Is the Biden Gang Preparing the Way for a Renewed Azerbaijani Attack on Armenia?

 To answer the question in the  title above, Armenian-American organizations seem to think so.

Here is some what they are saying. They also mention US military aid to Azerbaijan:

ANCA pressures President Biden to stop arming Azerbaijan as Artsakh gas crisis continues

WASHINGTON, DC – The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) has once again issued a national call to action urging President Joe Biden to enforce Section 907 restrictions and block all US arms and aid to Azerbaijan, as the Aliyev regime continues to choke off gas supplies to Artsakh’s Armenian population. The campaign also calls for $50 million in US aid to Artsakh to help families rebuild their lives and resettle in safety upon their indigenous Armenian homeland following the 2020 Turkey/Azerbaijan attacks.

Thousands of pro-Artsakh advocates have already contacted President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris through the ANCA’s online portal sharing, “We remain deeply troubled that you have waived Section 907 sanctions against Azerbaijan and call on you today to immediately end any and all US military or security aid to this oil-rich and openly racist regime.” They go on to urge the White House to condemn Azerbaijan’s aggression, hold its leaders accountable for war crimes and call upon all Americans to support the national and democratic aspirations of the Armenian people. Advocates are also calling the White House comment line – (202) 456-1111; this line is open Tuesdays to Thursdays from 11:00am to 3:00pm EST..

Note that the Biden administration is disregarding congressionally mandated sanctions against Azerbaijan by waiving enforcement of the relevant statutes of US law. At the same time, the Biden State Department is offering cash grants to organizations that will uncover alleged Israeli "human rights abuses." More than half the states in the world are guilty of human rights abuses. But only alleged abuses by Israel are of concern to the State Department. Azeri violations of the human and national rights of ethnic Armenians are of no concern.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

See the press reports on the renewed Azeri attacks: here & here

Syria's Assad Regime Goes Humanistic -- Everybody Is a Humanitarian Nowadays

 The quote below has to be the quote of the month -- or near the top in the most astounding quote contest. It appeared in The Economist for 16 October 2021 in a report on the current Expo in Dubai:

    "We believe that every human being is part of the collective conscience."

Doesn't that sound great? How humane and how humanist? The Economist goes on about this statement: 

    ". . . a message on the walls of the Syrian pavilion . . . Why the Syrian government has spent         years dropping bombs on many of those humans is not explained."

Who knew that The Economist or its journos had a sense of humor?

Anyhow, not even The Economist asks why the Syrian regime has been accusing Jews throughout history of bizarre and horrid crimes.

Dead Arabs Don't Matter to the World -- Unless Israel Killed Them

The hypocrisy of the major world powers, of those who dominate the international mass media, is long known. Khaled Abu Toameh reminds us once again of how cynical the world media, most of it Western, can be. Abu Toameh points out how international journalists and international "human rights" bodies --the ones that are always dragging their halos around-- customarily overlook Arab victims whose sufferings have nothing to do with Israel. The purpose is to smear and hurt Israel... If a particular case of suffering cannot be attributed to Israel then it is hardly worth writing about.
In line with this of course is that the Palestinian Arab suffering that is deemed worthy of attention is only that of Arabs in Judea-Samaria, not that of those in Syria to be sure, since that suffering cannot be blamed on Israel. Nor does the Palestinian Authority --Mahmoud Abbas' statelet on the way-- care about any of this. Even those who speak in the name of the Palestinian Arabs care little about the suffering of Palestinian Arabs that cannt be blamed on Israel.

Here are some highlishts of Abu Toameh's essay:

Nearly 3,500 Palestinians have been killed in Syria since 2011. But because these Palestinians were killed by Arabs, and not Israelis, this fact is not news in the mainstream media or of interest to "human rights" forums.                                                         
• International media outlets regularly report on the "water crisis" in Palestinian towns and villages, especially in the West Bank. This is a story that repeats itself almost every summer, when some foreign journalists set out to search for any story that reflects negatively on Israel. And there is nothing more comfortable than holding Israel responsible for the "water crisis" in the West Bank.                                                          
• But how many Western journalists have cared to inquire about the thirsty Palestinians of Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria? Does anyone in the international community know that this camp has been without water supply for more than 720 days? Or that the camp has been without electricity for the past three years?

• When Western journalists lavish time on Palestinians delayed at Israeli checkpoints, and ignore bombs dropped by the Syrian military on residential areas,  one might start to wonder [what] they are really about.

Since the issue of Israeli water supplies to Arabs in Judea-Samaria became a major topic for international news agencies and "human rights" agencies in the past few years, let's look at Abu Toameh's information. He explains that whether or not Arabs, or Palestinian Arabs specifically, are deprived of water is of little concern to them. Again, the issue is what can be blamed on Israel reasonably, or even unreasonably very often. 

International media outlets regularly report on the "water crisis" in Palestinian towns and villages, especially in the West Bank. This is a story that repeats itself almost every summer, when some foreign journalists set out to search for any story that reflects negatively on Israel. And there is nothing more comfortable than holding Israel responsible for the "water crisis" in the West Bank.

But how many Western journalists have cared to inquire about the thirsty Palestinians of Yarmouk refugee camp in Syria? Does anyone in the international community know that this camp has been without water supply for more than 720 days? Or that the camp has been without electricity for the past three years? Yarmouk, which is located only eight kilometers from the center of Damascus, is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Syria. That is, it was the largest camp. In June 2002, 112,000 Palestinians lived in Yarmouk. By the end of 2014, the camp population had been decimated to less than 20,000. Medical sources say many of the residents of the camp are suffering from a host of diseases.

Just bear in mind that there is no reason to rely on the international media or the self-styled "human rights" agencies.

New York Times Blows Winds of Putsch for Israel & How President Truman Got Rid of an Insubordinate War Hero General

The New York Times has long been the mouthpiece of the US foreign policy Establishment. That the NYT is so hostile to Israel up to the point of crude lies demonstrates the deep rancor towards Israel of that Establishment.

We all know that the US and the other major WW2 allies were of little help to the victimized Jews during the Shoah, that is, during WW2. Whereas US warplanes bombed military targets near Auschwitz (Oswiecim) by 1944 --but not the gas chambers at Auschwitz nor the railroad tracks leading there-- the United Kingdom prevented Jews from finding refuge in the internationally designated Jewish National Home, the Land of Israel.

During the 1967 Six Day War, the intelligence ship, USS Liberty, spied electronically on Israeli military moves and sent the information to Jordan and Egypt. A US army signal corps truck-mounted electronic intelligence station did the same on a smaller scale from the Jordanian-controlled "West Bank." The truck had to pull back across the Jordan River with Jordan's Arab Legion when Israel took the "West Bank."

Now, the Establishment mouthpiece, the NYT, fans the flames of putsch, of a possible coup d'etat in Israel, publishing an article praising insubordinate Israeli senior army and intelligence officers for being "pro-peace" and "pro-human rights." The author, Ronen Bergman, has excellent sources in Israeli intel, according to his own writings, and the NYT describes him as "a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine." He is not a free-lancer but "a contributing writer." That is a more permanent arrangement. Here are some putschist samples:

IN most countries, the political class supervises the defense establishment and restrains its leaders from violating human rights or pursuing dangerous, aggressive policies. In Israel, the opposite is happening. Here, politicians blatantly trample the state’s values and laws and seek belligerent solutions, while the chiefs of the Israel Defense Forces and the heads of the intelligence agencies try to calm and restrain them. [NYT 21 May 2016]

Now right here we have what would be seen in the USA as justification for a putsch against the democratically elected government of PM Netanyahu. The politicians violate "human rights." See that buzz term, human rights? Now to another gem:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offer last week of the post of defense minister to Avigdor Lieberman, a pugnacious ultranationalist politician, is the latest act in the war between Mr. Netanyahu and the military and intelligence leaders, a conflict that has no end in sight but could further erode the rule of law and human rights, or lead to a dangerous, superfluous military campaign.

Lieberman is a pugnacious ultranationalist. Obama is not a pugnacious ultranationalist. He only wants to give The Bomb to a pugnacious religiously fanatic regime in Iran that believes that it has the right to The Bomb, despite Iran being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty. And we are warned of the further erosion of "the rule of law and human rights" as well as being threatened with "superfluous war." Obama incidentally seems to be moving closer to sending ground troops to Syria on the pretext of fighting ISIL which Obama has tried hard not to interfere with over the past two years. Of course, for Bergman, the generals and intelligence honchos who have made mistake after mistake, especially starting with Oslo, are the good guys, whereas PM Netanyahu and his government are the bad guys.

An I.D.F. general told me that the top brass saw the telephone call [by Netanyahu to the father of a soldier who had violated army rules and was being investigated and charged, which treatment Netanyahu did not cancel] as a gross defiance of the military’s authority. The deputy chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, chose one of the most sensitive dates on the Israeli calendar, Holocaust Memorial Eve, to react: He suggested that Israel today in some ways resembles Germany in the 1930s.

So the army has legitimate authority which the prime minister lacks, indeed its authority is superior to that of the elected leaders. Apparently the military is not supposed to be subordinate to the civilian government. And Israeli supposedly resembles Nazi Germany in some ways. I would say that Israel is more in the position of France in the 1930s pre-Vichyite period when "peace movements" in France and Britain were calling on their governments to make peace with Hitler, giving him what he wanted which also conformed to the principle of "self-determination", some said, especially Communists. 

Caroline Glick is one of the few to have seen this coming:

Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon is openly supporting the growing insubordination of IDF generals. In a speech last night, he urged senior officers to publicly air their opposition to government policies. In so doing, he brought Israeli democracy into an unprecedented crisis.. . .  a regime where civilians are free to act in accordance with their conscience even when doing so places them in opposition to the government is a democracy.
A regime where military commanders are free to act in accordance with their conscience even when doing so places them in opposition of the government is a military dictatorship. [Caroline's facebook page, 16 May 2016]

Also see her as follows:

For the Obama administration, Israel’s security brass is an alternative government. . . . , for the [US] administration, “Israeli democracy” means the Left is in charge [link here]

In other words, the Obama administration might not be averse to a military coup d'etat taking place in Israel, provided that the ensuing military government will follow Obama's demands on Israel for concessions to the Nazi-like "Palestinian Authority." Mahmoud Abbas is obviously, in the NY Times lexicon, not a pugnacious nationalist.
         Defense Minister Yaalon's public statements over the past year have too often been dishonest, if hesitant, attempts to smear Jewish inhabitants of Judea-Samaria and the Jewish public in general for crimes against Arabs, for violations of human rights, and so on. This appears to be a coordinated effort, what with the deputy chief of staff Yair Golan comparing Israel with Germany in the 1930s and other lies, totally overlooking the often Nazi nature of the content of Palestine Authority TV and radio programming, mosque preaching, newspaper articles, and so on. DM Yaalon's first dishonest and improper transgression was to accuse Jews of firebombing last summer an Arab home in the village of Duma near the Shiloh and `Eli settlements in which three Dawabsha family members died. Certainly, this was a terrible act but it is hardly certain who did it and the evidence for Jewish participation is weak, just some Hebrew grafitti. But Arabs too can write Hebrew and even do Hebrew grafitti. The more likely explanation of the crime is that it was part of a family feud or clan vendetta, a common enough event in Arab society. Indeed, houses were attacked with firebombs in that village both before and after the  one that killed three persons.
      Another one of Yaalon's offenses was to intervene in the case of a soldier who killed an already disabled terrorist in Hebron. This was a violation of army rules for opening fire. However, it should be handled by the military justice system. It would have been one thing for Yaalon to say that such events are regrettable and against orders and the case must be investigated and prosecuted. However, it was wrong of Yaalon to accuse the soldier of murder. There is such a thing as due process, even in the army. 

Deputy Chief of General Staff Maj.-Gen. Yair Golan compared Israeli society  to the Nazis on Holocaust Remembrance Day. This was a direct assault on the government’s policy of fighting, rather than joining, Israel-bashers who deny the right of the Jewish state to exist. And his comrades in the General Staff and in the Left praised him for his appalling behavior. [Caroline Glick, here]

Then there is the late Maj.-Gen. Meir Dagan, the retired director of the Mossad. Last Thursday Channel 2’s investigative news program Uvda broadcast an interview with Dagan, conducted shortly before his death. Dagan told the host Ilana Dayan that in 2010, he committed espionage. Dagan revealed that in 2010, he went behind Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s back and informed then-CIA director Leon Panetta that Netanyahu

and then-defense minister Ehud Barak were about to order the security services to attack Iran’s nuclear installations. [Caroline Glick, here]

The US of course does not tolerate insubordination by high ranking officers. We will take up the case of war hero General Douglas MacArthur below. Now back to the NYT's taste for a putsch in Israel, Ronen Bergman fills out the picture:

In some conversations I’ve had recently with high-ranking officers about Mr. Lieberman’s appointment as defense minister, the possibility of a military coup has been raised — but only with a smile. It remains unlikely.

So Bergman tells the NYT and its readers that the subject of a possible coup has been raised. But it is "unlikely." It's cute that the ever so democratic NYT is so interested in hearing about a possible coup in Israel that they publish a piece that transparently and implicitly justifies just that, if not going so far as to advocate a coup. But why is the NYT  pushing a putsch in Israel? The motive is obvious. They want Israel to bend to Washington's dictates, which under Obama are more blatantly anti-Jewish than under previous presidents. That means Israel surrendering territory to fanatically hate ridden pan-Arabist and Islamist Arabs, obsessed with hatred for the Jews who have stepped out of the humiliated place of the dhimmi as decreed by Islamic law.

The NY Times continues with its buttering up of the army to the detriment of the elected civilian government. A piece by Isabel Kershner [NYT, 29 May 2016] makes ex-Defense Minister Ya`alon look good, democratic, whereas Netanyahu and Lieberman look bigoted and narrow, etc: "the generals . . . have spoken out against manifestations of extremism in the ranks and in broader society," "shrill segment of the public," "an aggressive segment of the public."  The people who are fed up with murder and mass murder efforts are "aggressive," "shrill," "extremist," etc. On the other hand, "Other Israelis want the military to remain a moderating force and a bulwark against extremism." Are these "Other Israelis" the supposedly good folk who would welcome a military coup against "extremism"?

General Yair Golan, deputy chief of staff, sanctimoniously declaimed on the eve of Holocaust Remembrance Day:

"if there is one thing that is scary in remembering the Holocaust, it is noticing horrific processes which developed in Europe – particularly in Germany – 70, 80, and 90 years ago, and finding remnants of that here among us in the year 2016." [here]

This is a Judeophobic accusation. An implicit assertion that the Israeli people are Nazi-like. That is another justification for a coup. After all, he is saying that the people are immoral. Their elected government is perforce immoral. No comment from Golan about the profound Nazi-like hatred of Jews and Israel fostered by the Palestinian Authority, by Hamas, by the press in various Arab countries, and in Western lands where the media habitually misrepresent what happens in Israel as well as the relevant history of Arab-Jewish relations. 
The prime minister perceived the threat in Golan's remarks: "Mr. Netanyahu rebuked General Golan, criticizing his remarks as outrageous, and said, “The I.D.F. is the people’s army and must remain out of political debates.”" [here]
On the other hand: 

"While the controversial comments drew fire from many within the nationalist camp, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon defended Golan, arguing that criticism aimed at him was part of a larger “campaign to harm the IDF and its officers politically.”“The responsibilities of an army officer, especially a senior commander, are not limited to leading soldiers out to war, but also include charting out a path and ethical standards with the help of [his] moral compass,” said Yaalon." [here]

Yaalon is speaking out of what he claims is higher morality. But since Golan's comparison to Germany in the 1930s was false and ignorant at best, Ya`alon's defense was also out of place. And the implicit support in his words for insubordination and possibly a putsch was obviously wrong. 
Netanyahu properly rebuked Ya`alon:

Netanyahu reportedly called Yaalon, sharply criticizing him for defending Golan’s comments [here]

Looking back to 20th century history, we can see that the USA, both before and after WW2, rather often supported generals who overthrew legitimate governments abroad. In some cases this was justified as opposition to corrupt and tyrannical regimes, as in Egypt in 1952 and Iran/Persia in 1979. The problem is that corrupt and tyrannical regimes have often enough been replaced by regimes that were even worse by every measure. As in Egypt and Iran (Persia). Ask yourself if the present Islamic fanatic Khomeini regime of the ayatollahs in Iran now is any better than the Shah's regime that it replaced, with the aid of the Carter Administration. Or is it even worse?

In any event, the powers that be in the United States do not like insubordinate generals who dispute the civilian leadership openly. 
Douglas MacArthur was a hero in both world wars, I & II. He was the commander of American forces in the Korean War, starting in 1950. His brilliant Inchon landing behind North Korean Communist troops opened the way for American and allied forces to reach the Yalu River between North Korea and China. After China entered the war in late 1950, MacArthur 

"wished to bomb Chinese bases in Manchuria and was prepared to risk a full-scale war with communist China. President Truman sought to hold him in check but MacArthur made public his advocacy of carrying the war into China. This defiance of official government policy led the President peremptorily to relieve him of his commands on 11 April 1952." [Alan Palmer, The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth Century History (New York: Penguin 1979), p242]

"When President Truman would not agree to his plan for an attack upon  Communist China, MacArthur made his opinions public and Truman responded by relieving the General of his command. . . . his action represented a challenge to civilian authority which the President did not hesitate to meet." [Walter Laqueur et al., A Dictionary of Politics (rev ed; New York: The Free Press 1974), p307]

So we see that MacArthur openly defied the president of the time and his policy. He was insubordinate and was dismissed. The US government does not tolerate defiance of its policy by its own generals. But somehow such insubordination is OK when practiced against other governments and may even be encouraged by US government mouthpieces like the New York Times.
- - - - - - - - - -
Also Read:
JNi.Media in Jewish Press, 6 May 2016 "Netanyahu Confronts Yaalon over Call to IDF to Speak Their Minds," [here]
Amnon Lord, 6 May 2016: "Meir Dagan's Private Putsch" [in Hebrew] [הפוטש הפרטי של מאיר דגן] [פה]
Shmuel Rosner, "Israel defense forces against people of Israel" Jewish Journal, 16 May 2016 [here]
Bret Stephens, "Netanyahu against the Generals," Wall Street Journal 23 May 2016 [here]
7-17-2016 Joel Fishman explains the anti-democratic nature of those who want the generals to rule Israel as generals rule in other, less enlightened countries throughout the world. Fishman specifically criticizes the anti-national Israeli journalist Amir Tibbon [here]

Now the EU Is Facing Subversion by Russia, Doing What the EU Does to Israel

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Europe

The EU and US have lately been complaining about the non-profit organization transparency bill being promoted by Ayelet Shaked, Israel's minister of Justice. They complain that it inhibits democracy, human rights and freedom, etc, the usual excuses for their attempts to bend Israel to their will so that it will capitulate to Arab fascists, jihadists, and genocidists --embodied in Fatah and Hamas-- and give up territory to them so that it loses its strategic terrain needed for defense against ground attacks. But now it turns out that Russia is supplying funds to political parties in EU countries that work against the EU. When Russia does it, it's not fair, it's not right, it's subversion. When the EU itself plus EU member states supply tens of millions of euros over the years to supposed Israeli "non-governmental organizations," supposed non-profit bodies, instead of using the money to help needy EU citizens, in Greece for example, then that's OK. That's democracy. But democracy depends on transparency, a supposed value of the EU. However, when Israel wants to subject foreign-funded so-called NGOs to transparency requirements, then that is not nice, not fair, not democratic. Just by the way, NGO Monitor has pointed out that the EU funding to the "palestinian authority" is anything but transparent. It is often very difficult for NGO Monitor to find out from official EU sources which "NGOs" the EU is funding and with how much money. Hypocrisy thy name is Europe.

Of course, when the shoe is on the other foot, when Russia does it to the EU, then . . . . See below:

American intelligence agencies are to conduct a major investigation into how the Kremlin is infiltrating political parties in Europe, it can be revealed.
James Clapper, the US Director of National Intelligence, has been instructed by the US Congress to conduct a major review into Russian clandestine funding of European parties over the last decade. . . .
The review reflects mounting concerns in Washington over Moscow’s determination to exploit European disunity in order to undermine Nato, block US missile defence programmes and revoke the punitive economic sanctions regime imposed after the annexation of Crimea.
The US move came as senior British government officials told The Telegraph of growing fears that “a new cold war” was now unfolding in Europe, with Russian meddling taking on a breadth, range and depth far greater than previously thought.
“It really is a new Cold War out there,” the source said, “Right across the EU we are seeing alarming evidence of Russian efforts to unpick the fabric of European unity on a whole range of vital strategic issues.”
A dossier of “Russian influence activity” seen by The Sunday Telegraph identified Russian influence operations running in France, the Netherlands, Hungary as well as Austria and the Czech Republic, which has been identified by Russian agents as an entry-point into the Schengen free movement zone.The US intelligence review will examine whether Russian security services are funding parties and charities with the intent of “undermining political cohesion”, fostering agitation against the Nato missile defence programme and undermining attempts to find alternatives to Russian energy.[The Telegraph, London, 16 January 2016. For the full article see here]

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In a related development, Austria, an EU member state, is passing legislation to limit foreign influence on Islamic religious institutions in Austria. See below:

More significantly, Paragraph 6.2 of the law seeks to limit the religious and political influence of foreign governments within the Austrian Muslim community by prohibiting foreign countries -- presumably Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the Arab Gulf states -- from financing Islamic centers and mosques in Austria. [here]

More than 900,000 Jewish Refugees from Arab Lands

Given the general state of ignorance of history worldwide, it is no surprise that most people, even many Jews, are not aware of the  Jewish refugees from Arab lands. Of those who know something of this forgotten history, few know that these Jewish refugees outnumbered the Arab refugees who fled the Arab-initiated war on the not yet born Jewish State of Israel which started on 30 November 1947. Last year, Israel's parliament, the Knesset, passed a law that every 30 November is to  be a day to commemorate the Jewish refugees from Arab lands and Iran. Arab attacks on Jews on Arab lands accelerated after that date, which was the date, by Middle Eastern time, that the UN General Assembly  recommended partitioning the Land of Israel ["palestine" in Western parlance] between a Jewish state, an Arab state, and and international enclave in and around Jerusalem [corpus separatum]. After more than 1000 years of oppression, inequality, humiliation and recurrent persecution and pogroms in Arab/Muslim lands in the inferior status of dhimmis, the Arab states wanted to get rid of the local Jews, since they could not tolerate Jews sharing an equal status with Muslims.

Ashley Perry and Lyn Julius have written separately on this day of commemoration, a day to remember what has been too long forgotten and relegated to the periphery of discussion of Arab-Israeli issues, of Arab-Israeli diplomacy.

Here is Lyn Julius:
The date chosen was 30 November - to recall the day after the UN passed the 1947 UN Partition Plan for Palestine. Violence, following bloodcurdling threats by Arab leaders, erupted against Jewish communities. The riots resulted in the mass exodus of Jews from the Arab world, the seizure of their property and assets and the destruction of their millennarian, pre-Islamic communities. In 1979, the Islamic revolution resulted in the exodus of four-fifths of the Iranian-Jewish community.

Refugees are much in the news these days. Until the mass population displacement caused by wars in Iraq and Syria, however, the world thought that 'Middle Eastern refugee' was synonymous with 'Palestinian refugee.' Yet there were more Jews displaced from Arab countries than Palestinians (850, 000, as against 711,000 according to UN figures.)

The majority of Jewish refugees found a haven in Israel. For peace, it is important that all bona fide refugees be treated equally, yet Jewish refugee rights have never adequately been addressed. The 30 November commemoration is first and foremost a call for truth and reconciliation.

The Jewish refugee issue is more than simply a question to be resolved at the negotiating table. It is a symptom of the Arab and Muslim world's deep psychosis - an inability to tolerate the non-Arab, non-Muslim Other.

Today, both Muslim sects and non-Muslim minorities are being persecuted in the Middle East, but people are apt to forget that the Jews were one of the first. As the saying goes, 'First the Saturday people, then the Sunday people.' And it does not stop there. A state that devours its minorities ends up devouring itself.
This Arab/Muslim psychosis is the product of fundamentalist ideologies, many of them Nazi-inspired, which took root in the first half of 20th century. These ideological forces left a legacy of state-sanctionedbigotry and religiously-motivated terrorism. That legacy is with us today, in the atrocities in Paris, in Mali and in the stabbings on Israel's streets.

. . . .

The Israeli government is telling the Jewish refugee story at the UN on 1 December. From Amsterdam to Sydney, Toronto to Geneva, Liverpool to New York, San Francisco to London, Jewish organisations worldwide - my own (Harif) included - are organising lectures, film screening and discussions.

Read article in full 
Same article in The Algemeiner 
It's time to remember the other refugees on 30 November (Jewish Weekly)

here is Ashley Perry:

Making 2016 the Year of the Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries
. . . . . .
One of the issues I was able and proud to raise during my time in Government was the issue of the ethnic cleansing of almost a million Jews from the Middle East and North Africa, many of these communities massively predating Islam and the Arab conquest of the region in the Seventh Century, and the appropriation of their assetsestimated in today’s prices to be many billions of dollars.
. . . . . . . .

Growing up in a thriving Jewish community, attending a Jewish school and being involved in the Jewish community and Zionist organizations, I am amazed now, thinking back, how little was taught about the long and illustrious history of the Jewish communities of the Middle East and North Africa and their subsequent expulsion.

How many are taught about the Jewish communities of Algeria, Egypt, Syria and Yemen, to name but a few of many nations now completely without a Jewish presence?

We often raised this issue on the international stage and at the Foreign Ministry under the leadership of then-Foreign Minister Avigdor Liberman, and even initiated a now annual event at the United Nations solely devoted to the issue of the Jewish refugees from Arab countries with our partners in the World Jewish Congress and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

However, the more we pressed the issue, which by international and Israeli law must be part of any resolution to our conflict, the more I understood that Jews in Israel and abroad are not even aware of it.

. . . . now more than ever, it is vitally important that the issue of the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa is studied and discussed in Jewish schools and educational and communal institutions across the Diaspora.
. . . . . .
In 2014, the United Nations General Assembly recommended that 2014 [be] a year of solidarity with the Palestinian people and called on people around the world to recognize their “inalienable rights”. Perhaps 2016 should become the Jewish year of solidarity with the Jewish refugees from Arab countries and there should be greater recognition, understanding and education of the inalienable rights of these people to rights and redress.

 We should not allow the suffocation and extinction of these historic communities to be erased from the pages of history. We should share their stories, and keep their memory alive, especially their destruction which was largely ignored around the world.

Let’s make 2016 the year where this changes.
[See full article here]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Report on the upcoming commemoration on the News1 web site [in Hebrew]:
נתניהו: להרחיב לימודי יהודי המזרח
תישקל הצעת השרה גמליאל לתת פרס 
 ראש הממשלה לחוקרים ובאקדמיה על 
מחקרים בתחום מורשת היהודים יוצאי 

ראש הממשלה בנימין נתניהו הורה להרחיב את לימודי מורשת היהודים יוצאי ערב ואירן במערכת החינוך וכן לשקול את הצעת השרה לשוויון חברתי גילה גמליאל לקיומו של פרס שיינתן מטעמו של ראש הממשלה לחוקרים ובאקדמיה על מחקרים בתחום מורשת היהודים יוצאי ארצות ערב ואירן.  השרה גמליאל סקרה לפני הממשלה את נושא היציאה והגירוש של יהודים מארצות ערב ומאירן וזאת לרגל ציון יום מיוחד לנושא זה שיחול ב-30.11.15.  במסגרת סקירתה, מסרה גמליאל נתונים על מספר היהודים שעזבו את ארצות מוצאם והבהירה כי כשני שלישים מהם הגיעו למדינת ישראל והשתקעו בה.  היא הציגה גם את החלטות האו"ם בעניין פליטים והחלטות הכנסת באמצעות חקיקה לגבי השמירה על זכויות היהודים לפיצוי על רכושם. כן ציינה השרה את הפעולות הנעשות בארץ ובעולם לציון מורשתם של היהודים יוצאי ארצות ערב ואירן לרבות פעולות שצריך להמשיך ולנקוט בהן בעיקר במערכת החינוך ובאקדמיה.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
More Articles on This Subject
Jewish refugees from the Farhud in Baghdad [here]
A commemoration in Australia [here]
Dr Edy Cohen on Ynet news [here]
Elderly Jewish refugees remember their experiences [here]
Report on the commemoration in Jerusalem [here]
Review by Elliott A Green of a book on this subject compiled by Malka Hillel Shulevitz [here]
Excerpt from the aforementioned book, by Bat Yeor [here]
"Forgotten Oppression of Jews under Islam" by Elliott A Green [here]
Report on the commemoration event at the UN in New York [here]

Hamas Strategy: Provoke Deaths of Its Own Civilians in order to Have Israel Condemned as a Lawbreaker -- Law Prof & Ex-General

Hamas is practicing a "lawfare strategy", according to Prof Charles Dunlap, jr. He sees, as I do, that Hamas wants to get many of its people, its own civilians, killed, in order to charge Israel with warcrimes and thereby achieve political goals. One might say, in order to achieve military goals through the means of international law or its interpretation. Hamas' charter makes clear that its political goals are also military goals. Its charter calls in article 7 for the mass murder of Jews. This mass murder is depicted in a medieval Muslim hadith fable  --reproduced in Art. 7 of the Charter-- as occurring at Judgment Day. But it is obvious that such a story encourages Muslims to murder Jews in the here and now.

Here is Dunlap's article on Hamas strategy:

Guest Post: Has Hamas Overplayed Its Lawfare Strategy?

By Charles J. Dunlap, Jr.
Tuesday, August 5, 2014 at 2:03 PM

 

In the current Gaza conflict, the adversaries are employing very different strategies to achieve their operational objectives. Israel is executing a robust military strategy. By striking rocket launch capabilities, as well as tunnel complexes, Israel is conducting what the generals calls a “strategy of denial,” that is, operations that aim to “deny” its adversary the physical capability to wage war.
Hamas’ strategy is, however, quite different. Lobbing rockets indiscriminately at Israeli population centers along with engaging in a few firefights in an effort to kill at least some Israelis is not, militarily speaking, a meaningful warfighting effort.
Rather, Hamas is employing a “lawfare” strategy. A lawfare strategy uses (or misuses) law essentially as a substitute for traditional military means; it is employing law much like any “weapon” to create effects or obtain results in an armed conflict that can be indistinguishable from those typically produced by kinetic methods.
There are many versions of lawfare, but in this case Hamas is attempting to use the fact of Palestinian civilian casualties to cast Israelis as war criminals. In doing so it seems that Hamas is hoping to achieve their aims not by defeating Israelis on a Gaza battlefield, but rather by delegitimizing Israel in the eyes of the world community by establishing them as lawbreakers in an era when adherence to the rule of law is so important to democracies.
According to an Associated Press report, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights believes that since the previous conflict with the Israelis in 2009, they have become “more efficient in touring sites of destruction, taking photos and collecting witness accounts.”
And Hamas has enjoyed some real success.  Many, perhaps most, governments and nongovernmental organizations are accusing Israel of excessive use of force in Gaza.  Disturbingly, however, some of the opposition in Europe even appears to be morphing into anti-Semitism, which must be pleasing to Hamas operatives.
Regardless, Hamas won an important lawfare victory when a resolution passed by the UN Human Rights Council denounced Israel for “widespread, systematic and gross violations of international human rights and fundamental freedoms” during its military operations in Gaza (even though the “independent” investigation also called for by the resolution has not yet gotten underway).
As successful as Hamas has been thus far, its lawfare offensive may be slowing down. Unsurprisingly, the Israeli government has been insisting all along that Hamas violations of international law are primarily responsible for the tragic loss of life in the Gaza conflict. What is different now is that more balanced renditions of the law of war are emerging, and a few legal experts are even beginning to speak out in an affirmative defense of Israeli operations.  These may begin to counter to a degree at least what has been characterized as a Hamas strategy that actually “relies on the deaths of civilians.”
To be sure there are still plenty of legal scholars critical of Israel’s Gaza offensive. A few even decry its high-tech efforts to warn civilians as somehow being a cynical form of lawfare itself. For its part, the Israeli Defense Forces are countering with a state-of-the-art public information campaign heavy with videos and charts designed to illustrate what it does to minimize civilian casualties. And it does seem that at least for some audiences the more facts they get the less likely they are to be supportive of Hamas.
For example, a late July Gallup poll shows that 71% of Americans who are following the news “very closely” believe that Israel’s actions are justified as opposed to just 18% who do not follow very closely who hold that view. Additionally, the poll also shows that those with more education support the Israeli actions. All of this might suggest that as people become more familiar with the facts they are less likely to support Hamas, and this could mean that time is not on Hamas’ side.
Most problematic may be a growing belief that, as already suggested, Hamas is deliberately jeopardizing lives of Palestinians in order to pursue its lawfare strategy. Indeed, Hamas seems to be admitting as much. USA Today quotes a Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri using the word “strategy,” in commending people for “ignoring Israeli warnings” to evacuate before a bombing: “The fact that people are willing to sacrifice themselves against Israeli warplanes in order to protect their homes, I believe this strategy is proving itself.”
To many observers Hamas’s lawfare strategy is obvious. CNN analyst Michael Oren quotes former President Bill Clinton as saying that Hamas “has a strategy designed to force Israel to kill their own [Palestinian] civilians so that the rest of the world will condemn them.”
Of even more significance may be the claim in Algemeiner Journal that Turki al Faisal, who once headed Saudi Arabia’s intelligence services, said “Hamas is responsible for the slaughter in the Gaza Strip.” This is especially damaging given other reports that many Arab leaders are now assessing Hamas as “worse than Israel.”
The bloodshed and destruction may be weakening support even among suffering Palestinians themselves. Moreover, the New York Times reports that Hamas, perhaps “feeling pressure over the mounting deaths,” altered its message to Palestinians from telling them to ignore Israeli warnings to telling Palestinians to “avoid hot areas” and to “stay inside after 11 p.m.” Furthermore, the overwhelming support Israelis have shown for their offensive seems to remain undiminished.”
Still, the situation remains sufficiently in flux that the outcome of Hamas’s lawfare strategies and Israeli counter-lawfare efforts is still uncertain. Though the legal concept of “proportionality” has been often misunderstood in the press despite expert efforts at clarification, at some point the sheer numbers of Palestinian deaths, however legally justifiable, may cause even those who support Israel to insist upon an end to the fighting at almost any price.
The lesson here may be that sophisticated counter-lawfare techniques such as those Israel has employed cannot replace a reasoned dialogue about how much military force is truly essential to the nation’s strategic interests. Law professors Michael Reisman and Chris Antoniou presciently warned in 1994 that the public support that democracies need for even a limited armed conflict can “erode or even reverse itself rapidly, no matter how worthy the political objective, if people believe that the war is being conducted in an unfair, inhumane, or iniquitous way.”
In its unadulterated form lawfare, as a manifestation of the rule of law itself, could help a party to a conflict achieve success – even enduring success – in the complex pol-mil milieu of 21^st century conflicts. To do so, however, lawfare – to include counter-lawfare efforts – must be more than simply a shrewd and aggressive public relations campaign. It must be supported by facts that demonstrate actual adherence to the law, an axiom both Hamas and Israel may want to note.

 

---

About the Author

Charles J. Dunlap, Jr. is currently a Professor of the Practice of Law and Executive Director, Center on Law, Ethics and National Security, at Duke Law School. He retired from the Air Force in 2010 as a Major General.

Link: http://justsecurity.org/13781/charles-dunlap-lawfare-hamas-gaza/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

8-23-2014 Lee Smith describes Hamas' strategy to get its own people killed [here]
 

The "Arab Spring" Teaches Lessons about the Past

UPDATING 2-9&11&12&14&25-2012 at bottom

Anti-Zionism is the anti-imperialism of fools.

Let's take the "Arab Spring" at face value. It is a struggle for freedom & democracy by peoples long oppressed by their own governments. Let's overlook the cultural pathologies that infect both Arab regimes/dictatorships and Arab peoples. Taking this supposed Arab version of the 1848 "Springtime of the Nations" at face value, we are left with the indisputable fact that Arab regimes have terribly oppressed their peoples. But this was a fact many years ago.

In 1982, Syria's Assad regime, then led by young Bashar's father, Hafiz, slaughtered thousands in the rebel-dominated city of Hama [Muslim Brotherhood rebels]. Estimates of those slaughtered range from 10,000 to 40,000. On June 27, 1980, about 800 political prisoners were released from the Syrian prison at the Palmyra oasis [Tadmor in Hebrew, Tadmur in Arabic]. They were released from the jail and were walking towards a place to catch buses. While walking on the road they were attacked by helicopter gunships and slaughtered, two years before Hama [see another version of the massacre here]. Even Tom Friedman, that notorious apologist for Arab cruelty and ruthlessness, used the Hama incident as a metaphor for all Middle Eastern cruelty and ruthlessness. He calls them: Hama Rules.

So the ruthless cruelty and barbarity, the murderousness of the Assad regime, were known --at least to those who wanted to know-- thirty years ago. The regime was quite capable of slaughtering fellow Arabs. Even the supposed cherished darlings of the Arabs, the Palestinian Arab refugees. Robert Hatem, a militiaman in Lebanon, wrote in a book that Syria was behind the Sabra-Shatila massacre of Palestinian Arabs in Beirut (1982) through the instrumentality of his own leader, Elie Hobeika, a Christian Phalangist militia leader secretly in the service of Hafiz Assad.

In the 1970s, Hafiz Assad had the Lebanese political leader Kamal Jumblatt --father of Walid Jumblatt-- assassinated. These assassinations were repeated in the year 2005 and since in Lebanon, starting with Rafiq Hariri, former Lebanese prime minister. Hariri's murder has been attributed to Hizbullah operatives by the International Tribunal for Lebanon. But the Lebanese know that Hizbullah operates in the service of Syria & Iran. The top terrorist of Hizbullah, `Imad Mughniyyah, lived outside Lebanon in Damascus under Assad regime protection [until his own assassination in February 2008].

Again, Assad regime murderousness has been no secret for 35 years or more. Yet Assad's Syria has been in good odor at the UN "human rights" commission and at its replacement, the "human rights" Council. Western "Leftists" and Western haters of Israel flocked to Damascus to pay homage to Assad Senior and Junior. George Galloway, the British hater of Israel and toady to Arab dictators, openly admired the Assad regime and sought its aid for an alleged "humanitarian" operation to "Free Gaza" and shame Israel in world public opinion through a "Gaza Freedom Flotilla." Likewise, the American Friends Service Committee, the social action arm of the Quaker Church [Society of Friends] and recipient of US Govt funds, was eager to carry out a "Free Gaza Flotilla" against Israel, denouncing Israel's partial blockade of Gaza which was and is ruled by Hamas, an Islamist, jihadist terrorist organization which happens to have its headquarters in --you guessed it-- Syria where the top Hamas leadership enjoyed Assad regime protection and sponsorship. In other words, Westerners who supposedly and avowedly wanted to liberate Arabs collaborated with the butchers of Arabs [and of Jews too, of course]. Michael Rubin points out the AFSC's hypocrisy here. Rubin asks: "Where's the Syria Flotilla?" We have not heard of Galloway or the AFSC or the Free Gaza gang or the "International Solidarity Movement" organizing a Free Syria Flotilla or doing anything to alleviate the suffering of Syrian Arabs, although every day lately brings reports of scores or even hundreds killed in Homs and elsewhere in Syria by those whom Galloway obsequiously called the defenders of Arab dignity.

Not only "human rights" fakers but diplomats and high ranking politicians in the West have been eager to win the favor of the Assads, Senior and Junior both. Several years ago, James Baker, a Bush-family hanger on, secretary of state for the first Prez Bush, got together with Lee Hamilton, a former US congressional representative and mentor to Prez Obama, drawing up a report that envisioned Israel surrendering the Golan Heights --which enjoyed a large Jewish population in Roman times and overlooks Israeli towns and the Sea of Galilee-- to Syria under Junior Assad. Israeli surrender of the Golan to Syria would supposedly do wonders for American interests in the Middle East, including stopping Syrian aid for terrorists attacking American troops in Iraq. In February 2008, Zbigniew Brzezinski, another Obama mentor and Prez Jimmy Carter's national insecurity advisor, went to Damascus to notify the Assad regime that Obama in the White House would mean a friend of theirs in power in Washington. Providentially, while Zbig was in Damascus, arch-terrorist mass murderer `Imad Mughniyyah was assassinated there.

Another Washington well-wisher of the Assads was Martin Indyk, ex-US ambassador to Israel, who tried to arrange a meeting in Damascus in 2009 for high-ranking Americans with Junior Assad and other regime personalities. One of those that Indyk wanted to bring to meet Assad was former US president, Bill Clinton, of "I-did-not-have-sex-with-that-woman fame." Fortunately, for whatever reason, the meeting did not come off.

