Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, September 05, 2008

Links from our commenters 2: 1925 Waqf pamphlet

Lynne T as well as Brian mentioned a pamphlet, created by the Waqf in Jerusalem in 1925, as a guidebook to the Temple Mount.

The reason the pamphlet is interesting can be seen in this Arutz-7 article:

In 1997, the chief Moslem cleric of the Palestinian Authority, Mufti Ikrama Sabri, stated, "The claim of the Jews to the right over [Jerusalem] is false, and we recognize nothing but an entirely Islamic Jerusalem under Islamic supervision..."

Thus began a campaign to convince the world that the millennia-old natural association between Jerusalem and Jews was untrue. As Islamic Movement chief Raed Salah stated in 2006, "We remind, for the 1,000th time, that the entire Al-Aqsa mosque [on the Temple Mount], including all of its area and alleys above the ground and under it, is exclusive and absolute Moslem property, and no one else has any rights to even one grain of earth in it."

However, it is now known that this "absolute" Moslem claim is actually not as absolute as claimed. In fact, back in 1925, the Supreme Moslem Council - also known as the Waqf, which has overseen Temple Mount activities on behalf of the Moslem religion for hundreds of years - boasted proudly that the site was none other than that of Solomon's Temple.

The Jerusalem-based Temple Institute (http://www.templeinstitute.org) reports that it has acquired a copy of the official 1925 Supreme Moslem Council Guide Book to Al-Haram Al-Sharif (the Moslem name for the Temple Mount). On page 4, the Waqf states, "Its identity with the site of Solomon's Temple is beyond dispute. This, too, is the spot, according to universal belief, on which 'David built there an altar unto the L-rd...', citing the source in 2 Samuel XXIV,25.

The Temple Institute's Rabbi Chaim Richman writes that the pamphlet provides proof that the Waqf's current position is a departure from traditional Muslim belief. "In recent years," he writes, "the Moslem Waqf has come to deny the historic existence of the Holy Temple, claiming that the Temple Mount belongs solely to the Moslem nation, and that there exists no connection between the Jewish nation and the Temple Mount. It is clear from this pamphlet that the revised Waqf position strays from traditional Moslem acknowledgment of the Mount's Jewish antecedents."

"The current denial of historical reality is merely one tool in the war being waged by Moslems against the G-d of Israel and the entire 'infidel' world," Richman declares.

The pamphlet itself includes pictures of the Temple Mount - this time without weeds, although still in a state of disrepair (the reproduction is poor, though.)

Links from our commenters 1: New book by Sharansky

Lynne T. links to a fascinating review of a new book by Natan Sharansky called "Defending Identity: Its Indispensable Role in Protecting Democracy" in which he makes what seems like the counterintuitive claim that democracy without nationalism is a weaker democracy. I'd probably need to read it to understand it fully but some of the tidbits mentioned are most interesting. I especially like this paragraph:

By clouding the differences between democracy and tyranny, the cultural relativism of post-identity doctrines have had the poisonous effect of making human rights standards more difficult to apply universally. Sharansky exposes the double standards and hypocrisy of those who argue that while nationalism must be eliminated in the West, it is perfectly justified in weaker societies. He is particularly critical of international human rights groups that fail to distinguish between rights violations in open and closed societies, as if the abuses characteristic of authoritarian regimes are indistinguishable from deviations from democratic practices in democracies that are brought to light precisely because of their transparency. And he is scathing in his condemnation of post-Zionists who argue that Israel must be transformed into a secular state while at the same time preaching a self-determination for the Palestinians that would preserve their Arab identity 'as part of the surrounding Arab and Islamic world.'

I imagine that Sharansky is distinguishing as well between nationalism in democratic and repressive societies, because clearly nationalism can be used in a most negative way (which would explain Europe's skittishness about nationalism today.) It is possible that the United States is unique in its trans-ethnic nationalism (the "melting pot") based on principles of equality and democracy, rather than US-style nationalism being the reason for the relative success of US democracy. Still, Sharansky always brings up very good points, and it is probably a good read.

It is a shame that the White House seems to have fundamentally misunderstood his book "The Case for Democracy," something that might have helped Hamas gain Gaza.

Gaza, 1971

Just saw these two articles in the Time magazine archives, from August 9, 1971:

Robert Aroyo, his wife Preeti, and their children Marc-Daniel, 7, and Abigail, 4, had lived in Israel only eight months. Born on Malta, raised in England, Aroyo abandoned an advertising job in London to bring his family to the land of promise, where he felt they all belonged. Settled in the Tel Aviv suburb of Kiron, the Aroyos often spent Sabbaths touring their new country. One bright Saturday they set out south to visit a seaside nahal, or fortified camp, in the Sinai below El Arish.
Mahmoud Slieman Zak, 15, sat in the shade of an old building beside the highway that bisects the strip and gossiped idly with a friend. He was an indifferent pupil in school and wanted only to become a fulltime member of the Palestinian guerrillas for whom he had already been on eleven grenade-tossing missions. That morning Mahmoud fondled a grenade, wondering whether a target would present itself.
Carefully, the Aroyos checked with Kiron police before setting out on their trip to the nahal called Yam. The police saw no danger in their driving back to Tel Aviv by way of Gaza. Aroyo, therefore, was unconcerned as he reached the town of Gaza. The only thing he noticed on the road ahead of him was an old abandoned Seven-Up bottling plant.
Mahmoud's heart leaped. From the orange license plate on the slowly approaching car, he knew it was an Israeli and not a silver-tagged Gaza vehicle. Mahmoud' s friend, Wasfi Mussa Masharawi, 16, sauntered out into the middle of the street, forcing the car to slow to a crawl. Mahmoud tossed his grenade into a rolled-down window. The grenade had a four-second fuse, and he was gone before the explosion.
Aroyo braked his car to keep from hitting the boy who had walked out into the road in front of him. He never saw the missile that flew through the open window of his Cortina and landed on the back seat beside the children. All he heard was a muffled explosion and Abigail's cry, "Daddy, Daddy!" The back seat was bloody when he looked. Beside him Preeti moaned, "My back is broken."
Wasfi Mussa Masharawi watched indifferently as the man staggered out of the car, cradling a bleeding girl in his arms. He ran away when the man pleaded with him for help.
Abigail was dead by the time the Israeli military helicopter arrived. Marc-Daniel died soon after. Aroyo buried them on the Mount of Olives, smoothing the dirt over their graves with his own hands. Then he hurried back to the Beersheba hospital where his wife was being treated for injuries to the spine and pelvis that took six months to heal.
...After the tragedy Aroyo was a crushed man, hut he strained to be compassionate. "I do not hate the people who did this," he said.

Israel connected Gaza to its electric grid, drummed up potential business and even encouraged tourism to aid the territory. But Gaza's 390,000 residents were—and still are—unremittingly hostile. So far this year seven Israelis and 206 Arabs have been killed in the Strip. Last week alone seven Arab guerrillas were shot to death, two of them killed in a fight at the Shati camp, one of eight United Nations refugee camps in the Strip.
One reason for Israel's failure to pacify Gaza is the nature of the land. It is an elongated, desperately poor 25-mile finger of desert, which has little more than citrus groves in the way of resources. Some 11,000 Gazans have found work in Jordan's occupied West Bank and 5,500 others in Israel itself. But the Palestinian who "collaborates" with the Israelis is a marked man. Last February, 61 Arabs were wounded when guerrillas blew up the main post office in the town of Gaza where they were cashing their Israeli paychecks.

Friday links

Thanks to Joshuapundit for nominating my Rachel Corrie video to the weekly Watcher of Weasels Council Nominations.

Check out Soccer Dad and Israellycool on more stupidity from the Freaks of Gaza movement.

The peaceful PA is getting 1000 rifles from Jordan, with Israel's approval.

A report on Palestinian Arab crimes against Christians.

Red Hat buys an Israeli company for $107 million.

AP notices that Saudis clerics are against birthday parties.

