Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

03/18 Links Pt1: Obama’s M.E. fallacy; Obama: Abbas Has ‘Consistently Renounced Violence’

From Ian:

Caroline Glick: Why Obama will not change gears

Since its inception, the Iranian regime has been at war with the US. It has carried out one act of aggression after another. These have run the gamut from the storming of the US Embassy in Tehran and holding hostage US diplomats for 444 days, to the use of Lebanese and Palestinian proxies to murder US officials, citizens and soldiers in countless attacks over the intervening 35 years, to building a military presence in Latin America, to developing nuclear weapons.
And from its earliest days, the same Iranian regime has been courted by one US administration after another seeking to accommodate Tehran.
A similar situation obtains with the Palestinians. Like the Iranians, the PLO has carried out countless acts of terrorism that have killed US officials and citizens.
From the 1970 Fatah execution of the US ambassador and deputy chief of mission in Khartoum to the 2003 bombing of the US embassy convoy in Gaza, the PLO has never abandoned terrorism against the US.
No less importantly, the PLO is the architect of modern terrorism. From airline hijackings, to the massacre of schoolchildren, from bus bombings to the destabilization of nation states, the PLO is the original author of much of the mayhem and global terrorism the US has led the fight against since the 1980s.

Obama’s Middle East fallacy

In short, Netanyahu has resigned himself to the likelihood that the U.S. framework will include provisions he’s not ready to endorse. Abbas has not. “There is no way. We will not accept,” the Palestinian news agency quoted him as saying of the Jewish-state principle on March 7. Two days later, Abbas persuaded the moribund Arab League to adopt a resolution backing him up. He’s said much the same about Israeli troops on the border.
Why does Abbas dare to publicly campaign against the U.S. and Israeli position even before arriving in Washington? Simple: “Abbas believes he can say no to Obama because the U.S. administration will not take any retaliatory measures against the Palestinian Authority,” writes the veteran Israeli-Palestinian journalist Khaled Abu Toameh. Instead, Abbas expects to sit back if the talks fail, submit petitions to the United Nations and watch the anti-Israel boycotts mushroom, while paying no price of his own.
Perhaps Obama will disabuse him of that notion at their meeting Monday. If not, another “peace process” breakdown is surely coming.

Obama: Abbas Has ‘Consistently Renounced Violence’

Obama omitted all references to Palestinian terrorism and last week’s rocket attacks, many of which were claimed to have been launched by a militant branch of Abbas’ own Fatah political party.
Obama also did not mention Abbas’ efforts to honor Palestinian terrorists and more recent remarks by his senior adviser calling on Allah to kill the Israelis.
The meeting comes at a critical time in the Middle East peace process, a priority for Secretary of State John Kerry.

The Fatah intrafada heats up

Internal divisions within Fatah, always simmering beneath the surface, came out in the open last week. From Al Monitor:

On March 5, most of the 77,000 Palestinian Authority (PA) employees located in Gaza received their February salaries, but about a hundred returned from their banks empty-handed. They weren’t paid because of an official decision by the PA against supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, a member of the Legislative Council and a dismissed leader from Fatah, who differs with the PA’s general policy. The decision to stop payment on the salaries has worsened the crisis between Dahlan and President Mahmoud Abbas.

The reactions to the decision came quickly. On March 8, those who didn’t receive their salaries held a sit-in in Gaza, which Al-Monitor attended, and strongly criticized the decision. They demanded that Abbas immediately reverse the decision in light of the difficult economic conditions in Gaza and threatened to set up a protest tent in front of the homes of Fatah’s higher leadership in Gaza.

Al-Monitor received a copy of the letter sent from the unpaid workers to Fatah. They said that they are not against Abbas and don’t follow a particular person, but that they support Dahlan’s idea of regulatory reform. They accused the Fatah leadership in the West Bank of marginalizing Gaza and its people at all organizational levels of the Central Committee and the Revolutionary Council.

Sufian Abu Ziyade, a high-level Fatah leader in Gaza and one of Dahlan’s most prominent allies, described the decision as a “heinous crime” committed against Fatah members, demanding that Abbas rescind the decision in his capacity as president of all the Palestinian people.

The toughest response came from Rashid Abu Shabak, the former commander of Preventive Security and Dahlan’s right arm, who called for taking up arms against the PA, a call that drew sharp criticism from Fatah as it may lead to bloodshed and will have serious repercussions that will complicate the problem further.

Al-Monitor learned from a Fatah figure from Gaza who currently lives in the West Bank that not paying salaries has caused a number of Dahlan supporters to leave Ramallah for fear of punishment from Abbas. The figure said that they went to Jordan, Dubai and other places abroad, and that their departure reflected a state of extreme tension between the two Fatah camps.

Then Abbas publicly accused Dahlan essentially of collaborating with Israel in assassinating his rivals:

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas hinted that a former top Fatah official and several of his cohorts had assisted Israel against the Palestinians over a decade ago, igniting a storm among Palestinians.

Abbas’s hour-long laundry list of accusations, including the charge of spying, against former aide Mohammed Dahlan — delivered to a closed-door meeting of the Fatah Revolutionary Council Monday but released publicly on Wednesday — signaled that the battle over who will succeed the 79-year-old Palestinian president is heating up.

Abbas also claimed that complaints had been filed to the president’s office that Dahlan, a former security head for Fatah in Gaza, was mixed up in the Gaza assassination of Salah Shahadeh, the leader of Hamas’ military wing who killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2002.

In response, Dahlan and senior Hamas figures slammed Abbas and demanded that he open an inquiry into the issue.

Today, Dahlan's supporters seem to have hit back, as gunshots were reportedly fired at the home of Fatah's Jibril Rajoub in Ramallah.

At the same time, Fatah official Nabil Shaath claimed that Dahlan had destroyed Yasir Arafat's medicine bottles when he was flown to Paris for treatment. He also accused Dahlan of being behind other assassinations of Fatah officials, including Kamal Medhat in Beirut in 2009.

During yesterday's Fatah rallies, photos of Dahlan were burned.

For his part, Dahlan gave an interview to Egyptian TV where he accused Abbas of nepotism, hiring his nephew for a job to do nothing. He also implied that Abbas has taken over $1.4 billion for an investment fund that no one knows anything about. He added a litany of charges and implications, even saying that Arafat refused to meet with Abbas when he was sick.

An Arab woman was killed by a Gaza rocket last week

I briefly mentioned that there was a "mysterious explosion" that killed an older woman and injured several others last week in Beit Hanoun. There were reports when it happened and then scattered reports when the women died. But no news report mentioned the cause of the blast.

PCHR finally issued a press release, and the cause of the explosion was a (probable) Islamic Jihad rocket falling on their house.

At approximately 19:10 on Thursday, 13 March 2014, a home-made rocket landed on a house belonging to the family of Isma'il Abdul Fattah Mohammedin (35) on al-Wadi Street in Beit Hanoun town in the north of the Gaza Strip. The rocket made a hole whose diameter was one meter in the southeastern wall of the house and exploded inside. As a result, Aisha Atiya Mohammedin (52) sustained shrapnel injuries and amputation to the right hand, and she died because of the serious injuries at approximately 00:30 on Friday, 14 March 2014, at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Additionally, another 5 civilians, including 3 children, living in the house were injured.

Remember that Islamic Jihad claimed to shoot 130 rockets at Israel (and other terror groups, mostly Fatah, about 20 more) but Israeli officials only counted 60 rockets reaching Israel. In other words, some 60% of the rockets fired apparently exploded on the ground or fell short.

In a two week period in January, 37% of rockets fell short. I counted an 83% failure rate for two weeks from February 20-March 5.

Even though more Gazans than Israelis have been killed by Gaza rocket fire, no one is protesting how dangerous Gaza rockets are - to Gazans.

Mavi Marmara updates

The Free Gaza mailing list sent out a curious message claiming that there were major anti-Israel moves afoot in Turkey to prosecute Israel and Israelis for defending themselves from Turkish terrorists on the Mavi Marmara in 2010.

On March 7, 2014, the Turkish NGO, Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH) joined the referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC), requesting the ICC Prosecutor initiate an investigation into the crimes committed by Israeli commandos and officials into Israel's raid on Freedom Flotilla I bound for Gaza.

Eight Turks and one Turkish-American were murdered on the Mavi Marmara, some of them assassinated at close range. Several other pro-Palestinian human rights defenders/passengers were also wounded when Israeli commandos stormed all six boats in the early morning on May 31, 2010.

Two important proceedings are taking place in Istanbul, 1. a criminal proceeding on March 27 against four Israeli officials (in absentia) who ordered the attack on the Flotilla. Free Gaza board members, Audrey Bomse and Greta Berlin, along with several FG passengers, will attend that proceeding, and 2. a legal conference on the search for justice in both international and domestic forums on March 25.

I don't see any media coverage of either of these events.
However, I do see media that makes the pro-terrorist Hamas fans of Free Gaza seem to be on the losing side of thing.

