Today is "Palestinian Independence Day"

In one of those useless gestures that PalArab leaders have been so fond of, eighteen years ago Yasir Arafat declared November 15th as "Independence Day" - from exile in Algiers.

They even wrote a meaningless Declaration of Independence. It includes this gem:

Despite the historical injustice inflicted on the Palestinian Arab people resulting in their dispersion and depriving them of their right to self-determination, following upon U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181 (1947), which partitioned Palestine into two states, one Arab, one Jewish, yet it is this Resolution that still provides those conditions of international legitimacy that ensure the right of the Palestinian Arab people to sovereignty.

Unmentioned is the fact that the Palestinian Arabs at the time, along with all Arab nations, rejected Resolution 181 because they didn't want to recognize a certain other people's claims to nationhood that elsewhere in the Declaration they say is the "destiny of all other peoples."

It goes on to this farcical statement:

By stages, the occupation of Palestine and parts of other Arab territories by Israeli forces, the willed dispossession and expulsion from their ancestral homes of the majority of Palestine's civilian inhabitants, was achieved by organized terror; those Palestinians who remained, as a vestige subjugated in its homeland, were persecuted and forced to endure the destruction of their national life.

This is particularly funny as one would be hard-pressed to find any of those "persecuted" people willingly move out of their "subjugated" status to live in an Arab country or in the territories.

Even better, later on the document describes their mythical state as one where "The rights of minorities will duly be respected by the majority, as minorities must abide by decisions of the majority." This sounds like subjugation to me!

It goes without saying that the "Declaration" in no way limits its sights to only the post-1967 "occupied territories;" it remains purposefully ambiguous as to its real objectives.

Either way, as a fifth-grade PalArab girl interviewed said yesterday, "tomorrow is a strike day." To her, this is just another day off of school. She understands the futility of this mythical independence better than her elders, although most of them interviewed by "Palestine News Network" were quite cynical.

Beyond the complete unimportance of this day, which the PalArabic media is trumpeting as a major holiday, is the simple fact that if they want to truly declare independence in Gaza, they could. All the high-sounding words in the "Declaration" could become reality - if they wanted it to. They could issue stamps and flags and get immediate recognition from 75% of the UN member states.

For over a year, not a single Israeli soldier stepped foot in Gaza. For over a year, the PalArabs had every opportunity to prove that they were not a nation of terrorists and criminals, but that they were a peace-loving and progressive people. For over a year, they could have built industry and an economy. They had industrial zones they shared with Israel; they had greenhouses that brought in millions of dollars in revenue bought by American Jewish money, they even had a border crossing with Egypt that was not being monitored by Israel directly where they could import and export goods and services. They had an election where they could have voted in a government that cared about their day-to-day lives.

Each and every opportunity was not only wasted, but turned into a means to terrorize and wage war against Israel. Gaza is now a lawless wasteland, far worse than when it was under the dreaded "occupation." The only manufacturing industry of note in Gaza is the Qassam industry.

It was an experiment in statehood that not only failed, but it backfired on them. It proved that this "nation" is anything but a real nation.

Reading the Declaration today is the definition of irony as we see what sort of an independent nation they would actually build, given the chance.

And the eighteen years of pretend independence will stretch out for decade after decade, as the PalArabs trade one "occupation" for the far worse situation of being governed by their own immature and destructive leaders.

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"Shallow thought processes"

One of the more frustrating sites in the JBlogosphere is the idealistically and wrongfully named Tikun Olam. I don't spend much time there because the blog author is far left wing and his talking points are pretty much identical to those of Saeb Erekat. The only difference is that Erekat knows he is a baldfaced liar, and Richard Silverstein is probably just excessively naive.

Unfortunately, people like Erekat get strengthened by fantasists like Silverstein. Equally unfortunately, people like Silverstein cannot seem to ever find anything good to say about Israel - plenty of attacks and nothing but silence and tacit support for terrorist supporters in the territories. (As I said, I don't read most of his stuff, but the representative sampling I've seen seems to bear this out.)

This morning he posted an article from Haaretz that mentioned that the Atamna family in Gaza, who lost 18 members in the accident last week, are not seeking revenge and do not wish such a tragedy on anyone, including Jews. This is certainly admirable and welcome.

Unfortunately, Silverstein's spin on this is so wrongheaded as to expose his complete inability to see reality. Once again we see partisanship trumping clear thinking. Although perhaps I am not the exact type of person he is referring to in his posting, I am going to respond as if I am:

The Arab haters who frequent this site are fond of throwing around cliches and racist prejudice about Arab religious and cultural attitudes. According to the haters, Arabs are bloodthirsty for revenge against Israel. They are certainly liars and totally untrustworthy. Even when Arabs say something conciliatory they are only saying it for the benefit of western media.

Well, this passage will throw a wrench in the works of those shallow thought processes of theirs. A Haaretz reporter visited the Atamnas family, which lost 18 members to errant IDF shells which killed them as they lay sleeping. The victims must be crying blood curdling calls for revenge, right? Hardly.

[Ha'aretz quote follows]

Does Israel deserve such empathy especially from victims who have suffered so much due to the unconscionable mistakes of an incompetent IDF? I only applaud the victims for being able to muster such humanity in the face of such horrid brutality.

Perhaps, one day the IDF will become the kind of fighting force that does not make such mistakes, or if it does it confronts the mistake directly and honestly. And perhaps someday when it makes one of these mistakes it will actually do everything in its power to ensure it is never made again. Can we really believe that the current IDF will not make this mistake again next week, next month or next year?

The first two paragraphs are one huge strawman. Generalize something about your opponents, make a sweeping statement that you attribute to them, and then find a single counterexample to win an argument that never occurred. On this blog at least I have been careful to distinguish between the Palestinian Arab people and their destructive "leaders."

Incidentally, so did Ariel Sharon even in his most hawkish days.

Not to say that the PalArabs have not been criticized by this blog as well - they have, often, when their collective actions or polls have shown support for terror - but I do not stereotype them beyond my usual oanalysis of their psyche as a whole. But unlike Silverstein, I do not use a single example to prove my point.

And isn't it a teensy bit intellectually dishonest to point to a single example of a Palestinian Arab family not calling for revenge when "tens of thousands" did call for revenge?

And does Silverstein think for a moment that even the quote from the Atamna family was ever printed in the Arabic press? In my travels through the auto-translated Palestinian Arab news sites, I have yet to see anything remotely resembling that quote or that sentiment. The hate for Israel is systemic, endemic and all-permeating.

But judging from his next paragraph, perhaps he shares that viewpoint.

He goes into his "Israel is evil" mode that is so heartbreaking to read from someone who should know better. To imply that Jews do not deserve any sympathy from Arabs is astonishingly sick from someone who claims to be trying to "repair the world."

To say that the IDF, which is arguably the most moral army in the history of the world, is "incompetent" for making a mistake is simply slanderous. Especially in the light of its immediate reaction and investigation, which he purposefully ignores in his next paragraph.

I would love for Silverstein to show me an example of any army or any nation that acts more responsibly or morally from his perspective. Because the fact is, when Israel's enemies compare Israel and only Israel to an impossible standard of perfection and ignore the crimes of every other nation on Earth, it is a form of anti-semitism. I don't consider Silverstein an anti-semite, but what's his excuse?

He accuses others of "shallow thought processes" but it is apparent that these words refer much more accurately to his own. I hope one day he wakes up and becomes interested in being part of a true Tikun Olam. And any solution, if one even exists, has to take reality into account, not just extreme wishful thinking.

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First Met Meme

Thanks to AbbaGav, I've gotten tagged with a meme to talk about things that are Personal, as opposed to the Political and occasionally Silly things that are usually my themes.

It seems impolite to ignore it, so let's just get it over with.

A long time ago, when I was just a young Elder, I was living on my own in a tastefully-decorated bachelor pad in suburban New Jersey. I worked as a junior engineer for a Major Telecommunications Company (MTC) that happened to employ a good percentage of everyone in town (making the Shabbos table discussions that invariably turned techie into painful moments for the odd spouse who might have been a teacher or rabbi or something.)

One day, I got a phone call from someone I never met. We will call him Shmuel, mostly because I have forgotten his name by now. He got my name from an old yeshiva buddy who told him, "Oh, I know someone who works for MTC, maybe he can get you a job." For some reason, people from New York always think anyone can get anyone a job.

