Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, September 02, 2004

Poll: Palestinians support suicide bombings inside Israel 58.6%:37.1%

www.pcpsr.org/survey/polls/2004/p12b.html
Total size of the sample is 1320 adults (835 in the West Bank and 485 in the
Gaza Strip) interviewed face to face in 120 randomly selected locations
24-27 June 2004. Margin of error is 3%.
...

16) In recent weeks there is a sharp decrease in the level of violence
exerted by both sides. In your opinion should Palestinians continue
nevertheless the suicide bombings inside Israel if an opportunity
arises?(Gaza Strip in parenthesis)
1) Definitely yes 21.9 (33.3)
2) Yes 36.7 (34.3)
3) No 31.6 (25.2)
4) Definitely no 5.5 (3.9)
5) DK/NA 4.3 (3.3)"

Fence hypocrisy

By Erick Stakelbeck

The resounding success of Israel's security fence in preventing suicide bombings apparently has spawned a legion of imitators.
Although their actions have received little attention, several countries have built or are in the process of building barriers similar to the ones erected by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza.
Oddly enough, the European Union, which has been perhaps the most vociferous critic of the Israeli fence, is at the forefront of this movement.
Tired of Tom?
Last week, the European Union announced that it is planning to construct a security fence that will separate new EU members Poland and Hungary from neighboring Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. The European Union said that the fence was being built not to keep out terrorists, like Israel's, but to "prevent the free movement of migrants seeking to enter" EU territory.
In other words, the European Union wants to prevent illegal immigrants from its impoverished, ex-Soviet neighbors from seeking economic opportunities in EU member states.
This is not an unprecedented move. In recent years, the United States has constructed miles of reinforced fencing along its border with Mexico for much the same reason.
The problem with the proposed EU fence is the utter hypocrisy that comes along with it.
Last month, the European Union voted in favor of a controversial U.N. resolution demanding that Israel dismantle its security fence in the West Bank.
The resolution — which passed by a margin of 150-6 — came after months of harsh criticism by EU officials regarding the Israeli barrier, which has been labeled "contrary to international law" by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.
In the eyes of the European Union, the Israeli fence, which is the primary reason that there has been just one successful suicide bombing inside Israel since March, is illegal. But the EU fence, which is being built mainly for economic and not security reasons, is perfectly acceptable. Adding insult to injury, the European Union has, according to reports, even enlisted several leading Israeli contractors to aid in the construction of its barrier.
The European Union's double standard on the fence is nothing new. In 2000, it helped fund the construction of a barrier between the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa and neighboring Morocco.
The Spanish fence, like the one currently being planned for Poland and Hungary, is designed to protect EU member states from illegal immigrants. The European Union also has plans to build a similar fence around the Moroccan town of Melilla.
"It's incredible that the EU has no problem building a fence just to keep illegal immigrants out," a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently told the online magazine WorldNetDaily. "But when the Jewish State builds a security fence as a last resort for the purpose of keeping terrorists out and saving Israeli lives, we are blasted by them and the U.N."
Indeed, the United Nations — which has passed more than 400 resolutions against Israel since 1964 — has thus far not contested any of the EU fences. In fact, the United Nations has been silent about a number of security barriers around the world, including one that was, until recently, being erected by Saudi Arabia along its southern border with Yemen.
The Saudis, who have adamantly opposed the Israeli fence, began building their own barrier in 2003, purportedly to keep out smugglers. In February, the project was scrapped — at least temporarily — due to complaints from the Yemeni government.
In India, construction began several months ago on two security fences — one along its border with the disputed territory of Kashmir and the other along its boundary with Bangladesh. India's fences — much like Israel's —are designed to prevent attacks by Islamist militants. Nevertheless, India voted in favor of last month's U.N. resolution condemning Israel's West Bank barrier (which is almost completely comprised of chain link fencing, a far cry from the "apartheid wall" some of its opponents have dubbed it).
Turkey, which has fenced and mined close to 500 miles of its border with Syria, also voted against the Israeli fence. So, too, did Thailand, which is currently constructing a security fence along its border with Malaysia.
Even Botswana and Uzbekistan have erected barriers along their borders with, respectively, Zimbabwe and Kyrgyzstan. Yet both countries voted in favor of the U.N. resolution outlawing the Israeli fence.
None of these countries are locked in a struggle for their very existence, as is Israel. And none of them can even conceive of the nearly 1,000 deaths — most of them civilian — that Israel has suffered at the hands of terrorists since the intifada began nearly four years ago.
All of them, however, can lay claim to at least one thing: self-righteous hypocrisy.