Hezbollah's Al Manar reported in February:

Lawyers representing the victims of a fatal 2010 Zionist raid on an aid flotilla said they have been denied visas to the Netherlands on their way to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"They are not issuing us visas although we have made it clear that we are lawyers and we represent the victims of the flotilla raid," Cihat Gokdemir told Turkish Anadolu news agency.

Two members of the legal team, Gokdemir and Ramazan Ariturk, were not granted extensions to their three-year visas, which expired in November, despite informing Dutch officials that the ICC Prosecutor's Office - based in The Hague – had invited them for a meeting on legal action against high-ranking Zionist officials.

Trend.az reported last week:

Israel wishes to restore the diplomatic relations with Turkey, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, Turkey's Anadolu agency reported on March 11.

Israel wants the relations between the two countries to return to the level of early 2010, according to Netanyahu.

And Turkish news outlet Milliyet reported on Monday that negotiations between Israel and Turkey on compensation for the (Turkish) victims are almost finalized. Compensation is only one of Turkey's demands, so it is unclear how the other negotiating tracks are faring.

What's really going on is anybody's guess.

Meanwhile, Free Gaza called Scarlett Johansson a "dumb blond" on Twitter. For that usage of the term, they spelled "blonde" wrong.

Terrorists complain that Jews love Jerusalem more than they do

From Times of Israel:

Jewish love for Jerusalem drew unexpected praise from the head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization, who told religious leaders in Tehran that the Jews show their love for the city more than Muslims do, and quoted in Hebrew from an inspirational Israeli ballad to prove the point.

Addressing a clerical conference in the Iranian capital, Ramadan Shalah lamented that Palestinians and other Muslims showed insufficient love for Al-Quds, the Arabic name for Jerusalem, according to a recording obtained Monday by Israel’s Army Radio.

Shalah contrasted the inadequate Palestinian and Muslim love of the holy city with the heartfelt attachment of the Jews, and — speaking in Hebrew and Arabic — quoted the famous Israeli ballad “Jerusalem of Gold,” penned by Zionist songstress Naomi Shemer.

“What is the meaning of Jerusalem for us?” Shalah, who leads one of the most extreme terror groups in the world and is on the FBI’s most-wanted terrorists list, asked the assembled clergy last week. “Learn from the Jews, from that accursed entity [Israel]. They love Jerusalem not just as a military matter, but as a cultural one,” he declared.

“They have a song in the Israeli entity that their army sings on June 7, when they conquered the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Haram al-Sharif [the Temple Mount, in the 1967 Six Day War],” he added, and went on to quote part of the chorus of “Jerusalem of Gold.”

“Jerusalem of gold. Jerusalem of bronze. Jerusalem of light,” he chanted, saying each phrase in both Hebrew and Arabic.

“Every Israeli child and every accursed Israeli soldier says this song in their heart,” Shalah told the crowd.

The ballad, one of the most popular Hebrew songs ever, was composed for a music festival in Jerusalem that was part of the May 1967 Independence Day celebrations. The song employs ancient references, including from the Book of Lamentations and the Mishnah, to lament that Judaism’s holiest places – especially the Temple Mount – were closed to Jews by the Jordanian authorities who controlled the eastern half of the city at the time.

The song begins by describing a desolate Jerusalem, with a “wall” in her heart, a reference to the border wall dividing the Israeli and Jordanian parts of the city.

Within weeks of the song’s publication to widespread acclaim, the Six Day War broke out and Israeli forces were able to capture Jerusalem’s ancient Old City, leading Shemer to write a fourth, triumphant stanza that begins, “We returned to the water cisterns, the marketplace and the square / A ram’s horn blows at the Temple Mount in the ancient city.”

Keep in mind that Arab leaders have made a conscious effort to make Jerusalem a central feature of their worldview since the 1920s, when the Mufti started raising money to fix up the decayed and broken down Al Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. They have made numerous pronouncements and declarations, they put posters of the Dome of the Rock everywhere they can - but they still admit that they really don't love the city. In this case, Shallah even implies that to him it is merely a "military" matter.

Yet he still doesn't get it. Jews don't love Jerusalem because of a beautiful song; they love the song because it reflects how they feel about Jerusalem. (Of course, marginal Jews like those who write in Haaretz are doing all they can to sever the relationship between Jews and Jerusalem, because to them stripping the heart and soul of a people would help bring "peace.")

