Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 24, 2006

The Khaleej Times on freedom of expression

AS EXPECTED, David Irving’s release from an Austrian prison and subsequent return to England has sparked an intense debate regarding the freedom of speech in the modern era, especially with regard to subjects as sensitive as the Holocaust.

How free is it that in addition to Israel, several European countries also have strict laws against Holocaust denial. In Austria, for example — where the ageing historian/writer initially sentenced for three years — the ‘crime’ carries a prison term of up to 10 years. The relevant law states that ‘anyone who denies, plays down, approves or tries to excuse the Nazi genocide or other Nazi crimes against humanity’ automatically qualifies for a stint in the slammer.

That much of the world’s Jewish community continues to nurse psychological wounds from the much-reported Holocaust is understandable considering that according to popular opinion, it threatened to practically finish them off, and that too in the most gruesome manner. But there is a fine line between advocating justified sympathy and muscling all and sundry into acceptance of what is their own version of the episode, true or concocted notwithstanding. It is no secret that the slightest question posed to the Jews’ analysis of Hitler’s atrocities — even if it is with the sincerest of intentions — draws the severest reaction from right across the West. So much as a word is taboo, and one is slapped with charges of anti-Semitism even before one’s point is made completely. The media hounds do the rest and the person-in-question’s credibility is reduced to scarce more than dust.

What is it that has pushed the Zionist lobby to the verge of paranoia, if not into it? Having suffered one of the worst known human rights abuses on record in the Holocaust, they should be eager to encourage rather than shun research and analyses into it. If their claim is right and true, what other could be unearthed by those looking into it?

It bears noting that this iron-fist no-questions-asked approach is widely reflected in the Israeli character. Truth be told, history will judge them as gross violators of human rights themselves, hardly becoming of a people that have suffered injustices. It does not take genius to figure out that only those with something to hide discourage debate and reason, especially in the modern age of much trumpeted freedom of speech. Unfortunately though, it looks as if for such topics it’s going to be ‘Mum’s the word’.

The stupidity of the editorial is apparent, as is the underlying hate, scare quotes and condescending words that show the author himself doesn't quite believe that the Holocaust actually occurred. Hiding behind the absurd premise that the Ahmadinejads and Irvings of the world are actually interested in the truth, the Khaleej Times is painting Jews as a paranoid and scheming people who wouldn't know truth if they saw it. And, overall, the newspaper's editor hides his aching to see the Holocaust debunked under the pretense of "freedom of expression."

But in a somewhat different context a couple of months ago, the editor does not seem to be quite as sanguine about freedom of expression:

More importantly, now it is not possible to dismiss the cartoon episode last year as something that was the handiwork of a loony and reckless cartoonist. Clearly, there is a method in the madness. In fact, these disturbing acts of vandalism are not limited to Denmark. They are part of what has become a disturbing trend across Europe as the right-wing media and politicians whip up paranoid frenzy against everything Islamic. There is sickness in the heart of Europe. And the all-pervasive war on terror unleashed by the US neocons appears to have boosted it.

If it was the Danish cartoons last year, it's Danish video this year. Then there was this opera in Germany that took the concept of artistic licence too far when it showed the beheading of Prophet of Islam besides that of Jesus and Buddha. Last week, prominent French newspapers published an incredibly painful article by a Jewish 'scholar' about the Prophet accusing him of all sorts of absurdities.

What is going on? Can you blame the anguished Muslims if they see a clever and concerted campaign being conducted across the continent to vilify their faith and its revered figures and teachings? And can you blame the Muslims if they come out on the streets, from Morocco to Malaysia, in anger and frustration?

Whatever the explanation for these growing attacks on Islam and Muslims, they could have dangerous and far-reaching consequences for the whole world. The leaders of Denmark and other European countries cannot hide behind the fig leaf of the freedom of expression as these acts of intellectual vandalism and intolerance are unleashed on Muslims, Europe's second largest religious community. The freedom of speech is fine and Muslims respect it too just as they respect all other rights. However, the freedom of speech mustn't be abused to insult other people's beliefs and sensibilities. As the OIC has argued, it is the responsibility of politicians, governments, media and civil society organisations in the West to oppose all such attacks. This is essential if we want to avoid a dangerous clash of civilizations — between West and Muslim world.

