Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

Today's Palestinian Police Phunnies

Excellent work again by the IAF:

Two major Arab terrorists were killed Tuesday afternoon when Israeli Air Force planes fired a missile at on a car in the town of Jebalia in Gaza.

One of the terrorists, Hassan Al Madhun, was active in the Al Aksa Brigades, the military wing of the Fatah, the party of Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen).

Another terrorist killed in the vehicle, Fuazi Abu Kara, was a member of the military wing of the Hamas, the Al Kassam Brigades.

The two men were killed in a vehicle bearing a license plate belonging to the PA’s official security apparatus.

An army spokesman said that Al Madhun was responsible for twin attacks in Ashdod’s harbor in 2004, killing ten people, and for bombing the Karni crossing between the Gaza district and the Negev, an attack that left six dead.

Al Madhun is also suspected of attempting to send a female suicide bomber to blow up Soroka hospital in Beer Sheva.

While doing all this for Fatah’s military wing, Al Madhun held an official position in the Palestinian Authority, working for the PA’s Preventative Security Agency in Gaza. Ironically, the PA set up this agency to thwart terrorist attacks against Israel.

Israel repeatedly demanded that the Palestinian Authority arrest Al Madhun, though the requests were ignored.

Al Madhun, who headed an Islamic faction in the Al Aksa Brigades, closely coordinated his activity with the Hamas.

Al Madhun’s Fatah faction was also responsible for firing Kassam rockets on the eastern Negev town of Sderot, including the rockets fired over the past few days.

So do we have this straight? The US government is paying the PA to hire terrorists as "policemen" to fight Hamas, and these same terror-"police" are working together with Hamas.

It is also amusing to see Palestinian Arab reaction to Israeli defensive actions:
- If Israel asks the PA to arrest a terrorist, they are meddling in internal Palestinian affairs;
- If Israel arrests the terrorists themselves, the PA demands that their "freedom fighters" get released;
- If Israel kills them outright, the Palestinians complain about "extrajudicial killings;"
- If Israel builds a barrier to stop terrorists, the PA calls it an "apartheid wall" and gets gullible Westerners to stage protests.

What do these things have in common?

Only that according to Palestinian Arab "moderates," and with the agreement of a significant number of Westerners, Israel has no right to do any actions whatsoever to protect her citizens.

Your tax dollars at work - US pays for "police" jobs for terrorists

Disgusting, outrageous, insane.

RAMALLAH [MENL] -- The United States has provided more than $4 million for the absorption of hundreds of insurgents into Palestinian Authority security forces.

Palestinian sources said the Bush administration relayed 20 million shekels, or $4.4 million, for the transfer of Fatah insurgents to the PA security forces. The sources said the U.S. aid, allocated via the PA, was meant to facilitate the elimination of the Fatah-dominated Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a leading insurgency force in the war against Israel.

'The U.S. money was meant to pay salaries for Al Aqsa people who join the PA,' a senior Palestinian source involved in the effort said.

Al Aqsa has a force of between 500 and 700 fighters, and the sources said they would receive at least 1,750 shekels, or nearly $400, per month. The sources said most of the fighters have agreed to join the PA security forces, but said at least 100 would continue attacks against Israel in operations financed by Iran and Hizbullah.

Why exactly does anyone think that the Al Aqsa Palestinian Arab "policemen" aren't also terrorists at the same time - just with a little more money?

Recommended: The Dry Bones Blog

Read it!

July, 1948 - The Gap in Jihad

In light of the recent talk about "truces" from various terror groups, which usually don't last beyond the next news cycle, the following article is instructive - especially the last paragraph.

The words could have been written today by the vast majority of Arabs - even the most "moderate" will say frankly that Israel's existence is just a temporary blip on the road to Muslim domination. Only the "hardliners" will speak these words where Western ears can hear them, however. (This is one of the reasons why the whole Iranian president kerfuffle was so funny - most "moderate" Arab leaders agree with him; his crime was just saying his thoughts out loud.)

Crossposted to Palestine Post-ings.

A single sentence

Little Green Footballs pointed out this editorial at The Guardian, from a British Muslim leader arguing for the re-establishment of the caliphate and a unified Muslim world.

I will leave it to others to dissect this example of pseudo-scholarship, but one sentence jumped out to me:

The lack of legitimate leadership, coupled with a sense of humiliation, has led to widespread political instability in the Muslim world with its consequences for the wider world.