This video of mine seems appropriate:

Saudi cleric confirms that sun revolves around the Earth

His logic is impeccable:

In a recent interview, Saleh Al-Fawzan, a member of the Saudi Council of Senior Scholars, said that there is no doubt that the sun revolves around the earth. The interview aired on Saudi Channel 1 and was posted on the Internet on January 23, 2014. Following are excerpts:

TV host: Allah says in a Koranic verse: "And the sun runs towards its stopping point. That is the determination of the All-Powerful, the All-Knowing." Does the sun revolve around the earth?

Saleh Al-Fawzan: There is no doubt about it. The Koran says: "The sun runs…" Nevertheless, they say that the sun stands in place and the Earth moves. This contradicts the Koran.

[…]

Ignoring the Koran and adopting modern theories is not something a Muslim can do. A Muslim must follow the Koran.

And Allah knows best.

03/17 Links Pt2: The Goal of The Boycott Movement is Not Peace; The Esther Award goes to...

From Ian:

The Goal of the Boycott by Russell A. Berman

The goal of the boycott movement is not peace: it is the elimination of the State of Israel. This is the logical implication of all its arguments. Its supporters refrain from spelling out this endgame in order to avoid scaring off moderates who would reject the eliminationist agenda, but the end of Israeli sovereignty altogether is the clear purpose of the movement. It will fail in this pursuit, and Israel will survive, but the radicalism of the boycott movement is succeeding in poisoning debate on the Middle East.
The boycott movement bases its animosity toward Israel on the twin claims that it is a colonialist state and that it relies on an apartheid system of racial segregation. These are not arguments but slurs, and an examination of the historical record shows that they are falsehoods.
The boycott movement ostensibly dodges the question of the political future of the region, claiming agnosticism between the two-state and one-state solutions. In fact its arguments subvert the possibility of a two-state solution — a secure Israel next to a sovereign Palestine. In its de facto opposition to the two-state solution, the boycott movement stands outside the mainstream of the political discussion about the future of the region.

The Esther Award goes to...

It is easy to spot Haman in today’s world. The Iranian mullah’s with their destroy-Israel infatuation, a few European NGOs who back killers under the slogan of human rights, a Palestinian Authority which teaches its children to hate Jews and to detest life, to name a few.
But who is this year’s Esther? My vote is with Scarlett Johansson.
Scarlett, a world-renowned actress, and hidden Esther-like Jew, stood up against EU and UN-types when she said goodbye to Oxfam in favor of the Israeli SodaStream. There was an element of Purim-like turn around when Oxfam tried to pressure Scarlett to drop SodaSteram; it was they who got the cut.

Isi Leibler: Putin, Ukraine and the Jews

The international crisis created by Putin’s military incursion into Crimea has also served to highlight, again, Russia’s relationship to the Jews. The Russian president has included radical nationalism and anti-Semitism in the Ukraine as major justifications for his intervention.
I have personal experience of the feral anti-Semitism which pervaded the region from my direct dealings with senior Soviet authorities in the campaign to free Soviet Jewry, which was the central focus of my public life for many years. I have no doubt that both in the Ukraine and Russia, a substantial proportion of the population continues to hate and fear Jews.
Yet today it is almost surreal, particularly when recalling the major contribution of Soviet Jewish dissidents toward the downfall of the Evil Empire, to observe President Vladimir Putin, the authoritarian former KGB official, displaying overt friendship toward Jews and Israel.

The IDF has some very loud noisemakers for Purim

Here is how some IDF troops listen to the Megillah on Purim:

(h/t Ruchie)

If you want to drive Israel haters crazy - do something good for Israeli Arabs

Nothing gets under the skin of Israel haters more than Israel acting in ways that contradict the principle by which they live their pathetic little lives.

And when that happens, they have to twist theire brains into geometrically improbable shapes in order to pretend that Israel's actions to end discrimination are really actions to enforce discrimination.

A wonderfully convoluted post at Electronic Intifada by Yara Sa'di is today's example:

The phony pluralism of Israel’s universities

Palestinian students at Israeli universities are likely to notice an increase in the number of scholarships they can apply for in the coming months. Various websites for academic institutions will also be translated into Arabic.

These changes are the result of a government decision to allocate some $82 million over the course of six years for integrating “minorities” into the higher education system.

At first glance, it may appear that Israel has undertaken a U-turn in policy following decades of discriminatory and exclusionary practices against Palestinian students.

Yet when deeper questions are asked, it becomes obvious that whatever intentions those who drafted this policy had, standing up for the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel was not one of them.

The new policy was devised as part of a project to boost “pluralism” in Israeli universities by ensuring greater access for minorities.

The Israeli Council for Higher Education, the body behind the project, has identified the minorities targeted as “Arabs, Druze and Circassians.”

So if Israel making a serious investment to help minorities is not really to help minorities, what is it for?

Israel has realized that its policies towards Palestinians holding Israeli citizenship were having an adverse effect on its image abroad.

Ah, it is the Arab student equivalent of "pinkwashing!"

And in case you don't make that connection...

[This logic,] for example, underpins the “pinkwashing” campaigns undertaken by Israel, which depict Israel as a defender of gay rights in order to divert attention away from the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.

Sa'di goes crazy over a little seen (and excellent) video that Israel's Council for Higher Education released last year. Thanks to her, now far more people will get to see this video showing how Israel is helping its minorities than the 150 who had seen it up until now:

The video frankly acknowledges that Israeli Arabs have a harder time than Israeli Jews to reach their academic and career goals, for various reasons, and it shows how things are changing for the better. With Israeli Arabs taking center stage.

Isn't that horrible? They must all be brainwashed by the Zionist propaganda machine!

Not only that, but the video is guilty in "its refusal to acknowledge that Palestinian citizens of Israel live under a system of apartheid." It's also guilty of not acknowledging that the Earth is flat.

Of course, being Electronic Intifada, it takes as a given that Israel institutionalizes racism at all levels, and the many other initiatives being done to improve Arab education and career growth are ignored. Because they don't fit the narrative. When the evidence becomes too overwhelming, then they are dismissed as mere public relations - PR that costs tens of millions of dollars and directs hundreds of people to act towards a goal of eliminating discrimination. Yeah, that makes sense!

Sa'di ends off with:

So long as Israeli universities remain committed to Zionism, no amount of money will lead them to become “pluralist.”

So unless Israel dismantles itself, it has no right to help Arabs, because that help doesn't really help.

Sa'di proves that she is the one who is bigoted against Arabs, not Israel.

For bigots like Sa'di, it is better that Arabs don't have any opportunities to improve their lives rather than work within a system that she believes is immoral to begin with.

Israel helping Arabs is immoral because it makes the Arabs less miserable and less likely to spend their entire lives with the same hate that she has.

This is the same racist logic that says that Palestinian Arabs in Arab countries must remain in misery as long as Israel exists, so they can be pointed at to prove Israel is at fault.

And Yara Sa'di is a "postgraduate student and activist from Haifa." Yet seeing other Israeli Arabs trying to reach new heights in this video fills her with anger and bile.

If that isn't bigotry, what is?

03/17 Links Pt1: Why Abbas thinks Jewish state is a ‘delusional myth’; Saudi Cleric Bans Buffets

From Ian:

PMW: Why Abbas thinks Jewish state is a ‘delusional myth’

Abbas’s denial of Jewish history and refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state are the ideological foundations for the PA teachings that the existence of the State of Israel constitutes a theft by “Zionist gangs” and that Israel’s existence is temporary. This is not PLO rhetoric from the pre-Oslo days. This is current PA education and indoctrination and remains a most severe impediment to a genuine peace process.
Netanyahu’s demand and the PA’s refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state are clearly not just a quibble over semantics, and Netanyahu’s demand is in fact a minimalist request. Any PA recognition – if it is to impact at all on peace – must include recognition that Israel is the continuation of thousands of years of Jewish history and therefore Israel has a right to exist. Furthermore, in order for these declarations to be more than mere embellishments to yet another insincere agreement, they must be immediately integrated into PA children’s education and public discourse. Without this, Abbas’ recognition of the Jewish state would be like Arafat’s recognition of Israel in 1993: a meaningless ornament to a deceptive peace process that is cited regularly by the PA to create a façade of sincerity.
PA public recognition and education of its citizens to see Israel as a Jewish state with a history and right to exist are absolute necessities if there is ever to be a Palestinian population that accepts Israel as a neighbor and truly seeks peace. For now, while Abbas’ recognition on the diplomatic level would certainly not be enough to affect this change, it is nonetheless a necessary first step in the right direction. (h/t Elder of Lobby)

Abbas defined Jewish history in Jerusalem as a "delusional myth"

Amb. Alan Baker: Arafat and the Jewish State: Setting the Record Straight

Kerry opined that he views Israel’s position “as a mistake,” considering that the “Jewish State” issue was “sufficiently addressed by UN General Assembly Resolution 181 of 1947, which recommended the establishment of independent Arab and Jewish states in Palestine.”1 He said there are “more than 30–40 mentions of a ‘Jewish state’” in the resolution, and added that the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat “confirmed that he agreed it [Israel] would be a Jewish state” in 1988 and in 2004.
It would appear that once again, as with previous one-sided and pre-judgmental statements, Secretary Kerry has either been ill-advised or is deliberately engaged in an effort to neutralize the “Jewish State” issue in the current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He is doing so by attempting to determine that the question of Palestinian support for a Jewish state was already resolved by PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 1988, and is therefore redundant and unnecessary.

