Saudi Arabia is less antisemitic than the @NYTimes

From The New York Times:

In a surprising televised monologue, a senior member of the Saudi royal family and former ambassador to Washington accused Palestinian leaders of betraying their people, signaling an erosion of Saudi support for an issue long considered sacrosanct.

... Prince Bandar offered a rambling and selective history of the Palestinian struggle, saying that the Palestinians “always bet on the losing side.”

His survey, interspersed with archival images and footage, cited the contacts between Haj Amin al-Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem and an early Palestinian nationalist leader, and the Nazis in the 1930s, adding, “we all know what happened to Hitler and Germany.”

While there is broad agreement that Mr. al-Husseini collaborated with the Nazis against Zionism, historians differ on the significance of his relationship with Nazi leaders.

First of all, the Mufti's contacts with the Nazis were during the Holocaust in the 1940s, not in the 1930s. Even the photo of Hitler and the Mufti that the NYT published was from a 1941 meeting.

Secondly, the Mufti was a rabid antisemite for his entire life. He wasn't against "Zionism," he was against Jews - just like the Nazis he collaborated with. 

The New York Times is engaging in Holocaust minimization.

The US Holocaust Museum summarizes the Mufti's antisemitic statements on Nazi radio:

Al-Husayni spoke often of a "worldwide Jewish conspiracy" that controlled the British and US governments and sponsored Soviet Communism. He argued that "world Jewry" aimed to infiltrate and subjugate Palestine, a sacred religious and cultural center of the Arab and Muslim world, as a staging ground for the seizure of all Arab lands. In his vision of the world, the Jews intended to enslave and exploit Arabs, to seize their land, to expropriate their wealth, undermine their Muslim faith and corrupt the moral fabric of their society. He labeled the Jews as the enemy of Islam, and used crude racist terminology to depict Jews and Jewish behavior, particularly as he forged a closer relationship with the SS in 1943 and 1944. He described Jews as having immutable characteristics and behaviors. On occasion, he would compare Jewishness to infectious disease and Jews to microbes or bacilli. In at least one speech attributed to him, he advocated killing Jews wherever Arabs found them. He consistently advocated "removing" the Jewish homeland from Palestine and, on occasion, driving every Jew out of Palestine and other Arab lands.

Even during that meeting with Hitler the word "Zionist" was never used - just "Jews." 

[Mufti:] The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as had Germany, namely the English, the Jews and the Communists....The Arabs could be more useful to Germany as allies than might be apparent at first glance, both for geographical reasons and because of the suffering inflicted upon them by the English and the Jews.

The Fuhrer replied that Germany’s fundamental attitude on these questions, as the Mufti himself had already stated, was clear. Germany stood for uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests. Germany was also aware that the assertion that the Jews were carrying out the functions of economic pioneers in Palestine was a lie. The work there was done only by the Arabs, not by the Jews. Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.

Hitler's opposition to a Jewish state came directly from his hate of Jews - exactly like the Mufti.

The Mufti is a hero to Palestinians and considered their first leader. 

The tie between antisemitism and anti-Zionism has never been clearer than these words from Adolf Hitler. 

The Saudi royal accurately noted the mistakes of Palestinians including allying with Hitler. The New York Times then tries to minimize those ties as being merely "anti-Zionist."

What a joke the New York Times has become.

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Balancing Act (Vic Rosenthal)

 Vic Rosenthal's Weekly Column

My home town of Fresno, California has a tiny Jewish community. The metropolitan area of about a million people, in almost the geographical center of the state, has only about 1000 Jewish families. There are three congregations: a Reform temple with several hundred members, a much smaller Conservative shul, and a Chabad house.

I haven’t been to the US since moving back to Israel more than five years ago. But I keep in touch. So recently I noticed an announcement on the Facebook page of the Reform congregation for a talk by a Rabbi John Rosove on the subject “The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, an American Zionist Perspective.” I thought that was interesting, since I, too, am a Zionist and (you can tell by my accent) will always be an American.

Rabbi Rosove went to Berkeley (not that there’s anything wrong with that) and Hebrew Union College, and is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Israel in Hollywood. Investigating further, I found that the talk would be about “… the destructive impact of the Israeli occupation on Palestinians, Israelis and the future of Israel’s democracy.” And I noted that Rabbi Rosove is a national co-chair of the J Street Rabbinic Cabinet, and is associated with several “Reform Zionism” groups.