It is an interesting sentence in a few ways:

* It implicitly blames the West for Islamic terror - if only the West hadn't sliced up the Islamic world then there would be no need for terror! The ease with which Muslims can escape any sense of personal responsibility is amazing - murders and terror are never their fault, rather they are inevitable consequences of outside factors.

* It says explicitly that if the Muslim world would not have a sense of humiliation, it would not be a security threat. Of course, what is unsaid is that the sense of humiliation is directly because Islam has lost to the West in every sphere of influence - militarily, scientifically, culturally. Which of course means that for that "sense of humiliation" to disappear, the West must surrender and let the Muslims take over the world - all for security.

* The division of Arab states by the West happened some 90 years ago. Arab states have been independent for some 50 years. Yet for some reason, they have never coalesced into a single Arab or Muslim state - even though nothing is stopping them from doing exactly that! And who does the writer (Osama Saeed) blame for this lack of Muslim unity? The evil West, of course!

Amazing how a single sentence can accidentally betray so much truth about the mindset in Islam today.

Left's sense of humor seems gone

Is it only me, or has the Left lost their sense of humor?

Outside of Jon Stewart, all other liberal-leaning "humorists" that I run across on the blogosphere or on TV just seem bitter rather than funny. (Stewart is simply brilliant.)

It is sad to see that someone like Garry Trudeau has turned from a major political humorist into just a shell of his former self.

(I usually don't watch SNL; the times I've caught Weekend Update in recent years it wasn't bad but I didn't detect much of an obvious ideological slant.)

A string of Israeli diplomatic successes - will they last?

1. Magen David Adom to join Red Cross in December

2.

Israel introduced a watershed resolution in the U.N. General Assembly on Monday that designates January 27 as an annual commemoration day for the 6 million Jews and other victims murdered in the Nazi Holocaust during World War Two.

The measure, expected to be approved on Tuesday by consensus, rejects any denial that the Holocaust took place. It also urges members to "inculcate" future generations with the lessons on the genocide so it would not be repeated in the future.

3. The world condemnation of Iran's president would simply not have happened a year ago.

4. Neither would the UN and EU demanding Syria shut down Islamic Jihad.

5. Israel has had major diplomatic successes in establishing relations with many Muslim states since the Gaza pullout. It appears that the Iranian remarks were a direct reflection of the fear Iran has about this.

It appears that there are a number of reasons for the current thaw between Israel and the world:

First and most obviously is the Gaza pullout. While it may have been foolhardy for many other reasons, there is no doubt that a wave of goodwill came as a result. The constant refrain from the Arab world of an expansionist Israel was shown once again to be a lie.

A second, related reason is the fatigue that the world has with the Palestinian cause. As time goes on it becomes clearer that the Palestinian leaders are far less interested in the well-being of their people and far more interested in scoring political and military points against Israel. As their corruption and record of lies increases, world sympathy goes down.

Another reason is the desire that nations and organizations have for power and influence. The UN, the EU, Russia, Egypt and the US want to constantly prove that they are relevant, and solving an intractable problem is about as relevant as it gets. The only way they can solve the problem is by appearing to be even-handed, by being honest brokers in actions if not in intent. Israel will not be moved to make concessions from those that are openly hostile, so at least the pretense of fairness is needed to exert influence. Hence, cosmetic changes such as a world Holocaust day or admitting Israel to international organizations are easy gestures to acheive that goal.

A fourth, related reason is the pressure that Israel and Jewish groups has put on organizations, newspapers and governments pointing out the egregious anti-Israel bias that was allowed to fester for the past decades. One cannot discount the importance of CAMERA, Honest Reporting, MEMRI, and Anne Bayefsky. People are sensitive to pressure.

So how important are these successes, and more critically, will they last?

After Camp David and Oslo, Israel enjoyed similar surges of popularity with the world community, only to see the goodwill disappear during later events (the Lebanon war and the Intifada, respectively.) It would be a fair guess to say that this pattern will be repeated, as the Arab world keeps trying to find a way to pressure Israel that resonates with the world (which is the entire reason they pretend to support the Palestinian cause but don't actually help the Palestinian people - they want the problem to exist, not to be solved.) Sooner or later, they will succeed, and latent global anti-semitism will trump the temporary goodwill Israel is receiving.

The open question is whether the temporary gains offset the losses. The cold peace with Egypt has, on balance, probably been worth Israel's giving up the Sinai (even as the US continues to pay off Egypt's detente and as Egypt shows zero interest in normalizing relations), but at this time it is far from clear that the Gaza withdrawal will pay similar dividends.

Jewish holy books desecrated by Muslims. No deadly riots.

From Jerusalem Newswire, pictures from Hebron News:

The Taliban's 2001 destruction of ancient Buddhas and this year's alleged desecration of numerous Korans by American soldiers at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba made international headlines and became incidents of global impact.

Friday's spiteful desecration of bibles and Jewish prayer books by “Palestinian” Muslims visiting the biblical Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, however, went virtually unnoticed.

Photographs taken by outraged members of Hebron's Jewish community and posted online showed the torn pages unceremoniously dumped behind the Gutnick Center, which stands in front of the compound built by King Herod over the burial place of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The official website of the Jewish Community of Hebron noted the desecration occurred on a day the site was closed to Jews to allow Muslim worshippers to mark the impending conclusion of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

Hebron News adds:

A Hebron spokesman issued the following statement:

It seems that military and political leaders are more concerned with "Arab sensitivity" as opposed to desecration of Jewish holy books. One can only imagine the response had Arabs discovered 'desecrated Korans' in the vicinity of Ma'arat HaMachpela. It should be remembered that an Israeli woman, Tatiana Soskin, was jailed for two years for 'desecrating' a Koran. It is unheard of that such a desecration should be left unpunished. We demand that Ma'arat HaMachpela be closed to Muslim worship until the culprits responsible for this crime are apprehended, tried and punished.

Hat tip to Israpundit.

Youths, immigrants, the poor riot in France, - but don't mention they're Muslim

There are now hundreds of articles from news sources on the Web talking about the fourth straight day of riots in France, and almost all of them bend over backwards to avoid mentioning that the rioters are Muslim. (There are a couple of elliptical references to "unease over tear gas in a mosque" or "meeting with the president of the Muslim community" without exactly explaining why.)

Can you imagine a similar situation involving the Amish or Mormons or Chassidim or Hindus that would not mention the religion of the rioters when they all have a religion in common?

Truth or fiction? Times (UK) article on Islamic Jihad rockets

Something is not adding up....

Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv
IRAN has promised a reward of $10,000 (�5,600) to Islamic Jihad if the militant group launches rockets from the West Bank towards Tel Aviv, a senior Palestinian intelligence official said last week.

Speaking in his Ramallah office, the official produced a fat wad of $100 notes which he said had been confiscated from a pro-Iranian Islamic Jihad activist.

The money was said to have gone from Iran to Damascus, the Syrian capital, from where Ibrahim Shehadeh, Islamic Jihad’s head of overseas operations, transferred it to the West Bank.

So far, so good, although seeing anything pro-active from the PA in fighting rocket attacks is pretty rare. Then the article strays into things that are much harder to believe...

According to the intelligence official, the Palestinian Authority has located workshops where “Al-Quds” (Jerusalem) rockets are being made and has given their co-ordinates to the Israelis. “We understand they destroyed some of them,” he said.

So the PA knows where some of these "workshops" are and rather than go and blow them up themselves, they tell Israel to do it? In territory they consider theirs? This is stretching credibility quite a bit now.

Especially since the PA never hesitates to condemn Israel every time there is an airstrike against rockets and terrorists.

Israeli intelligence officials said that Iran was threatening the country on three fronts: through long-range missiles based in Lebanon; through terrorist networks around the world; and through the new arsenals of the West Bank.

Islamic Jihad is the only Palestinian group that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. Based in Damascus, it has an annual budget of several million dollars — provided by Iran. Ramadan Shalah, its leader, has a PhD in economics from Durham University. The organisation’s military arm is the “Al-Quds Brigades”.

OK, now we are in lefty fantasy land. Hamas, Hezbollah, Fatah Al Aqsa, and the many splinter groups all of a sudden no longer call for the destruction of Israel?

Fact checking at the Times seems to be nonexistent.

Imbeciles for genocide

If the subject matter wasn't so serious, this stuff would be hilarious.

A morning daily said that harsh international reaction to remarks of the Iranian president against the 'Zionist regime' was a pre-staged scenario to put further pressures on Iran.

Commenting on the reactions of the world leaders to the speech of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about the Israeli regime, 'Iran News' said, "Some analysts believe this episode to have been a pre-coordinated move by Western media and governments to increase pressure on the Islamic Republic".

It added that the said analysts described the international community's reaction "as impolite and unprofessional".

Yes, the Iranians who rallied by the millions chanting "Death to Israel! Death to America!" are the arbiters of professionalism and politeness.

Meanwhile, Iran's Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel

declared that Zionism is synonymous with aggression, occupation, crime and injustice.

Let's do a quick reality check:

Number of Arabs killed by Israel since 1948: a generous guess would be 50,000, probably less
Number of Arabs killed by Iran during the Iran/Iraq war 1980-1988: 200,000-300,000

AP Sets Record for Most Bias Crammed into Smallest Space (IRIS Blog)

I've been very impressed with the IRIS Blog, which has become a one-stop shop for Israel news and commentary. Here is a typically excellent entry about media bias:

AP Sets Record for Most Bias Crammed into Smallest Space

Normally brevity is the rule for newspaper captions. There is a problem with this photo, however. A typical person would interpret this photo as "Iranian Children Raised on Diet of Violent Anti-Semitism." So the caption writer needed a little less than 1,000 words to attempt to undo it:

Iranian school boys shoot with their toy guns at an Israeli flag as it burns during an anti-Israeli rally marking 'Al-Quds Day' (Jerusalem Day), to support the Palestinian cause, in Tehran, Iran, Friday, Oct. 28, 2005. Tens of thousands of Iranians staged anti-Israel protests across the country Friday and repeated calls by their ultraconservative president who repeated the words of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, by saying: 'Israel must be wiped off the map.'
"Toy guns"
Here are hundreds of examples of Muslim children brandishing what caption writers have implausibly labeled "toys." In one particularly humorous example, the caption writer claims that the obviously real gun is "unloaded."

"To Support the Palestinian Cause"
Lest you think they were motivated by the extermination of Jews or Israel as Iran's president explicitly declared yesterday, the caption claims they are actually simply in favor of a Palestinian state.

"Ultraconservative"
Calling for the extermination of an entire nation needs to be linked to campaigning for tax cuts, as this post documents.

"Who Repeated the Words of Khomeini"
This is the spin of the Iranian Foreign Minister, who dealt with the outrage against the president's call for Israel's extermination by claiming "that Ahmadinejad had merely quoted what the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, said more than 26 years ago." A large number of news stories immediately followed suit and posted those words as fact without mentioning that it was Iranian spin. Here is a small sample.

The Palestinian Muslim War against Christians

Another story that the mainstream media will not touch.

"The Christians here are perceived as easy prey," complains a prominent Christian businessman. "In recent years there has been an upsurge in the number of attacks on Christians in Bethlehem."

Muslim and Christian political leaders in the city strongly deny the existence of an organized anti-Christian campaign, insisting that the violence is mostly the result of "personally motivated" disputes that are unrelated to religion.

Yet off the record, many Christians in Bethlehem who were interviewed during the past week expressed deep concern over increased attacks by Muslims on members of their community. Moreover, most of them said that they were seriously considering moving to the US, Canada and Latin America, where many of their relatives already live.

Jihad, a Christian merchant from the nearby town of Beit Jala, who has been dealing in antique furniture for over 30 years, says he is planning to leave for good to Chile, where at least 80,000 of his townsfolk now live.
His friend, George, who used to own a souvenir shop, says he's planning to move next week to Peru, where his brothers and sisters have been living for the past 15 years. The two, who asked to be identified only by their first names, are extremely cautious when the issue of Muslim-Christian relations is raised. "It's true that there have been a number of cases of violence against Christians, but generally speaking the situation is not that bad," George stresses.

Other Christians in Beit Jala disagree. According to a local physician, the plight of the Christians has been aggravated over the past decade in general and since the outbreak of the intifada in particular. "After the Palestinian Authority arrived here in 1995, many Muslim families from Hebron and other parts of the West Bank have moved to Beit Jala," he says. "What's worrying is that some of them have illegally seized privately-owned lands. When one of the Christian owners refused to sell his land to a senior Palestinian security official, he was arrested for a number of days."

In another case, a 60-year-old Christian man was briefly detained by one of the Palestinian security forces because he had forbidden his daughter to date a Muslim security officer. Other Christians who tried to stop Fatah gunmen in Beit Jala from firing into the Jerusalem neighborhood of Gilo in the first years of the intifada later reported that they had been beaten or threatened by the gunmen.

