Israel invited to join UN Human Rights Council's Western nations group

Admission to the Western European and Others Group stands to ease Israel's isolation within the UN.

By Barak Ravid

Published 22:27 29.11.13 

 

The United Nations Human Rights Council's Western nations group has decided to upgrade Israel's status at the agency, a senior Foreign Ministry official said Friday.

Israel has been invited to join the UNHRC's Western European and Others Group, a development that stands to ease Israel's isolation within the often-critical UN. Among the group's members are the U.K., Germany, France and Canada, with the U.S. serving as an observer.

The invitation was extended on Friday afternoon at the conclusion of a 48-hour silent procedure that allowed members of the WEOG to voice their reservations and concerns over Israel's admission. No country submitted an objection.

The group is expected to release an official announcement on the matter on Monday.

"This is a successful conclusion to a diplomatic effort waged by the Foreign Ministry for several months," an official within the ministry said.

Israel's admission to the Western European and Others Group has been made possible after Israel agreed to resume ties with the UNHRC, ending a boycott that had endured for more than a year and a half. As part of the deal, Israel appeared at the council’s Universal Periodic Review on human rights issues three weeks ago. 

The step also comes in the wake of a diplomatic push by six of Israel’s allies. On November 6, the ambassadors of the U.K., Australia, Canada, Germany, France and the U.S. sent a letter to the UN’s institutions in Geneva and to the ambassador of Spain, who heads the WEOG. In the letter, the six ambassadors wrote that the time had come to bring Israel into the regional group.

“We, the undersigned, would like by this letter to recall Israel’s longstanding request to join the WEOG regional group in Geneva. We are strongly supportive of Israel’s membership at the earliest opportunity. We request that you kindly include this issue on the agenda of the next WEOG meeting in Geneva, to be held as soon as possible,” the letter read.

 

The Iran Deal by Jack Cohen

From: Jack Cohen <jcohen2@bezeqint.net>
Sent: Thu, Nov 28, 2013 1:39 am
Subject: The Iran deal

The interim deal agreed between the P5+1 international powers and Iran in Geneva is a diplomatic victory for Pres Obama and his allies.  But, it is a temporary solution for 6 months in the crisis relating to the potential acquisition by Iran of nuclear weapons.  Whether you approve of this deal or not depends a lot on whether or not you think Iran can be trusted to keep the terms and spirit of the deal. 

 

Certainly it is better to avoid conflict if possible, but Chamberlain declared Hitler an honorable man and made a deal with him, that he broke when it suited his purpose.  North Korea made an agreement with the US that it would stop all nuclear activity, but a year later it revealed it had a secret program and had continued developing nuclear capability.  So the question is, can the supposed "moderate" Pres Rouhani or his boss Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamanei be trusted any more than Hitler, or Kim Jung Il.  Especially since Khamanei declared last week and again today that nothing could stop Iran from enriching uranium.

 

The deal gives Iran temporary relief of some sanctions (valued at ca. b$700) in exchange for promises not to develop any more enriched uranium above 3%, to reduce its huge stockpile of highly enriched 20% uranium and to stop any further addition of centrifuges to its enrichment facilities.  Also there is provision for the cessation of work on the plutonium reactor at Irak. The agreement also calls for daily verification of these terms by an independent agency.  However, as some have pointed out, not only has Iran broken its agreements before, but there is no way that improvements in other facilities and in areas away from the major plants can be detected.  It could build huge new capabilities without this agreement applying to it.  So it comes down to whether or not Iran's government can be trusted to keep its word. 

 

PM Netanyahu has rightly backed off his severe criticism of this deal now that it has become fait accompli, and is now considering how to influence the final agreement that is due to be negotiated after 6 months.  He is sending a delegation to Washington to consult with the Obama Administration over the terms of the supposed final deal.  Whether or not this deal is a defeat for Netanyahu depends upon your interpretation.  His opposition to a "bad" deal certainly helped to improve the conditions of the deal agreed by Iran.  Now we must wait and see how the deal pans out and then what the final deal will be.  If it avoids a military strike and war all to the good, but if the deal does not stop Iran developing nuclear weapons it will have achieved nothing.

Why Netanyahu won't yield

  Los Angeles Times Op/ED

Why Netanyahu won't yield

The prime minister's hard line on Iran reflects his deep sense of duty to defend the Jewish state against an existential threat.

By Michael Oren

November 21, 2013

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been labeled a warmonger, a wolf-crier and an opponent of peace at any price because of his policies on Iran.

Here's what Netanyahu's critics say: His warnings of a bad deal are designed to undermine measures to slow Iran's nuclear program and test its openness to long-term solutions. His insistence on strengthening, rather than easing, sanctions will weaken Iranian moderates and drive them from the negotiating table — precisely what Netanyahu allegedly wants. Similarly, his demands for dismantling Iran's uranium enrichment facilities and removing its nuclear stockpile are intended to replace diplomatic options with military ones.

The critics claim that he is again playing the doomsayer, the spoiler of efforts to avoid conflict and restore Iran to the community of nations.

Why would any leader subject himself to such obloquy? Why would he risk international isolation and friction with crucial allies? And why, as some commentators assert, would Netanyahu jeopardize a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear threat and drag his country — and perhaps not only his — into war?

The answers to these questions are simple.

Netanyahu is acting out of a deep sense of duty to defend Israel against an existential threat. Such dangers are rare in most countries' experience but are traumatically common in Israel's, and they render the price of ridicule irrelevant.

Moreover, when formulating policies vital to Israel's survival, the prime minister consults with Israel's renowned intelligence community, a robust national security council and highly specialized units of the Israel Defense Forces. Netanyahu may at times appear to stand alone on Iran, but he is backed by a world-class body of experts.

In 2011, these same analysts predicted that the Arab Spring, which was widely hailed as the dawn of Middle Eastern democracy, would be hijacked by Islamic radicals. They foresaw years of brutal civil strife. Netanyahu publicly expressed these conclusions and was denounced as a naysayer by many of the same columnists who are now lambasting him on Iran.

Yet it is precisely on Iran that Israeli specialists have proved most prescient. They were the first, more than 20 years ago, to reveal Iran's clandestine nuclear activities. They continued to scrutinize the program, emphasizing its military goals, even after 2003, when weaponization was purportedly halted.

Throughout several attempts at diplomacy, these experts have disclosed the ways that Iran systematically obstructed United Nations observers, lied to world leaders and hid nuclear facilities, such as the one at Fordow, which can have no peaceful purpose. Israeli intelligence has accurately tracked Iran's support for terrorist organizations, its role in the massacre of thousands of Syrians and its responsibility for attacks against civilians in dozens of cities around the world.

This does not mean that Israeli estimates are infallible. Since the failure to foresee the 1973 Yom Kippur War, intelligence officials are wary of long-standing conceptions and rigorously question them. Nevertheless, Israeli experts agree that for hegemonic purposes and internal security, the Iranian regime wants and needs the bomb.

Consequently, it will employ any ruse to preserve the ability to produce a weapon in a matter of weeks while obtaining some relief from sanctions.

Iranian leaders know — and Israel's analysts agree — that lessening the economic pressure on Iran will send an incontrovertible message to foreign companies, many of which are already seeking contracts with Tehran, that the sanctions that took years to build are ending. Iran could drag out any confidence-building period indefinitely while producing fissile materiel for multiple bombs.
Top-flight intelligence helped Israel grapple with the challenges posed by the Arab Spring, but the stakes regarding Iran — the lives of 8 million Israelis — are vastly greater. Pundits may posit that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is a moderate, but Israelis cannot indulge in speculation. Our margin for error is nil.

Knowing that, Netanyahu is duty-bound to warn of Iranian subterfuge, to insist that Iran cede its centrifuges, cease enrichment, close its heavy-water plant and transfer its nuclear stockpiles abroad.
He has a responsibility to explain that although Israel has the most to gain from diplomacy, it also has the most to lose from its failure. He is obliged to stress that the choice is not between sanctions and war but between a bad deal and stronger sanctions. And as the prime minister of the Jewish state, Netanyahu must assert Israel's right to defend itself against any existential threat.

Critics can call him militant or intransigent, but Netanyahu is merely doing his job. Any Israeli leader who did less would be strategically and morally negligent.

Michael Oren served as Israel's ambassador to the United States from 2009 to 2013.

UN Cements Its Support of Hamas

Lazar Berman, reports in today’s Times of Israel, that the outgoing commissioner of Palestinian refugee agency, Filippo Grandi,  says almost all Gaza projects are halted and calls on Israel to lift restrictions on imports to Hamas-run strip.

Mr. Grandi blamed Israel for harming Gazan civilians through its security policies.

“Given that Israel does not allow exports and hence a resumption of normal economic activities, prices are rising because commodities are becoming scarce, lack of fuel has provoked the closure of the power plant, the few jobs available in the construction industry are disappearing; and the list continues,” Mr. Grandi said.

Mr. Grandi claims that UNRWA has not been able to import building materials for the past month.

UNRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and is mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestine refugees. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and the Gaza Strip to achieve their full potential in human development, pending a just solution to their plight. UNRWA’s services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, and microfinance.

Last month, Elliot Abrams wrote about the discovery of a concrete tunnel built by Hamas.

Mr. Abrams wrote, “… Already in 2009 Pope Benedict had offered his prayers that the embargo would be lifted so that reconstruction could move faster, and in March 2010 Ban Ki-Moon had said that the Gaza blockade was causing “unacceptable suffering.” On June 1, the day after the ship was seized, Secretary of State Clinton said “the situation in Gaza is unsustainable and unacceptable… Palestinians’ legitimate needs for… regular access for reconstruction materials must… be assured.” She pressed Israeli officials to allow more building materials to enter Gaza, as did British Foreign Secretary William Hague. Former President Carter visited Gaza two weeks later and said the embargo causes “death, destruction, pain and suffering to the people here.” The Quartet called “for a lifting of the blockade on Gaza so that crucial reconstruction work can take place….” And this was the trope from virtually every EU government.

And so the cement flowed; Israel lifted its ban.  But now it turns out that what was being constructed by Hamas in Gaza was not an economy, not houses or public buildings, but tunnels whose purpose was to permit terrorist attacks into Israel. Most recently, Israel discovered a great project: a tunnel 60 feet deep and 1.5 miles long. Construction appears to have been started two years ago—after cement began to flow into Gaza.

As the AP reported, “Concrete walls and arches lined the tunnel and electrical cords could be seen along its walls….The military said it was the third tunnel found along the Gaza border fence in the past year. It estimated that 500 tons of cement and concrete were used, and the structure took more than a year to build.” Hamas has now admitted building the tunnel and claims that its goal was to permit the kidnapping of Israel soldiers, as The Times of Israel reported:

The tunnel…was meant to facilitate a complex terror attack involving an assault on soldiers or civilians, with the intention of seizing a captive Israeli and holding him or her as a bargaining chip. Senior Hamas official Moussa Abu Marzouk confirmed as much on Tuesday, two days after Israeli authorities revealed their discovery. “The tunnel which was revealed was extremely costly in terms of money, effort and blood,” Abu Marzouk wrote on his Facebook page. “All of this is meaningless when it comes to freeing our heroic prisoners.” He went on to detail the lucrative nature of the Gilad Shalit deal, in which 1,027 prisoners were released after the Israeli soldier was kidnapped in just such an attack.

What’s interesting here is not Hamas acting as Hamas always does: as a terrorist group that is uninterested in the welfare of the people of Gaza. What’s interesting is the number of proponents of lifting the blockade of Gaza who have now admitted error. The number appears to be zero. Not one has acknowledged that allowing construction materials into Gaza allowed Hamas to construct more tunnels, and that Israel may have been right to prevent their arrival. Being a critic of Israel apparently means never having to say you’re sorry.

