Another glimpse of Hezbywood

From The New Republic:

...For Hezbollah, the ruins of this once-bustling neighborhood have become a tourist attraction--and an invaluable propaganda tool.

Hezbollah began offering tours of Haret Hreik during the war, assembling every morning at eleven o'clock. I went on the first of these excursions on July 20, along with the bulk of the international press corps--about 100 correspondents, from well-known TV anchors to grubby freelancers. Longtime Hezbollah spokesman Hussein Naboulsi showed up with his entourage and delivered a running patter of outrage. "On a daily basis, they come here and turn buildings into rubble, as you see," he shouted, in his frantic, high-pitched voice. "This is where we live! If the Israelis dare to confront us face to face, let them do it on the border, not come with jet fighters from high above in the sky, and just hit civilian targets!" He strode off into the wreckage, still shouting, and we scrambled to keep up.

Every once in a while, as we marched through the rubble, a man (never a woman) would pop out of a destroyed building to shout with carefully rehearsed rage. All of these appearances were orchestrated by Hezbollah for our benefit.

This was during the war. The media saw everything described here but purposefully ignored the theatrical aspects and dutifully photographed and quoted the actors as if they were real victims. With a few exceptions, no one in the media mentioned the staging, and even today they downplay it - because they perceive that they are reporting the Greater Truth, fake but accurate, and the consumers of the media back home are too unsophisticated to understand that the reporters are allowed to tilt the news towards their own preconceived ends.

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Another "honor killing" in Gaza, plus a few more Arabs killing Arabs

The poor, downtrodden Palestinian Arabs who, everyone agrees, deserve their own state, keep on killing - each other.

But not to worry - the latest murderer was a policeman, so it was all OK.

On Tuesday noon, 22 August 2006, a woman was killed in the central Gaza Strip allegedly to protect family honor.

According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 13:00 on Tuesday, 22 August 2006, Faiza ‘Eid Abu Sawawin, 35, from al-Hasaina area in the west of Nusairat refugee camp, was brought dead to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. She was hit by several live bullets throughout the body. According to sources of the Attorney-General office in the central Gaza Strip, the victim’s brother, who is a member of the Palestinian Preventive Security Service and lives in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, shot her dead allegedly to protect his family honor.

It is so good to see that the rule of law reigns supreme in Gaza after Israeli withdrawal.

Since my last PalArab death count posting, we can add the unfortunately late Ms. Sawawin, as well as:

• One more death from the "work accident" I mentioned last time; (I am not including the accidental self-inflicted shooting mentioned in this same link)
• One dead in a clan shooting; and
• Three people shot in the head over a land dispute, although only one has died so far.
  

So our running total of Palestinian Arabs dead since the Israeli incursion in late June now stands at: 62. (I am certain that others have died from injuries mentioned in PCHR, but they never update the totals, so the number is definitely higher.)

More than the number of civilians killed in Jenin and Qana combined!

Is all Arab life equally sacred? Apparently not - those Arabs killed by Jews in a defensive war are "martyrs" and worth a fortune in propaganda, as well as a literal fortune in compensation to their families from other Arab countries.

And those Arabs murdered by other Arabs are worthless, not even worthy of being mentioned in local Palestinian Arab English-language newspapers.

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Fisking an Arab News editorial

Normally, I see articles like this drivel in the op-ed sections of Al-Jazeerah.info or similar sites that pretty much publish anything anyone wants to say as long as it fits their agenda, facts be damned. But this is slightly more interesting because it was written by the Editor-in-Chief of the Arab News, which styles itself as a real news source. As such, it is important to, yet again, point out the half truths and outright falsehoods that characterize reasoned debate in the Arab world.

Arabs Can’t Be Anti-Semites
Khaled Almaeena, almaeena@arabnews.com
Last week I wrote about the phone call from an Italian friend who asked me whether Islam and Muslims were characterized by fascist tendencies or beliefs. His query came as a result of US President George W. Bush’s unfortunate and ill-considered use of the phrase “Islamic fascists.”

Inaccurate and incorrect as the phrase is, it was not born from the brain of Bush — or even from the brains of his speechwriters. It was first used soon after Sept. 11, 2001, by Christopher Hitchens, a former diehard Marxist who is now a mainstay of the American neocons.

As anyone with a passing familiarity with English knows, saying that a group of terrorists are "Islamic fascists" does not mean that all Muslims are fascists. calling the phrase "inaccurate and incorrect" is nonsensical, unless the author is saying that the terrorists themselves have no desire to subjugate the world to Islam.

Also, the phrase was not first used by Hitchens, but was used as early as 1990 by historian Malise Ruthven and also before 9/11 by Muslim historian Khalid Duran who was criticizing extremist clerics and was in turn denounced by Muslims for that.

