Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, February 11, 2008

Peaceful West Bank weekend

Forget the infighting in Gaza - the West Bank itself, which is regarded as under control of the "moderate" PA, is anything but peaceful.

From Ma'an:

A health clinic in the northern West Bank town of Huwwara has come under frequent attack recently, culminating on Saturday night when unidentified gunmen vandalized the interior of the building, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Sunday.

The Ministry said that the clinic has been fired upon several times, and its main electrical generator was stolen.

A Health Ministry statement said that the only losers in such attacks are the thousands of Palestinians served by the clinic. The Ministry said health servives should not be attacked in political or family conflicts.

What a peaceful place, where a health clinic is considered fair game!

Another story, ignored in the Palestinian Arab press, of a kidnapping last week of a female lawyer from Ramallah, the center of the "moderate PA:"

On Wednesday, 6 February, unknown assailants kidnapped the the lawyer Amani Taha Abu Arqoub (28) from the town of Durra southwest of Hebron. The kidnapping took place in Ramallah; and the lawyer’s fate is still unknown.

PCHR’s preliminary investigation and the statement’s of the victim’s family indicate that the lawyer Amani Abu Arqoub left her house on Wednesday morning and headed to the appeals court in El-Bireh for a case against the Palestinian Development Fund. At approximately 11:00, she called her colleague in the law firm, Suheil Ashour, and informed him that she won the case; and that she was on her way to the office of the Palestinian Development Fund in the Masyoun area in Ramallah to collect a check. At 13:37, three of the lawyer’s brothers and sisters received a telephone message from the kidnappers stating that “Amani will be away for 7 days. We will let you speak to her after that.”

The fact that this was not reported, or buried, in the Palestinian Arab press indicates that kidnappings such as these happen with some frequency. Which means that the hundred thousand strong PA "security forces" are a joke that the world continues to fund.

PalArabs try to have it both ways in Gaza

Dry Bones points out a link from the ZioNation blog which describes a funny exchange that occurred during a 2007 UN press conference:

Question: ...A year and half after the last Israeli withdrew from Gaza, the UN system still refers to Gaza as an Occupied Palestinian Territory. The only people who are not Palestinian in Gaza currently are UN people. Do you mean that Gaza is occupied by the UN?

Spokesperson: Definitely not.

Question: So who is it occupied by?

Spokesperson: Well…

Correspondent: I think there are some Israeli soldiers on the border…

Question: Not borders, who is Gaza occupied by?

Spokesperson: Traditionally, this is the terminology we have used. Yes?

Question: But the situation on the ground changed since Israel withdrew from Gaza.

Spokesperson: I will look into this.

Correspondent: Thank you.

Since that absurd press conference the UN continues to refer to Gaza as "occupied" but usually puts it in context of being a part of the "OPT" - "Occupied Palestinian Territories," lumping it with the West Bank.

This was made explicit by a statement made Friday on behalf of UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon:

Asked whether the Secretary-General would visit Gaza, the Spokeswoman said that there were no plans for such a visit at this point. Asked about the fuel cuts in Gaza, she noted that the Secretary-General had already expressed his opinions about the need to lift the restrictions on Gaza. The Secretary-General sees Gaza as part of a single Palestinian territory, she added.

This position is often reiterated by the PA, most recently by Saeb Erekat today. He lashed out at Tzipi Livni for saying "Gaza is today a problem for anyone who seeks peace, and therefore can never be part of a future Palestinian state." Erekat retorted that the "Palestinian state" would include Gaza, the West Bank and Jerusalem and that any attempts by Israel to separate the two is just a ploy to stop a Palestinian Arab state from being established.

If the PA wants to continue to consider Gaza as part of its territory than it is obvious that they must take responsibility for Gaza.

It is an indication of the puerility of the PA leadership that they cry about Israeli actions in Gaza while they do not take any responsibility for the territory themselves. They keep negotiating with Israel - with the approval of the world - pretending that cosmetic changes on the ground in Nablus are enough to show that they can control their people and territory.

They want to be treated as if Gaza doesn't exist but they insist that Gaza belongs to them.

