Tuesday, June 25, 2013
Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians: "No Jews Allowed!"
"We will approve the meeting on condition there are no Jews."Douglas Murray: In Syria, Let Them Fight It Out
This is what you are likely to hear these days if you request a meeting with any senior Palestinian Authority official in the West Bank.
Palestinian journalists who try to arrange meetings or interviews with Palestinian Authority representatives for Western colleagues have become used to hearing such things almost on a daily basis.
Just last week, for example, a journalist who requested a meeting between Western journalists and a top Palestinian Authority official was told "to make sure there were no Jews or Israelis" among the visitors.
The official's aide went on to explain: "We are sorry, but we do not meet with Jews or Israelis."
There are many people around the world who would like to fight jihad, and there are many al Qaeda affiliate groups who clearly hate what Hezbollah are doing. So if it weren't for the consequences for civilians, shouldn't we simply encourage both sides to go at each other full-tilt? If al Qaeda and Hezbollah want to fight each other to the death, then the West ought to support them every step of the way—and our hope must be that they both lose. This is one intervention that the West would be mad to get involved in.PM: 'My Policy is to Strike at Those Who Try to Attack Us'
Evoking the memory of his father, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said that Israel would defend itself in all circumstances, and act against Gaza terrorists who disrupt the daily life of Israelis with rocket attacks. “My policy is to strike at those who try to attack us. We will allow no 'trickles,' no 'accumulations.' This is how we will operate against both near and distant threats,” the Prime Minister said.Tonge wrong on BBC bias
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has just sent one of the most bizarre campaign e-mails I've ever received.BBC’s ‘last-first’ reporting keeps audience attention focused on Israel
I've written before on how anti-Israel campaigners are trying to push BBC bias against Israel further by pretending the Beeb is actually biased in favour of Israel, but disgraced Baroness Tonge's latest mailout really takes the biscuit.
She claims, "Challenging the bias and inaccuracy of the BBC is an integral part of PSC’s work," which gives a punch line to the wider claims in the e-mail that the BBC is inherently biased in favour of Israel.
Significantly, the BBC chooses not to trouble its audiences with the question of why the sleeping residents of Israeli towns should come under missile attack due to a confrontation between two terrorist organisations in a territory from which Israel disengaged eight years ago.BBC ignores executions in Gaza Strip
Instead, in line with its prevailing narrative, the BBC focuses its audiences’ attentions on the Israeli response to those attacks on its civilians through the use of omission, language and ‘last-first’ reporting.
As we know, the BBC Jerusalem Bureau’s Yolande Knell was very busy last Saturday in Gaza preparing no fewer than four reports on the subject of a TV talent show. Obviously, that pressing task prevented her from getting round to informing BBC audiences of the fact that on the same day the ruling Hamas terrorist organization executed two men by hanging for ‘collaboration’.How Hamas Lost the Arab Spring
The Arab Spring years have been surprisingly unkind to Hamas. The falling out with Iran is just one example. The Islamist group has failed to benefit from the rise of other Islamist governments across the region. Instead, the faction finds itself at a strange inflection point, with more ideological allies but few true alliances.Hamas: Ousting Assad More Important than 'Liberating Palestine'
Ousting Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad is more important than “liberating Palestine”, a senior member of the Hamas terror group has said, according to Arab affairs expert Dalit Halevi.Gaza Illustrates Palestinian Statehood
Abdel Aziz Dweik, the speaker of the Palestinian Authority's parliament, told an Algerian newspaper in an interview that the very existence of the Assad regime is a knife in the heart of the Palestinian problem. Removing Assad, he claimed, will start the road to victory for Palestinian Authority Arabs.
The main obstacle to peace remains the inability of Fatah to do what Hamas and Islamic Jihad will not consider: recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn and to renounce the so-called right of return that would swamp Israel with the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees. If they were ever able to do that and to convincingly promise that this ended the conflict rather than just pausing it, they’d find Israel ready to deal. After all, Israel has already offered the Palestinians a state three times only to find each one rejected. But so long as Palestinian independence is synonymous with terror groups and their infighting, Kerry will find few serious observers heeding his calls. Anyone who wants to know why Israelis are skeptical about a Palestinian state in the West Bank need only look at Gaza.Dispute leaves wounded Syrians’ hospital bills unpaid
Israel has treated around 50 Syrians injured in the country’s civil war, but the question of how to pay the hospitals for their services remains uncertain, according to a Tuesday report.Top Iranian General Rejects Compromise With U.S.
Payment for emergency medical care in hospitals for non-citizens is generally provided through a Health Ministry fund. In the case of the Syrian wounded, the Health Ministry and the Defense Ministry have agreed with the hospitals to jointly fund the treatment.
With some NIS 3 million ($830,000) currently owed to hospitals in the north for services already rendered, though, the ministries have come to loggerheads over who will foot the bill, Maariv reported.
Basij commander rejects compromise with US – Commander of Basij (Volunteer) Force said any compromise with Washington will repeat what happened in Afghanistan and Turkey. Today, the US is suffering from disgrace resulted from resistance of the Iranian nation and advocates of the Islamic Revolution in the entire world, Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Naqdi said while addressing a national gathering.Egypt’s defense chief warns of military intervention if Morsi, opponents don’t reconcile
Egypt’s top ranking defense official warned Sunday that the military was “ready to intervene to stop the violence” ahead of scheduled mass protests to mark the one-year anniversary this week of Mohammed Morsi’s inauguration as Egypt’s first democratically elected president.Gas Pipeline Sabotage, Egyptian Cutoff Cost Israel $187 M
Defense Minister Abdel-Fatah el Sissi’s comments were the most forceful to date by a senior official of Egypt’s revered military in response to months of unrest and seemed to threaten the possibility of a military coup if protests lead to bloodshed or, as el Sissi described it, “uncontrollable conflict.”
El Sissi gave Morsi and his opponents a week to reconcile.
Sabotage of the natural gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula and Egypt’s willingness to buckle to terrorism cost the State of Israel $187 million (NIS 677 million) in 2012, a new report shows.Turkey, Amid Islamization and Anti-Semitism, Fit for EU Membership?
The Finance Ministry’s accountant general, Michal Abadi-Boiangiu, pointed out that the cutoff of Egyptian natural gas sales to Israel following repeated sabotage of the pipeline forced Israel to use more costly diesel fuel.
Should Turkey be admitted to the EU? One can see how membership of the EU would boost the fortunes of those courageous Turks who have risked life and limb in their confrontation with Erdogan. Equally, the Europe that emerged after the Second World War cannot, by its very nature, tolerate the kind of government that has hospitalized more than 7,000 of its own citizens simply for exercising their right to peacefully protest. And it certainly cannot tolerate the kind of anti-Semitic agitation that brings to mind the worst excesses of the 1930s.Emir of Qatar Abdicates, Hands Power to Son
Home to the Al Jazeera news network, Qatar was one of the first Gulf states to establish relations with Israel, but the relationship soured a few years later, when Israel launched Operation Cast Lead to silence the constant Gaza-based rocket fire terrorizing residents of southern Israel. The country has also allowed Hamas terrorists to established headquarters there in Doha and is also home to a U.S. military command center, with the longest runway in the Persian Gulf.
