Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, October 07, 2015

10/07 Links Pt2: What If Israel Had Given Up the Golan Heights?; Howard Stern lashes Roger Waters

From Ian:

Aaron David Miller: What If Israel Had Given Up the Golan Heights? A Lesson for Syria’s Crisis

As Syria continues to be ravaged with no signs that the end of its crisis will produce a unified and stable (let alone pro-Western) Arab state, I wonder from time to time what would have happened had U.S. efforts succeeded in negotiating an Israeli-Syrian peace agreement in the 1990s.
For me, this is more than a remote thought experiment. For almost two decades, under Republican and Democratic administrations, I was part of a U.S. negotiating team that tried to reach such a deal. But had we succeeded, the results might have been catastrophic for Israel and for the U.S.
Interest in an Israeli-Syrian peace deal was bipartisan: U.S. presidents including Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush expressed varying degrees of interest. So did Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin, Ehud Barak, and Benjamin Netanyahu. Several U.S. presidents and Israeli leaders were fascinated with longtime Syrian President Hafez al-Assad and considered him a strategic thinker with whom one might do business. The collapse of the Soviet Union generated some interest from Mr. Assad in looking to the U.S. as a possible partner.
Rarely did we hear from Israeli leaders or focus ourselves on the prospect that an Israeli-Syrian accord might be at risk if instability in Syria led to a change in regime. This concern was prevalent generally as Israelis did peace deals with other Arab leaders. But fear of instability in the Arab world didn’t stop Menachem Begin from returning Sinai to Egypt; it didn’t stop Mr. Rabin from concluding a peace deal with Jordan’s King Hussein; nor did it prevent the Oslo accords with the Palestinians. And with Hafez Assad there was an assumption–warranted at the time–that his brutality in suppressing dissent and his track record–governing longer than all of Syria’s previous leaders combined since independence in 1946–would somehow guarantee stability. Rarely has a political judgment been more wrongheaded.

Will Obama Back a Palestinian State?

Indeed, there is little doubt about where Obama stands. Upon entering office, Obama made Israeli-Palestinian peace a priority but, by shredding previous White House commitments and insisting on a freeze on natural growth within disputed areas of Jerusalem, he gave Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas an excuse to walk away from talks. In effect, Obama acted more as Jerusalem’s municipal zoning commissioner than as leader of the free world. In the years since, he has become positively petulant if not unhinged toward Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. There was the “hot-mic” incident and the over-the-top reaction to Netanyahu’s speech before Congress. (Democratic complaints that Netanyahu lobbied Congress hold little water, as the British, French, and German ambassadors did as well; complaints that Netanyahu should not have criticized White House policy while in the United States are hypocritical as well, given that Obama criticized the sitting Australian government’s climate policy while in Australia). New reports suggest Obama brushed off Senate Minority leader Harry Reid’s request that he give members of his own party assurances that he would support Israel at the United Nations, and Secretary of State John Kerry and UN Ambassador Samantha Power’s decision to miss Netanyahu’s UN speech was simply rude (as was their underlings’ refusal to applaud). If Obama acted so unpresidential and petulant before, how might he act when he no longer has to worry about how unilateral action might impact other agendas back home? Perhaps it’s time to recognize the real possibility that Obama will support any UN Security Council binding initiative to recognize a Palestinian state and impose borders. Power, after all, had once recommended doing just that and then utilizing U.S. troops to make it a reality.
The question now is less whether Obama might try to create such a state as a fait accompli and allow others to pick up the pieces, and more what the U.S. Congress might do to dissuade Obama from doing so. Rhetoric alone will not do the trick. It is clear that Obama does not respect Congress, nor care about its input. Frankly, the Congress has neither given the White House nor the State Department reason to respect it.
Now is the time for Congress to lay out consequences for any unilateral action: Freezing confirmations, slashing funding, forbidding any aid and assistance to any Palestinian entity until it reaffirms Oslo, and constraining the State Department’s worst instincts to relieve Palestinians of accountability, as it did with the PLO Commitments Compliance Act in the late 1980s. Diplomats might whine, but their recent performance as well as the disdain Kerry’s crew has shown for Congress suggests that the U.S. would suffer little from constraining State Department functions. The alternative is not only the creation of a new state that refuses to recognize its neighbor, but one which would quickly become a satellite of Iran, a sponsor of terrorism, and guarantee a devastating war rather than usher in any peace.

Inside Story - Is Israel Maintaining the Status Quo at Al-Aqsa Mosque?

Middle East Forum director Gregg Roman appeared on Al-Jazeera English on October 6, alongside Ali Abunimah, co-founder of Electronic Intifada, and Ian Black, the Middle East editor of the Guardian newspaper, to discuss the recent tensions at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Excerpt
Abunimah: With all respect, I don't agree with Ian Black that these things are irreconcilable. If it were a matter of access for religious communities, as he said, that has been managed for centuries. Muslims, Christians, and Jews had access to Jerusalem. What is causing the problem is Israel's violent and aggressive colonization of Jerusalem ...
moderator: Ok, Gregg, I want to bring you in here ...
Abunimah (interrupting): ... and more broadly the West Bank. And it's claim that it alone should control everything.
moderator: If we could just let Gregg respond to your fears. Are they realistic? Is the destruction of Al-Aqsa mosque imminent with the arrival of these Jewish settler groups, these Jewish activist groups, coming onto the compound ...
Abunimah (interrupting): I didn't say imminent
moderator: Ok, but is it a possibility, then?
Roman: It's not a possibility, Mr. Abunimah sounds more like a spokesman for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad when he uses these vile accusations of the "judaization" of Jerusalem. The fact ...

Inside Story - Is Israel maintaining the status quo at al-Aqsa Mosque?

Another UNRWA employee enamored of Hitler

We've seen quite a few of these - UNRWA employees who post (almost invariably fake) quotes from Adolf Hitler, whom they clearly believe is worth learning from.

This one comes from UNRWA employee Hamza al-Khalili:

The "quote" says ""If you tell someone a secret, you are giving him an arrow that he might shoot you with some day".

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

ICC Finds Stabbing Random Jews Legal Under International Law (PreOccupied Territory)

Our weekly column from the humor site PreOccupied Territory.

Check out their Facebook page.

The Hague, Netherlands, October 7 - The International Criminal Court formalized today what many analysts have long assumed to be accepted International Law, ruling that the stabbing of Jews is a legitimate and legal act when undertaken to express political, social, economic, philosophical, religious, ethnic, or personal grievances.

The ruling comes after months of investigation into what the United Nations Security Council called "the situation in Palestine" following last year's Israel-Hamas war that killed more than 1,500 people. While most experts took for granted that the Court would adopt the position of most UN members, namely that any form of killing Jews, especially Israelis, constitutes an acceptable form of protest, some analysts thought the ICC would only narrowly examine the 50-day conflict. Instead, the Court adopted a broad ruling to apply to all situations, deciding that states and non-state actors alike are within their legal rights to foment, implement, incite, or otherwise engage in attacks on Jews using sharp objects.

Implications of the ruling include a potentially lightened docket for the Court in coming years, according to legal scholar Eugene Kontorovich. "By opening this legal avenue of recourse for Palestinians, either as 'lone wolf' stabbers or as part of organized terrorist operations, the Court has essentially told them exactly what to do to attain their aspirations while remaining within the boundaries of international law and whatever Laws of Armed Conflict may apply," he explained. "In one fell swoop, the ICC has both made its own work easier and endorsed policies that Palestinian entities are already favorably-disposed to pursue, basically guaranteeing that those entities will elect to engage in stabbing activities rather than more legally questionable methods such as rocket fire on Israeli civilian communities that might hit non-Jews."

Other experts noted that the Court had already shown its willingness to tackle cases with far-reaching implications. In a landmark case earlier this year, the ICC overturned the Nuremberg convictions of several prominent Nazi war criminals. That ruling turned on the specific observation that it would constitute a double standard to hold Nazi officials responsible for ethnic cleansing in Europe, yet insist that Jews must be removed from areas they inhabit in the Middle East. However, the implications of that decision were not lost on the justices, says commentator Hugh Manreitswacz.

"The Nuremberg decision this past February may have focused on the posthumous exoneration of various German officials, but the judges well knew that they were also condoning the killing and persecution of Jews," he explained. "This subsequent ruling illustrates exactly that point. I think we can expect future cases to further expand on what the Court deems permissible methods for getting rid of Jews, and we should anticipate specific treatment of shooting at motorists, bombing buses, firing bullets or anti-tank missiles at school buses, vehicular homicide, and Molotov cocktails, just to name a few."

10/07 Links Pt1: Abbas Calls for Murder, Palestinians Attack; Jerusalem Mayor – Armed and Dangerous

From Ian:

Khaled Abu Toameh: Abbas Calls for Murder, Palestinians Attack

The terrorists did not need permission from Hamas leaders to murder the first Jews they ran into. The inflammatory rhetoric of Abbas and Palestinian Authority (PA) officials and media outlets was sufficient to drive any Palestinian to go out and murder Jews.
Instead of condemning the murder of the Jews, the PA denounced Israel for killing the two Palestinians who carried out the Jerusalem attacks.
The Palestinian Authority and its leaders are in no position today to condemn the murder of any Jews, simply because the PA itself has been encouraging such terrorist attacks through its ceaseless campaign of incitement against Israel.
The PA is playing a double game: it tells the world that it wants peace and coexistence with Israel; meanwhile it incites Palestinians against Israel, driving some to set out with guns and knives to murder Jews.
Although Abbas has repeatedly stated during the past few years that he does not want another intifada against Israel, his statements and actions show that he is doing his utmost to spark another wave of violence, in order to invite international pressure on Israel.

A Method Behind Palestinian Madness

This slow buildup to a third intifada is about anti-Jewish hate not complaints over settlements or borders. It also shows that any further Obama administration pressure on Israel to further empower Abbas — whose own Fatah Party was behind the shooting of the Henkins — would also be madness. Just as Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 enabled Hamas to create a terror base there, so, too, would any retreats from the West Bank make possible the establishment of more safe havens for terrorists. Though neither side wants the status quo, such an alternative is unthinkable.
The Obama administration continues to push for more “daylight” between its stance and that of Israel and snubs Netanyahu while refusing to condemn Abbas or to respond to the killings of Jews with anything more than mealy-mouthed statements urging both sides to show restraint. But that’s exactly what Abbas is counting on as he subtly orchestrates a wave of bloody terrorism. Abbas also knows that international indifference to the murder of Jews fueled by anti-Semitism continues to work in his favor to create more pressure on Israel rather than on the Palestinians. The only way to halt the bloodshed is an unambiguous American stance in favor of Israel’s right to take tough action to suppress terrorism and a clear statement to Abbas to either accept Netanyahu’s offer of talks without preconditions or to forget about further U.S. backing.
Unfortunately, Abbas knows that Obama is more interested in his feud with Netanyahu and appeasement of Iran than in standing with democratic Israel against terrorist murderers. That means the blame for the rising toll of bloodshed from Palestinian terrorism in the coming week will belong as much to an indifferent Obama as it does to Abbas.

NY Post Ed: Israel-bashing just came back to haunt the State Deptartment

The administration has called the attack a tragic mistake. But Lee recalled Israel’s August 2014 shelling of a UN school in Gaza — which State immediately labeled “disgraceful,” adding: “The suspicion that militants are operating nearby does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of so many innocent civilians.”
Lee asked: Does that policy still hold?
Toner was at a complete loss. He haltingly apologized for the loss of life, stressed that the United States avoids civilian casualties, said any further comment would be “too much speculation” and begged Lee to “give me a pass [while] we wait for the investigation to run its course.”
That’s a pretty reasonable position, actually. But it flies in the face of last year’s instantaneous criticism of Israel — made long before any investigation had even begun.
Enemies like the Taliban, Hamas and Hezbollah quite intentionally hide among civilians, using them as human shields.
Innocents die in all wars — but the fog of war is rarely more dense than when the other side is deliberately trying to make you kill civilians.
Israel’s known that for a long time — and now the Obama administration is painfully coming to learn it, too.

