Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, March 25, 2007

HH CXI

Haveil Havalim #111 is now up at Dafnotes.

It is a low-key but quite comprehensive roundup of the JBlogosphere for this week. (My post on the Hadassah Hospital attacks of 1948 is listed.)

Check it out!

Your tax dollars at work

AP has some somewhat homoerotic pictures of Fatah's Force 17 terrorists training:

Masked members of the Palestinian Force 17, an elite secuity unit linked to President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement train in the Bureij refugee camp in the Gaza Strip Saturday, March 24, 2007.

It is not unusual to see wire service photos of masked Fatah terrorists.

What makes this noteworthy is which group this is: Force 17, otherwise known as the Presidential Guard.

These are the people that the United States has been training to strengthen Mahmoud Abbas.

Never mind that Force 17 has a long history of terror attacks.

What does it say when the most respected, "elite" members of the Palestinian Arab security forces - the ones that the US pins hopes on - are too afraid to show their faces?

Two Palestinian Arabs riddled with bullets. Ain't unity great?

Just another peaceful weekend in the unoccupied Gaza Strip:

Palestinian medical sources stated that the corpses of two Palestinians were found on Friday evening.

The sources added that the corpses are a Palestinian teacher and a preventive security officer.

The teacher was found in the area of Salateen street in the north of the Gaza Strip, the officer was found in Al Mughraqa in the central Gaza Strip.

Sources from Ash Shifa hospital said that the teacher, 40 year old Mohammad Aishan from Sheikh Radwan, Gaza City, arrived at the hospital dead, his body riddled with bullets.

The body of the preventive security officer, Arafa Nofal, who was abducted by masked gunmen in Gaza on Friday, was found dead just hours after his abduction. Medical sources said that Nofal was found with more than 30 bullets in his body.

Fatah is blaming Hamas and vowing revenge.

Also, a teacher apparently committed suicide. but I don't count that in my Palarab self-death count, which is now at 151 for this year.

UPDATE: A 24-year old man was shot and injured in Khan Younis. When the ambulance came to pick him up and his brothers climbed in, "gunmen" shot at the ambulance too, injuring 3 brothers.

This will certainly be on top of HRW and AI's agenda next week. Right after they finish condemning Israel for a Zionist dog biting an Arab woman in Hebron.

Neturei Karta nut wants to be a minister in PalArab unity gov't

Ma'an (Arabic) published an interview with Israel Hirsch, the anti-Zionist self-styled "rabbi" from Neturei Karta who is the son of the equally deranged Moshe Hirsch.

It includes the usual drivel but here are some gems from the Jew that the terrorists love to pretend to love:

Q : You have representation in the Legislative Council?
A: We are working on that we have representation in the government of National Unity.

Q: Do you prefer Fatah or Hamas?
A: We are not a political movement nor interfere in the policy of the State again, we Jews want to live, submit to the Palestinian state because the Palestinians of the right does not matter if Hamas or Fatah.

Q : Even if the government composed of an Islamic regime?

A: We prefer the Islamic regime of the Zionist regime.

Q : To what extent is your relations with Mahmoud Abbas?
A: Abu Mazen is subject to the American administration and Zionist, so it is bound to affect people's admiration for the "remains" to remain abroad and maintain informal relations and not public because this could harm him in the international arena, and we contacted as well as with Hamas and we are working on that we have a representative in the government.

Q : What do you think members of the Knesset Arabs?
A: Itattakdon Arab Knesset members, such as "Haredim," that they could fight for their rights through their presence in the Knesset and this is not true and therefore they recognize the Zionist Perkins says every time the Zionists occupy the ground and you sit down with them and recognize them.

Q : What is your opinion in Islamic thought by the Islamic world?
A : We prefer the control of the the Islamic movement to the world at this moment...

So NK is to the left, politically, of Arab Knesset members as well as Abbas.

There are some lessons that Zionists can learn from how NK is treated in the Arab world. Whether we like it or not, they look at NK the same way many Zionists look at "Secular Islam" or other progressive Islamic groups. Both groups get loads of publicity, both groups benefit from immeasurable wishful thinking on "the other side," and both groups represent essentially nobody.

