Utrikesminister Valtonen i Israel och Ramallah

 Här kan man läsa  vad utrikesminister Valtonen skrev på Facebook efter sitt besök till Israel och Ramallah på västbanken. (https://www.facebook.com/elinamariavaltonen)

Kort kan man säga att hon inte skriver ett ont ord, ingen kritik av den palestinska myndigheten. Israel får däremot kritik på flera områden. Palestinierna är som vanligt offer och Israel angripare. Sorgligt men  inte oväntat. 

"Det får inte finnas någon plats för terrorism", skriver hon. Varför kritiserar hon inte då palestinska myndigheten som betalar lön till  terrorister som angriper judar, som prisar och förhärligar terrordåd mot judar (t.ex Fatah glorifies Munich Olympics massacre ahead of 2026 Winter Olympics) och som i skolorna lär barnen att hata judar?

Vierailin maanantaina Ramallahissa, Länsirannalla.

Israelin siirtokuntalaajentuminen ja siirtokuntalaisten väkivalta tuntuvat palestiinalaisten arjessa päivittäin eri puolilla Länsirantaa, myös Itä-Jerusalemissa. Monen palestiinalaisen elämä on täynnä rajoituksia maan, toimeentulon ja peruspalvelujen saatavuudessa – ja samanaikaisesti turvattomuus ja väkivalta ovat lisääntyneet. 

Eräs nuori nainen kertoi, että hän on pahimmillaan joutunut odottamaan neljä tuntia Israelin asettamalla tarkistuspaikalla - siis palestiinalaisalueiden välillä - ainoastaan päästäkseen ajamaan työpaikaltaan kotiin. Arjen pyörittäminen vaikeutuu kaiken aikaa.

Tapasin Ramallahissa pääministeri Mohammad Mustafan. Keskustelimme Länsirannan heikentyneestä tilanteesta, Gazan humanitaarisista olosuhteista sekä siitä, miten kansainvälinen yhteisö voi parhaiten tukea Palestiinalaishallintoa ja sen paluuta Gazaan. Hamas on riisuttava aseista ja sen on väistyttävä vallasta. Terrorismille ei pidä olla minkäänlaista tilaa.

Vierailin matkan yhteydessä Punaisen Puolikuun avustuskeskuksessa ja tapasin palestiinalaisia kansalaisyhteiskunnan toimijoita. Varastossa odotti rekkalavoittain avustuspaketteja Gazaan, joita ei vielä oltu saatu toimittaa.

Suomi on Palestiinalaishallinnon kumppani. Jatkamme kehitysyhteistyötä ja tuemme poliittista näköalaa, joka vie kohti kahden valtion ratkaisua.

Vierailin sunnuntaina Israelissa. Kenttämatka alkoi vierailulla Kibbutz Nir Oziin sekä Nova Music festivaalialueelle, jotka olivat Hamasin 7. lokakuuta tekemien iskujen surullisia kohteita. Yhteensä satoja ihmisiä sai surmansa tai heidät kaapattiin panttivangeiksi.

Vierailin myös Holokaustin muistokeskus Yad Vashemissa kunnioittamassa kuuden miljoonan holokaustissa murhatun juutalaisen muistoa. Menneisyyden muistaminen on yhteinen velvollisuutemme. Meidän on puolustettava ihmisarvoa, torjuttava antisemitismiä ja suojeltava siviilejä kaikkialla.

Tapasin Jerusalemissa Israelin ulkoministerin Gideon Sa’arin ja presidentin Isaac Herzogin. Keskustelimme maidemme välisistä suhteista sekä Lähi-idän tilanteesta: Israelin ja Palestiinan välisestä konfliktista, rauhansuunnitelmasta ja Iranista.

Nostin esille Gazan siviiliväestön jatkuvan humanitaarisen hädän ja näköalattomuuden. Tuemme rauhansuunnitelman toimeenpanoa. Suomen tuki alueelliselle vakaudelle ja kahden valtion ratkaisulle on horjumaton. Emme hyväksy Israelin toimia Länsirannalla, jotka pyrkivät siirtokunta-alueiden annektointiin osaksi Israelia. Israel on viime kuukausina tehostanut siirtokuntien rakentamista.

Israel har inte annekterat Judéen och Samarien

 These government measures are not de facto annexation  (Alan Baker TOI)

Israel’s security cabinet has approved a set of administrative changes affecting day-to-day governance and law enforcement in the territories. Predictably, the response has been split between celebration and outrage. Supporters have hailed the measures as “de facto annexation.” Critics have denounced them as exactly the same. Both camps are wrong...

…Exaggerated condemnations by international leaders have relied on selective and misleading framing. They accuse Israel of annexation without engaging seriously with the nature of the measures themselves.

...In this context, the condemnation by UN Secretary-General António Guterres calling for the reversal of these measures reflects extreme bias and a superficial reading of the facts and legal framework underlying them...

…As an international official, the Secretary-General should be reminded that the “UN Charter and Staff Rules” require senior officials to act with impartiality. His consistently slanted statements, which single out and condemn Israel while disregarding Palestinian violations and incitement, undermine the integrity of his office – and any last shreds of credibility that the United Nations may still have.

Låt inte lögnen vinna: Fördöm påståendet om folkmord i Israel, oavsett vem som framför det (Jerusalem Post)

 Att stämpla Israels krig i Gaza som folkmord är inte kritik utan ett modernt blodsförtal, ett påstående som förvränger det som hände den 7 oktober, som underblåser antisemitism världen över och måste konfronteras direkt.

Don't let the lie stand: Denounce the Israeli genocide claim, no matter who raises it - editorial

Labeling Israel’s war in Gaza as genocide is not criticism but a modern blood libel, one that distorts October 7, fuels antisemitism worldwide, and must be confronted head-on.

...Thankfully, the issue is coming to the forefront, thanks to an online campaign initiated by a group of respected Jewish thinkers, teachers, and writers not generally associated with the Right’s allegiance to the notion that Israel can do no wrong. Among the Israeli signatories are Rabbi Irving “Yitz” Greenberg, journalist and teacher Yossi Klein Halevi, and Rabbi Micha Odenheimer of Tevel b’Tzedek, an Israeli nonprofit.

They plainly but eloquently stated the obvious, which has been either ignored or disputed.

They wrote: “The unprecedented combat conditions of the war – hundreds of kilometers of tunnels, thousands of booby-trapped homes – the conflating of combatants with ‘journalists’ and ‘human rights workers,’ the ratio of civilian-to-terrorist casualties, considered low for asymmetrical urban warfare, the absence of mass starvation despite repeated claims of imminent catastrophe, the warnings given to civilians before attack: All these factors were erased in the eagerness to indict Israel for genocide.

“A crucial difference between war as tragedy and war as genocide is intent. In this war, only one side intended to commit genocide, and that is Hamas.

“To accuse Israel of genocide, the massacre of October 7 has been systematically downplayed, while Israeli actions have been distorted and amplified. Israel went to war on October 8, not out of vengeance, as its detractors claim, but to break the Iranian-led siege of terror enclaves on its borders, and to restore its deterrence, without which it cannot survive in the long term in the Middle East. Thousands of rockets and missiles were fired at Israel in the weeks following the massacre, while Hamas starved and tortured 250 Israelis, some of whom were murdered in captivity.”...

Så ser palestinierna på UNRWA

Palestinian Authority again admits UNRWA is political

The Palestinian Authority has again admitted—three times in two weeks—that UNRWA is all about politics as it seeks to preserve the organization so it can keep alive the demand to flood Israel with "returning refugees."

Last month, a column in the official PA daily defined what it views as the very mandate of UNRWA:

"The Fatah Revolutionary Council… emphasized… that all the patriots must… defend UNRWA and its mandate because it is a testimony to the Nakba (i.e., "the catastrophe," the Palestinian term for the establishment of the State of Israel) and the sanctity of the refugees' right of return."

[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Jan. 11, 2026]

This is the PA admitting, openly, that the central value of UNRWA is ideological and political. It is why the PA frames challenges to UNRWA as an Israeli plot to erase the refugee issue and the dream of "return" into Israel. In the following statement by a PA spokesman on official PA TV, the claim is taken a step further and tied directly to Israel's sovereignty and to Jerusalem, again showing clearly that this is not actually a humanitarian issue for the PA but a political one, with the mission of UNRWA being to ultimately undo Israel through "return."

PA Jerusalem District Spokesman Ma'arouf Al-Rifai: "Since Oct. 7, [2023], Israel has started a campaign of incitement against UNRWA to eliminate the refugee issue, to eliminate what we Palestinians are dreaming of, namely the right of return and compensation. Israel is attempting to impose full sovereignty over Jerusalem and annex it to the cities of the occupation (i.e., Israel) like any city that was occupied in 1948."

[Official PA TV News, Jan. 20, 2026]

Note that the PA spokesman reiterated what Palestinian Media Watch has stressed many times, which is that the PA sees all of Israel as "occupied in 1948."

A senior PLO official also made a similar admission on official PA radio several days later:...

Jämförelse mellan YLE:s och Jerusalem Posts rapportering

 Israeliska armen gav i onsdags en uppskattning om hur många invånare i Gaza som dött i kriget.

Här under en liten jämförelse av hur YLE och Jerusalem Post rapporterade om händelsen.

Israelin armeija tunnustaa Gazan terveysministeriön ilmoittamat uhriluvut

Israelilaiset mediat, muun muassa The Times of Israel ja Haaretz uutisoivat, että Israelin armeija hyväksyy Gazan terveysministeriön uhriluvun: lokakuussa 2023 alkaneessa sodassa on kuollut ainakin 71 000 gazalaista.

Tarkka luku on nyt 71 667 kuollutta. Luvussa ei ole mukana mm. nälkään tai puutteellisen terveydenhoidon takia kuolleita. Myös kadonneita ei ole luvussa.

Armeija analysoi nyt, kuinka suuri osa kuolleista on Hamas-järjestön asemiehiä.

YK, avustusjärjestöt ja mediat ovat tähänkin asti pitäneet Gazan terveysministeriön uhrilukua luotettavana, Israel on väittänyt sitä epäluotettavaksi.

IDF confirms some 70,000 Gazans died in Israel-Hamas war, none from starvation

The IDF, for the first time on Wednesday, confirmed that approximately 70,000 Gazans were killed during the Israel-Hamas War, while disputing the percentage of civilian deaths claimed by the UN and declaring that no healthy persons died from starvation.

While various international groups have claimed that the overwhelming majority of those who died were civilians, the IDF continues to contest that number and has said that around 25,000 were Hamas terrorists. Further, the IDF has presented evidence that, through early 2024 – the period when Hamas was firing large daily rocket salvos – around 13% of their rockets were misfires, leading to the killing of many Palestinians.

There have also been other periods of time where Hamas executed large numbers of Palestinians whom it viewed as political opponents or civilians whom it was trying to prevent from fleeing an area that the IDF said needed to be evacuated. While the IDF said on Thursday that it is working on a fuller evaluation of the breakdown of civilians to combatants and estimates of those killed by Hamas, no Israeli official has provided a set estimate on that to date...

Får en kristen glädjas åt och stöda judarnas återkomst till sitt hemland?

 Frågan kan verka absurd men det finns de som anser att så får man inte göra.

Jerusalem's Armenian church leaders say Christian Zionism is 'damaging,' warn of harm to unity

The Armenian Apostolic Patriarchate of Jerusalem, in a Saturday statement claiming to be from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in the Holy Land, condemned Christian Zionism as a “damaging” ideology.

ICEJ challenges church leaders’ claim that Christian Zionism is 'damaging ideology'

ICEJ Response to Patriarchs’ Statement denouncing Christian Zionism

The International Christian Embassy Jerusalem takes issue with the recent Statement from the Patriarchs and Heads of Churches in Jerusalem on Unity and Representation of the Christian Communities in the Holy Land (January 17, 2026) concerning its charge that Christian Zionism is among the “damaging ideologies” being advanced by unnamed local individuals to “mislead the public, sow confusion, and harm the unity of our flock.”

As Christians, we adhere to a Zionism that is purely biblical in origin, belief, scope and practice – reflecting our sincere faith convictions and not shifting political objectives. The promised restoration of Israel in modern times enjoys ample biblical credentials in both the Old and New Testaments. The Jewish return to the Land of Israel both reflects and affirms the faithful nature and character of God to always keep His sworn covenant promises, thereby strengthening the Christian faith rather than damaging or undermining it...

…The respected Catholic prelate Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, Archbishop of Vienna, once expressed his support for Biblical Zionism, maintaining that it was doctrinally important for Christians to recognize the Jewish people's deep connection to their ancestral homeland, and adding that Christians should rejoice in the Jewish return to the Land of Israel as a fulfilment of biblical prophecy. We could not agree more....

Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Nicolas Maduro, och Hugo Chavez hjältar och förebilder för palestinska myndigheten

 Top Palestinian Authority honors given to Putin, Xi Jinping, Maduro, and Chavez: "Star of Palestine" to enemies of the West

The Palestinian Authority's highest decoration, known as the Star of Palestine, is not awarded to just anyone. Outside of Arab heads of state, this award has been given by the PA only to its closest ideological allies – all notorious dictators in the anti-Western axis: Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Nicolas Maduro, and Hugo Chavez. The award—a sign of the PA's deep ideological affinity with China, Russia, and Venezuela—has not been given by the PA to any leader of a Western democracy.