This is called a "peaceful demonstration" according to the Palestinian Authority

The PA's official Wafa news agency has a photo essay entitled "Israeli army suppress a peaceful demonstration condemning violations against Al-Aqsa and the holy sites near the Kalandia crossing 10-6-2015."

Here is every image they showed of the "peaceful demonstration:"

When will the world realize that when Palestinian officials use words like "peaceful demonstration" (and "storming Al Aqsa" and dozens of other stock phrases) they are lying through their teeth?

Here is video of the same riots:

And this video of the riots from a distance shows that ordinary Palestinian Arabs, only meters away from the stone throwing, are not the least bit concerned that the supposedly trigger-happy Israeli forces will do anything to them:

There's also this interesting tidbit from The Guardian showing that the PA is solidly behind the riots:

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has warned Palestinians not to fall into the trap of “militarising” the current escalation of violence as confrontations with Israeli security forces appeared to spread on Tuesday.

“We don’t want a military and security escalation with Israel,” Abbas said at a meeting of Palestinian officials, according to the official news agency Wafa. “We are telling our security forces, our political movements, that we do not want an escalation, but that we want to protect ourselves.”

Although Abbas’s comments were initially interpreted as an indication he was moving to calm the situation – amid reports that Israeli and Palestinian security officials planned to meet on Tuesday evening – a Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) statement issued later seemed to undermine those hopes.

“Saluting the masses of Palestinians who are confronting the occupation,” the statement said, before calling on Palestinians to “unite for an act of national defence”.

TOI reports:

A teenage Palestinian woman stabbed an Israeli man near the Lions’ Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem on Wednesday morning and was then shot at the scene.

She was shot by her victim, who was stabbed in the back, police said.

“Upon arriving, I saw two patients,” MDA paramedic Aharon Adler told The Times of Israel. “One of them, an approximately 30-year-old male with stab wounds to his upper body, fully conscious; alongside him, a young woman with gunshot wounds. According to him, she came up and stabbed him twice from behind. And then she was shot.

“Her condition was worse than his,” he added.

Arab media immediately went into denial, but they couldn't quite make up their minds as to how to lie about this.

Ma'an Arabic quotes one of those famous "eyewitnesses" who says that the woman had no knife at all and the "settler" attacked her and then shot her.

Palestine Press Agency, without elaborating, claims in its headline that "settler tried to rape a girl" and also that she had no weapon.

The lie that will likely win the battle is from Palestine Today, which claims (again according to "eyewitnesses") that the "settler" tried to remove the girl's hijab. She responded by lightly stabbing him and then he had the excuse he wanted to shoot and kill her.

Other variants say that he tried to remove her hijab but she wasn't armed but he shot her when she fought back.

Expect the English language pro-jihad sites like Electronic Intifada to christen one of these stories as the official one any minute now.

Egyptians angry over TV news ticker calling murdered Jews "martyrs"

Egyptian satellite channel CBC has come under attack for how it described Jews murdered in Jerusalem.

The news ticker says "Martyrdom of settlers and wounding of two others as well as the death of the attacker in Jerusalem."

Many newspaper articles and social media lit up with anger at Egyptian TV daring to call innocent Jews who were murdered "martyrs" and the Arab attacker as merely "dead."

The TV network apologized for the error, but that is not enough for the angry Arabs who are convinced that the Egyptian government is tilting towards the Jews and against the heroes who murder them.

The irony, of course, is that by definition practically no Arabs are "martyrs" but the innocent Jews being slaughtered really are. Martyrdom applies to those murdered because of their faith, and as we have seen, the Jews being stabbed and run over are chosen purely because they are Jews, not because they are "Zionists" or "Israelis" or "settlers."

Unfortunately, Jews are uncomfortable using an accurate term for their martyrs and they cede the emotional language to those who wholeheartedly support the murderers. And the casual news consumer is more sympathetic to stories that use emotional language.

Don't worry, though: one Israeli publication freely uses the word "martyr":

Martyrs are not heroes because they died, but rather because their humanity is manifested in their dreams, their connection to the land, their resilience in holding on to life in the face of oppression... The martyrs were not born to take part in a project of martyrdom, they were born to take part in the project called life. They sanctify life by sacrificing themselves for it.