Notwithstanding the implied threat in the last sentence ("don't upset us or else we'll hurt you") see how hypocritical his desire for truth and justice and freedom is? Freedom of speech is great when the victims are Jews, but if the victims are Muslims then a world war is the only logical outcome.

And this world view holds that Muslim world war to defend Mohammed seems preferable to jailing Holocaust deniers.

Egypt claims Eilat for Palestinian Arabs

In a breathtaking example of how the Arab world is trying to dismantle Israel piece by piece, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry is claiming that Eilat belongs to the Palestinian Arabs, arguing against others in Egypt's parliament that it belongs to Egypt.

No one admits it belongs to Israel.

In the course of the debate, which has been going on in parliament for the last two days, Abed el-Aziz Sayef a-Nasser, an aide to the Egyptian foreign minister, was called as an expert witness. A-Nasser is the director of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry's legal department.

"Eilat, or by its former name Umm Rashrash, belongs to the Palestinians," he said, representing the opinion of the Egyptian Foreign Ministry.

His predecessor, Dr. Nabil el-Arabi, was the head of the Foreign Ministry's legal department and headed the delegation for negotiations at Taba. He also emphatically declared: "Eilat belongs to the Palestinians."

A-Nasser's response was meant to calm tempers in the rowdy debate in the Egyptian parliament, after dozens of opposition representatives demanding holding negotiations to have Eilat returned to Egyptian sovereignty.

Opposition MPs recruited several legal experts, international law lecturers and experts on geography and topography who showed documents and opinions that Eilat is territory that belongs to Egypt and was captured in 1949 by Israel. They contend that the Egyptian negotiating team to Taba conceded Eilat to Israel 20 years ago "in the framework of the wish to build confidence and to display Egyptian good will in the spirit of the peace
agreement."

This was not the end of the matter. An Egyptian international law expert presented an intermediate position in parliament: "Eilat belongs formally to Egypt and administratively to the Palestinians."

In the debate in parliament two days ago, an opposition MP, Mohammed el-Aadali, whipped out a document from 1906 which states, in the name of the Ottoman sultan: Umm Rashrash belongs to Egypt. In this spot-said the Egyptian experts on topography and geography-Egyptian pilgrims would stop and rest on their way to the holy cities in Saudi Arabia.

OK, let's look at the UN partition map of 1947. The green part is dedicated for the Jewish state, even in 1947 (this is not designated as Palestinian Arab land):

And the southern tip in more detail:

Now, let's look where Eilat lies today:

Eilat is right on the tip of the Gulf of Aqaba while the partition shows that the Jewish state boundaries are some file miles to the south.

Evidently the heralded Egyptian Israeli peace treaty is not as great an example of cooperation and understanding as many would have you believe. Even Egypt looks upon it as a first step towards slicing Israel up into smaller and smaller slices until it is gone.

2006 Dhimmi of the Year

Here is Islam's ideal Christian: the Greek Orthodox archbishop in Jerusalem.

This is the same guy who claimed that an Israeli woman was spreading AIDS among Palestinian Arabs. Even during the Pope riots, when churches in the territories were being firebombed, he only condemned the Pope and not the rioters. But here we can see the true extent of his submissiveness to a religion that is not his own:

"The unity of the Palestinians is key to achieving our objectives. We have a common enemy to fight," Atallah Hanna, the Archbishop of Sevastia, Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, said.

Hanna fought shy of naming the common enemy but it was obvious that he was referring to Israel. In reply to a question about the ratio of Christians in the Palestinian population, he said roughly one per cent of the Palestinian population was Christian. [In 1950, it was 15%. - EoZ]

He continuously evaded a question about who he and other Christians in the Palestinian territories supported: 'Hamas or Fateh'. "We are supporting whoever the Palestinians want, but the infighting must end," he said.

Hanna is here to attend the two-day conference on Islamists versus Arab nationalists that began at the Ritz-Carlton here yesterday.

Hanna also did not clarify who he was siding with at the convention: the Islamists or Arab nationalists.

Asked if the Palestinian Christians had a political party of their own, he replied in the negative and said: "We don't believe in communal politics. We are in all the political parties of the Palestinians."

So this supposed church leader is so submissive, so dhimmified, so willing to forgo his own belief in his own faith that he is unwilling to even say anything against living under shari'a law, as Hamas calls for in its charter.

His only negative words are aimed at the one nation in the area who is not oppressing his coreligionists.

Previously, this man of God also has called on Arab Christians to start doing their own suicide terror attacks against Israel. His statements were so extreme that he was fired as official spokesman for the Greek Orthodox Church in Jerusalem but that doesn't stop him from always being found among Islamist terrorist leaders, supporting the murders of Israelis and acting as a de facto spokesman for Arab Christians in his many interviews.

For slavishly adhering to the same political line as Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Archbishop Hanna is the hands-down winner of the 2006 Dhimmi of the Year award.

UPDATE: Soccer Dad points to "the only Catholic priest in Gaza" as a strong contender for the title.

A couple of short items about hospitals

On Tuesday, some of the Fatah/Hamas gunfighting occured in the corridors of a hospital in Gaza.
At Shifa Hospital, the biggest in Gaza, tensions are so high that wounded from different factions cannot be placed in the same room. "Everyone has family, friends and bodyguards," said hospital spokesman Dr. Jumaa Saqqa. "We have to separate them. Otherwise there will be clashes."

Hamas' security forces took control of the hospital four months ago, at the orders of the health minister from Hamas, Bassem Naim.

On Tuesday, a two-hour gunbattle raged in the hospital's hallways, sparked by a confrontation between Hamas guards and escorts of an officer from the Abbas-allied intelligence service who sought treatment for a broken leg. A security officer was killed and 10 people were wounded in the fighting.

Israel is treating some of those wounded in the intra-Palestinian Arab fighting in its own hospitals, according to a news flash in the Palestine News Network website (only the Arabic site, not the English one, because it is not responsible to inform the world of anything decent that Israelis do.)

I somehow doubt that anyone from the press will point out the irony that Palestinian Arab fighters, who are sworn to destroy Israel, are safer in Israeli hospitals than in PalArab hospitals.

Menorah meme

I wasn't tagged by anyone for this meme that originated at The Ignoble Experiment, but what the heck...

Due to unforeseen circumstances, our normal family menorahs are inaccessible this year. Last Friday at noon I went out with Junior Elder on a quest to find a nice, cheap, last minute menorah.

The local Judaica stores had many but they were generally in the $100-$250 range and since I was only planning on using it this year, that didn't make sense.

Finally, we went to a dollar store.

8 medium sized blue glass candlesticks, one larger clear candlestick, and three packages of colored tea-lights later, and I had my $12 Elder Menorah 2006:

The household was quite pleased!

Hate site upset that I emailed Google News

The People's Voice, which had a virulently anti-semitic article that I mentioned here, is a website where any idiot can publish anything and Google indexes it as "news" in the news.google.com site.

Apparently the site took note of my mentioning them as they wrote a long article criticizing me as a racist, a bigot, a Jewish supremacist and who knows what else. As proof, they used comments made by others on this blog, as well as at least one obvious joke that was making fun of what people like them think - and that they hilariously took seriously.

Their inability to understand simple English is shown by their criticism of something I wrote:

As I scrolled down the page containing the exchange between rj and the people on this site I noticed that the site is filled with statements denoting race, the 'Arabs' this, the 'Arabs' that. Here is a small example:
"This letter implies how difficult it is for Arabs to even have a clue about real world history, as the Arabic literature on secular topics is very sparse. This is a tragedy that is usually overlooked - a billion people who only can read one language are imprisoned by the non-existence of any ideas that are not politically-correct for the Arab world."

What if they had said:

"This letter implies how difficult it is for some Jewish people to even have a clue about real world history, as the Jewish literature on secular topics is very sparse. This is a tragedy that is usually overlooked - a billion people who only can read one language are imprisoned by the non-existence of any ideas that are not politically-correct for the Jewish world."

Well, first of all the correct analogy to "Arabic" would be "Hebrew." So even though word substitution is almost always a ridiculous argument, let's go for it:

"This letter implies how difficult it is for some Jews to even have a clue about real world history, as the Hebrew literature on secular topics is very sparse. This is a tragedy that is usually overlooked - fifteen million people who only can read one language are imprisoned by the non-existence of any ideas that are not politically-correct for the Jewish world."

As can be seen, if a proper word substitution is placed in this paragraph, it becomes nonsensical - firstly because most Jews read and write languages other than Hebrew, and secondly because there are plenty of secular Hebrew books. So my original paragraph makes a lot of sense and is not bigoted in the slightest.

