Monday linkdump

From Ian:

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Intellectual savages?
Ferocious Palestinian anti-Semites have been sanitized by the Western public opinion which calls them “militants,” as The New York Times did last week.

"The Palestinian hatred has not been deciphered by our writers and intellectuals. It’s because we have been told that “they hate us” is the language of xenophobes, the illiberal, the intolerant; that genocidal anti-Semitism was buried in the ashes of Auschwitz; that we have to be polite and self-critical.
A seductive combination of post-colonial white guilt mixed with liberal condescension has dulled our moral senses and made us blind to an Islamism that conveys unleashed hatred, contempt, physical aggression, the desire to expel, to destroy and to eliminate the Jews."

On Army Radio, Erekat Again Accuses Israel of Arafat's Death
The results of an investigation into Arafat's death are not due for a few months, yet Erekat continues to hope Israel will be to blame.

"In an interview Sunday morning with Army Radio, Erekat again made conspiratorial accusations in regards to the death of Arafat, saying he was sure the former PLO Chairman did not die naturally but was killed, all the while implying that Israel was behind it. Erekat added that the November exhumation of Arafat's body will certainly lead to this conclusion."

BBC Watch: Accuracy issues in BBC report on death of Gaza ‘farmer’

"Interestingly, BBC chooses to omit completely from its report the fact that Anwar al Mamlouk was given a Fatah funeral, with his body wrapped in the Fatah flag, attendees carrying Fatah flags and an official Fatah poster made in his honour. "

CIF Watch: How big is E-1? The geographic reality of an alleged “impediment to peace”

"Is the world-wide fuss over an area between Jerusalem and Ma’ale Adumim, less than four times the size of Central Park, and a fraction of the size of Manhattan, that the Palestinians know will be included in the area of Israel if an agreement is ever reached, really worth making?"

Peter Beinart vs. the American Jewish community

"Contrary to Beinart’s claims, the research indicates that American Jewish opinion is solidly in alignment with Israeli Jewish opinion on the most important issues regarding peace and security for the Jewish state."

The Daily Beast: passing off fiction as truth

"Here we go again: Open Zion, Peter Beinart's blog at the Daily Beast has posted another article denying the existence of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, offensively putting the word 'refugee' in quote marks. The author, an MSc Politics student at SOAS, Zachary Smith, gets into a semantic tangle about the terms 'Sephardi' and 'Mizrahi' - irritatingly plumping for 'Arab Jews' - as if a common language or culture was ever a barrier to persecution and murder of Jews. As for the rest of his shopworn arguments, we have heard them all before."

Beinart, Pro-Hagel Bloggers Lie About Hoenlein's 'Jewish Lobby

"That has not stopped Hagel's defenders from twisting Hoenlein's words to make it seem as though he had made the term "Jewish lobby" kosher. The latest to do so was Daily Beast columnist (and frequent Israel critic) Peter Beinart, during a debate with Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS. Beinart said he agreed that that the term "Jewish lobby" was inaccurate, but that it "also happens to have been used by Malcolm Hoenlein, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations last December."

Chuck Hagel Joins the Palestine Firsters

"Chuck Hagel established himself as a Palestine Firster on October 27, 2009, speaking at J Street’s first national conference: “The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is central, not peripheral, to US vital security interests in combating terrorism, preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon, stability in the Middle East and US and global energy security.”

Really?!"

Only 0.6% of world’s Christians live in Middle East
Pew study finds fewer than 13 million Christians, out of 2.2 billion adherents worldwide, still in the region where faith was born

"According to Pew’s newly released December 2012 “Global Religious Landscape Study,” just 0.6 percent of the world’s 2.2 billion Christians now live in the Middle East and North Africa. Christians make up only 4% of the region’s inhabitants, drastically down from 20% a century ago and marking the smallest regional Christian minority in the world."

Egypt's Coptic Christians fleeing country after Islamist takeover
Tens of thousands of Egyptian Christians are leaving the country in the wake of the Egyptian revolution and subsequent Islamist takeover of politics, priests and community leaders say.

Egypt’s Nour Party to Run Against Muslim Brotherhood in Election
"The ultraconservative Salafist Nour Party will compete with the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party in parliamentary elections, signaling a rift between the country’s two largest Islamist movements."

Iran spying on Israel from Syria, says Pentagon
Signals intelligence stations, including one in the Golan, are meant to supply information to Hezbollah

"Signals intelligence stations are reportedly being set up by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) throughout the Middle East, and the US believes they are meant to supply information on Israel to the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah."

Modern, moderate, Turkey: Muslim protesters burn flag, demand expulsion of U.S. troops from Turkey over rumor of Qur'an desecration

Scandal as rapper posts anti-Israel map
"German rap star Bushido (Anis Mohamed Youssef Ferchichi) caused outrage over the weekend when he posted on his Twitter profile a map of the Middle East next to the words “Free Palestine,” on which Israel was nowhere to be seen."

Mali is France’s Gaza

"France is now going to war in Mali because it says “we cannot have a terrorist state at the door of Europe,” but when Israel launches a defensive operation to protect its citizens from missile attacks from terrorists in Gaza, all the French newspapers and television commentators scream about Israeli aggression."

Clean fuels made in NJ with Israeli talent and financing
Primus Green Energy, soon to make alternative jet and auto fuels, is backed by the renewable energy arm of the Israel Corporation.

"George Boyajian, VP for business development, tells ISRAEL21c that the company is about to close a deal with “a major global airline.”
Though the company’s proprietary process can use a variety of feedstocks, including pelletized wood waste or energy crops, Primus is focusing for now on cheaply obtained natural gas."

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Are any civilians being killed in Mali? Who cares?

Isn't it interesting that the concern for civilian casualties that the world exhibits when Israel targets terrorists in Gaza is almost non-existent when France targets terrorists in Mali?

You have to dig to find any articles that even address the issue:

The abrupt French intervention, without waiting for the planned West African ground force, is a risky gamble. It means that the operation will depend largely on air strikes – and civilians could pay a heavy price.

The United States is providing satellite intelligence and logistical help to the French operation, while Britain is providing two military transport planes.

The civilian toll is mounting. At least 11 civilians have been killed and many others injured in Konna, a town in central Mali that has faced a heavy bombardment by French warplanes since Friday. The town was captured on Thursday by Islamist fighters who inflicted heavy casualties on Malian troops.

Reports from other towns are hazy so far, but there could be significant casualties. In one town under aerial attack, Douentza in central Mali, injured civilians can’t even reach the hospital, according to Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders).

“Because of the bombardments and fighting, nobody is moving in the streets of Douentza and patients are not making it through to the hospital,” said a statement by MSF emergency response co-ordinator Rosa Crestani. “We are worried about the people living close to the combat zones.”

It's double standards day again, as it is every other day of the week.

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Egyptian researcher claims there were no Temples

Al Ahram reports that Egyptian researcher Dr. Rahim Rihan, a supposed expert in Sinai and maritime archaeology, has determined that there have never been any Jewish Temples in Jerusalem.

Part of his evidence is the League of Nations report of December 1930 that determined that the Western Wall belongs to Muslims. (Part of that conclusion came because the rabbis that testified said that it belongs to no one but God, while the Muslims claimed it as their real estate.)

However, if you look at that very same report, the League of Nations makes it crystal clear that the Jewish Temples were on the Temple Mount:

The Wailing Wall forms an integral part of the western exterior shell of the Harem-esh-Sherif which itself is the site of the ancient Jewish temples, at the present day supplanted by Moslem Mosques....The very large blocks of stone at the base of the Wall, more especially the six courses of drafted stones, are dated by most archaeologists to the times of the Temple of Herod (i.e., the second, reconstructed Temple). Many of the stones bear inscriptions in Hebrew on their faces, some of them painted, others engraved. Above these stones there are three courses of undrafted masonry; these are probably Roman work (dating from the rebuilding of the city as a Roman colony by the Emperor Hadrian). The upper strata again are of much later date, belonging probably to the period about 1500 A.D. Recent researches go to show that the boundaries of the Wall coincide with those of the platform of the Temple of Solomon, of which courses of stones are supposed to still remain beneath the surface.

...It was Solomon who built the first Temple of Jerusalem, the grandeur and beauty of which have become widely renowned, thanks to the holy books and the historians. The Temple was situated on Mount Moriah on the platform, now known as the Harem-esh-Sherif area.

...About 720 B.C., the Assyrians destroyed the Kingdom of Israel and carried the inhabitants away as captives. About 600 B.C., Nebuchadnesar, King of Babylon, attacked the Kingdom of Judah. He destroyed the city of Jerusalem and the Temple of Solomon in the year 587 B.C. Most of the inhabitants were conveyed into captivity and were unable to return to their country until about 50 years later, after Cyrus, King of Persia, had conquered Babylon.

According to the Prophet Jeremiah the Jews who remained in the Holy Island during that period of expatriation had already developed the habit of going to worship on the ruins of the Temple. After the Jews returned to Palestine, the Temple was rebuilt on its ancient site, about the years 520-515 B.C. During the ensuing century a set form of ritual was established by Ezrah and Nehemiah.

In 332 B.C. the Jews came under the domination of the Macedonians. King Antiochus IV treated the Jews severely and, after the revolt they set on foot about 170 B.C. had been quelled, the second Jewish Temple was destroyed. Then there followed a period of independence, to a certain extent, which lasted until the country was conquered by the Romans, Pompey entering Jerusalem in the year 63 B.C. According to tradition - Bavli, Makkoth 24 - the Jews also during this period, i.e., after the destruction of the second Temple, were accustomed to go to the ruins of their holy site.

In the year 40 B.C., with the support of the Romans, Herod, surnamed the Great, became King of Judea and during his reign the Judean Kingdom regained some of its ancient splendour. Herod reconstructed the Temple for the second time.

This last Temple was not destined to attain the same length of life even as its predecessors, for in the year 70 A.D., Titus, who afterwards became Roman Emperor, conquered Jerusalem and, like Nebuchadnesar six and a half centuries earlier, destroyed the whole city of Jerusalem and also the Temple, a part of the Western Wall being the only remnant left of the building.

In the book edited by the Dominican Fathers, Vincent and Abel, Jérusalem nouvelle, Paris 1922-26, we are told that, during the first period after the destruction of the Temple of Herod, the Jews continued to go and weep at the ruins of it. According to tradition, the Jews' wailing-place at that time seems to have been the stone on Mount Moriah where the Mosque of Omar now stands.

...There are several Jewish authors of the 10th and 11th centuries, e.g., Ben Meir, Rabbi Samuel ben Paltiel, Solomon ben Judah, and others, who write about the Jews repairing to the Wailing Wall for devotional purposes, also under the Arab domination. A nameless Christian Pilgrim of the 11th century testifies to a continuance of the practice of the Jews coming to Jerusalem annually.

What kind of a liar does it take to cite a document as proof of your position when it actually says the opposite?

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Horrific tales of rape in Syria

The International Rescue Committee just released a report on the Syrian crisis, and it includes sickening details of rape there and the aftermath of sexual abuse:

Rape is a significant and disturbing feature of the Syrian civil war. In the course of three IRC assessments in Lebanon and Jordan, sexual violence was consistently identified by Syrian women, men and community leaders as a primary reason their families fled the country. “We surrendered to the reality of rape,” said a Syrian refugee in Lebanon, remarking on the severity of rape in this crisis.

Many women and girls relayed accounts of being attacked in public or in their homes, primarily by armed men. These rapes, sometimes by multiple perpetrators, often occur in front of family members. The IRC was told of attacks in which women and young girls were kidnapped, raped, tortured and killed. Roadblocks, prolific throughout Syria, have become especially perilous for women and girls. The IRC’s women’s protection team in Lebanon was told of a young girl who was gang-raped and forced to stagger home naked—heightening her shame in a society where modesty is so valued.

Because of the stigma and social norms around the “dishonor” that rape brings to women and girls and their families, Syrian survivors rarely report sexual violence. Many of those interviewed by the IRC said women and girl survivors also fear retribution by assailants. others are afraid of being killed by family members if they report incidents, since a raped woman or girl is thought to bring shame to a family.

The fear of rape is so significant that many families are marrying off their daughters to “protect” them from rape. others revert to early marriage if their daughters have been sexually assaulted “to safeguard their honor.” In one extreme case, the IRC was told of a father who shot his daughter when an armed group approached to prevent the “disgrace” of her being raped.

The report does not specify whether it is only the Syrian forces who are committing these crimes or the rebel side as well.

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Arab League forms a "delegation" to remind Arab League to pay pledges to PA

Too funny.

Arab foreign ministers agreed Sunday to form a delegation to press member states to fulfill their financial obligations to the Palestinian Authority, a statement said.

The delegation will be comprised of PA prime minister Salam Fayyad, Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi, the Iraqi foreign minister, and Lebanon's foreign minister, Adnan Mansour.

In December, Arab states agreed to provide the Palestinian Authority with a $100 million monthly "financial safety net" to help President Mahmoud Abbas's government cope with an economic crisis after the United Nations granted de facto statehood to Palestine.

Since early December, Israel has withheld around $100 million in monthly tax revenue it collects on behalf of the PA as punishment for the UN's acceptance of Palestine as a non-member state.

Yes, the Arab League is creating a committee to remind the Arab League to pay its own pledges that have been historically widely ignored.

Once again, one needs to ask: why are the PA's allies so reticent to throwing money at their holy cause? Why is their support so often limited to fiery words with no backup?

Could it be that the Arabs know a bad investment when they see one?

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Jordanian writer looking forward to final battle between Muslims and Jews

In Ammon News, Asaad Aezzona uses last week's flooding to lament the sorry state of the Jordan River - and he naturally blames Israel wholly for its problems. (Of course, he doesn't mention that Jordan and Syria have diverted the Jordan's headwaters into their territories.)

Sometimes, though, you can learn more about how people think from their throwaway lines than from their main points. Aezzona writes:

[The Jordan] is also the crossing used by the invaders to Palestine who were often vanquished. Therefore, we find the ground of the Jordan teeming with treasures buried by these invaders and fugitives, and [the river] will witness, God willing, the battle between Jews and Muslims.

Inshallah.

(The author also notes that the Jordan was never a national boundary until the British made it one. This pretty much buries the myth of "historic Palestine" but the author does not think about that.)

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Sunday links

From Ian:

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Isi Leibler: Hagel nomination conveys chilling message

If Hagel’s appointment is confirmed, the newly appointed defense secretary will have a clear track record of appeasing the Iranians, reaching out to Hamas and being highly critical of pro- Israeli influence in Washington.

"The Israeli government has, correctly, not commented on what is clearly a US domestic issue. But we should be under no illusions. If Hagel’s appointment is confirmed, the newly appointed defense secretary will have a clear track record of appeasing the Iranians, reaching out to Hamas and being highly critical of pro- Israeli influence in Washington."

Ros-Lehtinen: Hagel may not see Israel as 'ally'

Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, stepping down this year as chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said Saturday she has deep concerns about former Sen. Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee for secretary of defense, citing in particular his views on Israel and Iran.
"I think Chuck Hagel has a difficult time understanding that Israel is our ally," Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen said in an interview with Fox News.
She said Mr. Hagel's past statements on Israel and the Middle East appeared to underestimate the threat Iran posed to Israel, America's chief ally in the region, and to U.S. interests more generally.

Extremists attend more than 200 university events
Islamic extremists preached at more than 200 university events last year raising fresh fears over radicalisation on campus.

"Rupert Sutton, Head Researcher at Student Rights said: "These statistics demonstrate that the presence of extremist preachers on campus is not a figment of people's imaginations, but a serious issue that universities cannot afford to be complacent about.
"The prevalence of material featuring terrorists such as Anwar al-Awlaki is deeply concerning, as is the relative ease with which Hizb ut-Tahrir-linked videos and literature can be shared amongst students. "

Guardian asks ‘expert’ what Hamas can do to “kickstart the peace process”

"I guess it never occurred to the British academic that a good way to “kick-start the peace process” would be for the Palestinian leadership in the W. Bank to avoid aligning themselves with a group whose leadership characterizes Jews as “blood suckers” and “wild beasts” who deserve to be annihilated."

Mufti of Australia Ibrahim Salem: "The West Produces Lies As Much as It Produces Technology" VIDEO


Video: Arabs Gang Up on Hareidi Jews in Jerusalem


1930s Berlin or Jerusalem, 2013? Arabs kick and humiliate Jews, videotape themselves doing it.

"A disturbing video began circulating on Facebook Saturday evening. It shows a group of about 20 Arabs ganging up on two helpless hareidi-religious Jews, kicking one of them, hurling snowballs in their faces and humiliating them. At one point, one of the Jews falls to the ground, apparently slipping on the ice as he is chased up some steps."

Iranian Weapons Support for Hamas Shows No Signs of Slowing
New report shows Iran is committed towards rebuilding Hamas weapons stockpile.

"It's no secret that Iran has been supplying Hamas with weapons and rockets to use against Israel, but a special report by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center concluded just how deep the terror link between Iran and Hamas runs, and showed how Operation Pillar of Defense marked a major turning point in the relationship between the terrorist organization and the renegade state."

Hamas Tests Long-Range Missiles

"Hamas has tested long-range missiles by firing them out to sea, according to Arab media reports quoted Sunday in Yisrael Hayom.
The missiles in question have a range of dozens of kilometers, similar to the range of the rockets that the terrorist organization fired at Jerusalem and central Israel in November."

Masked men attack protest camp near Morsi’s palace
At least 15 injured after assailants torch tents, fire shots at demonstrators who oppose new Islamist constitution

Belgian Senate recognizes authorities’ role during Holocaust
Body adopts resolution acknowledging ‘collaboration unfitting of a democracy’
"A Belgian Senate committee adopted a resolution acknowledging the country’s complicity in the murder of Jews during the Holocaust."

‘But when the sun rises, no one knows where they are’
At Mount Herzl Military Heritage Site — home to the Garden of the Missing in Action — fallen heroes are honored. Prepare yourself for an emotional trip

"Called the Garden of the Missing in Action, the next memorial was created in 2004 and includes over 200 stones dedicated to soldiers who fought in the Yom Kippur War, the War of Independence, and others whose bodies have never been recovered. Below the sculptured everlasting flame are inscribed the following words: “But when the sun rises, no one knows where they are.” [Nahum 3:17]."

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Arab belly dancers heading to Israel

From YNet:

Belly dancers from Turkey, Egypt and Jordan will participate in the annual International Belly Dance Festival taking place in Eilat's Club Hotel next week.

The festival, which is the world's biggest belly dancing event, will feature some 950 dancers from Israel and 30 other countries across the world.

Orit Maftsir, one of the festival's organizers and a world-renowned belly dancer, said there had been no cancelations on the part of foreign participants in spite of the recent Israeli operation in Gaza.

The highlight of the event is the arrival of belly dancers and teachers from Arab countries, who are not afraid to come to Israel and vibrate their hips for peace.

"Beyond the cultural relations the festival creates between the region's countries, it also helps strengthen relations between the people," says Roni Pivko, the managing director of the Club Hotel chain.

Arab media has picked up on this story.

The official webpage for the festival is here.

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MSM gives Morsi a free pass for calling Jews "apes and pigs"

A must read from Richard Behar at Forbes:

Last Friday, the sitting president of Egypt – the world’s 15th most populous nation — was exposed for calling Jews “apes and pigs.” And he did it in a TV interview (in Arabic) in 2010, less than two years before he took office.