Westerners would love to see progressive Muslims gain political power, but we need to understand that mainstream Muslims loathe these people as much as we hate NK.

From Al-Qassam's English website:

When asked about that the what you expect this resistance to comprise from the new government , Abu Obaida, the spokesman of the Qassam Brigades answered that We don’t' expect the government to take any security action against resistance factions as with the case in previous governments but the government will not be involved directly in the resistance that is for the resistance factions to conduct .

Our task is to resist the occupation and reply to its crimes through out the Gaza Strip and the West Bank We don't expect the government to help us directly but we don't expect the government also to coordinate with occupation forces against resistance activists.

Abu Obaida added that " I would expect that Palestinians as a whole are in support of resistance and trying to grow the wide between government and resistance factions is not something accurate."

Regarding any action from the Qassam Brigades against the occupation forces , the Brigades will not stop its military operations as the occupation forces did not stop their aggression against the Palestinian people.

It appears that the new "unity government" will be acting as the silent partners for the terrorists.

Let's give them more money!

Marwan Barghouti being released? (update - no)

At this moment, Maan News (Arabic) has a "breaking news" story:

Occupation released Qassam Marwan Barghouti after 39 months and oblige him to house arrest

I don't see this reported anywhere else yet.

This may mean that a deal for Gilad Shalit is imminent.

Barghouti was of course convicted of five counts of murder in Israeli court.

UPDATE: It was his son, Qassam. I assumed that was a translation error.

Baby killers? Nah, just Palestinian Arabs. They don't count.

A two-year old was killed in Hamas and Fatah crossfire today. I wonder if it was this kid whose picture I posted earlier?

A child holding a gun stands next to Palestinian militants of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a group linked to the Fatah movement, standing guard outside the house of their leader Sameh Al Madhoun in Beit Lahiya northern Gaza Strip, Thursday, March 22, 2007. One of the group's militants was killed nearby on Wednesday during clashes between Fatah and Hamas militants.

And another dead PalArab was found as well, which raises Thursday's PalArab self-death toll to 4, and puts the 2007 count total at....147.

And for the 15th week in a row, more PalArabs died by their own hands than by Israel, by a score of about 6-2 (PCHR counts a week as being from Thursday to Wednesday.)

If you think I am being disrespectful by keeping such a macabre count, I must be just as moral as AP and Reuters who spent the first few years of the Intifada keeping painstaking track of every single Palestinian Arab killed - but only by Israel.

Because, evidently, the PalArabs that are killed by other PalArabs just aren't very important.

Only 200 or so have been killed since the last Human Rights Watch report condemning PalArab infighting for endangering civilians - back in October, 2006. (The last report condemning Israel was last week.)

UPDATE: Another Fatah fatality. 149.

PalArab fun and games

No matter what part of the world you look at, people are all the same. They just want to kick back and have fun, like anyone else. It would be highly insensitive to demean others just because their cultural mores are somewhat different.

Cops and robbers is fun no matter which part of the world you live in. In Gaza, it's known as "Cops and Cops." Here is one participant and his adult pals, who are nice enough to use real guns to add authenticity. (And in the background are some kids playing "Capture the Flag.")

It gets hot in the desert, and nothing says "refreshment" like some ice cream.

Even better is when you can eat it in front of a guy wearing a ski mask with a submachine gun.

Different cultures have different playgrounds. In Hamastan, the friendly local police like to shoot RPGs into trucks of rival militias to cheaply create a paradise of fun for the kiddies. These kids are learning to share an axe so they can learn demolition - a highly useful skill.

Kids aren't the only ones who have fun in Palestan, though. The adults like to play a game called "tire fire":

Dance is an important part of PalArab culture. This is the traditional "Rocket Rockettes" dance.

But Western culture seeps in as well. Here is the Palestinian Arab production of Saturday Night Fever:

This is the side of Palestinian Arabs that the world doesn't see enough of, and we need to make sure that everyone understands that PalArabs just want to have fun.

Poor, misunderstood Hamas

Hamas TV plays this lovely video, of a girl singing to her dead terrorist mother and vowing to follow in her footsteps.

Background:
Reem Riyashi blew herself up at a Gaza checkpoint in January, 2004. She told the Israeli guards that she had a medical problem so they let her in to check her privately. Her explosion killed four Israelis.

She was the first Hamas female suicide bomber and she had two children, 3 years and 18 months old. Many think that she had an affair and this was a form of honor killing.

Because of her actions, Israel started cracking down on PalArab women as well as men at checkpoints, and much of what people see as Palestinian Arab suffering today is a direct result of her actions.

But Hamas is already indoctrinating her daughter and other PalArab girls to follow in her footsteps.
(H/T Palestinian Media Watch and LGF.)

A great anniversary

For some reason, when PalArab terrorists are not as successful as they like to be at killing Jews, the world tends to ascribe peaceful motives to them. There is a good reason for this: to say that Israeli defensive actions are saving Israeli lives would justify them, and no one wants Israel to have any justification for any defensive moves.

In fact, every single Israeli action designed to save Israeli lives is roundly criticized: building a fence, pro-actively targeting terrorists, disrupting terror infrastructures, stopping tax payments to terrorists - all have come under withering condemnation.

Which brings us to today.

Today is the third anniversary of Israel's wiping out Hamas uber-terrorist, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.

Only a week before, there was a suicide bombing at an Ashdod chemical plant that killed 10 and that was intended to blow up the plant and kill untold hundreds of Israelis. Yassin taunted Israel at the time, saying that their reaction to that attack was weak and that Hamas was gaining strength.

Those who complain about Israeli actions always say that Israel is acting in ways that cannot be justified. Here are some of the reactions to Yassin's assassination:

The killing provoked widespread condemnation from the international community. Kofi Annan, UN General secretary, strongly condemned the killing and also called on Israel to halt its policy of assassination. The UN Commission on Human Rights passed a resolution condemning the killing supported by votes from 31 countries including the People's Republic of China, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa with 2 votes against and 18 abstentions. The Arab League council also expressed condemnation, as did the African Union.

Jack Straw, the British Foreign Secretary, said: "All of us understand Israel's need to protect itself - and it is fully entitled to do that - against the terrorism which affects it, within international law. But it is not entitled to go in for this kind of unlawful killing and we condemn it. It is unacceptable, it is unjustified and it is very unlikely to achieve its objectives."

The White House equivocally condemned the action. Scott McClellan, the White House Press Secretary, said, "We are deeply troubled by this morning's incident," but he added, "Israel had the right to defend itself" and stressed that Yassin had been "personally involved in terrorism".

A State Department spokesman said: "This does not help efforts to resume progress towards peace."

Well, here's your justification:

In the three years prior to Yassin's death, approximately 800 Israelis were killed in terror actions. In the three years since, that number has plummeted to about 110.

The way to eliminate terror is to go after it. Israel's assassination of Yassin was part of a series of actions that reduced the threat to Israelis and caused the terrorists to spend more time hiding and less time attacking. In hindsight, it is clear that the condemnations of Israel were wrong and that, then and now, Israel's actions to defend her citizens are not only justified, but obligatory.

Hebron is the microcosm of Israel itself

In many ways, Hebron is to Palestine as Israel is to the Middle East.

A tiny group of Jews moves into an area that is holy for Jews worldwide. Their historic claim to the area is impeccable. Their legal claim to the area is as solid as anybody's claim to any land worldwide can be.

Yet their very existence there is deemed illegal by a large portion of the world as well as essentially every Arab. Any activity that they do is scrutinized and spun as evil. Tiny incidents become worldwide headlines. And the amount of disinformation and lies about what exactly is happening there surpasses the truth by orders of magnitude.

The major difference is that Hebron's Jews are treated by most secular Israelis the way that Israeli Jews are treated by the world.

Here is an article, published in Ha'aretz of all places, that sheds a little light on what the situation is in Hebron:

How easy it is to hate them
By Nadav Shragai

For the State of Tel Aviv, Hebron is an Arab city where a few hundred Jews are living temporarily until a "final status agreement" is signed. For broad segments of the religious and ultra-Orthodox communities, Hebron is the City of the Patriarchs, where David established his kingdom even before the conquest of Jerusalem, a city in which Jewish settlement has existed since "then" and will continue to exist "forever."

Hebron is also a reflection of the line that divides Israeli society between secular Zionism, for which the land is first and foremost a national home and a country of refuge, and religious, faith-based Zionism, for which the land is the land of the Bible, the Promised Land and the land of our forefathers.

The Hebron of the Israeli media is also a land of black and white. How easy it is to hate the settlers, to portray them as absolute evil, as occupiers, as dispossessors and violent invaders. After hundreds of Palestinian suicide bombers, the Jewish community in Kiryat Arba grew its own first Jewish suicide terrorist: Baruch Goldstein. Then came "petty incidents" such as the "slut" curse, the comparison between leftist activists and neo-Nazis, or overturned stands in the market and even attacks on Arabs following Arab terrorist incidents. Add to that the fact that even externally the Jews of Hebron try hard not to look like the Israelis from Tel Aviv, and you have a recipe for total rejection of the Jewish settlement in Hebron by the enlightened Israeli.

But the reality is far more complex, and for the most part just the opposite. Here are several facts that have not received wide coverage: The city of Hebron is about 18 square kilometers. Fifteen square kilometers were handed over to the Palestinian Authority in the Hebron agreement. This area is closed to Jews, although the agreement guaranteed Jews freedom of movement in the city. In most of the remaining area, which is ostensibly "Jewish" (H2), a Jewish presence was also forbidden, but most of it is open to Arab movement and presence. The Jews are today limited to 0.6 square kilometers, or 3 percent of Hebron, where thousands of Arabs continue to live. The PA operates various institutions in this area, with the declared purpose of "suffocating" the Jewish settlement.

As a result of the "Oslo War," which erupted in September 2000, and a series of attacks in which dozens of Jews were killed and wounded, the defense establishment limited Arab vehicular traffic in the "Jewish district." The area in which Arab traffic is completely banned, the area that has stirred the left's outcry, is limited to several hundred meters only.

While many of the Arabs of Hebron enjoy the natural and basic right to purchase and own real estate, this right has been almost totally denied to the Jewish population. The houses, the stores and the land left behind by the Jews of Hebron, who were expelled from the city after the 1929 riot, were confiscated after the Jordanian conquest in 1948 and were never returned. The Israeli government has become reconciled to this injustice. The Jews are generally denied the natural right to purchase homes and to enjoy the right of purchase. Palestinian law decrees a death sentence for an Arab who sells his house to a Jew, and the State of Israel has reconciled itself to these racist laws as well. In the course of about 20 years, building permits in the tiny Jewish district have been given to only three houses, so that those suffering from urban suffocation are not the Arabs, who are building high rises in the west of the city, but the Jews.

An Arab who harasses a Jew in Hebron - incidents documented in a detailed report - is not only a story that will not be broadcast, it will usually not be dealt with either. On the other hand, a Jew who throws stones and curses back is always a good story. But those Jews in Hebron, all of them - always all of them - disgust many Israelis, and therefore the context is unimportant. It makes no difference who started. The Jews of Hebron will always get the blame.

My own tiny video contribution to showing the truth about Hebron that I posted last month can be seen here:

Fatah fatality in day five of "unity" - updated

Fatah and Hamas resumed their natural tendencies after a few days of unnatural "unity."

In a firefight in Beit Lahiya, a Fatah member was blown up by an RPG (Fatah claims Hamas fired it, Hamas claimed it was his own grenade). Eight more were injured in the fighting. (Update: Injuries up to 14.)

The death broke a 48-hour streak in which there were no PalArab fatal work accidents or internal killings. As of now, the 2007 count of such deaths is at 143. But only three have died since the unity government took effect, so there is plenty for the EU and US to overlook as they talk to the Hamas-oriented PA leaders.

UPDATE: A 20-year old PalArab was found strangled with an electrical cord, beaten and shot: 144. Also, a UN vehicle was carjacked - but PalArab violence towards the UN is "very rare."

UPDATE 2: Arabic Ma'an reports on a new fatality in Fatah/Hamas Unity Violence (always characterized as "unfortunate.") 145.