UPDATE: Family feud near Hebron, one dead. The 2008 PalArab self-death count is now at 158.

11 weeks in a row

According to my and PCHR's statistics, this is the 11th week in a row that more Palestinian Arabs were violently killed by each other than by Israel. This week's score (Thursday-Wednesday, the PCHR's weekly report timeframe) was 2-0.

It also marks the fifth consecutive week where the genocidal Zionist occupying forces didn't manage to kill a single person.

During the 2006-2007 one-sided "cease fire" there were 23 weeks in a row where PalArabs were outkilled by their own people.

"Free Gaza" rescue mission

The next "Free Gaza" boat is set to sail on September 22nd, and it has one main goal: to get the nine stranded Freaks of Gaza the hell out of there:

International human rights advocates plan to stage another siege-breaking voyage to the Gaza Strip on 22 September after two boats challenged an Israeli military blockade in August.
...
The Boat will also pick up nine international activists who are stranded in Gaza following the first voyage of the Free Gaza Movement. Among the stranded foreigners is British journalist Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The Free Gaza movement also announced on Thursday that it would deliver mail to Palestinians in Gaza.

Apparently, even the Freakazoids of Gaza don't really think there is a "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza if they think that delivering "mail" (are the Zionists censoring their Victoria's Secret catalogs?) and ferrying moonbats is more important than food and medicine that is supposedly in such short supply.

The Freaks of Gaza movement better be careful - PalArabs have a tendency to attack "humanitarian aid" groups that don't deliver enough free stuff to them. One well-placed rumor that FGM is bringing over a huge ship filled with consumer goods like TVs and motorcycles could end up killing the poor peace activists when the Gazans are disappointed again.

AP takes Hamas' side

From AP:

A walkout of medical staff throughout Gaza has strained services at hospitals and clinics throughout the territory, the latest in a series of crippling strikes that are deepening bitter divisions between Gaza's militant Hamas rulers and loyalists of moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The strike has forced non-complying doctors to pull double shifts and left residents struggling for treatment, adding to the hardships in a territory suffering from international isolation since Hamas wrested control of Gaza from Fatah-allied security forces in June 2007.
The Medical Workers' Union, dominated by Abbas' Fatah movement, called the strike last week to demand Hamas reinstate workers Fatah says have been fired for their political loyalties. The union said Hamas police have forced some essential staff to report to duty under the threat of arrest.
Hamas has accused Fatah of calling the walkout at state-run hospitals and clinics as a political ploy — but has aggravated the crisis by shutting down private clinics run by striking doctors.

I am no fan of Fatah, but this strike (unlike the teachers' and public sector workers' strike) is not simply a power play by Fatah but a fairly reasonable reaction to Hamas' meddling in - and politicizing - medical issues.

AP even admits that the striking doctors opened up clinics and tried to maintain health care in Gaza during the strike, but it gives Hamas a pass on its crude attempts to end the strike - by arresting, threatening and beating striking doctors and supporting medical staff. Today alone there were numerous examples brought up by Palestine Press Agency, with specific names of victims.

Why are striking doctors being vilified but Hamas not taken to task for these threats and arrests? AP's Ibrahim Barzak is showing yet again where his loyalties lie.

There have been some cool discussions in the threads, which is always fun. Plus I'm too busy to blog much today.

This is also always a great place to talk American politics as well....I thought Palin's speech was extremely well written, and fairly well delivered (I didn't get the impression that these were her words at all, unlike Guiliani.) I had only seen the end of Guiliani's, which was excellent, and the end of Thompson's the day before, which was even better. But I didn't watch any of the DNC so I have no good points of comparison.

Nothing illuminating at the RNC but some great rhetoric. Looking forward to the acceptance speech tonight.

Syria and Hamas: an analysis (updated and gutted)

A few days ago, a Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai reported that exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal had been asked by Syria to move from Damascus to Sudan. Hamas denied it, and there has been no independent confirmation of that rumor.

