Ken Roth of @HRW reveals his contempt for Israel again

A new tweet from Ken Roth of Human Rights Watch:


The article he links to:

A trawler left Sweden on its way to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip 5,000 nautical miles away.

The Marianne of Gothenburg departed on Sunday evening and is the first ship in the Freedom Flotilla III to leave for Gaza, according to the website of the Ship to Gaza Sweden campaign.

The boat, which was purchased jointly by the Ship to Gaza Sweden and Ship to Gaza Norway, is carrying solar panels and medical equipment, according to Ship to Gaza Sweden, along with five crew members and eight passengers.

The Ship to Gaza organization is calling for an immediate end to the naval blockade of Gaza; opening of the Gaza Port; and secure passage for Palestinians between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Sweden officially recognized the state of Palestine last October.

Among the passengers are Israeli-born Swedish citizen Dror Feiler, a musician and spokesman of Ship to Gaza; Dr. Henry Ascher, a professor of public health and pediatrician; Lennart Berggren, a filmmaker; Maria Svensson, pro tem spokeswoman of the Feministiskt initiative; and Mikael Karlsson, chairman of Ship to Gaza Sweden.

The boat is named after Marianne Skoog, a veteran member of the Swedish Palestine Solidarity movement, who died in May 2014.
Roth is suggesting that Israel allow the ship into Gaza, just to allow the tiny amount of humanitarian aid to get in.

However, what he is really saying is that he wants Hamas to be able to import weapons via the sea.

Because Israel allows medical equipment, and yes, solar panels, into Gaza. In previous attempts to bring pathetic amounts of "aid" into Gaza, Israel offered to have the ships brought into an Israeli port from which the ships could have the goods unloaded and sent to Gaza - and the people on board refused.

Roth knows that the purpose of the ship is not to bring in aid, which is only limited by Israel for items that have a possible military dimension. The purpose of the ship is to end Israel's legal blockade of Gaza.

The people behind the movement say this explicitly, calling it "a peaceful, nonviolent action to break the ... blockade of the Gaza Strip" - not to bring in aid.

If Israel lets the ship through, the legality of the blockade - a legality that even the UN recognizes - becomes weaker, making it easier for Hamas to eventually import weapons via the sea.

Here is a brief list of criteria for a blockade to be legal:

In order to be legal, several conditions have to be fulfilled. The first is the requirement to give widespread notice when a blockade is applied and to make sure that any ship that is stopped knows that there is a blockade. Nowadays the problem of notification is much easier than in the past because of the great improvement in communications.

Another condition for the legality of a sea blockade is effectiveness. It is not enough simply to declare a blockade. It has to be enforced, otherwise it is not valid and legal.

According to a further condition, a blockade should not cut off an unrelated foreign state from access to the sea. In the case of Gaza, the blockade does not prevent Egypt from reaching the sea.

Furthermore, a blockade has to be based on equality: It must apply to everybody. Of course there is always the possibility that the blockading party may give special permission to certain neutral ships to go through, but these are exceptions.

A blockade has to permit the passage of humanitarian assistance if needed. However, the San Remo Manual includes two conditions (in Article 103): first, the blockading party may decide where and when and through which port the assistance should reach the coast. In addition, the state may require that a neutral organization on the coast should control the distribution of the items. For instance, in Gaza, does it reach the civilians or Hamas?

Finally, there is the condition that a state may not starve the civilian population (San Remo, Article 102). This conforms also to the general principles of the laws on armed conflict.
It is obvious that the Marianne of Gothenburg is not a humanitarian aid ship. It is a political statement. If Israel allows ships whose sole purpose is political to enter Gaza, then the blockade crumbles, because it is no longer enforced equally. By forcing the ships to land in Ashkelon and from there bringing the aid in, Israel is maintaining a blockade that is necessary for the safety of Israeli citizens from Hamas weapons.

Ken Roth, by pretending that the Marianne of Gothenburg is an aid ship, reveals yet again his loathing for Israel.

He shows that he wants the legal blockade of Gaza to be destroyed.

He shows that he supports people whose sole purpose is to destroy Israel, not to bring in aid to Gaza.

He shows that he shares the goals of these anti-Israel activists, wanting to use the facade of "humanitarian aid" as a lever to isolate Israel politically.

And he shows his hypocrisy, because this tweet shows that Roth's concern for the human rights of Israelis within range of Hamas weapons is nil.

Roth's tweet shows yet again what a contemptible person he is, under the guise of human rights.

Latest videos of antisemitic harassment - and soccer - on the Temple Mount

Here we see the army of screaming Muslim women following a group of peaceful Jews strolling on their holiest spot.

It is as pure a view of antisemitism as one can imagine, and the Muslims are very proud of them.

Only after the Jews exit the holy spot do they start singing. (I really want them to adapt a "Yibaneh Hamikdash" tune to "Allahu Akbar" and start dancing every time they hear the chants outside the Mount gates.)



This soccer game was filmed during Passover:

Dutch might ban ritual slaughter. Is circumcision next?

Holland is considering banning ritual slaughter. From AP:
One of Europe's first countries to allow Jews to practice their religion openly may soon pass a law banning centuries-old Jewish and Muslim traditions on the ritual slaughter of animals.

In the Netherlands, an unlikely alliance of an animal rights party and the xenophobic Freedom Party is spearheading support for the ban on kosher and halal slaughter methods that critics say inflict unacceptable suffering on animals.

The far right's embrace of the bill, which is expected to go to a parliamentary vote this month, is based mostly on its strident hostility toward the Dutch Muslim population. The Party for the Animals, the world's first such party to be elected to parliament, says humane treatment of animals trumps traditions of tolerance.

Jewish and Muslim groups call the initiative an affront to freedom of religion.

As in most western countries, Dutch law dictates that butchers must stun livestock — render it unconscious — before it can be slaughtered, to minimize the animals' pain and fear. But an exception is made for meat that must be prepared under ancient Jewish and Muslim dietary laws and practices. These demand that animals be slaughtered while still awake, by swiftly cutting the main arteries of their necks with razor-sharp knives.

What scientific studies exist that show that Jewish ritual slaughter is more painful than stunning animals before slaughtering them? I am not aware of any. What I am aware of is how Temple Grandin, possibly the world's foremost expert on animal pain during slaughter, has described when Jewish slaughter - shechita - is done correctly:

When shechitah was performed on each steer, I was amazed that the animal did not move. To find out if shechitah was really painless, I started holding the head of each animal with less and less pressure to see if it would move during shechitah. Even big bulls stayed still when the head holder was so loose they could have easily pulled their heads out....In the hands of the best shochets, the animal does not make a sound or flinch, and drops unconscious in eight to 10 seconds.
So the Ap article is correct: the push to ban ritual slaughter is not based on compassion for animals but on xenophobia for Muslims, which is spilling over into Jews.

In short, the proposed ban is an expression of pure bigotry.

And it is not stopping there. From the apparent success of the campaign against ritual slaughter, the xenophobes have now set their sights on circumcision. An op-ed in de Volkskrant, a major Dutch newspaper, argues that male circumcision is immoral and just as barbaric as stoning or female genital mutilation, and therefore should be outlawed.

Interestingly, the arguments again are not based on any scientific study that shows a negative effects from male circumcision. The arguments are:

- Boys circumcision is a medically futile act on a minor patient.
- Boys Circumcision violates the integrity of the body, the right to religious freedom and the right to autonomy of the child.
- Boys Circumcision is contrary to the rule that minors may only be subjected to medical procedures in cases of illness or changes, or if it can be convincingly demonstrated that the intervention in the interests of the child, such as vaccinations.
- Boys Circumcision has sometimes serious complications.
Of course, religious imperative to this writer does not override the lack of real negative consequences.

How can we prove that the writer is clearly anti-religion, rather than just advocating for the rights of male babies?

It is very simple. The exact same four points can be made about the practice of piercing the ears of young girls. It violates the integrity of the body, it violates the rights of children to make their own choices, and it sometimes has serious complications, including major infections. Yet can one conceive of a Dutch law to criminalize piercings?

In both the cases of the ritual slaughter and circumcision, people who are driven by xenophobia are hiding behind humanitarian rationales to push their agenda of hate. Otherwise, they would be far more interested in coming up with standards where religious rituals such as these can be made as safe and humane as possible.

This is one reason why Jews need to be careful about which far-right groups they associate with. Not all of them are this bad, of course. But some anti-Muslim groups are motivated more by irrational hate of anything associated with Islam rather than for justice and human rights. They can easily become as obsessed with Jews as they are with Muslims.

(h/t Metzada)