Human Rights Watch founder and chairman emeritus slammed the organization for focusing so much on Israel but not much on the authoritarian regimes surrounding it.

In a New York Times opinion piece, Robert L. Bernstein, who served as Human Rights Watch chairman from 1978 to 1998 and is now its founding chairman emeritus, wrote that with increasing frequency, the watchdog casts aside its important distinction between open and closed societies.

"Nowhere is this more evident than in its work in the Middle East," he said. "The region is populated by authoritarian regimes with appalling human rights records. Yet in recent years Human Rights Watch has written far more condemnations of Israel for violations of international law than of any other country in the region."

He said Israel was home to at least 80 human rights organizations, a vibrant free press, a democratically elected government, a judiciary that frequently rules against the government, a politically active academia, multiple political parties and probably more journalists per capita than any other country in the world.

On the other hand, he said, the Iranian regime, and most Arab regimes, remained "brutal, closed and autocratic, permitting little or no internal dissent."

So as I've pointed out, the only people who can call Gaza, or the Palestinian narrative a "holocaust" typically are Holocaust deniers, like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hezbollah, Hamas, Osama, etc. no wonder why not only does Hamas deny THE Holocaust, but Palestinian schools even in PA controlled Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) don't even teach it:

The Holocaust is not taught in West Bank schools, said an education ministry official in Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas' government.

Israelis have long complained that Palestinian textbooks present Israel only as an enemy, despite a series of interim peace deals. Also, they charge that maps in the books do not show Israel at all.

Palestinians make similar charges about Israeli education. Recently Israel's education minister ordered a halt to using the accepted Arabic term "nakba," or catastrophe, to describe the results of the two-year war that followed Israel's creation, when about 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forced from their homes.

So to those who think hating Israel or not siding with it is "liberal," I got news for you! Even Ted Kennedy was not only pro-Israel, but is mourned even in the Jewish state

"Kennedy was a great friend of Israel, and the Jewish nation," Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said. "He battled for human rights, and was part of a distinguished family."

"In his many years as a senator, he stood on Israel's side, even in its hardest hours," the foreign minister added.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also heralded Kennedy, calling him an "American patriot" and "a great friend of Israel."

So to all who say that even after Bibi endorsed two states, and offered negotiations without pre-conditions, and that he wouldn't freeze settlements and that was an excuse for Abbas to not negotiate, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1249418661295&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull here it is

For so long, people here are demanding "justice" for the Palestinian Arabs, and I can understand this. I support a Palestinian Arab state in most of the West Bank, with territorial adjustments allowed per UNSC 242, which says Israel should withdraw "from territories," not "all territories," in order to have the "safe and defensible borders" that they didn't have on June 5, 1967.

Some have even tried to justify why the Arab countries don't naturalize the refugees, as countries in the past have done with them, India naturalized those who fled from Pakistan and Pakistan naturalized ones who came from India, Greece and Turkey naturalized their population exchanges, Germany naturalized the 13 million Germans ethnically cleansed from Eastern Europe and Czechoslovakia, and Israel naturalized 600000 Jewish refugees who fled from Arab countries. And why the Palestinian Arab refugees have been so for 62 years, longer than anyone in history.

So usually there is arguing, fighting, etc. over I/P, but I just saw a touching story that while not obviously a huge breakthrough, is a glimmer of hope.

Giggling children built castles, drew pictures in the sand and splashed water on each other in a refreshing first for Palestinian youngsters from the landlocked West Bank: a day at the beach.

While Israelis and Palestinians are increasingly kept apart by distrust and a separation barrier, grass-roots organizations have been trying to bring them together like this, maintaining that peace is built one personal encounter at a time.

Two such groups, Combatants for Peace and Machsom Watch, have been arranging trips to Israeli beaches for Palestinian children and their parents. On Monday, about 75 Palestinians drove by bus from the West Bank's Hebron area to a beach south of Tel Aviv, after crossing an Israeli checkpoint on foot.

For many of the Palestinians, it was their first glimpse of the sea -- and a moment of hope.

"We feel we have to live in peace and create an atmosphere for our kids to live a better life than the life we lived," said Ziad Sabatein, a 37-year-old father of five.

"We lived through the (Palestinian) uprising and the attacks on each other, we experienced these things together (with the Israelis). Why not experience this way of life?"Giggling children built castles, drew pictures in the sand and splashed water on each other in a refreshing first for Palestinian youngsters from the landlocked West Bank: a day at the beach.

While Israelis and Palestinians are increasingly kept apart by distrust and a separation barrier, grass-roots organizations have been trying to bring them together like this, maintaining that peace is built one personal encounter at a time.

Two such groups, Combatants for Peace and Machsom Watch, have been arranging trips to Israeli beaches for Palestinian children and their parents. On Monday, about 75 Palestinians drove by bus from the West Bank's Hebron area to a beach south of Tel Aviv, after crossing an Israeli checkpoint on foot.

For many of the Palestinians, it was their first glimpse of the sea -- and a moment of hope.

"We feel we have to live in peace and create an atmosphere for our kids to live a better life than the life we lived," said Ziad Sabatein, a 37-year-old father of five.

"We lived through the (Palestinian) uprising and the attacks on each other, we experienced these things together (with the Israelis). Why not experience this way of life?"

As everyone knows, Jordan is the only country which decided to try to integrate Palestinian Arab refugees into their society. After the Arab state rejected the partition plan and launched war upon the nascent Jewish state, Jordan then occupied and annexed the West Bank, as Egypt occupied the Gaza Strip, but did not give citizenship, unlike Jordan. Then in 1967 the Arab states launched war again, Egypt by closing the Straits of Tiran and along with Syria lining up troops at the borders, Egypt unlawfully expelling the UN peace keepers in the Sinai after the Suez War when Egypt tried to close the Suez, and Jordan began bombing the Jewish state, even when Israel tried to beg King Hussein not to take them to war again.

So we know Hamas loves to use media to spread hate propaganda which incites adults and young kids to violence. Well, now, in Gaza, Hamas has take it to a new level: