Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Moving the red lines

Binyomin Netanyahu has, apparently accidentally, stumbled upon one of the best political weapons Israel has. And even he doesn't realize it.

When he took office, the Western press started obsessing over his non-use of the words "two state solution." The world made the assumption - despite "Ultra-Rightist Avigdor Lieberman's"' acceptance of the Roadmap - that Netanyahu was a super-hawk whose proposals for peace were smokescreens for his real desire to annex the entire Arab world and perform a genocide on all Palestinian Arabs. The pressure started to build and Netanyahu, like all recent Israeli leaders, buckled a few days ago when he tacitly seemed to accept "linkage" despite explicitly renouncing it:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is willing to tear down settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank in return for US backing on its stance on arch-foe Iran, local media reported on Tuesday.
Netanyahu told his right-wing Likud faction on Monday that Israel would have to dismantle what it considers illegal outposts, as demanded by Washington, since the issue of Iran was more important, newspaper reports said.
"I identify the danger and that's why I am willing to take unpopular steps such as evacuating outposts. The Iranian threat is above everything," the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot quoted Netanyahu as saying.
"There are things on which you have to compromise."

Despite the seeming waves of pressure on Israel in reaction to Bibi's "intransigence," however, there has been an undertow in the opposite direction from his perceived lack of support for a two-state solution.

His reticence to say the magic words "Palestinian state" are causing people to openly wonder whether a such a state is desirable or feasible.

Canada's National Post has always been on the right wing in the Middle East conflict, but the following article (republished in the Vancouver Sun) would have been inconceivable a few months ago:

The two-state solution illusion

...A two-state solution sounds pleasant to Western ears. It seems the proper thing for Canadian politicians to say. Certainly the media would pillory Harper and Ignatieff were they to refuse to play along. But were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to endorse the plan tomorrow—as Barack Obama wants as precondition to helping Israel resist Iranian nuclear agression—it would be utterly meaningless. “There is no partner on the Palestinian side,” [Jerusalem Post reporter Khaled] Toameh says. Israel's West Bank settlements are no obstacle, he adds; they are a red herring: a minor issue that Jerusalem will easily handle—based on its readiness to dismantle its settlements in the past—when the moment is right. That time is not now, and is not coming soon. Because, in today's environment, whatever proposed peace agreement is backed by Abbas would only be instantly rejected by Hamas, and any deal with Hamas—were any possible—reflexively rejected by Fatah. And neither group has much validity in citizens' eyes, he reports. In fact, Toameh mischievously suggests Netanyahu might be clever to try what Obama wants and publicly back a two-state plan immediately, if only to put the Palestinians and international peace-plan backers “in a corner” by revealing to all how truly impossible implementing anything of the sort would be under the current circumstances.

The international community’s error, says Toameh, is that it seems to think statehood is something to be handed to Palestinians, like a gift. It is, he believes, an undeserved one. “I believe a state is not something we should be given, it is something we should earn,” says the West Bank-born journalist. Far from demonstrating a capability to create a functioning, responsible civil society, he says, Palestinians have only proven their willingness to tolerate chaos, mob-rule and terror. They watched as, instead of building hospitals and schools and infrastructure with the billions sent to Ramallah and Gaza, Arafat lined his own pockets, Fatah fattened its cronies, and Hamas purchased weapons. On the one hand, Palestinians have fallen again and again for rotten leadership, which in turn, do their best to suppress the emergence of more responsible alternatives. On the other, Toameh seems to suggest that the Palestinians are getting the government they deserve. “Everything is going in the wrong direction, largely because of the failure of Palestinians to hold [their] government accountable,” he says.

Bibi has moved the very parameters of the debate, and that points to incredible political power.

The Arab/Israeli conflict is, ultimately, binary. There might be 22 Arab nations, 57 Islamic nations and an entire building of diplomats in New York's East Side who love to dump on Israel, but in the end Israel does not have to go along with anything that compromises its own red lines. Unfortunately, those lines have become fuzzy, to put it mildly, and each time Israel's leaders retreat from one of them the vacuum is instantly filled with more pressure to bring the lines in ever closer.

What Bibi has inadvertently proven is that the opposite is still true. If Israel's leaders stake out an uncompromising position that pushes the lines outward, even at this late date, there will be a perceptible shift in the world's reaction, even amongst the predictable criticism.

While previous Israeli governments have effectively ceded parts of Jerusalem, Bibi is at least publicly moving that line back outward. If he doesn't yield, the net effect would be to change the very discourse from "how much of Jerusalem should Israel give away" to "should Israel give any away." Similarly, his public statements on natural growth in the settlements would also change the very terms of the debate from "Israel should return all of the West Bank" to "How much should Israel return?"

When all is said and done, the resolution to the problem is not to be found in legal or historic or religious arguments - it will be the result of negotiations. Netanyahu has the potential to strengthen Israel's negotiating position immensely, if he chooses to, by simply being strong in his convictions.

As one of the sides in this lopsided conflict against her, Israel holds some impressive cards that cost little to show. And if Israel is to learn anything from its Palestinian Arab neighbors, it is that the consequences of saying "no" often end up being rewards.

CAMERA picks up on EoZ PCHR research

From CAMERA's blog:

Elder of Ziyon blog's investigation of a list of Palestinian dead during the Israeli military operation in December and January reveals that hundreds who were reported to be civilians were in fact militants. The list of 1417 Palestinian victims was published in March by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), a Gaza-based organization. By cross-checking the names on the list with other Palestinian sources, including Hamas-affiliated web sites, Elder of Ziyon was able to compile the names of 286 militants who PCHR misidentified as civilians.
Media coverage of the Israeli operation in Gaza prominently featured the accusation that Israeli forces engaged in indiscriminate and excessive violence, in some cases intentionally targeting civilians. PCHR's reports of civilian fatalities were frequently cited to substantiate this accusation. As CAMERA pointed out as early as January 21, scrutiny of PCHR's own data cast serious doubts about its accuracy. The CAMERA analysis pointed out over 20 cases of mislabeling militants as civilians and noted that 75 percent of the fatalities were young males of combat age.

The recent analysis by Elder of Ziyon delves further into PCHR's data and debunks PCHR's assertion that most members of Hamas internal security forces (policemen) were civilians. It also reveals that a number of children (aged 17 or under) were Hamas combatants - a point initially suggested in the CAMERA analysis.

While these revelations come too late to impact coverage of the fighting, it can only be hoped that responsible journalists will be less inclined to accept without scrutiny the casualty statistics and claims made by PCHR and other groups that most of the casualties caused by Israeli military action are civilians.

The research has slowed down but it is not finished yet.

New PA minister urges boycott of Israeli goods

From Ma'an:

Newly-appointed Palestinian Minister of Social Affairs Majida Al-Masri has ordered a ministry-wide boycott of Israeli products as her first decision in her new role.

The decision says Palestinian products must have the priority, but if a certain product is unavailable, priority goes to Arab countries, then foreign equivalent. Israeli products are to be boycotted altogether.

I hope she expands her plan to the entire PA.

I don't have recent statistics but in 2000, over 92% of the PA exports went to Israel, and 73% of Palestinian Arab imports came from Israel.

If we implement her plan, what little economy the PA has would disappear altogether.

But as their citizens go through garbage to get scraps of food, at least they'll have their honor!

Thoughts on Cardozo

There are a number of articles today asking whether Benjamin Cardozo would be properly considered the first Hispanic US Supreme Court Justice.

His ancestors likely came from Portugal, although his family lived in the US for generations. And some people question whether Portuguese people are properly considered Hispanic, with some contradictory evidence whether the US legally considers them as such.

I think that there is a subconscious reason why people did not historically consider Cardozo to be Hispanic or even Portuguese: because he was Jewish. And throughout history, with rare exceptions, Jews were not popularly considered to be full members of their adopted countries.

Some of the reason is from the Jews themselves, especially the more religious ones, who would tend to be more insular and separate. But much of the reason is simply because the Jews were never accepted as equal members of most of the societies they became a part of, even after hundreds of years.

The bottom line is that, throughout history, both Jews and non-Jews considered the Jewish people to be a nation of their own. Cardozo was first and foremost a (Sephardic) Jew, by his self-definition as well as by others, and this definition of Jew had little to do with religion and a lot to do with ancestry.

Which goes to show that, not too long ago, pretty much everyone agreed that the Jews were part of their own nation. It is interesting that only recently have people, for political purposes, started to question that fact.

PalArab news roundup 5/27/09

Work accident - A Hamas member was killed on a special "jihad mission" in the the northern Gaza Strip, and apparently he managed to kill someone else along with him. Interestingly, he seems to have been killed in a tunnel that is nowhere near Egypt, meaning that it is likely that Hamas is working on more tunnels to Israel to stage terror attacks.

Tunnel collapse - Another Gaza man was killed, and another injured, when a smuggling tunnel collapsed on them in Rafah.

Hamas, Fatah tensions escalate - For the past couple of weeks, the numbers of tit-for-tat arrests of Hamas members in the West Bank and Fatah members in Gaza have accelerated.

Love doesn't conquer all - An Israeli court is hearing an appeal of a gay Palestinian Arab man to become a permanent resident of Israel, as he has an Israeli lover and believes that his life is in danger under PA control.

Syrian snakes strike back - A Syrian girl was bitten four times by a viper in a single week. Perhaps the snakes are organizing their own resistance movement against Syrian girls for the Snake Nakba.

The 2009 PalArab self death count is now at 85.

Notable links

Nakba Day letter - the story of how a Jewish family was massacred in 1929 a day after the sheikh of a neighboring town promised their safety.

Solomonia on the Jewish Nakba.

Yaakov Lozowick on a small irony of "linkage."

Arabs worry about eating donkeys and pigs

Although I cannot find the source now, Gazans earlier this month feared that the meat being served in restaurants was actually donkey meat.

And now, Egyptians are worried that the hundreds of thousands of pigs slaughtered in Egypt because of swine flu fears have made their way into Egyptian markets as well.

Both pig and donkey are not allowed to be eaten by Muslims.

So, the Arab media has been publishing handy guides on how to tell the difference between pork and beef.

In other Islamic news, some $80,000 that had been donated by Yemen to Gazans via the "Islamic Society" charity has disappeared.

Egyptian police bribed by Gaza smugglers

From Ma'an:

Four Egyptian police officers stationed in the northern Sinai were arrested on suspicion of receiving bribes from Gazan smugglers, an Egyptian security source said on Tuesday. According to the source, the four officers are first lieutenants, and they were taken to north Sinai security department in Al-Arish city for questioning.

The four, according to the source, received a sum exceeding 100,000 Egyptian pounds ($17,800) each. The source highlighted that Egyptian Minister of Interior Habib Al-Aadily ordered suspending the four officers and withdrawing their weapons.

The bribes are nothing new.

This helps explain why Egypt regularly finds caches of weapons and explosives hidden in the Sinai but never seems to find them en route to Gaza from Rafah. The Rafah police are part of the problem.

Why did this Gaza baby die?

Ma'an reports:

The number of Palestinians to die as a result of the Israeli and Egyptian siege of Gaza reached 337 when an infant succumbed to illness on Monday.

The child, 12-month-old Muhammad Rami Ibrahim Nofal, was not issued a permit for medical treatment abroad, despite his serious heart condition. He died at a Khan Younis hospital while doctors waited for the permit that never came.

In a statement, the de facto Health Ministry said it had appealed to Egyptian authorities to open the Rafah border crossing for the movement of patients seeking treatment abroad.

Here's one of the stories where you have to read between the lines. Notice that nowhere in the story does it say that Israeli authorities were even contacted to treat the boy, and that Hamas only asked Egypt for help.

Some more details on the situation from IPS:

A Referral Abroad Department (RAD), comprising Gaza-based PA officials who
liaise with the West Bank's Ramallah government, was established by Hamas officials to coordinate the transfer of patients out of Gaza.
However, on Mar. 22, Hamas dismissed RAD's PA officials and replaced them with its own employees. The dismissal was based on Hamas accusations of nepotism and political favouritism by the PA in the issuance of the exit permits. Hamas also refused to cover the travel expenses of patients as the PA had previously done.
The Egyptian authorities, under pressure from Ramallah, then refused to allow those Gazan patients with Hamas documentation to cross over into Egypt.
Following the intervention of human rights organisations and Egyptian civil
rights groups, a compromise was reached Apr. 26 allowing a number of patients to
once again leave Gaza. The compromise involved Hamas reinstating the PA
officials, and the PA agreeing to establish a non-partisan medical committee to
approve the referrals abroad. Hamas has expressed reservations about the new
committee. Some patients who managed to cross the border with Hamas
documentation were, however, turned away at Egyptian hospitals because the
hospitals demanded PA references.

Since March, Hamas has been playing games with Gazans' lives, severely limiting the number of patients who go to Israel (the number plumetted from 325 in March to 90 in April.) Similarly, the PA has been telling Egypt not to accept patients with Hamas paperwork, causing more deaths.

Here is a clear case of people dying because of Palestinian Arab actions, that the world believes is because of the Israeli "siege."

An Arab serial killer is caught in Israel

From Ha'aretz:

Police revealed on Tuesday that the Israeli-American teen Dana Bennett was murdered by a serial killer.

Adwan Yahiya Farhan, 34, of the northern Arab village Wadi Hamam, has confessed to Bennett's killing, as well as three others.

The first murder attributed to Farhan took place in 1995. He allegedly murdered an acquaintance near the Jordan estuary, possibly following a homosexual relationship with him.

Farhan also confessed to having murdered his cellmate while being under arrest at Valleys Police, also in 1995. Up until now, police believed the victim committed suicide in his cell.

Farhan was imprisoned for the first time in 1999 and served four years after being convicted of sexual offenses.

His sentence commuted, he was released in 2002. In July 2003, he brutally murdered a 20-year-old Czech tourist in the northern Tzalmon River. Less than a month later, he kidnapped and murdered Dana Bennet.

In January 2004 he was sentenced for 20 months on charges of illegal possession of arms.

In September 2005, a month after his release, he was jailed again for three and a half years after being convicted of armed robbery and fraud.

In December 2008, while in prison, he was charged of rape.

YNet adds that he apparently tried to kill his sister and that he had no motive for the killings.

A terror group, the "Freedom for Galilee Brigades," had claimed responsibility for Bennet's kidnapping (calling the waitress a "soldier") and pretended that they were holding her. They have a history of claiming terror attacks that never occurred.

Report: Mubarak's grandson was treated in Israel

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak lost his grandson last week, forcing him to cancel a trip to Washington.

The official reports said that Mohammed Mubarak was treated at a hospital in Paris, but Arab sources are now reporting that the boy was in fact treated at a hospital in Petah Tikva, and that Egypt tried to cover up that fact.

Arab eyewitnesses at the hospital reported increased security around one patient, as well as Egyptian security forces. They assumed it was a prominent patient from Egypt but put the pieces together after hearing about Mubarak's loss.

The report says that the body was transferred to Paris and then back to Egypt, and that Israel cooperated fully in secrecy in order to avoid embarrassing President Mubarak.

A spokesperson for Schneider Hospital in Petah Tikva denied the report.

Heat Wave - by The Who?

This morning I heard an awful cover of the classic Motown hit, "Heat Wave," by Martha and the Vandellas. I have no idea who made that travesty, but as I surfed YouTube I came across a version by The Who.

Even though I'm a Who fan, I assumed that it would be bad, as most 60's covers were. But it is actually a pretty good version: