Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Saturday, December 17, 2005

Best post?

As the JIB award nominations are underway, a number of bloggers are asking which of their posts were the "best" so they could nominate for "best post."

I think that in general, personal posts have a much greater chance of being "best post" than a political post, but it has caused me to start thinking about which of my posts from this year were the "best."

My historic articles based on articles from from the Palestine Post probably count as my "best" in the sense that the educate people about how this conflict began and they explode a number of myths. My first one, "The Historic Palestinians - A Very Simple Test" got a lot of attention and it did what it was meant to do - prove that the Palestinian Arabs were never referred to as "Palestinians", and in fact the term almost always referred to Palestinian Jews. What this implies as far as the entire history of Palestinian Arabs is left to the reader to decide.

As far as my own original articles, I barely remember them. But for some reason I still see occasional hits to an article from July entitled "Pavlov and the Terrorists" so perhaps it hit a chord with people.

Either way, the JIB awards are coming, so be sure to check out the nominations and vote for your favorites, or at the very least use them to discover other parts of the JBlogosphere.

Towards a psychoanalysis of Iran

Different cultures have different psychologies. While there are always exceptions, to a remarkable degree one can understand nations' actions by understanding their underlying cultural and psychological influences. And even though it may be popular academic theory that we are all the same, it doesn't take much to realize that this is not true.

The Arab psyche in regards to Israel is pretty simple, and I have touched on it in various ways a number of times. Briefly, it is not based on anti-semitism per se; rather it is based on Muslim supermacist ideology combined with Arab pride and territorialism. Since Jews are meant to be second-class dhimmis in this mindset, and since Arabs dominated "weak" Jews in the Middle East for many centuries, the idea that small numbers of Jews could not only control land that they consider Muslim but could repeatedly defeat the combined Arab armies is nothing less than catastrophic (hence, the name Nakba.) It is nothing less than an assault on their basic concepts of Islam and Arab power. The very existence of Israel is, every day, a reminder of their weakness and this is, in a nutshell, why there will never be real peace without a wholesale change to Arab culture.

Iran is a whole different animal. Iran is not Arab, and indeed in some ways Arabs regard Iran as another Israel, a foreign people who have claims on Arab territory. Also, Iran has many non-Muslims which breeds mistrust from the Arabs.

Iranians, in turn, look down on Arabs as well.

Iran seems to have a significant population that is very much against the Ahmadinejad flavored Islamicization - some seem to call it Arabization. This does not seem to translate into any love of Israel - Iran's anti-Israel stance appears to be fairly uniform. But the "moderates" do not like seeing the Iranian president pretend to obsess over Palestinians whom they could care less about. I do not have a way of measuring how many Iranians are in this "moderate" group.

So in Iran at least, many of the people and the government seem to have different psyches, even though the vast majority of Iranians are Shi'ite Muslims.

From the government press and Ahmadinejad's remarks, it seems that the Iranian regime is feeling very isolated and is desperately looking for validation from the world of Ahmadinejad's hate. A few times already I have found articles in Iran's press finding an obscure Indian professor or Lebanese MP who they quote as agreeing with them that Israel is racist or whatever. The open question is whether the validation that they claim from seeing leftists protesting in Europe is grasping at straws, or is it complete denial as to how isolated they really are.

The worrying part about Ahmadinejad is that he really does seem to have messianic tendencies. This article in the anti-government Persian Journal shows a scary tendency of Iran's president to try to hasten the coming of the "12th Imam":

"Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance of the 12th Imam, the Mahdi," Ahmadinejad said in the speech to Friday Prayers leaders from across the country.

"Therefore, Iran should become a powerful, developed and model Islamic society."

"Today, we should define our economic, cultural and political policies based on the policy of Imam Mahdi's return. We should avoid copying the West's policies and systems," he added, newspapers and local news agencies reported.

Ahmadinejad refers to the return of the 12th Imam, also known as the Mahdi, in almost all his major speeches since he took office in August.