This is not my kind of Zionism – it demands a suicidal “two-state solution,” and wrongly analogizes our conflict with the Palestinians to the American civil rights struggle, two things that couldn’t be more different.

A word or two about J Street. It would like you think that it has a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” platform, but ever since its beginnings in 2007, it has advocated against Israel’s interests. J Street lobbied against sanctions on Iran and for the nuclear deal, refused to denounce the Goldstone Report that falsely accused Israel of war crimes, lobbied against a congressional letter criticizing Palestinian incitement, invited numerous anti-Israel speakers and BDS supporters to its national conventions, called for the US to support an anti-Israel Security Council resolution in 2014 and applauded the Obama Administration’s abstention on one in 2016. More recently, it criticized Israel’s use of force to protect its border with Gaza, and on and on and on. One would think that maybe it isn’t “pro-Israel” at all.

But nothing is more telling than the sources of J Street’s money. One of the biggest contributors to anti-Israel organizations is George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. It pledged $750,000 to J Street for its first three years. J Street lied about it until an investigative reporter exposed the facts. J Street also got contributions from sources linked to Saudi Arabia and Iran, as well as a Turkish film producer, and even stranger places. Of course much of its funding does come from Jewish “useful idiots.”

Let’s assume that Rabbi Rosove is one of these. His talk is being held at Clovis Community College, next door to Fresno, and is free. But who paid Rosove’s expenses? The announcement for the talk indicates that it is sponsored by GV Wire, a local progressive news website. GV Wire is a very slick production, with a professional staff including Bill McEwen, a former Fresno Bee columnist and editorial page editor.

The “GV” in GV Wire stands for Granville Homes, one of the biggest real estate developers and homebuilders in the Fresno area. And Granville Homes is owned by the Assemi family, who came to California from Iran just before the revolution. Among the founders of the Islamic Cultural Center of Fresno, the Assemis are among the biggest philanthropists in the Central Valley of California. Granville has done some projects in the downtown area which have improved parts of town that many people thought were lost forever. They donate large amounts to numerous causes and organizations, especially “progressive” ones.

The publisher of GV Wire is Darius Assemi, Granville’s President and CEO. He is deeply involved in local politics, and is probably one of the most powerful people in the area. And of course, he’s no friend of Israel. He’s described Israel’s shooting terrorists climbing its border fence as a “massacre.”

So why would he bring a self-described “Zionist” speaker to the area (even if he’s as much a Zionist as I am Queen of England)?

The explanation is the reaction to Assemi’s previous speaker, Alison Weir, who appeared on September 18 (her presentation can be viewed here). Weir is viciously anti-Israel and antisemitic, to the point that even pro-BDS groups like Jewish Voice for Peace have disavowed her. Her position is that the Israel/Jewish lobby dominates the US government, causing it to act against American interests in order to help Israel oppress, exploit, and murder Palestinians, which it does in the most sadistic way possible. She asserts that US media, controlled by Jewish interests, is biased in favor of Israel, and that any criticism of Israel is derailed by accusations of antisemitism. She is a low-key, persuasive speaker, and if you don’t recognize the lies, lack of context, and distortions, she will convince you.

Weir was originally invited by the college, which canceled the event following complaints by the ADL and other Jewish organizations.

But Assemi thought that she should be heard, so he had GV Wire sponsor the event and rent the hall, absolving the college of responsibility. ADL and the others protested again, but rather than cancel the event, Assemi decided to also invite “a speaker who will explain the deadly realities in this region from the Jewish perspective.” Balance. That would be Rabbi Rosove.

So now we will get a “Jewish perspective” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from a Jew who says he is a Zionist, but represents an organization that is actually anti-Zionist, and is even supported financially by Israel’s enemies. And a Jewish house of worship is advertising it.

Welcome to the highest level of useful idiocy!

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02/01 Links Pt1: The Palestinians: Who Really Cares?; Melanie Phillips: Ireland’s obsessional hatred of Israel; Booker Flip Flops on BDS; Saudi columnist mocks boycott of Israel

From Ian:

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The Palestinians: Who Really Cares?

Protests by the Palestinians in Lebanon are unlikely to draw any attention from the international community, including so-called pro-Palestinian groups that are active especially on university campuses in the US and Canada, among other places.

The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those who are willing to raise their voices against the mistreatment of Palestinians at the hands of their Arab brothers. The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those who are prepared to defend the rights of women and gays living under Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those that are prepared to advocate for democracy and free speech for Palestinians living under the repressive regimes of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The real "pro-Palestinian" groups are those who are prepared to condemn Lebanon for its racist and discriminatory measures against Palestinians, living and dead.

Hiding at a university campus and spewing hatred against Israel does not make one "pro-Palestinian." Rather, it makes one just an Israel-hater. Will the "pro-Palestinian" groups listen to the urgent messages coming from the people in Lebanon they claim to represent?

David Singer: Trump Should Reaffirm Core Bush-Congress Commitments to Israel

The upcoming Israeli elections will give Israelis the chance to vote on the future direction Israel’s new government should take in resolving the future of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza (“disputed territories”) – the last remaining 5 per cent of the territory of the Mandate for Palestine where sovereignty still remains unallocated between Arabs and Jews.

The choices offered to Israeli voters should be explicitly spelt out by the political parties contesting the elections. The newly-elected government’s stated policy should be implemented. This basic premise of democracy has been undermined in America as Trump’s election commitment to build his promised border wall remains unfulfilled because of Congress’s opposition.

Trump should not similarly attempt to thwart the mandate of Israel’s next government.

Trump should shelve his long-overdue ultimate deal indefinitely – due to the changed circumstances that have demonstrably arisen since his well-intentioned thought bubble in November 2016.

Instead – Trump should:

• Pledge his Government’s full support for Israel’s next duly elected Government
• Reaffirm the core commitments made by President Bush to Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Bush’s letter dated 14 April 2004 – endorsed overwhelmingly by the Congress by 502 votes to 12 (“Bush/Congress Commitments”).

Those core American commitments – made to procure Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza – included:

• Opposing any peace plan other than the 2003 Bush Roadmap
• Being strongly committed to Israel’s security and well-being as a Jewish state.
• Not supporting any right of return by Palestinian refugees to Israel
• Regarding as unrealistic a full and complete withdrawal from the disputed territories.

Congress could endorse this Trump initiative – reinforcing continuing bipartisan support for Israel.
Peace will remain elusive – but Trump will have saved himself from drowning in a cesspool that has swallowed previous American presidents who believed they had the answer to ending this unresolved 100 years old conflict.

Dr. Martin Sherman: Benny Morris, an unlikely proponent of Arab emigration?

As readers will recall, I have, for years, been urging the initiation of a largescale initiative for the incentivized emigration of the Arab population in Judea-Samaria and Gaza, as the only viable policy option that can facilitate (albeit not ensure) the continued survival of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people—as it is, demonstrably, the only policy option that allows Israel to adequately contend with the geographic and demographic imperatives required for such survival.

This week, I encountered strident—albeit somewhat doleful, and certainly unintended—support for my thesis from a rather unexpected source—the well-known historian, Benny Morris.

Morris: Coming full circle?

Once a member of the so-called New Historians, a radical, left-wing group of academics, who challenged the traditional Zionist view of the inception of Israel—particularly the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Arabs due to the fighting during the 1948 War of Independence—Morris has come to adopt a far more understanding view of the alternatives facing the then-nascent Jewish state—and its resultant actions.

Indeed, in many respects Morris has come “full circle”—at least in terms of prevailing public perceptions of his political positions. Once denounced as an anti-Zionist, considered too radical for employment in the Israeli academe, and who was imprisoned, rather than serve as an army reservist in the “occupied territories”, he now not only defends, but endorses, the coercive displacement of Arabs—indeed, even lamenting that it was not sufficiently implemented.

In this regard, he has chided Ben Gurion for being overly reticent: In a 2004 interview with Haaretz’s Ari Shavit, he declared provocatively: "If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job…my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all.”

Morris speculates: “If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion --the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion - rather than a partial one - he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations."

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06/08 Links Pt1: Pierre Rehov: Exposing the Truth About the Gaza Riots; PA Supreme Shari'a Judge: The Jews Have No Connection To Jerusalem; Giuliani: PA a 'renegade group' of 'terrorists and thieves'

From Ian:

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Pierre Rehov: Exposing the Truth About the Gaza Riots

Islamist organizations attacking Israel have always had a propagandist’s keen sense of vocabulary in their communication with the Western world.