Obviously, any negotiations, secret or not, while Gaza is an active terror base are a waste of time - or worse, they are an exercise in wishful thinking that will force Israeli concessions while the PalArabs get off scot-free.

It is time for the PA to be forced to make a choice: include Gaza and take responsibility, or abandon Gaza and try to negotiate a state in the West Bank. This game must end.

Adar 5

The only cow in a small town in Poland stopped giving milk. The people did some research and found that they could buy a cow from Moscow for 2,000 rubles, or one from Minsk for 1,000 rubles. Being frugal, they bought the cow from Minsk.

The cow was wonderful. It produced lots of milk all the time, and the people were amazed and very happy. They decided to acquire a bull to mate with the cow and produce more cows like it. Then they would never have to worry about the milk supply again.

They bought a bull and put it in the pasture with their beloved cow. However, whenever the bull came close to the cow, the cow would move away. No matter what approach the bull tried, the cow would move away from the bull and he could not succeed in his quest.

The people were very upset and decided to ask their wise rabbi, what to do. They told the rabbi what was happening. "Whenever the bull approaches our cow, she moves away. If he approaches from the back, she moves forward.

When he approaches her from the front, she backs off. An approach from the side and she just walks away to the other side."

The rabbi thought about this for a minute and asked, "Did you buy this cow from Minsk?"

The people were dumbfounded, since they had never mentioned where they had gotten the cow. "You are truly a wise rabbi," they said.

"How did you know we got the cow from Minsk?"

The rabbi answered sadly, "My wife is from Minsk."

Smart women alarm Iranian leadership

Yes, the mullahs are threatened by smart girls:

Who’s afraid of girls? The Iranian government, it seems. Recent years have seen a dramatic rise in the number of Iranian girls enrolling in universities and other institutions of higher education. While many governments would see this as a blessing worth boasting about, that's not the case in Iran.

In a report to the administration of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s Research Center of the Majles (parliament) recently called the trend of more girls going to universities "alarming" and urged the government to stop it.

The research center documented what it called a worrisome rise in the number of females to enroll in universities and other centers of higher education. The report said that over the last two decades there’s been a 23-percent increase in the number of girls taking university entrance exams, with the number of girls who passed the tests nearly doubling -- to 65 percent -- over the same period.

The influential research center -- which has decision-making powers in both parliament as well as in government agencies -- also warned that the rise in female students could eventually lead to "social disparity and economic and cultural imbalances between men and women."

In other words, wives might make more money than their husbands, which would throw the Islamic Republic into a tizzy.

The report says the rise in female students has created other concerns, such as "securing university dorms and maintaining their [girls] physical security in confronting possible social perils."

But, I thought that hijab and high male Islamic standards ensure that no man harasses women!

Another problem, according to the report, is economic, "such as the possibility that expenses will be underused for specialized skills, as well as a change in the gender of the workforce."

Outside of having to pony up money for women's restrooms, I have no idea what the concern is here.

The center's report also warns about a detrimental affect on families and urges officials to swiftly find a solution to the "disproportion between the number of men and women" in Iran’s universities.

Shahla Shafigh, an Iranian-born women’s rights activist in Paris, told Radio Farda that she believes the opposition to female students is ideological.

"With the door of opportunity closed to most young girls, with all the control their families and others exert over them, young women are mostly going after knowledge and science to gain freedom and human dignity," Shafigh said. "And this is a good thing to happen in a country."

Well, not if you consider women to be less than human.

But what steps the government might take in regards to the situation is unclear.

Last year, after reports that the government might limit female enrollment in entrance exams, women’s rights activists in Iran expressed concern. The government later denied that there had ever been any such plans.

But there are signs the government intends to act on the gender issue, including recent media reports suggesting there could be a change in textbooks based on "gender differentiation."

Last week Zohre Tabibzadeh Nouri, who runs the government's office of Women’s Participation, told reporters in Tehran that "gender discrimination" will be implemented in certain sectors of the workforce. She added that the government must help women attain the kind of education and expertise suitable for them.

