What's New

Resources updated between Monday, July 3, 2017 and Sunday, July 9, 2017

July 7, 2017

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley (File photo)

Haley calls UNESCO Hebron motion 'an affront to history,' says US to review ties Article

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (File photo)

Netanyahu cuts $1 million more from UN budget following UNESCO Hebron vote Article

July 6, 2017

Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir at an African Union summit meeting in South Africa in 2015

ICC goes easy on South Africa to encourage future "cooperation" Document

A bag of knives, stun grenades, and Molotov cocktail materials confiscated from a Palestinian vehicle at a checkpoint

Israeli police foil Jerusalem terror attack at West Bank checkpoint Document

Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron

National identity theft at UNESCO Article

Abbas at the UN (File photo)

Trump must reject Abbas claims at UN on size of Palestine Article

July 5, 2017

Soldiers carrying the coffin of one of the victims of the truck-ramming attack, Tel Aviv, January 9, 2017

In First, Israel Files $2.3 Million Lawsuit Against Palestinian Terrorist's Widow and Children Article

A Palestinian family on a motorcycle (File photo)

Hamas bans women from using motorcycles Article

A courtroom in the International Criminal Court

South Africa's ruling party still supports exit from the ICC Article

The Old City of Jerusalem

UNESCO decision on Jerusalem is 'Sad, Pathetic' Article

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley (File photo)

Trump Admin Stands With Israel Against UN Bid to Delegitimize Jewish State Article

July 4, 2017

UNESCO Members voting on an anti-Israel resolution on Jerusalem

"The dueling narrative of Jewish and Palestinian victimhood came to a head on the floor of the World Heritage Committee, as the 21-member states held a moment of silence first for the Holocaust victims and then again for the Palestinians...

The unexpected drama unfolded after the World Heritage Committee approved a resolution disavowing Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem at its annual meeting, which this year was held in Krakow Poland.

In attacking the decision Israel's Ambassador to the UNESCO Carmel Shama HaCohen said the vote was outrageous particularly given that it took place so close to where so many Jews were killed during the Holocaust...

The ambassadors of the Arab countries and their partners should visit the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, Shama HaCohen suggested.

Throughout the holocaust the Jews never stopped saying, 'Next year in Jerusalem. We will never stop staying it!,' he added.

'Just as Hitler, the Nazis, and their partner - [former Jerusalem Mufti] Haj Amin El Husseini - did not succeed, you will not succeed as well as denying the Holocaust or in your efforts to destroy Israel or the Jewish history.

'No politicized decision of UNESCO will ever move one brick from a wall in Jerusalem, nor will it succeed in separating between Jerusalem and the Jewish nation,' Shama HaCohen said.

Most of the room then stood for the moment of silence. After it was ofter, the Cuban representative objected, noting that procedurally only the committee chair can ask for a 'moment of silence.'

She accused Shama HaCohen of turning the meeting "into a politicized circus."

'Let me request that we stand for a moment of silence for all the Palestinians who have died in the region,' she said.

Most of the people in the room again responded. After they had retaken their seats, Sanbar said, 'I did stand for one moment of silence in respect of the [Holocaust] victims, because I do not think that victims have either nationality nor religion. They are human beings above or beyond any other thing, that is why they are victims of humanity as a whole.'...

'If there is some legacy from the victims of Nazi barbarism and barbarism everywhere, is that we need to be firmly attached to our freedom. Today we have had an exemplary demonstration of how there are some victims who are respectful and others who are not, some who will stand and others who will remain seated,' Sanbar said.

'I am tired of hearing the same litany of complaints be it here or in other forums. We bear about the politicization of culture. Let us see who is mixing politics with anything else. Here we have an occupying power who has refused to render homage to the victims of barbarism, even in our day and age,' Sanbar said.

After the meeting Shama HaCohen said that he rejected the 'horrifying parallel between Holocaust victims to other victims and Palestinian victims.'