Rightly convinced that few of us are able or even interested in deciphering their original speeches — which reveal their true intentions — they have been flooding us for decades with erroneous concepts and false claims, all playing on our desperate desire to do “good” and fight for the oppressed. They try to use our own history and heartstrings to make us react in a way that will be favorable to them.

And over the years, their terminology has been accepted by everyone, including — it must be said — in Israel itself.

For weeks, Hamas and other terrorist organizations have undertaken what they want the world to believe is a peaceful and “pacifist” popular uprising.

Once again, their deceptive use of vocabulary is clever and manipulative. On one level, these “protests” are peaceful demonstrations, thereby serving as cover for multiple attempts to destroy the separation barrier between Gaza and Israel, kidnap soldiers, kill Israeli and Jewish civilians, and launch terrorist attacks.

Why are the Palestinians “protesting” at the fence? The true answer is to destroy and overrun the Jewish state. But according to Hamas, they are simply seeking a “right of return” for the descendants of “refugees.”

Buses chartered by Hamas and Islamic Jihad — decorated with giant keys and illuminated names of missing villages supposed to symbolize this “right of return” — show up every Friday in front of mosques and schools in Gaza. Hamas has created a manipulated population, ready to kill themselves for these cynical or obsolete words and ideas.

MEMRI: Palestinian Authority Supreme Shari'a Judge And Abbas' Advisor Mahmoud Al-Habbash: The Jews Have No Connection To Jerusalem; This Is An Imperialist Myth And Distortion Of History

Mahmoud Al-Habbash, the PA Supreme Shari'a Judge and President Mahmoud 'Abbas's advisor for religious affairs, said at a June 4, 2018 conference that the struggle in Jerusalem is between the rightful owners of the city – the Muslims and Christians – and "some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil." He added that the state of Israel is an imperialist Western enterprise whose purpose is to weaken and divide the Arab world, and that the claim that the Jews have a historical connection to Jerusalem is nothing but a distortion of history.

The conference at which Al-Habbash spoke, organized by "the Muslim-Christian Council for the Salvation of Jerusalem and the Holy Places" and the Organization for Muslim Cooperation (OIC) under the title "The Monotheistic Religions against the Judaization of Jerusalem and Its Holy Places," was also attended by other PA officials, including the Palestinian Mufti, as well as other Christian and Muslim religious leaders, and ambassadors.

The following are translated excerpts fromn Al-Habbash's statements at the confrence:
"The battle for Jerusalem is not a religious one; it a political battle between the rightful owners [of the city] and the imperialists. This obligates us to raise the Arab and Muslim world's awareness of the Arab, Muslim and Christian identity of Jerusalem...

"We must be careful when using a particular term or word in connection with Jerusalem, for this is not a conflict with the Jews, but a struggle between the [real] residents and owners of Jerusalem, who are Muslim, Christian and Arab, and some foreign Western imperialists that have no connection to this soil. The catastrophe of Jerusalem did not begin in 1967 or 1948, or with the Balfour Declaration. It began much earlier, about 450 years ago, when imperialist calls began to be heard in the West.

"Palestine is not the [Jewish] Promised Land or the land of the [Jewish] forefathers – for if it is, why did they consider it as [only] one of several options when they started looking for a place for their state?...

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Sunnis boycott Shiite products, and the great Arab electricity boycott of 1923

Elaph has an amusing article by a Saudi writer that talks about how Sunni Muslims are publicizing among themselves not to buy this brand of juice or that brand of milk, because the owners of the company are supposedly Shiite.

This is strange, he notes, "because we use products made by Jews and Christians, from the car to the needle as well as mobile phones and technology and tablet devices, but each is manufactured in countries populated mostly of Buddhists or atheists as is the case in the East..." - yet no one boycotts them! Eastern religions are considered idol worship my Muslims, and are far worse theologically than Judaism or Christianity.

This sounds familiar - the people advocating boycotts always choose products that won't really affect their lives, but they will threaten and attack others who dare to sell or buy them. It's been this way since the Arab League started its boycott of Jewish goods in 1946 and even earlier.

Although, I must admit, in 1923 the Arabs even decided to boycott "Jewish electricity."

Arab extremists are waging their fight against things Jewish even to the point of refusing the use of electricity derived from a “Jewish” station.

The Jaffa municipality has decided to stick to the old hand, foot and horse power rather than utilize any of the electrical power derived from the Buttenberg station at the Auja.

Efforts by the government to convince the Arabs that electricity was neutral and knew no politics proved unavailing.

But in 1923, that wasn't much of a sacrifice for them.

Hamas, on the other hand, boycotted Israeli fuel to Gaza for a year or so - until the Egyptian fuel supply dried up. Its lofty standards were only so lofty.

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Saudi Arabia keeps ban on women driving

From Al Arabiya:

The Saudi Shura (Consultative) Council on Thursday rejected a move by three female members to put the ban on women driving up for discussion.

The Council, which counts 30 women among its 150 members, rejected a move by one female member to raise the issue during a discussion on Thursday of transport ministry matters, the official SPA news agency reported.

It said the issue was “irrelevant” to the discussions and “not within the transport ministry’s remit.”

In the past few days, rights groups have been posting videos of Saudi women illegally driving in the kingdom:

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Saudi preacher who raped, tortured, murdered 5 year old daughter gets 8 years

From AFP:

A Saudi court sentenced a preacher convicted of raping his five-year-old daughter and torturing her to death to eight years in prison and 800 lashes, a lawyer said Tuesday.

In a case that drew widespread public condemnation in the kingdom and abroad, the court also ordered Fayhan al-Ghamdi to pay his ex-wife, the girl's mother, one million riyals in "blood money," lawyer Turki al-Rasheed told AFP.

Blood money is compensation for the next of kin under Islamic law.

The girl's mother had demanded 10 million riyals.

Ghamdi's second wife, accused of taking part in the crime, was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes, said Rasheed, who is the lawyer of the girl's mother.

Ghamdi was convicted of "raping and killing his five-year-old daughter Lama," he added.

The girl was admitted to hospital on December 25, 2011 with multiple injuries, including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm, extensive bruising and burns, activists said. She died several months later.

Ghamdi, a regular guest on Muslim television networks despite not being an authorized cleric in Saudi Arabia, had confessed to having used cables and a cane to inflict the injuries, human rights activists said earlier this year.

Randa al-Kaleeb, a social worker from the hospital where Lama was admitted, said the girl's back was broken and that she had been raped "everywhere".

Reportedly, Ghamdi had tortured and raped his daughter after he had doubted her virginity.

Oh, why didn't you say that he tortured and raped her repeatedly to maintain family honor? Now the sentence makes sense! Those slutty five year olds, turning on their fathers like that. How dare they!

In fact, this sentence is an improvement over what originally happened in this case.

Last February, Ghamdi was released from prison altogether because a judge figured the blood money was enough punishment for him. Apparently, an international outcry caused this re-sentencing.

This also shows the importance of shaming Arab countries into causing them to act like normal human beings, even if they fight it all the way.

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Saudis hire BDS target - for Hajj security!

One of the biggest targets of the BDS movement is a huge security conglomerate called G4S. We've discussed before how the pathetic boycotters pretended that the EU Parliament dropped G4S because of their efforts; as usual, they were lying.

Guess who Saudi Arabia hired to provide security for Hajj pilgrims?


From Al Akhbar:

This year, the mandatory Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, or hajj, will compound the Palestinians’ woes. Palestinian pilgrims will be greeted by a company that assists in their repression – and even torture – under the Israeli occupation regime. Indeed, hajj this year will be brought to you by none other than G4S.

This is not the first time that the Saudi government has hired the private security firm, which has recruited a staggering 700,000 to provide hajj-related services this year, according to exclusive information obtained by Al-Akhbar. Most of the leaked reports indicate that security for the hajj season since 2010 has been entrusted to al-Majal G4S, an affiliate of the parent company G4S.

Didn't the BDSers lobby Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations to drop G4S? They know about the huge contracts given, since the G4S website shows that they operate in Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Oman, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Yemen, Egypt and Morocco.

The article says that BDS tried to complain, but Saudi Arabia obviously didn't give a damn:

The Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign has not been sitting idly by. In a press conference on Wednesday, October 2, the campaign sent a clear message to the Saudi government, urging it to terminate the contract with the company that happens to provide equipment and security services to protect Israeli settlements, occupation checkpoints, and police facilities. The private security contractor has also been implicated in enabling the torture of administrative detainees in Palestine, including children, according to BDS activist Zaid Shuaibi.

And Saudi Arabia isn't the only one to utterly ignore the European-based BDS movement:

Shuaibi, speaking to Al-Akhbar, said that the BDS campaign contacted the Palestinian Ministry of Economy, being the competent authority in the issue of boycotting settlements, such as the ones serviced by G4S. But according to Shuaibi, “The ministry did not bother to respond or take action to stop the abuse, even as the company violates Palestinian law by continuing to provide services to the settlements.”

