deceitful PA leadership.

When the Department for International Development (DfID) first launched its current aid plan to the PA in 2011, they clearly stated on their website that,

Our partnership [with the PA] is set out in a Memorandum of Understanding. This sets out mutual commitments around shared principles (poverty reduction, human rights, sound financial management and accountability). It also emphasises the importance of Palestinian adherence to a political programme that uphold principles of non-violence, seeks a negotiated two state solution and respects international law, relevant resolutions, previous agreements and obligations.

After the then minister, Andrew Mitchell, was challenged to uphold this condition on UK Aid, the website mysteriously changed and much of the above was deleted to become…

Our partnership is set out in a Memorandum of Understanding. This sets out mutual commitments around shared principles (poverty reduction, human rights, sound financial management and accountability). Our State-building Grant will help them to deliver…

DfID knows it should be holding the PA to account for its abuse of the memorandum it signed to receive our money, yet refuses to do so.

Palestinian Media Watch, in a report on PA salaries aid to prisoners, quotes the very wording of the PA resolution setting out the terms of these salaries,

“The minimum salary for a prisoner, to be paid to him from the beginning of his detention and for up to 3 years, is 1,400 shekels. Prisoners who have been imprisoned between 3 and 5 years will receive 2,000 shekels. Those imprisoned between 5 and 10 years will receive 4,000 shekels. Those imprisoned between 10 and 15 years will receive 6,000 shekels. Those imprisoned between 15 and 20 years will receive 7,000 shekels. Those imprisoned between 20 and 25 years will receive 8,000 shekels. Those imprisoned between 25 and 30 years will receive 10,000 shekels. Those who have been imprisoned 30 years or more will receive 12,000 shekels.” [Government resolution # 23 of 2010, Al- Hayat Al-Jadida, April 15, 2011]

So, not only are these figures far higher than social assistance payments to families and not only are the payment clearly stated to be salaries, but the salary increase the longer the prisoner is incarcerated. In other words, the more Israelis you kill, the more you get paid!

Paying terrorists salaries from aid money is just one of the bad things the PA leadership does. Here are one or two more which, were they taking place elsewhere, would bring sharp rebukes all round.

Suppression of free speech

There have been a number of recent court cases in the PA, where individuals have been charged and punished for criticising the regime. Some Palestinian journalists, for example the high profile Khaled Abu Toameh, have been forced to live in Israel because they cannot publish anything in the PA media that could be construed as critical of the PA or its leaders.

Abu Toameh, in an article in the Jewish Press on 4th November 2012, states,

 “Any Palestinian writer or journalist who dares to criticize Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and his policies or demand an end to corruption will be accused of “belittling the dignity of the state.”

The same applies to Joe public in the West Bank as well.

Restriction of human rights

In its annual report to the World, Freedom House continues to rate the disputed Palestinian territories as “Not Free” – that is, “…basic political rights are absent, and basic civil liberties are widely and systematically denied” (selected data version, p4) and again rates the area on very low scales for both political and civil rights (p.19). Anecdotal evidence points to persecution of the Christian minority at local levels by ordinary Palestinians. Christians are afraid to report or talk about this, for fear of retribution later.

Perhaps the most recent example of rights abuse is the suspicious death of a Palestinian prisoner in the Palestinian prison in Jericho. Ayman Samara died mysteriously in February of this year after being found talking through the prison fence to a reporter (who was himself detained for several hours).

Incitement to violence

One of the first stipulations in the 1993 Oslo accords  was that both sides should prevent any incitement of their populations to violence or hatred towards the other side. Not only did the PA ignore this condition from the start, but 20 years on they continue to provoke and encourage incitement to violence and hatred against Israel and teach their children the same. This is clearly a major obstacle to any hope of a future peace agreement and the British Government should insist on cessation of incitement and hate education as a condition of receiving British aid.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office Human Rights and Democracy Report update for December 2012, p.2, admits that, “The British Consulate General are investigating reports of a song alleged to have been played on PA radio praising suicide bombings in Israel on 1 December.” On the same page, Alistair Burt restates that “…the UK is against any comments that could stir up hatred and prejudice in a region that needs a culture of peace and mutual respect.”  

