Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 16, 2009

What's wrong with this picture?

Palestinian children stand at a gate to the Rafah border crossing in the southern Gaza Strip during a protest against the Israeli blockade July 13, 2009.

They want to protest an Israeli blockade, and they want a good photo to symbolize them being in an "open-air prison."

What would be a better picture than putting them behind bars? And choosing children to perform the protest?

But which bars to choose? Well, obviously, the most photogenic ones. I know - the Egyptians have some nice blue ones! Let's go there, to the big gate that stops us from going to Egypt and stops Egyptian goods from being imported to Gaza - and tell the world that we are protesting the Israeli blockade!

Because the Reuters photographers and copy editors and caption writers have no idea that Rafah is an Egyptian crossing, not an Israeli crossing!

PalArabs tilting back against Hamas

Near East Consulting just came out with a poll of Palestinian Arabs. The results have not yet been published on their website and I only found them reported in Arabic, but they show that the trend of Palestinian Arabs away from supporting Hamas and towards Fatah are continuing.

As reported in Palestine Press, 37% supported Mahmoud Abbas versus only 12% for Ismail Haniyeh (51% had no confidence in either.) 46% saw the Fayyad government as being more legitimate vs. 20% for Hamas.

90% would like to hold new elections. If elections were held now, 46% would vote for Fatah and only 11% for Hamas.

If they were voting for president today, 34% would vote for Abbas, 24% for Marwan Barghouti and only 12% forHaniyeh and 2% for Khaled Meshaal.

70% wanted to take weapons away from the "factions," all non-governmental groups like Islamic Jihad.

70% are happy with the security measures done by the PA in the West bank and only 45% with those done by Hamas in Gaza.

Assuming that Gazans were included in this poll, these are stunning numbers away from Hamas. It means that the Israeli and Western policy of isolating Hamas has been a success, and that Operation Cast Lead has caused Hamas to lose popularity - as opposed to conventional wisdom that such actions only strengthen terrorists.

It means that Israeli policy of loosening up restrictions in the West Bank - in reaction to relative quiet there - is paying off in turning Palestinian Arabs against Hamas.

Meanwhile, Hamas may be fragmenting. The person whose body was found this morning in a Rafah smuggling tunnel was actually a Hamas leader who had actually been on the Hamas list during the last elections. There were signs of torture on his body. It seems unlikely that Fatah in Gaza has the resources to assassinate someone and transport them to the other end of the Strip to dump them in a tunnel that is probably controlled by Hamas anyway, so it looks far more likely that this was the result of Hamas infighting.

Israel's policy of isolating Gaza is paying dividends, and those who are trying to get those restrictions lifted are materially helping terrorists.

Hamas official expects to have a WMD within 20 years

Former US Embassy diplomat Norman Olsen, writing for the Christian Science Monitor, tries to show how the US policy of not talking to Hamas is counterproductive, because it means that Gazans cannot understand the US viewpoint:

Especially after years cut off from contact with Americans by US policy to isolate Hamas, they have little grasp of US culture – or of the realities facing an American president seeking to take up their cause.
Until this gap is bridged, miscommunication and distrust will thwart progress in the region.

This is almost too absurd for words. Other Arab countries have had full access to American culture and it hasn't helped them understand the Western mindset. Palestinian Arabs are intimately knowledgeable about the Israeli point of view but it hasn't helped them empathize with it, rather they are more likely to belittle it. For a diplomat to say such a naive statement is a scary thought indeed.

One part of his article, that he chalks up to such misunderstandings, is most instructive:

The Hamas official with American expertise, defending the concept of a long-term cease-fire, asserts that a hudna would allow a generation of new leaders to determine their own future and relations with Israel. I ask him why another two decades would generate any more moderation (on either side) than the past two decades. He quickly charges that time is on the side of the Palestinians, both demographically and, if no accord is reached, for acquiring a weapon of mass destruction to strike Israel.

So Hamas fully expects Iran to provide them with a nuclear bomb within the next 20 years to destroy Israel.

And all that Olsen can notice from this conversation is that Hamas doesn't understand Americans!

There indeed seems to be a miscommunication. Olsen, trying so hard to make Hamas understand what Americans think, refuses to believe what a Hamas official says to him explicitly.

Today's Palestinian Arab news roundup (7-16-09)

Jordanian media is reporting that the Obama administration is preparing to pressure Jordan to naturalize some Palestinian Arabs who have lived in Jordan for decades, as part of a comprehensive Middle East peace plan.

The Times of London is claiming that Israel is negotiating with Western countries to give concessions to Palestinian Arab claims in exchange for support for a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

The IMF says that Israeli moves to improve the economy on the West Bank are resulting in the possibility that the West Bank GDP will increase by 7% this year.

The white phosphorus munitions Israel used sparingly in Gaza is now being blamed for miscarriages and birth defects by Gazan doctors, who are no doubt experts.

A new use has been found for Gaza tunnels: dumping bodies! A "youth" from northern Gaza was found, dead, in a half-kilometer deep tunnel in Rafah. The PalArab self-death count hits 116 for 2009.

Jurisprudence, Hamas-style

Just another violation of human rights in Gaza that the Israel-bashers will ignore:

The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) has been denied access to clients detained by the Internal Security Service (ISS) of the Government in Gaza. PCHR affirm that such measures violate Palestinian law and relevant international standards, including the detainees' right to have access to legal counsel. PCHR is further concerned that access restrictions may be motivated by the desire to hide illegal practices against detainees, including torture and other forms of cruel treatment.

But why waste time with legal counsel when Hamas already knows they are guilty?

I'm noticed by the mainstream (Arab) media

Elaph News, the "number one online newspaper in the Arab world" based out of London, now follows me on Twitter.

Why can't I get similar recognition from the Washington Post?

Yemen vice squad shuts down Chinese restaurants

I can understand the massage parlors, but...Chinese restaurants?

Yemeni religious police were out in force Tuesday in a major crackdown that saw many massage parlors and Chinese restaurants in the capital Sanaa shut down for allegedly promoting prostitution and vice.

The Yemeni religious police, modeled after Saudi Arabia's Committee for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, targeted popular tourist areas in Sanaa.

Authorities dragged Chinese women working in several spas and restaurants to the streets and sealed the businesses after posting a sign reading "closed by the authorities," an eyewitness told Al Arabiya.

I never understood how these people aren't allowed to look at women but are allowed to manhandle them.

The number of Chinese restaurants and spas in the capital has increased significantly in the capital despite the fact that none of them have a legal work permits or Ministry of Health authorization, said an official who supervised the clampdown but spoke on condition of anonymity.

Another official who also requested his name be withheld also confirmed that there are documents and evidence that massage parlors were used as a façade for prostitution and that this is the main source of income.

"These spas are not equipped like other health centers," he told Al Arabiya. "All that they are equipped with is Asian half-naked women and rooms with spot lights that are supposedly for massage but in fact are used for prostitution and drinking."

And some fascinating background information:

The crackdown comes in the wake of a new committee established in June 2008 to alert police about violations of Sharia, or Islamic, law and help track down places and people who spread “vice” in society.

The special panel of Islamic scholars and tribal chiefs, known as the Virtue and Vice Committee, is headed by Sheikh Abdul-Majeed al-Zindani, head of the Imam University in Sanaa and founder of the Saudi-based Commission on Scientific Signs in the Quran and Sunnah.

Zindani, who is on the United States wanted list of suspected terrorists, previously issued a fatwa sanctioning the demolition of a house in a Sanaa suburb whose owner was accused of running a prostitution network. Members of the committee joined forces with neighbors to demolish the house.

The main Islamic leader is also a terrorist? Who woulda thunk it?

Abbas: Not clear on the word "flexible"

Yesterday the 15th summit of non-aligned nations started in Sharm al-Sheikh, and Mahmoud Abbas spoke to the assembled delegates.

He said, "We are for serious negotiations; we know that they will be hard and complicated. We will need your support, yet, flexibility on our side never means concession of our national principles. There will be no solution without Jerusalem, refugees and all final status issues."

So what, exactly, is he being "flexible" on? Not on land, not on Jerusalem, not on refugees; so where is this flexibility?

And why, exactly, does a Palestinian Arab state require Jerusalem to be its capital in order to exist?

And why, exactly, does such a state require its neighboring country to take in millions of citizens it claims as its own?

Perhaps the flexibility is in the timeframe for Israel to negotiate its own destruction.

More psychological projection

A cartoon in Firas Press, with the caption, "What olive branch?":

Because you know about all the peace offers the Palestinian Arabs have made that were rejected by Israel.

PalArab paper: Did da Jooz kill Michael?

The headline of an Arabic article at Firas Press reads:

Did an Israeli drug cause the death of Michael Jackson?

It turns out that one of the drugs he had taken was Propofol, a generic anesthetic meant for surgery, and it is made by the Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva.

What more evidence do you need?

The first comment on the story says "The cancer of the Jews must be eradicated from the world." Just in case you didn't get the connection.