A September address to the U.N. General Assembly contained long passages on the Mahdi which confused Western diplomats and irked those from Sunni Muslim countries who believe in a different line of succession from Mohammed.

This indicates, first of all, that Ahmadinejad is even more irrational than he appears, and therefore less predictable - he could literally do anything to bring about his messianic imam.

It also may mean that he feels that the religious center of Islam is in Iran, not Saudi Arabia, and that any moves he makes would be to ensure Iran's predominance and leadership of Islam.

Israel is the one issue that the Muslim world agrees on, and Iran's fixation on Israel may be a way to take this leadership role in Islam.

His now regular threats against Israel, his clear pursuit of nuclear weapons, and the fact that he does not appear to fear a Mutually Assured Destruction scenario as long as it brings about his Mahdi all point to an extraordinarily dangerous and insane enemy who is uniquely impervious to diplomatic pressure.

Iran nuke roundup

It is by now clear that Iran is ruled by a messianic madman for whom the doctrine of mutually assured destruction is considered a good thing.

And Europe will do nothing, wishing, as Victor David Hanson puts it, “Hurry up, sane and Western Israel, and take out this awful thing — so we can damn you Zionist aggressors for doing so in our morning papers.”

Ha'aretz has a rambling analysis that talks about Israel's military options, and seems to concludes that only the international community can stop Iran militarily.

Meanwhile, Iran is running war games and testing out new missiles, and is keeping up its rhetoric:

Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar stressed that Iran will vigorously respond to any kind of aggression.
Making the remark while talking to reporters here in southeastern country, he referred to the threats by some Zionist regime officials regarding attacking Iran's nuclear sites, Mohammad Najjar said Iran's defense policy was quite defensive but stressed that Iranian "armed forces would provide a rapid, strong and destructive response if the country faced any aggression."

Then, in an apparently mentally unbalanced state, the Iranian Defense Minister had something to add:

He said Saddam's sad fate after attacking Iran should teach a lesson to the occupying Zionist regime officials.

The Iranian president, not to be outdone in his daily rant of bizarre fiction, made a speech:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad here Thursday said the world politicians and thinkers back Iran's justice-seeking spirit.

Making the remark in a meeting with thousands of university students, the president added, "Today mankind is in search of tranquility and sustainable peace, which could be materialized only through justice, spirituality, and monotheism."
Some countries have piled up their arsenals with nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to keep dominating other countries, regretted Ahmadinejad adding they even embark on testing biological weapons on people in the name of pharmaceutical donation.

"They even openly confess to their acts and shamelessly say that ethics has no place in politics."

He said the unbiased scientists and scholars no longer believe that "liberalism or humanism schools" could ever provide man with sustainable peace, adding people in Europe and the US are also quite disillusioned with their governments in bringing sustainable peace.

I love it when a genocidal maniac talks about ethics.

Here's a troubling question:

Let's say Israel takes out some Iranian reactors. Iran will no doubt be happy to attack Israel. Who will join the war on Iran's side?

Syria, no doubt - Iran would send her troops through Syria. Hezbollah would start lobbing its arsenal of missiles into northern israel, and Palestinian Arabs would do the same from Gaza.

Jordan may have finally learned its lesson not to attack Israel just in the name of Arab unity.

But here is a sobering thought. The top arms buyers in the world, in 2002, were:

Saudi Arabia ($5.2B)
Egypt ($2.1B)
Kuwait ($1.3B)

How much can the US influence it's "friends" to stay out of a war against Israel?

Israeli sources discovered on Thursday that Palestinian police stationed at the Karni crossing planned on assisting in the carrying-out of a terrorist attack at the crossing. Fortunately, the attack was thwarted by Israeli security sources.

The policemen reportedly meant to allow the terrorists detonate a large bomb at the crossing while it was being scanned. The assault also was intended to include opening fire and throwing grenades, according to Israel Radio.

