Watch what happens. The committee will probably go to Europe and hold hearings and Peace Now will give evidence defaming Israel.. Israel should prevent Israelis from aiding or abetting such Commission.
Read Dan Margolit on The Un-Human Rights Council Ted Belman
Mati Tuchfeld, Yoni Hirsch and Israel Hayom Staff
Israel was considering recalling its ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Council over the council’s recent decision to investigate the impact of Israeli settlements on Palestinians in Judea and Samaria, Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said over the weekend.
The Human Rights Council passed the resolution to launch the investigation in light of Israel’s planned construction of new housing units for Jewish settlers in Judea, Samaria and neighborhoods in east Jerusalem. The council says such actions “undermine the peace process and threaten a potential two-state solution and the creation of a contiguous and independent Palestinian state.”
The 47-member forum adopted the resolution to launch a probe by a vote of 36 states in favor, including China and Russia, with one against (the United States). Ten abstained, including European Union members Italy and Spain.
The text was introduced by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and cosponsored by states including Cuba and Venezuela.
“In violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, Israel is continuing construction of illegal settlements in the occupied territories including East Jerusalem,” Pakistan’s ambassador, Zamir Akram, told the talks.
The three investigators are to be named at a later date.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu swiftly dismissed the Geneva forum on Thursday evening as “hypocritical” and having an “automatic majority against Israel.”
Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva Roni Leshno-Yaar told Army Radio Sunday morning that “unfortunately, we already have experience with such one-sided organizations.”
“The way Israel handled similar cases in the past proved very successful, be it with the Goldstone Commission or with the U.N. commission investigating the Gaza flotilla,” Leshno-Yaar added. “We handled those in the correct manner, with all the difficulty that accompanied the process.”
“Out of eight European Union states on the [Human Rights] Council, six chose to abstain in order not to support this initiative,” he said. “As far as I am concerned, that is a good indication.”
Pointing to the fact that more than half of the resolutions passed by the Human Rights Council have condemn Israel, Leshno-Yaar said “we must keep in mind that during the six years of the council’s existence, 46 resolutions condemning Israel have been approved, while only 36 resolutions dealing with all other countries, including Syria and Iran – have been approved in that time,” he stressed. “This goes to demonstrate this body’s legitimacy and degree of professionalism.”
Meanwhile, a senior government official in Jerusalem said that “Israel will not cooperate with the investigation just as we didn’t cooperate with the Goldstone Commission,” adding that the members of the investigative committee would not be permitted to enter Israel.
Vice Prime Minister Moshe (Bogey) Ya’alon issued a response to the HRC decision, saying, “The decision to investigate the settlements perpetuates the Human Rights Council’s definitive anti-Israel line, with record-breaking hypocrisy, ugliness and shamelessness.”
“A cursory look at some of the members of this council, who voted against Israel, reveals corrupt nations with cruel dictators who do not hesitate to massacre their own people, and other nations that deprive women, homosexuals and members of minorities of basic human rights,” Ya’alon added.
Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon also addressed the controversial decision, saying, “Once again, the Human Rights Council has proven to be a rubber stamp for the Palestinians. It was once again demonstrated that the Palestinians do not seek a historic compromise or peace, but that they only seek confrontation and battle.”
“This is an extension of the same diplomatic and political incitement campaign that the Palestinians have been waging against us in recent months, without pausing for a second. As far as Israel is concerned, the U.N. investigative committee has no validity – neither moral nor political – and therefore we will not allow them to operate here,” Ayalon concluded.
General director of the left-wing NGO Peace Now, Yariv Oppenheimer, also responded, saying, “We must make the distinction between the topic being investigated and the body doing the investigating,” Army Radio reported. “Obviously we think that settlements harm not only Palestinians, but also Israel – but the stance of the [Human Rights Council] is well known, and in fact, the report has already been written.”
“This is a predetermined report written by a committee that has lost its validity as an objective committee,” he added. “I expect that I will agree with some of its conclusions, but the framing of the thing and the fact that this committee will determine the conclusions will only serve to undermine the issue – it will rob the entire issue of its gravity and credibility.”
Meanwhile, the U.S. Congress released $86.6 million in Palestinian aid on Friday – more than half the amount U.S. lawmakers froze six months ago.
Texas Rep. Kay Granger, a Republican and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations, said that she would approve the transfer of the entire sum – some $147 million – arguing that Palestinian stability was in order now more than ever.
Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also a Republican, sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rescinding her objection to the transfer of the $86.6 million.
Off-point again.
I have a working knowledge of the War of Independence, Yamit. We’ve been over the Deir Yassin, Hadassah Hospital Convoy, Gush Etzion, and comparable stories repeatedly on this website.
@ yamit82:
Your claims have yet to explain why Irgun/Haganah troops didn’t rape Arab women.
Sorry Yamit, I don’t believe you.
The point was that rape isn’t about desire. Hence the Jews’ failure to rape Arab women wasn’t connected with “the Jews’ distaste of Arab women for sex,” to which Wallace had alluded.
Didn’t say rape wasn’t about revenge.
However, the most “primordial very human level” is that of the original family.
The memories of accumulated resentments toward the first female power figure in one’s existence may not be consciously present later in life, but they exercise a powerful impetus to payback when somebody commits rape — in wartime or otherwise.
Most guys have no idea just how much suppressed violence they harbor, and resentment specifically against women.
War often affords them the pretext for indulging what they’d never dream of even ACKNOWLEDGING (let alone, acting upon) during normal civilian life.
@ yamit82:
Killings and massacres during the 1948 Palestine War
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
@ dweller:
Dr. Dweller our resident Mystic in Residence: Try simply simple everyday garden variety REVENGE!!! Like what the Russians did to the Germans. Believe me it had nothing to do with resentment of their mothers just sipmple act of revenge and payback on a primordial very human level. Deir Yassin happened shortly after the Massacre on 27 March, “in a related action south of Jerusalem, a faza’a of Arab villagers ambushed a Haganah convoy from the Gush Etzion settlements. Thirty-six Jewish fighters {Lamed Heh) were killed, some of them wounded and deliberately executed, and the Red Cross delegate discovered that “their heads and sexual organs [had been] carefully mutilated” by the Arab fighters. Jews were outraged, but morale sank as the siege intensified.”
On April 13, a convoy of two ambulances, two buses, and two Haganah escort cars set off for Hadassah Mt. Scopus hospital in the early morning. At approximately 9:45 A.M., the leading vehicle hit a mine, and the convoy came under attack by Arab forces spraying machine gun fire. Two Irgun militants injured at Deir Yassin were among the patients being transported in the convoy. In the attack, 79 people were killed by gunfire or were burnt when their vehicles were set on fire. Twenty of them were women. Among the dead were Dr. Chaim Yassky, director of the hospital, and Dr. Moshe Ben-David, slated to head the new medical school (which was eventually established by the Hebrew University in the 1950s)
Other Massacres
@ Wallace Brand:
Your memory is working just fine, young man. You’re right on the money on both counts.
They may have no taste for Arab women, but rape is never really about desire — only power & resentment (usually of one’s own mother, ultimately; but that’s another discussion).
yamit, You digress. Have you heard of many wartime battles that had no casualties? What makes a war crime is when an officer in command takes risks of collateral damage that are not worth taking having in mind the needs of the objective or his soldiers target innocent civilians or lawful enemy combatants who have surrendered. Now that would be a massacre. Can you assure me that occurred at Deir Yassin?
@ Wallace Brand:
As I said there are many narrative versions on both sides much of which is conflicting. The Arabs will always choose what they want but it makes no difference. Even if the facts were less damning to our side who cares anymore? Their versions have been accepted by most Jews and the world as fact.
Sociologist Uncovers New Israeli Abomination: IDF Soldiers Not Raping Arab Women!
ISL – Jeruslaem
Yamit, I think the fictional number of Arab casualties was 250 and the actual number, to the best of my aging recollection was 106. There were some dead females in burqas because some of the Iraq troops had put on burgas and killed some Irgun soldiers that way. So a burga was no guarantee of a woman in it.
The 106 to my recollection was based on the recall of residents of Deir Yassin, who also denied that there had been any rape of Arab women.
In fact the Jews distaste of Arab women for sex is so pronounced that a left wing Doctoral Candidate’s thesis was given a prize at an Israeli University for claiming that such discrimination by Jewish soldiers was proof of Jewish racism.
Yamit, It is a massacre when the victims don’t have a chance as as Auchwitz. Deir Yassin was a battle with many Irgun casualties and was turned into a massacre just as the battle at Jenin was turned into a Massacre by Arab propaganda. Sure there were casualties. Sure the Arab casualties were more than those of the Irgun. The Jews are better fighters. al Ahram, an Egyptian newspaper ran a story by one of the Arab fighters at Jenin about the massive booby trap that had been prepared for the Jews at Jenin.. Large waterpipes packed with explosives. The Jews had 23 casualties to my poor recollection. The Arabs ended up with 56, most all males between 15 and 45, most found with weapons on their bodies. The Jews could have bombed Jenin and accomplished their objective as did the US in Bosnia and in Germany. But they elected to go in and risk house to house combat to save Arab lives at the cost of their own. To criticize this as even “maybe a massacre” is absurd. I’ll find that story in al Ahram for you if you can’t find it. The same is true for Deir Yassin.
