Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: free gaza

Showing posts with label free gaza. Show all posts

Friday, December 12, 2008

Today's Palestinian Arab news

There are reports of a "secret deal" between Hamas and Israel, brokered by Europeans, to extend the six month "truce". Hamas finds the truce to be very convenient for them, according to the article.

Meanwhile, there were two rockets shot at Israel today, and one rocket fell short and severely damaged a house near Khan Younis. Even so, Israel continued to send goods through the Gaza crossings today, for the fourth day in a row, although it did seem to close one of the crossings after the rocket attack.

Israel also transferred shekels to Gaza banks, allowing the PA to pay salaries to some 70,000 workers and allowing Hamas to continue to control the territory without taking responsibility for actually administering its daily activities. Israel is starting to make noises that there is no reason that Gaza cannot use Egyptian pounds rather than shekels as currency.

An aide to Mahmoud Abbas blames Hamas as well as Israel for the "siege."

A Syrian group will attempt to send a ship from Lebanon to Gaza.

An Arab newspaper slammed Abbas for describing the "Free Gaza" boats as a "farce" and a "silly game" yesterday. It sarcastically stated that perhaps Abbas didn't notice who was on these ships, "being too busy meeting his friend Olmert who imposed the blockade."

Apparently, the moon will be particularly large and bright over "Palestine" tonight. Not sure if that applies through the rest of the world. (The Arab press is always keenly interested in any news about the moon.)

Abbas: "Free Gaza" a joke, PA pays 70,000 Gazans

In a long interview with the Palestine Press Agency, Mahmoud Abbas was asked about the "Free Gaza" ships to break the "siege" around Gaza. Here was his answer:

This is a ridiculous game called "break the siege" ... Yes, there are ships that sail off the port of Larnaca, Cyprus. First the Israeli embassy takes all passports of the passengers of the vessel to ensure the identities of the passengers and then examine what assistance will be on the ship. Secondly the Israeli navy ensures those on the ship and cargo loaded, before allowing them to continue the trip to Gaza .. Where is the blockade being broken?. Some States said they would send ships .. Where are those ships?

... If you want to send aid to Gaza, why not Tersloha[?] via Egypt or Jordan .. Egypt reaches everything as well as Jordan. Consequently, this is cheap, false propaganda and not the first nor the last time.

He also admitted yet again that 58% of the PA budget goes to Gaza, something which surprised the interviewer:

Q: 58 per cent of the [PA] budget is spent on the Strip?

A: Yes, 58 per cent of our budget goes to Gaza, including the salaries of 77 thousand employees. A few days before, "one Hamas leader« island », Israel prevented the introduction of 240 million shekels to the Gaza Strip and the source of these millions is power. We say to them that there Kerem Shalom crossing, Karni and Erez and Sofer .. To work to open the crossings and keeping them open .. The Rafah crossing, we will try to reopen the agreement with all parties .. And respond to either open the Rafah crossing or all crossings remain closed .. Such as what happened in the case of pilgrims .. Their own logic was either go out to her Hajj Visa or one would not even carry the Visa ..

Which means that Gazans get twice as much of our tax dollars, per capita, than West Bankers.

"Free Gaza" sails again. No one cares.

It looks like Israel's decision to ignore the "Free Gaza" freaks is paying off. Their fourth boat of publicity hounds arrived in Gaza yesterday to the collective apathy of Gazans themselves, let alone the world.

Their "ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula" that it brought is dwarfed by the aid that evil Israel brought in to Gaza yesterday as well - some 70 truckfuls of food and other supplies, along with fuel pumped through Nahal Oz. (Another 55 trucks are due today. Each truck probably holds at least 3 tons.)

Only a couple of dozen Gazans came to watch the circus, and the only TV coverage came from Iran's Press TV.

Meanwhile, Free Gaza's debt continues to grow. They seem to be "cooking the books" - if you compare their bizarre thermometer graphic from October to the one on their website today, you will see that they are now claiming to have spent less total money than they had two months ago!

October:

Today:

Somehow, through the miracle of modern accounting, the total amount the have spent went from $740,000 down to $654,000!

If you assume that they really mean that they spent $866,000 that the graphic indicates, this means that their debt has increased to $430,000 today from $415,000 indicated in the October chart. Their business model, which is that they would make money from a combination of leftists and "passenger fees" (which seem to have disappeared - I doubt that the UK moonbat teachers on this boat ponied up $1,000 each for the voyage) is falling apart.

But given that they are now linking to Iranian news stories, and Iran is the only country that pretends to care about Gazans as much as the Freaks do, perhaps they are working on a deal with their tolerant pals in Tehran.