At any rate, buried within this rant was the cry that I was trying to censor them, even though I explained twice that asking Google News not to index them as a legitimate "news" site is not the same thing as trying to stop their website from publishing. They are so clueless that they mention that my "hate site" blog is indexed by Google, not having a clue that there is a difference between Google, a web site spider tool, and Google News, where human beings choose what is considered a news source.

So The People's Voice is, as usual, playing a victim card.

Google News actually emailed them and told them that they were removing the hate article from their index, and warned them that if they continue to publish similar articles then they would be delisted from Google News.

A tiny step against pure hatred.

British airline bans Bibles to Saudi Arabia

Britain's BMI airlines have banned its employees from bringing non-Muslim religious articles on its lucrative Saudi Arabia route.

Keep in mind - this was not in response to a request from Saudi Arabia. Like good little dhimmis, they want to proactively deny their own rights to make sure they don't upset the 'ummah.

London, Dec 21 (ZEENEWS.COM) A British airline has banned its crew from taking the Bible into Saudi Arabia for fear of upsetting Muslims.

BMI bosses have told staff to take the Koran instead, and this without any intimation to this effect from Riyadh.

As expected, things have not gone down too well with the staff. One middle-aged stewardess is planning to sue BMI for religious discrimination at an industrial tribunal due to take place in the New Year.

In the meantime, BMI has decided to exclude her from flights to Saudi Arabia.

A BMI source said: “Foreign Office advice is that non-Islamic religious material is not permitted in Saudi”.

But another BMI worker said: “We understand our embassy has confirmed that the Saudis never enforce this rule”.

“The stewardess is deeply religious and takes her Bible everywhere she travels. The bottom line is BMI don’t want to jeopardise the Saudi route, which is worth millions to them,” The Sun quoted the worker as saying.

South Africa MP believes in the Protocols, not sure about Holocaust

Oh, and she is a representative of the ruling African National Congress.
Do I even have to mention that she happens to be a Muslim?

An ANC MP cited the Protocols of the Elders of Zion -- the infamous anti-Semitic forgery used by the Nazis -- as a credible document at a recent Iranian-sponsored academic seminar in Pretoria.

Farida Mahomed agreed recently she had asked a Jewish seminar delegate, Claudia Braude: “Are the protocols still relevant to you in today’s time? How do we apply this balanced approach to reconciliation when we read them and they are totally the opposite?”

Mahomed was responding to a presentation by Braude reflecting on democratic South Africa’s possible role as a global reconciler. It included a call for South Africans to reject Iranian Holocaust denialism.

Interviewed this week, Mahomed said she was unaware the protocols had been exposed as a hoax. Published in the early 20th century by the Tsarist secret police Okhrana, the document purported to show a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world.

Another delegate at the Pretoria meeting also questioned the authenticity of the Holocaust, citing Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s dismissal of it as “a myth”.

The gathering took place a week before the Iranian government’s widely condemned international Holocaust conference in Tehran.

Asked for her views on the Holocaust, Mahomed said: “I don’t want to comment on something that I haven’t done research on. I wouldn’t want to be influenced by any scholar.”

ANC spokesperson Smuts Ngonyama said the party’s position was that the Nazi genocide should be “condemned with the contempt that it deserves”.

Mahomed made her input during a panel discussion on “religious thoughts in socio-cultural development”, held on December 1 and 2 at Unisa, with support from the Iranian Embassy.

...Mahomed said that she had read the protocols on the internet but had not researched them.

Asked whether she thought they had ever been “relevant”, she replied: “I can’t make a comment. They must have been relevant or they would never have been written.” They did not contribute towards peace, which is why she posed the question.

She added that Braude should have made it clear at the conference that they had been exposed as a forgery.

That daughter of apes and pigs wasn't even nice enough to tell her that the Protocols were a forgery? No wonder the Jews are so hated! I bet that they are also "influenced by scholars" when they do their research!

And by the way - although the SA parliament webpage is down as I write this, it appears that the ignorant and bigoted Ms. Mahomed is a member of the Foreign Affairs committee.

Support Shari'a. Boycott Iran!

The Iranian leader Mahmoud Amalek Ahmadinejad's spiritual leader is Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, as we mentioned last April. Yazdi didn't do too well in the recent Iranian elections, but his wisdom is eternal.

His website has an Arabic fatwa section that includes this nice one:

Q: I read in the polls for the province of some products they serve the ends of the usurping entity such as the purchase of American products collapse if they serve the state, usurping Zion Harmholkn realized what staffing serve Israel and know how any American companies that help Israel, which is not reasonable to all American companies helped Israel clearly question whether each product mean the duty of American boycott?

A: Since the American economy harnessed to serve Israel, the boycott of American goods of all kinds is justified, and as such the province for the networked economy in the contemporary world is not possible, the difficult and critical duty to avoid circulation of American commodities to the greatest extent possible.

The unfortunate Ayatollah would love to give a blanket prohibition on American goods and services, but unfortunately there are just too many American products out there to make such a boycott practical.

I say it is time that we help the Ayatollah and his acolyte the President commit more fully to the word of Allah, and help them with their fervent desire to boycott all American goods and services. Since European goods have so many American components, Europe will have to jump on the bandwagon to ensure that not the slightest sin is committed in the quest for human perfection in Iran. It is only fitting and proper that we do our utmost to stop Iran from getting any Western technology or products.

This is clearly what Allah wants.

Time for the PalArabs to step up. But they won't.

Columnists and editorialists and pundits are hand-wringing about what can be done to stop the violence in Gaza.

Should the West prop up Abbas? Should Israel? Should an international force be sent there? Should we forget the sanctions?

The problem is that there is a solution, but the world has created an environment where that solution will never occur.

Let's look a bit north. Despite Lebanon's problems, it has a strong amount of power from its citizens themselves. Notwithstanding the more recent setbacks, the Cedar Revolution proves that. Hezbollah might be flexing its muscles but the majority of Lebanese will not ever accept their rule.

What needs to happen in Gaza is something similar, and it will never happen. The reason is because the international community has never treated Palestinian Arabs like adults who can act responsibly, and as a result they are a group of whiners and babies.

Rather than blame PalArabs for their support for terror, the West tends to blame Israel (the only "adult" in the region.) Over decades, this lesson takes hold, and now we have a welfare state of millions of people who cannot and will not act like they have any responsibility whatsoever.

The pundits and politicians today keep this self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling myth alive by looking everywhere for a solution rather than the people themselves. And after so many years of learning that all of their problems are Israel's (and America's) fault, the Palestinian Arabs are ready to play their part as perpetual victims to the hilt - and let any chance for a real nation, and real peace, go down the drain. Again.

So while the PalArabs have the lion's share of the responsibility for the situation they're in, the world's coddling of their support of terror and their acting like helpless children with RPGs is in no small part responsible for the situation as well.

Any teacher or parent can tell you that a child will act how they are treated, and the same is true with adults. If you treat the kid as an adult, they will mature much faster. If you spoil them, they will remain that way as well. People will usually take on the roles that others assign them, which is why so many revert to acting like children when visiting their parents.

Like it or not, the world has acted as if Palestinian Arabs are nothing more than spoiled children who cannot be expected to do anything about their situation. And that's a major reason that they are.

Another day, another Qassam ("cease fire" update)

I just put the following calendar on the sidebar so as not to keep it on as the top article every day.

The dates that are linked are the ones where Kassam rockets were fired to Israel since the "cease-fire," with links to the news stories that have the details.

According to AP, the IDF denied any rockets landed on Friday and Saturday the 1st and 2nd. I don't know which are correct - the IDF or the newspapers, or if AP just got the story wrong.

UPDATE 9: Five rockets so far Wednesday 12/20.
UPDATE 8: Two more rockets Tuesday, 12/19. And then another.
UPDATE 7: Two rockets shot Monday morning 12/18, one hit a kibbutz orchard.
UPDATE 6: 4 rockets Friday and Saturday. We have yet to have more than two consecutive days without rocket fire since the "cease fire" went into effect.
UPDATE 5: Thursday morning and Thursday evening.
UPDATE 4: YNet reports that the Tuesday rockets came after "five days of calm." I do not understand how the rockets reported on Friday, Saturday and Monday were not counted by YNet.
UPDATE 3: 2 Monday rockets and 3 Tuesday rockets. (updated to 5 rockets.)
UPDATE 2: Friday and Saturday rockets. They might not have all landed in Israel but they certainly were intended to.
UPDATE: Wednesday rocket.

Black is white, up is down, truce means "shoot!"

At 11:00 PM Tuesday Palestine time the latest "truce" between Fatah and Hamas went into effect. Although by reading the media, the previous one was in effect all day Tuesday and just "endangered" by the killing of six people.

Anyway, at dawn, the latest cease-fire was ended with the killing of another in Gaza City. This makes my PalArab self-death count since late June add up to 199, meaning that sometime on Wednesday we can expect another "grim milestone."

At least there is consistency - the words "cease fire" are equally meaningless when PalArabs promise to stop firing at Israel.

UPDATE: Grim milestone reached. There were two killings at dawn, Hamas attacking a Fatah police car. 200 PalArabs now violently killed by each other that I know of since Operation Summer Rains began in late June.

Thursday update: 201.
Friday update: 202.

Photos of Palestinian Arabs being beaten

Thanks to "Falasteen", we can see exclusive photos of Palestinian Arabs being beaten by those evil imperialistic colonizing racist Zionist....oops, they are only being beaten by Fatah policemen.

So Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have already lost interest.

There are lots more at the Falasteen website. Falasteen, which is actually made in the US, tends to be pro-Hamas. The commentary goes along the lines of "why are Abbas' people beating us up instead of shooting Israelis?"

Deborah Lipstadt translating her Holocaust web resource into Arabic and Farsi

From AP:

ATLANTA - Emory University is planning to translate a professor's Web site on Holocaust denial into Arabic, Farsi and other languages common to countries where anti-Semitic views are widespread.

Professor Deborah Lipstadt, who runs the site Holocaust Denial on Trial, said she hopes the translations will provide resources to people who have no historical accounts of the Holocaust in their native tongue.

"I'm convinced that there are people in predominantly Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East, who are being inundated with Holocaust deniers' claims and don't know that the deniers are fabricating and distorting," she said in a news release.

She pointed to last week's gathering of Holocaust deniers in Iran - an event supported by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - as evidence that such viewpoints are gaining strength throughout the Muslim world.

Robert Paul, dean of Emory's undergraduate college, said the university is creating a $2 million endowment to help enhance the Web site. ...

The university will use scholars in its various foreign language departments to do the translation.

The Web site provides the legal and historical documents from the trial where right-wing British historian David Irving sued Lipstadt for libeling him in her book 1994 book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory." In a highly publicized 2000 decision, a British court ruled in Lipstadt's favor and declared Irving a Holocaust denier and racist.

If there is ever going to be reform in the Arab and Muslim worlds, the Internet is going to be an important component.

This is a great idea.

Arabs understand Hamas better than the Left

An interesting editorial in Asharq Al-Awsat, in English, shows that even fanatical anti-Israel Arabs understand Hamas better than pseudo-intellectual European liberals:

We have witnessed Hamas's concept of democracy since it came to power, with its first order of business being the improvement of Palestinian television because its artistic value was not up to its standards! This is Hamas's concept of democracy!

Unfortunately, the kind of relationship Hamas and other groups such as Hezbollah and Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood have with democracy is on the same par as someone sitting behind the wheel of the newest, top of the line automobile, whilst being unable to drive.

For these groups, democracy is slogans without accountability, and without its duties towards the nation and its citizens. Rather, it is the thwarting of all gains, while also deepening its steadfast backwardness and disrupting intellectual, political and economic life. Meanwhile, failure always has its ready excuse: America and the Zionist plot!

What Hamas is not aware of is that it has returned the Palestinian situation to its pre-Oslo days and in the process, it has lost all the gains, as few as they were, of the Palestinian people.
...

Hamas has become a source of suffering for the Palestinian people and a frustration of the democratic experience in the region, especially for the Islamist current. The problem with Hamas is that it has only adopted the slogans of democracy and in the process; it burns the candle from both ends, making it difficult to position, and burning he who attempts to hold it for too long. And here, Hamas burns itself.

Here we have two pieces from the UK today, and the Arab editorial makes much more sense than the one from the Independent. It goes to show how far off the deep end the Left has become in redefining the conflict and facts to conform to their pre-existing opinions.

It is a strange world indeed when one sees the "enlightened" Left praising Hamas as a bastion of democracy and peace while the Arabs themselves are criticizing it as the exact opposite.