The best defense against Iranian nukes

A great sentence in a great post from AbbaGav:

We'll be watching for the human shields too. Grass roots organizations should be starting about now if they want to get here in time to chain themselves to the best buildings.

Thoughts on compromise, influence, independence, peace

SoccerDad starts with this post of mine and runs with it , decrying the current US administration as now acting in ways indistinguishable from previous ones, vis a vis Israel.

He comments:

The failing of most administrations when it comes to Mideast peace is that they put a premium on its success. This makes the cost of peace more expensive. The Palestinians loving the attention make sure that their demands are sacrosanct and Israel thus must bend to those to those demands or be obstructionist.

His second sentence is very accurate, but it is also partially Israel's fault. If only the Jews would remember their Talmud!

If two persons hold a cloak, one says, "I found it," and the other says, I found it," one says, "All of it is mine," and the other says, "All of it is mine," the first one shall swear that not less than one half of it belongs to him, the other one shall swear that not less than one half of it belongs to him, and they shall divide it. If one says, "All of it is mine," and the other says, "Half of it is mine," the one who says "All of it is mine" shall swear that not less than three-quarters of it belongs to him, and the one who says "Half of it, is mine” shall swear that not less than one-quarter of it belongs to him; the former shall take three-quarters and the latter shall take one-quarter.

If one party claims the entire item in dispute, and the other one says that they share it, the only thing a third party judge can do (absent other evidence) is splitting the difference. Since Jews are always looking to compromise for peace, and the Arabs aren't, this gives the Arabs a much stronger claim. Israel should have long ago defined their "red lines" in this battle. Unfortunately, thanks to Barak, the Israeli "red line" is pretty much the Green Line. This was perhaps the worst legacy ever left by an Israeli leader.

Back to Soccer Dad's first sentence quoted above, though - I look at it a little differently. The reason that the US always ends up pressuring Israel and giving the Palestinians a relatively free ride is indeed because the US puts a premium on solving the problem - and the US only has influence over Israel because of the billions of dollars it gives annually.

This is not the entire problem - Egypt regularly thumbs its nose at the US and still gets billions every year as well. The problem is that Israel feels indebted to the US because of the money and feels she must bend over backwards to make her "good friend" happy. That's what friends do.

The Palestinians have no such pressures. The EU could play a role here but it usually refuses (although yesterday there was a hopeful sign.)

Let's step back. What things did Israel do over the past few years that reduced violence?

Taking the war to the terrorists.
Building the barrier.

These moves were successful in making Israel safer (and consequently making Palestinian Arabs safer.) Any "truce" only came about because Israel was successful in doing these things.

And the world community was against both of them.

World pressure (including US pressure) on Israel is almost always counterproductive to true peace.

The only way to reduce this pressure, specifically from the US, is for Israel to plan to wean itself from American dollars. Absurd agreements like Rafah should never have happened, and if it wasn't for US dollars to Israel, they wouldn't have.

Israel is no longer acting as an independent state; rather as an extension of the US. This is not only a tragedy for the Zionist dream, it is counterproductive to real peace.

The Perdana "Peace" Conference

Right now, another worthless anti-American, anti Israel conference is taking place in Kuala Lampur. It is called the Perdana Peace Conference, and it has attracted some corporate sponsors.

Speakers include:

Najwa Jalamneh, a 15-year old Arab girl who "disclosed continued atrocity and criminal acts of the Zionist regime citing the horror and crimes being perpetrated by occupiers in Palestine;"
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, who writes "Israel is racist" articles;
Antisemitic former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad;
George Galloway, who has said that Zionists control the media;
Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who blames Christians for Muslim terror;
Mass murdering Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe;
and many more self-appointed "peace" activists.

Sponsors of this hatefest include Dell Asia and Nestle.

"Obstacles to Peace"

How many times have we heard that the Jewish settlers who live beyond the Green Line are obstacles to peace? A quick search finds here,
here, here, here, and literally hundreds of other times that this phrase was used in reference to Jewish settlements, often by the State Department and the White House.