The PA-controlled media continually flout the Oslo prohibition on inciting hatred and violence against Israel. Besides some Conservative MPs, a number of excellent and well-researched reports have also highlighted this issue but DfID has so far chosen to ignore them. If the Government is committed to a peaceful settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict then the PA must be pressured to cease this incitement.

CMEW has recently raised all these issues with Justine Greening, the present Minister for International Development. We await her response with bated breath! You know what they say, “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Dexter Van Zile (Why are Christian charities bashing Israel? 15th December) admirably exposed a major problem in the Christian development agency universe; a problem that too often seems to focus on only one geographical area in the whole world. Embrace the Middle East (an evolution of a long-standing agency with a history of excellent work on behalf of the poor of the Middle East), Christian Aid, World Vision, The Amos Trust and many others do provide aid to the poor and they do engage in commendable development projects in the cultural and religious turmoil we call the Middle East. Sadly, however, the majority of such charities seem to have an unacceptable political bias where this one geographical area is concerned – that narrow strip of land popularly known as “Israel-Palestine” or “Palestine-Israel” depending on your worldview! As someone who has worked in the Christian charity sector for over 25 years and with a special concern in the Middle East, I would like to offer a four point rationale for this anomaly in the mindsets of otherwise thoroughly admirable, caring organisations.

1. As Christian organisations, these NGOs are underpinned by theological principles and beliefs. Unlike in the US, where the description “evangelical” usually means “pro-Israel”, the same word in the British church mostly means the opposite. The teaching that the Christian church has replaced the biblically “chosen” people (the descendants of Abraham through his son Isaac, known in the Bible as the Children of Israel) is prevalent in most British Christian denominations, stemming from historical theological positions going back to the earliest centuries of the Christian era. At it’s mildest, this position sees the Jewish people as no different to any other people group in the world and therefore not requiring any special theological respect as people of the “Old Testament”. At its most extreme, adherents would still refer to the Jewish people as “Christ-killers” (and, yes, those words do still appear today).

On any one point between these two doctrinal extremes, we are looking at an outlook towards Israel that is always going to be neutral to negative at best. When this, often spiritually sub-conscious worldview, meets a loud, aggressive proclamation of injustice and rights abuse allegedly perpetrated by these same Jewish people in the guise of the state of Israel, we can easily see where an anti-Israel bias begins and grows from. Unfortunately, these mindsets are further aggravated by a centuries-old latent anti-semitism that rears its head in the Church, academia and the British establishment.

2. Today, any NGO starting to work officially in the disputed West Bank or Gaza will have a minder or guide who is well-versed in anti-israel “occupation rhetoric” and eventually a locally-engaged staff or volunteer corps who will have grown up immersed in official hate education and incitement against Israel as a state and the Jewish people as individuals. Since Israeli citizens are not permitted to travel without special permission in the disputed territories, these are the only people an NGO can work with in that area if they want to help poor and disadvantaged Palestinian Arabs. And of course, if an NGO displayed a pro-Israel or even a neutral attitude towards Israel, their ability to operate would be curtailed pretty swiftly. Any contact with Israeli pro-Palestinian groups will also introduce the influence of left-wing organisations who sometimes seem as much against their own state as they are for a future state of Palestine

3. As Dexter Van Zile points out, it isa good fund-raiser to support the downtrodden Palestinians suffering under nasty Israeli “occupation”; especially since most people being appealed to will never have been to the region themselves to see and hear from those living there. Many, many Westerners; celebrities, politicians and ordinary travellers, have had negative predispositions concerning Israel and the Palestinian Arabs turned on their head when they see the realities on the ground and speak to real Israelis and Arabs. Financial appeals that are “pro-Palestinian”, flavoured with a good dose of the aforesaid occupation rhetoric against Israel bring in a lot of dollars, pounds and Euros (I believe at the expense of potential aid to the genuinely persecuted minorities of the West Bank and Gaza).