Mohamed Morsi’s bizarre Apes-and-Pigs rant hit the Jerusalem Post’s homepage that same day (again, last Friday), as its lead story. Specifically, a prestigious U.S. organization named the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) — chaired by Oliver “Buck” Revell, a former deputy head of the FBI in charge of counter-terrorism – released it widely to the global media and posted it on YouTube.



I studied the Pigs-and-Apes story’s journey and trajectory through America over the past week with Sue Radlauer, the Director of Research Services here at Forbes. We gave it seven days to see if any of the so-called “mainstream media” — a pejorative phrase that too-often obscures more than it reveals — bestowed the hate speech even a few sentences of back-page ink. Nothing.

Read the whole thing.

This is, of course, only one tiny example of how the daily incitement in Arabic media gets ignored by the mainstream media - the major newspapers, networks and wire services.

Here are a few of the anti-semitic articles and actions in the Arab and Iranian media I've reported on in only the past month:

Egyptians upset that constitution gives Jews rights

Iraq News Agency spouting pure anti-semitism

Whoops! PressTV forgot to replace "Jews" with "Zionists"

Run of the mill anti-semitism in Saudi Arabia media

MB member: Jews are thieves, Americans are cows

Some anti-semitism from a "moderate" Palestinian "peace activist"

Tunisian cleric calls Jews apes and prays for their genocide

Houthi logo says "Damn the Jews"

Egyptian sheikh says secularists are even worse than Jews

Today's anti-semitism on Iranian PressTV

Are we starting to see a pattern here?  The people who claim that Arabs and Muslims are merely "anti-Zionist" are ignorant - or purposefully lying. Anti-semitism can be seen every day in Arabic-language media.

Obviously, the Morsi story is bigger than these, but any of them rates more than a mention in a blog. And the more general issue of Arab anti-semitism is being disgracefully downplayed.

(h/t Ian)

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Egyptians still riled over idea of Jews returning

Over two weeks after Muslim Brotherhood leader Essam el-Erian said that Jewish Egyptians should be allowed to return (to leave room for Palestinian Arabs to move to Israel), Egypt's media is still in an uproar about it.

Interestingly, it is also opening up a debate about the history of Jews in Egypt. Not that all these histories are accurate - many still claim that the Jews willingly gave up their property - but the role of Jews in Egypt and the fact that the Jewish community disappeared while being persecuted cannot be covered up.

Some newspapers are visiting the old Jewish Quarter of Cairo and interviewing older residents who remember their Jewish neighbors. One claimed that he bought the land of a fleeing Jew for the market price, but admits that others simply stole their land. Yet right after he described how much he loved his Jewish neighbors, he railed against the idea of them returning, saying that they are all now Zionist usurpers of Palestinian lands.

Erian's comments are also being used by opponents of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Some are arguing that it wasn't the Egyptian government that persecuted Jews - but the Muslim Brotherhood itself, which has been anti-semitic since its founding.

This was even noted on TV:


Some, also noting the historic Jew-hatred of the Islamists, say that now they want to get more support from the US by pretending to love Jews and attempting to fool American Jews into supporting them.

Others, playing on natural Egyptian anti-semitism, are accusing the Muslim Brotherhood of "embracing Jews."

Even more egregiously, the controversy is giving cover for people to make more explicit anti-semitic statements, such as a sports minister saying he would refuse to allow Jews to invest in Egyptian sports stadiums.

A newspaper poll shows that 79% of those responding would refuse to allow Jews back into Egypt.

For this to still be discussed so prominently for so long shows that the idea has definitely touched a nerve in the Egyptian public.

Keep in mind that in polls conducted in both 2006 and 2011, only 2% of Egyptians had favorable views of Jews. 

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The rose-colored glasses of Daniel Kurtzer

Last night, I attended a talk by Daniel Kurtzer, former US ambassador to Israel and an outspoken supporter of a more muscular American Middle East policy.

Kurtzer is a soft-spoken man, and he built up his case that the peace process - ultimately ending with a solution along the rough lines of the Clinton Parameters or the Olmert plan - is the only way forward. One of his major arguments is that both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs support these rough parameters when asked about their support for them in a package.

In other words, he says that while both Israelis and Palestinian Arabs may say to pollsters that they want more hawkish specific policies against the other side, when presented with a comprehensive peace plan ("aggregate") along the rough outline of the Clinton parameters, both sides overwhelmingly agree.

I asked him about the Israel Project poll of 2011 that showed that when Palestinian Arabs were asked more specifically about a two-state solution, they overwhelmingly admitted that they envisioned it as a mere stage towards the takeover of Israel. He answered, disingenuously, that this poll was also non-aggregated. Yet the people who answer that they want a two-state solution are already the ones who are being celebrated as the pragmatists by the likes of Kurtzer, and the slim majority they allegedly represent what he is bringing as proof  that Palestinian Arabs are ready and willing to compromise.

But let's look at the last poll of Palestinian Arabs and see if it fits Kurtzer's theory. According to him, the more radical ones would be represented more prominently in questions about specific policies, and the more pragmatic ones in questions about comprehensive peace plans.

The answers show something quite different.

When asked if they support a two-state solution, 52% said they do. But when asked if they support the Clinton Parameters/Geneva Initiative for a two-state solution, including solutions to the  "refugees," Jerusalem  and so on, only 43% support it. In fact, when asked if they support dividing Jerusalem and allowing Jewish control over only the Jewish Quarter and the Western Wall, 70% oppose even that compromise.

So Kurtzer is wrong. Arabs do not support a Clinton-style peace plan, and the only possible reason more accept a "two-state solution" over the Clinton plan is what the Israel Project showed - that they regard the two-state solution as a Trojan horse to destroy Israel!

How about the Israelis that Kurtzer says supports the Clinton-type solution? The poll he is probably referring to was one where the specific conditions were those that Palestinian Arabs have found unacceptable. Specifically, the plan it floated to the people being polled included:

Two states: Israel the state of the Jewish people and Palestine the state
of the Palestinian people.

Palestinian refugees will have a right to return only to the new state of
Palestine.

The Palestinian state will be demilitarized, without an army.

Borders will be based on the 1967 lines and will include land swaps equal
in size that will take into consideration Israel's security needs and will
maintain the large settlement blocks under Israeli sovereignty.

Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem will come under Israeli sovereignty and
Arab neighborhoods under Palestinian sovereignty.

Palestinian Arabs have repeatedly and overwhelmingly been against every one of these conditions.

While Kurtzer tries to paint the results of these polls as proof that there is little daylight between ordinary Israelis and Palestinian Arabs, it doesn't take much research to conclude the exact opposite.

There are other problems with Kurtzer's views. For example, his 2009 book almost completely downplayed the threat of radical Islam, partially blamed Israeli policies for the rise of radical groups and even suggested that Israeli-Palestinian Arab peace would reduce Islamic radicalism, something that the recent events in the Arab world disprove quite handily.

But what does it say when a well-informed former diplomat, and now member of a prominent think-tank, a person who is no idiot, espouses ideas that are so clearly false?

My charitable impression is that as a diplomat, Kurtzer cannot accept the possibility that diplomacy cannot solve the problem. He is a hammer and every problem is therefore a nail.

But wishful thinking must not be a substitute for sober analysis, and this is a trap that too many pundits, journalists, politicians - and former diplomats - fall into, when it comes to Israel.

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Saddam Hussein praised as a "martyr" at Fatah rally

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from footage of a Fatah rally held in Gaza, which aired on PA TV on December 31, 2012.

Speaker: We shall never forget, accept, or ignore... Fatah has taught me courage and bravery, and how one should never keep silent about the truth.

We shall never forget the martyr of the Arab and Islamic nations, the martyred, venerable leader, Saddam Hussein Al-Majid.

Crowd applauds

Speaker: As you well know, today is the anniversary of his martyrdom.

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