In-Depth Issues:
Israel Can Now Fly Its F-35 Jets to Iran without Midair Refueling - Amir Bohbot ( Walla-Jerusalem Post)
The Israeli Air Force has developed a new capability to be able to fly its F-35 stealth fighter jets from Israel to Iran without needing mid-air refueling.
In addition, the IAF recently integrated a new one-ton bomb into its F-35s that can be carried inside the plane without jeopardizing its stealth radar signature.
The IAF has held four large-scale drills simulating attacks against Iran over the last month.
The drills included confronting Iranian radar and detection systems, simulating long-range combat flights, and defensive measures against cyber weapons and electronic warfare systems.
Retirees Join Iran Protests over Economic Grievances ( Al-Monitor)
Pensioners took to the streets in many provincial capitals across Iran this week to protest rapidly rising prices.
In Shiraz on Monday, retirees held a symbolic funeral for a tablecloth to highlight the disappearance of food from their tables.
Expressions of disillusionment are also being increasingly heard on social media, as some government loyalists are joining the chorus.
The retirees' protest was the latest in a chain of demonstrations of public discontent, preceded by that of teachers, bus drivers and industrial laborers.
See also Iran Clerics Criticize Political Leadership - Zvi Bar'el ( Ha'aretz)
Last week, clerics in the holy city of Qom published an open letter accusing the political leadership of "failing to fulfill the revolution's promises for a better life."
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Arms Smuggling from Ukraine a New Concern for Israel - Ahmad Salah ( Eurasia Review)
The flow of international military aid to Ukraine, combined with a lack of control by Western and Ukrainian authorities, is supplying advanced weaponry for black markets around the world.
There is multiple evidence of Western weapons crossing the Ukrainian border to where anyone with an interest and enough money can buy them.
A video of a Syrian fighter bragging about getting advanced Western weapons from Ukraine has circulated online.
The smuggler mentions that the weapons are reasonably priced and easily purchased. He then shows some anti-tank missiles and assault rifles.
Egypt's Gas Imports from Israel Hit All-Time High - Marc Espanol ( Al-Monitor)
In March, Egypt imported a record 720 million cubic feet of gas per day from Israel.
Egypt accounted for 26.5% of Israel's gas output during the first quarter of 2022.
The significant increase is primarily the result of the coming into play of the Arab Gas Pipeline (AGP), which connects Egypt with Jordan at the Red Sea and then extends to Syria and Lebanon.
Israel has access to this infrastructure through a pipeline that connects its own national transmission system to the AGP in northern Jordan.
Israel's Burgeoning Relationship with Egypt - Israel Kasnett ( JNS)
Israel and Egypt appear to be migrating from a cold peace to lukewarm.
Serious discussions are currently underway between Israel, Egypt and the European Commission over how to export Eastern Mediterranean gas to Europe.
Israel and Egypt are also working on plans to increase bilateral annual trade to $700 million within three years.
While Egypt was the first Arab country to sign a peace deal with Israel in 1979, it was a cold peace.
But the Abraham Accords in 2020, coupled with talks taking place today between Israel and Saudi Arabia, have awakened Egypt's leaders to the possibility that they are being left behind in a dynamic and progressing Middle East.
Kuwaiti Journalist: Kuwait Should Normalize Relations with Israel ( MEMRI TV)
Kuwaiti journalist Jasem Al-Juraid said in an interview uploaded on May 25, 2022:
"We, as Kuwaitis, boycott Israel despite all that distance between us, and we refrain from normalizing our relations or having peace with it, and then I see that the [Arabs] who live there have normalized relations, and even have peace with Israel."
"What problem do I have with the Israelis? Why can't we, as a civilized country, at least sign peace with the State of Israel and establish mutual ties?"
Israel Aerospace Industries Releases New Gunfire Detection System - Anna Ahronheim ( Jerusalem Post)
Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) has unveiled a new gunfire detection system (GDS), the OTHELLO-P, at a security exhibition in Paris.
With artificial intelligence and SWIR electro-optics and acoustic sensors, the OTHELLO-P immediately detects, geo-locates and alerts troops to incoming gunfire from small arms, snipers, machine guns, RPGs, subsonic munitions and indirect fire.
Troops on the battlefield will see the threat on a tablet.
Optical sensors allow the system to identify muzzle flashes, while the acoustics sensor identifies sounds of the explosion of the bullet as well as the shockwaves made from it.
The Jews Expelled from Jaffa in World War I - Liat Collins ( Jerusalem Post)
A little-known chapter in Israel's pre-state history is the fate of the Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportees, Jews expelled by the Ottoman authorities during World War I.
Fearing that the Jews might support the British war effort, the Turks decided to remove them from coastal areas.
Even before the expulsion of April 1917, thousands of Jews left the area or were deported for refusing to "Ottomanize."
Many of the internally displaced were poor people who lacked the means to travel abroad to safety.
Some 1,500 reached Kfar Saba, where they lived in overcrowded, makeshift huts and suffered during the first harsh winter from the heavy rains and the cold.
Diseases like typhus spread easily and starvation was widespread due to the war. As a result, 240 people are buried in a section of the Kfar Saba Military Cemetery in unidentified graves.
There are hundreds of Tel Aviv and Jaffa deportees buried elsewhere - more than 300 in Tiberias, more than 100 in Safed, others in Haifa, Yavne'el, Kinneret, and elsewhere, and even 75 in Damascus.
The survivors were able to return home to Tel Aviv only in 1918, under British rule, after the war.
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News Resources - North America, Europe, and Asia:
- UN Nuclear Watchdog Rebukes Iran for Failure to Cooperate with Probe - Laurence Norman
The UN atomic agency board voted 30-2 with 3 abstentions in favor of a resolution criticizing Iran for failing to cooperate with an agency probe into undeclared nuclear material found in Iran. Russia and China opposed the resolution. The IAEA has been seeking answers for three years about undeclared nuclear material in Iran that many experts believe is related to nuclear-weapons work carried out years ago. The IAEA said Iran had "not provided explanations that are technically credible."
"Iran's insufficient cooperation...requires us all to act," U.S. Ambassador to the IAEA Laura Holgate said Wednesday. (Wall Street Journal)
See also Joint Statement by U.S., France, Germany, and UK on IAEA Resolution on Iran (U.S. State Department)
See also Israel Welcomes IAEA Decision on Iran
Iran's pursuit of military nuclear capabilities has never ceased. Iran continues to systematically violate all its international commitments, and is working tirelessly to hide evidence and disrupt investigations in order to deceive the international community. (Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs)
- Iran Removes Two IAEA Surveillance Cameras from Nuclear Facility
Iran removed two surveillance cameras of the International Atomic Energy Agency from one of its nuclear facilities on Wednesday, state television reported.
(Reuters)
- UN Human Rights Council Commission of Inquiry on 2021 Gaza War Issues Report - Jamey Keaten
A Commission of Inquiry set up last year by the UN Human Rights Council following the 11-day war in May 2021 between Israel and Hamas in Gaza issued its first report on Tuesday. The commission, headed by former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay, is the first to have an "ongoing" mandate. Critics allege that permanent scrutiny testifies to an anti-Israel bias. Israel's government, which opposed the creation of the commission, refused to grant its members access to Israel or Palestinian territories. (AP-Washington Post)
See also Commission of Inquiry on Palestinians and Israel Issues First Report (UN Human Rights Council)
- U.S. Slams "One-Sided" UN Probe Blaming Israel
State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday:
"As we have stated repeatedly, we firmly oppose the open-ended and vaguely defined nature of the UN Human Rights Council's (HRC) Commission of Inquiry (COI) on the situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, which represents a one-sided, biased approach that does nothing to advance the prospects for peace. The report of the Commission, released today, does nothing to alleviate our concerns....The existence of this COI in its current form is a continuation of a longstanding pattern of unfairly singling out Israel." (U.S. State Department)
See also Britain: The Cause of Advancing Human Rights "Is Not Served by the Disproportionate Focus on Israel"
"The UK has been clear that we oppose the open-ended nature of the Commission of Inquiry on the situation in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza and its vaguely defined mandate. The cause of advancing human rights in Israel and the...Palestinian Territories is not served by the disproportionate focus on Israel." (UK Foreign Office)
- U.S. Jewish Leaders Condemn Anti-Israel UNHRC Report
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations said Wednesday: "We strongly condemn the blatantly biased report by the UN Human Rights Council's Commission of Inquiry....The report ignores the actions of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist entities while placing disproportionate blame on Israel for supposedly perpetuating the conflict."