Additionally, he said, there was "no distinction between uninvolved children and citizens who were harmed and Palestinians who were terrorists and martyrs.'..."

UNESCO Holds Moment of Silence for "Palestinian Victims" after Moment of Silence for Holocaust Article

Palestinians desecrating the Tomb of Joseph

"According to legal experts, an upcoming vote by UNESCO on whether to declare Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs to be an endangered Palestinian heritage site is just the latest example of 'narrative warfare' against Israel and the Jews by the UN's cultural body.

The 'emergency resolution' that UNESCO presented to its World Heritage Committee claims that Israel is causing 'irreversible negative effect on the integrity, authenticity and/or the distinctive character of the property,' which the resolution refers to as the Ibrahim Mosque - not the Cave of the Patriarch. The Hebron site is where the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, and Jacob and Leah are believed to be buried...

'Anyone who comes to the Cave of the Patriarchs can see that the building is well-maintained, and open for members of all faiths to pray,' said Yishai Fleisher, the international spokesman for the Jewish community of Hebron, who noted that the site's largest room is reserved almost exclusively for use as a mosque by local Arabs.

Further, Fleisher explained that like the Western Wall, 'the Cave of the Patriarchs monument was built by a Jewish king' - King Herod - more than 2,000 years ago.

'Suggesting first, that the site of the burial of the Jewish patriarchs and matriarchs is a Palestinian heritage site, and then suggesting that the site is in danger, is a fraudulent interpretation of history. It is a classic case of the narrative warfare [that] the Palestinians are waging on the Jewish people,' Fleisher, a trained lawyer, told JNS.org...

Regarding UNESCO's claims about the Cave of the Patriarchs, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely said, 'We have become [accustomed] to the concept of 'fake news' - well, welcome to 'fake history.'

According to Eugene Kontorovich, a senior researcher at the Kohelet Policy Forum and a professor at Northwestern University's law school, the Palestinians are 'essentially turning the UN specialized agencies into an echo chamber for the most extreme, deranged anti-science claims, and making a laughingstock of the UN.'

'It is particularly ironic that the UN's economic, science and culture organization is taking as 'anti-science' a measure as one can get, because there is no debate amongst historians about the Jewish connection to the Cave of the Patriarchs,' Kontorovich told JNS.org. 'As a matter of historical science, that is not disputed.'

'The Cave of the Patriarchs has been there for over 3,500 years (predating King Herod's monument at the site), so it is very strange that all of a sudden there is an emergency,' Kontorovich said. Kontorovich pointed out that the Cave of the Patriarchs is the one holy site at which members of any faith can openly come to pray, and have for decades..."

UNESCO's Cave of the Patriarchs Measure Is Latest Example of 'Narrative Warfare' Against Israel, Experts Say Article

A UNESCO meeting in Paris

"The Palestinian Authority's foreign ministry on Tuesday went on the offensive against the American ambassador to the United Nations ahead of a UNESCO vote this week on declaring the Old City of Hebron a 'world heritage site in danger.'

Nikki Haley has urged UN leaders to oppose the measure, which would label the Tomb of Patriarchs in Hebron as a Palestinian world heritage site...

In its statement, the PA charged, 'This is not the first message in which the American ambassador has expressed her hidden malice and hatred toward the Palestinians.'

'After she prevented the appointment of Dr. Salam Fayyad as the UN envoy in Libya, she recently affirmed that she would prevent the appointment of any Palestinian in the United Nations and its institutions, confirming her racist and anti-Palestinian position, and its clear hostility to Palestine.'

The PA statement criticized 'the crude intervention of the US ambassador in the work of UNESCO and the attempt to influence the independence of the UN organization by pressing the member countries of the World Heritage Committee to vote against the Palestinian request to put Hebron on the World Heritage List.'

It slammed the move as 'complete bias in favor of Israel,' and said it 'confirms what has been reported in the corridors of the United Nations in New York. Recently, many foreign diplomats have expressed that Haley is an ambassador for Israel more than an ambassador for her country, the United States of America.'..."