Today, a different Kuwaiti newspaper is reporting that Jordan rejected a request by some Hamas leaders to move their offices to Amman. This gives a bit more credence to the earlier story that Syria is pressuring Hamas to leave.

The Western press makes the assumption that this must be the result of the indirect Israeli-Syrian talks; that Syria wants to push their "peace process" forward. This assumption is worth examining.

Syria has been remarkably consistent over the past thirty years. Its primary concern has not been Israel, and neither has it been the happiness of its people; the consistency of Syria has been in keeping its leaders in power. Hafez Assad was a master at this game; his son Bashir seems to be learning quickly.

The peace talks with Israel has two potential benefits for Syria. By far the most important one was to blunt Western pressure on Syria as a terrorist state; if it could talk to its implacable foe, how dedicated to terror could it be? Syria could not afford the economic isolation that the West has been putting on Iran and above all it needed to make sure that such pressure never happens to Syria. The net result is that Syria is dodging a bullet yet again.

The secondary result is that if the current Israeli government is so stupid and desperate for "peace" that it is willing to give up the strategically important Golan for a piece of paper, why not? Syria has had a de facto peace with Israel on that border - the quietest border in Israel - for decades; it has literally nothing to lose. The chances that Syria and Israel would normalize relations is nil; they would spin gaining the Golan as a military victory to the hungry-for-victory Arab world, shrug off the criticisms the way Egypt did, and that would be that.

Any moves that Syria makes vis a vis Hamas needs to be looked at through the same prism. If Syria has quietly made Hamas' leaders know that they are no longer as welcome there, there must be more benefot to Syria than simply the desire for peace - it must be that Hamas in Syria has become either irrelevant or a burden.

It is easy to make the case that Hamas in Syria is irrelevant. Hamas is not monolithic, and the Damascus Hamas has lost all of its influence over Gaza Hamas. After all, there is effectively an Arab state in Gaza run by Hamas - those are the practical leaders of the group, not Khaled Meshaal making speeches from abroad. It is Gaza Hamas that Jordan has spoken to recently in recognition of its growing power, not Meshaal. Meshaal has just become a windbag; the equivalent of Farouk Kaddoumi railing against Israel from his PLO offices in Tunisia. They are good for headlines but they have literally no power over the people they pretend to lead.

As such, Hamas in Syria no longer gives Syria any benefit. And it might be a burden.

Meshaal might not be a leader in any real sense any more but he is smart enough to try to ride Hamas Gaza's coattails as its influence increases. Hamas Gaza's coup has been the greatest practical victory for the Muslim Brotherhood - the first time that al-Ikhwan ever controlled any territory.

Syria has been trying to co-opt and channel internal Islamic fundamentalism to deflect the danger it poses to the regime, and right now the Muslim Brotherhood is a looming - of not immediate - threat. The Assads have not been in the habit of letting potential threats survive very long. While Hamas in Damascus has no political power in Gaza, it is the vanguard of the Ikhwan in Syria, and as such it is a threat to the Syrian regime itself, and not to Israel.

The very moment that Hamas in Syria is perceived to turn from an asset to a liability is the moment that the regime will start trying to use that fact for political advantage, which is precisely what we are seeing.

UPDATE: I emailed this to Barry Rubin, prolific author, analyst and expert on the Middle East, where he disagreed with some of my points and demolished others.

He writes:

Just because Kuwaiti newspapers say something has no necessary relationship to the truth but either is guessing, wishful thinking or misinformation. I think these are planted rumors from Syria. Probably nothing has happened at all.

I'm not so sure, because the second "leak" was from Jordan, not Syria; this is what made me take notice (the first report I ignored.)

Meshaal has just become a windbag; the equivalent of Farouk Kaddoumi railing against Israel from his PLO offices in Tunisia. They are good for headlines but they have literally no power over the people they pretend to lead.
Actually Meshal is the main leader and his supporters just purged the local “moderate” politicians. The reason Jordan talks to the Gaza Hamas is that the Damascus people are enemies of Jordan.