A tiny admission: Amira Hass mentions weapons smuggling

Amira Hass, Ha'aretz' Arab affairs reporter, went into Gaza with the last "Free Gaza" moonbat boat and stayed for three weeks. Today, she spoke to her friends in Ramallah about her experience in Gaza.

Although she predictably slams Israel at every possible opportunity, a couple of salient facts manage to sneak out during her tirade:

On entering Gaza Hass said she was accompanied by Hamas-appointed security personnel at all hours, and was prevented from entering any of the Strip’s refugee camps. She said she had been warned by the security men that there was a chance that she would be abducted by extremists during her time in Gaza. After three weeks, she said, the security officials told her they got wind of a plan by one of the factions to kidnap her, which she called a pretext, and forced her to leave the area.

So this independent journalist happily filed reports that were effectively censored by Hamas, which only allowed her to enter certain parts of Gaza. Hass eagerly accepted the role of propagandist.

During her time in Gaza Hass visited the southern town of Rafah where the hundreds of tunnels to Egypt snake below the earth, and described the full markets and influx of people that the new industry had spurred in the area. Hass described seeing many goods, even weapons, available in the Rafah souq, and remarked at the change in what she called a ‘once very poor town.’

From a quick Google search, I could not find a single Hass report for Ha'aretz where she mentioned seeing weapons in Rafah. In fact, out of the many reports that talk about the goods that get smuggled into Rafah through tunnels, the most obvious - weapons - is not mentioned anywhere. TVs, motorcycles, cattle, zoo animals, candy, shoes - we see them all from Western reports, but never a mention of weapons.

The only way to know that weapons are still being smuggled is because Egypt regularly intercepts weapons and explosives caches on their way to Rafah. Gaza reporters, however, cannot bring themselves to mention that fact.

Hass mentions it here - but to a Palestinian Arab audience, and not as a reporter but as an advocate.

Isn't the presence of weapons for sale in Rafah an important fact? Apparently, not to the Western reporters who love filing tunnel stories, and apparently not to Amira Hass herself.

The MSM meme of starving Gazans is too important. If reporters would mention that weapons are getting smuggled into Gaza and sold (as well as given to terror groups), some stupid readers might start thinking that perhaps food is not the most important thing to Gazans - and we can't have that, can we?

Free Gaza moonbats working with Hamas try again

Two prominent pro-terror "peace" advocates, Lauren Booth and Ken O'Keefe, are trying to buy a much larger ship to ferry passengers to Gaza. They call their project Aloha Palestine:

Aloha Palestine is a not-for-profit organisation that aims to provide a dedicated passenger ship service to the Palestinian people who have been suffering from the blockade imposed on Gaza.

It is telling that the moonbats are not interested so much in transporting food or medicine to Gaza, but rather in paying passengers. This is mostly because they know they can't afford the $1.1 million they need for this latest exercise in self-promotion at the expense of Gazan interests. (While the Free Gaza freaks happily met with Hamas leaders, none of them have mentioned asking them to stop rocket fire or to release Gilad Shalit.)

Their website happily quotes Jimmy Carter ("It’s an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. It’s a crime... I think it is an abomination that this
continues to go on.") and Condoleeza Rice.

Of course, since Free Gaza itself has a major cash crunch, it would seem highly unlikely that Aloha Palestine will raise anything close to what they say they need. Except that in this case, they are not only raising funds from leftist hypocrites who are big on words but short on cash, but they are also working with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas to raise the funds.

According to Palestine Press Agency, extreme Muslim groups have already raised some $600,000 for the purchase of their first ship, ironically to be named the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights." This ship is meant to be a means for Hamas to not rely so heavily on smuggling tunnels to gain its independence.

While one interesting paragraph at the site says "It is a founding principal of Aloha Palestine that we will never allow weapons, of any kind, to be transported on our vessel(s),"and the article states that Israel and Cyprus have an agreement to restrict what kinds of goods can be shipped to Gaza. But Hamas apparently is aiming to use this ship to gain more legitimacy in the eyes of Europeans, as a first step in a much larger plan.

Notice that yet again, radical Islamists will happily use clueless leftists to achieve their own goals to create a planet where clueless leftists will have no place.

LA Times cannot read a map

From AFP:

Egypt's northern Sinai is running low on fuel supplies because of the amount of smuggling across the border to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, Egyptian officials said on Saturday.
"Smuggling to Gaza through tunnels has led to a drastic reduction in fuel supplies at petrol stations" in the northern Sinai, said Mohammed Hussein, a senior official of the Sinai governorate.
Other local officials said work with agricultural equipment was having to cease because of the shortage of fuel.
Other parts of the Sinai are also being affected as trucks from the north loaded with jerry cans ferry fuel supplies to the north, according to workers at petrol stations.
The authorities in northern Sinai have over the past month imposed a ban on the sale of fuel in jerry cans except for agricultural purposes, and ordered all petrol stations to close overnight.
Almost 170,000 litres (about 40,000 gallons) of fuel being readied for shipment to Gaza on the black market was seized last week, officials said.

