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Debunking Lies and Myths

Debunking Lies and Myths
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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

HOW THE CIA HELPED THE MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD INFILTRATE THE WEST


How the CIA Helped The Muslim Brotherhood Infiltrate the West

by Jerry Gordon (August 2011)


Muslim Brotherhood and founder Hasan al-Banna

In April of 2007, then House Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer had an encounter with Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood representatives in Cairo. Fox News reported:

Monday, March 24, 2014

ISRAEL'S WATER ISSUES - EUROPEAN UNION HEAD ADMITS NOT LEARNING THE FACTS BEFORE LAUNCHING ATTACK ON ISRAEL

THE FACTS ABOUT THE PALESTINIAN WATER SUPPLY
 
By Mark Langfan 
 
European Parliament head, Martin Schulz, admitted that he hadn't checked the facts before he castigated Israel - from the Knesset podium - for denying Palestinian Arabs water. Here they are.
The State of Israel Water Authority (IWA) released a PowerPoint report entitled “The Water Issue Between Israel and the Palestinians.” (the “IWA Report”) in 2012.. 
 
The IWA Report debunks the BDS (boycott-divest-sanction) myth that “Israel is stealing West Bank water from the Palestinians,”
 
In fact, the IWA Report provides documentary and graphic evidence that the Palestinians have ““stolen”” water from Israel in direct, and constant “breach” of the Oslo Accords. 
 
The IWA Report is full of clear and colorful graphics which illustrate many of the "West Bank" Water issues.  For example, the graphic below shows how the Tel Aviv Yarkon-Taninim coastal aquifer is recharged by rainfall in the "\West Bank" (Judea and Samaria).


Water in Israel (IWA)

The IWA Report’s main conclusions are:
 
Israel supplies to the Palestinian Arabs in Judea and Samaria 46 million cubic meters (MCM) a year more water than Israel is obligated to under the Oslo Accords.
 
Israel supplies to the Palestinian Arabs, as a whole, 52 MCM a year more water than Israel is obligated to under the Oslo accords.
 
In direct breach of the Oslo accords, the Palestinian Arabs have drilled over 300 unauthorized wells in the "West Bank". (This “off the books” extra water, drawn by the Palestinian Authority, is in addition to the extra 52 MCM of water Israel has allocated to the Palestinian Arabs above the required Oslo Accords allotment.)
 
The Palestinian Arabs do not treat their sewage water which is contaminating the Western Samarian aquifer that topographically runs westward down the western half of the Samarian "West Bank" Mountains to the Tel Aviv coastal plain aquifers. (See this reporter’s graphic compilation.) 
 
In direct breach of the Oslo accords, the Palestinian Authority is not developing any new sources of water, either through sewage treatment or desalination.
 
Recently the BESA Institute released a report by the internationally renowned, Hebrew University water-expert Dr. Haim Gvirtzman entitled “The Israeli-Palestinian Water conflict: An Israeli Perspective which asserted that “despite there being a $500 million international Donor fund available” for the building of sewage treatment plants, “The Palestinians refuse to build sewage treatment plants.” 
 
The Gvirtzman BESA Report is an excellent and thorough explanatory paper that fills in the IWA Report, and clearly elaborates many of the underlying "West Bank" water issues. 
 
The two reports are a “must read” for anyone trying to counter the BDS “water” blood-libel against Israel.
 
This article was first posted on Israel National News on March 22, 2012. The situation has not changed.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BEDOUIN IN ISRAEL - PART 2 - ARE THE BEDOUIN VILLAGES HISTORICAL?


For part I, click HERE

Six part series on the claims of Bedouin tribes in the Negev, based on research by REGAVIM and aerial photographs.
 
Myth 2 : Are the Bedouin Villages Historical?
 
In the past few years, the Bedouin of the Negev and extreme left non-government organizations (NGO’s) have repeatedly claimed that most of the Bedouin villages are “historical” and that Bedouin have inhabited these villages since before the creation of the State of Israel. Take, for example, the Joint Position Paper: Bill on Arrangement of Bedouin Settlement in the Negev, of May 2013).[4]

Friday, March 21, 2014

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE BEDOUIN IN ISRAEL - PART I - ARE THEY "INDIGENOUS"?

 
6 Part Series: The Truth About the Negev Bedouin, Pt. I
 
A comprehensive research paper in six parts, divided into "myths".
 
By Jewish land rights organization REGAVIM
 
 
Myth 1: Are the Bedouin “Indigenous”?
 
Around twenty-five years ago, a global  discussion began surrounding the term “indigenous peoples” as it relates to ethnic minorities throughout the world.
 
International law, however, began to address the issue of indigenous peoples as far back as the 17th century, and by and large the matter was left to the discretion of the individual states. With the passing of the years, the law began to recognize the independent status of indigenous ethnic groups (such as the Indians and the Aborigines) in a way that was bound together with previous legal agreements regarding preservation of culture, holy sites, and other factors.
 
The International Labor Organization (ILO) associated with the United Nations tried to advance two international treaties concerning the rights of populations that define themselves as indigenous, yet were unsuccessful in formulating a statement, due to the differing views of each country on sovereignty and indigenous populations.
 
In the past few years, key figures in the Bedouin sector in Israel began to apply this term to themselves as defining their independent status, together with a demand for recognition of their historic ownership of lands across the Negev.
 
Despite the lack of an international agreement as to the definition of “indigenous”, the general recognition of indigenous peoples uses several parameters, focusing on the following:
  • Original Inhabitants – Indigenous peoples are descendants of the first peoples to inhabit a particular territory.
  • Extended Period of Time – Indigenous peoples have lived in a territory “from time immemorial”, over a period of thousands of years.
  • Pre-Colonial Sovereignty – Indigenous peoples had territorial sovereignty before the arrival of a  developed nation that took possession of the region.
  • Group Connection to the Land – Indigenous peoples have a spiritual connection to the land on which they live.
  • External Validation – Indigenous peoples are recognized by other external groups which affirm that they are in fact indigenous.
Professor Ruth Kark of the Geography Department of the Hebrew University, considered an expert on issues of land ownership in traditional and pre-modern cultures, in an article that appeared in the “Middle East Quarterly,”[1] enumerates the generally accepted parameters of the term “indigenous,” and explains why the Bedouin cannot be included in this category. Here is the synopsis of her conclusions:
 
Original Peoples – Many groups preceded the Bedouin in Palestine in general and in the Negev in particular, including Jewish inhabitants who maintained an uninterrupted presence in the land since the days of the Bible. Therefore, the Bedouin cannot claim that they were the original inhabitants of the land.
 
The Dimension of Time – The variable called, “from time immemorial” requires a long-standing presence on the territory. The Bedouin tribes currently living in the Negev have been there for about two hundred years [2]. As such, they cannot claim that their presence predates the arrival of a foreign power, such as the Ottoman Empire, which preceded the current Bedouin tribes present in the Negev by hundreds of years.
 
Sovereignty –The Bedouin of the Negev never had sovereignty over the region. When they arrived, the Negev was already under Ottoman control, followed by British and then Israeli control.
 
A Unique Spiritual Connection to the Territory – Nomadic life precludes any specific fixed connection to the land. There is no long-standing proof in Bedouin tradition establishing a spiritual connection between them and the Negev, a logical result of their relatively brief presence there and to their nomadic lifestyle. Indeed they claim the Arabian Peninsula to be their historic homeland.
 
Today, the Bedouin are not claiming collective rights to the land, but are rather demanding fulfillment of private land ownership claims of individual families, giving them the possibility of selling the lands and transferring them to a third party.
 
Such individual demands are contrary to the spiritual dimension, and point to the fact that the main aspiration of the Bedouin is financial gain, with no collective character that would support their campaign to be recognized as indigenous.

The Group Defines itself, and is regarded by others, as indigenous inhabitants of the Territory – The claim of the Bedouin as indigenous is quite recent, and was first mentioned only a small number of years ago [3]. Previous studies did not find that the Bedouin regarded themselves as indigenous and no researchers made the claim as such.
 
Although the UN Committee on Indigenous People did bestow indigenous status on the Bedouin of the Negev, the fact that no other Bedouin tribe in the Middle East ever made a claim of being indigenous raises questions as to the motives and authenticity of such a claim.
 
The fact that the Bedouin of the Negev, in many cases, are part of the same tribe that dwells in neighboring countries, also makes it illogical to say that only the Bedouin who live on the Israeli side of the border should considered indigenous.
 
Conclusion:
 
The narrative according to the Bedouin claim that they are “indigenous” does not fulfill the world’s accepted criteria for being considered indigenous.
 
 
Sources:

1. “Are the Negev Bedouin an Indigenous People? Fabricating Palestinian History”. Havazelet Yahel, Dr. Seth Frantzman & Prof. Ruth Kark. Middle East Quarterly. Summer 2012, pp. 3-14
 
2. Ottoman tax records from the years 1596-97 specify the names of forty three Bedouin tribes in what was to become the Palestinian Mandate, including three in the Negev, yet the names of the tribes living today in the Negev do not appear in this list.
 
3. The first articles to relate to this claim appeared about ten years ago in the platforms of organizations identified with the radical left in Israel such as “Adalah,” “the Negev Co-existence Forum,” and “Human Rights Watch.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/14722#.Uyw9EZuPKM8

 
RELATED
 
Jews are the indigenous people of Israel - Palestinians are historically recent migrants
 
Debunking the 'Palestinians as Native Myth'
 
A Native and a Zionist - An Canadian Native supports Jews as the Aboriginal people of Israel
 
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Saturday, March 1, 2014

THE PALESTINIANS' REAL ENEMIES


by Efraim Karsh
Middle East Quarterly
Spring 2014


For most of the twentieth century, inter-Arab politics were dominated by the doctrine of pan-Arabism, postulating the existence of "a single nation bound by the common ties of language, religion and history. … behind the facade of a multiplicity of sovereign states";[1] and no single issue dominated this doctrine more than the "Palestine question" with anti-Zionism forming the main common denominator of pan-Arab solidarity and its most effective rallying cry. But the actual policies of the Arab states have shown far less concern for pan-Arab ideals, let alone for the well-being of the Palestinians, than for their own self-serving interests. Indeed, nothing has done more to expose the hollowness of pan-Arabism than its most celebrated cause.
 

Denying Palestinian Nationalism



Emir Faisal ibn Hussein of Mecca became the effective leader of the nascent pan-Arab movement. He placed Palestine on the pan-Arab agenda by falsely claiming that he and his father and brother had been promised the country in return for their anti-Ottoman uprising.


Consider, for instance, Emir Faisal ibn Hussein of Mecca, the celebrated hero of the "Great Arab Revolt" against the Ottoman Empire and the effective leader of the nascent pan-Arab movement. Together with his father and his older brother Abdullah, Faisal placed Palestine on the pan-Arab agenda by (falsely) claiming that they had been promised the country in return for their anti-Ottoman rising. In January 1919, he signed an agreement with Chaim Weizmann, head of the Zionists, supporting the November 1917 Balfour Declaration on the establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine and the adoption of "all necessary measures … to encourage and stimulate immigration of Jews into Palestine on a large scale."[2] Yet when the opportunity for self-aggrandizement arose, in March 1920, he had himself crowned king of Syria "within its natural boundaries, including Palestine." Had either option been realized, Palestine would have disappeared from the international scene at that time.
Nor did Faisal abandon his grand ambitions after his expulsion from Damascus by the French in July 1920. Quite the reverse, using his subsequent position as Iraq's founding monarch, he toiled ceaselessly to bring about the unification of the Fertile Crescent under his rule.
 
This policy was sustained after his untimely death in September 1933 by successive Iraqi leaders, notably by Nuri Said, Faisal's comrade-in-arms and a long-time prime minister. In the summer of 1936, Said sought to convince Palestine's Arab and Jewish communities, as well as the British government, to agree to the country's incorporation into a pan-Arab federation, and six years later, he published a detailed plan for pan-Arab unification (known as the Blue Book) that envisaged that "Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Transjordan shall be reunited into one state."[3]

The scheme was vigorously opposed by Abdullah, who strove to transform the emirate of Transjordan (latterly Jordan), which he had ruled since 1921, into a springboard for the creation of a "Greater Syrian" empire comprising Syria, Palestine, and possibly, Iraq and Saudi Arabia; and it was the Arab states' determination to block this ambition and to avail themselves of whatever parts of Palestine they could that underlay the concerted attempt to destroy the state of Israel at birth. This, on the face of it, was a shining demonstration of pan-Arab solidarity; in reality, it was a scramble for Palestinian territory in the classic imperialist tradition. As Arab League secretary-general Abdel Rahman Azzam admitted to a British reporter, Abdullah "was to swallow up the central hill regions of Palestine with access to the Mediterranean at Gaza. The Egyptians would get the Negev. [The] Galilee would go to Syria, except that the coastal part as far as Acre would be added to Lebanon if its inhabitants opted for it by a referendum [i.e., the inhabitants of the said coastal strip]."[4]

Had Israel lost the war, its territory would have been divided among the invading Arab forces. The name Palestine would have vanished into the dustbin of history. By surviving the pan-Arab assault, Israel has paradoxically saved the Palestinian national movement from complete oblivion.
 

Manipulating the Palestinian Cause


Having helped drive the Palestinians to national ruin, the Arab states continued to manipulate the Palestinian national cause to their own ends. Neither Egypt nor Jordan allowed Palestinian self-determination in the parts of Palestine they occupied during the 1948 war. Upon occupying the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria, Abdullah moved to erase all traces of corporate Palestinian Arab identity. On April 4, 1950, the territory was formally annexed to Jordan to be subsequently known as the "West Bank" of the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan. Its residents became Jordanian citizens, and they were increasingly integrated into the kingdom's economic, political, and social structures.
 
And while Egypt showed no desire to annex the occupied Gaza Strip, this did not imply support of Palestinian nationalism or of any sort of collective political awareness among the Palestinians. The refugees were kept under oppressive military rule, were denied Egyptian citizenship, and were subjected to severe restrictions on travel. "The Palestinians are useful to the Arab states as they are," President Gamal Abdel Nasser candidly responded to an enquiring Western reporter. "We will always see that they do not become too powerful. Can you imagine yet another nation on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean!"[5]
 
Had these territories not come under Israel's control during the June 1967 war, their populations would have lost whatever vestiges of Palestinian identity they retained since 1948. For the second time in two decades, Israel unwittingly salvaged the Palestinian national cause.