Iran once again shows what a bastion of human rights it is.

Arabs and Jews meet in Hebron

YNet reports:

Heads of local Palestinian clans in Hebron met on Sunday with representatives from Israeli settlements in the area and discussed the easing of tensions between the two sides.

The settlers reported that sheikhs Abu Khader Jabri and Haj Abu Ahram Abu Sneina representing the city’s Arab Muslim population in the West Bank city met in Jabri's home with the Kiryat Arba Regional Council head Tzvi Katzover, former Knesset Member Elyakim Haetzni and other settler leaders.

The commander of the IDF's Hebron Brigade, Colonel Yehuda Fuchs, also took part in the meeting.

The Israelis said Sheikh Jabri told them during the meeting that "I do not regard you as settlers but as residents. This city is yours just as much as it is ours."

The Jewish participants described the meeting as cordial, adding that the sides agreed to strive to live in peace with one another.

According to the Israelis, shortly after the meeting began, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades issued a proclamation throughout the city that called for dealing with the meeting's participants "with an iron fist."

Haetzni said following the meeting that "the fabric of life throughout the entire country has been destroyed by the fake peace produced by the Oslo Accords, which only resulted in more hatred, the spilling of blood and destruction."

Some five months ago Jabri denied a request by left-wing activists to sign an order allowing them to destroy the Hazon David synagogue near the entrance to Kiryat Arba, which Jabri has claimed is built on land belonging to his clan.

Since then the settlers have been waiting for the opportunity to thank the sheikh for coming to their aid.

This story perfectly illustrates one of the the major themes of this blog: The average Palestinian Arab is much more practical and willing to live with Jews than their so-called "leaders" and the inciters in their press and organized gangs.

It also shows that the Jews of Hebron, unfailingly portrayed in the Western press as the most rabid and hateful of all the "settlers," are anything but. Rather than being die-hard haters striving to make Hebron Arab-free they are willing to work with local Arabs who show no desire to murder them.

In addition, it shows that left-wing Israelis - the ones that tout "peace" the loudest - are far more hateful than the Arabs they pretend to be defending, and their hatred for Jews living in biblical Israel outstrips their hatred for real terrorism.

Their actions, as well as the reaction of the Fatah-based Al Aqsa Brigades (which the PA claims nominal control over) show who really cares about a true and realistic peace and who works to prolong the conflict.

Decades of non-stop incitement have created a huge dent in the historic pragmatism of Palestinian Arabs, but it is heartening to know that it has not yet disappeared.

UPDATE: More details at Arutz 7.

The brains of Bahrain and their Arab friends

A delegation from Bahrain sneaked into Gaza and now can't get out:

A BAHRAINI aid delegation stranded in Gaza could be back in Bahrain today, as talks have been stepped up to get them out through the sealed border with Egypt.

But Egyptian and Palestinian envoys in Bahrain yesterday accused the four-man team of slipping into the territory without telling the embassies here or the proper authorities.

The delegation arrived in Gaza on January 31.

They have been trying to leave since last Tuesday, having missed a chance to get out when the Salaheddin border crossing was resealed by the Egyptian authorities on Feburary 3.

"We are pained to say that we were not consulted by the delegation when they left," said Egyptian Ambassador Dr Azmy Khalifa.

"We should have been taken into their confidence."

He said the delegation crossed the border from Salaheddin "in an unauthorised manner" and "without permission".

Palestinian Ambassador Ahmed Ramadhan accused the Bahraini delegation of making political mileage out of the situation.

He said the first time he knew about the aid mission was from the local papers.

"I am surprised that they went with aid for our people without even letting the embassy know," said Mr Ramadhan.

He said the delegation "violated the border" and was now suffering the consequences.

"When people in Gaza, including the delegation, were given 48 hours to leave, they did not and now they say they are stranded," said Mr Ramadhan.

"Of course, we are trying to get them to Bahrain, but this situation should not have happened at all."
...

Mr Al Fadallah said some intermediaries had made the delegation an offer to leave Gaza through Israel.

"We have turned down that offer. We have nothing to do with the Zionist enemy," he said.