4. The final major point is where the spark really becomes a raging fire. That is in the relationship between Christian NGOs and Western political groups espousing boycotts, divestment and sanctions of Israel. Their claims to be fighting for a two state solution are shallow. What they really want is the destruction of Israel and its replacement by a “one state solution”; Palestine on all Israel’s territory. A cursory glance at, for example, the logo of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign illustrates this. Christian NGOs should not be in bed with these often vitriolic people, with whom rational debate is impossible concerning issues around Israel and the Palestinian Arabs.

Unfortunately the above rationale for the attitudes of many NGOs means that good, well-intentioned Christians, their supporters and donors, are playing right into the hands of a Palestinian leadership that cynically exploits both its own people and easily-influenced NGO leaderships, whose theological mindsets predispose them to be pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. Sadly, even local Christians working with outside NGOs often hold to a twisted form of Liberation Theology espoused by the traditional denominations and crystalised in the joint Palestinian churches’ 2009 Kairos document.

Even worse, while I would be the last to wish for good existing aid projects to be curtailed, vital issues of human rights abuse and religious persecution are being sacrificed at the altar of maintaining favour with Palestinian officials and being allowed the freedom to do “permitted work” in the territories. I am referring chiefly to the persecution of Christians in the PA and Hamas controlled areas. Testimonies coming out of both the West Bank and Gaza reveal some horrendous anti-Christian incidents, from a Christian being singled out for beheading by a gang in the West Bank to accusations of forced conversions to Islam among the shrinking and fragile Christian community in Gaza.

For an NGO to adapt its modus operandi, literature and appeals to local political pressures is understandable – not necessarily morally perfect, but understandable in human terms. What has happened in the Middle East, however, is the politicisation of what many believe to be an erroneous theological position. Exposure to PA officials and workers pushing an aggressive anti-Israel agenda stokes the embers of anti-semitism and anti-zionism that exude sub-consciously from Christian replacement theology, turning some NGO chiefs into a propaganda extension of the oppressive and Israel-hating PA leadership. Christian NGOs should resist these pressures, remain apolitical, and resist the strong temptation to take sides in a conflict that is so confused and controversial.

See this blog in the Time of Israel, which gives support to my thesis above.

1. The whole of what is now Israel, “from the river to the sea”, is part of “Palestine”.
2. The demonisation of Jews and Israelis
3. All forms of struggle – including terrorist acts – are legitimate forms of opposition to Israel

The international community expects Israel’s government to make concessions and talk peace to the PA, who are clearly demonstrating that they do not want peace. The international community should instead be pressuring and penalising the PA for refusing to sit down and negotiate with Israel without pre-conditions. Anyway, enough already! On to the show…

Mahmoud Abbas and Ban Ki Moon at the UN

So the dust is beginning to settle on the UN vote to give a non-existent state the status of a state (if you get me). Maybe this is a good time to work out what is myth and what is reality in the new “peace paradigm” that the UN has created. Let’s make no mistake about this; things cannot remain the same, if only because the breakdown of the Oslo process from the nineties is now complete and probably irreversible. In this new reality, let’s list a few truths…

1. The 29th November UN General Assembly vote did not create a state of Palestine. For all the celebrations in Ramallah on Mr Abbas’ return, the UN cannot create a state, it can only recognise one that already exists. The Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of a State (December 1933), which predates the creation of the UN, states as its first article,

“The state as a person of international law should possess the following qualifications: a) a permanent population; b) a defined territory; c) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states.”

The Palestinian Authority is a temporary administrative instrument, not a proper government; its population is not permanent as long as there is a claimed “right of return” to lands in the state of Israel; it has no properly defined borders; it does not and cannot enter into meaningful relations with other states, since the PA is itself only an arm of the PLO.