As such, Hamas in Syria no longer gives Syria any benefit. And it might be a burden.
Hamas is the main instrument for Syria to influence (and possibly some day take over) Palestinian politics, a key aim of Syria for almost 50 years.

While Hamas in Damascus has no political power in Gaza, it is the vanguard of the Ikhwan in Syria, and as such it is a threat to the Syrian regime itself, and not to Israel.

Not at all true. Hamas and the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood are allies of Syria and oppose the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. Everyone in the area knows this.

As the late Emily Litella put it, "Never mind." :)

A convenient fatwa

A Hamas mufti came out with a fatwa that justifies Hamas' arresting striking teachers - and stealing their money:

Marwan Abu Ras, leader of the Hamas-led Palestine Scholars Association Hamas movement and a representative of Hamas in the legislature ruled that Hamas may suppress and punish doctors, teachers and staff who are on strike in the Gaza Strip and allows the seizure of their money to pay for new teachers appointed by Hamas.

Abu Ras said that "The strike by staff at this time is a moral and religious crime of first degree and a betrayal of national interest. The strike is contrary to God's orders, a crime of humanity and religious legitimacy and a national betrayal by all standards."

Abu Ras called on Hamas "to chase strikers legally and legitimately, punish and impose fines on them and hold them to maximum penalties because of their strike, and for the government in Gaza to bring in other non-striking teachers and take appropriate action to pay salaries of new teachers from the pockets of striking teachers."

What an amazing coincidence that a Hamas scholar would study the sources impartially, pray for guidance from Allah and come out with a legal opinion that Hamas is right all along!

September 4, 1938: What a "binational state" would look like

Here is a rundown of how things were in Palestine exactly 70 years ago, when Arabs were a majority:

People who are pushing for a "binational state" (with an Arab majority, of course) don't care that the results of that experiment are far more likely to look like Palestine in 1938 than the utopian vision they espouse.

Random stuff

Just because I don't have time for proper blogging today:

An article today by Barry Rubin reminded me of one I wrote last year and one that I quoted a year before.

Ha'aretz caught onto my Monday scoop, picked up and expanded upon by Backspin yesterday.

Terror museum in Lebanon a smash hit

You can tell a lot about a culture from their museums. America has museums dedicated to science, natural history, rock and roll and even sex. Israel has museums for archaeology, art (including Islamic art), the Bible and Jewish history.

And Hezbollah's Southern Lebanon has a museum for terror.

From NYT (h/t EBoZ)

The children crowd forward around the glass case, eager for a glimpse of the martyr’s bloodstained clothes. His belt is here, and the shoes he died in, scarred with shrapnel. The battered desk where he planned military operations still has his box of pencils on it, his in-box, his cellphone.

An exhibit in Nabatiye celebrates the life of Imad Mugniyah, the shadowy Hezbollah commander suspected in the West of masterminding devastating bombings, kidnappings and hijackings in the 1980s and ’90s. Busloads of schoolchildren have flocked to the exhibit, which includes bloodstained clothes and, at night, light and laser shows.

“May God kill the one who killed him,” an old woman says, wiping tears from her eyes as she stares through the glass.

The dead man being shown such veneration is Imad Mugniyah, the shadowy Hezbollah commander. Until his death in a car bombing in Syria in February he was virtually unknown here, his role in the militant Shiite group clothed in secrecy. But since then Hezbollah has hailed him as one of its great military leaders in the struggle against Israel.

Now, the group has opened an exhibit in this southern town in honor of Mr. Mugniyah, who is widely accused in the West of masterminding devastating bombings, kidnappings and hijackings in the 1980s and ’90s.

At first glance, the exhibit could almost be taken for an outdoor children’s museum. A fake skeleton stands upright in a torn uniform and helmet beneath the legend, “The invincible Israeli soldier.” There are captured Israeli tanks jutting up from the ground at odd angles, their hatches burned and broken. As visitors crowd from one display to another, a soundtrack blares overhead, mixing the sounds of bombs and machine-gun fire with mournful operatic voices and warlike speeches.