The delegation had earlier refused offers to be smuggled out of the troubled Palestinian territory.

We see that the Bahrainis could have left through Israel but they refused.

So who exactly is keeping them stranded in Gaza? Could it be their Arab brethren?

(belated h/t to jusa for pointing out an earlier version of this news)

Arafat's picture hangs at the Oxford Union

No joke:

The 185-year-old society, a jewel in Oxford University's crown, is a bastion of free speech where the elite of Britain and many other countries have cut their debating teeth. The framed photos in the entryway honor luminaries from Queen Elizabeth II and Sir Winston Churchill to Robert Kennedy and Yasser Arafat who have addressed the Oxford Union.

This makes it a bit easier to understand the sham "debate" that occurred there last month.

Olmert to Sderot: Stop whining

From YNet:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert addressed the situation in Sderot at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting Sunday, saying that "there is no doubt that we all share the pain and the anger is understandable and natural, but the anger is not an action plan."

Perhaps it is time to remind everyone of my Olmert Qassam statement history, last published in September:
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In late November 2006, Olmert said "we are a little disappointed" that Qassam attacks continued even during a "cease fire" that Israel held to unilaterally.

The Qassams continued.

In December 2006, Olmert wrote a letter to the UN, saying "this restraint cannot continue for much longer."

The Qassams continued.

In February 2007, Olmert said, "We are not going to restrain ourselves forever. The continued attacks challenge Israel's patience. In the end, if the attacks continue, we will respond."

The Qassams continued.

In April, Olmert said "[Israel] cannot continue to ignore the Qassam lunching [sic] and infiltration attempts of terrorist cells."

The Qassams continued.

Finally, in May, Israel gave up on the fictional "cease fire" and started targeting Qassam launchers.

Even so, the Qassams continued.

Month after month after month. Every single rocket causing celebrations and congratulatory articles in Palestinian Arab newspapers and websites.

Now, the Sderot schools are open and the number of Qassams is increasing.

And what does Olmert say in September?

"We will not come to terms with it and we will not let it go by."

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So Olmert has had plenty of time to devise a plan and the best he can do it reducing Gaza's electricity by 5%? And then he has the chutzpah to ask the victims of the daily attacks to not protest but to provide him with an "action plan" - isn't that his job?

Rather than reducing Qassams, they have increased greatly over the past couple of months.

Forget Winograd. The inability of Olmert to do anything to defend Israel against Qassams is enough reason on its own to demand his resignation.

Followup on the Beatles and Israel

Judeopundit noticed a hilarious article in the Ramattan "news" agency where "Over 40 Human Rights organizations from around the world called on the 'Beatles' to boycott Israeli 60th anniversary."

One can only imagine what the names of these "human rights" organizations are, how they spend their time and money, and whether they are writing to, say, the surviving members of The Dave Clark Five.

Followup on AP's discovery of Hamas war crimes

Soccer Dad noticed that the Washington Post managed to report on the Israeli airstrike on rocket launchers hidden in a school without mentioning that the rocket launchers were hidden in the school.

Being the astute and responsible blogger he is, he wrote to the Washington Post ombudsman to ask about what must certainly have been an oversight on the part of the esteemed newspaper that also happens to publish unfiltered Hamas propaganda on occasion.

Followup on Irish woman in Gaza

In the latest on the Irish woman who was stuck in Gaza, the BBC writes:

Treasa Ni Cheannabhain, her daughter and an Egyptian niece were allowed back into Egypt on Thursday.

However, Ms Ni Cheannabhain was immediately taken in for questioning.

On Saturday, she said she was given a choice by the Egyptian authorities - to come before a military court, or to return to Gaza indefinitely.

I guess this woman who spends her life preaching her solidarity with poor Palestinian Arabs has decided that Egyptian military court provides better odds for a good life than her Hamas buddies.

Adar 4

Egypt is starting to control the crowds of Palestinians pouring in from Gaza.

Everyone is being put into a line, given a special plastic bracelet, and there is a limit of three bombs per person.

-Jake Novak