2. Building on the E1 area will not “cut a future Palestinian state in half”. Israel has had plans to build on the barren land between East Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim since the 1990s, but American pressure kept a firm lid on any thoughts of turning plans into bricks and mortar. Now the PA has broken the Oslo agreements with a resounding crack, Israel is freed to execute its long-standing building plans – which also include expansion in Pisgat Ze’ev in North jerusalem, a well-established and popular suburb within the security barrier.

As for splitting the West Bank in half, anyone who has driven from Jerusalem to Jericho knows that there is ample unpopulated land for roads, tunnels or whatever it takes to link Ramallah to Bethlehem if a Palestinian state ever becomes a reality. In fact, Israel has already begun making provision for road traffic to bypass Jerusalem on the Eastern side for Palestinians.

Furthermore, existing agreements do not stop either Israel or the PA from building on territory under their respective jurisdictions or that is known will belong to them under any final status arrangements. These areas include E1, Pisgat Ze’ev and many other places that Israel is or will soon be building on.

One of the signs being erected on roads in the West Bank by the PA

3. The status of the land areas under dispute has not changed one iota following the UN vote. The PA could not claim that Israel is occupying sovereign Palestinian land any more on November 29th than they could on November 28th, despite erecting border signs around the West Bank (see photo). The phrase “occupied Palestinian territories” is not written in a single document of all the agreements and negotiations that have taken place through the decades since 1967. Why not? Because both Israel and the PA are claimants to land that was previously occupied illegally by Jordan and before that was under British mandated rule following 500 years of Ottoman Turkish government. Accordingly, although Israel has a legitimate legal basis for its claims, the area known as “The West bank” and “Judea and Samaria” is under dispute, not occupation. The UN vote did not change that; only genuine negotiations will lead to an alteration in that status – unless, of course, Israel unilaterally assumes control over the West Bank and exercises sovereignty over the whole area!!

4. Threats by the PA to take Israel and/or its individual leaders to the International Criminal Court do not mean it will happen! The ICC is rightly independent of the UN and, irrespective of UN General Assembly votes, only has jurisdiction on behalf of actual, real states (Rome Statute of the ICC, article 12). Since the PA does not meet any of the normal parameters for defining a state (see above), the ICC has no obligation to exercise its jurisdiction on behalf of that entity. As it is supposed to be apolitical, the ICC could refuse all approaches by the PA. In fact, this already happened in April of this year, when the ICC Prosecutor refused to make the determination of whether the PA was a state or not.

Conclusion
The change of status voted on by the UN on November 29th changed nothing, yet changes everything! For anyone truly desiring peace, peace is still possible. for anyone desiring not peace but more conflict, that also is still feasible. What has changed is that both Israel and the PA have been released from their respective responsibilities and obligations under the Oslo Accords, Roadmap and Annapolis schemes – all of which have been shattered by the PA move in New York.

It is significant that Mahmoud Abbas opened his November 29th speech claiming that he was there because he “…believes in peace…” and spent the rest of his time denigrating and delegitimising Israel instead of advocating a negotiated two-state settlement. That is because he does not want a two-state settlement; he wants a one-state solution (Palestine) in place of the existing, UN member, democratic state of Israel. The grand ambitions of the PA are no more or less than new clothes for the emperor; everyone can see right through them but is not about to say so – especially if to do so would be to risk supporting Israel!

Within the last couple of days, Israel appears to have changed their passport entry stamp for people entering the “West Bank”. Under Oslo, the entry stamp says that the person is restricted to “Palestinian Authority Only”. The entry stamp now apparently says, “Judea and Samaria Only”! Well, the Palestinian Authority was a construct of the Oslo Accords of the mid-90s and since Mahmoud Abbas has clearly broken the Accords by applying to the UN for “Observer State” status (and getting it), Israel is entitled to revert to pre-Oslo things – like more settlements, reviving the controversial E1 planning zone etc (see other blog posts about this).

Here are images of the old and new passport stamps, as published by “Electronic Intifada” (name of passport holder removed)..

The new Israeli entry stamp, “Judea and Samaria only”!

The old entry stamp, “Palestinian Authority only”