As a neocon, Hitchens enjoys great privileges and is a member in good standing of the media group which regularly attacks Muslims and Islam. His popularity is great in both neocon and Zionist circles. Included among those he is close to are Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, David Horowitz — all closely associated with the American administration and its destructive and internationally unpopular policies over the last few years.

By sheer coincidence, I'm sure, Almaeena only mentions "neocons" who happen to be Jewish.

The word “fascist” seems to have been used because the Bush administration and its sycophants (the neocons, evangelists, extreme right-wingers and the Zionist lobby) have this false and preposterous idea that Islam wants to take over the world. They are convinced that Muslims want to conquer the entire world by force and convert everyone to Islam by the sword!

Have they drawn this conclusion based on what they know of the terrorists’ beliefs and practices or on the beliefs and practices of the 99.99 percent of Muslims who are not terrorists? And while, as always, our Arab media focuses on trivialities, their media is slowly and insidiously planting negative ideas about Arabs and their alleged anti-Semitism.

The author says that 99.99% of Muslims are not terrorists. That may be true - there may be only 160,000 real, active Muslim terrorists on the planet out of 1.6 billion total. Perhaps he does not think that is a problem for Islam.

However, what Almaeeda is purposefully ignoring is the fact that a significant number of Muslims do support terror. One in four British Muslims felt that the 7/7 bombings were justified. If that is the number in a Western nation that was the victim of terror, it is not too hard to imagine that the numbers in Muslim nations go over 50% (or much higher.)

And, finally, can the author honestly say that the idea of re-establishing an Islamic caliphate is not seen as desirable in most of the Muslim world? Perhaps this caliphate would not take over the entire world, but the idea that people who support terror and have nuclear weapons want such sweeping political power is indeed a clear threat to the entire world.

Now we get from the naive to the stupid:

How, I wonder, can Arabs be anti-Semitic? They are in fact themselves Semites; the word derives from one of the sons of Noah — in English Shem — who was the ancestor of both Jews and Arabs. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Semite” as “people who speak a Semitic language, including in particular the Jews and Arabs.” In other words, it would be highly unusual for Arabs to be anti-Semites though they might well be anti-Zionists. But that is not the same thing.

It is a pity that this editor could not trouble himself to look up the meaning of "anti-semite" in the same Oxford English Dictionary:

anti-'Semite,

one who is hostile or opposed to the Jews;
anti-Se'mitic a.

Other dictionaries say (since the author apparently believes in proof by dictionary definition):

Random House Dictionary:
an‧ti-Sem‧ite  /ˌæntiˈsɛmaɪt, ˌæntaɪ- or, especially Brit., -ˈsimaɪt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[an-tee-sem-ahyt, an-tahy- or, especially Brit., -see-mahyt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–noun

a person who discriminates against or is prejudiced or hostile toward Jews.

---

[Origin: 1880–85]
American Heritage Dictionary:
an·ti-Sem·ite (nt-smt, nt-)
n.

One who discriminates against or who is hostile toward or prejudiced against Jews.

Is the author clueless or lying?

A recent Pew Research Center study showed that in most countries, Muslims had an unfavorable impression of Jews. That is prejudice, plain and simple - which means that most Arabs are, by definition, anti-semitic, notwithstanding the etymological calisthenics that the author goes through.

In order to combat the lies and half-truths about Islam and Muslims, we need our own researchers. And we have very few indeed. We Arabs, for whatever reasons, are not known for funding or encouraging research unless we are fairly sure what the end result will be. Nor do we have enough people who are fluent in other languages. For example, how many Arabs are fluent in Hebrew? Nowhere near the number of Israeli Jews who are fluent in Arabic.

Of people who say they have doctorates from this or that university, we have many. Unfortunately, the holders of such doctorates can do little except demand special consideration because of their alleged academic excellence.

We need researchers who are able to state — and back up the statement with facts and evidence — that “Zionists are often anti-Semites.” Because that is a fact. The Zionists, by and large, are Ashkenazi Jews which means they are of Central or Eastern European descent. The great majority of Israeli Jews today are Ashkenazi and it is they who control the country and, in the past, it was they who made the rules and regulations and government policies. They do not always consider their Sephardic brothers — Jews of Spanish, Portuguese, North African or Middle Eastern descent — their equals.

Since the real-world definition of anti-semitism has nothing to do with the definition of Semite, this entire section is a crock. However, it brings up a favorite topic of Jew-haters, namely, the theory that most Ashkenazic Jews are descended from Khazars, not Israelites.

There are many ways to debunk this, but I will choose two that are usually not mentioned: One is that traditional Jews have been very protective of their Kohanic/Levite status and the idea that a bunch of converts declared themselves to be Levites is absurd. The other one is that rabbinic literature, especially Jewish legal literature, is pretty comprehensive throughout the time period of the Khazar conversion to Judaism, and a mass immigration of Jews of questionable legal status would have resulted in a flood of responsa literature which simply doesn't exist. Every Jewish marriage and death in Europe would have been affected!

This is not to say that there hasn't been discrimination against Sephardim in Israel, and it is shameful. But to call it anti-semitism is a classic magician's redirection trick to distract from the serious amount of Jew-hatred in Muslim lands throughout the centuries, including their own versions of blood libels.

Also, Ashkenazim do not take up the "great majority" of Jews in Israel, though it is probably the majority. Up until the mass Russian immigration, I believe the Sephardim had a slight majority.

After World War II, the Ashkenazi Jews poured into Palestine, dreaming of a new life and brainwashed by traditional myths and legends; it was of no importance to them that the land they poured into was populated by Arab Semites who had lived there for thousands of years. At one point, during the British Mandate in Palestine, there was surprisingly only one Jewish family in Jerusalem.

This is simply a bald-faced lie. Jews lived in Jerusalem by the thousands continuously until Jordan made the Old City Judenrein in 1948. Jerusalem was majority Jewish since 1896.

Not surprisingly, he brings no source.

A British researcher, Tanya Hsu, who has done a great deal of work in this field and has suffered a lot in the process, believes that an approach using accurate information would go a long way toward opening people’s minds. “I am always surprised when talking with people in the West who do not understand that one cannot become Semitic by merely learning Hebrew,” she says. “If I speak Arabic, am I now a Semite also? Until the late 20th century, Hebrew was a dead language, revived by Zionists seeking to claim the land of Israel. Most Israeli Jews do not even appear to understand this fundamental flaw in their arguments.”

This is a red herring. No one says that learning Hebrew makes one Semitic.

And judging from at least one article, if Tanya Hsu is considered an expert in this field, then Arab scholarship is in far worse shape than Almaeena thinks.

Unless we have a credible research center to highlight all this and to focus on the forced demographic changes in Palestine because of transplanting people from the ghettoes of Europe, we will never convince the poor, gullible Americans who have fallen victim to this web of lies. As Dresden James said: “When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker a raving lunatic.”

Here is a classic Arab attribute of projection. I can back up my claims, Amlaeeda cannot (using his example of "only one Jewish family in Jerusalem," or his bogus definition of anti-semitism) Who is spinning a web of lies?

This unfortunately is what appears to have happened in America in the last 25-30 years. The media, Hollywood and any other means are used to create the picture of a country under attack, living in a “bad neighborhood” protecting its democracy “by having to suppress and kill women and children,” making the desert green (by stealing other people’s water) and a number of other things.

By putting the words "by having to suppress and kill women and children" in quotes, Almaeeda is implying that this is an actual quote from an Israeli. It is, of course, another lie. As is "stealing other people's water."

And, perhaps I am paranoid, but I would consider a country where rockets are being shot and terror attacks are foiled daily as a country under attack. I would not consider the 1.6 billion Muslims who can walk freely almost anywhere in the world as being under attack.

The latest attacks in Lebanon, the killing of 1,400 women and children, the callous destruction of property and infrastructure has all exposed these unsubstantiated claims and allegations for what they really are. Let our researchers do some work and expose them even more.

Wow, are we up to 1400 dead women and children already? Not a single male killed, not a single Hezbollah freedom fighter suffering a scratch? Those Israeli smart bombs must be remarkable to be able to target only women and children so accurately!

For any normal newspaper to publish such an absurd, provable lie would in itself make it lose credibility forever.

Keep in mind that this huge load of rubbish is being published in what would certainly be considered a moderate Arab publication!

So there we have it. An article directed towards an English speaking audience that is chock full of irrelevancies, half-truths and outright lies that all add up to a typical piece of Arab propaganda against Israel and (implicitly and so slyly) against Jews - for accurately accusing Arabs of hating them.

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Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, Arab Hero

You can tell a lot about people from who they regard as heroes.

Here is an account of the death of the hero that the Qassam rocket and the "military wing" of Hamas is named after....

Notice his job in the "Young Men's Association of Haifa."

Among the British he was relatively unknown, just a gang leader. His gang managed to murder a single Jewish policeman before this final battle where a British constable was also killed.

But among the Arabs at the time, he turned very quickly into a martyr, as a large funeral procession accompanied him the next day:

Has anything changed since 1935? A murderer who claims to be a sheikh turns into a hero and martyr, the Arab world as a whole supports his terror group without question, his funeral becomes a political event, and there are reports that he tried to use the rules of war to his advantage.

Other points of interest: this nationalist hero was not born in Palestine but Syria. He first murdered during an uprising in 1921 and he ran away to Haifa. Arab newspapers and politicians closed ranks behind the murderer:



As his legend grew, his supporters tried hard to rewrite history instantly to ensure his hero status. And the gullible Arab world was more that ready to accept the lies.

The aim of the group becomes clear during the indictment of the surviving members - they wanted nothing less than to murder Jews.

Most members pleaded guilty for murder and were sentenced to hard labor, two were acquitted in November 1936.

Interestingly, as their fame spread throughout the Arab world, their reluctance to be known as people who shoot other Arabs disappeared. Here we see that the remnants of the gang in 1937 decided to go after any Arabs who they felt either cooperated with the British or who they just didn't like:

In fact, by that time they already killed their first "collaborator" a few weeks earlier:

The gang's illustrious career continued on as they joined the many Arabs who terrorized other Arabs:

Terror gang whose goal is to kill Jews and others? Check.
Heroes to the Palestinian Arabs? Check.
Heroes to Arabs in other countries? Check.
Dead members lionized as martyrs? Check.
Hiding behind respected local institutions? Check.
Hiding behind religious motives? Check.
No compunction in murdering other Arabs who aren't as extreme as they are? Check.
Greatly exaggerated stories of their exploits? Check.

No wonder these guys are heroes in the Arab world!

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Egyptian fatwa and counter-fatwa about whether to kill Jews

LGF found this gem from AFP:

CAIRO (AFP) - Egypt's Muslim authorities have stepped in to keep a wave of anti-Semitic sentiment from getting out of control, disowning an edict by a firebrand cleric calling for Israeli Jews to be killed.

On the eve of last week's truce in the month-long war between Israel and Hezbollah, cleric Safwat al-Higazi issued an edict calling on worshippers to kill "any Zionist anywhere in wartime".

Speaking on the religious satellite network Al-Nas, the Cairo imam specified that the use of "fire arms, knives and poison" should be preferred to suicide bombings "in order to spare innocents".

Higazi later limited the edict to Israeli Jews, whom he said were all reservists in the army and therefore legitimate targets.

"I myself am ready to slash the throat of any Israeli I meet," he told the Sawt al-Umma newspaper.

Al-Azhar mosque, the leading theological authority for many Sunni Muslims, had to step in with a counter-fatwa and banned Higazi from preaching at Friday prayers.

"Killing Jews on the Egyptian territory would be a terrorist act," said the edict, issued three days after Higazi's.

However, the Al-Azhar fatwa said nothing about killing Jews in other countries.

In Tuesday's edition of the independent Al-Masri Al-Yom daily, Egypt's government-appointed grand mufti, Ali Gomaa, explained that any Israeli who has been granted a visa should be spared.

"A visa is a 'safe-conduct pass' granted by the authorities to civilians and travellers wishing to enter a country, which bans his killing even if there is a war between us and his country," the sheikh told the newspaper.

Gomaa had initially reacted to Israel's offensive in Lebanon by praising the resistance of Hassan Nasrallah's Hezbollah guerrilla against the "blood-thirsty murderers" and condemning the "lies" of the Israeli government.

"These lies have exposed the true and hideous face of the blood-suckers," he had told the state-owned Al-Ahram daily, referring to a 19th century anti-Semitic book alleging that Jews used human blood to make Passover bread.

Mohammed Raafat Othman, a professor of Islamic law at Al-Azhar -- whose grand imam is also government-appointed -- echoed Gomaa's views by stressing that killing a Jew or anyone else holding a valid visa "would be considered a major criminal act in Islam."

Al-Masri Al-Yom editorialist Magdi Mehanna argued that too much attention is being given to Higazi and that the country's religious authorities should close the file.

While the story itself is amazing, what makes it even worse is that this happened over a week ago and essentially no one noticed or decided it was newsworthy. Even now, it barely registers on Google News. Moreover, AP reported most of the same facts last week, and only one newspaper I could find (in China) printed it - letting us know that the fatwa against Jews was declared on July 13!

For a solid month the fatwa was publicly known in Egypt, having been broadcast on a Muslim TV channel, and no one thought it was newsworthy!

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It's a good day to incite hate against Jews

Like clockwork, whenever Arab leaders want to get some attention and incite some bigoted hatred, they will accuse Jews of trying to attack and destroy the "Al Aqsa Mosque", the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and the site of the two Jewish Temples.

Let's look at a couple of the recent hysterical press releases and the "evidence" of an imminent attack that was behind them:

The first one was when Israel's Supreme Court allowed a Jewish group to peacefully visit the Temple Mount on Tisha B'Av, something which has been allowed many times in the past without incident:

Palestinian Minister of Information Yousef Rezqah on Wednesday condemned the Israeli Supreme Court's ruling to grant Jewish extremists' entry to the Holy Al-Aqsa Mosque on Thursday.

Rezqah condemned the media campaigns executed by Jewish extremists, which threaten to invade and attack Al-Aqsa Mosque, holding the Israeli government responsible for such court ruling.

He accused the Israeli authorities of keeping their eyes closed against extremists' attempts to attack the mosque, noting that the ruling is issued during a period of time that coincides an Israeli war against the Palestinians and Lebanese people and the anniversary of the Islamic Al-Isra' and Al-Me'raj event.

A number of Palestinian sides warned of allowing Jewish extremists entry into Al-Aqsa Mosque, holding the Israeli government responsible for the results of such act.

Palestine Scholars League also warned the Israeli occupation government of allowing Jewish extremists from attacking the mosque.

The league called on all Palestinians to gather at the mosque and prevent the extremist attack.

The Fatah Movement also called on all Palestinians to take action and protect Al-Aqsa Mosque from the Jewish extremists' invasion, noting that the court ruling shows the Israeli bad intention towards Al-Aqsa Mosque and Islamic properties.

Yes, peacefully visiting a site is, in Islamic parlance, an "attack" and an "invasion."

But even more disturbing is that after the court ruling, the Israeli police prohibited Jews from entering the Temple Mount anyway, allowing Islamic bigots to effectively veto any act they consider offensive, which means any behavior they feel like.

More recently comes this nonsensical press release from the Muslim World Association via the Bahraini News Agency:

Makkah. Aug. 22 (BNA) The Muslim World League (MWL) has drawn the attention of the international community to the importance of Al Aqsa Mosque, and warned against the Zionist plots to demolish the Mosque which has a great value in the hearts of the muslims.

Notice how the news agency has to mention that the mosque is important to Muslims. One would think that they would know that already.

So what was the event that caused Muslims to panic?

A statement issued here today by the MWL's Secretary General Dr Abdullah Al-Turki said setting Al-Aqsa mosque on fire by the terrorist and extremist Mickel Rohan on August 29, 1969, had demonstrated the plots hatched by the Zionists to demolish the mosque for building the alleged Skeleton in its place. Dr. Al-Turki drew attention to the menace of the Zionist plots, and said they are terror plots which aim at fomenting sedition and Provocation against 1.5 billion Muslims in the world.

Ah. A Christian fundamentalist who set fire to the mosque 37 years ago is causing a panicked warning now by the head of the Muslim World League about Jews building something called an alleged Skeleton.

It seems that when Muslims want to incite hate against Jews, facts just get in the way.

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Iran threatening America since 2004

Last year, there was a quite justified international outcry over the Iranian president's repeated stated desire to see Israel destroyed.

The most blatant incident occurred during the "World Without Zionism" conference in Tehran last October. Many of us saw this image of Ahmadinejad:

What we didn't see was, as I mentioned at the time, this was the second of a series of annual conferences. The first one was called "A World Without America" held in the autumn of 2004. MEMRI shows the music video commissioned for that first conference, showing video of 9/11 attacks as a symbol for the fall of America.

Iran's problem with Israel is not the same as the Arabs' problem. Iran sees Israel as representing America, which is its primary enemy.

The full poster of the 2005 anti-Israel conference shows this clearly, but I had never seen it until now:

Notice that the American sphere has already fallen at the bottom of the hourglass, broken.

And it is not like the audience was not aware of this symbolism - it was part of a huge backdrop:

(H/T Regime Change Iran)

Iran is not trying to hide its agenda as it speeds towards nuclear weapons capability. The question is, why does the West keep pretending that the threat is not real nor imminent?

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UNIFIL completely in Hezbollah's pocket

As I mentioned yesterday, Hezbollah forced their way into the main UN compound in Naquora yesterday for a funeral rally, shoving aside UN barricades. After it was clear the UN couldn't stop them, they opened the gates for them to celebrate their funeral, complete with their yellow flags and anti-Israel and anti-American slogans, in UN-controlled territory.

Almost every day, UNIFIL puts out a press release describing in minute detail every incident that happened the previous day. Neither today's not yesterday's press releases mentioned a word about this event.

And it is not like they are not aware of it - the dateline for the press releases is Naquora itself!

It seems that despite all the diplomacy and focus nowadays on the new role that UNIFIL is supposed to play, the UN is still effectively an ally of Hezbollah, or at best a frightened servant of the terrorists.

Nothing has changed since this picture was taken:

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Saudi terrorists arming US Islamists?

This report, buried deeply in the Washington Times and a couple of other newspapers, seems to me to be a wee bit more important than it is being treated: (H/T Daily Alert)

ROME -- Italian authorities seized a container full of weapons including Kalashnikov assault rifles and plastic explosives bound for the United States from Saudi Arabia in May, press reports said yesterday.
Il Mattino newspaper said the "arsenal" was discovered during a search of a ship registered to an unidentified ex-Soviet republic which was traveling from Saudi Arabia to the U.S. East Coast.
Customs officials in the port of Gioia Tauro in the southern Calabria region discovered more than 70 AK-47 assault rifles, plastics used in explosives and launch pads for rockets in the container, the daily said.
The Ansa news agency later reported that "the shipment was permitted, but certain papers were missing from the accompanying documents."

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Hezbollah's CIA: The Lebanese Army

A not surprising but depressing piece of reporting from the Guardian:

Retired general Nizar Abdel-Kader, a former deputy chief of staff for army personnel who is in close communication with the army command, told the Guardian: "The army knows there is a gun in every household, they are not going to go out and look for them ... What we are concerned about is the launchers. There is an agreement with Hizbullah that any weapons that are found will be handed over." A mutual respect and cooperation exists between the army and Hizbullah, according to Gen Kader. "They are two very separate entities but they cooperate on security issues," he said, adding that many of the army's troops were from southern Lebanon.

One defence analyst who asked not to be named said that, in the south, the army often acted as a subordinate to Hizbullah's military apparatus. "All intelligence gathered by the army is put at the disposal of Hizbullah but Hizbullah does not offer the same transparency to the army," he said. "In a sense, military intelligence in the south is operating on Hizbullah's behalf."

Another retired general, Amin Hoteit, now a professor at the Lebanese University, said: "The army sees Hizbullah as a group that is defending the country and so assists them as best it can."

Speaking last year, the Lebanese army chief of staff, General Michel Suleiman, said: "Support for the resistance is one of the fundamental national principles in Lebanon and one of the foundations on which the military doctrine is based. Protection of the resistance is the army's basic task."

The relationship had been strong for many years, Gen Kader said. "From 1996 onwards there has been a consensus in the army command that Hizbullah was a legitimate national defence force and that the government should extend its umbrella to protect the resistance." He said most army officials viewed the deployment primarily as a "counter-penetration force" working to prevent the infiltration of Israeli intelligence and military patrols.

Hizbullah's top official in south Lebanon, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, told reporters in Tyre this week that the group welcomed the Lebanese army's additional deployment in the south. "Just like in the past, Hizbullah had no visible military presence and there will not be any visible presence now," he said. "We are helping them with our experience by advising them on the best strategic areas to deploy and the best means of protecting this land from Israeli and US violations."

The UN's expected deployment of 15,000 troops is seen as an additional force to assist in Lebanon's defence against Israel. "We are happy with such a large force to provide sufficient deterrent to Israeli aggression," said Gen Kader.

Reinforcing the fears of many in Israel that Hizbullah would continue to pose a threat, Amal Saad Ghorayeb, a Hizbullah specialist, said the arrival of the army and Hizbullah's redeployment further north was a largely superficial transformation. "The fact they have insisted on retaining their weapons in that area suggests that they intend to use them if and when the time comes."

Suggestions from Washington that the Lebanese army should forcibly disarm Hizbullah have been met with alarm by the army command. "If the mission of the army is to defend the people then the whole country will be behind it, but if it is to act against the resistance, it puts a big question mark over the future of the country," Gen Hoteit said.

Apparently, when Islamist radicals talk about "Lebanese unity," they are referring to a country united behind terror and radical Islam.

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Hezbollah funeral rally in UNIFIL compound

From the Telegraph:

Hizbollah mourners on a funeral parade shoved aside anti-tank barriers at a United Nations base in Lebanon yesterday in a demonstration of their new political strength.

The party had been told it would be allowed to bury three "martyrs" at the Naqoura town cemetery inside the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) compound, but only if there was no flag-waving or political sloganising.

When the chanting procession, several hundred strong, reached the gates, it found the way barred by cruci-form steel tank traps. Mourners argued with the French guards, but failed to gain entry.

A mob of young men then dragged the barriers away and the UN opened the gates. "They will eat us alive," said a middle-aged official as the throng surged in.

A column of black-shirted men carried the three coffins to the graveyard. They waved yellow Hizbollah banners and portraits of the movement's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and yelled anti-Israeli and anti-American doggerel.

This incident was not reported in today's UNIFIL press dispatch, but it may have happened after it was already written. We'll see how UNIFIL describes this incident tomorrow.

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Quick question to Muslims who think a war is being waged against them

There are countless articles and speeches from Muslims and terror supporters decrying "Islamophobia" who are convinced that the Western world is fighting a war against all Muslims. Often, these paranoid people will blame world Jewry or their popular codewords, "Zionists" and "Neocons", as the force behind this supposed epidemic of hatred of all Muslims.

I have a simple question:

How many places on the planet are Muslims afraid to walk around in full Muslim attire - women with hijabs or chadors or burqas, men with their skullcaps and beards? Where exactly are the places that they can expect to be beaten up by random people on the street who are so consumed with hate at the idea of a Muslim in their midst?

Now, compare this answer with the number of places in the world that a Jewish man can proudly walk around with a yarmulka without a trace of fear or nervousness.

Since Islamophobia is supposedly so pervasive - where are the 1.6 billion Muslims afraid to walk?

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The Hezbollah/Iran funhouse mirror

Pretty much everyone (with the exception of President Bush) agrees that Israel didn't win this war. But by the same criteria of what is considered "victory," Hezbollah didn't win either.

Like Israel, Hezbollah also had stated objectives: to recover three Lebanese prisoners, and the capture the Shebaa Farms. Not only did they fail, but according to Libanoscope, their losses were much greater than originally thought, even by Israel: (translation by Daily Alert and FreeTranslation.com):

(DailyAlert)According to semi-official sources, Hizballah has undergone total destruction of its logistic and economic infrastructures, and suffered about 1,500 deaths of militiamen and leaders.

(FreeTranslation)Despite an attempt to do be quiet the local and Arabic media and to prevent them from unveil the true ones amount, it in springs and still according to unofficial sources, and often trying to keep the fear anonymity of reprisals, that the Hezbollah would have undergoes a total destruction of its logistical and economical infrastructures, and that the number of militiamen and frameworks on this part killed during this war itself Of 1 500 persons.

This announcement of the victory would resemble more to an attempt to return the defeat in victory, a clean effect to the culture of which is originating from the party of God.

Now, the perception of victory is probably more important in the Muslim world than actual victory, and Israel's strategy during the war was murky and half-hearted at best, but things are not quite as bad as some doomsayers opine.

Even a weak Lebanese Army in the south is a major step forward. Everyone, from the Arab world to the West, is emphasizing how important it is for Lebanon to be united and free. The fact that the Lebanese aren't fond of Israel doesn't mean they are any more fond of Hezbollah, and in the wake of the Cedar Revolution it seems that it would be difficult for Hezbollah to turn Lebanon itself into an Islamic state, as Iran wants. The Lebanese, for all their impotence, are generally tolerant of others and their national psyche is not going to be happy with the effective Iranian-backed coup that Hezbollah is attempting.

The many, many articles coming out of Iran and Syria declaring Hezbollah's victory also betray the truth - if the victory was so overpowering and obvious, why does it need to be mentioned so many times? It is more propaganda than reality.

For an extreme example of said propaganda, check out this article from the Iranian Fars News Agency:

TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- According to the results of an opinion poll, Israelis feel more respect for Nasrallah and accept his words more that their own heads of state and their statements, said Hezbollah's representative in Tehran on Friday.

Speaking at a meeting with a group of editors and directors of Fars News Agency at the office of Hezbollah's movement in Tehran, Abdallah Safioddin described Lebanese victories over Zionists a fruit of the lessons they had learnt from Imam Khomeini and the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.

He further stated that all the problems Iran has so far had to face during the past 27 years have all resulted from Iran's opposition to the Israeli regime, adding that after the Lebanese' victory against the Zionist regime, the United States will have to reduce its pressures on the Islamic countries.

I really would love to find this poll saying Israelis respect Nasrallah more than Olmert. The best I could find was this one:

The opinion polls reflect an ultra-hawkish mood among Israelis, with most believing that their forces should have inflicted more damage. Seventy per cent told the Yediot Ahronoth newspaper that Israel should have refused the terms of the ceasefire agreed earlier this week. A similar poll in Maariv said that 53 per cent opposed the terms of the ceasefire.

Just over two-thirds support assassinating Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, even if it means restarting the war, and 63 per cent want the Israeli Air Force to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities, reflecting widespread acceptance of Mr Olmert’s campaign to portray Hezbollah as little more than a proxy of Tehran.

Maybe in Iran, the ultimate criterion for respect is wanting to kill someone.

In which case, they must really, really respect the Jews.

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PalArabs keep killing each other and blaming Israel

Dying and lying:

Near Jenin, 2 terrorists were killed, one critically injured as they were preparing a bomb belt that went off a bit earlier than they intended.

A 14-year old boy was killed Wednesday night during clashes between Fatah and Hamas. The "security forces" were there to "protect" a house of mourning.

Also on Wednesday night, a Hamas terrorist was killed from a "mysterious explosion" that happened in his house (as he was preparing explosives to kill Jews.)

Not dead (yet) but notable: another set of injuries from someone shooting a rifle at a wedding, including a 13-year old boy shot in the head.

So our running total of Palestinian Arabs killed by other Palestinian Arabs since Israel's incursion in Gaza is at 58.

I just quickly went through the list of deaths from PCHR since they have been keeping records and saw that between February and late June, about 56 other Palestinian Arabs had died from clan clashes, "misuse of weapons" and "work accidents." So I am aware of 114 PalArabs killed by other PalArabs since February, and one can assume many dozens more between last August and February (not to mention any later deaths from previously-reported injuries that were not updated at the PCHR site.) A good guess would be between 150-200 Palestinian Arabs killed by their own.

Why is this important? Because the Palestinian Arab "news" agency WAFA just came out with this press release:

GAZA, August 17, 2006 (WAFA)- Ministry of Health (MOH) announced Thursday that 378 citizens were killed and 1385 wounded since the Israeli disengagement from the Gaza Strip (GS)

In a press releas, Minister Dr. Basim Na'im revealed that 91 children, under the age of 18, were among the killed, while 494 children were wounded.

He pointed out that Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF), continued its aggression over this year against the West Bank, where135 citizens were killed, and 1905 were wounded, including 757 children.

He added that the Israeli army used lethal weapons, bombs and missiles which are internationally prohibited.

Dr. Na'im called on the international community, namely the United Nations and HR organisations, World Health Organisation, International Committee of the Red Cross to shoulder responsibilities and to immediately intervene to pressurise Israel to end its brutal aggression against defenseless citizens.

It is a reasonable assumption that the Ministry of Health is not distinguishing between those killed by Israel and those killed by Palestinian Arabs. It is also a reasonable assumption that they are not distinguishing between civilians and terrorists.

Which means that probably roughly half of those killed, based on PCHR's own numbers, were not killed by Israel forces - but by Arabs themselves! The press release was purposefully deceptive in blaming Israel wholly for these deaths, when in fact Israel has probably accidentally killed fewer civilians than PalArabs themselves have in that same time period!

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Australia appeasing Muslims who support terror

From the Herald-Sun (Australia):

HASSAN Bazzi is one of 14 "moderate" Muslim leaders chosen by the Howard Government to "assist in eliminating intolerance".

Last Friday, he showed how he does this good work.

Bazzi went to a Sydney protest at which police had to confiscate the more viciously anti-Jewish signs, and gave a heated speech that praised the Hezbollah terrorist group that has been at war with Israel.

"Death to the enemies", he shouted. "Long life for the Lebanese resistance."

So are we glad Bazzi, head of the Al Zahra Muslim Association, is so moderate that Prime Minister John Howard chose him for his Muslim Community Reference Group?

Or are we instead alarmed that this seems to be as moderate as Islamic leaders get?

When he created his group last year, Howard was attacked for excluding radicals such as Sheik Mohammed Omran, the Melbourne extremist, who said he "dispute(s) any evil action linked to" terror boss Osama bin Laden.

But now he finds at least a third of the 14 "moderates" he picked openly back Hezbollah, listed by his Government as an Islamist terrorist group.

There is Bazzi, of course. But even the chairman of Howard's group, Ameer Ali, led half a dozen group members into a meeting with Howard to urge him to stop calling Hezbollah terrorists, despite its record of assassinations, bombings in Argentina and Beirut and rocket attacks on Israel, as well as its call for "the disappearance of the Zionist entity (Israel)".

Said Ali: "According to our views even the military wing (of Hezbollah) is not a terrorist organisation."

Another member of Howard's group, Sheik Taj Al-Din Al-Hilali, the Mufti of Australia, met Hezbollah's leader in Lebanon two years again, and enthused: "I praised it and its sacrifice. Hezbollah has become a model for all the mujahideen in the world."

But, how Howard ever came to select Hilali as a "moderate" adviser in the first place is a mystery, given he has vilified Jews, praised suicide bombers as "heroes" and called the September 11 attacks "God's work against oppressors".

Preston mosque's Sheik Fehmi Naji el-Imam seemed a safer choice, but even he backs Hezbollah. "Long live freedom fighters," he yelled at one protest. "We are proud of the freedom fighters."

Yet another group member, Yasser Soliman, former head of the Islamic Council of Victoria, has also criticised the Government for calling Hezbollah a terrorist organisation.

"We've seen more innocent deaths at the hands of Israel than we have seen of Hezbollah," he said. He asked why Israel's army wasn't listed as terrorist instead.

I am not saying any of the above support terror attacks, especially on civilians. But I am asking why the Government has advisers who support what it says itself is a terrorist group.

Worse, far from sacking them, the Government praises them instead. The Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Andrew Robb, told this same group two weeks ago: "When religion is invoked as a justification for terrorism, religious voices must be raised strongly in protest and I commend you here today for that."

In fact: "The difficult work that many of you did after the Cronulla riots and the publication of the Danish cartoons was a prime example of taking responsibility . . ."

It was? This "prime example" of "taking responsibility" when Muslims were rioting over cartoons involved Fehmi simply calling for the banning of these images of Mohammed on the menacing grounds that they "disturb people who can do things that we don't want them to do". Gulp. OK.

It seems Robb is in full appeasement mode, now legitimising extremism instead of countering it. For instance, a puff piece in The Australian on his work noted "he is convinced that for most of its long history Islam has been a peaceful religion", and "he reflects on the history of the Knights Templar as a period of Christian aggression".

It was also Robb who announced perhaps the Government's most wrong-headed move in fighting Muslim extremism -- spending $8 million to create a National Institute of Islamic Studies.

According to Robb, this institute, an idea of his reference group, will take 300 students and "provide many subjects relevant for those training to be Muslim religious leaders".

It would also "attract eminent, moderate Islamic scholars from around the world".

Some questions for Robb:

Can you even recognise a moderate Islamic scholar any more, given your record of picking "moderates" who actually back a terrorist group?

And if even "moderate" Islamic clerics endorse a group such as Hezbollah, why are you spending taxpayers' money to create still more of them?

This is, of course, not only Australia's problem. True Islamic moderates, by the Western definition of the word, seem to be few and far between.

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