Monday, May 09, 2011

  • Monday, May 09, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Somehow, I don't think that the members of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan, rallying against the US after the assassination of Bin Laden, quite understood how their slogan might come across:
Activists of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan gather for march against the US President Barack Obama in Karachi on May 6, 2011. Hundreds of Pakistanis took to the streets on May 6, cheering Osama bin Laden and shouting 'death to America' to condemn a unilateral US raid on their soil that killed the Al-Qaeda chief.

link

Hell, yeah!

(h/t Alex)

  • Monday, May 09, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Palestine Today reports that the Kingdom of Jordan is not happy about the Fatah/Hamas unity deal.

Jordan is mostly upset that they were not consulted beforehand .The kingdom has been harsh with Hamas elements in Jordan and the sudden about-face embarrassed the country.

As a result, Jordan refused to send any high-ranking officials to the Cairo ceremony and sent a note pf protest to Mahmoud Abbas.

Jordan is also upset at Egypt, both on not giving the kingdom a heads-up about the agreement as well as the interrupted supplies of natural gas due to saboteurs blowing up the gas lines towards Jordan and Israel in Egypt.

The newspaper describes the rift as a "crisis."
  • Monday, May 09, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Discovery of an honor killing, where the woman's uncle didn't like her choice in marriage partners.

The execution-style murder of an alleged "collaborator" with Israel.

Another execution-style murder in Al-Eizariya.

A man in Jericho was stabbed to death as well.

Sounds like Hamas is influencing things in the West Bank already!
  • Monday, May 09, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
An editorial in the New York Times about the Hamas/Fatah unity agreement uses a couple of the usual NYT memes.
We have many concerns about the accord, starting with the fact that Hamas has neither renounced its legacy of violence nor agreed to recognize Israel. The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he remains in charge of peace efforts and the unity government will be responsible for rebuilding Gaza and organizing elections. Whether that is Hamas’s vision is unclear.

Also disconcerting are suggestions that Mr. Abbas may have privately agreed to replace his prime minister, Salam Fayyad, who has done so much to build up the West Bank economy and institutions. There are big questions about the future of the two sides’ security forces.

The United States has spent millions of dollars helping the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority create a security force that Israel has come to rely on to keep the peace in the West Bank. Whether Hamas, which has terrorized Israel with rockets from Gaza, can ever be integrated into that force, or even work side by side, is a huge question.

Israel certainly has many reasons to mistrust this deal. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has suspended tax remittances and is pressing Washington hard to cut off aid to the Abbas government. The Obama administration has reacted warily to the new pact but said its assistance will continue for now. Congress is talking tough.

It’s too early for a cut-off. The money is Washington’s main leverage on the new government. A cut-off would shift the political balance dangerously toward Hamas.
If the US would have clearly warned the PA ahead of time that a government that does not meet the long-standing preconditions of the Quartet will lose all its foreign funding, all of the above problems would never have come up to begin with. Why should the world embrace Hamas now when we saw what happened last time they had "unity" - leading to Gaza turning into Hamastan?
Other reconciliation attempts between Fatah and Hamas have imploded, but Mr. Abbas seems to believe this will advance his push to get the United Nations General Assembly to recognize a Palestinian state. Above all, his sudden willingness to deal with his enemies in Hamas is a sign of his desperation with the stalled peace process.
No it isn't. It is proof that Abbas refuses to compromise with Israel and therefore is cunningly using the international community to accomplish by fiat the same goal without his being forced to tell his people that they will need to make concessions. There is no desperation here: just a very smart end-run around his making hard decisions.

Hamas’s goals are far harder to game, although there are reports of new frictions with Syria and a desire for better ties with Egypt’s new government.
The NYT covers world events, but cannot draw a line between the popular revolutions against authoritarianism in the Arab world and Gaza? Apparently, to the Times, the PA is an island of Western-style democracy in an ocean of Arab dictatorships.
In an interview with The Times last week, Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader, declared himself fully committed to working for a two-state solution. Just a few days earlier Hamas’s (supposedly more moderate) prime minister, Ismail Haniya, was out there celebrating Osama bin Laden as a “Muslim and Arab warrior.”
Hmmm. How can the New York Times resolve this seeming contradiction? Maybe it should go back and read Ethan Bronner's actual interview with Meshal, without Bronner's unprofessional and frankly dangerous assumptions, and discover that Meshal said no such thing!

Here's a rule to live by: When Hamas seems inconsistent between its words and actions, look for a loophole in their words. This is what a serious journalist must do, and it is something that the New York Times cannot seem to grasp vis a vis Palestinian Arab promises.

Huge skepticism and vigilance are essential. But more months with no progress on peace talks will only further play into extremists’ hands....
After Israel withdrew from Gaza, rocket attacks increased. After Israel killed some 750 Hamas terrorists in Cast Lead, rocket fire went down dramatically and Hamas started stopping other Gaza groups from firing rockets.

There were more suicide attacks in the immediate aftermath of Oslo - even before the second intifada - then there are today, after Israel went on the offensive to destroy the terror infrastructure in the West Bank.

Amazing how peace can result from war - another concept that the New York Times cannot grasp.

Washington needs to press Mr. Netanyahu back to the peace table. A negotiated settlement is the only way to guarantee Israel’s lasting security.
In the funhouse mirror image universe that the NYT resides in, it is Netanyahu who has refused to talk with Abbas, not the other way around. Their meme of an intransigent Likud leader is so ingrained that they cannot even get basic facts right.

The answer, to us, is clear. It is time for Mr. Obama, alone or with the quartet, to put a map and deal on the table. If Bin Laden’s death has given the president capital to spend, all the better. The Israelis and Palestinians are not going to break the stalemate on their own. And more drift will only lead to more desperation and more extremism.
The map and deal have been on the table before. The Palestinian Arabs rejected it, consistently. The Times' editors fantasies that Israel just needs to give a little more to obtain peace reflects nothing close to resembling reality.

But it does reflect that they believe Mahmoud Abbas' lies completely and uncritically. They believe he is a moderate, that he is willing to compromise, that his hands are tied, that he desperately wants peace with Israel. All of those assumptions - each demonstrably and provably false, as has been documented over the years - are what informs ridiculous NYT op-eds like these.

It certainly isn't based on fact.

(h/t David G)

Sunday, May 08, 2011

  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Sharp-eyed readers may have noticed that a few weeks ago, I placed a badge for StandWithUs on the sidebar of my blog, captioning it "EoZ Partner." Here is why.

StandWithUs is, in my opinion, the most effective hasbara organization on the planet. They are innovative, pro-active and creative. They are particularly effective on college campuses, standing up for Israel in the most hostile environments and teaching students what needs to be done to combat the lies.

When I came out with my "Apartheid?" series of posters, StandWithUs liked what they saw and proposed a partnership where I provide them with materials, mostly things I was doing for the blog anyway. The materials they like get co-branded between StandWithUs and EoZ.

I am of course honored to work with SWU.

Tomorrow, for Yom Ha'Atzmaut, I am unveliling a new series of posters. They will have the StandWithUs logo as well as the EoZ web address.

The posters' purpose is to instill pride for those who love Israel and to help make people proud to be called Zionist.

I hope you like them.
  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Great reporting from CAMERA:
Two weeks after the 9/11 terror attacks, University of Florida student Raja Abdulrahim published a letter in her campus newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, denying that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. The Sept. 26, 2001 letter stated: “I decided to respond to Guy Golan's letter (‘Jews must help all Arab people’) from Monday's Alligator because he erroneously refers to Hamas and Hizbollah as ‘fundamentalist' and ‘terror organizations' that have ‘murdered innocent Israeli civilians.’”

Her views were in line with those of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which in 2004 awarded her with a $2500 academic scholarship. (See CAIR's 2004 tax returns here, thanks to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Report.) Also, a July 28, 2003 CAIR document (posted on the the Investigative Project on Terrorism Web site) announces that Raja Abdulrahim was one of several students to receive a one-time $5000 Journalism and Communications Scholarship Award. The announcement noted: "CAIR established the award to encourage Muslim students to pursue careers in journalism that will help bring about fairness and accuracy in the coverage of Muslims and Islam in the media."

...[S]he is now a reporter at the Los Angeles Times where she covers, from time to time, issues concerning terrorism and the American Muslim community. Most recently, on May 3, she reported on Muslim American community officials’ reactions to the demise of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden (“Experts hope it’s ‘a new era’ for Muslim Americans”).

Given her apologist history for Islamist terror (more examples can be seen here), it’s no surprise that Abdulrahim now covers up support for terrorism among certain American Muslim leaders. She casts Muslim American leaders, including her one-time CAIR benefactors, as hapless victims of unfounded bigotry.

Looks like CAIR got its money's worth from that scholarship!

Read the whole thing.
  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Egyptian security isn't protecting its Coptic Christian minority, so they have to do it themselves.

Members of the Coptic community in the working-class neighborhood of Imbaba in northwest Cairo are forming militias for self-defense after recent sectarian clashes left 12 dead and hundreds injured.

Copts in Imbaba, who expect more clashes in coming months, say they have organized small groups to protect churches as well as homes and businesses owned by Copts.

The clashes broke out Saturday night after a group of Muslims attempted to storm a church under the pretext of rescuing a Muslim woman who converted to Christianity. A second church was set on fire.

A small group of Copts who gathered near the US Embassy in Cairo on Sunday called for international protection of Egypt's Christian community and criticized the government for not doing more to protect them.

Sunday night, thousands of protesters staged a sit-in front of the state TV building calling for immediate investigation into the clashes and church burning.