The debate is about our right to exist

This is what you found? A murmured response to the question by PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 1988, and an additional hum directed toward Haaretz journalists? And after this, they'll be angry that people talk about U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in terms of messianic obsession.
Why should it be necessary to search high and low for Palestinian recognition of a Jewish state? Because there is none. One can read the declarations of the Palestinian Authority and its leaders over the past 20 years. Indeed, opposing recognition of Israel as the national home of the Jewish people is more important to the Palestinians than land, since this is the true heart of the conflict, rather than the other territorial nonsense that the Left has been selling for years. It's not about territory and not about settlements and not about refugee rights, not at all. (h/t Bob Knot)

Are the Palestinians Prepared for Peace?

The Israelis remain hesitant and with good reason. It is unclear how long Mahmoud Abbas will remain in office; his presidency may easily be ended by a coup that will extend Hamas's power from the Gaza Strip to the West Bank.
Unfortunately, whenever Mahmoud Abbas speaks he contradicts himself, increasing Israel's reservations. The Palestinians are brainwashing the younger generation with hatred and hostility, and preparing them for continuing the conflict. We all understand Abbas's manipulations: talk about peace and prepare the Palestinians for the next war with Israel.

Starvation death toll in Yarmouk is up to 133

According to the Action Group for Palestinians in Syria, the only organization that keeps track of these things, an elderly man starved to death this morning. This brings the number of people who died of starvation to 133, This was quoted in Palestine Today.

They also reported unconfirmed reports that food would be allowed in today.

The Gaza "siege" is around 8 years old now, and not one person has starved to death. But in a measly 9 months of the Syrian siege of far fewer Palestinian Arabs in Yarmouk, 133 have starved to death.

It's almost as if language itself is being manipulated to make Israel look bad.

But how can that be? If people were deliberately misusing words and phrases like "starvation," "apartheid," "siege," "concentration camp," "international law," "occupation," "war crimes" and others, just to demonize the Jewish state, wouldn't someone have noticed it by now?

Yet when there are documented cases of horrors committed against Palestinian Arabs by other Arabs, cases that dwarf the worst that anyone can say about Israel in their wildest dreams, they don't get one percent of the coverage that Israeli actions do.

I'm sure there is a good explanation for this wild inconsistency. Let me think....Ah, I think I got it. Syria is acting in partnership with Israel to distract the world from Zionist crimes and the media has caught on to this trick and is therefore downplaying Syrian "massacre-washing" and "starvation-washing" because it is really Israel behind everything Assad is doing (except when Israel is behind what the rebels are doing.)

Whew. It all makes sense again. Now we can justify ignoring Syrian actions, because they only make Israel look good by comparison, and to many "pro-Palestinians,:" that is the real crime.

Unity! Hamas arrests Abbas supporters in Gaza

As Mahmoud Abbas prepares to meet with President Obama today, his party is organizing rallies to make it look as if he has widespread support at home.

Here is the only photo I could find of one of these rallies, in Jenin, from the official WAFA news agency. It doesn't look very impressive:

Note the maps of "Palestine" in the banner.

They did a little better in the rallies in Tulkarem and Ramallah.

Fatah tried to put together a demonstration in Gaza as well, but their friends in Hamas didn't take too kindly to the idea. Reports say that "Hamas police severely beat members of Fatah and they confiscated pictures of President Mahmoud Abbas and the flags of Palestine and the Fatah movement." A number of men were arrested and supposedly some women were assaulted as well.

Also in Gaza, Fatah members were fighting - other Fatah members. Supporters of Mahmoud Abbas and supporters of Mohammed Dahlan clashed at Al Azhar, each burning photos of the others' heroes. Police had to intervene.

We've seen rallies of support for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and they typically get tens of thousands of people. Fatah rallies rarely get those sorts of numbers.And you know that the people attending are government workers who are gently encouraged to attend - no one is taking off of work for a fake show of support for Abbas.

Someone should see how many Sodastream employees took the day off to attend one of these rallies!