RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15200/human-rights-palestinians

“The protection of rights and freedoms requires that the right to human rights be guaranteed to judges. Judges have the right to express their opinions freely in the media and social media. Al-Haq, while condemning the violation of the right of judges to express their opinions freely, calls on [PA] President Mahmoud Abbas to ensure an environment conducive to the reform of the judiciary and the justice system in Palestine.” – Al Haq, Palestinian human rights organization, based in Ramallah, West Bank.

These human rights violations continue in the face of the PA government’s pledge to stop any violation of press freedoms. Ibrahim Milhem, spokesman for the PA government, was quoted earlier this year as saying: “The government will exert all efforts to make the media work environment in Palestine more open and free and to stop any violation of press freedoms.”

Unless the Palestinians manage to rise up against their abusive and corrupt leaders — which they can only do with the backing of the international community and media — their hope of building a democratic society will remain nothing more than a dream.

The international community, particularly those countries that provide financial aid to the Palestinians, should at least speak out against human rights violations committed by Palestinian leaders. That way, the Western donors will embolden reformists and other Palestinians who are working to end corruption and dictatorship. The donors should also make their financial aid to the PA leadership conditional on halting human rights violations and persecution of political opponents.

While Palestinian officials repeatedly condemn Israel for violating Palestinians’ freedom of expression, it is actually the Palestinian Authority (PA) that continues to harass, intimidate and detain Palestinians for expressing their opinions on social media or being affiliated with rival political groups. Business as usual.

The latest victims of the PA’s ongoing assault on public freedoms, particularly freedom of expression, are Palestinian lawyers, judges, political activists and university students.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2019/11/there-are-no-settlers-west-bank-jason-d-hill/

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recently announced that the U.S. would no longer consider civilian settlements in the occupied territories of the West Bank as a violation of international law. Many Israelis have warmly embraced this U.S. move as a great moral victory for the Jewish state. And to be sure, Pompeo’s declaration reversed a forty-decade US policy that regarded the settlements as a violation of international law.

The only proper response to Pompeo’s announcement is: it’s a long time coming. And, along with the U.S. announcement, moral citizens of the world must begin a radical reversal of certain anti-Israeli and anti-Jewry references to the so-called “settlers” of Judea and Samaria (The West Bank) and what has been mistakenly referred to as “Occupied Territory.”

To begin with, the Israeli Jews are not settlers in Judea and Samaria. From here on, they should be referred to as heroic pioneers on re-founded land in Holy Israel. This is the land of Moses, a nation unified under King David, the only nation blessed by God in the Bible renamed Palestine by the Romans in the second century and later artificially divided into three states. This is the nation occupied and destroyed, and its people exiled and conquered immorally under the Egyptians (1523 BCE—1313 BCE); Babylon under King Nebuchadnezzar (423 BCE-372 BCE); Persia/Media (372 BCE—140 BCE); Greece (371 BCE—140BCE); and Rome (69 CE—Present).

Under the Roman Empire we witnessed the apocalyptic and most devastating blow to Jewish sovereignty that lasted for 2,000 years. It allowed for, among other dastardly intrusions, occupation under the Ottoman and British Empires. Let us not forget a few historical minutiae:

With the legal re-founding of the state of Israel in 1948, the local Palestinian militia groups along with Egypt, Jordan (then Transjordan), Syria, Iraq, Lebanon fought a vicious war—along with contingent forces from Saudi Arabia and Yemen—to annihilate tiny Israel. Jordan confiscated Judea and Samaria which it illegally annexed in 1950. In a 1967-Six Day defensive war against Jordan, Israel retook its Holy lands of Judea and Samaria from Jordan. Let us remember that Judea and Samaria historically belonged to Holy Israel and the Jewish people. It never belonged to a “Palestinian state” nor to a political entity known as “the Palestinians”.