Submission: December 30, 2021
Name: Andria Spindel, BA, MSW, Doctor of Laws, Honoris Causa
Organization: Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation (CAEF)
Biography: This submission is on behalf of a Canadian charitable organization that for 20 years has called out Jew hatred and the persecution of minorities, defended Israel against lies and bigotry, and defended Canadian rights and freedoms.
Andria Spindel has over 45 years’ experience in senior management within the Canadian NGO sector, 38 of which she served as President and CEO of one of Canada’s largest charitable organizations serving people with disabilities. For 3 years she has been voluntary Executive Director of CAEF.
Issue(s) to which your submission applies: CAEF will address each of the suggested topics for the Inquiry:
(1) Underlying root causes of recurrent tensions, instability and protraction of conflict in and between the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel; as well as systematic discrimination and repression based on national, ethnic, racial or religious identity; The root cause of all the tensions and instability between Israel and the Arabs of Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, is the complete unwillingness of the Arab leadership to acknowledge that Israel’s existence is permanent, legal, historical and moral, and its insistence on rejection of this reality. The Arab leadership is opposed to Israel’s existence and prefers conflict over peace as is demonstrated daily and has been for 73+ years. The Arab perspective has no racial or ethnic roots, substance or bearing on any aspect of the conflict. It might well have religious aspects as the PA and Hamas operate as fundamentalist, radical, Islamic supremacist organizations. Thus any non-Muslim entity is offensive to them. Hence they have significantly reduced the Christian populations in their respective regions through persecution and harassment and eliminated the Jews completely. Both entities, the PA and Hamas, are antisemitic to the core, while in Israel, Muslims and Christians thrive and their numbers continue to grow. There is no such place as “Occupied Palestinian Territory”, no such country as “Palestine” and there has never been a country called Palestine. The only time the land, known today as Israel, has been a state for any nation is during the historical periods of Jewish statehood, and the only people to have built a nation there are the Jews. This is well documented, and all archaeological evidence confirms it. There are ZERO artifacts from any people called Palestinians as the Arabs only assumed that false name in the interest of confronting the Jews and denying their history in 1964. While there is now a nationalist movement among the Arabs of the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, the United Nations, the very body which has initiated this “inquiry”, did itself propose partition of the land, in the UN Partition Plan of 1947, a land for two peoples which the Arabs rejected. The Arabs rejected Judea and Samaria which is referred to inappropriately at present as the “West Bank”. Today this is considered by many as” disputed territory”. But the legal world agrees that it is not occupied territory. And the agreement since the Oslo conference, is that the Palestinian Arabs are in charge in Areas A and B and that Israel is in charge in Area C. However, it is well known that the Arabs are illegally building structures in Area C to deliberately infringe on the Israeli dunams. “Repression” describes the governance structures and practices of the two terrorist entities that govern Arabs in areas controlled by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. They repress all freedoms of their constituents and oppress minorities, dissidents, the press, and anyone who recognizes Israel and acknowledges its Jewish democratic nature.
Facts and circumstances regarding alleged violations of international humanitarian law and alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law leading up to and since 13 April 2021; Clearly Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are responsible for incitement to violence, abuses of human rights and attacks on civilians, both their own people and Israelis, and attempts to destroy Israel. Every conflict between Gaza and Israel has been initiated by Hamas which stole the leadership of the territory after Israel withdrew in 2005. That is fact and thousands of rockets fired into Israel prove it, as do terror tunnels and fire balloons and smoking tires. The governing tyrants of Gaza have only one goal in mind as specified in the Hamas Charter—the destruction of Israel. They are not for the well-being of their citizens and punish any who don’t obey them or who seek peace with Israel. The Palestinian Authority is one of the worst governments in the world, paying its citizens to murder Jews, pay-for-slay, and providing a lifetime reward to the families of terrorists if they do kill a Jew, even a baby or an elderly person. Along the way, both governing entities are not concerned if they kill non Jewish tourists or even Arab Israelis or their own Arab civilians as they indiscriminately aim rockets and missiles at people in Israeli cities, towns, farms, and highways. Rockets often fail to launch and kill their own people. It is a well-known fact that gay men and women in Hamas-controlled Gaza have fled to Israel for safety, knowing they would be harassed or even killed by the Islamist murderers in Gaza. In Israel they are protected and live in safe-houses. Women in the PA controlled territories who wished to seek political office, were unable to have their faces on posters because of the repression of women under the PLO/PLFP/Fatah controlled PA, while in Israel, women serve as equal members in the government and in all walks of life. That includes Arab women! Israel is among the first of only a handful of countries to have had a woman Prime Minister. During the covid pandemic, the PA proved it cares less for its citizens than it does for defaming Israel and grandstanding on the international stage. When offered vaccines from Israel, it declined. Yet when any PA official needs emergency care or a great hospital, they gladly accept treatment in Israeli hospitals by Israeli medial staff. They are duplicitous and self-serving. The PA leadership, from Arafat to Abbas, have secret bank accounts and have absconded with millions provided by donor countries to aid the Palestinian Arab population. The fraudsters are never punished because they control the arms of government including the local militia, and direct all operations. It is the PA that calls for knife attacks on Israelis, car rammings to kill innocent people, and suicide bombs to name just a few of their inhuman activities, all that are against international laws.
Identification of those responsible; Clearly the leadership of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority and all of their associated entities are responsible for crimes against humanity, breaches of human rights, terror and the rewarding of terror, terror training at UNRWA operated schools and camps, and encouraging violence on Arabic media and support to and by NGOs that claim to be about human rights but are not. Israel named 6 so-called human rights or development NGOs that are in fact terror operatives and the source of hatred and violence against Israel. It appears that caring for Palestinian Arabs is an afterthought and the main goal of these six and several other NGOs is the destruction of Israel, not development for Arabs. Here are a few names of those responsible for terrorism, antisemitism, civil rights abuses and fomenting war not peace: president Mahmoud Abbas, prime minister Mohammad Ibrahim Shtayyeh, Ismail Haniya, Head of Hamas, Khaled Mashal, wealthy National Head of Hamas.
Recommendations on accountability measures, with a view to avoiding and ending impunity and ensuring legal accountability, including individual criminal and command responsibility; This inquiry must deal with facts and hold the terrorists, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, accountable for their many crimes, their promotion and conducting of terror, the murder of innocent people, both Israeli and Arab and their constant incitement. Nothing will change as long as the Hamas Charter promotes the destruction of Israel, death to Jews, and the leadership refuses to accept Israel or negotiate a permanent peace. Likewise nothing will change as long as the PA educational system promotes violence against Israelis with the goal of destroying Israel. It is an established fact that the PA controls the content of textbooks used by the UN Relief and Works Agency and that entity provides education to over 500,000 Arab children. All of the children are exposed to hatred, lies and violence and encouraged to become martyrs. The texts have been analyzed by several organizations and the EU produced a report confirming this in 2021. Accountability requires action and the UNHRC has taken no action against the perpetrators of terror, namely Hamas and the PA, and their accomplices, funders, associates and support organizations. The lack of accountability assures even more terror and the strident anti-Israel bias of the UNHRC itself and this Inquiry give assurance that no justice will be forthcoming.
Recommendations on measures to be taken by third States to ensure respect for international humanitarian law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. Since the very premise of this inquiry is based on falsehoods, Jew hatred, and anti-Israel sentiments and fabrications, there is no expectation that recommendations to hold the guilty accountable will ever be adopted yet alone implemented. The history of Israel is blatantly clear—it was and is a Jewish state. The Quran confirms that Israel is the homeland of the Jews and it also is clear in the Quran that Jerusalem is of little or no consequence to Muslims. Since the Al-Aqsa mosque was built many years after the death of Prophet Mohammad, it clearly has no relevance to the religion of Islam and many scholars confirm that the mosque from which the Prophet supposedly rose on his steed is not that mosque but a different mosque closer to Mecca. This is clearly articulated by Imam Mohamad Tawhidi, a leading Islamic scholar and advisor to the Global Council of Imams. If peace is ever to be achieved between the Palestinian Arab dictators and the Israeli government, the change has to come from the Arabs. Israel wants peace. The Arabs want the destruction of Israel. Jerusalem is the Holiest city for the Jews and the rightful owners. It will never again be divided. It was only divided between 1949-1967 because Jordan and other Arab countries attacked and then Jordan illegally occupied parts of Israel and Jerusalem after their offensive war, the aim of which was to eliminate the possibility of a Jewish state. Today, peace exists with the realists and the Arab countries that want more for their citizens than the “dead or else” wishes of Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Third party countries can hold the Arab governing bodies accountable: cut off the PA funding for pay-for-slay policies, refuse to fund UNRWA and move the responsibility for real refugees to where it rightfully belongs with UNHCR, and eliminate the training of terrorists and so-called martyrs. Third party states can call for a thorough investigation of the fraud and embezzlement that is suspected by the PA who are not developing opportunities for young Arabs nor promoting peace, and cut off funds and support for Hamas which should be cut off from all donor development funds which they repeatedly use for building terror tunnels, rockets and other forms of destruction aimed at their neighbor. If this Inquiry is to be considered legitimate, it must take seriously the need to investigate and expose the terrorists and human rights violators, the PA and Hamas, who are really guilty of war crimes for sending thousands of missiles into Israeli civilian areas, for murdering Israeli citizens, and for rejecting all offers of peace. The PA and Hamas, which have oppressed their own people and taught them to hate and to destroy Israel must be held accountable, punished, and their tyrannies rejected by the UN Human Rights Council. If the sole purpose of the Inquiry is, as many suspect, to demonize Israel, the Inquiry is completely without merit and should be halted immediately.