Thursday, February 13, 2014
About that 10,000-year history in Jericho, Mr. Erekat
But for [Mordechai] Kedar of Bar-Ilan University, the question is not one of genes but one of cultural and linguistic heritage.Abbas Shuts Down the Peace Process
“There is no doubt that Jews lived here in the past, while there’s no proof of Arab connection to this land before the seventh century,” he said. “There is no connection between the Arabian nations and the Canaanites: not ethnic, not cultural, nothing. They produce these myths to justify the fact that they are here.”
Palestinian family names speak more than anything to the foreign origin of their bearers, Kedar added. The Al-Masri family from Nablus obviously originated from Egypt (Al-Masri means Egyptian in Arabic). The Houranis came from the Houran region in southwestern Syria. Saeb Erekat’s clan in Jericho prides itself in originating from Saudi Arabia, Kedar noted.
“Since when did they become Palestinians?” he wondered.
Last week, Jonathan Tobin wrote here of how we were on the eve of a fourth Palestinian “no” to a peace agreement. It would appear that has now arrived, albeit slightly sooner than anyone had expected. Many observers assumed that once Secretary of State John Kerry got around to submitting his framework for a negotiated peace, Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas would then set about finding an excuse for rejecting it. What few could have predicted was that Abbas would find a way to reject the proposal before it was even submitted. Yet, this is precisely the impressive feat that Abbas has now accomplished.Palestinian Lecturer: The Palestinians Should Moderate Their Negotiating Positions And Stop Being Rejectionist
Earlier today, Abbas’s spokespeople in Ramallah announced the PA’s new set of red lines in any negotiated peace settlement. Each and every one of these red lines blows to pieces anything Kerry was about to propose, as it does to the prospects for an agreement between the two sides in general. These red lines which Abbas details in a letter being sent to the U.S. and the Quartet seamlessly preempts whatever Kerry was likely to outline in his own peace parameters. In this way Abbas artfully dodges a scenario in which the Israelis would agree to a peace plan and the Palestinians would come under pressure not to derail yet another effort to resolve the conflict. (h/t Norman F)
In a January 28, 2014 article published by the Palestinian news agency Maan, Professor Muhammad Al-Dajani Al-Daoudi, a lecturer at Al-Quds University, called upon the Palestinians to take more flexible positions rather than reject every Israeli demand or condition, because their nay-saying does not serve their objectives and they might ultimately regret it. He urged them to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, agree that East Jerusalem be awarded special international status, consent to the presence of Israeli forces in the Jordan Valley, and assent to a demilitarized Palestinian state.
It should be noted that a few weeks ago Al-Daoudi published an article urging the study of the Holocaust in PA schools.
Asking About the Palestinian Culture of War
Almost all of the focus in the mainstream media on the Middle East peace process tends to be on the decision taken by only one of the parties involved in the negotiations. The perennial question from pundits and even veteran kibitzers like the New York Times’s Thomas Friedman is whether or not the Israelis are ready to take risks in order to achieve peace. That was the conceit of his latest column, “Israel’s Big Question,” and if it seemed familiar to readers, it was no accident. Friedman has been writing the same column for decades in which he asks Israelis whether they will leave the West Bank in order to retain both the Jewish and democratic identities of their nation. If they don’t, and Secretary of State John Kerry’s initiative fails, Israel’s doom is, he says, sealed.Abbas’s new red line: Israeli withdrawal within 4 years
There are two problems with his reasoning and they are the same that apply to every other stale Friedman article on the subject that has been published since the Clinton administration. One is that Israel has already tried to trade land for the promise of peace and failed. The Palestinians turned down three offers of statehood in almost all of the West Bank, Gaza, and a share of Jerusalem. And there is every indication that they will turn down a fourth offer of up to 90 percent of the West Bank that is being mulled by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government. Israelis have made the decision to take risks and make peace several times in the last 20 years and seem prepared to do it again if real peace—which means the end of the conflict rather than merely a pause in it—is on the table.
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Abbas, told the official PA daily Al-Ayyam that the American paper must include an Israeli withdrawal “from all Palestinian territories occupied in 1967″ within a time frame of three to four years, followed by the release of all Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The agreement must also explicitly refer to East Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state.European Scientists Find Palestinian Gene For Blamelessness (Satire)
Abbas’s list of “red lines,” sent to the Middle East Quartet ahead of its meeting in Germany in early February as well as to US President Barack Obama, also includes a call to solve the refugee issue based on UN General Assembly Resolution 194, and a refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
The study sampled the DNA of Palestinians in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon, and compared them to the genomes of volunteers from France, Scandinavia, Britain, Hungary, and the Netherlands. Aside from the obvious external features such as hair and eye color, the researchers noticed that they were unable to get blame-RNA to bind to the Palestinian DNA at all, indicating that Palestinians are biochemically incapable of blameworthiness."F**k the EU" Is Right The World Would Be Better Off Without It
“This explains so much,” said head researcher Postka Lonja-Liszt, Professor of Genetics at The University of Budapest, who was not involved in the study. “They have isolated the genetic basis for European policies vis-à-vis the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
"It would be great, I think, to help the UN glue this thing, you know, f**k the EU," Assistant US Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was heard saying in a private telephone conversation with the US Ambassador to Ukraine. The tape of the conversation was leaked to the media, presumably by the Russians. Although Nuland's language was undiplomatic, to say the least, her exasperation with the EU is understandable.The Attack on Israeli Democracy and AIPAC
After her remarks were leaked, Nuland apologized to Ashton and other European authorities, but it is doubtful whether she has changed her mind about the EU's diplomatic services. No one in the world takes the unelected, unaccountable and untransparent EU seriously, except its members -- least of all the Iranians, who benefit so much from their greed and naïveté.
The point here is not so much that Beinart is out of touch with both Israeli opinion and the reality of Palestinian intransigence, but that in order to justify his stand he is willing to trash the idea that Israeli democracy matters. The position of AIPAC is not that it seeks to justify perpetual Israeli rule in all of the West Bank. It is one of support for the right of Israel’s democratic government to wait until the Palestinians are ready to make a genuine peace before risking a repeat of what happened in Gaza when the Jewish state withdrew every settlement and soldier.Israeli sources: We won’t lift Gaza blockade to normalize ties with Turkey
Rather than Israel’s defenders engaging in dishonesty, it is Beinart and his colleagues who have twisted the truth in this debate. The question in the Middle East is not whether Israel will let the West Bank become a democracy but whether the one true democracy in the region—Israel—will continue to exist. AIPAC and its supporters stand with the people of Israel in their efforts to defend their country. Those like Beinart, the BJ rabbis, and the assorted anti-Zionists who joined with them to denounce de Blasio have placed themselves in opposition not so much to AIPAC but the people of Israel and echoed the arguments of those in the BDS movement that wage economic war on the Jewish state. If they wish to truly renew and cleanse Jewish life as they claim, they should look in the mirror before casting aspersions on either Israel or its defenders.
Lifting the blockade on Gaza to improve relations with Turkey is not on the agenda, diplomatic sources in Jerusalem said Wednesday, responding to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s making this a condition for ending the Mavi Marmara saga.Iranian minister attends his Israeli counterpart's speech
The issue of easing the blockade has not been on the table in the talks with the Turks to come to an agreement that would normalize ties between the two erstwhile allies, and will not be on the table in the future, the sources said.
While it may be premature to discuss a thaw in relations between arch-enemies Israel and Iran, ministers from the two countries did sit down at the same table in Abu Dhabi last month, it was revealed on Wednesday.Analysts Focus on Palestinian Corruption as Political, Economic, and Security Concerns Deepen
A talk given by Energy and Water Minister Silvan Shalom in Abu Dhabi was attended by his Iranian counterpart Energy Minister Hamid Chitchiyan, reported commentator and chief of the Iran-Israel Observer, Meir Javedanfar.
A series of recent reports and developments have refocused attention on links between weak Palestinian institutions and endemic Palestinian corruption, underlining decades-old worries that internal structural barriers that may hamper the creation of a viable Palestinian state.Palestinian forces raid refugee camps in the West Bank
Analysts have long called attention to at least four fundamental dynamics that risk rendering any Palestinian state a failed state: a lack of political legitimacy for Palestinian governments, a lack of economic sustainability in either the West Bank or the Gaza Strip, the existence of rival governments in territories claimed by the Palestinians for a state, and the inability of Palestinian governments to check armed groups unconnected to those governments.
In recent weeks, Palestinian security forces have searched refugee camps for militants and sparked gunfights that have ended with the deaths of two people, injuries to several security personnel and camp residents, and the arrests of dozens of refugees.Dozens of Palestinians held in PA jails for joining Syrian rebels
Mr. Inbari said the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, appears to have lost control over several of the camps, including the Balata camp near Nablus, the Jenin camp in the northern West Bank, and the Qalandia camp near Jerusalem.
“The PA tried the diplomatic approach, first by trying to reason with the gunmen and the residents, but that has failed. They then tried launching military assaults, but those, too, are not working,” the security analyst said.
Some 40 Palestinians are being held in Palestinian Authority prisons on suspicion of having fought alongside Syrian rebels against the forces of President Bashar Assad, senior Palestinian sources told The Times of Israel on Thursday. The fighters were arrested upon their return to the West Bank.Palestinian Al Qaeda Leader Arrested in Lebanon
During questioning the prisoners revealed that they had joined a variety of radical Islamic organizations that are active in the civil war in Syria, including Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, both of which are affiliated with al-Qaeda and designated as terror organizations by Israel and the United States, the sources said.
The Lebanese Army arrested a senior Al Qaeda leader Wednesday - Naim Abbas, who is the deputy chief of the Al Qaeda-linked Abdullah Azzam Brigades.World’s Most Depressing App Launches in Lebanon
"After he came out of the Palestinian refugee camp of Ain el-Hilwen near Sidon in the south, the army intelligence in Beirut made the arrest of Naim Abbas, who is being questioned under the supervision of the judiciary," the Lebanese army said, in an official statement.
A new smartphone app in Lebanon lets citizens automatically tweet, with one convenient tap of the finger, “I am still alive! #Lebanon #Latestbombing.”Horrific Accounts of Hunger as Homs Evacuation Ends
The BBC reports that the creator of the app intended to highlight the country’s deteriorating security situation with an ironic solution. The jarringly upbeat sales pitch on the app’s homepage reads, “Every time there is an explosion, we have to spend a lot of time contacting our loved ones…Not anymore!”
Horrific accounts of life in Homs have surfaced Wednesday, as the mass exodus from the besieged Syrian city continues.Israel to UNSC: Do something about Syria
Fox News reports that about 1,300 people have fled the city so far, which has been under siege for over 18 months. UN officials announced that of those, 500 were children and 20 were pregnant women; many disabled also accompanied the mass exodus. Syrian government forces have allowed aid to enter the city, survivors and journalists at the scene say - but they have forced most men of fighting age, between ages 15 and 55, to stay behind.
Prosor spoke as part of the council’s open debate on “Protecting civilians in armed conflict.”Iran President Declares Nuclear Tech Pursuit Will Go on “Forever,” After Supreme Leader Dismisses Compromise With U.S.
In his short speech, he referenced the saying from the Talmud that “if a person saves one life, it is as though he has saved the whole world.”
“In Syria, almost 130,000 worlds have been destroyed,” he said. “We will soon mark the third anniversary of the Syrian conflict, with no end in sight. We cannot sit comfortably in this chamber, discussing the protection of civilians in armed conflict, when before our eyes the crisis in Syria has reached catastrophic proportions.”
Prosor called this “spinning in the mud of debates and dialogue.”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani declared on Tuesday that Iran would continue bolstering its atomic program “forever,” the latest in a string of intransigent statements from top Iranian officials that had already weeks ago been labeled a diplomatic “train wreck” by CNN host Fareed Zakaria.Obama Admin Pressed for Lifting Sanctions on Iranian Broadcaster Involved in Human Rights Abuses
Rouhani’s boasts came a few days after Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dismissed hopes for a compromise with the U.S.:
Watchdog group United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) on Tuesday called on the Obama Administration to reconsider its decision to lift sanctions on Iran’s state broadcaster, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), which had been punished for its involvement in the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses. Among other offenses IRIB has jammed foreign broadcasts, televised forced confessions and broadcast show trials of political prisoners.Iran Calls For Violent Shi'ite Reaction Against Saudi Arabia
With the upsurge in attacks on Iranian interests, and on interests affiliated with Iran's proxies, in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and Afghanistan, the Iranian leadership and its mouthpieces have launched a campaign of harsh criticism against the Saudi regime, accusing Saudi Arabia, and particularly Saudi security chief Bandar bin Sultan, of responsibility for attacks on Iran and on the resistance axis in the region. Iran's senior officials and media are calling the Saudi regime a takfiri (i.e. heretical) Wahhabi stream that is acting against Islam and the Muslims, in cooperation with the U.S, Israel, and Zionism.Al Qaeda-Linked Group Reportedly Started Printing Its Own Currency in Iraq With…Guess Whose Photo
It should be noted that the extreme language that Iran previously reserved for anti-Israel statements is now being used against Saudi Arabia.
An Al Qaeda-linked group is issuing paper bills in western Iraq featuring images of Osama bin Laden and the World Trade Center towers that were destroyed in the September 11 attacks, according to local media reports
A tribal leader in western Iraq’s Anbar Province showed the media a photo of one of the bills issued by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) printed in the amount of “one Islamic hundred pounds.”
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