But why aren't human rights organizations and left-wing newspapers blaming Egypt for confiscating fuel that is meant for those poor, poor Gazans? No, only Israel has the responsibility for feeding and clothing and fueling Gaza, according to such august authorities as the Los Angeles Times:

In the 2 1/2 weeks since its cease-fire with Hamas broke down, Israel has all but sealed crossings along its border with the Gaza Strip and rejected U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's appeal to allow more humanitarian aid into the enclosed territory that houses more than 1.5 million Palestinians. This response to violence directed against it amounts to collective punishment of civilians, which is illegal under international law, unfair and counterproductive. Hunger and scarcity nurture extremism.

The last comment is a cliche that's been proven false numerous times.

Beyond that, the LAT is conflating two issues. Israel is under no legal obligation to help its enemies. If the UN would try to follow the Free Gaza model and bring goods in from overseas, the worst that Israel would do is stop the ships and check them for weapons or other materials that could be used to hurt Israeli civilians. If the UNRWA would try to bring goods in from Egypt, Israel wouldn't say a word. So when Israel stops goods from crossing through its own territory, it is not engaging in collective punishment - it is exercising its own autonomy, something that the LAT doesn't seem to recognize.

... As the military power surrounding Gaza, Israel has a duty to ensure that civilians receive sufficient food, fuel and medicine.

The LA Times needs to look at a map again and see if Gaza is surrounded by Israel.

Gaza freak, keffiyeh chic

Some of the Hamas-friendly freaks who arrived on the latest Free Gaza boat, members of various world parliaments, decided that terror-chic clothing were de rigueur:

Free Gaza isn't free for their passengers!

The Free Gaza freaks are so far in debt, they apparently charged their idiot passengers about $1000 each for this latest trip!

Look at this graphic on their site (they apparently had a typo which I correct):

The FGMers have so far spent $740,000 and have raised $325,000 - but $300,000 came from "donations" and $25,000 from "passenger fees".

There was no mention of "passenger fees" on their website when I previously looked at their bizarre thermometer graphic.

Since their latest trip to Gaza, where they were greeted by their Hamas terrorist pals and a tiny crowd, included 27 people, it appears that they are so broke that they are charging their "humanitarian" passengers about $1000 to get their publicity.

Comparing their numbers, they've spent $190,000 since September - and only raised $75,000, even including their passenger fees. And this was after the massive amount of publicity they received from their first trip.

What will they try next? Clearly their leftist pals aren't willing to pony up the bucks for them to continue these public relations stunts, and nobody is buying the boats they are trying to sell (for quite inflated prices.)

Free Gaza freaks are seasick!

I signed up to be on Free Gaza's mailing list so I get the latest news quickly. And their dispatches sometimes contain real gems.

From Greta Berlin, of the FGM Media Team:

It's 2:30 am, and Osama has just gone to get some sleep for a couple of hours. He and I wait in Cyprus for news from the Dignity and watch the small blip of the SPOT checker as it moves slowly toward Gaza and a possible forceful intervention from the well-armed Israeli navy somewhere are oung 6:00 am. The rumblings out of Jerusalem are fierce. They will not let us come into Gaza, because we didn't behave the last time. What that means only the minds of neurotic military men can sort through, and I am reminded of the movie, Dr. Strangelove, only this confrontation will be real, pitting nonviolent human rights watchers against the 4th largest military in the world.

The people on board are now Osama's and my friends, most of them having been to Cyprus twice in an attempt to get on board. We talked to David S about a half hour ago, and 80% of them are sea-sick, some seriously. Even with the new boat, one that rides better and is more stable, the people are still sick. Twenty-seven of them are crowded onto that boat, because they care enough about the human rights of an occupied people being slowly strangled to death by Israeli military might to take the risk.

If the doctors on the boat can't handle seasickness in a couple of dozen people, exactly how much help can they give to 1.5 million during their attempted photo-op?

And why am I not surprised that one of their leaders is named Osama?

Clearly Greta is tired, because she let slip something she surely didn't mean to:

Israel is panicked that the Palestinians will do the same thing that they did in the late 40s and that is get on boats and come home.

It took me a second, but then I realized what she was saying: she was comparing Palestinian Arabs to the Jews who had to "illegally" immigrate to Palestine to save their lives from the Nazis!

