August 2014 ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Male:female ratio of deaths in Ukraine similar to Gaza, but UN comes to different conclusions!

An August 11 article by the head of statistics from BBC News looked at the ratio of men to women being killed in Gaza:

Its recent report said that as of 10 August, 1,948 Palestinians had been killed and 66 Israelis and one Thai national since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on 8 July.
...
So there were 226 members of armed groups killed, and another 709 men who were civilians. Among civilians, three times as many men were killed as women, while three times as many civilian men were killed as fighters.
...
[T]he proportion of civilian men over 18 killed seems high and it is not immediately obvious why.

To help understand this conundrum, the BBC asked the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights if they had any clue:

Matthias Behnk, from OHCHR, told BBC News that the organisation would not want to speculate about why there had been so many adult male casualties, adding that because they were having to deal with a lot of casualties in a short time, they had "focused primarily on recording the casualties".

"As such, we have not at this stage conducted a detailed analysis of trends of civilian casualties, for example in relation to the reasons why different groups are affected and the types of incidents, but hope to carry this out at some point in the coming future," he said.

Another UN official, Chris Gunness, was incensed that an earlier version of this BBC article included this line:

If the Israeli attacks have been 'indiscriminate,' as the UN Human Rights Council says, it is hard to work out why they have killed so many more civilian men than women.

Even after the BBC pulled that quote, Gunness tweeted:

@bbcworldservice pulls offensive quote condoning killing of civilian men in #Gaza Ask @rajandatar #OverToYou why it was there in1st place RT
— Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) August 12, 2014

Israellycool chart of male/female Gaza victims and ages

Clearly, UN officials either didn't want to speculate about why the ratio of adult men to women killed in Gaza was so lopsided, or they were angry at anyone who attempted to come up with a reasonable explanation for this phenomenon.

Let's fast forward a week.

On August 17, this same UN High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report on the human rights situation in the Ukraine.

Just as in Gaza, there have been over 2000 killed. Just as in Gaza, there have been far more males than females killed - about 12% of Gazans killed, about 11% of Ukranians killed.

And what did the UNHRC say about that in the Ukraine?

Reports of medical establishments from the areas under the control of the armed groups do not distinguish between civilian and military casualties. A gender imbalance of casualties reported by these establishments (as of 11 August, women comprised 11% of killed and 13% of wounded in the Donetsk region) may indicate that members of the armed groups who are predominantly male constitute a considerable part of these casualties.

Yes - in nearly identical situations in terms of casualties and ratios, among equal accusations of indiscriminate firepower that cannot distinguish between men and women, UN officials come to radically different conclusions. In the Ukraine, the imbalance seems to indicate that a large portion of the casualties are, in fact, combatants.

But in Gaza, such a conclusion cannot be countenanced. The very idea that the IDF is in fact killing lots more combatants than the UN is counting cannot possibly be raised.

The rules to evaluate behavior in the rest of the world is quite different from those that are used to judge Israel.

(h/t Nurit Baytch and CiFWatch)

From Al Ahram:

Two young men's bodies have been found decapitated in Egypt's North Sinai, south of Rafah city, early Sunday morning.

Local witnesses told Reuters' Aswat Masriya website that unidentified assailants kidnapped the two men the previous day and that their corpses were found later in a desert area.

North Sinai locals have found several decapitated corpses recently amid continuous unrest in the peninsula.

On Friday, locals found the decapitated head of a young man who had also been kidnapped.

And two weeks ago, residents discovered four decapitated bodies of men in the North Sinai town of Sheikh Zuweid. Security forces said the victims, abducted two days earlier, might have been targeted for perceived cooperation with the army and police.

A video released Thursday, attributed to the Sinai-based militant group Ansar Bayt Al-Maqdis, showed the beheading of four Egyptian men, accusing them of providing information that helped an Israeli drone strike kill three of the group's fighters last month.

Police say they are investigating the [latest] incident and suggest that "jihadists could be behind it.”

Wow - those police are really good!

I said in my recent book review of Harris-Gershon's, What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, that I feel sorry for the guy.

There is no question that he and his wife, Jaime, went through something horrific. She was almost killed, for chrissake. But what makes things even sadder is that Gershon's main "take-away" from the 2002 bombing of Hebrew University is that everything is pretty much Israel's fault because Israel (and by implication, the Jewish people as a whole) are failing to live up to Jewish morality.

In Harris-Gershon's world Arabs seek to kill Jews because Jews are mean. The check-points and the security barrier are not so much defensive actions on Israel's part, but ways to demean and demoralize the largely innocent "native" population.

I focus on Harris-Gershon in this piece not because of whatever small influence he may wield, but because his views are representative of the type of Jew that internalizes unjust Arab accusations and thereby welcomes the "Palestinian colonization of the Jewish mind", which is the seeing of the world through "Palestinian" eyes.

The last time that Barack Obama dared to show his face in Israel, he snubbed the elected officials of the Israeli people by refusing to speak to the Knesset, preferring to speak over their heads directly to Israeli college students, instead. During that speech he made an eloquent case for the necessity of Jewish Israelis to try to see the world through "Palestinian" eyes. What he did not recommend, however, is that the vast Arab-Muslim majority try to see things through the eyes of the tiny Jewish minority in that part of the world.

The reason that he made no such request is because he, himself, is entirely incapable of it and I doubt very much that such a notion would even occur to him.

Harris-Gershon's view of the conflict is similar to that of Barack Obama in the sense that they both consider Arabs as largely innocent victims of western and Israeli aggression. They, and those like them, infantalize the great Arab-Muslim imperial nation. Islam is one of the most successful and most aggressive colonial projects in world history and at its height challenged the historical legacy of even the great Roman Empire.

When Muslims conquered Judea and Samaria in the 7th century they were, you can be sure, entirely unapologetic. They stole Jewish land and put the entire Jewish native population to either death or dhimmitude. Head-chopping, needless to say, was quite popular then, too, as was, the traditional Arab-Muslim sport of pelting Jews with rocks, a past-time that was (and is) particularly popular among the kids.

In a 2013, New York Times piece by Jodi Rodoren entitled, In a West Bank Culture of Conflict, Boys Wield the Weapon at Hand, we read this:

It was Muhammad’s fourth arrest in three years for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers and settlers. His five brothers — three older and two younger — have all faced similar charges. Last year, three Abu Hashem boys, and their father, were in prison at the same time.

“Children have hobbies, and my hobby is throwing stones,” Muhammad explained weeks before his most recent arrest. “A day with a confrontation is better than a free day.”

Children, indeed, do have hobbies and just as Muhammad and his brothers play "Army and Arabs" so most American boys, at least those of us born toward the mid-late twentieth century, sometimes played "cowboys and Indians" or played at war with either toy rifles or, more likely in my neighborhood, long sticks.

Basically it was just neighborhood kids chasing one another around and it was fun. Of course, afterwards we did not seek to maim or injure any traditionally despised nearby minority. The difference is cultural. We simply were not raised to believe that other peoples were inferior, or subhuman, or the children of apes and pigs, and thus it never occurred to us to attack another community. On the contrary, we were taught that our neighbors are our neighbors and that they should be treated with decency and respect as they do so with us.