The same gunmen are also responsible for the rape and murder of two Christian teenage sisters from the Amr family. The assailants then claimed that the sisters had been murdered because they were "prostitutes" and had been "collaborating" with Israeli security forces - a claim that has been strongly denied by the victims' relatives and many residents of the town. "The gangsters murdered the two sisters so that they would not tell anyone about the rape," says a family member. "Some of the murderers were later killed by the Israeli army, but others are now living in Europe after they had sought refuge in the Church of Nativity. It's absurd that Muslim men who rape and murder Christian girls are given political asylum in Christian countries like Ireland, Spain and Italy."

Last week Beit Jala was once again the scene of religious tensions after a Christian woman complained that she had been harassed by Muslim men from the village of Beit Awwa in the Hebron area. "Such incidents have become a daily phenomenon," says Mary, who runs a small grocery in the town. "Many Christian families have sent their daughters abroad for fear they would come under attack by Muslim men."

Earlier this year tensions between Muslims and Christians in Bethlehem reached a peak after a Christian family complained that their 16-year-old daughter had been kidnapped by a Muslim man. Following the intervention of senior Palestinian officials and Muslim leaders, the girl was reunited with her family after spending a few days in a village near Hebron. With the help of American diplomats, the girl was flown immediately to the US to begin a new life with relatives and friends.

Some Christians point a finger at the foreign media and diplomatic missions in Israel, accusing them of ignoring their predicament for "political" reasons. "Although most of the foreign journalists and diplomats are Christians, they don't seem to pay enough attention to what's happening to the Christians in Bethlehem," says Bishara, a Christian tourist guide. "They're obviously afraid of damaging their relations with the Palestinian Authority."

While it's almost impossible to find a Christian who's prepared to go public in airing such grievances, Samir Qumsiyeh, a journalist from Beit Sahur, is a notable exception. Last month he was quoted by the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera as saying that Christians were being subjected to rape, kidnapping, extortion and expropriation of land and property.

Qumsiyeh, who was not available this week for an interview because he was out of the country, heads a local TV station called Al-Mahd [Nativity]. In a daring step, Qumsiyeh drew up a list of 93 cases of anti-Christian violence between 2000 and 2004.

"This file is incomplete and it's not up-to-date," he told the Italian newspaper. "Look at the case of Rawan William Mansour, a 17-year-old girl from Bet Sahur. She was raped two years ago by four members of Fatah. Even though the family protested, none of the four was ever arrested. Because of the shame her family was forced to move to Jordan.

"Almost all 140 cases of expropriation of land in the last three years were committed by militant Islamic groups and members of the Palestinian police." Qumsiyeh said he was now preparing a book on the conditions of the Christian minority. "I will call it 'Racism in Action,'" he says. "The racism against us is gaining pace in staggering ways. In 1950 the Christian population in Bethlehem was 75%. Today we have hardly more than 12% Christians. If the situation continues, we won't be here any more in 20 years."

Thousands of Palestinians took to the streets of Kabatiya, south of Jenin, Wednesday night to celebrate the suicide bombing in Hadera, which was carried out by local resident Hassan Abu Zeid.

Chanting Allahu Akbar (God is great), some 3,000 people, including Fatah and Islamic Jihad gunmen, converged on Abu Zeid's home to "congratulate" his family on the success of the attack, which killed five people and wounded more than 30.

They also called for more suicide attacks in Israel.

"With blood, with soul, we redeem Hassan," the crowd chanted. "Oh Jihad, Jihad, give us more [suicide] bombings. Oh [Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon, prepare more coffins."

Shortly after the attack, Islamic Jihad activists shouted through loudspeakers in the town that the suicide bomber was Abu Zeid, 26, a member of the organization's armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades. They said the attack was carried out to avenge the killing earlier this week of top Islamic Jihad operative Luai Sa'adi in Tulkarm.

Abu Zeid's mother, Um Hassan, said she was proud of her son for what he did. Her husband, Ahmed, a blacksmith who was later arrested by the IDF, greeted the well-wishers with tears in his eyes.

"I'm proud of my son and hope that he will enter heaven," the mother declared.

"We're all your sons," shouted one of the men as several women ululated in an expression of joy.

I'm sure that the counter-rally expressing hope of peace with Israel and an end to bombing Jews will attract at least that many people in every small Arab West Bank town, since the Palestinian Arabs are known for being so peaceful at heart - and "peace" protesters identify so strongly with the Palestinian cause.

Ahmadinejad's inspiration to wipe out all Jews

Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, seems to have interesting company in his desire to wipe Israel off the map, as this article from the March, 29, 1939 Palestine Post explains.

People at the time didn't take the Nazi pronouncements seriously, either.