The B’nai Brith Canada Institute for International Affairs has a mandate to protest the abuse of human rights throughout the world and advocate on behalf of worldwide Jewish communities in distress. The Institute has a special focus on pro-Israel advocacy and education.
Rochelle Wilner President	Frank Dimant Chief Executive Officer	Amos Sochaczevski National Chair	Ruth Klein National Director

STATEMENT TO THE DEPARTMENT OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS
AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE

Prepared for the annual consultations with Canadian non-governmental organizations prior to the 57^th session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights

The Institute for International Affairs of B’nai Brith Canada presents this statement at a time when violence and tension continue to undermine peace and stability in the Middle East. In a tremendous reversal of the hopes for peace that seemed within reach just last summer, the past months have seen a transition from negotiation and compromise to intransigence and confrontation. We cite here several grave concerns about the deterioration on the ground, concerns that routinely escape the deliberations of the United Nations and its agencies, and are even underplayed by the Canadian Government. Certainly the statement prepared by the Department of Foreign Affairs in preparation for these consultations fails to take note of many troubling issues.

We have grave misgivings about the long-term intentions of the Palestinian Authority as a peace partner, and its willingness and/or ability to honour its commitments. The Palestinian Authority negotiates for peace while at the same time continuing to allow, encourage or even participate in orchestrated violence.

Since the inception of the Oslo peace process, there have been considerable changes in the governance of the West Bank and Gaza. Following a series of interim agreements, Israel has undertaken a series of redeployments from the West Bank and Gaza with the result that 99% of the Palestinians now live under the jurisdiction of the PA.

Israel has remained committed to peace negotiations as demonstrated by its positions at Camp David II, at which time its negotiators went further than any previous Israeli government in their willingness to make painful compromises in exchange for peace. These offers were summarily rejected by the Palestinian side.

We condemn the use of premeditated violence by the Palestinian authorities, who cite Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount as a pretext for widespread rioting, even though the advent of violence was openly announced in the Palestinian media.

“Weeks before the outbreak of violence Palestinian Authority television broadcasting of violence and hate...reached unprecedented levels...[including] calls for eternal wars against the Jews, military marches, libelous accusations, denial of Israel’s right to exist...”. This type of programming commonly begins with the children’s afternoon shows and continues throughout the day.¹

Well before Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, the Palestinians openly talked of the fury that was to be unleashed: “...violence is near and the Palestinian people are willing to sacrifice even 5000 casualties.”²

Gahazi Jabali, commander of the PA Police, stated in August 2000: “The Palestinian police will be leading... when the hour of confrontation arrives.”³

Faisal Husseini, Palestinian Minister for Jerusalem, has said openly that the Palestinians are waging a war of independence that will end only when the last Israeli settler leaves the territories, and that when Palestinians become a majority in the Holy Land, they will decide whether to allow the Jews to have a state.⁴

We question the assumption that mobs throwing rocks, stones and firebombs, backed up by armed militias firing under cover of the rioters, constitute a "peaceful protest".

Even UN peacekeepers have been forced to use gunfire when facing these types of rioters in such flashpoints such as Sierra Leone⁵ , and Somalia where they were termed “combatant[s]… because they meant to do us harm”.⁶ Interestingly, Egypt recently controlled protesters throwing stones with gunfire, yet is loud in its condemnation of Israel.⁷ Security Council Resolution 837 of June 6, 1993 condemns "unprovoked armed attacks" against UN security personnel, yet the UN condemns Israel for responding to violent outbursts initiated by Palestinian rioters.

In other countries, those who hurl stones are not deemed to be "peaceful demonstrators". Only recently US youths throwing stones at motorists were charged with second degree murder and assault with a deadly weapon over the injuries they caused, even though apparent boredom was their motivation rather than rage.⁸ Such attacks against Israeli motorists routinely pass without any condemnation.

We note that the Palestinian police force has been transformed into an army, with an accompanying proliferation of weapons of all types, in complete contravention of the PA’s peace process commitments. Even before the current violence, this weapon abuse raised concerns in Palestinian circles.

According to a noted Palestinian human rights agency: “LAW has followed with great concern the growing phenomenon of weapon abuse in Palestinian society...The militirization of society is a grave threat to the future of democracy, human rights and the rule of law in this country.” ⁹

Palestinians are now in possession of all kinds of weapons, including machine guns, hand grenades, rocket propelled grenades, grenade launchers, anti-tank missiles, shoulder launched anti aircraft missiles, cannons and machine guns, mortars, mines and high explosives.¹⁰

There is evidence that the PA is co-operating with terrorist groups, and had released terrorists from its jails to swell its fighting force. At the same time, its police force collaborates with rioters. The working alliance between the PA and terrorist groups, as well as the police force complicity in allowing, encouraging and even participating in violent outbursts, is in complete contravention of the PA’s obligations to fight terror and violence.

