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Eugene Kontorovich Tag

On June 9, 2021, at NOON Eastern, Legal Insurrection Foundation will host an online event to educate on the law of warfare and Israel's targeting protocols, How Israel Implements The Law Of Armed Conflict To Defend Against Terrorists Hiding Among Civilians. REGISTER HERE. [REGISTRATION CLOSES AT MIDNIGHT [PT] TONIGHT]

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has ruled that it has the jurisdiction to investigate Israel for alleged war crimes. The court's ruling on Friday paves the way for the ICC prosecutors to open a probe against the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for their defensive military actions against Gaza-based Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that goods produced outside Israel's pre-1967 lines must be labeled as such, and may not be marketed as Israeli products. The judgment will impact food products imported into Europe from East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, Judea, and Samaria, which the European Union does not recognize as Israeli territory. "Foodstuffs originating in the territories occupied by the State of Israel must bear the indication of their territory of origin, accompanied, where those foodstuffs come from an Israeli settlement within that territory, by the indication of that provenance," the top EU court declared on Tuesday morning.

Ending an 18-months legal battle, Israel’s Supreme Court decided last Tuesday to uphold the Interior Ministry’s refusal to renew the work visa of Omar Shakir, who had first entered the country as “Israel and Palestine Country Director” of Human Rights Watch (HRW) in February 2017. The court reportedly ruled that Shakir must now leave Israel within 20 days. As I have previously documented in considerable detail, both Shakir and his employer HRW have a long record of anti-Israel activism. (See here and here).

Anti-Israel representatives Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, both of whom support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement (though they denied that while running for office), are planning a trip to Israel. BDS is widely recognized as anti-Semitic and subterfuge for the destruction of Israel. Both also credibly have been accused of making anti-Semitic statements themselves.

The anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement insists it is merely "pro-Palestinian" and not anti-Semitic. There is a mountain of evidence otherwise, but sometimes there is a clarifying moment as to how calls to boycott Israel have become mainstreamed. Such a moment came on Twitter regarding India's recent moves in Kashmir, which we covered in India Revokes Special Status for Muslim-Majority Kashmir, May Open Up Region to Hindu Immigration.

There were news reports recently that during Benjamin Netanyahu's upcoming trip to D.C., during which he will meet with Trump, the United States would recognize Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The Heights had only been Syrian territory since 1948, after the end of the French Mandate, Syrian independence, and the Arab attempt to destroy Israel.  Syria used the Golan Heights to aim artillery and sniper fire on Israel. Israel captured the Golan Heights during the 1967 war, and almost lost it during the surprise attack in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

When Airbnb announced in mid-November 2018 that it would delist Jewish homes in Judea & Samaria (the "West Bank"), the move met with cheers from anti-Israel activists, who had worked for years to pressure Airbnb. The U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (fka U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation) is an umbrella group for numerous anti-Israel activists and groups supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. USCPR is one of the most extreme anti-Israel groups, as we have documented numerous times.

Airbnb has been under a sustained pressure campaign by anti-Israeli activist groups to cease listing homes and apartments for rent in Israeli Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria (the "West Bank"). The area was ethnically cleansed of Jews by the Jordanians after Jordan captured the area in Israel's War of Independence. The 1949 Armistice Line was where the fighting stopped, and left many historically Jewish areas, including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, in Jordanian hands. Israel recaptured the area in 1967.

The so-called Great March of Return held every Friday for the past four weeks at the Gaza-Israel border is falsely portrayed as a peaceful civilian protest by groups like Amnesty International. That false designation has led to claims that Israel is violating international law by using live fire against "protesters" who approach the border fence. In fact, as we have documented weekly, the "protests" are actually military operations by Hamas and other terror groups using civilian protests as cover.

Hamas seems to have found its sweet spot. Under cover of civilian protests, backed by clouds of smoke from burning tires, it sends operatives to try to breach the Israeli border fence. A fence breach would be used to surge hundreds or even thousands of people into Israeli giving Hamas a propaganda victory. Such a breach also would be used by Hamas military operatives for terror operations -- that's why such a high percentage of those killed at the fence have been Hamas or other terror group military members. We have covered this Hamas tactic in numerous prior posts:

If history proves one thing, it's that giving in to Palestinian threats only leads to intransigence and more threats. Unfortunately, for the second time the Trump administration has walked back an announced policy in just such a circumstance. The first walk back had to do with moving the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which is Israel's capital. That was a core Trump campaign promise, reiterated during the transition. As Prof. Miriam Elman explained in a prior post, locating the Embassy in Jerusalem would have a profoundly positive impact on the prospects for peace, since it would signal that Arab and Muslim threats of violence against the Jewish presence in Jerusalem would be futile, Move U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, for peace sake:

The American Studies Association (ASA) passed an academic boycott of Israel in December 2013, along guidelines of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The ASA leadership backed the resolution, which was sent to the membership for a vote. Turnout for the online vote was low, but a majority of those voting voted in favor. Although the much smaller Association for Asian American Studies had passed the boycott the previous April, the ASA was the first major American faculty association to pass the boycott.