The mensch and the maniac

By BRUCE S. TICKER

Sanity vs. lunacy, compassion vs. contempt.

Dueling words between a Jew and an Arab generated by the Beersheba genocide bombings distinguish one mindset from the other.

Israpundit:
Nissin Vakanin found himself on a guilt trip because another human being died in his place. An Arab woman was elated that her husband sacrificed himself to commit mass murder against Jews.

Vakanin is a mensch who cherishes life. The widow, who was not identified and lives in the West Bank town of Hebron, is a maniac who revels in death.

Their conflicting values – well, Vakanin has values – explain why Jews and Arabs have been killing each other for centuries. Jews love God’s gift of life and a high proportion of Arabs – certainly not all Arabs – can’t stand the idea of people who strive to live life to the fullest being anywhere near them.

The Arabs know full well that Jews are especially vulnerable because they seek to live, and many Arabs see it as their duty to die if it means eliminating Jews and other supposed infidels. How can any reasonable person sympathize with people who think that way?

This is not to justify all policies of the Israeli government, but whether an Ariel Sharon or a Shimon Peres runs Israel they must still contend with these dysfunctional attitudes.

On Tuesday, the 65-year-old Vakanin gave up his front-row seat on the No. 6 bus for a middle-aged woman, and minutes later the bomb exploded. It was one of two buses that were blown up.

“I saw her dead,” Vakanin told The Washington Post. “I saw the body of the guy next to her and it was all ripped up. Then I realized he was the suicide bomber.”

He added, “My conscience is not quiet. I feel guilty that she died and not me.”

The unidentified widow of one of the genocide bombers viewed the event differently. She hailed the bombings as “heroic” and said her husband was “happy in heaven,” according to the Associated Press.

The New York Times reported that in Gaza thousands of Hamas supporters celebrated the deaths of 16 human beings and Hamas distributed a leaflet saying, “If you thought that the martyrdom of our leaders would weaken our missions and discourage us from jihad, then you are dreaming.”

Can anyone imagine losing a loved one for this kind of reason? If they have children, that means they will grow up without a father. And for what?

PA recently released Beersheba bomber

Ahmed Kawasmeh, one of the two suicide bombers who carried out Tuesday's attacks in Beersheba, was released recently from a Palestinian Authority prison, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

Sources in Hebron said Kawasmeh, 22, was arrested several months ago by the PA security forces in the city on charges of membership in Hamas and planning attacks against Israel.

They said Kawasmeh was held for several weeks before he was released. It's not clear why he was released or if he had been questioned about his plan to carry out a suicide attack.

A PA security source said he was not surprised when he learned that Qawassmeh was one of the suicide bombers. 'He was well-known as an enthusiastic member of Hamas and he apparently talked to friends about his desire to kill Jews,' he said."

Syria May Face U.N. Resolution

The United States and France introduced a Security Council resolution Wednesday demanding that 20,000 Syrian troops "withdraw without delay" from Lebanon and that Syria stop meddling in the country's November elections. It threatens to consider unspecified "additional measures" against Syria to ensure compliance.

The resolution reflects mounting frustration by Washington and Paris that Syria is seeking to rewrite Lebanon's constitution to guarantee that the country's pro-Syrian leader, President Emile Lahoud, can remain in power after his six-year term ends on Nov. 24.

"The sovereignty and integrity of Lebanon has been taken from it by Syria," said John C. Danforth, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

Reuters openly supports Hamas

Here is my letter to Reuters:

In your article which can be seen on Yahoo at http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20040901/wl_nm/mideast_hamas_dc besides the sickening bias that permeates the article making it look like a recruitment letter for Hamas (praising it's will to shed Israeli blood, etc.) also had a number of falsehoods and misrepresentations:

There has not been a 6-month lull in suicide attacks, rather in *successful* suicide attacks *in Israel's pre-1967 borders*. Israel has intercepted many would-be bombers and suicide belts over the past 6 months. And there have been other attacks, including a suicide bomber on Sunday in Gaza killing 4. I know you don't consider settlers or Israeli soldiers to be human, but others may beg to differ. You should pretend to be unbiased occasionally.

Your paragraph " Palestinians regard the barrier, which the World Court has ruled illegal, as a grab of occupied land they want for a state. The World Court has ruled it is illegal." seems a little redundant. Perhaps if you would learn English better it would not appear that you are following Saudi news policy quite so closely.

You state, as fact, "the deaths of at least 3,000 compatriots killed by Israel" - a number which Israel disputes and which seemingly includes suicide bombers, "collaborators" and "work accidents" where Palestinians kill themselves or each other as being "killed by Israel." I suppose that you use the Palestinian definition of "martyr" are meaning "killed by the Zionist state" but, again, the facts show otherwise. Israel can list the name of every Palestinian killed - can your sources who claim "over 3000"? It may be a good idea to get off the editorial soapbox and try reporting - find out the real numbers, without mindlessly repeating Palestinian propaganda as truth.

The article was sickening in tone and reckless with facts. No wonder your "news" service is known as "al-Reuters."

Iran gets closer to the A-bomb

The United Nations said on Wednesday Iran planned to convert a large amount of raw 'yellowcake' uranium into uranium hexafluoride, which one nuclear expert said would be enough to build five atomic bombs.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said in the confidential report circulated to diplomats and obtained by Reuters that Iran planned a 'larger test' of a uranium conversion facility 'involving 37 tons of yellowcake.'

David Albright, a former U.N. weapons inspector and currently president of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) said this could theoretically result in 100 kg of weapons-grade highly-enriched uranium.

Speaking purely hypothetically, Albright said: 'It's roughly enough for about five crude nuclear weapons of the type Iran could conceivably build.'"

A false calm

On June 26, Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat announced he was committed to maintain the cease-fire during the Athens Olympic games, to preserve 'a noble ancient tradition.'

The Olympic games ended on Sunday. Two days later the bubble of false calm - which Israel enjoyed for almost half a year since the suicide bombing in the Ashdod Port on March 14 - burst. During this period, tourists returned to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem's hotels, and the headlines dealt with `A Star is Born' and the gold medal of surfer Gal Fridman.

The official sources do not accept this explanation. They say the attempts at suicide bombings did not cease for a moment, that the Palestinian motivation remained the same, and that during the false calm hundreds of similar incidents were prevented. The disaster in Be'er Sheva yesterday was that a suicide bombing managed to penetrate the Shin Bet and IDF defenses."

Amnesty Int'l: Suicide attacks against civilians condemned as crime against humanity

I
Amnesty International said:

“Palestinian armed groups must put an immediate end to suicide bombings and other attacks against civilians.

Such deliberate and systematic targeting of civilians is a crime against humanity.”

Here's the NYT's antiseptic description of the horror in Beersheva:
Suicide bombers blew up two buses on Tuesday in Beersheba in southern Israel, killing at least 16 people and injuring more than 100 others. The militant Palestinian group Hamas claimed responsibility, calling the blasts retaliation for the assassinations of two of its leaders.

Animals

Hamas supporters celebrate the twin suicide bombing that killed 16 Israeli's in Beersheba, during a Hamas rally in Gaza City, August 31,2004.

Jewish conspiracies?

JEWISH CONSPIRACIES IN THE PENTAGON?

Somebody sold CBS News, NBC, and the Washington Post a grand conspiracy theory of sinister Zionist influence in the Pentagon based on … well on what really? The theory alleges that

a) Two years ago, some Pentagon planners wrote a draft memo suggesting that the US adopt a tougher policy toward Iran;

b) One of those planners then supposedly informed a friend at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee about the memo – who in turn informed the Israeli embassy.

Can we pause to consider what an amazing non-story all of this is?

The memo in question - a draft of a proposed presidential policy directive for Iran - was essentially rejected. The Bush administration has opted since 2001 for a policy of engagement and attempted compromise with Iran. For all practical purposes, the memo was an expression of something close to a purely personal opinion.

And even if the memo had been adopted, it involved no spycraft, no technical secrets. It simply offered a vision of what US policy toward Iran ought to be: a series of policy options.

Discussing policy options with knowledgeable people – and even with allied governments – is not “espionage.”

Which is why, after 18 months of investigation, the investigators were about to drop the matter. It looks as if whoever leaked the story of the investigation leaked it precisely because he or she was annoyed that the investigators were concluding that the whole thing was much ado about nothing.

But by cleverly shopping it to journalists who were eager to strike a blow at the Bush administration, a fizzle of a story was (at least temporarily) transformed into a one-day wonder.

Who shopped it? Presumably somebody at the FBI – an agency that has alas showed nothing like so much vigilance in cases in which life and limb were actually at risk. Along the way, however, the story got “sexed up,” to borrow a phrase.

Here are some steamy extracts from CBS’ report:

“CBS News has learned that the FBI has a full-fledged espionage investigation under way and is about to -- in FBI terminology – ‘roll up’ someone agents believe has been spying not for an enemy, but for Israel from within the office of the Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon. …

“This put the Israelis, according to one source, ‘inside the decision-making loop’ so they could ‘try to influence the outcome.’

“The case raises another concern among investigators: Did Israel also use the analyst to try to influence U.S. policy on the war in Iraq?

“With ties to top Pentagon officials Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the analyst was assigned to a unit within the Defense Department tasked with helping develop the Pentagon's Iraq policy.”

Notice a couple of things in the CBS report: The story is written in such a way as to suggest that it was the FBI investigators who described the Israelis as “inside the loop.” And yet if you look carefully, you will see that this is not so. The allegation is attributed only to a “source” who might or might not even be a government employee – who is in fact very likely one of the small number of former government employees to whom journalists turn when they want some heavy breathing about the role of Israel.

Notice too the gratuitous and unsourced insinuation that Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith might somehow be implicated in the leak.

What seems to be going on here is this: People in the Pentagon broadly discussed proposed American policy toward one of America’s severest Middle Eastern problems – Iran, its terrorism and its nuclear ambitions. In the course of those discussions, they talked to knowledgeable people in many places. Possibly they talked as well to knowledgeable people in the governments of US allies, including Israel.

But there are figures inside the US government who want to see Israel treated, not as the ally it is by law and treaty (Israel like Japan, Australia, and New Zealand is designated a “major non-NATO ally” for intelligence- and technology-sharing purposes) but as the source of all the trouble in the Middle East and the world. They have injected their own hysterical agenda into the reporting of what would otherwise be a story of an FBI investigation that found nothing much.

Female bomber kills four Israelis at entrance to Gaza Strip

Hours after a Palestinian woman blew herself up early Wednesday at the Erez crossing terminal, killing four Israelis, Palestinian Foriegn Minister Nabil Sha'ath said that the Palestinian Authority was capable of stopping such terror attacks, but that Israel must first halt its attacks on the Palestinians, Israel Radio reported.

Speaking from Copenhagen, Sha'ath said that last August the Palestinians unilaterally halted attacks, but this collapsed because Israel failed to abide by this as well.

Can you imagine the chutzpah it takes tomake such a statement when have been daily attempts to kills Jews during this "unilateral cease fire"?

First Hamas female suicide bomber
Hamas and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militant group affiliated with Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement, jointly claimed responsibility for the blast, which also wounded 12 people.

Hamas, vowing to escalate attacks, said it used a woman suicide bomber for the first time, in order to counter Israeli security precautions.

"For the first time [Hamas] used a female fighter and not a male fighter and that was a new development in resistance against the enemy," Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin told Reuters. "Resistance will esclate against this enemy [Israel] until they leave our land and homeland."

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia declined to condemn the attack, saying that continued Israeli attacks and restrictions on the Palestinians are leading "to more escalation on both sides."

The explosion ripped through a recently dedicated facility where laborers and foreigners cross over the boundary. There were few Palestinian workers in the area at the time, Israeli officials said. Most workers had crossed hours before the mid-morning explosion.

Hamas later identified the bomber as the 22-year-old mother of two children.

IDF soldiers catch would-be suicide bomber at Erez Crossing

Israel Defense Forces soldiers foiled a suicide attack Tuesday, when they prevented a Palestinian man carrying an explosive device in his trousers from passing through the Erez Crossing from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

The belt was different than any the IDF has dealt with before in that 'it was sewn to resemble a pair of underpants,' the spokeswoman said.

Is Iran planning an attack on th US?

On May 28, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat reported that an Iranian intelligence unit had established "The Brigades of the Shahids of the Global Islamic Awakening."
In a speech by Hassan Abbassi, a Revolutionary Guards intelligence theoretician who teaches at Al-Hussein University, he spoke of Teheran's secret plans, which include
"a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization."
"There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites, and we know how we are going to attack them," Abbassi explained.
Over the past few months, Iranian leader Ali Khamenei has been vocal about the impending "destruction of the U.S." In May he told the Iranian paper Jomhouri-Ye Eslami that "the world will witness the annihilation of this arrogant regime."
Speaking on Iranian TV channel Jaam-E-Jam 2 on July 27, Iranian MP Hamid-Reza Katoziyan warned: "The whole group of people belonging to the Arab community and Muslims living in the U.S. are currently, in my opinion, in a special situation."
"Perhaps they do not walk the streets with weapons in their hands or attach bombs to themselves in order to carry out a suicide operation, but the thought is there."