I spoke to Shmuel for a few minutes, expressing my support for him but letting him know that I was but a tiny cog in the giant wheels of MTC and I was in no position to hire, recommend to hire or even broach the subject with my boss.

Shmuel understood and then told me, "You know, I know a girl who sounds just like you do. Are you interested in being set up?"

For reasons that G-d Himself only knows, I took the phone number of a girl for a blind date from a person I never met. Call it a double-blind date.

I called her, we spoke for a while and then set a date.

I picked up the future Mrs. Elder in a heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhood that I had never driven to before and we went to Manhattan on a pleasant Sunday afternoon in late June. We visited a museum (that no longer exists) and then stumbled onto the annual Gay Pride parade on our way to a vegetarian restaurant that also no longer exists, Greener Pastures.

Despite this inauspicious start, we hit it off. I dated her pretty much every week for the rest of the summer and we were engaged by the autumn, married by spring.

As far as I can tell, the only thing that might have made Shmuel think that Mrs. Elder and I speak the same way is that we both do not have New York accents. We are completely opposite in pretty much every respect.

I did end up meeting Shmuel and his wife a couple of times, and I think that we sent them a gift, but we never became friends and this entire episode is just one giant example of hashgacha pratis.

(As is my custom, I will not be forwarding this meme to anyone because memes are, in the end, human-borne computer viruses. )

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Another clan clash; two women dead.

PCHR reports that two women, Zeinat Faris Juha and Jehan Mohammad Juha, were killed in a "Clan Clash" in Beit Lahia, Gaza, yesterday. Jehan was 7 months pregnant. A 16-year old girl was injured.

I just looked through WAFA's website in Arabic to find any mention of this double murder. WAFA, the "Palestine News Agency," updates its Arabic site with new stories on the average every five minutes throughout the day, so every time Mahmoud Abbas opens a letter or every time a minor minister in Mauritania says something against Israel, WAFA faithfully reports it.

Well, it doesn't mention this.

Could it be that Palestinian Arab women's lives are only worthwhile when they are killed by Jews?

Could it be that the entire culture is so geared around the idea of destroying Israel that when it destroys itself it is a meaningless event?

Could it be that WAFA is not concerned about "news" at all, but only positive PR for PalArabs?

Our self-death count of PalArabs being violently killed by their own since late June now stands at 158. The percentage mentioned in the Palestinian Arab press is unknown, but my educated guess is about 10%-20% depending on the newspaper.

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Moron of the week

Iran's Mehrnews just printed a rambling, incoherent article by a James Seidel:

Leaving the American nightmare
TEHRAN, Nov. 14 (MNA) -- I would like to say that I wish to leave America, not because I am angry, not because I am afraid, but because I disagree with the new HITLER we have as a ruler.

A lot of the problems around the world seem to be secretly created by the current American (northern part) government which is controlled by the Zionist regime.

I simply refuse to be a slave, period.

As for the legal issues, I was released as a political prisoner from the American SLAVE MACHINE called the courts.

In America, the people are arrested and marked so that there is a constant supply of people to feed the ranks of the slave work programs.

Almost all military clothing and wire harnesses for attack planes and other items are made by slaves making less than 30 cents an hour in American jails.

I pray that GOD intervenes and corrects the evil.

I am really embarrassed that the country I was born in has turned into such chaos.

And that it creates most of the chaos around the planet.

I fear no more the evil American leaders.

The men who created the laws would raise their swords if they knew what the current leaders are doing to the United States Constitution.

It is total war against the people of the United States, and everyone is asleep, not even realizing that their leaders are doing terrible misdeeds behind the backs of the sleeping public.

May GOD have mercy on all of us for doing nothing to prevent the evil.

I remain, James Robert Seidel, citizen of the planet earth.

His backstory must be fascinating; clearly he was in prison at some point and really resented the poor pay!

Not too much about him is apparent on the Web, but I did find this piece he did for Pravda:(Google cache)

In 500 years, what will America be, probably a nuclear waste, due to the greed of either the Jews or the idiots who lie to the people.

Right now, our American leaders are lying not only to us the people, they are lying to themselves thinking their nightmare can go on.

History always repeats itself, so that means this empire is all played out.

You know that the newspapers are already covering up the beatings and the things done to those men fighting American aggressors. If someone were trying to change my home, I know I would fight back. I see nothing wrong with the Iraqi people trying to save their culture from becoming another McDonald's or Burger King or Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet so that the New York Jews can steal more profits?

I think that I can speak for most Americans whe I say I hope he gets his wish to leave the country.

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Iran tells the US to "behave correctly"

The immoral and terrorist government of Iran has said that it would deign to have direct talks with the US if the US "behaves correctly." This includes, of course, no mentioning of nuclear issues.

Since Iran is the source of all morality and correctness, let's look again at what Iran considers moral:

• In May, two Iranians (a man and a woman) were buried in the ground, the woman up to her neck and the man up to his waist, and stoned to death. 9 more women are awaiting execution by stoning.
  
• Seven men were hung in one day last week.
• Iraqi Shi'ite terrorists are being supplied with weapons and money by Iran.

The good news is that Argentina is not backing down over Iranian threats towards the prosecutors in the case that implicated Iran for the terror attack at the Argentina Jewish Center in 1994.

That, in my estimation, is indeed "behaving correctly."

It is way past time for the US (and any other nation that still has an ounce of morality) to unilaterally boycott not only Iran, but any country or business that has dealings with the Iranian regime. It is clear that the military option is not possible politically and probably tactically. For every day we wait, Iran comes closer to gaining the nuclear superpower status it craves.

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Exploiting Israel's humanity for terror

The terror group Popular Resistance Committees recruited a man from Gaza who was undergoing medical treatment in Israel to build terror cells in the West Bank:

It has been cleared for publication that the Shin Bet and the IDF arrested Gaza City resident Jabar Derabiya, 43, at Erez Crossing two months ago for being suspected of planning to carry out terror attacks against Israeli targets.

Derabiya, active in the Popular Resistance Committees, received an entry permit into Israel in order to get treatment for a medical condition of his, and allegedly planned to exploit the entry permit in order to establish terror cells in the West Bank. He was arrested on September 28 while trying to enter Israel.

During his investigation, Derabiya admitted being recruited to the mission by then commander of the Popular Resistance Committees Jamal Abu Samhadana earlier in the year. Abu Samhadana wanted to exploit of Derabiya's condition that required medical attention in Israel in order to bring him into the West Bank.

Derabiya's plan to enter the West Bank was derailed when Abu Samhadana was killed by Israel in an aerial attack on his organization's training camp next to Rafah on June 8.

It emerged from the investigation that a few weeks after Samhadana was killed, his heir, whose identity has not yet been revealed, renewed the plan to transfer Derabiya into the West Bank. However, this plan was stymied when Derabiya was arrested at Erez Crossing.

The defense establishment responded to Derabiya's arrest, saying, "This is another attempt of the terror organization, operating by exploiting Palestinian civilians entering Israel for medical treatment on a humanitarian background, for carrying out terror attacks against the State of Israel."

This is a recurring theme. Now Israel will have to slow down accepting people for medical treatment and more PalArabs will die - and the world will blame Israel for their hardships.

Now here's a thought experiment: Can you imagine a single Muslim or PalArab leader, spokesperson or columnist ever publicly condemning the actions of the PRC in this case? Is there any Arab who would stand up and say "the PRC has hurt the cause of the Palestinian people with their shortsighted attempts to export terror?"

Or are the majority of the peaceful PalArabs more upset that the terror plot was stopped?

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One problem with Arabic auto-translation

The auto-translate programs for Arabic often cannot distinguish between proper names and regular words, so people's names get translated - with interesting results.

This story about a young lawyer who fell off a balcony to his death is a good example:

The authors were "George overstuffed" and "Said infection", and the dead man is "lying Hossam."

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Proof of Ahmadinejad's role in 1979 hostage crisis?

Daniel Pipes just wrote an article about the long-discussed possibility that Iran's current president was directly involved in the 1979 Iranian attack on the US Embassy and subsequent hostage crisis.

Earlier pictures of someone resembling Ahmadinejad weren't conclusive.

He points to a picture from that time recently discovered by a Russian newspaper: (link to autotranslation)


The likelihood seems to be increasing that Iran's president is a terrorist himself.

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Hezbollah no longer exists, according to UNIFIL

Something very interesting can be discerned when looking at the many UNIFIL press releases since the war in the summer.

