Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Jordanian wants to stay in prison to watch World Cup

Firas Press quotes the Jordanian Addustour newspaper about a soccer fan who asked to stay in prison for the duration of the World Cup.

Apparently, the tournament is being shown for free in Jordan's prisons, and he would have to pay to see it on the outside.

He asked his father not to do anything to help get him out of jail for the duration.

Morris trashes Karsh - but admits that he is largely right

Benny Morris has, unsurprisingly, trashed the Ephraim Karsh book "Palestine Betrayed" I reviewed recently.

Writing in The National Interest Online, Morris takes Karsh to task for getting a large number of facts wrong about he War of Independence, which Morris has written about extensively.

Morris' main objection, apart from the factual errors, is the one-sidedness of Karsh's work. Reality is messy, and Karsh does not allow for nuance. This is a valid objection, especially in respect to Karsh's continuous citations of Zionists' benign intent towards Arabs in the land, something totally at odds with the standard new historian narrative where Israel is portrayed as the villain. From my perspective, I looked at Karsh as a needed counterbalance to the new orthodoxy of Israel's history, an added dimension to the topic but not a comprehensive history on its own - which is clearly isn't.

Speaking for myself, admittedly from the single source of the Palestine Post archives, I think that Karsh accurately portrays the mindset of the mainstream Zionists. I've seen many contemporaneous editorials in the Palestine Post and none of them that I have seen showed the antipathy towards Arabs that the current conventional wisdom assumes. To be sure, the newspaper was not enamored of Arab terrorists - but it was equally scathing towards the Irgun. The general tone, which I think reflects liberal Zionist thinking at the time, was one of peaceful co-existence and of improving the Arabs' standards of living.

Any historian can take outlier data and twist it to look like the norm, and readers must take the historians at their word that what they are writing reflect reality. The only way to get an idea of people's mindsets is by reading a lot of what they were writing - not just the cherry-picked quotes but the entire context as well as the seemingly unimportant and irrelevant writings. Morris is certainly more honest, and has less of an agenda, than most of the other "new historians."

I found this comment by Morris to be most interesting, though. After chiding Karsh on his unorthodox use of footnotes that make it near-impossible to check sources, something which bothered me as well, he writes:

But most historians probably won’t bother to work out these interminable referential puzzles if only because they will have been put off, long before, by the palpable one-sidedness of Karsh’s narrative. All too often it gives off the smell of shop-soiled propaganda. And, let me quickly note, I say this despite the fact that I am in almost complete agreement with Karsh’s political conclusions (which in some way emerge naturally and, I feel, irrefutably from the history) and in some measure with his history as well.

So while Morris feels compelled to point out Karsh's mistakes - and he should - he admits that Karsh's larger themes are accurate, even as they are biased. This is a striking comment given that Morris has been in Karsh's crosshairs for a long time.

UN news service propagates a lie

IRIN, the UN's humanitarian news service, puts together a "factbox" on Palestinian "refugees."

It has the usual distortions that we are all used to (like saying that UN Resolution 194 gives Palestinian Arabs the right to return, without mentioning the important caveat there and all the other sections of that document that were vehemently rejected by the Arabs and accepted by Israel.) It also uncritically accepts the definition of "refugee" that is unique to Palestinian Arabs alone and no one else, that guarantees that the "refugee" population will grow in perpetuity.

One small part of the article shows how a lie can take hold. It says that "Estimates vary greatly on the annual rate of new displacements, but Palestinian sources cite up to 20,000 newly displaced persons per year. Reasons for new displacement include Israel’s construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the construction of illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, the revocation of residency rights and house demolitions. "

20,000 people losing their homes every year? When a dozen people who built an illegal structure are forced to move out it generates international headlines for months. The idea that there are 20,000 cases like that every year is an insane fiction.

Yet the UN has no problem citing it as an authoritative statistic, without mentioning any other source that might put the number at closer to, say, 200.

Some news items from the PalArab press

Palestine Today quotes Russian news agency RIA Novosti as saying that Israel had the opportunity to assassinate Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah twice in recent months and held off, for fears of igniting a wider conflict. (I couldn't find that story at RIA.)

PA president Abbas is incensed at Hamas' demand that he coordinate any visit to Gaza with them. He says thathe is the president and can visit his people any time he wants. Well, Hamas treated his loyalists with a little less than respect three years ago, by slaughtering them, but maybe he'd be treated better.