The largely unspoken truth of the Arab-Israel conflict is that the source of the conflict is Arab-Muslim Koranically-based hostility toward the besieged Jewish minority and everything else flows from this simple overriding fact.

Those who wish to defend the honorable Arab-Muslim tradition of stoning Jews will say that we have it coming because Jews are allegedly oppressing our former oppressors. What the western-left tells itself is that, of course, Arab youths pelt Jews with rocks because Jews deserve it. In the progressive imagination, aggressive Jewish fascists marched out of Europe in the middle of the twentieth-century and drove the "indigenous" population off of the land that they and their families had cultivated for generations, if not centuries.

Pro-BDS western Jews like Harris-Gershon ultimately justify not only aggression against the small Jewish minority in that part of the world, but also explore and expand upon the types of propaganda techniques developed within the Soviet Union and the PLO under Arafat.

One of the foremost of such tactics is in the theft and symbolic inversion of Jewish history and heritage. These include, but are not limited to, the following toxic themes (or memes):

The Jews are the New Nazis.

The "Palestinians" are suffering a "Holocaust" at the hands of Jews.

Gaza is the Warsaw Ghetto.

Jesus was the first "Palestinian shaheed."

The Hebrew Temples never resided in Jerusalem.

The Jews are not a people, merely a religion.

Anne Frank would wear a keffiyah, today, and support Arab elimination of Jewish sovereignty.

The "ancient Palestinians" have been around longer than anyone else on the planet, including the Chinese.

Zionism is Racism.

And on and on and on.

And now Harris-Gershon informs us that the Arabs of Gaza have their own special version of 9/11, as well.

He writes in a piece for Daily Kos entitled, "Gaza's 9/11" – High-Rise Apartment Tower Toppled by Missile Strikes

In what Palestinians are calling "Gaza's 9/11," an 11-story apartment complex housing approximately 50 families was brought down by multiple missile strikes yesterday in what The New York Times has characterized as an "audacious" escalation...

Obviously, Palestinians are referring to this as "Gaza's 9/11" due to the intentional destruction of a high-rise building, and the similar optics. It is worth noting, however, that over 2,000 people were (and have been) killed in both the September 11 attacks and Israel's assault on Gaza during the past month. In this regard, Palestinian journalist Mohammad Omer wrote to Americans that "your 9/11 is our 24/7."

I point this out because the tactic of historical and symbolic inversion is one of the great under-discussed aspects of the Long Arab War Against the Jews of the Middle East. All Harris-Gershon is doing is employing a familiar tactic, but doing so in a way that will not work and probably in a way that he is not even conscious of. I very much doubt that Harris-Gershon even realizes that heritage theft and symbolic inversions are part of Arab war tactics.

In truth, his effort was rather lame and he probably knows it. Even some of his fellow "Kossacks" recognize this.

From the comments:

Ummm no (2+ / 0-)

Sorry, but there is no real comparison between 9/11 and this except that innocent people were killed. I cannot imagine making this comparison. I used to like reading your diaries, including the ones critical of Israel. I cannot stomach it anymore. This is way too far.

by mole333 on Sun Aug 24, 2014 at 01:55:37 PM PDT

mole333 is an old-timer at Daily Kos and is perhaps less influenced by current anti-Zionist trends within his ideological camp.

Gaza's 9/11??? (3+ / 0-)

Are you smoking something?

Did Al Qaeda give warning to the people in the Pentagon or the World Trade Center????

One more example of the diarist's open support for Hamas against Israel in this war. He is a really good propagandist.

by charliehall2 on Sun Aug 24, 2014 at 01:20:54 PM PDT

charliehall2 is one of the few remaining pro-Jewish / pro-Israel participants left on Daily Kos. He is a good man and he means well, but one of the main problems with progressive-left pro-Israel activism is its general reluctance to play offense. Progressive Zionists generally play a reactive game and thereby are perpetually back on their heels. Charlie is no exception, from what I can tell.

The WRECK list (5+ / 0-)

It's an embarrassment to this web site that this disgraceful diary is on the rec list.

Others have eloquently ripped apart the "Gaza's 9/11" insanity, so I'll just go with the quick, obvious difference that al-Qaeda actually intended to kill as many innocent American civilians as possible, whereas Israel intended to kill as few as possible (and thus killed zero) shown by the warnings it gave.

David Gershon owes an apology to kos for this one.

by slipper on Sun Aug 24, 2014 at 11:36:51 AM PDT

If you look at many of the other comments you will see that most "Kossacks" in the discussion actually praise Harris-Gershon. What I think is that he, as we say in the United States, jumped the shark.

The point to bear in mind, however, is the tactic.

The Jihadi project is an attempt to replace the Jewish people on Jewish land. We see this every time they display a map that blots out the small Jewish homeland in favor of "Palestine."

Heritage theft and symbolic inversions are under-noted tactics that we must be aware of.

I do not know if Harris-Gershon is conscious of this tactic, but conscious or not, he clearly uses it as a weapon toward his own people.

Michael Lumish is a blogger at the Israel Thrives blog as well as a regular contributor/blogger at Times of Israel and Jews Down Under.

08/31 Links: Melanie Phillips A New Strategy For Israel; Left on the wrong side of history

From Ian:

Honest Reporting: Melanie Phillips Calls For New Strategy to Present Israel’s Case

Ms. Phillips stated that Israel needs to reframe the entire narrative about the Middle East, firstly by educating the uneducated through teaching the history of the Jewish people and Israel, through exposing the Muslim and Arab anti-Semitism so prevalent even among so-called moderates in the Middle East, and to position Israel at the forefront of the global battle for civilization by reclaiming the word Zionist for the moral high ground where it belongs.
She stressed that Zionism is an integral part of Judaism and to be hostile to Israel or Zionism is to be hostile to Judaism.
Israel should delegitimize the delegitimizers by calling the United Nations to account, particularly UNRWA’s relationship with Hamas and the credibility of the UN Human Rights Council as a mechanism for empowering dictators and rogue states.
Ms. Phillips also urged Israel to hold its allies to account for their silence in the face of years of demonization and delegitimization and the constant incitement against Israel and Jews.

Melanie Phillips: Western Jewry - Paying the Price for Gaza

Reveal UNRWA's bluff

It was quite ironic that during the fighting in Gaza, the Israel Defense Forces was shot at from facilities of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, and had to return fire, as over the years no one defended the existence of UNRWA more than the IDF and the Israeli defense establishment. But now, with the fighting over, it is time for Israel to do what it should have done decades ago -- remove the layer of protection and legitimacy it grants to UNRWA. Israel should recognize UNRWA for what it is -- a hostile Palestinian organization that perpetuates the dream of the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel -- and treat it accordingly.
Israel's policy on UNRWA was set by the defense establishment. It was based on the premise that UNRWA was "the lesser of two evils" -- or as a Defense Ministry official put it to me, "UNRWA is crap, but Hamas is more so." This is a narrow view of the issue. Even if UNRWA itself does not attack the IDF directly, it ensures that there will always be someone to do so in the future. Under a thin veil of humanitarian activities, UNRWA acts with a clear political agenda, aimed at perpetuating the situation of Palestinian refugees and fostering the dream of their return to Israel. This is how UNRWA builds the ideological foundation for the next generation of fighters against Israel.

The Australian, Editorial: Left on the wrong side of history

Further muddying the public space, activist group Australians for Palestine failed to correct a falsehood in a recent email newsletter that misrepresented a photograph of a group of dead children as victims of the Gaza conflict. In a letter to the editor today, Sonja Karkar from Australians for Palestine admits the image was used “inadvertently” and that no correction email was sent out. The hypocrisy of the Left and its rampant moral equivalence makes a rational debate on national security and the threat posed by extremists more difficult. The murderous rampage of the Islamic State, whose warlords have Israel, the rest of the Middle East, much of Asia and some of Europe in their sights, shows what is at stake in quashing the caliphate. Apologists for Hamas and those who would turn a blind eye to the Islamic State barbarism are on the wrong side of the moral ledger of history and humanity.
The Prime Minister spoke yesterday about the atrocities perpetrated in Iraq — beheadings, crucifixions and mass executions. He reminded us of our nation’s obligations under the UN’s doctrine of a responsibility to protect those facing slaughter in Iraq. “This is as near to pure evil as we are ever likely to see,” Mr Abbott said, and urged our nation to strive for a better world. Yet, this bracing dose of reality for our nation, and those like our own, is greeted by the sadly predictable, but utterly obnoxious, refrain of “mission creep” from those unable to discern our nation’s vital interests.
The threat of terrorism for us is real, but the slaughter of innocents is occurring right now. We must be part of the mission to end this, rather than indulging in the moral emptiness of the Green Left.

From Hyperallergic:

Artists participating in the 31st São Paulo Biennial have signed an open letter calling on the organizers to return sponsorship funds accepted from the Israeli state, Hyperallergic has learned. The patronage, credited to the Israeli consulate in São Paulo, appears on the sponsor board in the main exhibition space, in official publications, and online, alarming some participating artists who arrived in São Paulo ahead of the September 1 preview.

In the letter, the artists state that with the Israeli sponsorship, their exhibited work is “undermined and implicitly used for whitewashing Israel’s ongoing aggressions and violation of international law and human rights.” The missive follows an August 20 meeting between objecting artists and the Biennial president, Luis Terepins, who said that the organization would consider the matter, a source close to the discussions told Hyperallergic. When no resolution seemed forthcoming, the open letter was organized. The letter, reproduced below, has 55 signatories as of this writing; the biennial lists 68 participating artists and collectives.

Israel's consulate contributed $40,000.

At least one of the artists who signed this anti-Israel letter is Israeli, Yael Bartana.

A Turkish group is another sponsor of the biennial, to no one's dismay, except perhaps some Kurds and Armenians, but who cares about them? Certainly not these progressive artists!

The curators of the show support the artists:

The curators of the 31st São Paulo Biennial have supported the artists’ call on the organization to return Israeli sponsorship funds, a demand they believe “should also be a trigger to think about the funding sources of major cultural events.” Their stance, articulated in a three-paragraph statement sent to Hyperallergic earlier this evening (and reproduced below), endorses the broader strategy undertaken by the open letter the objecting artists released yesterday.

In their statement, Biennial curators Charles Esche, Galit Eilat, Nuria Enguita Mayo, Pablo Lafuente, and Oren Sagiv write, in part: “[S]ources of cultural funding have an increasingly dramatic impact on the supposedly ‘independent’ curatorial and artistic narrative of an event. The funding, whether state, corporate or private, fundamentally shapes the way the public receives the work of artists and curators.”

So to be consistent, the artists should reject all outside funding, right? If funding affects the art, then it is just as immoral to accept funding from Samsung and KPMG and Air France as it is from Israel and Argentina, right?

But, as we've seen many times, "you've gotta start somewhere," and Israel is where these self-righteous hypocrites always start - and end.

Sickeningly, two of the curators who support the artists are Israeli as well.

UPDATE: The sponsor page has removed all "international support" donors from their list of partners.

The page before:

And now:

2 RPGs and a Koran

Al Qassam Brigades terrorist Mohammed Abdullah Hussein Hawajri was killed on July 26 by the IDF along with three of his terrorist colleagues.

His family posted a bunch of photos of their proud mujahid. But this one is interesting:

Look how artfully the Koran is placed between the two RPGs.

Not only that, but if the RPGs would have been placed on the table directly, they would not have been centered vertically with the Koran. So four AK-47 magazines were used to add to the effect, to allow the set designer to emphasize that Islam and violence are entwined.

Gaza's Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, proving that the Palestinian Arab media are simply propaganda outlets, praised the media and journalists as "partners in the victory" against Israel.

During a ceremony to honor "martyrs of the media," which was organized by the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Information, Hanieyahsaid that the media "contributed to the steadfastness of the Palestinian people."

He said, "The Palestinian people has triumphed over the Israeli aggression on all levels, including militarily, politically and morally and in the media."

Haniyeh said that "the men of the Palestinian media have formed the source from which the world's media derived all that was going on in Gaza, and was a source for even the Israeli media after they lost confidence in their leaders."

There is no indication that the media that relied on these liars for their reports are bothered in the least.

Fake Palestinian Civilians of the Day

PCHR, that "human rights" organization that the UN relies upon to determine its death statistics from Gaza, reported on July 29:

At approximately 06:00, an Israeli drone fired a missile near a house belonging to Ahmed Sa'id all-Hashash in al-Hashash neighborhood in the north of Rafah. When members of the family attempted to evacuate the house taking their disabled mother out, the Israeli drone fired a missile at them. When a number of their relatives attempted to help them, the Israeli drone fired a third missile at them. As a result of these attacks, 6 civilians were killed: Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hashash, 16; Mohammed Ahmed al-Hashash, 18; Mas'oud Ahmed al-Hashash, 20; Sa'id Ahmed al-Hashash, 20; their mother Hana' Ali al-Hashash, 43; and Mohammed Mousa al-Hashash, 20.

Here are the Hamas "mujahid martyr" posters for four of these family members:

Bilal

Muhammad

Masoud

Said

Here's the funny part: Hamas admitted that these were member of the Al Qassam Brigades on the day they were killed. It was all over pro-jihadi forums that very same day.

There is no way that PCHR didn't know that this was a family of Hamas terrorists, but that didn't stop them from calling them all "civilian."

So when you see statistics of how 75% of those killed in Gaza are civilians - here is what a lot of those "civilians" look like.

(h/t Israellycool, Johnny, Bob Knot)

08/30 Links: 75 UN troops flee to Israel; Will Jews Buy Umbrellas When They See Clouds in the Sky?

From Ian:

Will Jews Buy Umbrellas When They See Clouds in the Sky?

19th century Zionist philosopher, Max Nordau, was quoted as telling Jewish leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky that “the Jew learns not by way of reason, but from catastrophes. He won’t buy an umbrella merely because he sees clouds in the sky. He waits until he is drenched and catches pneumonia.”
On so many counts, Nordau’s words remain completely accurate and reliable today.
In Israel, in the aftermath of Jews being removed from Gaza, disastrous peace talks, and the capitulation to terrorism, Hamas is still firing weapons at the State of Israel. Throughout Europe, Jews are attacked and in danger. In America, American Jews – wrongly – think that without Judaism they can retain Jewish identity – and thus assimilation rates continue to skyrocket. And throughout all of it, the world unfairly continues to condemn Israel.
During these frightening times, it is interesting to remember Zionist heroes, such as Max Nordau, who first raised the concept of what he termed at the time a “muscle Jew,” at the Second Zionist Congress in Basel on August 28, 1898. During a recent trip to France, I met countless Jews who discussed the need to emigrate to Israel – and thankfully today there is an army to protect the Jewish State.

Policy Paper for Submission to the UN: UNRWA Pt I

The UNRWA workers union has been controlled in practice by Hamas for many years. The “Professional List”, headed by senior Hamas activist Suheil Al-Hindi, won a landslide victory in the elections for the UNRWA workers union held in September 2012.
In the elections, in which nearly 11,500 employees of UNRWA voted, the “Professional List” won all 11 seats allocated to the teachers’ sector, 6 of 7 seats in the employees’ sector and 8 out of 9 seats in the service sector.
The "Al-Karama (Honor) List," affiliated with the Islamic Jihad organization, also participated in the elections, whereas the Fatah movement chose to boycott them, claiming that Hamas controls the UNRWA workers union and limits its activities.
The 2012 workers union elections were not the first ones to be won by Hamas. They also won the 2009 elections. The bloc affiliated with Hamas also won the previous election for the UNRWA workers union by an overwhelming majority. Lists affiliated with Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLO (uniting representatives of the PFLP, Fatah and the People's Party) and the independents took part in the 2009 elections. 17 representatives of Hamas (63%), four from the PFLP, four from Fatah, one from the People’s Party and one from the independents were elected to the union, which includes 27 members.

Michael Lumish: Netanyahu & the West Doom Israel to Perpetual War.

With the recent alleged conclusion of Operation Protective Edge, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with the western powers, has doomed the Jews of the Middle East to perpetual war.
Unless we see significant policy changes coming out of Jerusalem viz-a-viz the security of the south, Israel can write off that part of the country and just accept the idea that their children will never be even remotely safe. Furthermore, of course, if Israel had any plans to economically or agriculturally develop that part of the country they can simply forget about, at least into the foreseeable future.
Hamas, as it turns out, is actually far more effective in the ethnic-cleansing of Jews from Jewish land than is even the EU, the UN, or the Obama administration. Obama has been twisting Jewish arms for years trying to get us to move off of Jewish land without success, but Hamas knows how it is done.
Violence.
You simply hit Jews in the head until we go away.

08/29 Links Pt2: The Muslim Colonists: Forgotten Facts about the Arab-Israeli Conflict

From Ian:

Chloe Valdary: Beyond Repair: Racist Revisionists, Injurious Illusions

Arab countries such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria have a hand in promoting this bigotry. These countries deny basic rights to Palestinian Arabs in order to keep them in their dejected state, in part because they seek to make Israel look bad, but, more importantly, because of their own prejudices against them. This, however, is no surprise. It is important to remember that historically, Arab countries have never actually cared about Palestinian Arabs. In Israel’s war of independence, 7 Arab countries sought, not only to destroy Israel but also to set up their own imperialistic empires (Greater Syria) throughout the Middle East. This was certainly Jordan’s goal, as has been shown in recently unclassified cables between the King of Jordan and Golda Meir. Yet this history is largely ignored by statesmen who, in seeking to find quick solutions to problems neglect to examine the psychological makeup of the people being dealt with. Fathom the hypocrisy of an Arab country which persecutes its Palestinian Arab brothers and sisters by denying them basic rights, and then insists that their inferior status is what makes them special in the first place. This prejudice is endemic, because the Palestinian Arabs believe them.
Thus, Palestinian Arab Nationalism in its current form (and to be frank I do not know if any other form could ever exist since the very idea of Palestine as a nation is academically defunct) is a form of self-hatred, because it is rooted in the notion that the non-Palestinian Arab is eternally superior and the Palestinian Arab is irrevocably oppressed. Palestinian Nationalism is inherently discriminatory because it contends that a separate distinct “special” Arab race exists, that that special Arab race ought to be oppressed, and that that oppression is what deems it worthy of existing. This is orientalism in its most extreme form, for discrimination can at least be outlawed and even self-hatred can potentially be corrected. But taking pride in one’s self-hatred, well that, is beyond repair.

The Muslim Colonists: Forgotten Facts about the Arab-Israeli Conflict

Justin McCarthy, a professor of history at the University of Louisville, writing in his Annotated Map, “Forced Migration and Mortality in the Ottoman Empire,” also notes that there were about five million Muslims displaced due to the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Crimean War, Balkan wars, the Turkish war of independence and World War I.
Sergio DellaPergola, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in his paper “Demography in Israel/Palestine: Trends, Prospects and Policy Implications,” provides estimates of the population of Palestine in different periods. As the demographic data below shows, most Muslims living in Palestine in 1948 when the State of Israel was created had been living there for fewer than 60 years:
1890: Arab Population 432,000
1947: Arab Population 1,181,000
Growth in Arab population from 1890 to 1947: 800,000
The Yazidi in Iraq and the Christian Copts in Egypt are not “settlers” and “occupiers;” neither are the Jews in Israel. They are victims of a common enemy that seems to want a Middle East free of non-Muslims.

David Singer: The Key to Peace Lies in the Past

The period 1920-1947 without doubt covers a host of critically important legal and historical signposts that cannot be forgotten or buried.
Whilst the two-state solution ultimately created between 1946-1948 as a result of the San Remo Conference is ignored – attempts to resolve sovereignty in today’s highly volatile West Bank and Gaza – are destined to certain failure and renewed conflict.
The two-state solution posited by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap creating a 22nd independent sovereign Arab State in the West Bank and Gaza between Jordan and Israel for the first time ever in recorded history has failed to materialize – despite twenty years of intensive political and diplomatic efforts by the international community.
The PLO (founded in 1964) and Hamas (founded in 1987) both seek to unravel the decisions made at San Remo in 1920.
They need to be replaced as Israel’s Arab negotiating partners by the two successor States to the Mandate for Palestine – Jordan and Israel – and possibly Egypt – to determine and allocate sovereignty of the West Bank and Gaza between their respective States.
Unearthing the past still remains the key to peacefully resolving the future.

The Ties Between the Nusra Front – the Syrian al Qaeda Affiliate – and Hamas

Hamas Leader Khaled Mashaal Expands His Terror Domain
The Lebanese news website Ertikaz published important information on the circumstances behind the establishment of the two movements in the Yarmouk camp, and it is clear that no less a figure than Hamas’ Khaled Mashaal stands behind both of them — almost certainly from the time he was given protection by the Syrian regime prior to the Syrian rebellion.
According to Ertikaz, Khaled Mashaal’s bodyguard was Muhammad Zaghmout, whose family lives in Gaza. Zaghmout and additional Palestinians who hold key positions in both movements are “graduates” of Afghanistan fighting and filled various posts in Khaled Mashaal’s military organization. According to this report, Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis is the leading organization and al Nusra coordinates with it.
Zaghmout — Mashaal’s former bodyguard — serves as the commander of both the Aknaf Bayt al-Maqdis and al Nusra, Ertikaz reports.
As long as the terror groups were combatting Syrian President Assad, Al Nusra and the Islamic State (previously ISIS) cooperated on several fronts. After they defeated Assad’s forces, however, they began to fight among themselves for exclusive control in those same areas, such as Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour and the Lebanese front. Right now in the area of Arsal in Lebanon, the Islamic State and al Nusra are fighting together against the Lebanese Army and Hizbullah.

Report: Two Muslim teenage girls planned to suicide-bomb synagogue in Lyon

From JSSNews:

Sources from the Directorate General of Internal Security told JSSNews that the Jewish community of Lyon has just escaped a major disaster.

Two Muslim girls, 15 and 17, were arrested in Tarbes Venissieux a week ago, when they planned to blow themselves up at the Great Synagogue of Lyon.

The two teenagers, who communicated only on social networks, wanted to die as martyrs, like the "Islamikaze" attacks that kill innocents almost every day somewhere in the world.

"These girls were part of a network of young Islamists that are monitored by the services" says an Internal Security source who wishes to remain anonymous.

Originally the girls were suspected of wanting to join jihadists in Syria.

(h/t Yenta Press, Alexi)

08/29 Links Pt1: A Pro-Hamas Left Emerges; Why a Liberal Rabbi Unsubscribed to the New York Times

From Ian:

Sarah Honig: Another tack: Genuinely knocked for a loop?

The fact is that Britain had been exporting jihadist terror for years while pompously upholding its pluralist posture.
Two British Muslims also paid a lethal visit to Israel in April, 2003. Asif Muhammad Hanif, the suicide-bomber who took three innocent lives at Mike’s Place on Tel Aviv’s sea front was a London lad. His absconded accomplice, Omar Khan Sharif, came from Derby, where he attended posh private schools and enjoyed all the best that the UK could offer.
But in their case, there was no British shock or shame. Atrocities against Israelis can always be explained away and even forgiven. The ultimate expression of this mindset was enunciated by Cherrie Blair, then-resident at 10 Downing Street, as Tony’s better half. Her husband keeps himself busy after his retirement from the premiership by serving as the Quartet’s special envoy to the Middle East and he serially churns out plans for peace and for Palestinian rights.
Mrs. Blair argued during the bloodiest days of the Second Intifada that suicide-bombers are driven by utter desperation. Israeli occupation, she intoned, had rendered the poor, hungry, direly oppressed Palestinian masses, straining piteously under Israel’s brutal yoke, so hopeless that they were ready to detonate themselves.
Cherrie had nothing to say about the bombers’ victims and she vehemently denied that she was making excuses for terror, stressing – with just the right tone of righteous indignation – that we need to examine what made young people despair so.

A Pro-Hamas Left Emerges

Efforts by the literary scholar Judith Butler several years ago to include Hamas in the camp of the global Left illustrated a lack of historical knowledge that is simply not acceptable among professional historians. But Procrustean distortion in the name of a cause is apt to overwhelm any fealty to professional standards among ideologues of all stripes. In every sense of the word, Hamas is an organization of the extreme Right and rejects all of the values that at one point defined leftist politics ever since the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and large parts of the secular Left of the 20th century. This summer, the "Hawblog" group statement has offered support to an organization that has attacked the values that used to define the Western Left and made hatred of the Jews as Jews and the destruction of the Jewish state its primary goals. If these scholars have any criticisms of Hamas at all, they did not voice them at a time when doing so mattered.
It was probably only a matter of time before seven decades of leftist antagonism to Israel would lead to waging political warfare in support of an organization known for terrorist attacks against civilians, religious fanaticism, and anti-Semitism of a most foul and familiar sort. In summer 2014, that moment has arrived.

Israeli Liberals’ Advice to Diaspora Jewish Counterparts: Grow Up

While Strenger didn’t elaborate, another Israeli professor and dedicated leftist, Michael Gross, did exactly that in a guest column for Haaretz two days earlier. Rhetorically asking what standard Diaspora Jewish liberals use to evaluate Israel’s liberalism or lack thereof, he continued, “Do they mean a well-functioning public health care system, expansive reproductive rights, gun control, a ban on the death penalty or inexpensive higher education?”
Gross obviously knows the big issue for most liberal Diaspora Jews is “the occupation.” His point is that like any real country, Israel is multi-faceted. And if you examine the real Israel in all its complexity, rather than treating it as a cartoon character with no existence beyond the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, then on many trademark issues to which liberal Jews accord great weight in their own countries, Israel is actually closer to the liberal ideal than America is.
Essentially, both men were making the same argument: If liberal Diaspora Jews would look at Israel as a real country, rather than as a projection of their fantasies, they would see it was neither as perfectly good as they once imagined it nor as irredeemably evil as they imagine it today. Like any other country, it has real problems, and like any other country, it deals with some problems better than others, but its positive qualities are no less real than its flaws.
And if Diaspora Jewish liberals are incapable of seeing the real Israel through the cloud of their adolescent fantasies, then that isn’t Israel’s fault. It’s their own.

Would Beinart have supported the Klan in 1964?

The ‘peaceful protests’ that Beinart refers to center around attempts to destroy the security barrier that protects Israel against the infiltration of terrorists, as occurred during the Second Intifada when hundreds of Israelis were murdered by suicide bombers. They have a secondary purpose of trying to provoke police and soldiers into responses that can be used as weapons in the propaganda and legal wars being waged against Israel.
The idea that the Palestinian national movement, whose objective is the destruction of Israel and the murder or expulsion of its Jewish residents, is anything like the US civil rights movements of the 1960s is not just entirely wrong but an obscene inversion of reality.
To Beinart’s rejoinder that I see Palestinians only as “haters and killers” and not as human beings, that is insultingly false. But the political movement and ideology that Beinart wants us to support is one of hating and killing.

Hamas encouraging the next generation of terrorists

Hamas Gaza leader Ismail Haniyeh visited the families of "martyrs," specifically the family of Hamas terrorist Mohammed Abu Shamala, and took the time for some photo-ops:

(h/t Bob Knot)

Fake civilian of the day

PCHR describes Mahmoud ‘Abdul Nasser Bahar, 22, killed in Shuja’iya July 20, as a "civilian."

He was actually a Hamas terrorist.

His body was found with 2 other "civilians" who were males in their 20s.

Mahmoud Abbas, in the same interview where he lied about Netanyahu accepting a Palestinian Arab state on the 1949 armistice lines, also attacked Hamas - and accused Hamas of stealing humanitarian aid.

Abbas said, "Hamas has a shadow government in Gaza, and they have undersecretaries for ministries, and if this continues, it will threaten the continuation of the national unity - and the exam is coming soon. I know that it's not instant, and it takes months to end the split, but we'll know from the first day of the provision of aid to Gaza, whether the aid reaches the people or not, and this is something specific and explicit. you can government of national consensus to govern and operate in Gaza."

Abbas bitterly noted the assault against the PA's Minister of Health when he entered the Gaza Strip during the war.

He said that he had spoken with Khaled Meshaal about how Hamas placed members of Fatah under "house arrest" and shot them in the legs, and also the public executions of "spies" in the streets, that Hamas tried and executed on their own without consulting the"unity" government The PA remained silent because Abbas didn't want to criticize Hamas during the fighting. He agrees that spies should be executed, but according to the law.