Two Israeli reservists were brutally lynched and murdered while under the protection of the Palestinian police forces in Ramallah. Although the Palestinian authorities tried to suppress media coverage of the atrocity, reports still indicated that the police failed to intervene with enough conviction to protect these men, and there is some evidence that police operatives even participated in the brutal orgy.

Arafat has formed a "working alliance" with Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives previously jailed by the PA on charges of terrorist attacks against Israel. According to the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, “Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders have met regularly with officials of the Palestinian Authority and Arafat’s political organization.”¹¹

“The co-operation between national and Islamic forces began years ago. Lately the Islamic Jihad, the Al-Sa’iqa and the Popular Front - General Command organization have joined this framework. The co-ordination is at an especially high level... At the same time, these organizations are not bound by the agreements to which the PA is committed. This situation strengthens the PA’s position.”¹²

We express our horror at the use of children at the front line of conflict and reiterate that the Palestinian authorities are guilty not just of failing to stop children from participating at flashpoints of violence, but also of encouraging, facilitating and glorifying their presence. These actions are in total contravention of internationally accepted protocols that forbid not only conscripting or enlisting children, but also using them to participate in hostilities. Canada is among the world leaders insisting on respect for covenants concerning the use of children in situations of conflict, and yet Canada remains remarkably silent in the face of the Palestinians’ cynical use of children in the current violence.

The official PA newspaper has condemned parents who forbid their children to join the riots, calling them a “fifth column” in Palestinian society and “destructive and abominable individuals” engaged in “plots against the field active generation commanding the intifada.”¹³

According to Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, “The younger the martyr ­ the greater and the more I respect him”.¹⁴ Even the monetary compensation being offered to the families of child "martyrs" pales in comparison with such accolades from the Mufti and promises of rewards to come in the afterlife.

Palestinian teachers even accompany their young charges to pre-arranged attacks on the IDF.¹⁵ This type of encouragement can only be seen as the natural accompaniment to the message of the Palestinian Authority school textbooks.

Reports have emerged about the existence of special summer training camps where 25,000 Palestinian children between the ages of 10-17 were trained last summer in the use of automatic weapons and the art of guerrilla warfare.¹⁶

While Palestinians condemn such concerns as "racist", protests within their own ranks are evident, even though those who criticize Arafat’s regime are targeted for retribution. The Tulkarm Women’s Union protested directly to Arafat: “The Palestinian Authority must put an end to this phenomenon. We urge you to issue instructions to your police force to stop sending innocent children to their death”. According to one mother, “When school finishes, Palestinian security cars go around collecting children from the streets and sending them to the killing fields.”¹⁷

We condemn the ongoing incitement to hatred and violence that pervades the educational system, media and culture of the Palestinian Authority, preparing a fertile ground for the participation of children in violence, and kindling and stoking the fury unleashed in the current riots.

The Year 2000 was declared by UNESCO as the Year of the Culture of Peace “in an effort to make children world wide aware of the practical meaning and benefits of non-violence in their daily lives”. UNICEF has for more than a decade been supporting the concept of Education for Peace as a proactive approach to laying the groundwork for meaningful peace initiatives. The ongoing and pervasive anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda violates any such meaningful initiatives to promote peace.

New textbooks used in Palestinian Schools make no attempt to educate for peace or encourage peaceful co-existence with Israel. Israel is only mentioned “in contexts that breed contempt”, while there is no depiction of Israel - in any shape or form - on any maps taught in the PA schools. In grades other than the first and sixth that use the new books, the old texts are still in use with their open calls for Israel’s destruction and overt antisemitism.¹⁸

The antisemitism, anti-Zionism and Holocaust denial that are common currency in the Arab world are integral parts of the ongoing propaganda campaign of the Palestinian Authority. The official PA daily Al Hayat Al-Jadida, for example, freely quotes from the classic antisemitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, to attack Jewish "manipulation".

We also condemn statements by the Palestinian political and religious leadership that attempt to deny any links between Judaism and its holy places. While Israel respects the rights of each religion to its places of worship, the Palestinian leadership continues to deny and denigrate Jewish holy sites. This can only be reminiscent of the situation from 1948-67 when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian rule and Jewish religious rights were routinely ignored, while its synagogues were desecrated or destroyed and Jews were denied access to the Western Wall.

The PA-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem leaves no doubt as to Palestinian intentions for the future of Jerusalem “There is not the smallest indication of the existence of a Jewish temple on this place [Temple Mount] in the past. In the whole city there is not even a single stone indicating Jewish history...we do not accept that they have any rights, underneath the surface or above it.”¹⁹

“Jewish prayer at Al Asqa will prompt massacres the magnitude of which only Allah knows. If Olmert thinks Al-Asqa can be like the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron [where both religions share worship]... he is delusional.”²⁰

There have been numerous similar attacks on other Jewish holy sites in areas under the control of the Palestinian Authority - both verbal and physical. The Palestinian Authority has promised to respect and defend these sites under its peace process commitments, as well as to guarantee access to them, but it has repeatedly reneged on its word. When Palestinian militants took control of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, despite assurances from the PA that they would protect it, it was destroyed by a rampaging mob and is now reportedly being rebuilt as a mosque. The Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron and Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem - both core holy sites to Judaism - are popular targets of diatribes denying the legitimacy of Jewish affinity to their holy places.

This disregard for the religious sensibilities of others is mirrored in the total disregard for the human rights of Palestinians living under the rule of the PA and its Security Services (PSS). Numerous cases of torture and abuse have been documented by Palestinian human rights groups.

According to independent polls, 65% believe that Palestinians cannot criticize the PA without fear, up from 63% in January 2000, 61% in December 1999 and 56% in October 1999.²¹

According to the Palestinian human rights group LAW, victims of torture are not confined to criminal suspects but include those who have offended the PA through political association and criticism of the regime. Palestinian advocates have hesitated to draw attention to these abuses or ask for international condemnation due to the “sensitivity of the peace process and the fragility of the political situation”.²²

The execution of suspected "collaborators" with Israel after summary trials is used as a threat to control normalization of relations with Israelis. There is also overwhelming evidence going back to the first Intifada that these executions were in fact more a matter of criminal activity or the settling of political scores among competing Palestinian factions.

The Department of Foreign Affairs summary on the West Bank and Gaza minimizes and, in effect, condones the severity of these human rights abuses with its lame judgement that these are simply the result of "governance failures".

While it is convenient to blame Israel for causing economic crisis in the territories due to its temporary internal closures in response to violence and terrorism, the evidence points to wholesale corruption in the PA that has led to widespread poverty and hardship.

As a member of the Palestinian leadership noted just last summer: “The social fabric of Palestinian society- its entire value system - are shuddering under the blows of the PA’s policies. Poverty is spreading as corruption accelerates.”²³

As of March/April 2000, 71% of Palestinians believed that corruption existed in PA institutions, up from 63% in January 2000.²⁴

There is little tangible evidence of the millions of dollars in foreign aid that have been channeled to the West Bank and Gaza since 1993. Foreign aid has evidently been diverted from projects intended to help those in need, either through corruption or through emphasis on building the overblown Palestinian security forces.

For the year 2000 the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) allocated the largest proportion of the PA budget (35.14%) to the Palestinian police and other overblown security forces, while the amount earmarked for education was 18.36%, health 6.8%, and social services just 5.5%. Chairman Arafat’s office was allocated 6.1% of the year 2000 budget of $640 million.

Promised foreign aid has been held up, partly because of the PA’s failure to provide proper accounting mechanisms and accountability guarantees. The failure of Arab countries to live up to their financial commitments to the PA has also played a major part in the current economic crisis in the territories. In spite of public statements of support for the Palestinians by the Arab world and extensive commitments of financial aid, the amount forthcoming has been remarkably more limited, due in part to internal Arab rivalries as well concerns over accountability.

We are concerned that funding channeled through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is being diverted away from its intended recipients, i.e., those in need, and that Canada is not insisting on the strict accountability mechanisms that would be required domestically to monitor the distribution of these funds.

From 1993 to 2000, between $162-165 million dollars was sent to the West Bank and Gaza through CIDA for aid and humanitarian purposes. The inexact figure relates to two separate CIDA documents dated May 2000 and January 2001 that give differing amounts for the period, the later document inexplicably giving a lower number.

The Report of the Auditor General of Canada for the year 2000, while not focusing on the West Bank and Gaza in its examination of foreign aid and development projects, nevertheless expressed concern in general that at times “limited information is received on projects that were funded, on the amounts spent on them, and on results obtained. CIDA bases its funding primarily on historical levels rather than on partners’ performance.”²⁵ A communication from CIDA asserted that “CIDA has a very stringent financial control and results based monitoring mechanisms” and the projects in question are “managed by Canadian executing agencies and multilateral organizations”.²⁶ However, the Audit noted that CIDA does not have a performance evaluation system for executing agencies and recommended: “As part of the project approval process, CIDA should review more rigorously whether the expected results that have been established for projects are realistic.”²⁷

Conclusion

As is customary, the topics of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza will come up for discussion in forthcoming sessions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, as they do at the Security Council, the General Assembly, most UN agencies and related human rights bodies. The politicization of these issues, while other flashpoints around the world are routinely margianalized or ignored, has been well-documented.²⁸ In response to the current crisis, the standard diet of anti-Israel resolutions has become even more one-sided and outrageous. The power of the majority can be seen in the easy passage of these resolutions every year, while attempts to focus attention on human rights concerns such as ’honour killings’, for example, can be watered down with equal ease by that same majority.²⁹ Canada’s voting record on these issues shows little evidence of a serious consideration of the concerns outlined in this brief, or of a willingness to take an independent stand on these issues in the world arena.³⁰

February 2001

Endnotes

¹ Summer 2000 on Palestinian Television, Palestinian Media Watch Special Report no. 30, September 11, 2000.

² PA Justice Minister Freih Abu Medein, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), July 21, 2000, translation by Independent Media Review and Analysis (IMRA).

³ Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, August 11, 2000 (translation by IMRA).

⁴ Israel Radio, December 6, 2000, reported in Ha’aretz services.

⁵ Associated Press, November 5, 2000

⁶ Major General David Stockwell, UN spokesman for the Peacekeeping Forces in Somalia, explaining the deaths of almost 100 rioters, armed militia joined by a civilian mob, quoted in Jerusalem Post, December 12, 2000.

⁷ IMRA, November 4, 2000

⁸ Toronto Star, December 15, 16, 2000

⁹ Weapon Abuse in the Palestinian Territories, Report of the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAW)

¹⁰ Paragraph 141, First Statement of the Government of Israel submitted to the Sharm El-Sheikh Fact Finding Committee, December 29, 2000.

¹¹ Dr. Mahmoud Zahhar, quoted in the Washington Post Foreign Service, October 25, 2000.

¹² Al Hayat Al-Jadida (PA), December 7, 2000, translation by IMRA.

¹³ Al-Hayat Al Jadida (PA), October 27, 2000, translation by Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

¹⁴ Al Ahram Al-Arabi (Egyptian weekly), October 28, 2000, in Special Dispatch no. 151, Middle East Media and Research Institute (MEMRI), November 9, 2000.

¹⁵ Jordan Times, October 25, 2000.

¹⁶ New York Times, August 5, 2000.

¹⁷ USA Today, December 10, 2000.

¹⁸ The New Palestinian Authority Textbooks, Academic Year 2000-2001, Centre for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, http://www.edume.org

¹⁹ Die Welt, January 17, 2001.

²⁰ Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 21, 2000, translation by IMRA.

²¹ Poll 46, Center for Palestine Research & Studies, 27-31 January 2000, Poll no. 46, 30 March - 1 April, 2000.

²² The Palestinian Security Services (PSS): Torture and Criminal Liability, Report of the Palestinian Society for the Protection of Human Rights and the Environment (LAW), August 2000.

²³ PLC member, former Minister of Agriculture Abd Al-Jawwad Saleh, Arab Media Internet Network, June 22, 2000.

²⁴ Poll 48, Center for Palestine Research & Studies, 30 March - 1 April 2000.

²⁵ Report of the Auditor General for the year 2000, Section 14.31.

²⁶ Communication from the North Africa and Middle East division, CIDA, May 9, 2000.

²⁷ Report of the Auditor General, ibid.

²⁸ Submission to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Institute for International Affairs of B’nai Brith Canada, 2000.

²⁹ UN bows to pressure, dilutes resolution against "honour killings", Seven Edwards, National Post, December 2, 2000.

³⁰ This statement forms the Executive Summary of the Submission to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Institute for International Affairs of B’nai Brith Canada, 2001. The full version will be available shortly.

Institute for International Affairs | Commission for Jewish Culture | Sports Corporation | League for Human Rights | Publications
Government Relations Office | Centre for Community Action | B’nai Brith Foundation | Press Releases | The Jewish Tribune
Canadian Jewish Law Students Association | Links | B’nai Brith Canada