Today’s Ma’an News Agency, the Egyptian media outlet, reported about the Aid convoy which entered Gaza for first time since June.

“An aid convoy entered the Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing on Tuesday for the first time since the June 30 events which overthrew Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi.

Director of the Egyptian side of the terminal Sami Mutwalli told Ma'an that the convoy consisted of 100 tons of medicine, medical equipment and canned food.

The aid was donated by the international Rescue committee and to delivered to Gaza under the supervision of the Egyptian Red Crescent Association.

The Rafah crossing has been the principal connection between Gaza's 1.7 million residents and the outside world since the imposition of an economic blockade by Israel beginning in 2007.

Rafah has frequently been shut down or operating at reduced capacity in recent months due to ongoing unrest in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and political turmoil resulting from former president Mohamed Morsi's ouster by the Egyptian military in July.”

The fact that the Rafah crossing has been closed due to the unrest in Egypt has no bearing for Mr. Grandhi in his condemnation of Israel.

Caught on Tape, a U.N. Interpreter Wonders Aloud at its Israel Bashing

“There’s other really bad shit happening, but no one says anything”

By Yair Rosenberg|November 15, 2013 9:02 AM

Yesterday was “bash Israel” day at the United Nations–which is to say, Thursday. The U.N. General Assembly, which last year passed ^[1] 22 resolutions condemning Israel and only four against other individual countries, approved nine such resolutions ^[2] lambasting the Jewish state. Naturally, it had nothing to say about violations in the rest of the world, though it did manage to lament the situation in Syria–that is, Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights.
You don’t have to be a Zionist or a supporter of Israeli policy to recognize the profound injustice at work in the U.N.’s treatment ^[3] of the Jewish state. In fact, as it turns out, even an official U.N. interpreter would be hard pressed not to notice it. Thus, during yesterday’s session, between the sixth and seventh resolution against Israel, the interpreter on the floor expressed her mystification with the body’s obsession with Israel at the expense of other global concerns, not realizing her microphone was still on:

I mean, I think when you have five statements, not five, like a total of ten resolutions on Israel and Palestine, there’s gotta be something, c’est un peu trop, non? [It’s a bit much, no?] I mean I know… There’s other really bad shit happening, but no one says anything, about the other stuff.

As you can see in the video below, the remark was greeted by laughter among the assembled delegates, after which the mortified interpreter apologized. The proceedings then continued, with Mauritania asking to retroactively add its voice to the sixth resolution condemning Israel’s human rights abuses. Mauritania, of course, boasts ^[4] nearly a million people in chattel slavery. It is also the vice president ^[5] of the U.N. Human Rights Council.

Watch the whole circus  (the hot mic moment occurs at 1:56) by clicking here.

Ambassador Alan Baker refutes Secretary of State John Kerry

Sent: Sunday, November 10, 2013 6:47 PM
To: Secretary John Kerry

Alan Baker, Attorney, Ambassador (ret’)

P.O.B. 182, Har Adar, Israel 90836

Tel: +972-54-3322643

E-mail: ambassador.alan@gmail.com

The Hon. James Kerry, U.S. Secretary of State,

The State Department,

Washington D.C.

November 8, 2013

Dear Secretary Kerry,

After listening to you declare repeatedly over the past weeks that "Israel's settlements are illegitimate", I respectfully wish to state, unequivocally, that you are mistaken and ill advised, both in law and in fact.

Pursuant to the "Oslo Accords", and specifically the Israel-Palestinian Interim Agreement (1995), the "issue of settlements" is one of subjects to be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations. President Bill Clinton on behalf of the US, is signatory as witness to that agreement, together with the leaders of the EU, Russia, Egypt, Jordan and Norway.

Your statements serve to not only to prejudge this negotiating issue, but also to undermine the integrity of that agreement, as well as the very negotiations that you so enthusiastically advocate.

Your determination that Israel's settlements are illegitimate cannot be legally substantiated. The oft-quoted prohibition on transferring population into occupied territory (Art. 49 of the 4th Geneva Convention) was, according to the International Committee Red Cross's own official commentary of that convention, drafted in 1949 to prevent the forced, mass transfer of populations carried out by the Nazis in the Second World War. It was never intended to apply to Israel's settlement activity. Attempts by the international community to attribute this article to Israel emanate from clear partisan motives, with which you, and the US are now identifying.

The formal applicability of that convention to the disputed territories cannot be claimed since they were not occupied from a prior, legitimate sovereign power.

The territories cannot be defined as "Palestinian territories" or, as you yourself frequently state, as "Palestine". No such entity exists, and the whole purpose of the permanent status negotiation is to determine, by agreement, the status of the territory, to which Israel has a legitimate claim, backed by international legal and historic rights. How can you presume to undermine this negotiation?

There is no requirement in any of the signed agreements between Israel and the Palestinians that Israel cease, or freeze settlement activity. The opposite is in fact the case. The above-noted 1995 interim agreement enables each party to plan, zone and build in the areas under its respective control.

Israel's settlement policy neither prejudices the outcome of the negotiations nor does it involve displacement of local Palestinian residents from their private property.  Israel is indeed duly committed to negotiate the issue of settlements, and thus there is no room for any predetermination by you intended to prejudge the outcome of that negotiation.

By your repeating this ill-advised determination that Israel's settlements are illegitimate, and by your threatening Israel with a "third Palestinian intifada" and international isolation and delegitimization, you are in fact buying into, and even fueling the Palestinian propaganda narrative, and exerting unfair pressure on Israel. This is equally the case with your insistence on a false and unrealistic time limit to the negotiation.

As such you are taking sides, thereby prejudicing your own personal credibility, as well as that of the US.

 

 

With a view to restoring your own and the US's credibility, and to come with clean hands to the negotiation, you are respectfully requested to publicly and formally retract your determination as to the illegitimate nature of Israel's settlements and to cease your pressure on Israel.

Respectfully,

Alan Baker, Attorney, Ambassador (ret'),

Former legal counsel of Israel's Ministry for Foreign Affairs,

Former ambassador of Israel to Canada,

Director, Institute for Contemporary Affairs, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs,

Director, International Action Division, The Legal Forum for Israel

 

Copy:

H.E. Daniel B. Shapiro, US Ambassador to Israel,

71 Hayarkon Street

Ten unfounded arguments against Israel

From: Jack Cohen <jcohen2@bezeqint.net>
Sent: Sat, Nov 2, 2013 11:34 pm
Subject: Ten arguments against Israel

There are several arguments made by the enemies of Israel and accepted as conventional wisdom that simply do not hold water, that are based on disinformation, misconceptions and downright lies.  Here are a ten of them:

 

1. The "occupation" is the cause of the conflict.  This is baseless, since Israel did not occupy the so-called territories of Gaza and the West Bank from 1948-1967, yet during that time the Palestinians and the Arabs in general showed no sign of being prepared to resolve the conflict.  Also, Israel withdrew completely from Gaza in 2005, yet it has not reduced the militant anti-Israel policy of Hamas in Gaza at all.  What many Palestinians mean by "the occupation" is the existence of Israel in Palestine, in other words they seek to destroy Israel, and many good liberals support them.

 

2.  The settlements are the cause of the conflict:  Also, during 1948-1967 there were no "settlements' in the "occupied territories" and yet the hatred and antagonism of the Arabs was no less.  Further, during the period of 1967-1977, until the election of PM Begin, few settlements were built in the territories, yet there was no sign of any lessening of the conflict from the Arab side.

 

3. The israeli settlements are illegal: This is simply not true, the whole of the British Mandate, that included the territories of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza were supposed to become a Jewish State.  In the protocols of the San Remo Conference of 1921 and the League of Nations Mandate for Britain of 1922, there was no provision for an Arab State west of the Jordan River (at that time the "Palestinian Arabs" did not yet exist).  The sovereignty of these areas did not change from 1922 until now, since the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank (1948-1967) was never recognized as legitimate under international law.  Hence Israel has a legitimate right to built there and a legitimate claim under international law to retain sovereignty of those areas. Furthermore, several settlements and blocs of settlements were inhabited legally by Jews prior to the War of Independence of 1948, including the Etzion bloc and several Gaza settlements.   

 

4. The West Bank is Arab territory:  Not true!  Just because Arabs live there does not make it "Arab territory", any more than Washington DC is "Black American territory" or Kansas is "Indian sovereign territory" or eastern Turkey is "Kurdish territory."  It is simply a matter of who has the sovereign right to that territory, and the Palestinian Arabs have never had sovereignty over that territory.  You may think that they should have, but the fact of the matter is that they never have had!

 

5. There are 5 million Palestinian Arab refugees:  This is a simple falsehood!  Under international law the descendents of a refugee are not themselves counted as refugees.  This is true of all refugees in the world under the protection  of the UN High Commisioner for Refugees (UNHCR), except for rhe Palestinians who have their own UN agency the UNRWA, that counts descendents as refugees.  The Palestinian "refugee problem" seems unsurmountable, except if you apply the usual international standard to them as to all other refugees and then you find that there are now only several tens of thousands of true Palestinian Arab refugees still surviving.  By continually adding their descendents to the fourth and more generations, the supposed number of false "refugees" keeps increasing, while the actual number of true refugees keeps declining.  This is how UNRWA continues to perpetuate the "Palestinian refugee problem" and keeps the UNRWA bureaucrats in jobs.

 

6. The Palestinian Arabs have the "right of return":  This is simply not true!  Under international law there is no such thing as a "right of return." There is no precedence for any such right.   Noone can point to any case where refugees from a conflict have gone to court to take advantage of such a fictitious right, and no peace treaty has ever sanctioned such a right.  Only under the terms of a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinian representatives could any specific number of refugees be granted a right to return by the sovereign state of Israel. 

 

7. The Palestinians deserve a State of their own:  No group has obtained sovereighty over any territory by right without a struggle.  There is no automatic granting of self-determination, each case has to be recognized on its merits.  There are several groups that might be considered to be more deserving of a State of their own than the Palestinians, such as the Kurds (in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran), the Chechens (controlled by Russia), the Cypriot Turks (controlled by Turkey), the Baluchis (controlled by Afghanistan and Pakistan), etc., etc. 

 

8. The Israelis treat the Palestinians as badly as the Nazis treated the Jews during WWII:  This is a gross lie!  It is a stain on the memory of the 6 million Jews murdered under horrific circumstances during WWII, and does not deserve to be taken seriously.  Anyone who utters such tripe is being anti-Semitic, not merely anti-Israel.

 

9. A boycott of Israeli goods or academia will help the Palestinians: There is no basis for such a belief.  Boycotts are rarely successful and in the specific case of Israel, the EU, UK and most other countries can only gain from the usual academic openness and free flow of ideas with Israeli academia.  To boycott Israel would be out of all proportion to the situation whereby Israel is actually allowing scarce goods to be trucked into Gaza, when Egypt has closed all the illegal smuggling tunnels and has closed the Rafah border crossing.

 

10. Israel is an apartheid country:  This is a gross falsehood, as any visitor to Israel can plainly see.  There is no separation of any races within Israel.  It is a "rainbow" nation, with black Ethiopians, Arabs and brown and white Jews from all over the world learning together, marrying and inter-mingling.  The Israeli State does restrict the flow of enemy aliens such as the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza, who are not Israeli citizens, who engage in terrorism against Israel, and have murdered thousands of Israeli citizens.