The PA is also claiming victory in the war. An official told Al Asharq al Awsat that the deal was with the government in Ramallah, not Hamas, and pointed out that it was essentially the same one that Hamas had rejected five weeks earlier.

As far as Israel is concerned Abbas said "We will not forgive and Israel will not get away with its crimes. We have a lot of ways and tools to ensure that criminals don't get away with their crimes."

He didn't say anything about the war crimes of thousands of rockets that his Fatah groups brag about shooting towards Israeli towns and kibbutzim.

Report: Malaysian women joining ISIS for "sex jihad"

Last year there was a flurry of news stories that resulted when the Tunisian Interior Minister claimed that some Tunisian women had gone to Syria to have sex with multiple jihadists. Some of the details of the story - such as a supposed fatwa to allow such actions - were questioned.

Now the story has resurfaced with ISIS and Malaysian women.

From The Malaysian Insider:

Malaysian women are believed to have joined the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis) forces to offer Jihad Al-Nikah or sexual jihad, senior intelligence officials told The Malaysian Insider.

Authorities confirmed that three Malaysian women have journeyed to the Middle East to join up with Isis forces.

Jihad Al-Nikah refers to a controversial concept where Sunni women allegedly offer themselves in sexual comfort roles to fighters for the establishment of Islamic rule.

The concept originated from a Wahhabi edict around 2013, that called for Sunni women supporters to come forward for sex jihad and boost the morale of fighters battling against Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria.

"These women are believed to have offered themselves in sexual comfort roles to Isis fighters who are attempting to establish Islamic rule in the Middle East.

"This concept may seem controversial but it has arisen as certain Muslim women here are showing sympathy for the Isis struggle," an intelligence official told The Malaysian Insider.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said one of the Malaysian women had travelled to the Middle East in December last year.

"The woman, in her 30s, went to Turkey before meeting up with middlemen who helped her to complete her journey to Syria via land routes.

"Another Malaysian woman in her 40s is believed to have linked up with Isis forces sometime in April this year," the source said.

The intelligence official said Malaysian women were not the only ones who were performing sexual jihad as there were also other Muslim women involved.

"Intelligence exchanged with other countries revealed that Sunni Muslim women from Australia and the United Kingdom had also joined up with Isis."

The intelligence official said Isis had issued a decree or edict in June this year ordering for the conscription of Jihad Al-Nikah or sexual jihad.

"Shortly after the town of Mosul in Iraq was captured by Isis forces, people were ordered to send unmarried women to jihad for sex," the intelligence official revealed.

"In its proclamation, Isis threatened to impose shariah law on all those who failed to comply with the edict or decree," the official added.

This goes much further than the Tunisian report, but I don't know how reliable the Malaysian Insider is or how good their "intelligence sources" are.

08/28 Links Pt2: Abbas aide: Israel 'fabricated' beheading of James Foley, the Holocaust

From Ian:

Abbas aide Dr. Husam Zomlot: Israel 'fabricated' beheading of James Foley, the Holocaust

Hanan Ashrawi attacks Obama for acknowledging Jewish history

Palestinian Media Watch has documented that the PA denies Israel's history, claiming the Jewish people never lived in the land of Israel before the Balfour Declaration, never built a Temple in Jerusalem, and more. These false claims form the basis for PA denial of Israel's right to exist.
PLO Executive Committee member Hanan Ashrawi:‎ ‎“Look at the most dangerous ‎thing that Obama said to [NY Times journalist] Thomas Friedman. Once again, he ‎‎[Obama] has adopted the discourse of Zionist ideology. He adopted it when he came to ‎this region, speaking about the Jews' return to their land, and that this is a Jewish ‎state, the Zionist dream, and so on. Obama’s adoption of the discourse of extremist ‎Zionist ideology and his turning it into a basis for political decision-making is ‎dangerous."

Hanan Ashrawi attacks Obama for acknowledging Jewish history

Egyptian Pres says Qatar & Turkey Inciting Chaos In Middle East

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said two of the leading state-sponsors of the Muslim Brotherhood terror group -- Qatar and Turkey -- have unloaded millions of dollars in expenditures to incite upheaval in the Middle East.
“Qatar, Turkey and the international organization of the Brotherhood are currently establishing many companies, newspapers, and websites. They allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to spread chaos among the Arab nation, destabilizing Egypt and destroying the Egyptians,” Sisi said in a meeting with Egyptian newspaper heads.
Sisi talked about the role Egypt must have in ensuring the security of a Palestinian state. The Egyptian president has been a consistent critic of terror group Hamas -- the Palestinian arm of the Muslim Brotherhood -- in its governance of the Gaza Strip.

I guess I should be flattered, but... (update)

A couple of weeks ago I noted that the Simon Wiesenthal Center had taken one of my posts, word for word, as part of a submission to the UN.

This is very flattering, but they didn't use my name (which I fully understand) but they also didn't ask permission. I would have been happy to give it to them, of course. It is cool to see my research being used beyond the blogosphere.

Today, Danny Ayalon wrote a Facebook post describing the similarities between ISIS and Hamas.

His list was a bit different from the one I created on the same theme last week. But he used my graphic, which had been shared hundreds of times on Twitter, to illustrate his post - and my name was removed from it. Here's the original.

Again, it is nice to see that my work gets spread around to prominent people. But, come on - it is common courtesy to ask permission to use another person's work or to give credit. Even if he re-created the graphic using his own list instead of mine, I wouldn't mind.

(h/t Judge Dan)

UPDATE: The person from Ayalon's NGO who had posted the graphic emailed me saying that he grabbed a version that was floating around that already had my name removed, so they didn't know that it came from me. He was very nice about it and added links to my FB page in the comments.

From Egypt's Al Ahram, which is close to the government:

The World Food Programme (WFP) said that a humanitarian convoy has crossed from Egypt's Rafah border crossing into the war-torn Gaza Strip, becoming the first aid sent to Gaza by the UN organisation since the start of the seven-year Israeli blockade in 2007.

WFP announced it will send another convoy to cross into the costal enclave during the coming days. It praised the Egyptian government for opening the Rafah crossing and allowing WFP's convoy to "procure food in Egypt." The statement referred to the Egyptian Red Crescent as the coordinator of all the crossing of humanitarian goods through Rafah.

Egypt is congratulating itself for opening the Rafah crossing to the WFP, implying that somehow Israel's "blockade" was preventing the aid from going through Rafah up until now.

The truth is that Egypt had closed off the Rafah crossings for its own reasons since 2007, but now is seeking praise for opening them!

Now, is it true that the WFP hadn't gotten any aid into Gaza since 2007? Not at all. The WFP has been continuously working in Gaza, bringing food in through Israel's Kerem Shalom crossing. That never stopped, even during the war. Al Ahram misrepresented what the WFP said:

For the first time since 2007, a humanitarian convoy of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) successfully crossed from Egypt into the Gaza Strip today, carrying enough food to feed around 150,000 people for five days.

After a seven-hour drive from Alexandria – where the food was procured – across the Sinai Peninsula, WFP’s trucks arrived at the Rafah crossing. The convoy of 18 trucks carried 15,600 food parcels – part of a total batch of 25,000 food parcels. The parcels include ready-to-eat food such as canned meat, canned beans, tea and dates. A second convoy with the remaining parcels is expected to cross into Gaza in the next few days. This is the first time that WFP has used the Rafah crossing point since the start of the Gaza blockade in 2007.

Israel has been providing continuous access for aid to Gaza. Egypt treated their fellow Arabs like dirt. And now Egypt is pretending that it is the good guy!

Of course - the world will believe Egypt.

08/28 Links Pt1: Liberman: Take Away Their Guns -- Then We'll Talk; Pallywood comes to Australia

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Is the Gaza War Really Over?

It is important to note that these cease-fire demands are not part of Hamas's or Islamic Jihad's overall strategy, namely to have Israel wiped off the face of the earth.
Many foreign journalists who came to cover the war in the Gaza trip were under the false impression that it was all about improving living conditions for the Palestinians by opening border crossings and building an airport and seaport. These journalists really believed that once the demands of Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad are accepted, this would pave the way for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians.
To understand the true intention of Hamas and its allies, it is sufficient to follow the statements made by their leaders after the cease-fire announcement this week. To his credit, Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas's leader, has never concealed Hamas's desire to destroy Israel.
Hamas and its allies see the war in the Gaza Strip as part of there strategy to destroy Israel. What Hamas and its allies are actually saying is, "Give us open borders and an airport and seaport so we can use them to prepare for the next war against Israel."

Avigdor Liberman: Take Away Their Guns -- Then We'll Talk

For the end of the decades-long conflict between Israel and the Palestinians to be achieved, those who strenuously, violently fight against any form of peace must not be allowed the means to do so. In our conflict, Hamas, which has neither interest in nor intent toward peace, has to be diminished. The terrorist group is a malevolent force. It continually hijacks any possibility of a better future for the peoples of the region. It must not be allowed to maintain its stockpiles of weapons.
The circumstances in Gaza must be changed radically. Israel fully supports a broad international effort to provide all the necessary means to rebuild the civilian infrastructure and economy in Gaza, provided there is a concerted parallel effort to prevent Hamas from rearming itself with weapons systems and rebuilding its terrorist infrastructure. Hamas cannot be allowed to rebuild its military force and prevent the essential international aid being directed to the Palestinian residents. Ultimately, the best guarantee for rebuilding Gaza and developing its economy will be demilitarization.
As long as Hamas remains armed, its weapons represent the strongest and most violent veto of peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

MEMRI: Marwan Barghouti In Message From Israeli Jail: The Time Has Arrived For Fatah Members To Take Part In Comprehensive Resistance Against Israel

Against the backdrop of the fighting between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, Fatah Central Committee member Marwan Barghouti issued a message from the Israeli prison where he is incarcerated for directing multiple terror attacks in which many Israeli civilians were killed and wounded.
In his message, published in full by the Gazan internet daily Alwatanvoice.com on August 20, 2014, Barghouti urged Fatah, which he called the leader of the "Palestinian revolution," to adhere to the path of resistance in all its forms, both non-violent and violent; this, in order to end the occupation and siege, and in order to leverage the ongoing Palestinian national struggle and the attainment of independence, even at the cost of martyrdom or imprisonment.

Administrivia

I am traveling a bit between now and Monday, so blogging will be a bit lighter than usual most of the time.

At the moment, this is my view:

Jordanian State TV says Jews use Christian blood for matzoh

ANtisemitic Muslim Cleric of the Day:

From MEMRI:

In a Friday sermon delivered in Amman on August 22, 2014, Sheik Bassam Ammoush said that the Jews slaughter children to use their blood for matzos. Ammoush, a former Muslim Brotherhood leader who was expelled from the organization in 1997, was appointed minister of administrative development that year, and became the Jordanian ambassador to Iran in 2001. In 2011, King Abdullah appointed him to the Jordanian Senate. The sermon aired on the official Jordanian TV channel.

Following is an excerpt:

Sheik Bassam Ammoush: In Gaza we are dealing with the enemies of Allah, who believe that the matzos that they bake on their holidays must be kneaded with blood. When the Jews were in the diaspora, they would murder children in England, in Europe, and in America. They would slaughter them and use their blood to make their matzos.

So it should come as no surprise, after they occupied our lands, in complicity with the [Western] enemy... Now they have all these women and children in front of them, so it should come as no surprise. This is their faith.

They believe that they are God's chosen people. They believe that the killing of any human being is a form of worship and a means to draw near their god.

See? He mentioned Gaza! So it must be Israel's fault that Arabs are antisemitic!

The Teflon Terrorists of Fatah

The Al Asifa Army, part of the Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, held a press conference Wednesday where they said that they had shot 620 rockets at Israel during Protective Edge.

The Asifa Army, by the way, takes its name from the first terror group that Yasir Arafat created from Fatah.

At the same time, another Fatah group, the Abu Nidal Brigades, held their own press conference and "victory parade" through the battered Shijaiyah neighborhood together with the DFLP:

The Abu Nidal Brigades claim to have shot 532 rockets and mortars at "the Zionist enemy."

The Abdul Kader Husseini Brigades, yet another Fatah group, claims to have shot 864 rockets and mortars at Israel.

That is over 2000 rockets and mortars being claimed by Fatah!

Fatah, that "moderate" political party, has been enthusiastically bragging about shooting terror rockets at Israeli civilians since the very first day of the war. Yet nobody - not Israel, nor the State Department, nor the EU, nor the "human rights" NGOs, nor the media, nor the "pro-peace" groups like J-Street or Peace Now - nobody wants to condemn them over this.

To spell it out: Mahmoud Abbas, Israel's supposed "peace partner" and the man who "everyone knows" is a moderate and "everyone knows" is the key to making peace, is either complicit in these 2000 war crimes, or he is too powerless to control his own party. It is almost certainly the former. These groups get funding from somewhere, and it isn't Iran or Qatar or Saudi Arabia or Turkey. They are getting their money from institutions headed by Mahmoud Abbas.

Masked terrorists are bragging about committing thousands of war crimes, but since they are Fatah, there are no repercussions for them.

They are the Teflon terrorists.

The world will sometimes deign to criticize Hamas, but to say anything negative about genocidal Fatah terrorists is strictly forbidden. They are moderate, so they can't be terrorists, and if they are proudly parading in their ski masks, the West must close their eyes.

So many people, groups, organizations and nations have so much emotionally invested in portraying Mahmoud Abbas as a shining example of moderate Palestinianism that no one - including Israel itself - is willing to point out that the emperor has no clothes.

So what exactly are the terms of the ceasefire, anyway?

It has been hard to find the actual terms of the truce agreement between Israel and Hamas (officially, the PA.)

The closest I've seen was published in Arabic at Youm7:

The [Egyptian Foreign] Ministry said in a statement, "in order to preserve the lives of innocent people and to prevent bloodshed, and on the basis of the Egyptian Initiative of 2014 and Cairo understandings of 2012, Egypt has invited Israeli and Palestinian sides to a comprehensive ceasefire in conjunction with the opening of the crossings between the Gaza Strip and Israel, in order to achieve the speed of entry of humanitarian aid and relief kits for reconstruction , and fishing, from 6 nautical miles, and the continuation of indirect negotiations between the parties on other topics within a month of the start of the ceasefire. ....Egypt reiterates its firm commitment to turn, which is dictated by the facts of history and geography, and responsibilities of national and Arab, regional, and what emerges from that work to achieve the aspirations of the Palestinian people and support their leadership, and concern for the promotion of peace and stability in the region through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state to achieve peace and security in the region, which would contribute to the prosperity and well-being of all its countries and peoples.

That is a hell of a vague statement.

The only concrete part is Israel re-opening the Kerem Shalom and Erez crossings that never closed (they are not going to open the old crossings) to allow construction materials and to extend the fishing zone to 6 nautical miles - which Israel did after the Pillar of Defense, and then reportedly shortened it over time. All the other stuff Hamas is claiming - that they will build a sea port and an airport and everything else - is fantasy.

Almost certainly Israel will only allow construction materials in that go through NGOs. That doesn't mean that they won't be diverted, as they had been before, so it remains to be seen whether there will be additional restraints or controls on the dual-use items.

It is very clear that Hamas got very little more than they would have gotten during the first cease fire proposal by Egypt before the ground invasion. The six mile fishing zone is mostly symbolic, that section of the Mediterranean is already overfished. Hamas celebrations are completely for pride.

Hamas is probably counting on being able to divert much of the international aid that will pour in.

Will the PA be able to leverage this into returning to a position of control in Gaza, especially Rafah? Egypt no doubt will push for that as a condition to re-open Rafah the way it was under the Muslim Brotherhood.

We won't know if this truce will be worth it for years - if Hamas holds its fire and the fire of its partners. But we do know that Israel didn't promise any of the things that Hamas is claiming.

(h/t Gidon)

08/27 Links Pt2: Academic left and Islamists joined at the anti-Israel hip; Who Occupies Gaza?

From Ian:

Step Away, Do Nothing, Pat Self on Back

Obama administration officials spent much of the spring and summer trying to position themselves as grand strategists. The president's West Point speech was the test drive of their revised national security strategy. It cautioned that "our most costly mistakes came not from our restraint, but from our willingness to rush into military adventures without thinking through the consequences -- without building international support and legitimacy for our action, without leveling with the American people about the sacrifices required." The speech was panned by both the right and the left, precipitating a reconsideration of releasing the National Security Strategy on which it was based (the last was delivered in 2010); it sounds even more laughably self-satisfied in light of the costly mistakes their "restraint" has occasioned in Libya, Syria, and Iraq.
The White House likes to defend its inaction by reiterating that there are no good options. And that is true, although it is not newly true. Windows of opportunity open and close, as Helmut Kohl famously worried about German unification. Options get better and worse with time and with opportunities taken and missed. But the Obama administration's philosophizing is cold comfort to the people experiencing the consequences of our inaction. We should beware buying another whole generation of mistrust from the people of the Middle East by our callous indifference to their problems and solipsistic attempts to ennoble our inaction.
If there actually is an Obama Doctrine -- and it's a debatable point, given the contradictions in the administration's policies -- it is this: Step back, criticize others who step forward, and laud our own moral superiority for doing nothing. Meanwhile, Islamist militias have encircled Tripoli and taken control of the airport. The Western governments that signed the statement encouraging a cease-fire are setting Libya up for continued humanitarian catastrophe and themselves up for another rush-to-the-crime-scene intervention. America is not incapable of devising and executing grand strategy. But the Obama administration evidently is. (h/t Alexi)

Who Occupies Gaza?

There Is No Israeli Siege On Gaza

National Founder of SJP Calls To Silence Jewish Groups The Evening Before The Jewish New Year

University of California at Berkeley professor and founder of the national student group “Students for Justice in Palestine” (SJP) Hatem Bazian announced an “International Day of Action” to call for a complete academic and cultural boycott of Israel on September 23rd- the Eve before the Jewish New Year.
The anti-Semitic nature of the day included calls for “No joint research or conferences with Israeli Institutions, No to University Presidents' Visits to Israel, No Campus Police Training or Cooperation with Israeli Security” in addition to demanding the elimination of all study abroad programs in Israel. The effort is to prevent all academic interaction with the Jewish state and to limit people’s ability to interact with Israel and Israelis.
The attempt to isolate Israel extends to a boycott of Jewish and Israeli on-campus organizations as well. Professor Bazian has also commanded his group to demand “No to University Coordination and Strategizing with the ADL, JCRC, AJC, Stand With US, ZOA, Israeli Consulate to Limit Students Pro-Palestine Constitutionally Protected Activities.”

VIDEO: Gazan Children Cheer For Rockets To Hit America

A video from Al Jazeera’s coverage of the Israeli-Hamas war in July has recently circulated, showing footage that no mainstream American news outlet would dare cover: Gazan children cheering as rockets are fired into Israel, saying they wished the rockets would hit America instead.
CNS News reports:
For Al Jazeera's "America Tonight," foreign correspondent Nick Schifrin reported during an older segment entitled "Israel invades Gaza" on July 17. "Palestinian fighters fire a barrage of rockets," he noted, with two flying towards Tel Aviv. As the camera focused on children clapping and cheering, Schifrin translated, "They tell me they hope they land not on Israel, but in the United States."

Lebanese site Al Ankabout reports that Mufti of the Lebanese Republic, Sheikh Mohammad Rashid Qabbani, said that what Israel did in Gaza "exceeded what Hitler did in his alleged Holocaust against the Jews." He also called for the eradication of Israel for good measure.

For every day of the five years of the Holocaust, far more Jews were killed than the total killed in Gaza over the past 50 days.

But the next one, from Spain, seems to hate Jews even more. From MEMRI:

In a Friday sermon at Azuqueca De Henares, near Madrid, Sheik Saleheoldine El Moussaoui said that the "plundering Jews" were "the masters of treachery and betrayal," and prayed: "Oh Allah, the Most Merciful, count them one by one, and do not spare a single one of them." The sermon was posted on the Internet on August 25, 2014.

Following are excerpts:

Sheik Saleheoldine El Moussaoui: Dear brothers, what is being done to the Muslims in Palestine, in Gaza, as well as in the other Muslim countries – we would have been surprised if it were done by anyone other than the Jews.

But that is their nature. The Jews are by nature treacherous and war-mongering. There can be no peace with the Jews. What peace are you talking about?!
[...]
This is their way of life. The Jews and the Zionists have treachery and killing as their way of life. They are a people of enmity and jealousy, the masters of treachery and betrayal. As Allah described them in the Quran: They want to spread corruption in the land.

The Zionists do not feel alive if they don't spread corruption. They spread corruption in the land. They cannot live without corruption, treachery, and betrayal.
[...]
[Allah] described them as killers, so their killing of our brothers in Gaza and in Palestine should come as no surprise. They killed the prophets, the best among mankind. The best people in the eyes of Allah are the prophets and messengers. Yet they killed them, showing no regard for pacts of protection. Allah said [to the Jews]: "Taste the punishment of the burning fire." This is what awaits them: the torments of the burning fire.
[...]
Oh Allah, support Islam and the Muslims everywhere, and humiliate polytheism, heresy, and the infidels everywhere. Oh Allah, destroy the plundering Jews. Oh Allah, the Most Merciful, count them one by one, and do not spare a single one of them.