"The COI, headed by commissioners whose anti-Israel bias has been firmly established by years of quotes and writings, has opportunistically applied its inappropriate mandate and disproportionate budget to condemn Israel's defensive military action to protect its civilian population from existential threats."
"We strongly support Israel's right to defend itself in accordance with international law and call on the nations of the world to join us in labeling this document and its commission as the anti-Israel farce that it is." (Conference of Presidents)
- U.S. Proposes Five-Way Summit with Israel, PA, U.S., Egypt and Jordan - Barak Ravid
The Biden administration is trying to create a "political horizon" between Israeli and Palestinian officials in an attempt to strengthen the PA. During a meeting in Washington last week with Israel's national security adviser Eyal Hulata, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman raised the possibility of holding a five-way summit between Israel, the PA, the U.S., Egypt and Jordan, Israeli officials said.
Hulata said the Israeli government thinks the conditions on both sides are not ripe for such an initiative and stressed Israel isn't interested in a photo-op that ends with nothing and results in an "expectation crisis."
"We don't like this idea. Past experience taught us that such an expectation crisis could lead to an escalation on the ground," a senior Israeli official said.
(Axios)
News Resources - Israel and the Mideast:
- Israel: Commission of Inquiry Report Reflects Human Rights Council's Extreme Anti-Israel Bias
The report published Tuesday by the Human Rights Council's Commission of Inquiry is part and parcel of the witch hunt being carried out by the Human Rights Council against Israel. It is a biased and one-sided report, tainted with hatred for the State of Israel and based on a long series of previous one-sided and biased reports.
The report disregards years of murderous terrorism by Palestinian terrorist organizations against Israeli citizens, as well as the Palestinians' long-standing obstinacy and the vicious and anti-Semitic incitement carried out by the Palestinian Authority and its networks. The Commission ignored the real reasons that led Israel to defend its citizens against the murderous terrorist organizations that are committing a double war crime: firing at Israeli civilians from within civilian areas in Gaza.
The Commission of Inquiry and the biased report it published are the result of the Council's extreme anti-Israel bias. The Commission members were only appointed to their roles because of their public and well-known anti-Israel stances, in direct opposition to the rules set out by the United Nations.
The State of Israel will continue to protect its citizens in accordance with the highest international values and standards.
(Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs )
- Israeli Prime Minister in Abu Dhabi for Meeting with UAE Ruler - Jonathan Lis
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett arrived in Abu Dhabi on Thursday for a meeting with Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the newly appointed president of the United Arab Emirates.
(Ha'aretz)
Global Commentary and Think-Tank Analysis:
- Saudi Arabia Moves toward Eventual Ties with Israel - Dion Nissenbaum
Saudi Arabia is engaging in serious talks with Israel to build business ties and create new security arrangements as the kingdom senses a shift among its public in favor of establishing official ties with the Jewish state. With the Biden administration's help, Saudi Arabia and Israel are trying to broker an agreement that could give commercial planes expanded rights to fly from Israel over the kingdom.
On a recent visit to Washington, Saudi Prince Khalid bin Salman, brother of the kingdom's de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, privately told people that recent polling showed a decisive shift, especially among Saudis under 30, in favor of diplomatic relations with Israel. "We always envisioned that there will be full normalization with Israel," Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, the Saudi foreign minister, said recently at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Saudi and Israeli officials said they could take incremental steps toward normalization before the overall conflict is resolved. Saudi officials say they are disillusioned with the Palestinian Authority, and Saudis resent Iran's support for Hamas. "If Hamas builds a relationship with Iran to protect themselves, then why don't we have a relationship with Israel against Iran to protect ourselves?" said one Saudi official. A Saudi move to establish diplomatic ties with Israel would effectively give most other Arab and Muslim nations a green light to follow suit. (Wall Street Journal)
- Israel, Jordan, and the Palestinians - Dr. Mordechai Nisan
Jordan has sustained a stable regime in contrast to the political chaos afflicting the Arab world in recent years. Amman did not face a popular uprising.
Jordan serves as a buffer state to hamper a possible Arab military onslaught from the east. This establishes a tacit alliance between the two countries: Jordan guards the eastern approaches to Israel, and Israel serves as a guarantor for Jordan's existence.
Any potential aggressor from the east would encounter Israel's military intervention to thwart or preempt ground forces traversing Jordan and advancing toward Israel.
An Arab incursion into Jordan or proximate military advances toward the Jordanian border would ignite a trip-wire Israeli response to secure Jordan and Israel in one stroke.
Jordan and Israel concluded a peace treaty in 1994, but their public relationship does not convey public trust and political calm. It is a "cold peace" and Amman sabotaged normalization from the start. No people-to-people peace, harassment of Israeli tourists, and few official Jordanian visits to Israel.
Israel gives/sells water and gas to Jordan, while Jordan publicly humiliated Israel by terminating the leasing of agricultural lands at Tzofar in 2020.
In the wake of Palestinian riots on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in April 2022, Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher al-Khasawneh "saluted every Palestinian...who throws rocks at the Zionists who pollute the Al-Aqsa Mosque."
The Jordan Bar Association called on the government to sever diplomatic ties with Israel.
For the Palestinians west of the Jordan River, the incompatibilities with Israel are too formidable, the power differential too great, the level of mistrust too high, and the shortcomings of Palestinian nationhood too debilitating to enable the Palestinians to overwhelm Zionism and destroy Jewish statehood. Israel, entrenched and resolute, will not capitulate even in the face of widespread terrorism and/or global pressure.
The writer is professor of Middle East studies at the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
(New English Review)
- Saudi Political Scientist: Refusal to Compromise Characterizes Arab Political Culture
On April 13, 2022, in the London-based Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, political scientist Tawfiq Al-Saif stated that a characteristic of Arab political culture is a refusal to compromise on issues, especially when it comes to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Even when the majority of people are willing to compromise, they eventually succumb to the pressure of a dogmatic minority, and this prevents finding solutions for the problems of the region.
"Some societies are highly adept at bargaining and achieving what they want through negotiations, while others are opposed in principle to bargaining and to compromise, and often regard those who advocate [compromise] as negligent or even as traitors."
"On national issues like Palestine, for instance, and on political issues, people...flatly refuse to negotiate. In my opinion, that is one of the factors that has prevented finding solutions for the serious problems faced by the Arab countries." (MEMRI)
- The Apology the South African Jewish Report Could Never Make - Peta Krost
The SA Jewish Report was supposedly "expelled" from the Press Council for not obeying an order it gave us to apologize to the SA BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) Coalition for calling it anti-Semitic. There's no way we can in good faith apologize to this organization, known throughout the Jewish world for being anti-Semitic. We were effectively ordered to make a political statement that goes against everything we stand for. So, after much consultation and discussion, we resigned from the council six months ago.
In October 2020, the SA Jewish Report ran a story about a cartoon that was clearly anti-Semitic. It depicted a fat, greedy man shoveling money into his month. The caption read, "Greedy bosses connected to apartheid Israel," and called for a boycott of Clover Dairy, which had been bought by a predominantly Israeli-owned consortium.
The main goal of BDS is to make sure that anything Israel does is demonized. That's not human rights activism, that's hatred for the Jewish State.
Anti-Israel hatred is just a form of anti-Semitism and racism. (South African Jewish Report)
Anti-Semitism
- Boston BDS "Mapping Project" Targets Synagogues and Jewish Schools - Jonathan S. Tobin
A Boston BDS group is promoting a "Mapping Project" to illustrate "local support for the colonization of Palestine." What makes it truly sinister is the way that it creates maps of synagogues and other Jewish institutions, including schools, in the state of Massachusetts, and holds them out as bastions of "racism," "policing," "U.S. imperialism" and "ethnic cleansing." Boston BDS and its allies are placing a target on American Jews - declaring that anything and everything associated with Jewish life in the U.S. is fair game for false accusations of crimes against minorities.
For those in the 84% of the American public that is ignorant of BDS, the Mapping Project is telling you exactly what BDS means. It is pure, unadulterated hatred for Jews that engages in eliminationist rhetoric about Israel and Zionism. The BDS movement believes that the one people on the planet who must be deprived of sovereignty in their ancient homeland and left defenseless against genocidal Islamist and nationalist Arab movements are the Jews. Far from promoting peace, its platform is a path to Jewish genocide in Israel. (JNS)
Weekend Features
- U.S. Aid to Israel Is a Boon to American Taxpayers - Yoram Ettinger
The U.S. does not give foreign aid to Israel. The U.S. makes an annual investment in Israel that provides the American taxpayer a return of several hundred percent.
Israel serves as a battle-tested, cost-effective laboratory for the U.S. defense and aerospace industries, as well as for the U.S. military itself, which enhances U.S. performance on the battlefield.
For example, the Israeli Air Force flies the U.S. F-16 and F-35 combat aircraft, providing both Lockheed-Martin and the U.S. Air Force with invaluable information on operations, maintenance and repairs that is then used to manufacture a multitude of upgrades for next-generation aircraft. The F-16 has been improved by several hundred Israeli-driven upgrades, including to the cockpit, fire control, wings and fuel tanks. This has spared 10-20 years of research and development which would have cost billions of dollars.
Similar advantages are enjoyed by Boeing, the manufacturer of the F-15.
Furthermore, Israel shares its battle tactics with the U.S. Many U.S. battle tactics have been formulated based on Israeli combat experience. For example, U.S. special operations units and urban warfare specialists are trained by Israeli experts in neutralizing car bombs, improvised explosive devices and suicide bombers. U.S. combat pilots benefit greatly from joint maneuvers with highly-experienced Israeli combat pilots.
According to a former head of U.S. Air Force Intelligence, Gen. George Keegan, the U.S. would have to establish five CIAs in order to procure the intelligence provided by Israel. According to former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Adm. Elmo Zumwalt: "Israel is the largest U.S. aircraft carrier, which does not require American soldiers on board, cannot be sunk and is deployed in a most critical region, sparing the U.S. the need to manufacture, deploy and maintain a few more real aircraft carriers and additional ground divisions, which would cost the U.S. taxpayer some $15 billion annually." (JNS)
- Why the Six-Day War Matters - David Harris
55 years ago, the Six-Day War broke out. Many of its core issues remain unresolved.
In June 1967, there was no state of Palestine. It didn't exist and never had. Its creation, proposed by the UN in 1947, was rejected by the Arab world because it also meant the establishment of a Jewish state alongside.
The West Bank and eastern Jerusalem were in Jordanian hands. Violating solemn agreements, Jordan denied Jews access to their holiest places in Jerusalem. They desecrated and destroyed many of those sites. Meanwhile, Gaza was under Egyptian control, with harsh military rule imposed on local residents.
And the Golan Heights, which were regularly used to shell Israeli communities far below, belonged to Syria.
The Arab world could have created a Palestinian state in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and Gaza any day of the week. They didn't. There wasn't even discussion about it. Arab leaders, who today profess such attachment to Jerusalem, viewed it as an Arab backwater.
The 1967 boundary at the time of the war was nothing more than an armistice line dating back to 1949 - known as the Green Line. Armistice lines weren't formal borders. The PLO was established in 1964, three years before the 1967 conflict, and was created with the goal of obliterating Israel. In the weeks leading up to the Six-Day War, Egyptian and Syrian leaders repeatedly declared that their objective was to wipe Israel off the map.
The writer is CEO of the American Jewish Committee (AJC).
(Times of Israel)
- Israelis Honor an Unsung Japanese Hero Who Saved Jewish Lives in World War II
A member of the Israeli parliament and the Israeli Ambassador to Japan visited a Tokyo nursing home on May 22 to present a letter of appreciation to Teruko, 91, the daughter of Setsuzo Kotsuji, in honor of her father's achievements. Teruko's father was a scholar of Hebrew culture.
The "visas for life" issued by Chiune Sugihara, the vice-consul for the Japanese Empire to Lithuania during World War II, are widely known. Through these visas, thousands of Jews escaped persecution from Nazi Germany by fleeing to Japan.