Palestinians accuse U.S. Ambassador Haley of being racist for opposing antisemitic UNESCO resolution Article

July 3, 2017

Nikki Haley at the Western Wall, Jerusalem

Nikki Haley urges UNESCO against 'wasted' focus on Hebron vote Article

Panelists at a session of the "U.N. Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation" on June 29, 2017, including the Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization Saeb Erekat

Participants in an Israel-bashing U.N.-sponsored forum, held in New York on June 29-30, 2017, used the globally webcast opportunity to make numerous calls to boycott, divest, and sanction (BDS) the Jewish state. BDS seeks to accomplish through economic warfare what Arab armies and terrorists have failed to accomplish after seven decades.

The calls were made at the U.N. "Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation," organized by the U.N.'s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a body created in 1975 to implement the infamous General Assembly resolution declaring Zionism to be a form of racism. The Forum saw numerous instances of antisemitism and calls for violence, and comparisons of Israel to ISIS.

Among the BDS calls:

Jody Williams, UN invited keynote speaker
"No state likes to be a pariah; look at South Africa. Now we're told that the BDS movement won't work, won't do anything. Well, it helped in South Africa."

Mustafa Barghouti, UN invited panelist, Member of the PLO Central Council, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and General Secretary of Palestinian political party the Palestinian National Initiative
"The entry point is to change the balance of power, and that can be achieved, in my humble opinion, through five ways, or five pillars, the first of which is resistance...The second pillar is boycott, divestment, sanctions: BDS. The Israelis don't like it. It's their problem. They will fight against it. It's their problem. But it is the one of the most effective methods because it first of all allows Palestinians in the diaspora to participate in the Palestinian struggle..."

"Second, definitely put every effort you can in contribution to the strengthening of the Boycott Divestment Sanctions. BDS is the most powerful instrument, and it should be used, and it is effective, and that's why the Israeli government is so crazy and mad about it..."

"But to be frank with you, it has to be a complete boycott of Israel as a government..."

NGO: "Save Israel, Stop the Occupation Partnership"
"The second point I wanted to make is about BDS. So these past two days we have heard a lot about the occupation, about '67, and as Jessica [Nevo] mentioned, not much about '48. But on the other hand, when we speak about BDS, we never distinguish. The BDS is against Israel-all of Israel. Right? So I want to make a comment on that. I think that although boycotting Israel, Israel is in charge of the settlements and all these policies."

Saeb Erekat, UN-invited speaker, Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization
"They have five artificial lakes for crocodiles because some Europeans like to buy the crocodile shoes and bags, vineyards, turkey for their thanksgiving. That is a shameful chapter in human relations and international law. Settlement products must be boycotted if we want to end the Israeli occupation."

Galia Golan Gild, UN-invited speaker, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya
"If we look at what Resolution 2334 can do, I think the most important part of it has been that it calls very, very clearly in one of its clauses to make a distinction between the territory, the land of the State of Israel and the occupied territories. I think this is the most important thing that we have with this resolution, if indeed it is implemented, to distinguish between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied by Israel. Doesn't enumerate how to do this. It could be by product-labeling of settler goods, goods built and made in the settlements. It could be by non-investment of companies-in companies operating in the settlements. It could be by boycott of goods that are made in the settlements. It could be other forms of non-cooperation with the settlements or settlers."

Dalit Baum, UN-accredited (through Friends World Committee for Consultation) NGO: American Friends Service Committee
"What we have today with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Movement is a new step. The idea is that instead of waiting for states to take action using, let's say, Resolution 2334, as we discussed before, we can try and influence politics from the grassroots up...And part of what we're trying to do through the complaints I'm involved in, usually labeled as boycott, divestment, sanctions, is to really track lines of accountability everywhere and try to make the price higher by creating a higher risk for any kind of continued support and normalization of the occupation."