Well, now these supposed obstacles are gone from Gaza, so we must be that much closer to peace now, right?

The Palestinian Authority, instead of housing citizens in the Gaza communities abandoned by Israel, has turned them into training camps for armed factions. N'vei Dekalim is used to launch rockets.

Many of the 21 communities emptied of their Jewish residents last summer have now been turned into full-fledged military training camps of the ruling Fatah group and of other Islamic terror groups. According to the groups, the communities also act as recruitment centers for the “people's army” being funded by Fatah.

Two Kassam rockets were fired from Gaza, mid-day Tuesday, toward Israeli towns in the western Negev. A Hamas official told the World Tribune that the rockets were fired from former Jewish towns that have been converted into launching sites for the war against the Jewish State.

Last month, the PA official in charge of interior affairs, Nassar Yusouf, toured the training camp erected on the remains of the community of N'vei Dekalim – which was the largest of the Jewish towns in Gush Katif. Yusouf planned to declare the area a closed military zone, but soon realized that armed hordes from his own Fatah faction had set up a military infrastructure in the place.

It must be an oversight by the major media outlets and our Department of State, but not once have I seen terror training camps in Gaza referred to as "obstacles to peace." Not once have I seen anyone in the mainstream press or officials from the US or EU utter the obvious truth that terror is far more an "obstacle to peace" than Jews who want to live on historically Jewish land.

It is mind-boggling that after the Gaza debacle, where the pseudo-statelet is well on its way to becoming Hamastan, that people think that peace is closer now than it was six months ago.

There is only one obstacle to peace - the fact that the Palestinian Arabs, and the Arab and Muslim world at large, cannot accept the idea of Jews living in the Middle East in positions of power, even if Israel was the size of a tablecloth.

Solving that problem will not bring peace, but it is a necessary precondition of peace. Making more concessions to people who ultimately want you dead or dhimmified is the worst sort of wishful thinking.

AFP resurrects the death scorecard

At the end of an article about Israel killing four terrorists, whose car was filled with bombs creating a huge explosion, AFP restarted the old MSM deathcount to make it appear that Israel is four times more monstrous than Palestinians:

GAZA CITY (AFP) - At least four people were killed and three others wounded in an Israeli air strike on their vehicle in the Gaza Strip.
[...]
The latest deaths raised to 4,911 the overall toll since the Palestinian intifada, or uprising, began in September 2000. More than three-quarters of the victims have been Palestinian.

Ah, numbers.

Did they count the Palestinians killed by other Palestinians as "corroborators"?
Did they count the Palestinians who blew themselves up killing Jews?
Did they count the Palestinians who blew themselves up in "work accidents"?
Did they count the Palestinians who were shooting at Jews?

There is only one reason why AFP would decide to use a number like that in an article, and it isn't for context.

Backgrounder on Muslim Holocaust Denial

Iran's president Ahmadinejad's claims that the Holocaust was a myth is hardly surprising, since the Arab and Muslim worlds have been peddling Holocaust denial for two decades now. The ADL has a well-researched paper on the phenomenon from 2001, including Mahmoud Abbas' book that denies the Holocaust - claims he never backed down from.

But Holocaust denial has taken place in the official media of Jordan, the PA, Syria and Egypt.

One tiny example of how institutionalized Holocaust denial is in the PA:

Clue: Jewish center for eternalizing the Holocaust and the lies.
Answer: Yad Vashem (the official Israeli Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem)

From the February 18, 1999 crossword puzzle of PA newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida.
(translated by USA Today, April 4, 2001)

"Palestinian Authority Must...."

Yesterday, the State Department emphasized that the PA must take steps to stop terror. To wit:

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Adam Ereli says Palestinian authorities must do more to stop such attacks:

“The attack once again reminds us of the importance of all sides to do everything possible to contain violence and to tackle terror. The Palestinian Authority must take immediate steps to prevent these attacks, to end the violence, and to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism.”

To achieve the goal of an independent Palestinian state, the Palestinian Authority must put a stop to terrorism.

Strong words!

Too bad they are watered down by the fact that they have been stated so many times before, and not only do the Palestinians ignore these statements; they are rewarded for ignoring these statements!

"Palestinians must recognize the right of Israel and its people to live safe and secure lives today, tomorrow and forever." Bill Clinton, December 14, 1998

"Chairman Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority must immediately find and arrest those responsible for these hideous murders. They must also act swiftly and decisively against the organizations that support them. Now more than ever, Chairman Arafat and the Palestinian Authority must demonstrate through their actions and not merely their words their commitment to fight terror." - George Bush, December 2, 2001
"The Palestinian Authority must do everything in its power to prevent the killing of innocents." - Terje Roed-Larsen at the UN, April, 2003
"Calling Hamas an "enemy of peace," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Friday that the Palestinian Authority must take decisive steps to disarm the Islamic militant group. " - June 20, 2003

"The Palestinian Authority should take immediate and specific action to prevent terrorist acts against Israel, and its leadership must do more to de-legitimize terrorism among the public." - Kofi Annan, July 17, 2002

"The Palestinian Authority must act now to dismantle terrorist networks that perpetuate such attacks, and to prevent future attacks." - White House, August 13, 2003

"Powell Says Palestinian Authority Must Stop Terrorism Now" - October 16, 2003

"Under the roadmap, Palestinians must undertake an immediate cessation of armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere, and all official Palestinian institutions must end incitement against Israel. The Palestinian leadership must act decisively against terror, including sustained, targeted, and effective operations to stop terrorism and dismantle terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. Palestinians must undertake a comprehensive and fundamental political reform that includes a strong parliamentary democracy and an empowered prime minister." - George Bush, April 14, 2004

"The Palestinian Authority must in particular demonstrate its complete determination to combat terrorism." - European Council, June 16, 2005

"And the obligation of the Palestinians has to do with the dismantling of terrorist infrastructure and organizations and they're going to have to do it." - Condoleeza Rice, August, 2005

"The Palestinian Authority must earn the confidence of its neighbors by rejecting and fighting terrorism." - George Bush, October 20, 2005

When dealing with people for whom lives are disposable, words are hardly going to have an impact. It is unfortunate that those making these strong statements have no interest in penalizing those who repeatedly ignore their demands.

Weak Kofi: Annan delivers lame apology for map incident

An interesting followup to the story about the UN wiping Israel off the map:

The particular event in question was organized by the Palestinian delegation in the U.N. and the Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa, and hosted all of the organization's high ranking officials.

During preparations for the event, the flags of the U.N. and Palestine were placed on the central stage, and a map depicting the territory of Israel was hung on the wall behind it.

However, the map was titled 'Palestine' instead of 'Israel', and all Israeli communities have been curiously erased from it.

Annan, who during the event sat on stage under the map and addressed the audience, apparently failed to notice its peculiarity.

The U.N. Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told Yedioth Ahronoth on Monday that 'the map that was displayed at the event is not an official U.N. map. Secretary General Annan believes it was regretful that the map was in the room during his speech. We have informed the event's organizers that such an incident should be prevented from repeating in the future.'

So, according to the UN, the problem is that Kofi Annan was embarrassed by an inaccurate map hung behind him.

The fact that the Palestinian leadership today explicitly denies Israel's right to exist, despite their lies at Oslo, is not worth mentioning.

What exactly is the difference between what Nasser al-Kidwa did and what Iran's lunatic president says? Both negate Israel's existence in no uncertain terms.

But Palestinians are still the world's darlings and therefore need to be rewarded for lying more and more about pretending to want a peaceful solution. Iran is a bit more of a pariah so the UN can afford to criticize its president (while refusing to do anything beyond words.)

HH #49 Anniversary Post

The next edition of Haveil Havalim (hosted next week at the fantastic SerandEz blog) will mark its first anniversary. The tireless Soccer Dad is asking that JBloggers submit a post from about a year ago, to show how our blogs have changed in the past year, or alternatively to write an article about why we started blogging and linking to that.

This blog started in August of 2004, but for many months it was meant to be a compilation of news concerning Israel, terrorism and anti-semitism with very little comment from me. It was still useful and I still often see people finding an old article I posted that is no longer available from the original link.

Other bloggers also started much more complete Israel-news blogs, like News for Members of the Tribe and the excellent Iris, so I started adding commentary and eventually original pieces.

Almost exactly one year ago, one of my earliest commentary posts was tearing apart Reuters' obvious anti-Israel bias in one of its articles.

Since then I have been trying to carve out my own niche in the J-Blogosphere (as SoccerDad put it in a recent comment) .

While I get most of the articles I comment on from Daily Alert and similar sources, I also now will do a regular Google News search on terms like "Zionist." Using this I can often discover interesting articles in the Muslim world, which even when translated into English shows incredible bigotry and hate. Iranian news sources are particularly likely to use the term "Zionist" as an epithet. (For example, now I know that Iran's foreign minister blames Zionists for the assassination of the anti-Syrian Lebanese journalist yesterday.) Much outrageous anti-semitism can also be found this way, helpfully masqueraded as "news" sources by Google.

I also spend time looking through old Palestine Post articles and finding parallels between what Israel went through during its birth and today. I spun off an entire separate blog just to re-post the articles based on that research, and, who knows? Maybe someone will offer me a book deal! For some reason I have blogged a lot from the Palestine Post recently, and even though it is only Monday I think I will nominate my latest article on the Arab League boycott of Jewish goods in 1946-47, which has relevance today.

Anyway, a big מזל טוב to Haveil Havalim on its anniversary, and to Soccer Dad for having created such a successful and important venue for the Jewish Blogosphere!

Since taking office in August, Ahmadinejad has spoken out frequently against Israel in terms which were almost unheard of under his reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami.

European diplomats say his anti-Israel comments, which have included calling the Jewish state a 'tumor' that should be 'wiped off the map', may cause a delay in planned talks between the European Union and Iran over Tehran's nuclear program.

What a strong response! Delaying talks is sure to make Iran's insane president think twice about his nuclear program.

Good thing we have the EU to protect the world from nuclear proliferation.

Fatah is a reverse acronym from the complete Arabic name: HArakat al-TAhrir al-Watani al-Filastini, becoming "HATAF", which, since it means "death" in Arabic, was reversed to become "FATAH" meaning "conquest" in Arabic.
The Fatah official emblem shows two fists holding rifles and a hand grenade superimposed on a map of the land they claim as Palestine: present-day Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Fatah joined and began to dominate the PLO in 1969.
The "Palestinian National Authority" is formally delegated its power by the PLO. In other words, the PA is officially run by a terrorist organization.
While there is some controversy about whether the PLO ever modified its charter to recognize Israel (a modified charter has never been published, to my knowledge), Fatah's "constitution" still explicitly calls for Israel's destruction by "armed struggle."
It appears that every major member of the PA is a member of Fatah (including such "moderates" as Saeb Erekat), and not one is known to have said that they do not subscribe to the Fatah "constitution."
Mahmoud Abbas and Farouk Qaddoumi have been in a power struggle over leadership of Fatah and the PLO. Qaddumi, who lives in Tunisia and is adamantly against any compromise with Israel, is the head of the PLO Central Committee and as such, the PA reports to him. Abbas disputes this, and some call him the President of Fatah. Some ugly incidents have occurred as a result.
Either way, it appears that Abbas holds the purse-strings for Fatah in "Palestine" and the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade terror group gets its funding from Fatah.
Qaddoumi wants to move to Gaza.