Tying up loose ends on two stories

There was one detail in the story yesterday about infighting in the PLO and Fatah than I didn't mention - that the accusation that Farouk Kaddoumi made against Mahmoud Abbas was that he had worked with Israel to assassinate Arafat!

And it was Al Jazeera's broadcast of those accusations that caused the PA to suspend Al Jazeera's operations in the West Bank.

Three stories about freedom

Three separate incidents over the past day show a little bit about Arab freedom.

In the Gaza Strip, Hamas attacked a wedding party for the Madhoun family, shooting two guests including a woman. Their crime? They put up pictures of Samih Madhoun, a senior Fatah leader who was executed by Hamas (on video) in 2007. This is the state of freedom in Gaza when Hamas controls the area.

In the West Bank, the PA is taking Al Jazeera to court to suspend the channel's operations in the area. The PA is not saying that Al Jazeera is revealing state secrets, only that Al Jazeera broadcasts "incitement" against them. This is the state of freedom in the West Bank when the Palestinian Authority controls the area.

In Israel, the G.ho.st virtual operating system was released. It is the brainchild of an Israeli entrepreneur, a joint venture between Palestinian Arab engineers and Israelis to create an operating system on the web where users can upload, edit, and share files as well as do social networking tasks. It was developed via videoconference and with occasional meetings at a coffee shop in the West Bank. It actually looks fairly nifty, with a bunch of applications available already and the ability to add your own. Although I have no idea if it will be a hit, it shows that Israelis value peace and cooperation above all and will go out of their way to work with the "enemy" in the quest for solving problems.

A paper on "occupation"

I know I am not an expert on international law, and I know that people have a tendency to read arguments that are above their heads that agree with their points of view and not try to find holes in the logic.

That being said, this paper about the legal definition of occupation seems to be quite comprehensive to me. So my question is...how would international law experts who disagree answer these arguments?

The synopsis:

* When an armed force holds territory beyond its own national borders, the term “occupation” readily comes to mind. However, not all the factual situations that we commonly think of as “occupation” fall within the limited scope of the term “occupation” as defined in international law. Not every situation we refer to as “occupation” is subject to the international legal regime that regulates occupation and imposes obligations upon the occupier.

* The term “occupation” is often employed politically, without regard for its general or legal meaning. The use of the term “occupation” in political rhetoric reduces complex situations of competing claims and rights to predefined categories of right and wrong. The term “occupation” is also employed in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to advance the argument that Israel bears ultimate responsibility for the welfare of the Palestinians, while limiting or denying Israel’s right to defend itself against Palestinian terror, and relieving the Palestinian side of responsibility for its own actions and their consequences. The term is also employed as part of a general assault upon Israel’s legitimacy, in the context of a geopolitical narrative that has little to do with Israel’s status as an occupier under international law.

* Iraq was occupied by the Coalition forces from the spring of 2003 until June 28, 2004, at which time authority was handed over to the Iraqi Interim Government. At that point, Coalition forces remained in Iraq, but Iraq was no longer deemed occupied. If handing over authority to a Coalition-appointed interim government ended the occupation of Iraq, would the same not hold true for the establishment of the Palestinian Authority and Israel?

* Under the Interim Agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization of September 28, 1995, it would seem that at least those areas placed under the effective control of the Palestinian Authority, and from which Israel had actually withdrawn its military forces, could no longer be termed “occupied” by Israel. Moreover, since the continued presence of Israeli troops in the area was agreed to and regulated by the Agreement, that presence should no longer be viewed as an occupation.

* The withdrawal of all Israeli military personnel and any Israeli civilian presence in the Gaza Strip, and the subsequent ouster of the Palestinian Authority and the takeover of the area by a Hamas government, surely would constitute a clear end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza. Nevertheless, even though Gaza is no longer under the authority of a hostile army, and despite an absence of the effective control necessary for providing the governmental services required of an occupying power, it is nevertheless argued that Israel remains the occupying power in Gaza.

Actually, the paper goes further in saying that the West Bank and Gaza were not legally occupied between 1967 and 1995, however a separate issue is whether Israel was obligated to treat the people in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention - which deals more with the protection of people under occupation and not with the definition of it. The ICRC argues it does, and the author does not try to disagree, but claims that this is a different issue than whether it is legally considered an occupation to begin with.

The arguments in the full paper look solid to me....so what are the counter-arguments?

(Saying that the UN defines it as "occupation" is not an argument of international law, it is a simple declaration. Not to mention that the UN has lied with respect to the definition of occupation in the past.)