Iran is planning a blockade-busting ship to sail this Sunday. It will have 1100 tons of "aid." The world seems to have forgotten another recent Iranian ship, filled with the type of aid that Hamas desires. And another ship from Iran that was filled with "aid" going directly to Hamas.

Meanwhile, smugglers in Rafah are upset over Israeli plans to ease the closure, saying that they will go out of business. The prices of consumer goods have plummeted in the past couple of days because of Israel's announcement of easing the closure - Egyptian soda has gone down by 30%, and 40-inch flat screen TVs have been reduced from $2000 to about $1200. At the same time, factory owners are asking Hamas not to allow Israel to send in soda, biscuits and ice cream because that would undercut their own pricing and put them out of business as well.

Arafat tells us his goal, in English.

While I am mentioning Middle East News Watch, here is a video they put on YouTube showing the goals of the greatest proponent of Palestinian Arab nationalism. Helpfully, he says it in English:

If Arafat himself was not interested in a specifically Palestinian Arab state except as a means to destroy Israel, why should we think that any other Arab leader has any different goals?

(The person next to Arafat is Uri Avnery, in his first meeting with Arafat. Do you think he objected, or that he even mentions this in his writings as a purported "peace activist"?)

Hamas war profiteering (Middle East News Watch)

Middle East News Watch took some news reports about Hamas from CNN and Al Jazeera, removed the gratuitous references to Israel as the source of all evil, and came up with a real news story of the type you are not likely to see or notice in the flotsam of anti-Israel bias:

It just goes to show that the facts are out there but it requires a lot of digging to find them.

Today's staged photo and bias by AP

Here is a classic case of AP not only staging a photo, but of implying that it shows something that it does not, and as a bonus throwing in some very skewed facts as background:

A Palestinian child walks near rubble in the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, Monday, June 21, 2010. Jerusalem's mayor, Nir Barkat, pressed ahead Monday with a contentious plan to raze 22 Palestinian homes, that were illegally built, to make room for a tourist center that Palestinians fear would tighten Israel's grip on the city's contested eastern sector. The contested site, called al-Bustan, is a section of the larger neighborhood of Silwan, which is home to some 50,000 Palestinians and 70 Jewish families.

First of all, the photo itself. Did the photographer just happen to find a Palestinian child playing in some rubble in Jerusalem, or did she direct him to go there? Hard to say, but of course many photographs from wire services involve the photographer telling the subjects where to stand or where to look.

Secondly, is this rubble of a Palestinian Arab home demolished by Israel? If it is, was the home built legally? Maybe it was a garage built illegally next to a home that is still there? Or maybe it has nothing to do with any demolition altogether? AP needed a photo to illustrate a story about Israel's plans to demolish illegally built homes - where the Jerusalem municipality cooperated with the residents in those plans:

Back in March, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had pressured Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat to hold up the plan so authorities could consult with Palestinians who would lose their homes — a delay that appeared to be aimed at fending off criticism from the U.S.

"Now, after fine-tuning the plan and seeking more cooperation with the residents as far as their needs and improving the quality of their lives, the municipality is ready to submit the plans for the first stage of approval," said Barkat's spokesman, Stephan Miller, before the city's planning commission agreed to the plan.

So the picture does not illustrate anything at all to do with the story, but its very existence is meant to give the reader a visceral disgust at Israeli actions.

Thirdly, the background, where it mentions that Arab residents outnumber Jewish residents of Silwan by such a large number. Assuming the facts are true, notice the attempt to make the numbers even more lopsided: 50,000 people to 70 families: each Jewish family in Silwan could easily have, conservatively, six members (probably more), but AP doesn't want to say "50,000 to 450" because that extra order of magnitude makes it look that much worse, and it makes the idea of evicting Jews out of their legal homes much more palatable since there appear to be so few of them.

Fourthly, the choice of background facts that AP used. It could have mentioned that Jerusalem also approved the building of hundreds of Arab homes in Silwan; or that the word "Silwan" comes from the Greek "Siloam" which comes from the Hebrew Shiloah, or that Yemeni Jews had built many stone homes there in the 19th century and were chased out by the 1936-9 Arab riots - and their homes taken over by Arabs.

Any of those facts would also have been accurate background information, but they would not have fit the narrative that AP wants its readers to accept.

These are just examples of bias in the photo caption. The accompanying article has much worse distortions and omissions, such as the fact that the Jerusalem municipality is at the same time legalizing some 723 Arab homes!

(By the way, the photographer herself, Tara Todras-Whitehill, does not seem to be guilty of bias - she has some very nice and sympathetic photos of Jews in Israel in her portfolio.)

h/t Callie

The UNHRC should be abolished (Joo-Liz and Zvi)

Two good comments on my post about UN Watch, first from Joo-Liz:

I have heard Hillel Neuer speak at a campus visit last year, and he firmly believes in the work that he does.

As he put it, the UNGA has the "Power of the Purse" (finances/aid/budgeting), the UNSC has the "Power of the Boots" (actual interventions), and the UNHRC has the "Power of 'Name and Shame'".

To open societies that are used to criticism, free press, and that are constantly held to account, the power granted to the UNHRC seems rather impotent, but to despotic regimes that systematically shutdown opposition voices, it is a truly frightening thing.

The whole hi-jacking of the Human Rights Council by all the human rights abusers is a strategic alliance on their parts, to prevent the power of the Council from being turned against them. To that end, he described a whole litany of outrageous activities being carried out, including the use of GONGOs (Government-Operated NGOs) and numerous other deceptive tactics... most notably from our perspective -- the stacking of the agenda against Israel and the West so that there quite literally isn't enough time in the working schedule each year to deal with any of the other abuses occurring around the world.

I think from that perspective, every opportunity he has to speak to the council and call them out on their hypocrisy is beneficial. Especially when later publicized on YouTube and with press releases like these.

And from Zvi:

The UNHRC should be abolished.

The idea that a human rights body (UNHRC) may have membership rules that permit the world's most repressive regimes to be seated as decision-making members is absurd.

The UNHRC includes some of the world's worst abusers of human rights. The following list includes Freedom House scores (2-14, with 2 being "free" and 14 representing the world's most repressive dictatorships):

Libya: 14
Saudi Arabia: 13
Cuba: 13
China: 13
Cameroon: 12
...

A so-called human rights council that seats Libya, Saudi Arabia and Cuba as members is a fraud perpetrated upon the people of the world.

The UN does perform some valid functions, its political structure clearly renders it incapable of performing as a human rights policeman. It has demonstrated this through two iterations of "human rights councils," both of which have been hijacked by blocs of anti-Israel countries and reduced to political attack dogs that serve no useful human rights function.

The UN is the wrong forum for identifying and dealing with human rights abuses. Repressive dictatorships, frequently acting as a bloc and intimidating less interested countries, use the UNHRC to prevent criticism of their own actions and advance anti-democratic agendas such as suppression of free speech (under the guise of combating Islamophobia) or preventing Israel from defending its citizens. The UN provides a false aura of respectability and impartiality that makes such activities dangerous.

The UNHRC should be abolished. If democratic nations that support human rights wish to create a truly authoritative Human Rights Commission, they are always free to do so, just as they have created other democracy-only organizations in the past (the EU being an example). But such an organization MUST include strict rules that allow ONLY countries meeting some basic level of respect for human rights to participate. Such an organization will not be perfect (we see EU members attacking Israel every day, even when they have their "facts" wrong), but there is at least a ghost of a chance that it will address anti-Uzbek pogroms in Kyrgyzstan, genocide in the Sudan, the starvation of Yemenis, extreme levels of religious repression in Saudi Arabia, North Korea's systematic starvation of its people and so on. Such an organization will have much more moral authority than the UNHRC. The countries that comprise it will at least have a clue what due process means, even if some of them are still dodgy, and they will have less invested in protecting themselves from investigation and more invested in addressing the rights of people around the world. They will be countries that practice human rights at home.

The UNHRC will never, ever act against extreme human rights abuses. Instead, it will perform its primary task: distracting everyone from real problems by attacking Israel. Western countries should refuse to play this vicious little game anymore.

The UNHRC should be abolished.

Exit programme for Islamists set up by Germany

What if you are a Muslim militant in Germany but don't want to continue your life as an extremist? Germany provides a solution:

Germany aims to tackle a growing threat from Islamic extremists with an exit programme modelled on assistance for repentant neo-Nazis, authorities said yesterday.

“We plan to offer a hotline and a website for people who have fallen under the influence of fundamentalists or Islamists,” Heinz Fromm, head of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, the domestic intelligence agency, told reporters.

Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the news conference that the service would be available in a few weeks’ time.

Militants wanting to turn their backs on extremism will be put in contact with “trained personnel who are capable of offering help to people in German but also in Arabic or Turkish,” Fromm said.

“We think it will be a useful effort, even though it is modest, to take a preventative approach to this problem,” de Maiziere said.

According to Fromm’s agency in its annual report, there are 29 Islamist extremist organisations in Germany, with 36,000 members at the end of 2009 - 1,500 more than the year before. Some 200 Germans or foreigners living in Germany have spent time in Pakistan with the intention of receiving paramilitary training by Islamist groups. Authorities have concrete evidence that 65 of them underwent such training, the agency said.

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution launched a similar programme for right-wing extremists in 2001.

It said it has received about 1,040 calls to the hotline since it was established, about 300 of them from former extremists seeking help. About 120 of them have received or are receiving “intensive assistance” in reorienting their lives, the office’s website said.

Hezbollah member, PalArab, Turk, Saudis killed in US drone strike

From the Earth Times:

Peshawar, Pakistan - A major Lebanese terrorist released by the German government five years ago has been killed in a US drone attack in Pakistan's tribal region, Pakistani intelligence sources said on Sunday.

Mohammed Ali Hamadi died when a missile fired by a CIA-operated unmanned drone aircraft destroyed a compound in North Waziristan, a known hub of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, on Saturday.

"Altogether 16 militants died in the drone attack and 11 of them were foreigners," said a Pakistani intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The term foreigner is used to refer to al- Qaeda associated operatives of Arab and Central Asian origin.

"We have identified those who were killed and among them is Mohammad Ali Hamadi," added the official.

Another intelligence official who also sought anonymity verified the death of Hamadi.

Hamadi, 46, is an alleged member of the Lebanese militant organization Hezbollah. He was sentenced by a West German court in 1987 for 19 years for skyjacking a Trans World Airlines flight in 1985. One US Navy diver was killed in the hostage-taking event.

The convict was released on parole in 2005 by German authorities, after which Hamadi is believed to have returned to Lebanon. In 2006, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) put his name on its list of most wanted terrorists.

Pakistani intelligence officials said that Hamadi traveled to Afghanistan to fight NATO troops in November 2009 and joined the Central Asia-based al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Jamaat al-Jihad al-Islami, which is believed to have recruited many Turkish and German nationals.

In March 2010, Hamadi came to Pakistan's North Waziristan district, from where al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters conduct cross- border attacks on international forces in Afghanistan, to join colleagues based there.

"Hamadi and his comrades were in a meeting to plan further attacks in Afghanistan when the drone strike took place," a Pakistani intelligence official said.

Among the other killed were: Atif bin Saeed, believed to be a close associate of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden; Turkish national Abdul Waheed al-Turkey; Saudi citizens Abdul Hamam and Brother Gul (a nick name); and Palestinian national Abdul Wali.

This shows that Al Qaeda embraces diversity. It happily accepts help from Hezbollah Lebanese, Palestinian Arabs, Saudis and Turks.

I think that they should be rewarded for their progressive thinking.

Only one thing bothers me. President Obama has changed the focus of the fight against Islamic terror into a fight against al Qaeda alone, as he said in his Oval Office speech last week:

Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al Qaeda wherever it exists.

And three weeks before that, he made it very clear that al Qaeda is the enemy, not radical or political Islam:

More than anything else, though, our success will be claimed by who we are as a country. This is more important than ever, given the nature of the challenges that we face. Our campaign to disrupt, dismantle, and to defeat al Qaeda is part of an international effort that is necessary and just.

But this is a different kind of war. There will be no simple moment of surrender to mark the journey's end - no armistice, no banner headline. ...We see the potential duration of this struggle in al Qaeda's gross distortions of Islam, their disrespect for human life, and their attempt to prey upon fear and hatred and prejudice.

Does this mean he will apologize to Hezbollah, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and the PA for the killing of non-al Qaeda members? It sounds like the US violated the principle of proportionality, that we all know is a cornerstone of international humanitarian law.The drones should not have attacked until it was known for certain that only al Qaeda members would be killed - because the other people were just innocent members of the great religion of Islam whose beliefs were being grossly distorted by their hosts.

UN Watch - in the belly of the beast

From UN Watch:

As the UN Human Rights Council completed its 4th year, delegates heard testimony from UN Watch on the past 12 months of council reactions to violations worldwide.

The Past Year: Inaction and Double Standards
UN Human Rights Council, 14th Session,
Delivered by Executive Director Hillel Neuer, 15 June 2010
Mr. President, in Article 1 of the Vienna Declaration, the States assembled here committed to protect all human rights. Is the Council living up to this obligation? Focusing thematically on the right to life, let us consider one example from each of the past 12 months:

• June 2009—Tehran. Hundreds of thousands gather peacefully to protest a questionable election. The government responds with brutality. Dozens are killed, hundreds injured, thousands arrested.
• July—China. Troops fire on Uighur protesters; 200 killed, 1700 injured.
• August—Russia. Two aid workers killed in Chechnya, government complicity suspected.
• September—Yemen. Government warplanes bomb a refugee camp, killing 80.

This Council’s response? Silence.

• October—Iraq. A terrorist attacks a mosque, killing the imam and 14 others.
• November—The Phillipines. Fifty-seven opposition activists massacred.
• December—Iran. Renewed protests meet with bullets, beatings and arrests; 10 killed.
• January—Pakistan. One hundred and eighty-two civilians killed in 42 attacks.

This Council’s response? Silence.

• February—Afghanistan. A Taliban attack kills 18, injuring 32, including doctors.
• March—Nigeria. 500 Christians slaughtered in religious killings.
• April—Kyrgyzstan. Troops fire on demonstrators; 84 killed.
• Finally, May. Libya executes 18 foreigners, without due process.

Mr. President, faced with these and other gross violations of the Vienna Declaration, what was this council’s standard response? Silence. No resolutions; no urgent sessions; no investigations. Nothing.

Yet two weeks ago, when Israel defended itself against violent Jihadists on the so-called humanitarian flotilla, we witnessed another standard—a double standard.
Suddenly the council sprang into action, with an urgent debate, a resolution condemning Israel, and yet another investigation where the guilty verdict was declared in advance.
Meanwhile, in this session, not a single resolution has been adopted for 191 other countries.

Mr. President, is the right to life, as guaranteed under the Vienna Declaration, being protected?

No—on the contrary. And millions of victims are paying the price.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I have no idea if Hillel Neuer is making the slightest impact on a thoroughly corrupt organization, or if he is paradoxically enabling them to act as badly as they do since he provides them with the fig leaf of being even-handed. Either way, he deserves kudos for single-handedly taking the fight right to the enemy.

Another recent UN Watch speech:

Mr. President, we meet under the agenda item targeting Israel. There are two things terribly wrong with this disproportionate focus.

First, it is biased. After the item was adopted in 2007, the UK said “the practice of ‘singling out one’ risked undermining the Human Rights Council’s own principles.” France said it was “contrary to non-selectivity.” Canada noted that the Council breached its own principles-of universality, impartiality, objectivity, and non-selectivity. Targeting any UN member state, said Canada, was “politicized, selective, partial, and subjective.”

But Mr. President, there is something far more pernicious that ought to concern all supporters of human rights.

On 20 June 2007, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticized “the Council’s decision to single out only one specific regional item, given the range of human rights violations throughout the entire world.”

These words were never more clear than today.

For the second time in this brief session, we have spent the entire day today discussing alleged violations of Israel, hearing various reports about redundant investigations, all of which are have pre-determined conclusions.

Yet even as we meet, the international community is witnessing a grave and worsening human rights and humanitarian tragedy in Kyrgyzstan.

At least 200 have been slaughtered; 1500 injured; and 100,000 refugees seek to cross the border to escape the violence. The Red Cross warned just now that the humanitarian crisis that is “getting worse by the hour.”

Witnesses report that women and children are being shot as they try to flee, and that bodies litter the city’s streets and many of its destroyed buildings. According to Dilmurad Ishanov, an Uzbek human rights worker in Osh, “They are killing Uzbeks like animals. Almost the whole city is in flames.”

Mr. President, we heard speeches today from Libya, Syria, Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Venezuela, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the Arab League.

I ask them: If all human beings are equal, why are you silent today for the victims of Kyrgyzstan?

After you called an urgent debate and investigation for the so-called humanitarian flotilla, why do you not do the same for what everyone agrees is a humanitarian tragedy of colossal proportions?

Mr. President, this agenda item deafens our ears to the cries of human rights victims everywhere.

Morocco "dismantles terrorist network"

From Maktoob:

RABAT - Moroccan security services dismantled Monday a suspected Islamic extremist network headed by a Palestinian national, the interior ministry said.

The network of 11 members led by a Palestinian "planned to commit terrorist acts within the national territory," the ministry said in a statement, adding that the activists involved were Takfirists.

The Takfirist ideology is upheld by a violent Islamist movement forming a tiny minority in Morocco, who argue that society and its rulers have strayed from the true path. Takfirism first appeared in Egypt in the 1970s.

More than 2,000 Islamists have been arrested and sentenced in Morocco since the Casablanca bombings of May 16, 2003. Five separate suicide bomb attacks, the most deadly inside a restaurant, claimed 45 lives, including those of 12 bombers, and wounded many people in the northern port city.