Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Friday, October 13, 2006

Today's round-up of PalArab martyrs, liars and hypocrites

The Hamas/Fatah conflict continues! Al-Hayat says (autotranslated):

The medical sources explained that the citizen Ali Abdel-Meguid Shkshk (30 years old) and works in the General Intelligence officers died as a result of injuries sustained as a result of being shot by unknown gunmen while he was leaving his home, located in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood north of Gaza. The masked gunmen riding in a car type "Mitsubishi" opened fire on the citizen Shkshk shot several shots where then transferred to the El Shifa medical before declaring medical sources and death.

The Fatah movement announced more sorrow and pain Shkshk martyr and said that one of its members. The "open" in a statement to the press that "Shkshk spent his youth tender and sincere philanthropic work and good drinking was one of the finest fighters and disciplined in the ranks of Fatah movement remained the most tender and faithful to his people and his cherished by the Bshmuchh and pride and sacrifice for the homeland, Palestine."

Also killed yesterday evening, the young man Majed Wednesday local commander of the Hamas movement in the town of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip. Eyewitnesses reported that unknown gunmen opened fire on Wednesday on his arrival to his home and shot him dead with his wife was moderately wounded.

The news agency reported yesterday that seven citizens were wounded last night different Mslj occurred during a clash between demonstrators and bodyguard to a spokesman for the Interior Ministry, Khaled Abu Hilal.

The agency added that the demonstrators were wandering through the streets of Gaza City to protest the killing of the young man to Shkshk shot by unknown persons, pointing out that when the arrival of the demonstrators to the house of Abu Hilal, who threw stones at the house and after the Abu Hilal guards opened fire on them, wounding seven of them injured.

The statement by Amnesty International condemning the paid bodyguards of the Palestinian Arab Interior Ministry spokesman for shooting innocent stonethrowers (no doubt with weapons paid for by Western money) is coming....any....minute....now.

This brings out unofficial count of known Palestinian Arabs killed violently by each other since Operation Summer Rains began at 112.

Meanwhile, the WaPo is soberly reporting

The Palestinian Health Ministry reports that the Israeli military operation, known as Summer Rains, has killed 290 Palestinians, including at least 35 children.

How reliable is the "Palestinian Health Ministry?"

Well, their website hasn't been updated with this new report so it is difficult to know their methodology, but a quick look there at previous reports shows this whopper:

Meantime, IOF snipers daily shot Palestinian children.

Those violations committed by the snipers, who are situated on the military watchtowers. IOF snipers shot Palestinian children, while they are on their way to schools or inside school turning 43 schools to military barracks.

So this impartial and official sounding organization claims that Israeli snipers target innocent schoolchildren every day, an absurd and transparent lie. Yet when they claim a specific number of casualties, it gets reported by the media as fact.

I am willing to guess that a large number of the casualties they are claiming are in fact PalArab-on-PalArab casualties. Yet for some reason the "Ministry of Health" is completely silent about this health problem in the territories.

Is it slightly possible, perhaps, maybe, that the "Ministry of Health" is acting as just another propaganda outlet and does not truly care about the 112 documented "Palestinian citizens" who have been killed in the same time period - so much so that they don't even bother counting them?

As long as the Washington Post reports on them as if they are a legitimate health organization and doesn't bother doing any real reporting on the farce that is the "government" of the PA, we'll never know.

Peace souk

An excellent editorial from Moshe Sharon. He uses many of the themes I touch on often but puts them all together in a very interesting way. Which makes this article worth bookmarking.

On December 24, 1977, at the very beginning of the negotiations between Israel and Egypt in Ismailia, I had the opportunity of a short discussion with Anwar Sadat, the Egyptian president.
"Tell your prime minister," he said to me, "that this is a bazaar; the merchandise is expensive."
I duly told my prime minister, but he failed to abide by the bazaar's rules. The failure was not unique to him. It has been the failure of all Israeli governments, and the media.
On March 4, 1994, The Jerusalem Post ran an article of mine called "Novices in negotiations." The occasion was the conclusion of the Cairo Agreement. A short time later, Yasser Arafat proved yet again that his signature wasn't worth the ink in his pen, let alone the paper to which it was attached.
In the Mideastern bazaar, diplomacy agreements are kept not because they are signed but because they are imposed. In addition, in the bazaar of the Arab-Israeli conflict the two sides are not talking about the same merchandise. The Israelis wish for peace based on Arab-Muslim acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state. The Arabs' objective is to annihilate the Jewish state, replace it by an Arab one, and get rid of the Jews.
To achieve their goal, the Arabs have both taken to the battlefield and adopted bazaar diplomacy. In the bazaar, the most important rule is that if the vendor knows about your desire to purchase a certain merchandise, he will put its price up. The merchandise in question is "peace," and the Arabs give the impression that they possess this merchandise - and inflate its price - when the truth is they have never had it.
THIS IS THE wisdom of the bazaar: If you are clever enough you can sell nothing, at a price. The Arabs sell words, they sign agreements, they trade with vague promises and are sure to receive generous down payments from eager buyers. Yet in the bazaar only the stupid buyer pays for something he has yet to see.
The bazaar has another rule, which holds for the negotiating table too: The side that presents its terms first is bound to lose, since the other side builds its next move using the open cards of its opponent as a starting point.
In all its negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs Israel has always rushed to offer its plans - and was then surprised to discover that after an agreement had been "concluded" it became the basis for further demands.
Most amazing has been the reaction in such cases. Israeli politicians, "experts" and media eagerly provide "explanations" of the Arabs' behavior. A popular one is that these or other Arab announcements are "for internal consumption," as if that doesn't count. Others invoke "the Arab sensitivity to symbols," "honor," and "emotional issues.
Does Israel possess no "sensibilities" or honor? And what does all this have to do with political encounters?
If anybody in Israel is listening, here is what needs to be done:
Israel should stop talking about "peace." We have been using the word for 100 years, begging the Arabs to sell it to us and ready to pay any price. We have received nothing, because the Arabs have no peace to sell, but we have paid dearly.
FROM NOW ON, Israel should make a decision to create a new state of affairs, one that will compel the Arab side to ask for peace - and pay for it in real terms. For, unlike the Arabs, Israel has this merchandise for sale.
What will lead them to pay? If they conclude that Israel is so strong they cannot destroy it.
From now on, if anyone asks Israel for "plans," the answer should be: No plans, no suggestions, no "constructive ideas" - in fact no negotiations at all. If the Arab side wants to negotiate, let it present its plans and ideas. And if and when it does, the first Israeli reaction should always be: "Unacceptable - come up with better ones."
Here are the Ten Rules for Negotiations in the Middle Eastern bazaar:
Never suggest anything to the other side. Let the other side present its suggestions first.
Always reject; disagree. Use the phrase "doesn't meet our minimum demands," and walk away, even 100 times. The tough customers get the good prices.
Don't be hasty to come up with counter-offers. There will always be time for that. Let the other side make amendments under pressure of your total "disappointment." Patience is the name of the game: "Haste is from Satan!"
Have your own plan ready in full, as detailed as possible, with the "red lines" completely defined. Weigh the other side's suggestions against this plan.
Never change your detailed plan to meet the other side "half-way." Remember, there is no "half-way." The other side also has a master plan. Be ready to quit negotiations when you encounter stubbornness on the other side.
Never leave things unclear. Always avoid "creative phrasing" and "creative ideas" - which are exactly what your Arab opponent wants. Remember that the Arabs are masters of language, and playing with words is the Arab national sport. As in the bazaar, always talk dollars and cents.
Always bear in mind that the other side will try to outsmart you by portraying major issues as unimportant details. Treat every detail as vitally important.
Emotion belongs neither in the market nor at the negotiating table. Friendly words, outbursts of anger, holding hands, kissing, touching cheeks and embracing should not be taken to represent policy.
Beware of popular beliefs about the Arabs and the Middle East - e.g., "Arab honor." Never do or say anything because somebody told you it is "the custom." If the Arab side finds out you are playing the anthropologist, it will take advantage.
Always remember that the goal of all negotiations is to make a profit, and aim at making the biggest profit in real terms. Remember that every gain is an asset for the future, because there is always likely to be "another round."
The Arabs have been practicing negotiating tactics for more than 2,000 years. By contrast, the Israelis, and Westerners in general, want "quick results."
In this part of the world, there are no quick results. He who is hasty always loses.
The writer, professor of Islamic History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was previously the prime minister's adviser on Arab affairs to Menachem Begin.

Implicit in his rules is that these are how the Arabs are playing the game already.

Jimmy Carter continues to support terrorists

I've been reading the Google auto-translated Palestinian Arab newspapers lately, and it is not an exaggeration to say that they have been dominated with stories on the PalArab strike, internal fighting and the Qatari-brokered negotiations between Hamas and Abbas. While most of the newspapers are heavily Fatah-leaning it is clear that there is intense pressure on the Hamas leadership to make concessions to help ease the economic sanctions on the Palestinian Arabs.

While I believe that any Hamas concessions are simply semantic in nature and worse than meaningless in reality, there is no doubt that even the vapor gestures are difficult for Hamas to do and that they are feeling the heat from their fellow Palestinian Arabs. A small example:

Hamas politburo leader Khaled Mashaal reiterated Wednesday that his group would not recognize Israel. In an interview published Thursday in the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat and cited by Maariv, Mashaal said he was willing to accept a Palestinian state within 1967 borders, as well as a hudna [truce] with Israel but not to recognize the "occupation."

Mashaal addressed reports Wednesday that said he had agreed to wide-ranging concessions in order to pave the way for a unity government in the Palestinian Authority. Although he refused to recognize the "legitimacy of the occupation," Mashaal admitted the "Zionist entity" was an established fact. "There is an entity whose name is Israel, yes, but I am not interested in recognizing it," said Mashaal.

The Hamas political chief also hinted at the possibility that his organization and the Hamas-led Palestinian government would recognize agreements with Israel the PA and PLO previously signed. "We will deal with agreements that have been signed and are on the ground according to the interests of the Palestinian people," Mashaal said. "If the serve the interests of my people, I will implement them."

Again, this is nothing earthshaking and it fall so far short of any real concessions as to be laughable, but they do show that there is serious internal pressure that is even reaching Hamas' Damascus leadership.

In other words, it shows that the economic sanctions are working. While the results would be worthless, the fake progress that is happening is exactly what the EU and the US were hoping for when they decided to implement them.

Of course, that former President who wastes no opportunity to trash his own country's leadership refuses to see it this way.

Last week, Jimmy the Dhimmi made yet another of his absurd pro-terror statements, which have become so common and expected that the Western media pretty much ignored it:

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter said Friday that a foreign policy aimed at punishing the Hamas-led Palestinian government through a seven-month aid freeze has failed, and called on the international community to seek other ways to resolve the conflict.

"The attempt to coerce Hamas leaders by starving the Palestinian people has failed, and it is time for the international community to alleviate their suffering and resort to diplomacy," Carter said in a statement.

The former president added that he is doubtful that Palestinian leaders will make any progress toward reconciliation with Israel "as long as the Palestinians are subjected to this kind of debasement and personal suffering."

So Carter has it exactly wrong, as usual, as he calls for dollars to flow yet again to pay for rockets and bombs aimed at Israeli civilians just as he places all his faith in words and none in actions.

Spam and Islam

As I wait in line at the Times Square TKTS booth to hopefully get discounted tickets to Spamalot tonight (I wisely indoctrinated the kids in Monty Python when they were younger), I urge you to read Omri's post on the Robert Spencer's blogger conference call,. Those of us who struggle with the hope of moderate Islam can always use a little cold water splash of reality.

Mixed blessing

It is wonderful to see the amount of support that Christian Zionists give to Israel.

It is even more wonderful when thousands of them make the decision to actually visit Israel and publicly show their support, by the thousands:

Israelis and foreigners take part in the annual Jerusalem parade October 10, 2006. More than 5,000 evangelical Christians, including believers from as far afield as Congo and New Zealand, marched through Jerusalem on Tuesday to voice their support for Zionism and the state of Israel. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

G-d knows that Israel needs all the support she can get, and from what I can see nowadays, the support from evangelical Christians seems heartfelt and sincere, without strings attached.

And yet....

In the 18th and 19th centuries, there was a proto-Zionist movement among Christians as well. Some Christian denominations openly called for the "Restoration of the Jews" to Palestine, and the wisdom of that support was debated among various prominent Christian preachers, both in the US and in England.

It would be hard to deny that the success of the early Zionist movement up through the Balfour Declaration was in some part due to this subconscious desire on the part of the Christian leaders in England to see Biblical prophecy fulfilled. Newspapers at the time showed intense interest in any story relating to Jews in Palestine, especially Jews immigrating to Palestine, and Jews being successful in agriculture in the Holy Land.

Sometimes the interest would appear to be more of an political or humanitarian nature than overtly religious. But even then, the religious and historical dimension was clear, as in this petition to President Harrison in 1891:

But there is another part of the Christian biblical prophecy regarding the "Restoration of the Jews" that is a bit more troubling. In the early part of the 19th century, just as the words "Restoration of the Jews" were understood to mean the return of the Jews to Palestine, they were just as often used and implied with two more words: "The Restoration and Conversion of the Jews."

This is an entire book on the topic (which you can download), and not the only one. Other books debated the wisdom of the Restoration and whether it fit into Christian Biblical prophecy (this one from 1828) - but the subtext was that the Jews would have to be converted to Christianity, either before such restoration or afterwards.

In fact, there were entire societies in England (and Scotland) dedicated to the conversion of Jews to Christianity, that seemed to reach their greatest influence in the early to middle 19th century.

The conversion aspect of Christian proto-Zionists seemed to die out as the actual reclamation of Jews to biblical Israel accelerated mid-19th century, and it was hardly mentioned publicly by 1900. Nevertheless, this history is enough to make one pause as to the true intent of today's friendly Christian Zionists. The idea of mass conversions of Jews may no longer make sense but the thought of an ulterior motive that lines Israel's fate up more with perceived prophecies than with what is actually good for Israel is not something that is so easy to overlook, despite the many sincere friends that Israel does indeed have today among the Christian Zionists.

Very funny ad, but let's get serious

David Zucker, the same man who co-directed and produced many very funny movies, created an ad for the GOP that is really quite funny:

My only problem is that for the past five years the Bush Administration had done close to nothing about North Korea either. Since naming North Korea as one of the members of the "Axis of Evil" in January 2002, has anything concrete been done to stop their actions? North Korea continues to arm terrorist states, it continues to develop and test long-range missiles, and it continues to develop nuclear weapons. GWB has talked tough but it is apparent that nothing concrete was done.

And Iran is watching very, very closely.

It may be fun to try to score political points and point fingers. But in the face of Iranian and Korean nukes, isn't it time to stop the stupid partisan games between Democrats who think that Bush is evil incarnate and Republicans who refuse to think that perhaps the Iraq war was not thought through correctly?

So many people spend uncounted hours hung up on Valerie Plame or Swiftboating or whatever today's perceived smoking gun is to prove once and for all that the Other Side is shallow and dishonest. Meanwhile, all that is being proven is that both sides are shallow and dishonest. Both sides are so disconnected from reality that they can both watch the same video and come to radically different conclusions. (I didn't watch it myself, so I cannot comment either way.)

Ladies and gentlemen, we are facing some real threats. Let's concentrate on them for a change.

Death toll update: 108 PalArabs (UPDATED - 110)

One really has to scour the Palestinian Arab press to find stories of people who are killed in internal clashes. Most of their newspapers ignore the stories altogether, even the Arabic ones.

Dr. Moawiya Hassanen, head of the Emergency Unit at the Palestinian Ministry of Health, reported that one Palestinian security officer, member of the Presidential Guard Force, died of wounds suffered during internal clashes last Sunday.
The officer, Rafeeq Siyam, was seriously injured last Sunday and was moved to an Israeli hospital for further treatment; he died of his wounds at the Israeli hospital.

Yes, you read right: the horrible, bloodthirsty Israelis routinely try to save the lives of Palestinian Arabs being shot by other Palestinian Arabs.

Slightly more press is given toPalArabs who die in more noble and glorious ways:

Palestinian medical sources in the Gaza Strip reported that rescue teams extracted a body of a Palestinian fighter who was killed in a tunnel explosion west of Rafah, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip.

Mohammad Naji, 25, member of the Al Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad was killed on Monday evening when an explosive charge went off while he was training other members of the brigades.
The traning camp is located in place of the evacuated settlement of Atzmona, west of Rafah.

The body of the fighter was severely mutilated and burnt as a result of the blast.

It is worthwhile to compare this story, translated by IMEMC to English, with its Arabic original (autotranslated):

One of the members of the martyrdom of Al-Quds Brigades in the internal explosion in Rafah
Khan Younis-together - medical sources in Abu Yousef Al Najjar Hospital in the town of Rafah in the martyrdom of the young Muhammad Naji (25 years) and of Deir el-Balah and the Al-Quds Brigades activists one by an explosive charge he was training a group of members of Al-Quds Brigades in a training sites in what is known as the settlement> Atassimona> west of Rafah. The sources added that the body of the martyr was taken to hospital and the charred body was found riddled result of the bomb attack in which a large volume directly.

It appears that the PalArabs know that all that talk about how people who blow themselves up are "martyrs" doesn't play well in the Western world, so they purposefully mistranslate the news story for English-language readers.

So our count of confirmed PalArabs killed by PalArabs since late June is now at 108.

And our count of official Palestinian Arab or international sources who bother to keep their own count of violent Palestinian Arab deaths that have nothing to do with Israel remains at zero.

UPDATE: 109, when Rafik Siam died of injuries from Hamas earlier this month. Interestingly, the article refers to him as a "martyr" and only alludes to his cause of death.

UPDATE 2: 110, when a Fatah member died as a result of injuries from Hamas last May.

McGreevey's former aide denies everything

This isn't really the sort of story I generally follow, but in the wake of the publicity tsunami that the former New Jersey governor has embarked on to push his autobiography, no one seems to mention a very basic fact:

His Israeli "gay lover" denies everything in McGreevey's book, including being gay. He claims he was sexually assaulted by the governor and that he is looking for a nice Jewish girl to marry.

I don't know the truth, but shouldn't the other party have at least as much of a chance to say his side of the story? And shouldn't those people who are sweetly interviewing McGreevey know that it is possible that they are joking around with a sexual predator?

"Call them ZioNazis because it pisses them off"

A remarkable piece of truth, telling the Arabs how exactly to use propaganda and lies:

Ayoon Wa Azan (Enraging the Zionists)
Jihad el-Khazen Al-Hayat - 09/10/06//

About a month has passed since I made my suggestion to popularize the term 'Nazi Zionist' and the derivative 'ZioNazi', and readers are still discussing the matter....
What I say about myself is what I said when I put the term forward on September 5, 2006. I said at the time that the objective of the term was to exasperate the Zionists, because nothing vexes them as much as associating them with the Nazis. I do see the term as an exaggeration, since the crimes of the Nazis against the Jews are greater that the crimes of the Israeli government against the Palestinians and the rest of the Arabs. There is nothing between the Arabs and the Jews that is the equivalent of using gas chambers.

So even though the author knows that the term is ridiculous and has no relationship to truth, the important thing is that it makes Jews angry - and that is a worthwhile goal, in and of itself!

I wonder if he would agree that it would be fair for the West to do the same with Islamists - perhaps we should always refer to Mohammed as "Pedophile Prophet Mohammed" because we know that would upset Islamists, and in some strange universe that is considered a Good Thing to do. (Not to mention that it is probably a whole lot more accurate than "ZioNazi.")

Or is he proposing rules to the game that only one side has to adhere to?

Nah, that couldn't be the case.

(Why am I not surprised that one of the major advertisers in this website is NPR International?)

Righteous Arab Gentiles

In January, I highlighted an article about Muslims in Albania, Turkey and elsewhere who saved Jews from the Holocaust.

Today's Washington Post has an similar important article about the heroic Arabs who saved Jews from being murdered in the 1940s, as well as those who collaborated with the Nazis:

The Holocaust's Arab Heroes

By Robert Satloff
Sunday, October 8, 2006; B01

Virtually alone among peoples of the world, Arabs appear to have won a free pass when it comes to denying or minimizing the Holocaust. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has declared to his supporters that "Jews invented the legend of the Holocaust." Syrian President Bashar al-Assad recently told an interviewer that he doesn't have "any clue how [Jews] were killed or how many were killed." And Hamas's official Web site labels the Nazi effort to exterminate Jews "an alleged and invented story with no basis."

Such Arab viewpoints are not exceptional. A respected Holocaust research institution recently reported that Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia all promote Holocaust denial and protect Holocaust deniers. The records of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum show that only one Arab leader at or near the highest level of government -- a young prince from a Persian Gulf state -- has ever made an official visit to the museum in its 13-year history. Not a single official textbook or educational program on the Holocaust exists in an Arab country. In Arab media, literature and popular culture, Holocaust denial is pervasive and legitimized.

Yet when Arab leaders and their people deny the Holocaust, they deny their own history as well -- the lost history of the Holocaust in Arab lands. It took me four years of research -- scouring dozens of archives and conducting scores of interviews in 11 countries -- to unearth this history, one that reveals complicity and indifference on the part of some Arabs during the Holocaust, but also heroism on the part of others who took great risks to save Jewish lives.

Neither Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to Holocaust victims, nor any other Holocaust memorial has ever recognized an Arab rescuer. It is time for that to change. It is also time for Arabs to recall and embrace these episodes in their history. That may not change the minds of the most radical Arab leaders or populations, but for some it could make the Holocaust a source of pride, worthy of remembrance -- rather than avoidance or denial.

The Holocaust was an Arab story, too. From the beginning of World War II, Nazi plans to persecute and eventually exterminate Jews extended throughout the area that Germany and its allies hoped to conquer. That included a great Arab expanse, from Casablanca to Tripoli and on to Cairo, home to more than half a million Jews.

Though Germany and its allies controlled this region only briefly, they made substantial headway toward their goal. From June 1940 to May 1943, the Nazis, their Vichy French collaborators and their Italian fascist allies applied in Arab lands many of the precursors to the Final Solution. These included not only laws depriving Jews of property, education, livelihood, residence and free movement, but also torture, slave labor, deportation and execution.

There were no death camps, but many thousands of Jews were consigned to more than 100 brutal labor camps, many solely for Jews. Recall Maj. Strasser's warning to Ilsa, the wife of the Czech underground leader, in the 1942 film "Casablanca": "It is possible the French authorities will find a reason to put him in the concentration camp here." Indeed, the Arab lands of Algeria and Morocco were the site of the first concentration camps ever liberated by Allied troops.

About 1 percent of Jews in North Africa (4,000 to 5,000) perished under Axis control in Arab lands, compared with more than half of European Jews. These Jews were lucky to be on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, where the fighting ended relatively early and where boats -- not just cattle cars -- would have been needed to take them to the ovens in Europe. But if U.S. and British troops had not pushed Axis forces from the African continent by May 1943, the Jews of Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia and perhaps even Egypt and Palestine almost certainly would have met the same fate as those in Europe.

The Arabs in these lands were not too different from Europeans: With war waging around them, most stood by and did nothing; many participated fully and willingly in the persecution of Jews; and a brave few even helped save Jews.

Arab collaborators were everywhere. These included Arab officials conniving against Jews at royal courts, Arab overseers of Jewish work gangs, sadistic Arab guards at Jewish labor camps and Arab interpreters who went house to house with SS officers pointing out where Jews lived. Without the help of local Arabs, the persecution of Jews would have been virtually impossible.

Were Arabs, then under the domination of European colonialists, merely following orders? An interviewer once posed that question to Harry Alexander, a Jew from Leipzig, Germany, who survived a notoriously harsh French labor camp at Djelfa, in the Algerian desert. "No, no, no!" he exploded in reply. "Nobody told them to beat us all the time. Nobody told them to chain us together. Nobody told them to tie us naked to a post and beat us and to hang us by our arms and hose us down, to bury us in the sand so our heads should look up and bash our brains in and urinate on our heads. . . . No, they took this into their own hands and they enjoyed what they did."

But not all Arabs joined with the European-spawned campaign against the Jews. The few who risked their lives to save Jews provide inspiration beyond their numbers.

Arabs welcomed Jews into their homes, guarded Jews' valuables so Germans could not confiscate them, shared with Jews their meager rations and warned Jewish leaders of coming SS raids. The sultan of Morocco and the bey of Tunis provided moral support and, at times, practical help to Jewish subjects. In Vichy-controlled Algiers, mosque preachers gave Friday sermons forbidding believers from serving as conservators of confiscated Jewish property. In the words of Yaacov Zrivy, from a small town near Sfax, Tunisia, "The Arabs watched over the Jews."

I found remarkable stories of rescue, too. In the rolling hills west of Tunis, 60 Jewish internees escaped from an Axis labor camp and banged on the farm door of a man named Si Ali Sakkat, who courageously hid them until liberation by the Allies. In the Tunisian coastal town of Mahdia, a dashing local notable named Khaled Abdelwahhab scooped up several families in the middle of the night and whisked them to his countryside estate to protect one of the women from the predations of a German officer bent on rape.

And there is strong evidence that the most influential Arab in Europe -- Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the rector of the Great Mosque of Paris -- saved as many as 100 Jews by having the mosque's administrative personnel give them certificates of Muslim identity, with which they could evade arrest and deportation. These men, and others, were true heroes.

According to the Koran: "Whoever saves one life, saves the entire world." This passage echoes the Talmud's injunction, "If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the world."

Arabs need to hear these stories -- both of heroes and of villains. They especially need to hear them from their own teachers, preachers and leaders. If they do, they may respond as did that one Arab prince who visited the Holocaust museum. "What we saw today," he commented after his tour, "must help us change evil into good and hate into love and war into peace."

rsatloff@washingtoninstitute.org

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is author of "Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands" (PublicAffairs).

As with the Europeans, there were evil Arabs, indifferent Arabs and a small amount of heroic Arabs. We must not forget the good ones just as we must not forget the evil ones.

You need a scorecard

At least one Fatah terrorist was killed when a bomb prematurely exploded in an arms smuggling tunnel.

Another Fatah terrorist was shot and killed (and two Hamas terrorists critically injured) in PalArab infighting.

A young man shot and killed near Al-Masri (from a PalArab Arabic newspaper.)

Our PalArab self-death count is now at 103.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely that I will know if the Hamas terrorists die, so as always I am erring on the side of confirmed dead PalArabs.
Chol HaMoed update:

On Friday, 6 October 2006, 3 masked gunmen opened fire at Mohammed ‘Adnan ‘Atiya, 26, near his house in al-Tannour neighborhood in the east of Rafah. ‘Atiya was wounded by several live bullets to the abdomen and the legs. He was evacuated to the hospital, but he died soon. No more information has been available concerning the reasons of this crime.

At approximately 11:45 on Thursday, 5 October 2006, a number of gunmen traveling in a civilian car (a white Peugeot 504) opened fire into the air for no apparent reason in al-Hawaja Streets in the center of Jabalya refugee camp, and then escaped. As a result, two children were wounded:

1. ‘Essam Musleh al-Maqadma, 6, wounded by a live bullet to the buttock; and

2. Ahmed Nabeel ‘Ali, 12, wounded by a live bullet to the right foot.

And here's a case where the PalArabs will undoubtedly consider the victim to be a martyr - but he fits our definition of a PalArab self-death:

A Palestinian man was shot and killed near the West Bank city of Nablus Sunday afternoon on his way to break the Ramadan fast with family, relatives said.

Relatives said Ahmed Yousef Tirawi, 25, was walking with his wife on a path off limits to Palestinians when soldiers fired a single bullet to his head, killing him.

The Israel Defense Forces said it was unaware of any shooting incident in the area and its forces had not opened fire.
So we are at 105.

UPDATE 2: 106.

Also on Thursday, medical sources at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City declared that Ussama Ahmed al-Shiekh ‘Eid, 24, a member of the Executive Force, died from an injury he had sustained on Monday, 2 October 2006. Al-Sheikh ‘Eid was injured by a live bullet to the abdomen during clashes between the Executive Force and members of Fatah movement, which left dead two civilians and injured 25 others.

"Queer Rite of Jews"

One of the fascinating parts of looking through old newspapers is seeing how Jews were described in the American press in the 1800s and early 1900s. Invariably, they are looked upon as being quaint "others" but not as a part of real America.

The descriptions of Sukkot are a good case in point:

Other articles are somewhat more accurate:

And sometimes you see something a little more interesting:

חג שמח

Muslims riot! A brief survey.

I once came up with a short list of bizarre things that Muslims have rioted over in the past.

Here are a few more:

Source: Associated Press
Moslems angered by a short story they consider insulting to the Prophet Mohammed rioted for a third day today in Karnataka state, and police said they shot and killed one rioter. Police gunfire has killed at least 16 people since Sunday during protests over a fictional story in the largest English- language newspaper in the southern state.

Published on December 9, 1986, Page 6C, San Jose Mercury News (CA)

The Washington Post, Times Herald (1959-1973) - Washington, D.C.
Date: May 19, 1962

The American Consulate at Peshawar, Pakistan, was damaged yesterday by a mob demonstrating against reported plans of a U.S.-Italian movie firm to make a film of the life of Mohammed, the State Department reported.

Reuters
Jerusalem Post
04-06-1997
KUALA LUMPUR - Police detained about 250 anti-Israeli protesters on Friday after demonstrating against the presence of an Israeli cricket team in predominantly Moslem Malaysia.

Riot police used tear gas, water cannon and batons against 500 demonstrators when they refused to disperse after shouting anti-Israeli slogans for an hour at Malaya University, where a match between Israel and Argentina was to take place.

The demonstrators from the opposition Malaysia Islamic Party (PAS) hurled stones and wood when police fired tear gas canisters and sprayed the crowd ...

The Washington Post
Date: Nov 17, 1936
Beirut, Syria, Nov. 16 (AP). -- At least three persons were killed and more than a score reported injured today in a series of clashes between Moslems and Christians over the new treaty between France and Lebanon.

Moslems Riot On Bombay's First Dry Day
55 Persons Injured
Hindus Stoned
10 P.M. Curfew Ordered
The Washington Post
Date: Aug 2, 1939

Bombay, India, Aug. 1. -- The Bombay government tonight imposed a 10 p.m. curfew for 14 days in an effort to prevent further violence following today's riots in which 55 persons were injured in fighting over the new prohibition law.

Syrians in Israeli prisons sending telegrams to Syria?

In an incoherent article from Syria's "news" agency, celebrating their "victory" in the Yom Kippur War (you know, the victory where Israel went past the purple line and took Syrian territory, shelling Damascus), we are told:

DAMASCUS, (SANA) - Captives of the occupied Arab Syrian Golan sent on Thursday a cable of congratulation to President Bashar al-Assad on October war for liberation in which they depicted it as "the greatest world war."

Life must be rough in those Zionist gulags where prisoners can write and publish any propaganda they feel like.