David Wildman, UN-accredited NGO: United Methodist Church
"In 1982 and again in 1983 in the aftermath of Israel's invasion of Lebanon, the UN General Assembly here called for an international boycott of Israel. And it called for international sanctions to be imposed on the Israeli state. So that was the UN here calling for that 45 years ago, so I just want to say it's out there...So it makes sense that civil society, in the anti-apartheid movement and in relation to Palestine and Israel, have turned to boycott, divestment, and sanctions as nonviolent actions. And so I wanted to say that's a natural progression. We'd be-love to defer and give that right back to the member states as they join us in taking up Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. So we hope that."

Rebecca Vilkomerson, UN (CEIRPP) accredited NGO: Jewish Voice for Peace
"It's very important to be able to talk about full boycott because again, we're talking about-when we talked about the boycott of South Africa-people did not boycott the Bantustans. They boycotted the government of South Africa, which were allowing-which were imposing apartheid throughout the country...People can choose to boycott different kinds of things within that, but the framework is the same. You can't stop-you cannot stop the-the conditions on which the boycott movement is based, do not end on the settlements."

Noura Erakat, Assistant Professor, George Mason University
"The fact-finding mission to the Gaza Strip in 2009 was shelved and seems to be irrelevant. But within it are still recommendations that any state can pursue, including applying sanctions for arms to Israel. There is no reason not to apply those sanctions which have been recommended."

U.N. Hosts Forum Openly Advocating the Economic Devastation of the Jewish State Development

The Cave of the Patriarchs in Israel, the subject of a UNESCO vote this week on declaring it a "Palestinian heritage site"

"MK Sharren Haskel (Likud) visited the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hevron on Sunday, ahead of an upcoming vote on a UNESCO resolution declaring the Cave of the Patriarchs a 'Palestinian heritage site'.

'This is a test for the international community. The Palestinian claims are baseless and distort reality. The Palestinians want to rewrite history and use UNESCO as their mouthpiece,' said Haskel.

'As religious sites that are thousands of years old are being destroyed in the Middle East, Israel preserves the sites that are sacred to everyone, and they are open to all religions to visit and pray,' she added...

The World Heritage Committee's 21 members are reportedly scheduled to meet in Krakow, Poland, this week to vote on the Hevron issue..."

'The Palestinians are rewriting history' at UNESCO Article

The scene of the firebomb attack

Rabbis and scholars who daily attend institutions at Rachel's Tomb in Bethlehem heard a loud explosion today (Monday) while learning, from an improvised explosive device thrown by Arabs across the separation fence, close to the window of Rachel 's Tomb.

A Jerusalem police spokesman said, "A short while ago, an object was thrown at the Tomb of Rachel, near the wall of the facility; there were no casualties and no damage was caused."

Rabbi Tzvi Uziyahu, one of the Rabbis of Rachel's Tomb institutions, said: "By G-d's grace we had a miracle - if G-d forbid the explosives had ignited, there would have been many casualties at the bus stops and at the entrance to the tomb. Studies and prayers at Rachel's Tomb in spite of the security situation, and the overall activities and studies in the area continued and will continue as usual in the coming hours and in the midnight Kollel," he said.

Arab terrorists throw firebomb into Rachel's Tomb Document

The International Criminal Court

Zambia: 'We Stay in ICC' Article

A Hamas terror tunnel

More tunnel trouble at UNRWA Article

Richard Falk (File photo)

No One Does Anti-Israel Bias Quite Like the U.N. Article

Muslims at Friday prayers at the Ibrahimi Mosque/Tomb of the Patriarchs, Hebron

UNESCO experts: Hebron heritage request too focused on Muslim history, ignores Jewish history Article

Participants gather for the "U.N. Forum to Mark Fifty Years of Occupation"

Participants in a UN "Forum to Mark 50 Years of Occupation", held in New York June 29-30, 2017, hailed Palestinian violence against Israeli Jews as legitimate "resistance," questioned the legitimacy of the Jewish state and used their UN platform to spread antisemitism. The forum was organized by the U.N.'s Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, a body created in 1975 to implement the infamous General Assembly resolution declaring Zionism to be a form of racism. As planned, the event was an obsessive anti-Jewish and anti-Israel affair broadcast worldwide via a UN webcast.

Here is a sample of the hate-speech and encouragement of terror, not only tolerated, but promoted, at the United Nations.

Green-Lighting Terror

Mustafa Barghouti (UN-invited panelist, Member of the PLO Central Council, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and General Secretary of Palestinian political party the Palestinian National Initiative): "Popular Palestinian resistance to occupation and apartheid, brings back the same basic principles that we used in preparation and in initiating the First Intifada,..Popular resistance means using all forms of possible resistance... The most important form is the popular resistance on the ground by Palestinians."

"What does violence mean? If you are under aggression, do you have the right to defend yourself or not...Do people have the right to resist that or not? If they don't resist this intolerable injustice, they would be simply behaving as slaves... And even when we ask for punishment of the occupier, we are accused of being antisemitic."

"First of all, I want to say that I went to Chile, and I visited the Palestine Club, and I was so impressed, because on their shirts they used, instead of the number one, they used the map of Palestine. And then the Zionist Lobby organized a campaign and forced them to remove it, but they still kept it on the side, yes. And you could still see it."

[According to the map which Barghouti praised, all of Israel is "Palestine."]

Chile Palestinian Federation Shirt

Riyad Mansour (Invited panelist and Palestinian UN Representative): "We were able to articulate the Declaration of Independence of the State of Palestine as a result of that collective, remarkable effort of the Palestinian people in the First Intifada."

[The First Intifada (1987-1993) involved at least "3,600 Molotov cocktail attacks, 100 hand grenade attacks and 600 assaults with guns or explosives" directed at both Israeli soldiers and civilians. 16 Israeli civilians and 11 soldiers were killed, 1,400 Israeli civilians and 1,700 Israeli soldiers were injured. Approximately 1,100 Palestinians were killed in clashes with Israeli troops. Nearly 1,000 Palestinians were killed in inter-Palestinian fighting (an "intrafada") between 1989-1992.

UN-accredited NGO Al-Awda representative: "If Israel has a right to exist as you say, in what form does Israel have a right to exist? Does it have a right to exist in the format that it exists now, which is a supremacist colonizing state in the [19]48 territories... Most recent polls indicate that most Palestinians actually want one state and the only solution they see to their grievances is resistance..."

Saeb Erekat (UN-invited panelist and Secretary-General of the Palestine Liberation Organization): "Hamas and the PFLP [Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine] are not terrorist organizations....You believe you can maintain the status quo? You believe you can continue enforcing an apartheid deeper than the one that existed in South Africa and get away with it?"

[Both Hamas and the PLFP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) are listed as foreign terrorist organizations by the United States and by the European Union.]

Jody Williams (UN-invited keynote speaker, Nobel Women's Initiative): "Universal rights today, and I firmly believe this, universal rights today are threatened not by terrorists, they are threatened by fear. Universal rights are threatened by the fear perpetrated by governments under the guise of national security."

Demonizing the Jewish State Galia Golan-Gild (UN-invited panelist, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya): "There's spoilers on both sides, with the Islamists, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad on one side, the settlers, the Jewish settlers on the other side..."

Cuba: "The Palestinian people have been victims...[of] massive flagrant violations of their human rights and on a continuous basis murdering of thousands of their children..."

Tania Hary (UN-invited panelist, Executive Director for the NGO Gisha, Legal Center for Freedom of Movement): I also want to highlight that I think that this is particularly a kind of policy of hubris and cruelty. I think that what's happening in the Gaza Strip and what's been happening now for at least the last 10 years is one of the biggest experimentation projects on the planet. The idea is, how do you test the breaking point of 2 million people?"

Promoting Antisemitism

Wesam Ahmad (UN-invited panelist, from the UN-accredited NGO Al Haq): "Much of the Israeli economy is controlled by a select number of holding companies, or groups, or families. And these issues, I think, allow us to look at this issue of the economic interests...The Jewish community as a whole when this issue of economics playing a role in perpetuating the conflict leads to the question...is this conflict continuing in order to line the pockets of key individuals? And is the Jewish faith being used and exploited in the same way that the natural resources of Palestine are being exploited to achieve these ends?"

"So I think a question that I would like to see answered or a general opinion is, is the Jewish religion being exploited for economic gains by a key elite segment within Israeli society? And are they the ones that are driving this conflict..."

Aida Touma-Sliman (UN-invited panelist, a Knesset Member from the Joint List (alliance of Arab parties) "If the so-called Zionist left-which I don't agree that there is such a creature, there is no way of Zionism and left together [applause]."

Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) representative: "...Israeli surrounded themselves with...psychological walls that enabled them to live in peace with the idea of occupation: First, they believe that they are the chosen people and accordingly chosen people can do whatever they like, no question about this. Second, and this is more serious actually, the Palestinians are not human beings, they don't have human rights, and accordingly there is no question about human rights."

Mustafa Barghouti (UN-invited panelist, Member of the PLO Central Council, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and General Secretary of Palestinian political party the Palestinian National Initiative): "So Israel continues to bring people to Israel. They have a lot of money, and they use it... We are encountering a very well-organized structure. And by the way, Israel has built a very powerful lobby in the States."

Palestinian Federation of Chile (UN-accredited NGO - by the CEIRPP): "We have a major problem in Chile that the Jewish community of Chile is mainly Zionist. So we have a lot of problems and aggression on the part of the Jewish community..."

Antisemites Belittling Antisemitism

Mona Khalil (UN-invited panel moderator, UK-based organization "Independent Diplomat") asks: "...rather than naming and shaming Israel, such resolutions and recommendations have more often than not resulted in Israel's ability to name and shame the UN and the Human Rights Council as anti-Israeli and antisemitic. So how do you pursue justice and the rule of law in occupied Palestine without falling into the latter trap?"

Wesam Ahmad (UN-invited panelist, from UN-accredited NGO Al Haq) responds: "That is a very good question, Mona, and it's an issue that we face on a regular basis of how to address the seemingly absurd argument that the work that we are doing is somehow antisemitic... And it is something that we have to continue to push forward and not be silenced by this attempt to cover all activity, all criticism of Israeli policy as somehow being antisemitic...or the distinction between Judaism and the Zionist ideology that led to the creation of the State of Israel..."

Hagai El-Ad (UN-invited panelist, Executive Director of the NGO B'Tselem) responds: "I think this is an essential question...[T]his accusation [of antisemitism] is a propaganda line by the Israeli government is...Now it's-I'm saying this with bitter cynicism, but this is very real. And this is being deployed systematically as a silencing tool with a very clear agenda. The clear agenda is to successfully perpetuate the occupation while continuing to minimize international consequences."

Galia Golan-Gild (UN-invited panelist, Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya): "I think the accusations of antisemitism, at least in Israel, is part of the psychological manipulation of the public where they will say that the resistance by the Palestinians, or violence, or whatever, that's not opposition to the occupation. It was there even before the occupation. They hate us because we're Jews which is, of course, what they try to say using antisemitism outside as well."

Mustafa Barghouti (UN-invited panelist, Member of the PLO Central Council, the Palestinian Legislative Council, and General Secretary of Palestinian political party the Palestinian National Initiative): "When we ask for punishment of the occupier, we are accused of being antisemitic."

U.N. Forum Questions Israel's Right to Exist, Applauds Violent Palestinian "Resistance," and Promotes Antisemitism Development

Tzipi Livni (left) with UNESCO chairwoman Irina Bokova

Minister of Knesset Livni: Don't let Palestinians turn UNESCO into a political battlefield Article