Sorry - this is the anti-Israel +972 magazine, and they are talking about Arabs as well, not Jews. Ultra-left publications like +972 doesn't give a damn about Jews who are murdered except to use them as an excuse to bash Jews. But Arabs who are unfortunately killed while rioting are "martyrs."

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

Disgusting Arab video encouraging murdering Jews

This seems to have been released today, reportedly from Gaza. It shows an Arab youth who murders two stereotypical Jews, one in Chassidic dress and the other wearing a tallit (Jewish prayer shawl.)

It is as pure an example of incitement and antisemitism as you can imagine.

It is apparently from Hamas.

10/06 Links: Hamas cell that killed Naama and Eitam Henkin Arrested; Israel is Not Palmyra!

From Ian:

IDF Blog: Security Forces Arrest Terrorists who Murdered 2 Israeli Civilians

The ISA, IDF and Israel Police have arrested members of the cell that perpetrated the shooting attack that killed 2 Israeli civilians on October 1. Rabbi Eitam Henkin and his wife Naama Henkin were murdered in front of their 4 children, the oldest of whom being 9 years old. The detainees have been transferred for investigation by the ISA and have admitted their involvement in the murder of the Henkins.
The cell – affiliated with Hamas in Nablus – numbered five terrorists, each of which had a defined role. One terrorist checked the route. Three terrorists were in the attacking vehicle – a driver and two attackers. The cell commander was not in the vehicle. Several additional suspects have been arrested on suspicion of aiding the cell.
The cell commander was Raeb Ahmed Muhammad Alivi, born in 1978, and active in Hamas’s military wing. He recruited the members of the cell, instructed them and provided them with weapons.

Hamas cell that killed Naama and Eitam Henkin nabbed

The video below shows the arrest of one of the suspects at a hospital in Nablus, Channel 2 television said Monday night. The TV report said the attack was likely curtailed when one of the five was accidentally shot by another cell member and the gunmen sped away in order to seek medical assistance for him. That may be why the four Henkin children — aged 9, 7, 4 and 4 months — were not harmed.
The Shin Bet named the cell leader as Ragheb Ahmad Muhammad Aliwi, a previously jailed Hamas fighter from Nablus, who recruited the other four terrorists, instructed them how to carry out attacks and provided them with their weapons.
The other four were named as Yahia Muhammad Naif Abdullah Hajj Hamad, who carried out the shooting itself; Samir Zahir Ibrahim Kusah, the driver of the car who is linked to previous terror attacks; Karem Lufti Fatahi Razek, the gunman who was wounded by gunfire from one of his fellow cell members during the attack; and Zir Ziad Jamal Amar, who cleared the way for the car to carry out the attack.
All four are Hamas activists from Nablus.
Razek was arrested in a hospital in Nablus by an undercover police unit. The other suspects were arrested at their homes and other locations. (h/t Bob Knot)

Hamas: Members’ arrests in Henkin murders ‘honorable’ for us

Hamas welcomed on Monday the Israeli announcement that five members of its organization were arrested for murdering Naama and Eitam Henkin in the West Bank on Thursday — and again praised the terror attack, vowing there would be more.
In a statement issued Monday night after the Shin Bet security service revealed the arrest of a five-member Hamas cell in Nablus, the terror group did not explicitly take responsibility for the attack that left the couple dead in front of their young children, but promised that “this cell is not the first and will not be the last.”
“The occupation’s announcement of the arrest of the Nablus cell is an honorable announcement for our people and their resistance,” Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said.

UN Watch: State Dept. left dumbstruck when confronted over criticism of Israel in light of Afghan hospital shelling

U.S. State Department deputy spokesperson Mark Toner appeared dumbstruck yesterday when AP reporter Matt Lee, following up on our tweet from Saturday, asked him why the State Department said last year that it was “appalled” by Israel’s “disgraceful” shelling, after it accidentally hit a school in Gaza, yet took an altogether different approach this weekend when the U.S. accidentally shelled an Afghan hospital.
Following the U.S. bombing on Saturday in Kunduz that killed 19, I compared it with last year’s bizarre statement by the Obama Administration, which was more akin to a typically-prejudiced UN reaction:
Our spotlight on this hypocrisy got picked up quickly and was sent to AP correspondent Matt Lee.
At the next day’s daily State Department briefing in Washington, Lee pointedly asked it if were still Administration policy that, as they told Israel last year, “the suspicion that militants are operating nearby a site like this … does not justify strikes that put at risk the lives of innocent civilians.”
Evidently startled by the question, deputy spokesperson Mark Toner –looking down and stumbling over his words, as you can see in this video — struggled desperately for several minutes yet failed to explain in any way the glaring inconsistency exposed by recent events. (h/t Yenta Press)

After Blasting Israel, State Department Doesn’t Immediately Condemn Afghan Hospital Bombing

.@Amnesty's complicity with the Tamimis' support of terror (Petra Marquardt-Bigman)

(Guest post from Petra Marquardt-Bigman @WarpedMirrorPMB - my last post before the holiday)

Amnesty International wants to ignore that supporting Bassem Tamimi means supporting terror

For the Tamimis of Nabi Saleh, their activism and their supposedly “non-violent resistance” is a family affair. This was not only illustrated in the fawning tribute to the Tamimi clan featured as a New York Times Magazine cover story in March 2013, but it is also reflected in many other reports, and Bassem Tamimi himself as well as his supporters have often emphasized the important role of his family.

Indeed, for Bassem Tamimi – who has Amnesty International’s unwavering support – it is the Palestinians’ “destiny” to “resist”, it is an integral part of Palestinian “culture” and “history.” While Bassem Tamimi is hailed by Amnesty as a “human rights activist” worthy of unquestioning support, he has consistently emphasized that he regards all forms of “resistance” as legitimate, and he has frequently explained that his own (current) preference for protests and rock-throwing is a choice prompted by purely pragmatic considerations.

Neither the fact that the rock-throwing advocated so passionately by Bassem Tamimi has resulted in the death of more than a dozen Israelis, nor the Tamimi clan’s openly stated refusal to condemn terrorism and their insistence that they have “the right to armed resistance,” nor the well-known fact that Tamimi clan member Ahlam Tamimi, the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem, remains “much-loved in Nabi Saleh” has deterred Amnesty International from ‘adopting’ Bassem Tamimi’s “village of Nabi Saleh as a community-at-risk.” Indeed, as Edith Garwood, the Amnesty International USA Country Specialist - Israel/OPT/State of Palestine, declared in a recent message, “AI groups globally work on behalf of the village long term including here in the U.S.”

It is time to spell out that Amnesty International is working on behalf of people who share and promote Ahlam Tamini’s vile ideology and her continuing incitement to and glorification of terrorism.

In the aftermath of the recent lethal terror attacks against Israeli Jews, Bassem Tamimi’s wife shared a post on Facebook (FB) that reads translated from the original Arabic (all translations courtesy of Ibn Boutros):

“A point of light:Each stage has its special form of resistance, and the signs of this stage have clearly appeared in the method of the individual operations. They are planned by individuals, financed by individuals, prepared by individuals, and carried out by individuals.The result is the 100% success of the mission.Do not wait for an organization to organize you [or: put you into formations / register you / put limitations on you], set the time for you, command you [give you orders] and politicize you.Put your life on the line and go ahead, Allah will be with you.”

This open incitement of terrorist attacks is shared from a FB page belonging to a person who calls herself “Princess of the Free.” Both the profile picture and the cover picture displayed at the time of this writing show Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri, the terrorist who exploded himself in the crowded Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem on August 9, 2001, killing 15 civilians , including 7 children and a pregnant woman, and wounding some 130 other people.

As you can see, the “Princess of the Free” is quite popular: at the time of this writing, she has 4,988 friends and her posts are followed by 2,787 people. Among her FB friends are Bassem Tamimi as well as his wife Nariman and his famous daughter Ahed.

This screenshot from Bassem Tamimi’s FB page coincidentally shows among his FB friends the profile picture of the “Princess of the Free” (marked with a red circle) just above a photo Bassem Tamimi posted showing himself and his nephew Nizar Tamimi, a son of a sister of Bassem Tamimi who was convicted of the 1993 murder of Chaim Mizrachi and who was released in the 2011 Shalit deal.

Another Tamimi clan member released in this deal was of course the Sbarro massacre mastermind Ahlam Tamimi – and Nizar and Ahlam had been sweethearts of sorts for a while, and got married shortly after their release.

According to this FB post, Nizar Tamimi is the husband of the “Princess of the Free” – which would make the “Princess of the Free” Ahlam Tamimi.

There are a number of additional indications that the “Princess of the Free” is indeed Ahlam Tamimi. They include this picture and “poem” posted on September 19, which was “liked” by 132 people,including Nariman Tamimi, and which is signed at the bottom left corner: “The freed (prisoner) journalist Ahlam Tamimi.” The “poem” includes unmistakable allusions to the Sbarro bombing:

“Fire was lit in the bodyDon’t just stand by perplexedRemember the day the restaurant burnedRemember the day that the roof flew awayWhat prevents honor from returning?What prevents the rebels from laughing?Try and move forwardTry and planTry and carry outPrepare the mix [of explosives?]Take the axeWhat’s the plan?Believe me, with your hands onlyYou will cause a heart attack for the enemy.”

But irrespective of the question if the “Princess of the Free” is really the Sbarro massacre mastermind Ahlam Tamimi, the fact that Bassem and Nariman Tamimi as well as their daughter Ahed are FB “friends” of the “princess” and the fact that Nariman Tamimi obviously follows the page and has recently shared a post inciting more terror attacks is further evidence that the Tamimis of Nabi Saleh are not even trying to conceal their support for terrorism.

That leaves only Amnesty International trying to conceal that their support of the Tamimis and Nabi Saleh is support for murderous Jew-hatred and terrorism.

Chag sameach!

The final holidays of the season are here. This is the photo tweeted by IDF Arabic language spokesperson Avicha Adraee for the holiday of Simchat Torah (celebrated Monday in Israel, Tuesday outside):

Adraee also caused a stir yesterday by posting on Twitter and Facebook the dictionary definition of heroism and the terrorist definition of heroism, calling the terrorists who killed two Jews and injured a woman and child cowards. (I have a translation here.)

Arabic media were upset that he dared call their heroes "cowards."

Anyway, I will again not be posting from tonight until Tuesday night. For those who celebrate, have a great holiday.

(h/t Ibn Boutros)

From The Economist:

IT SEEMS that the ageing politicians who appear on the official Palestine television station are in “urgent need” of a makeover. So, at least, said one of the channel’s directors in a letter to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. He proposed hiring a make-up artist, a prestigious one who has “already worked with several international stations.” Her fee, though, was $12,000 per month—roughly what the average Palestinian will earn in four years. Many such average people are distinctly unimpressed by that kind of extravagance. The document, published last month on a local website, is the latest scandal to roil Palestinian politics. In August it was a letter from an Abbas adviser, begging the foreign minister of Bahrain for $4 million to build an exclusive housing complex for Palestinian officials. Education officials, meanwhile, have been accused of selling off a batch of 1,000 medical scholarships offered by the Venezuelan government.

The Palestinian Authority (PA), the limited self-governing body in the occupied territories, has been plagued by waste, graft and accusations of both since its inception in 1994 following the Oslo accords. When auditors looked at the books three years later, they concluded that nearly 40% of the budget had been frittered away. By 2006, according to the PA’s own attorney-general, officials had embezzled some $700m.

Aman, a local watchdog group, claims that the bloated public-sector payroll includes an unknown number of “ghost employees” whose salaries line the pockets of managers and ministers. There are ghost businesses, too, like a $6m joint Palestinian-Italian venture to build a pipe factory that existed only on paper.

Asked to name the “most serious problem” in their society, 24% of Palestinians say it is corruption—only slightly below the 28% who point to the Israeli occupation. Four-fifths believe their leaders are corrupt. A new poll found that, for the first time, more than half of them want to dissolve the authority altogether. “A majority believes that it has become a burden,” said Khalil Shikaki, who carried out the poll. Perhaps not even a $12,000 makeover can help.