The man who did his utmost to protect these Jews from the risk of deportation by sending them to other countries, such as the U.S., was Setsuzo Kotsuji. He risked his life for this enterprise and was even tortured on suspicion of espionage.
Kotsuji was born to a family of Shinto priests, but he converted to Judaism after reading the Bible and studying Hebrew in the U.S. Kotsuji rests in a grave in Jerusalem. He left these words to his family: "Within a hundred years, someone will come along who will understand me." (Japan Forward-Sankei Shimbun)
- The Belgian Teacher Who Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children during World War II - Joseph Berger
Andree Geulen was a young Belgian teacher at an all-girls boarding school in Brussels in the 1940s when her Jewish students were told that they had to wear uniforms with yellow stars sewn onto them - an anti-Semitic decree by the occupying Germans.
A few weeks later, she noticed that some of the Jewish students were no longer showing up for school. They and their families had been rounded up by the Gestapo and sent to Mechelen, northeast of Brussels, a way station on the road to Auschwitz.
Feeling a need to take action, Geulen volunteered to help a clandestine group, the Committee for the Defense of Jews, spirit Jewish children to convents, monasteries, boarding schools, farms and families around the country.
"I saw it as a race between myself and the Gestapo - who would get to the family first," she recalled. She estimated that she found hiding places for 300-400 Jewish children.
For that, she was honored in 1989 by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations and was made an honorary citizen of Israel.
Geulen died at 100 on May 31 in Brussels, the last survivor of a cadre of 12 women who together rescued 3,000 Jewish children. (New York Times)
Observations:
- The Commission of Inquiry created in 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council issued its first report on Tuesday. The three commissioners appointed to conduct the inquiry were on record accusing Israel of apartheid, and urging boycotts and criminal prosecution - in advance of investigating anything. At least two reports annually may be expected to pound a steady drumbeat of modern anti-Semitism, namely, delegitimizing Israel.
- The UN handed the Commission a search warrant unrestricted to any period of time, to seek "all underlying root causes" of the conflict and hunt for "systematic discrimination and repression." So we
submitted the names of 600,000 Jewish refugees and victims of Arab persecution in Middle East and North African nations in the past 75 years.
- We submitted the names of 4,220 civilians - Israelis and foreign visitors - killed by unremitting Arab violence from the beginning of modern Zionism until today. We submitted the names of 24,092 Israeli military and security forces who have fallen in defense of their country against the Arab goal to eradicate the modern Jewish state.
- We gave the Commission documentation that the Palestinian Authority pays bounties for killing Jews - an amount that increases the more deadly the attack. We presented irrefutable evidence that the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza maintain a system of racist indoctrination demonizing Jews and inciting violence against Jews - in schools, official television programming, summer camps, public displays and public honors.
- Our submissions contained evidence of the ceaseless, unrelenting, violent attacks on Jews prior to Israel's independence and until today. War after war, terror attack after terror attack, suicide bombing, kidnapping, torture, arson; with rockets, mortars, grenades, pipe bombs, drones, firebombs, stones, bullets, vehicles, and knives, decade after decade; with one goal: the ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea - the ultimate violation of human rights. Yet the report finds no Palestinian terrorism.
- This UN exercise in historical revisionism seeks to invent a narrative of powerless Arab victims and criminal Jewish perpetrators, invert who violated the rights of whom, and challenge the moral imperative of the modern Jewish state. It is far more than an outrage. Unless stopped, it has and will continue to breathe oxygen into a highly flammable cauldron of modern anti-Semitism.
The writer is Director of the Touro Institute on Human Rights and the Holocaust, and
President of Human Rights Voices.
- The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva has a history of sponsoring extremely biased resolutions against the State of Israel.
- The malign intent of the Council with respect to Israel was demonstrated in its infamous Gaza Report issued after the Hamas war against Israel in 2008-2009. Here the Council characterized Israel's operation as "military aggression in Gaza," ignoring the fact that it was preceded by salvos of Hamas rockets on Israeli civilian targets.
- Thus, when the Council appointed a new "Commission of Inquiry"
against Israel in July 2021, and placed Navi Pillay as its head, it is no wonder that we could only expect that the new body would become yet another entity based on foul play and not on strict international legality with some modicum of fairness.
The writer is President of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.
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