But the eerie heart of the exhibit is the glass-encased room displaying Mr. Mugniyah’s possessions. His prayer mat is here, his slippers, even his hairbrush, as if they were a saint’s relics.

On a recent afternoon, a crowd of onlookers stared through the glass in awe, some of them weeping openly.

In addition to an extraordinary array of weaponry and martyrs’ paraphernalia, it includes a large indoor room that was remodeled to resemble “what we believe the martyrs’ heaven is like,” according to one of the guides on duty. In the darkened room, a figure representing a dead Hezbollah fighter lies on his back on a large sloping bank of white flowers. A sound of exploding bombs gives way to patriotic anthems as a screen shows a brilliant sunset and a coffin being carried through a dark forest. Later, a laser show illuminates the darkness.

On a recent afternoon, busloads of schoolchildren were arriving to see the exhibit, with a group of Boy Scouts.

“I came here to teach my kids the culture of resistance,” said a visitor who gave his name only as Ahmed, as he stood with his wife and two children. “I want them to see what the enemy is doing to us, and what we can do to fight them, because this enemy is not merciful.”

A society is truly twisted when it sends hundreds of children to venerate - and emulate - a bloodthirsty killer.

Human rights orgs still silent over latest Hamas outrages

Hamas continues to arrest and beat striking health workers in Gaza:

Speaking from Ramallah, Zakarnah told Ma’an, “De facto government police on Tuesday arrested Maysarah Fayyad, a nurse who works at Mubarak Hospital, Dr Kamal An-Namlah, head of surgeons at Nasser Hospital, Dr Abdul-Halim Al-Masri, from Ash-Shifa Hospital, Wisam Karim, administration employee at Muhammad Ad-Durrah Hospital, Usamah As-Sa’idi and Muhammad Lafi from Muhammad Ad-Durrah Hospital.

He added that de facto government security assaulted the arrestees, beating them while in detention at Al-Mashtal prison in order to pressure them to end strike.

Hamas is also harassing the doctors' families:

The Hamas movement on Tuesday called for demonstrations in front of the homes of doctors who are on strike in the Gaza Strip, beginning with with three doctors in the city of Khan Younis.

There was also a bomb outside a pharmacy that closed for the strike.

And "human rights" organizations still remain silent. Doctors Without Borders, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have nothing about these actions on their pages.

One group that has acknowledged what is going on is the UN news agency, IRIN, but it frames it (and the teachers' strike) as simply "political strikes", barely alluding to any violence and making it sound like both sides are equally guilty in the next to last paragraph:

A senior UN political official told IRIN he was concerned by the "transfers and replacements" by Hamas of health and teaching professionals and the subsequent strikes called by unions, which he said "threaten the provision of health and education services to the people of Gaza who already face considerable hardship."

In various reports released by local and international rights groups both the Ramallah government and the de facto rulers of Gaza have been accused of politically motivated attacks and arrests in the areas under their respective control.

Here we have the UN considering the arrests of Hamas terrorists in the West Bank to be the same as Hamas arrests and torture of teachers and doctors.

This is a vindication of Hamas' terror. The facts are plain, but the UN and other NGOs are so afraid of Hamas attacking them that they refuse to condemn these heinous acts, making a tacit deal with terrorists and justifying it to themselves as saying that things would be worse if they were forced to leave or close down. The net result is that Hamas is emboldened to increase their attacks on civilians in Gaza, and the only people blamed for the poor shape of medicine in the territory are Israelis.

(Also silent in all this are groups like British teachers' unions, who are quick to condemn Israel but never said a word about Hamas replacing 2000 union teachers with unqualified Hamas workers.)

Anti-semitic cartoon on Hamas TV

I wrote recently about the increasing amounts of incitement in the Palestinian Arab media with bizarre allegations that Jews are digging under the Temple Mount.

Now, the ante has been upped even more, as Hamas' Al Aqsa TV is running a cartoon showing stereotypical religious Jews, straight out of the Nazi cartoon playbook, scheming as they dig under the foundations of "Al Aqsa" while the Arab world sleeps. From Palestinian Media Watch, via YNet: