UPDATES 9 am Israel time, Tuesday, October 1 2013:
*It has been another violent night in and around Jerusalem. An Israeli motorist was struck by Molotov cocktails while driving between the city and Bethlehem. Near the tunnel barrier south of Jerusalem, the driver of a car was hit in the head by “rocks”. She was treated by MADA and transferred to Hadassah Hospital.
*It has also been another violent night on the Gaza border. Just after midnight, an IDF patrol spotted two Palestinian terrorists trying to breach the border fence. The soldiers opened fire hitting both infiltrators. Apparently one was killed and the other, though wounded, managed to escape back toward Gaza.
*It has also been another violent night on the Syrian border with heavy shelling and mortars in and around Quneitra. As you may or may not know, Quneitra was the site of the old border crossing on the Golan Heights but is now a depopulated town in the U.N. demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria.
*J Street, the self-proclaimed “pro-Israel pro peace” American organization, came further out of the closet yesterday by unbelievably hosting Husam Zomlot of Fatah, the largest faction of the PLO.
In a speech to J Street delegates, Zomlot proceeded to call for “full recognition of the Nakba” and “the right of return” to Israel for so-called Palestinian “refugees”. Both statements were met with sustained applause from the J Streeters. Of course, we have all known that since its inception, J Street was about as pro-Israel as the extreme leftist Meretz and Balad parties in Israel; now there is open confirmation of that fact.
TODAY’S BLOG:
Europe has always been home to some of the most vitriolic anti-Israel individuals and organizations on the planet, organizations that proclaim the importance of everyone’s human rights except those of Israelis. Two news events from yesterday bring that fact home in ever sharper relief.
First, it was announced yesterday that Mona Seif, the Egyptian lawyer who tweeted anti-Mubarak tweets during the overthrow of Mubarak in the so-called “Arab Spring” is one of three finalists in the running for “The Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders”–the supposed Nobel Prize of human rights.
For those of you who aren’t aware of the Martin Ennals Foundation; it is based in Geneva and is composed of a collaboration between: Amnesty International; Human Rights Watch; International Federation of Human Rights; World Organisation Against Torture; Front Line; International Commission of Jurists; Human Rights First; International Service for Human Rights; Diakonie Germany; and HURIDOCS.
It is funded by (among others): the European Foundation for Human Rights, Amnesty International (International Secretariat), the United Bank of Switzerland– Geneva, the European Commission Brussels, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, France, the United Kingdom, and Norway.
Part of Seif’s nomination citation reads:
“In 2011, during the protests that eventually brought down the Mubarak regime, Mona attracted international attention as she took to social media and provided reporting on the events directly from Tahrir square where she and her family spent ten days protesting. As she said ‘Using Twitter, using social networks, and with my phone, working on cases of military detentions, tribunals and torture – this has become my own space. I’ve found my own way of being part of all of this now.'”
Conveniently ignored by the Martin Ennals foundation are many of Saif’s other rabidly anti-Israel tweets such as ones declaring her support for the missiles being fired at Israeli civilians, and this one in March of last year:
“I am ready to shed my blood in the West Bank and Jerusalem to become a martyr.”
Or this one earlier:
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“The day will come when I fight to the death in Gaza.”
But don’t be surprised if Mona Seif walks away with this award. She is precisely the type of “human rights” activist who appeals to the Europeans–advocating as she does, “human rights” for all people except Israelis.
Second, Shimon Peres, Israel’s President and “wanna be” rock star, took his show on the road yesterday to International Court of Justice in The Hague. Everywhere Peres goes these days, he is toasted and feted as if he were the world’s wisest man. But it wasn’t what Peres said yesterday that caught your humble servant’s eye.
No, what caught my eye were the incredibly self-serving and absurd introductory remarks made by ICJ President Judge Peter Tomka from Slovakia:
“We are honored by your presence. Peace can be based on justice and solid legal foundations. Whenever we solve disputes between sovereign states, we always emphasize that the most efficient way is through negotiations. We wish your people peace and justice in a safe and secure environment with peace with your neighbors.”
“We wish your people peace and justice in a safe and secure environment”?
Lest we forget, one of the most infamous “advisory opinions” in the history of legal jurisprudence was issued by the ICJ on July 9, 2004. At precisely the moment, when Israelis were being blown to pieces in buses, coffee shops, discos, and restaurants–and Israel had begun to build a barrier between itself and the Palestinian terrorists, the ICJ issued this opinion (allow me to quote just the first two sentences):
“A. By fourteen votes to one,
The construction of the wall being built by Israel, the occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, and its associated regime, are contrary to international law;
B. By fourteen votes to one,
Israel is under an obligation to terminate its breaches of international law; it is under an obligation to cease forthwith the works of construction of the wall being built in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including in and around East Jerusalem, to dismantle forthwith the structure therein situated, and to repeal or render ineffective forthwith all legislative and regulatory acts relating thereto, in accordance with paragraph 151 of this Opinion . . .”
Of course this ruling emanating from Europe has been used ever since to brand Israel as a violator of “human rights.” The fact is that the International Court of Justice cares nothing about peace, justice, or a safe and secure environment for Israelis. It didn’t in 2004 and still doesn’t today.
A student from Malawi, who had worked with an Israeli health volunteer in his country battling AIDS, came up to us as we walked down the street in the UC-Davis Picnic Day Parade and wanted to carry the Israeli flag.