James Zogby's logical fallacies

James Zogby writes in the Huffington Post:

In 1991, Israel's per capita GDP was $14,000. Three years later, after the ending of the secondary boycott and Madrid and Oslo, Israel's per capita GDP had risen to almost $16,000. Palestinians did not fare as well. In 1991, their per capita GDP was $900. Three years later, new Israeli restrictions on Palestinian labor and continued control over all access to and egress from the territories, resulted in the Palestinian per capita GDP only increasing to $1,100.

He uses this as evidence that the ending of the secondary Arab boycott of Israel helped Israel far more than it helped Palestinian Arabs, and therefore for Arab nations to be more careful about how they treat Israel.

The logical fallacies here are breathtaking, and cannot be anything but purposeful.

Firstly, let's look at his numbers themselves. From what he is saying, in the same time period that Israeli per-capita GDP increased by 14%, those of Palestinan Arabs rose by - 22%! So even by his own numbers he proves the exact opposite of what he is trying to say.

Now let's look at the bigger picture. He is implying that Israel's GDP increased because the Arab boycott had been removed. But Israel's per-capita GDP had been increasing steadily before, during and after this time period, showing no causality at all:

Israel	2007	23,383
Israel	2006	20,863
Israel	2005	19,612
Israel	2004	18,804
Israel	2003	17,926
Israel	2002	17,259
Israel	2001	19,143
Israel	2000	19,871
Israel	1999	18,085
Israel	1998	18,418
Israel	1997	18,627
Israel	1996	18,579
Israel	1995	17,601
Israel	1994	15,689
Israel	1993	14,424
Israel	1992	14,939
Israel	1991	13,905
Israel	1990	12,611
Israel	1989	10,973
Israel	1988	11,266
Israel	1987	9,402
Israel	1986	7,944

The only dip that Israel experienced in its growth of GDP was during the depths of the second intifada.

If one wants to see what drives the Palestinian Arab GDP, look at the same time period:

Occupied Palestinian Territory	2007	1,359
Occupied Palestinian Territory	2006	1,261
Occupied Palestinian Territory	2005	1,288
Occupied Palestinian Territory	2004	1,213
Occupied Palestinian Territory	2003	1,117
Occupied Palestinian Territory	2002	1,029
Occupied Palestinian Territory	2001	1,168
Occupied Palestinian Territory	2000	1,307
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1999	1,376
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1998	1,348
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1997	1,312
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1996	1,238
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1995	1,230
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1994	1,123
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1993	936
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1992	1,105
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1991	932
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1990	899
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1989	860
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1988	940
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1987	925
Occupied Palestinian Territory	1986	871

There are two major dips in the Palestinian Arab per-capita GDP - in 1989 and in 2000-2001. They both coincide perfectly with the first and second intifadas!

So if you want to draw conclusions from the statistics, the inescapable conclusion is that Palestinian Arab terror is the major driver for a reduction in Palestinian Arab standards of living. Conversely, relatively peaceful periods show that the Palestinian Arab GDP steadily increases when they aren't as focused on killing Jews.

If Zogby wants to help his Palestinian Arab friends, he should be encouraging them to stop their obsession with violence.

The fact that he isn't doing that speaks volumes.

Fatah and PLO infighting coming to a head

For the past few months, there have been efforts to put together a Fatah conference in Ramallah. They have not had such a conference for twenty years, and Mahmoud Abbas is determined to schedule one for August.

The major problem is that Fatah's leadership in Tunisia, led by Farouk Kaddoumi, doesn't want the conference to be held in the West Bank. He blasted Abbas in a speech in Amman a couple of days ago, and Abbas' people blasted him back.

The two have been in a power struggle for a long time. Kaddoumi is actually Fatah's chairman, succeeding Yasir Arafat, and he is secretary general of the PLO. Abbas is trying to use this meeting to marginalize the PLO factions abroad. Kaddoumi is threatening to make his own alternate Fatah meeting.

Not too many people realize that the PLO formally delegates power to the Palestinian Authority. In some ways, Abbas is subordinate to Kaddoumi.

Kaddoumi has no interest in peace with Israel, of course, and he has stated explicitly what most "moderate" Arabs feel: "At this stage there will be two states. Many years from now there will be only one."

Not only is this a fiasco in the making, but it is proving that Abbas is hardly recognized as a leader even within his own faction. So much of the West is invested in the idea of Abbas, and about the power struggle between Fatah and Hamas, but no one is even considering the problems that Fatah has internally that weaken it further.

Of course, the Western media have been mute about this upcoming conference, so the severe problems that could arise are not even on the radar of most Western leaders.