Mideast Media Sampler 09/08/201

From DG:

1) Goldstone vs. Palmer


Gerald Steinberg and Gidon Shaviv explain why the Palmer report on the Mavi Marmara incident came out with results that were generally fair to Israel, whereas the Goldstone report was hopelessly compromise.

The first factor is that different UN bodies were behind the two reports. The Goldstone “fact finding” commission arose out of the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) which has 47 member states, including China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and, until recently, Libya and even Iran. The UNHRC has Israel as the only country on its permanent agenda and consistently singles out Israel for condemnations.

The record shows that activities involving the UNHRC are invariably biased.

In sharp contrast, the Palmer Commission was formed under the auspices of the UN Secretary General, reporting directly to him, and not to the UNHRC, where staff and a majority of countries hostile to Israel were unable to control the events.

I would add that the recommendation for Goldstone came from the OIC, which as an organization that rejects the war crimes charges against Omar Bashir of the Sudan. That magnifies the hypocrisy factor in the proceedings.


What's disturbing is the lack of acknowledgment of the corruption of the Goldstone report. After Richard Goldstone reconsidered his commission's report Ethan Bronner and Jennifer Medina of the New York Times wrote Past Holds Clue to Goldstone’s Shift on the Gaza War

“I know he was extremely hurt by the reaction to the report,” said Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Foundations, who has known Mr. Goldstone for years and remains close to him. “I think he was extremely uncomfortable in providing some fodder to people who were looking for anything they could use against Israel.” 
In describing his new position, Mr. Goldstone wrote, “If I had known then what I know now, the Goldstone report would have been a different document.” He has declined requests to elaborate. Interviews with two dozen people who know him suggest a combination of reasons: the hostility from his community, disappointment about Hamas’s continuing attacks on civilians, and new understanding of Israel’s conduct in a few of the most deadly incidents of the war. 
The year and a half since the Gaza report was published have been hard on Mr. Goldstone. Hailed by the Arab world and the anti-Israel left, he has been censured by those with whom he had always identified. One of his two daughters, who spent more than a decade in Israel and now lives in Canada with the man she married here, has been furious with him, according to a family friend; he was nearly unable to attend the bar mitzvah of his other daughter’s son in South Africa because of plans by some members of the Jewish community there to demonstrate against his presence. 

This article is misdirection at its worst. By describing the factors that caused Judge Goldstone to reconsider his commission's work the New York Times implied that his reconsideration was not normative. But given the pre-existing prejudices of his cohorts, the question should have been how an investigation so tainted could possibly be fair. Goldstone's reconsideration was less newsworthy than the open bias of the commission from its very start.


2) Our missiles are missing


CNN reported yesterday Libyan missiles looted (via memeorandum):

Peter Bouckaert, Human Rights Watch emergencies director, told CNN he has seen the same pattern in armories looted elsewhere in Libya, noting that "in every city we arrive, the first thing to disappear are the surface-to-air missiles."

He said such missiles can fetch many thousands of dollars on the black market.

"We are talking about some 20,000 surface-to-air missiles in all of Libya, and I've seen cars packed with them." he said. "They could turn all of North Africa into a no-fly zone."

The article doesn't mention another possible destination for the missiles. Reuters reported last week Israel says Gaza gets anti-plane arms from Libya.


3) It's been going on for three decades, or more


Yesterday Jonathan Schanzer wrote:

Abbas's two sons, Yasser and Tarek, have been gobbling up US contracts and are running the West Bank like a mafia family.

Daniel Pipes wrote How important is the PLO? in April 1983.

The benefits to the PLO have been staggering. Financial statistics cannot be specified, for the PLO does not circulate its budget, but published reports indicate that in recent years the organization received about $250 million yearly from Saudi Arabia and smaller amounts from other oil states, including $60 million a year from Kuwait. At a summit conference in Baghdad in 1978, the Arab states promised another $100 million annually. Non-Arab governments (such as the Soviet bloc) also gave generously; and if these insisted on cash for arms, third parties might be induced to pick up the tab, as in April 1982 when the Saudis promised $250 million to pay for weapons from Bulgaria, Hungary, and East Germany. When the PLO requested help from the Arab states last summer, the Algerian foreign minister called in the Soviet ambassador in Algiers at four in the morning and gave him a check for $20 million; the weapons reportedly arrived in Beirut several days later by air.
About 5 to 10 percent of the pay of the 300,000 Palestinians working in the Gulf states is withheld by the governments there and earmarked for the PLO; were all of this money to reach its stated destination (which is not the case), it would provide the PLO with about another $250 million a year. Aid also comes from the farther away, from radical and Islamic groups around the world: in January 1983, for instance, the Malaysian Islamic Youth Movement in Kuala Lumpur gave a check for $80,000 to the local PLO representative. Terrorist activities have also proved a source of funds; the PLO reportedly received $20 million in December 1975 for releasing the OPEC oil ministers it had helped take hostage.
With this capital, the PLO was able to start large-scale business enterprises. In Lebanon, it ran a conglomerate called Samad ("Steadfast") whose 10,000 employees and estimated $40-million gross revenues in 1980 made it one of the country's largest firms. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an organizational member of the PLO, achieved a near-monopoly over steel products in South Lebanon during the late 1970s by importing steel from the Soviet bloc at concessionary prices and paying no import duties (the PLO controlled the ports of Sidon and Tyre). Its factory, the Modern Mechanized Establishment near Sidon, undercut competitors and drove them out of business; then it raised prices and reaped huge profits. Many Lebanese believed that predatory pricing was integral to the PLO's plans to retain control over South Lebanon. In addition to its local investments - a hotel in Lebanon, a chicken farm in Syria - the PLO owns a portfolio of investments in the industrial states, including a disco club in Italy and an airline in Belgium.

Abbas's corruption isn't new. He's just the most recent and possibly weakest practitioner at the head of Fatah.


4) FollowupYesterday I wrote that PM Netanyahu agreed to a building freeze in response to the diplomatic furor over the announcement of building in Ramat Shlomo. Israel Matzav pointed out that I had the chronology wrong. He also speculates (contrary to what I wrote) that he believes that Abbas would have gone through the motions of negotiating with Tzippi Livni (had she formed the current government) as he would have had no excuse not to. 

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