@ Wallace Brand:
I did not mean alleged, nobody denies many Arabs were killed justly or unjustly depending on whose narrative you choose to accept. There are so many conflicting stories and eye witness accounts I am willing to accept anyone’s figure high or low. The numbers at this point are incidental and the real truth is probable somewhere between the Jews narrative and the Arabs. That said,as Deir Yassin greatly aided us in 48′ there is still an open possibility that The Arab Memory of Deir Yassin will be equally helpful to us in the future. In any event Leftist historians like Dr. Meir Pa’il. tend to corroborate the Arab Narrative and I tend to agree.
The 1948 Massacre at Deir Yassin Revisited
by Matthew Hogan
Not yet but I will.
Wallace Brand Said:
Wrong.
The Charter of the UN enables the GA to make recommendations only. Only the security Council is empowered to make binding resolutions (“law” is a misnomer). These resolutions are passed under Chapter VI. Five permanent members of the SC have veto privileges. Resolutions of an enforcement nature are done under Chapter VII
@ yamit82:
Dear Yamit,
You say, “within a year of the masacre”, did you mean “the alleged massacre”?
The ZOA inverviewed former residents and asked how many people they knew were missing or dead and came up with far less than the number pushed by the Haganah, and carried by the press worldwide. Even Albert Einstein was appalled by the reported number. This was the same main stream media that is reporting on Israel today, particularly the New York Times. If you haven’t read the Tom Gross story on that, you should.
@ Ted Belman:
Dear Ted, Here is my reply,
As I will be 82 in April, i get to blame citing UN Resolution 242, without checking, rather than UN 194 on my short term memory loss. The text of Resolution 194 reads, in pertinent part:
The UN
“Resolves that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible;”
The term “refugees” meant all refugees, not just the Arab refugees; it included the Jewish refugees that had been kicked out of Arab countries.
Israel offered to compensate the Jewish refugees on behalf of the Arab states out of the value of the property the Arabs had left behind if the Arab or Muslim States would carry out the congruent remedy for the Arabs, up to the value of the Jewish property forced to be left behind, or incapable of being carried with them such as realty, including improvements. The Jews had been prohibited from taking their cash savings with them and other personal property they lost as well as their realty. I am told that the acreage of property they left behind was about five times the acreage in Israel within the Green Line.
I regret to have to disagree with you on one point, Resolution 194. It did have a legal effect. It was a legitimate resolution of the UN General Assembly that would have been law if the Arabs accepted it. The Arabs had within their power to accept it. The Arabs declined as it would acknowledge Jewish sovereignty. And when they referred at all to it, they referred to it as directed only to Arab refugees.
My very best regards to you for the excellent job you are doing.
@ Wallace Brand:
I think we can credit Deir Yassin with the flight of many Arabs. Word of the attacks spread rapidly, causing many Arabs to flee, fearing for their lives. Within a year of the massacre, Deir Yassin, which had been emptied of Arabs, was re-populated with Jewish immigrants. As word spread the incident grew in actual proportion to the real numbers and facts with a lot of typical Arab embellishments with stories of rapes and disembowelment’s.
Typical of the Arab penchant for exaggeration, they create their myths and then start believing they are true. Worked pretty good for us though.
Wallace Brand Said:
Not so fast. R242 did no such thing. It does however affirm the necessity ” For achieving a just settlement of the refugee problem;”
Res 194 of the UNGA purported to deal with it but it is only a recommendation. It has no legal effect. It did not distinguish between and Arab and Jewish refugees and applied to both. Aside from requiring such refugees to live in peace, it said it must be done quickly. Myths and Facts lays it all out.
@ Wallace Brand:
Israel always relied on facts on the ground over legal argument, over rights ours and theirs. In my view Israel should never have agreed to 242 it was a legal trap. Does anyone now recall that legal historical footnote known as res 242? Arabs and peace contextually is an oxymoron. Yes stupidly Israel has allowed family reunions and acknowledge that tens of thousands of illegal Arabs have entered Israel and are living in Arab towns and villages, some are terrorists. I am all for family reunions in the opposite direction.
Arabs refuse to pay taxes in Israel and the authorities and police are afraid to use force to collect them. The Christian Churches refuse to pay taxes on non functional church properties totaling hundreds of millions in back taxes especially to the municipality of Jerusalem. These properties are extensive and quite valuable. Even the land that the Knesset is sitting is owned by the Greek Orthodox Church.
According to you then all these properties Arab and Christian should be expropriated for non payment of taxes? We should consider them abandoned property? I’d like to see you make a legal case out of these cases and make it stick.
Of course Israel can now do what every sovereign in the world has done and that is to remove the enemy antagonists from within our sovereignty along with the confiscation of their properties. Yes there will be a lot of screaming and vilification of Israel from every quarter. The UN along with America will condemn us, That would be quite upsetting. 🙂
@ Wallace Brand: I have been following with special interest the thread including extremely valuable information regarding the Land of Israel property and or Sovereign rights.
My specialty is Electronic Engineering and in particular Military Avionics, US Department of Defense military avionics programs. I retired as a Senior-Fellow Engineer. Our extended training in law was limited to Contract and Patent Law only.
I hold US Patent rights. Presently and since 11 years ago I am a Professor performing the function of Graduation Board Member on behalf of the Ministries of Labor and Education in Israel. Also an Invited Consultant to the Israeli Ministry of Defense.
Again, the thread is fascinating as it moved onward from the “unhrc” plain and simple attempt to re establish itself as the Mandatory Authority over Eretz Israel acting on behalf of the Arabs. In the comment referenced by me you brought to the fore the blatant activities of the self elected Israeli supreme courtiers aiding that activity by the united nations… That clearly aligned with the political basis of the said courtiers.
My question are:
A. Is there recourse available to the elected Parliament to reverse or void the acts of the so called supreme court and even penalize those acting to harm the interests and rights of the Jewish people?
B. Can citizens advance for Parliamentary consideration Law Proposals in a fashion that could serve as incentive to the Law Committee?
C. Who holds the land property records for lands part of Eretz Israel?
I would be very much interested on your answers.
Todah
@yamit. I agree that the Arabs helped Israel attain de jure sovereignty, even if they have not claimed it. Under the Balfour Declaration and the British Mandae for Palestine, the political rights to Palestine were to be held by the British, in trust for the Jews, until such time as the Jew attained a majority of population as I say in my op ed in Arutz Sheva, Par I and II,
Just plrior to the War of Independence, from my reading I understand that the Jews were still a 33.33% minority. It was the mass exodus of the Arabs by request and order of their Arab Higher Executive committee the put the Jews over the top, along with the immigration of Jews from the aftermath of the Holocaust and the majority was cemented with the immigration of Sephardic Jews in the crackdown on them in Arab countries in the aftermath of the War of Independence.
@ yamit82:
UN Resolution 242 permitted the return of those who would live peacefully with their neighbors. From my reading I find that Israel has let quite a few return, some even those who did not make this pledge if it united broken families, but had to stop when terrorist suicide bombers took advantage of this provision.
Land is abandoned if the owner doesn’t pay taxes. Taxes are an obligation that the holder of the title owes to the sovereign and I suppose the Arabs didn’t want to acknowledge Israel as the Sovereign and didn’t pay taxes. The former is the rule under English and American Law and may or may not be the law in Palestine. The latter is just supposition on my part, but I have seen nothing to contradict it and the Arabs have done everything they could, in any way they could, to not acknowledge Israeli sovereignty.. The Israel Supreme Court seems to go out of its way to find the Arabs own private property, even without proof as it did in Migron.
The absentee pprty law only applied to property in Israel i.e west of greenline.
@ Wallace Brand:
An interesting observation is that: The Israeli victories in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973 can be logically explained by peculiar military circumstances. After all, even a coin thrown up into the air can land on its edge. But after Yitzhak Shamir agreed to the Madrid Conference, which was the beginning of the giveaway of Judea to the Arabs, thirty-nine SCUD missiles hit Israel—the maximum number of lashes under the Torah’s law. Like under lashes, no one died from the Iraqi missiles.
The Torah tells us to exterminate Amalek, but to evict the Canaanite nations—not kill them. G-d even promised to plant terror in their hearts so that they would flee from us. In 1948, 400,000 Palestinian Arabs took off from their land and fled the country for no rational reason., this is what actually saved the Jewish State. Imagine what would have been if they hadn’t fled?
@ Wallace Brand:
I think both you and Ted will find this interesting.
Abandoned land is with intention of not returning, most of The Arabs who fled or were forced to flee had no intention of not returning to their homesteads and property. Israel did not let them return and passed the Absentee Property Law of 1950 which placed all “abandoned” Arab property in the hands of the Jewish National Fund and the Israeli Land Administration. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_land_and_property_laws
ISRAEL SHOULD GETS OUT OF THE UN ITS NOTHING BUT A RASIST ORGANSTION AND A NAZI AS FOR SO CALLED PEACE NOW ISRAEL SHOULD OUT LAW THOSE HATE MONGORES ANTI JEWS
Wallace. In the case of J&S, Ottoman law applies and we can’t change that until we claim sovereignty. As for posessary title, the Court recently held that a Jew who worked the land for many years can’t claim title unless he came by it “honestly”. I kid you not. Then the Migron ruling says that if the land is not state land than it is “Palestinian land” even if no Palestinian can prove ownership.
This is a very rough understanding of the rulings. But it is a fascinating topic.
@ yamit82:
Why shouldn’t someone build on abandoned land? In Israel, unclaimed or abandoned real property escheats to the state. It does so here in the US too.
The enormity of the sabotage that the government of Israel, GoI, commits without solution of continuity against Jews, Jewish towns and properties makes the money given by the US to their islamic associates look trivial. Considering the historic records I have no doubts that unJews will rush to help the new US “commission”. The GoI will not prevent that at all.
Mainly, stop complaining about the unfairness of it all — which sounds like a never-ending Jewish love song played to an accompaniment of whining violins — and do something either to get even with whichever unfair gang has been brought to your attention, or find some way to use their action for your overall strategic purpose.
You wouldn’t be in these repeated traps if your feckless and stupid national leaderships had not signed onto every bullshit promise the Washington bunch has shoved under your noses since 1967. Why in hell didn’t you just annex Shomron and Yehuda along with Jerusalem, Golan and the Sinai peninsula, back in 1967-1968? Why in hell did you ever believe in their fairy tales about peace with the Arabs and other Moslems? Sometimes it sounds to me that you lost all your Jewish street-smarts right after the 1967 war.
The real truth is that you never will have peace with these bastards. And I’m more than a little glad of that. Because if that were so, you would be in permanent long-term danger because of the tiny, squeezed-in piece of territory in which you live. Small countries with warlike and hostile neighbors rarely survive in the long run unless they regularly expand their territorial base. Exactly like in the animal and plant worlds. Because that is at the very root of the territorial imperative, which, along with unadulterated Tora without the Talmudic watering-down as to what this or that black hat re-interprets Tora in generation after generation, should be the twin guides for the life of the Jewish nation.
Get smart.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
All Congress is doing with the funds is practicing the typical American governmental merry-go-round of illusion-feeding, which comprises spending fiscal allocations on problems that are better worked out by benevolent neglect.
So don’t get too angry with them. Just understand that they no more can change their modus operandi than a cat can change the way she uses one paw or another to wash and clean behind her ears. It all instinctual.
But if you really want to get even with all of them, Israel can do two things simultaneously.
First, establish a new settlement right in the heart of Zone C or Zone B, and name it “Kfar Ileana”.
Second, now that you know how much money the Arabs have coming from Washington, up the prices for some of the services you supply them. Water, for example.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
@ Shy Guy:
Rule of Law, My ASS!!!
Tel Aviv University was partially built on the lands of the Palestinian village of Sheikh Muwanis. While it is known that some of the village lands were sold in 1924, others were not; and there has never been any mention by the University of what happened to those villagers who left the village in a hurry in March 1948.
Most of the Kibbutzim are built on the ruins of Palestinian villages. Why don’t the court rule for the destruction of TA University and the many Kibbutzim? The application of the so called rule of law is once sided and 100% political if not outright antisemitic.
A cure would be neoSicarii to deal with the tyranny of the courts media and academia. It worked in the past. What we need are fighting Jews in Y&S not boy scouts and if the rabbis object find new ones. Passivity only breeds contempt and invites more repression by the Israeli political and legal systems. I say Hang the shitty judges ( by ignoring their rulings and edicts) and damn the consequences. The settlers are aiding in their own destruction and will result in dissolution and disillusion.
So much for the fake Israel supporters in congress.
Every congressman who voted in favor of release of funds should be labeled an enemy of Israel!
What congressman voted for releasing funds to the Palestinian authority 86.6 million dollars on march 23 2012?
The U.S. Congress released $86.6 million in Palestinian aid on Friday – more than half the amount U.S. lawmakers froze six months ago.
Texas Rep. Kay Granger, a Republican and the chairwoman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on State-Foreign Operations, said that she would approve the transfer of the entire sum – some $147 million – arguing that Palestinian stability was in order now more than ever.
Florida Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, also a Republican, sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rescinding her objection to the transfer of the $86.6 million.
This pisses me off more than the UNHRC Because it will cost Jewish lives and enrich Terrorist leaders.
Who needs the UNHRC when you have Bibi & Co!