As soon as the war was over, they never mention Hezbollah.

There are a couple of oblique references to "the parties" in the weeks after the ceasefire, but the rest of the press releases talk about humanitarian aid, Israeli flyovers and withdrawals from various areas, clearing cluster munitions, helping the Lebanese economy, increased UN troop strength and many patrols to ensure no Israeli presence.

But not a single reference to the people who are taking Lebanon hostage and who shot thousands of rockets towards Israeli civilians. Not a single reference to observing Hezbollah movements, actions, statements, or weapons smuggling.

Meanwhile, Nasrallah brags that he has already more than replenished his rocket arsenal and Israeli intelligence confirms it. Under the noses of UNIFIL which doesn't even admit Hezbollah presence in Southern Lebanon.

Remember that part of UN resolution 1701 calls for UNIFIL to assist the Lebanese army in providing:

security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorised in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;

UNIFIL has miraculously declared Hezbollah to have disappeared and to be completely outside the scope of its activities in Lebanon, as it threatens to shoot down any Israeli aircraft trying to do UNIFIL's job in monitoring for weapons smuggling.

The extent of UNIFIL's complete forced ignorance of any Hezbollah activities at all in southern Lebanon is highlighted:

Fears also remain that despite Unifil's beefed-up presence, it will not be able to prevent renewed hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. On Friday, Maj Gen Alain Pellegrini, Unifil's French commander, warned that conflict in the south remained a possibility. He cited the worsening Israeli-Palestinian crisis, and political tension in Beirut, where a failure to find agreement between Lebanon's pro- and anti-Syrian factions threatens to end in street violence.

So in Pellegrini's mind, Israeli actions in Gaza and Lebanese political tension can contribute to hostilities - but Hezbollah openly shipping tons of weapons illegally under his watch is not something he knows or cares about, and clearly that doesn't make the situation worse at all.

The absence of any mention of Hezbollah since mid-August in UN press releases shows that UNIFIL never had any intention to stop smuggling or disarm Hezbollah, and that UN 1701 will never be implemented by the UN as it was drafted and intended. If they can wish away Hezbollah's existence then they don't have to deal with them.

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Arabs lifting blockade on PA? What blockade?

Over the weekend a number of stories circulated like this one:

(AP) Arab countries decided to lift the financial blockade on Palestinians on Sunday in response to a U.S. veto on a U.N. Security Council draft resolution condemning Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip.

"There will no longer be an international siege," Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheik Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said.

As usual, reporters act as mouthpieces and have no memories past last week.

The Arab League never accepted a blockade against the PA, in fact their members were in the forefront to give cash to the Hamas terrorists in power, in spite of the blockade, last April at the Arab Summit.

But the obedient press is happy to report without context and use stories like these to add pressure on Europeans and others to resume aid to the terrorist Hamas organization.

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More news from the terrortories

• A rich Palestinian Arab is donating a half a million dollars to rebuild the terror fortress that masqueraded as a mosque during Israel's reent incursion in Beit Hanoun. This religious center was where PalArabs shot at Israeli soldiers with impunity, knowing that Israel's response would be muted. It seems that while PalArabs are supposedly starving, the rebuilding of the military mosque takes priority over medicine and food.
• A six year old PalArab child from Khan Younis, Mahmoud Adel Mohammad Abu Taha, was shot and killed by a bullet to the head on Sunday from an "unknown source" (which means from some Arab.) If one looks online for news from Khan Younis over the weekend, though, the only story is a PalArab adult allegedly injured by Israeli gunfire. As usual, PalArab self-deaths are hushed up. This week's PA news was so heavily weighted between crying over Beith Hanoun and celebrating the anniversary of Arafat's death that no other story could get traction, so who knows how many self-deaths I missed.)
  
  Also, a 29-year old man from Ramallah was murdered but the circumstances aren't so clear.
  The self-death count is now at 156.
• That supposed "moderate" Mahmoud Abbas gave a lengthy speech extolling Yasir Arafat, including his terror attacks of the 1970s, and his disastrous attempted takeover of Lebanon in the 80s. He also obliquely blames Israel in referring to Arafat's death as being worthy of investigation. He reiterates that the PalArabs will not compromise on a single inch of land and Jerusalem as being their capital. The celebrated moderate also extensively quoted the Koran.
  

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