Tens of Copts gathered inside the church at the center of the clashes while the army blocked nearby streets.

Christian protesters are accusing the army of collaborating with crowds of ultraconservative Islamists during the earlier attack on a church overnight. A residential building home to Christians was also burned in the overnight violence.
  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
I just stumbled onto this video as I was researching a new poster series.

It is inspiring.

  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Al Masry al Youm quotes a Kuwaiti newspaper as saying that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has moved away from his Beirut home in fear of a commando-style operation that would kill him the way Bin Laden was killed.

Quoting "high level Lebanese sources," the article says that Nasrallah moved from his home and changed his security personnel in fear of leaks about his whereabouts.

In my experience, Kuwaiti newspapers are not the most reliable in reporting from other areas of the Middle East, but it is worth following this story. A Nasrallah hit could have very positive results, as his charisma is instrumental in holding Hezbollah together.
  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
From the Washington Post:

The Obama administration has decided to provide about $1 billion in debt relief for Egypt, a senior official said Saturday, in the boldest U.S. effort yet to shore up a key Middle East ally as it attempts a democratic transition.

The aid would be part of a major economic aid package that also includes trade and investment incentives, officials said. It is intended to help stabilize Egypt after demonstrations forced out longtime President Hosni Mubarak on Feb. 11.

While the Obama administration has been preoccupied of late with the war in Libya and protests in Syria, it sees Egypt as even more critical for U.S. interests. Washington has long regarded Egypt as a moderating influence in the Middle East. With one-quarter of the world’s Arabs, Egypt could emerge as a democratic model in the region — or, if its revolution fails, a locus of instability or extremism.

Economic assistance for Egypt and Tunisia is “fundamental to our capacity to support their democratic transitions,” a senior State Department official said on the condition of anonymity. He said that officials were in the midst of “intense policy formulation” but that the economic package wasn’t finished. Parts of it will need congressional approval.

“We are at a crossroads here,” said an Egyptian official who has been involved in talks with Washington, and who spoke recently on the condition of anonymity. “If we go wrong, it will be too late [for the United States] to come later and say, ‘We’ll start helping now.’ ”

The Egyptian finance and planning ministers visited Washington last month to seek forgiveness of the country’s $3.6 billion debt. Egypt pays about $350 million a year to service the debt, which it incurred buying American farm products.

In recent weeks, Egyptian officials have been frustrated by the lengthy U.S. interagency process to consider economic aid, and a cool reaction from a Congress ensnared in a budget-cutting battle. On Saturday, Ambassador Sameh Shoukry said through an aide that Egypt appreciated the U.S. efforts but would not react to news of the debt relief until his government was formally notified.
There is only one problem.

As I exclusively reported last week, in a story that still has not been picked up by mainstream English language media, Egypt has rejected $150 million is aid from the US - because it was tied to democratic reforms.(The Public Record picked up on the story three days later, as did Iran's PressTV.)

If Egypt is rejecting aid meant to help democracy, then why does the US think that its influence on Egypt's future will be helped by forgiving a debt when it has no strings attached?

Egypt will gladly take the money - but it is rejecting any semblance of US influence.

So how exactly will this extra burden to US taxpayers help the US?
  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
Hamas' Palestine Times reports that the Hamas murderers of four Jews last August will have a court hearing tomorrow in Jericho.

Hamas is insisting that they be released under terms of the reconciliation agreement.

Families of the murderers will be protesting outside the court demanding their release.

The four victims were Yitzhak and Tali Ames, Kochava Even Haim and Avishai Schindler. They were killed in an ambush on the road near Hebron.
  • Sunday, May 08, 2011
  • Elder of Ziyon
According to reports out of the PA, president Mahmoud Abbas is trying to convince Hamas to allow Salam Fayyad to remain as the prime minister of the "transitional" PA government before elections.

Palestine Today quotes London-based Asharq al-Awsat as saying that even though Fayyad was excluded from consideration in talks between Hamas and Fatah, Abbas is still pushing his PM - to placate the Quartet.

In the words of the article:
Sources pointed out that the reassignment of Fayyad to form a transitional government could reduce the insistence of the Europeans and Americans on the government's commitment to the Quartet's conditions, which provides recognition of the occupation [Israel] and a commitment to signed agreements and to renounce the so-called terrorism.

In other words, Abbas understands that Fayyad is what is giving the PA what legitimacy it has from the US, UN and EU, and also that a government that includes Hamas does not meet the minimal requirements of the Quartet. So keeping Fayyad on until September will give the PA enough political cover to claim to the Quartet that Hamas is really not part of the government despite the much heralded unification agreement that makes it very much part of the decision making process.

Abbas is trying to have his cake and eat it, too. Unfortunately, the West (especially the UN) is so heavily invested in the idea of the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state that he may be right - the Quartet might very well look the other way at the distasteful Hamas involvement until it is too late.

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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 14 years and 30,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

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