To be sure, not all of the friends and would-be friends of the Assad regime or its allied Iranian regime are Americans or British, far from it. The Turkish intelligence chief obtained custody of Iranians fighting in Syria to suppress the uprising in behalf of the regime --and captured by rebels. He released them back to Iran after their capture in Syria. He was working in collaboration with the Turkish jihadist organization, IHH, tied to the present Turkish govt and sponsor of the "Free Gaza Flotilla" of 2010, and which in particular had sent the jihadist thugs on the Mavi Marmara --a ship under lease to it-- who attacked Israeli naval commandos who had boarded the ship to enforce the anti-Hamas blockade of Gaza. Michael Rubin commented: "The IHH may describe itself as a humanitarian organization, but in practice, its main goal is to provide aid and comfort to terrorists."

There is no "Free Syria Flotilla" by the usual "human rights" campaigners against Israel. There is no counterpart of the "Goldstone Commission" for Syria, no fact-finding mission to Syria sent by the UN "human rights" Council as was sent to Gaza.

Just in the past week, on February 5, while Syrian civilians were being slaughtered, bombarded with artillery shells in Homs, Human Rights Watch held a press conference in Jerusalem at the usual location for such events --the American Colony Hotel-- to denounce alleged Israeli abuses of Arab human rights. On that same day, this story was the top main item on the HRW homepage. But we see no comparable actions on the part of HRW in favor of Syrian Arab victims of their own government. [UPDATING: on 9 February this neglect of the story of civilians being slaughtered in Homs was finally corrected. On that day the story went up as the top item. However, the agony of Homs under bombardment had been going on for weeks. No urgency on HRW's part, of course]

We see that for decades, Western powers and other great powers, including Washington, were quite willing, indeed eager, to be friends with the Syrian Assad regime. All that time, wild, crude mendacious Judeophobia, implicitly genocidal, was emanating from Damascus against the Jews and Israel, including endorsement of the 1840 ritual murder libel in Damascus against the local Jewish community. This Judeophobia did not deter either the EU or USA from befriending the Assad regime. And some liars and some lunatics in the West believe that Israel controls Western policy.

Furthermore, we see that among those who worked against Israel in the name of humanitarianism and peace and human rights --as in the Gaza Flotilla/Mavi Marmara affair-- there was and still is a cynical disregard of humanitarianism and peace and human rights when Arabs oppress fellow Arabs, slaughter fellow Arabs, deny rights to fellow Arabs, and so on. So the real motive of the "peace," "human rights" and "humanitarian" assaults on Israel in the past was not as advertised. Can we exclude the possibility that humanitarian concern, and so forth, for Palestinian Arabs concealed and conceals rancorous Judeophobia and contempt for the rights and welfare of Arabs --as well as of Jews??

- - - - - - -
UPDATING 2-9-2012
Lessons about past indictments and excoriations of Israel on moralistic grounds:
1- The Western press and electronic media have in the past minimized the severity and horror of Arab govt assaults on their own peoples. This can be applied to Iraq, Egypt, Sudan and of course Syria.
2- Western "human rights" and "peace" campaigners have neglected to a great extent Arab govt oppression and brutality against their own peoples. Western governments have done the same for decades, in step with their own "Leftist," "human rights" and "humanitarian" groups, or perhaps the moralistic "civil society" groups in Western lands were in step with their own governments.
3- Therefore, the Western moralizers, whether in govt or in civil society groups cared little for the human rights and welfare of Arabs if this could not be blamed on Israel. Therefore, the moralistic attacks on Israel were pretexts for Judeophobia.

Palmyra prison massacre of June 27, 1980. According to the French press that I read around that time, the prisoners were killed by helicopter gunships. Another version has troops entering the prison and killing the prisoners in their cells.
2-11-2012 Lee Smith uncovers the shameless toadying of Western elites, journalists, & academics to the Assads, father & son & their hangers-on [here]
2-12-2012 The late Franklin H Littell wrote back in 1990 [Jerusalem Post, 10-28] about Syrian slaughter of several hundred prisoners of war by the Syrian army. This was accomplished in October 1989 when the Syrian army --commanded by today's Assad regime-- was crushing [with US State Dept approval] the last remnants of Lebanese independence. The troops slaughtered were Lebanese army troops under General Aoun. These were Lebanese army troops, once again, and they had surrendered to the superior force and armaments of the Syrian invaders. Slaughtering them was clearly a violation of international law, but that did not matter to the "international community." Yet this "community," the UN, the Arab League, EU, the OIC, US, did not complain. International law, which is so often brought up when it seems that violations can be imputed to Israel, was largely disregarded worldwide when Syria clearly violated the international laws of war. The horror of the lack of international response or reprimand at that time is not lessened by the fact that Aoun has since switched sides since returning from France in 2005, apparently seeing no way for Lebanon to free itself from Syrian-Hizbullah domination and choosing joining the enemy as the safest course, that is, he likely saw allying with Syria and its Hizbullah catspaws as the safest course.

Fundamentally, Aoun was acquiescing to the pro-Syrian position throughout the years of the Great Powers, the UN, EU, etc. Franklin Littell points out the pro-Syrian policy of President Bush I which was not much different from that of Obama until embarassment over Assad regime brutality pushed Obama to demanding that Assad leave office several months after he had begun slaughtering his own civilian population. It took Obama and Hilary several months to realize --or to acknowledge-- what was going on. Until Assad's brutality in his own country was obvious to all, Obama and Hilary had always referred to him sympathetically [Assad was "a reformer"], as previous administrations had done for his father. Franklin Littell wrote in 1990 about Syrian completion of the takeover of Lebanon in October 1990:
"For an American, a most wretched aspect is the role the White House and State Department have played. They threw away a stable Lebanon, rescued from terrorist invaders [by Israel] when it was handed to them in 1982 [by Israel]. They apparently gave the signal to Assad that the US would not interfere. Assad [Senior], like Hitler in 1938 at the time of the Austrian Anschluss, had nothing to fear from the world." [Jerusalem Post, 28 October 1990]. Note that the American president at that time was not Obama but his supposed Republican antithesis, George Bush I.
- - - - - - -
2-25-2012 Martin Sherman uses current events in Syria & Egypt to show the foolishness of Israeli leaders in the past.