Poor BDSers. Not only are Arab nations completely ignoring them, but they can't even get Palestinian Arab leaders to speak to them.

(h/t WarpedMirrorPMB)

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Saudi rumors that H1N1 vaccine causes infertility

Al Arabiya reports that rumors are speeding through Saudi Arabia that the swine flu is a conspiracy and that the vaccine causes infertility in 80% of those who take it. This rumor is spreading just as the vaccine is being readied to be given to the population.

The conspiracy theory did not originate in the Middle East. Here's one version of it on YouTube.

Unlike Al Arabiya's last article quoting an Arab doctor about how H1N1 is a conspiracy, this article actually interviews real doctors and also attempts to uncover the origins of the conspiracy theory.

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Saudi newspaper fawns over bulldozer terrorist

The Arab News goes even beyond calling terrorism "natural" for Arabs:

Israelis killed a Palestinian youth for driving a bulldozer onto the midst of a crowd in the heart of East Jerusalem and killing three Israelis last week. But the reaction of the Western political leaders to the action of the Palestinian worker, one of over a million and half living in humiliation of the Israeli occupation, amounted to killing him and other Palestinians a thousand times.

Yes, this brilliant writer from our "moderate" friends in Saudi Arabia considers a condemnation of the purposeful killing of Jews to be equivalent to killing a thousand innocent Palestinian Arabs. This is the sort of sick mentality that is mainstream in the Arab world.

While the Western leaders did not feel any compunction in condemning the poor building worker in the harshest words they could find in the dictionary, they did not have the guts to describe the incident as the natural and likely reaction of a human being put to indignities beyond his endurance powers.

Indeed, a fully employed Palestinian Arab, who gets paid by evil Jews hellbent on destroying his dignity, is quite justified in killing them en masse because of his abject humiliation. In other words, Arabs are naturally (really, genetically) prone to murder because their honor is far more important than mere Jewish lives, and the West doesn't have the guts to realize this simple fact and start praising the murderer instead of condemning him.

Over the past six months 365 Palestinians have been killed by Israel, most of them civilians, with children accounting for 50 percent.

I don't know about the 365, but the 50% number is wholly fictional, but it must be OK for an Arab to make up statistics making Israel look bad because, after all, he is being humiliated by the very existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East. If killing is justifiable, certainly lying is.

It is high time that we made a clear distinction between the acts of terror, particularly from a state that calls itself a democracy, and the acts springing from frustration, injustice and humiliation.

In one sentence the author has just justified every single Arab and Muslim terror act over the past century, because each one must have sprung on some level by someone's "frustration" or perceived "humiliation." This, of course, also includes terror attacks against Saudi Arabia itself, not to mention 9/11.

This Palestinian youth was a human being with normal feelings of pride and honor. He could not be blamed for losing his equanimity for a moment when he thought about the plight of his brothers and sisters who are being treated like dirt in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and put under a blockade denying them the most basic requirements of life.

Our good editorialist has now descended from pure fantasy into mind-reading as he not only justifies a terror attack, he places it in a context where such an attack is positively praiseworthy. The author, Abdul Aziz Al-Suwaigh, is a diplomat who has been an employee of Saudi Arabia's Ministry for Foreign Affairs. And this is all done in English in a newspaper that cannot publish anything without the approval of the Saudi royal family.

A blog post by Richard Landes about this post here

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Uh-Oh, They're Onto Us

Saudi Armed Forces Journal on the Jews: 'The Fabricated Torah, Talmud, and Protocols of the Elders of Zion Command Destruction of All Non-Jews for World Domination' (MEMRI): World Jewry has established a shadow government run by 300 Satans who call themselves 'elders.' They always choose one man who is considered to be a king and to be the successor to King David and [King] Solomon. They do not reveal his name in public, and each time he dies they appoint another of the rabbis in his place. The Jewish millionaire Walter Rathenau told the German newspaper The Weiner Press [meaning the Wiener Freie Presse ] on December 25, 1909: 'There are 300 people, all of whom know one another. They have arbitrary rule over Europe's fate. They choose people to do their bidding from among those who surround them. These Jews have the means to annihilate any government that doesn't satisfy them.'

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