Which means that she must consider the Palestinian Arabs' host countries to be as oppressive as Nazi Germany, I guess.

But notice her word choice: even this rabid anti-Zionist admits that the Jewish refugees of the 1940s were not European colonialists, but they were members of a nation coming home!

I doubt that this dispatch will make it onto their website before they realize that they just justified Zionism as a national restoration movement.

Today, the Free Gaza leftards and terrorist-huggers gave out another of their endless supply of press releases where they lie about their goals:

We are returning to Gaza for exactly the same reasons we came in August: to deliver medical supplies, meet with civil society organizations, volunteer in hospitals, and visit Palestinians who have requested our presence.

But their mission statement gives the real reason they came:

We want to break the siege of Gaza. We want to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation. We want to uphold Palestine's right to welcome internationals as visitors, human rights observers, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, or otherwise.

Not a single word about acually helping Gazans in their mission statement!

The goals of the FGM have nothing to do with helping Gazans, and their bringing small amounts of medical supplies and a few doctors is a show - to try to embarrass Israel and score brownie points in the international media. As we have seen, the terror-supporting FGM freaks have proven that helping Gazans is the last thing on their minds.

Egypt's siege of Gaza

Last week, CAMERA released a backgrounder aimed at the many media outlets that refer exclusively to an "Israeli siege" of Gaza without acknowledging that Egypt also chooses to severely restrict people and goods from entering Gaza.

A case in point can be seen in this story which has been ignored by the Western press.

Ma'an wrote last week:

A European group is organizing the largest-ever parliamentary visit to the Gaza Strip next month, aimed at breaking the ongoing Israeli siege.

The European Campaign to Lift the Siege of Gaza announced its preparations on Thursday, saying it intends to send legislators from all over the world to Gaza in November.

Several Arab and foreign parliamentarians expressed their wish to participate in the visit aiming at breaking the siege of the Gaza Strip, organizers said in a statement.

Leaders from Rights for All, a Swiss-based organization in Geneva, said that "parliamentarians from Algeria, Kuwait, Yemen, Jordan, Sudan and other Arab countries will join the international parliamentarian delegation."

The head of the European Campaign said that the group will also include leaders from various other countries, namely the United Kingdom, Ireland, Greece, Italy, Switzerland and Scotland, as well as Asia and Latin America.

Concerning the arrangements for entering the Gaza Strip, Al Gharbi said that “negotiations are ongoing with the Egyptian side."

He added that the movement has high hopes for Egypt to open the Rafah crossing to enable the delegation to enter Gaza and "see the human and medical situation" there.

In an ironic twist that has gone completely unnoticed by the mainstream media, Egypt denied this delegation from crossing Rafah:

The "European Campaign to Lift the Siege on Gaza" condemned the decision of the Egyptian authorities to refuse to allow the group, which includes scores of Arab and foreign deputies, from entering the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing dividing Egypt and the Gaza Strip early next month.

The head of the delegation said in a press statement: "We strongly condemn the surprise decision refusing to enter the Gaza Strip from Egypt, although the objective of the visit was humanitarian."

Yes, a group of self-declared "humanitarians" who say that their objective it to stop the "Israeli siege" is stopped from entering - by Egypt.

The irony doesn't end there. The "Free Gaza" movement, which is set to sail their patched-up boat today from Cyprus to Gaza, got British MP Jeremy Corbyn to submit an absurdly anti-Israel motion to the British House of Commons (received via email):

This House applauds the excellent work of the Free Gaza Movement in highlighting the fact that Israel is imposing collective punishment on the 1.5 million people of Gaza, in contravention of Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention; acknowledges the considerable amount of pressure applied by the Israeli government on a previous (FG) voyage last August; wishes the latest boat travelling from the port of Cyprus to Gaza carrying both a large group of concerned human rights workers and, including among them Palestinian MP - Dr Mustafa Barghouti, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner - Mairead Maguire, as well as medical practitioners and supplies, a safe voyage with no outside interference, and calls upon her majesty's government to take action to ensure that the massive economic, political and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza is brought to an end as a matter of urgency.

So the "Free Gaza" movement gets massive amounts of publicity and claims that Israel interfered with their non-humanitarian, PR-fueled voyage last August - when Israel allowed the boats through unimpeded - but when a much more prominent group actually does get stopped from entering Gaza by Egypt, the world media is utterly silent.

Free Gaza freaks set to sail again

Last we looked, the Free Gaza leftards were trying desperately to find a new boat, willing to sell their old boats to anyone strange enough to want them.

Apparently, their please were less than successful, as their press release from a couple of days ago stated:

On October 28, 2008, the Free Gaza Movement will set sail again for Gaza. On board will be a Nobel Peace Prize winner, five physicians, a member of the Israeli Knesset, and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. The boat will again carry 26 passengers and crew to the port of Gaza.

"We've spent the past month making sure that our boat is better and stronger, because the weather is getting more severe. Since we promised the people of Gaza we would return, we wanted to make sure we would return safely", said Derek Graham, first mate on board the boat.

The patched boat, now seemingly renamed"Waves of Hope," is supposed to arrive in Gaza on Thursday.

The freakazoids are trying to rectify a problem they had last time. In their first journey, they wanted to show that Gaza should be "free" so they sailed directly there without officially informing Israel. But now they realized that a great part of their narrative depends on the idea that Gaza is "occupied" by Israel, so this time they sent a letter to the Israeli government telling them of their peaceful intentions.

Apparently, Lauren Booth has decided not to visit this time. It seems that she ate enough Gaza food the first time she was there.

Today's PalArab press roundup

It took a couple days longer than expected, but Hamas finally blamed the world economic crisis on those Jewish bankers and the Jewish lobby.

Hamas also took over a mosque in Beit Hanoun and replaced its imam with a Hamas sympathizer. I think they're getting this politics thing down pat.

As if to stress the point, Hamas militia entered the Beit Hanoun camp and tore down pictures of Yasir Arafat, replacing them with posters of Hamas "martyrs."

An Egyptian convoy that was the Muslim Brotherhood's version of "Free Gaza" made it relatively close to Egyptian Rafah and was to be greeted with a nice reception. However, that reception ended up being Egyptian police who arrested them.

Palestinian Arab newspapers noticed the "secular Neturei Karta" group I wrote about yesterday. No doubt these assimilated anti-Zionist Jews would be aghast to see the picture that Palestine Today used to illustrate its story.

But you can't blame them. After all, don't all Jews look the same?

"Free Gaza" freaks delayed yet again

There is an old maxim that when someone gives you more than one reason, you can be sure that they are lying:

Foreign activists who planned to sail to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade have delayed their trip to late October, an organizer said on Friday.
Members of the U.S.-based Free Gaza Movement had planned to sail to the Palestinian territory from Cyprus this week, but said they were held up while attempting to find a boat.

There were also poor weather conditions in the eastern Mediterranean, and activists did not want their trip to coincide with the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan next week, a spokeswoman said.

"The only analogy I can think of is like showing up with 22 people you don't know for Christmas dinner," said Greta Berlin, a spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement.

Hmm. If they don't have a boat, the rough seas don't seem to be as big a problem. And isn't it amazing that the people who planned this trip for weeks - includign many Muslims - didn't notice that it was the end of Ramadan?

Their press release, which is not yet on their website, darkly implies that the Jooooz were behind their inability to find a decent boat:

Unfortunately, every time we thought we reached an agreement with a boat owner, our agreement has fallen through, in part, we believe, due to outside pressure. Though it is a very difficult decision to make, we have decided to temporarily delay our voyage.

Yes, that Jewish lobby stops all boat owners from selling their boats to an organization that is still deeply in debt and almost certainly couldn't scrape the money together to pay for it.

Even though their website has mutliple pages begging for money, they don't have the honesty to tell reporters the truth, and would rather blame those nefarious Zionists yet again for their own pathetic inability to do anything remotely useful for Gazans.

"Free Gaza" freaks continue to show utter disregard for Gazans

The latest "Free Gaza" ship, called the "SS Hope," is scheduled to set sail from Cyprus on Thursday.

Now, they are sending some doctors, which sounds like the Freaks might for once actually be interested in helping the people of Gaza. But, alas, it is not true. According to the FG site, "Doctors and lawyers are going to Gaza at the request of the people of Gaza to assess the medical tragedy there and to talk to the people."

So the doctors will not do anything that existing NGOs in Gaza (Doctors Without Borders, the many UNRWA doctors) are not doing already. The lawyers will do, pretty much, nothing except feel important. The Arab Knesset member will give interviews as will other other "human rights" activists to the two Al Jazeera reporters on board.

But perhaps the most valuable person on the entire ship will be "Joe Fallisi (Italy) Opera Singer, Composer." Gaza is suffering from a severe shortage of opera singers and the poor Palestinian Arabs stuck there have expressed their clear desire for an operatic tenor to entertain them and move them to tears. Fallisi has already entered the Free Gaza song contest, and Fallisi - who, we are helpfully told, is a vegan - sings lyrics such as "Zionists, oppressors, tyrants will fall."

One can only imagine how much he will lift the hearts of supposedly starving Gazans with his songs.

Because his ship sure isn't bringing any food.

Free Gaza freaks stymied in their latest attempt to sail

From Ma'an:

The second siege breaking voyage organized by the Free Gaza movement has been delayed for “logistical reasons.” The ships were scheduled to dock in the Gaza port on Monday, and have not set a new date of arrival.

Chairman of the People's committee against the blockade and member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Jamal Al-Khudari, said that the doctors, journalists, parliamentarians and activists set as the ship’s crew have begun to arrive in Cyprus.

Do you think this is perhaps because our leftist terrorist-supporters are having a hard time raising money from the masses of people who pretend to want to help ordinary Palestinian Arabs?

We're broke and we need money NOW! We are at a critical stage of our project and your help is needed. All of the money raised so far has been spent on the boats and project logistics, and we have taken an emergency loan for $70,000. That is why our illustrations below show more money spent than raised. We have already spent more than a half million dollars, at least half of which is in loans. We currently have less than $20K in our accounts. And we have to pay around $70K in fuel alone before this is over. It looks like we also might need a substantial amount ($15K though not certain) to make the satellite link work, and we really should bail out some of our Greek friends who have put themselves at serious financial risk to lend massive amount of funds to us. In all, we need $50K right away and $100K soon after, and then an additional $200K to pay back the remainder of the loans.

If they couldn't get enough money to pay for even half of their first PR stunt, who is going to pay for the second one - which will inevitably have much less publicity?

The reason they can't raise money is clear. Their mission is not to help Palestinian Arabs but rather to embarrass Israeli Jews. People are naturally charitable but even leftists know that this money is only being used for hate, not to help anyone in any real sense. So only the die-hard anti-semites and anti-Zionists are willing to put any cash into this money pit.

Which goes to prove once again that Israel does more to help ordinary Palestinian Arabs than any number of political groups who pretend to care so much about them.

Even their money to buy their fashionable keffiyehs is not going to their cause!

The lies of Lauren Booth

Lisa Goldman, a left-wing Israeli reporter, exposes Lauren Booth's absurd lies:

In an interview with PJM, Ms. Booth says she has tried three times to leave Gaza — once via Erez Checkpoint, which leads into Israel, and twice via the Rafah border crossing into Egypt. She was turned away by both the Israelis and the Egyptians, but told me she holds Israel solely responsible for her predicament. I pointed out that both a senior IDF spokesman and several well-informed Palestinian journalists confirmed that Israel has “zero control” over who crosses the Rafah border. In other words, perhaps Egypt was at least as responsible as Israel for forcing her to remain in Gaza. This elicited an angrily dismissive response from Ms. Booth, who claimed that “high up sources told her” that Israel is pressuring Egypt into keeping her trapped in Gaza. She would not reveal the source of her information, nor did she explain how it would serve Israel to have her stay indefinitely in Gaza.

...Referring to the interview she gave to Noa Raz, I asked if she had compared Gaza to the Nazi concentration camps. “Yes I did,” answered Ms. Booth. And do you really think the situation in Gaza is comparable to that in Darfur, where 400,000 people have been killed over the past five years? “Well,” she said, “Do we want to wait until 400,000 Gazans are dead?” She added that she had visited a camp in Gaza where 16,000 families had malnourished children, and the rate of unemployment hovered around 90 percent. If accurate, these are shocking figures that should concern all Israelis. But does Ms. Booth really expect to arouse our sympathy by making the grossly inappropriate suggestion that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza?
“Do you think that Gaza receives less media attention than Darfur?” I asked. “Absolutely!” the British activist answered vehemently. So I did a search on Google news for “Darfur,” where 400,000 people have been killed over the past five years, and received 13,912 results. A search for “Gaza,” where, according to B’tselem, 810 Palestinians were killed in 2006-2007, brought up 17,605 results.

Asked how long she thought she would be stuck in Gaza, Ms. Booth answered tartly, “As long as the Israelis decide I should be here.” Then she added in a passionate tone, “I must see my children! They are 5 and 7 and they are waiting for me in France!” She did not explain why, if she was so concerned about her children, she elected to stay illegally in Gaza when she had the option of leaving on the same boat that brought her there.

But what irritated me the most about Ms. Booth’s long tirade was her description of what happened at Erez Checkpoint, which leads into Israel. I crossed Erez several times before it was closed to Israelis, and remember it vividly.

According to Ms. Booth, she arrived at the checkpoint without a permit to cross, which means that the Palestinians, who coordinate via phone with the Israeli border police on the other side of Erez, would have prevented her from continuing. Ms. Booth: “I tried to coordinate with the Israelis two days in advance, via the British Council, but that didn’t work. So I went with an old lady who did have a permit to cross, although she had been turned back several times.”

Ms. Booth said she was prevented by Israeli soldiers, who threatened to shoot her. “There were Israeli soldiers on the Gazan side of Erez?” I asked. Hearing the incredulity in my tone, she answered with irritated impatience, “Oh, I don’t know what they were. They were uniformed men with guns, alright?”

“Okay, I said.” “They were Palestinian men guarding the checkpoint. So, did they stop you?”

“Oh no!” she answered. “The Palestinians advised me not to cross, but I walked right into the tunnel and started walking. I was nearly at the Israeli side when a Palestinian man came running up behind me, holding a mobile phone and shouting that the Israelis had told him they would shoot me if I took another step.”

Perhaps the Palestinian border guard really did call his Israeli counterpart to tell him that Ms. Booth was trying to cross into Israel against their orders, and to ask him what the Israelis would do to her if she continued. And perhaps the Israeli border guard really did tell his Palestinian counterpart that he would shoot Ms. Booth if she continued another step. But I really doubt the incident occurred as Ms. Booth recounts it. Here’s why:

The entrance to Israel via Erez is practically impenetrable. It is a maze of turnstiles that lock automatically, bulletproof glass, closed circuit cameras and disembodied voices that issue instructions via the public address system. One does not see an Israeli soldier until one has passed through security, which is remotely controlled. During the June 2007 civil war, dozens of Fatah members took shelter from Hamas fighters in the Erez “sleeve.” But none tried to make a dash for Israel, because it is simply not possible — physically — to just push through.

By the way, since I am still upset over the JPost stealing my idea and pretending that they don't steal from bloggers, I was the first blogger to report that members of Free Gaza were stuck in Gaza after being denied permission to cross both the Israeli and Egyptian borders, and the excellent Media Backspin looked at my sources and noticed that Lauren Booth was one of them, before any of her many interviews seeking sympathy.

"Human Rights" organization news

CAMERA takes the New York Times to task for describing the Free Gaza freakazoids as "human rights advocates":

the Times is whitewashing Israel’s adversaries. This time, it is lending undue credibility to the Free Gaza Movement, a controversial group of extreme pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel activists, by describing them not as a pro-Palestinian activist group – which they undeniably are – but rather with the noble designation “human rights advocates.” This description, which appeared several times in Taghreed El-Khodary and Isabel Kershner’s Aug. 24 story Rights advocates defy Israeli blockade of Gaza, is prejudicial, subjective and misleading, and should not appear in the news section of a serious paper – certainly not to describe a group that includes people who advocate against the existence of the Jewish state, accuse Israel of genocide, and explicitly legitimize violence.

Read the whole thing for details and proof, as well as the NYT's absurd response.

In other "human rights" organization news, the Jerusalem Post has a profile of Yuval Steinitz, who was an enthusaistic supporter of Peace Now during Oslo but woke up to the dangers of a Palestinian Arab state a few years later:

"Oslo could have been right. I gave it a chance, but then I had to be a skeptic and reexamine my position. Then I felt that what we did was a terrible mistake," said Steinitz.

"I realized that, to my frustration, we were giving up land for war and terror and incitement," he said.

To his sorrow, said Steinitz, the principles of Oslo remain intact in the Annapolis process and direct negotiations continue between Israeli and the Palestinian leaders, despite the dangers they pose.

His objection to territorial compromise is not rooted in a belief in biblical Israel, but is the outcome of a security analysis, said Steinitz, who is a former head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

"For any foreseeable future I do not see a partner, or any possibility to leave Judea and Samaria or even part of it," he said.

"The idea of a two-state solution should be dead, today, because unfortunately a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria would bring about Israel's demise," he added. Such a Palestinian state, he warned, would "immediately become an outpost for Iran." The Hamas takeover of Gaza less than two years after Israel withdrew from the area was a scenario that could repeat itself in the West Bank, he warned.

The only reason Kassam rockets had not been fired at the center of the country or at Ben-Gurion International Airport was because Israel had a military presence in the West Bank, said Steinitz.

And, finally, we get to the sad news that another supposed "human rights" group has been unmasked, and will lose its EU funding:

Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor has learned this week that the European Union (EU) has decided not to renew its funding of the Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD).

In an 'urgent message' to members of ICAHD-USA, the organization's director Jeff Halper announced 'We have just heard that our request for re-funding has been rejected…So we now face a real crisis'. The message went on to plead with supporters for extra funds.

For several years, despite its extreme anti-Israel agenda, ICAHD has been a recipient of major EU funding under the Partnerships for Peace framework. The EU has consistently stated that these grants are directed towards specific projects and are not intended as general funds for the organization. However, as NGO Monitor demonstrated in, "Europe's Hidden Hand" an EU grant of 473,000 Euros in 2005 constituted the majority of ICAHD's annual budget.

ICAHD consistently manipulates the language of human rights to promote an anti-Israel political agenda. ICAHD routinely refers to Israel as an 'apartheid' state while Jeff Halper promotes a one state solution which would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This is in direct contradiction to the EU's official policy, which promotes a two state solution.

NGO Monitor's Executive Director, Prof Gerald Steinberg commented, "ICAHD's façade has finally been acknowledged, and the European Commission has acted appropriately in ending further funding. In reality, ICAHD does nothing to advance coexistence and instead promotes extreme views which fuel the conflict. Following this precedent, we urge the EC to review all such NGO funding in a transparent manner, and establish consistent criteria."

In a world where anti-Zionism tries to masquerade as "human rights," this is a rare piece of good news.

ISM loves the Muslim Brotherhood

As if we needed any more proof, here is yet another tie between the "peace activists" of the International Solidarity Movement (and their affiliates in the Free Gaza movement) and the extremist inspiration for al Qaeda and Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood.

From the ISM site:

Egyptian Committee Against the Gaza Siege: At 8am this morning (10th September), a first group from the Egyptian Committee Against the Gaza Siege, mainly Labor Party’s members, left Cairo in 4 micro-buses with food and medicine to go and try to break the criminal siege of Gaza.
When they arrived at Ismailia, located at 100 km from Cairo and 30 km from the Suez Canal, the Sinai entrance, the Egyptian police stopped the convoy and took away the driving licences of the drivers, preventing them to go forward
More than 150 people got outside the buses with Palestinian and Egyptian flags and chanting slogans in support of the Palestinians.
Several national forces are participating in this action, including the Committee Against the Gaza Siege, Engineers against Detention, al-Karamah party, Labour Party, Nasserist party, Kifâya, independent lawyers, March 9 Movement, April 6 Movement and Muslim Brotherhood’s members.

Notice how the ISM tries to downplay the Muslim Brotherhood's involvement in this protest, which is clearly a Western-style protest architected by ISM members to begin with (the photos on the site show "activists" doing sit-ins and the like.)

But if you look at the wire-service reports of the protest, the Muslim Brotherhood is mentioned a bit more prominently. From AFP:

The group of judges, independent MPs, members of the main opposition Muslim Brotherhood and activists from other parties wants to protest the continued closure of the Rafah crossing by Israel and Egypt.

From Reuters:

Along with many opposition groups, the Muslim Brotherhood, the largest opposition force in the country, favours ending the blockade and opening the border for goods and people.

Not that these other parties are so peaceful either. The Socialist Labor Party is currently illegal in Egypt, and supports the imposition fo Sharia law throughout that nation. In fact, it tried to form a coalition with the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1990 elections.

The Al-Karama party praises Maomar Khaddafi, Libya's loopy dictator not known for his human-rights record.

Yet the ISM happily partners with groups that openly advocate and condone violence, all the while maintaining that it is a "peace" group.

Apparently, the only credentials one needs to be considered a "peace activist" is to advocate the destruction of the US and Israel.

Free Gaza supports terrorism in petition

The FGM has announced the utterly absurd aim to gain one million signatures - all from Gazans - on a petition to give to the UN. Since nearly 50% of Gazans are under 15 years old, and there are 1.4 million Gazans (according to probably inflated estimates), this should be an interesting exercise in wishful thinking and/or outright forgery.

And what will the petition say? Well, among other things, it "affirms that the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip have the right to resist occupation" - which is the code-word used by Palestinian Arabs for "terrorism." Every terror group calls themselves "resistance groups." The petition pointedly doesn't say "peaceful resistance," so the meaning is clear to everyone.

Yet the Freaks of Gaza still style themselves as "peace activists."

In other FGM news, 6 of the members stuck in Gaza because of their own stupidity announced that they are fasting during Ramadan, thus telling the world that they consider Islam to be superior to their own belief systems. They say that their fasting is in solidarity with the "Palestinian people," which means that they don't consider Christians to be Palestinian.

Somehow, I missed their petition against Palestinian Muslim abuse of Christians.

The FGM website has a short film that describes the situation of Gazans with lovingly narrated lies. The video says that all of Gaza's land borders are controlled by Israel (tell that to the FGM members who tried to leave through Rafah), that basic food and water supplies are being restricted by Israel, and that Gazans are starving to death. (I have been looking for a single victim of starvation wince that meme started years ago and still have come up empty.)