Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, October 16, 2006

Very interesting Arabic editorial in "Falasteen"

I just mentioned about how the PalArabs are so upset over the fact that Canada is agreeing to take a handful of Palestinian Arabs who were in camps on the Iraq/Jordan border for three years.

An amazing editorial in "Falasteen" makes the explicit argument: it is better for Palestinian Arabs to be languishing in "refugee" camps with sewage running through the streets than to live in the West where they may lose their interest in destroying Israel.

The English autotranslation is poor but the argument is clear.

It starts off with the usual claptrap, as if the PalArab refugees of 1948 somehow are more special than the millions of refugees throughout history that managed to resettle in other areas:

Since the Palestinians have been subjected to the worst moral and humanitarian catastrophe at the hands of Western colonialism and its strategic stepfather Israel, What led to this unprecedented disaster in terms of the volume and quality of impact of the relocation of two thirds of the Palestinian people from the land of fathers and forefathers, which is linked organically linked and functionally normal across hundreds of years.

The author then goes on to describe the horror of the possibility that the Palestinian Arabs may become responsible for their own people, rather than the UNRWA:

On this pressured Israel and America to be with dealing with the refugee issue as part of what is called a work operating within multiple areas of service, humanitarian, technical and health - headed (by) a group of European countries in the context of each area identified him, . On this issue of the refugees is a secondary issue to be agreed upon later without reference to that section of Resolution 194 specifically, Based on this already, our attempt conspiracy to the right of return for refugees through what was known as the timely implementation of the peace program, which was famous among the top of his priorities is to transfer the powers of UNRWA to the Palestinian Authority in preparation for the cancellation and consequently the termination of the relief agency first witness to the calamity and disaster Palestinian refugees.

The next couple of paragraphs are laborious reading in the stilted translation - they include decrying the fact that Jordan is not accpeting mre Palestinian Arabs into its existing camps, and that Syria should as well - but the money quote is here:

We have warned and others in more than one location and an article about the dangers to be dissipating refugee diaspora Palestinians, since this will negatively impact on the fabric of their unity and their syndicated in the areas of asylum Chairperson, It is not evidenced by the clear position of all the levels and orientations of the Palestinian people when they insisted all, in coordination with the Lebanese government in a timely manner to the need for the Palestinian refugees accepted by the reduction of their civil, social, and we have made clear to the Lebanese government at the time that the enjoyment of those rights to those relating to resettlement, because the abridgement of the rights of refugees and civil service, and those who were already suffering from it and the less frequently today after the agreement with the Lebanese government. these will lead to migration to other European countries and therefore as a result of this disruption to the bloc refugees in Lebanon and the resulting in the end of the negative impact on their right to return to their homes and property.

What he seems to be saying here is that the Lebanese government had the opportunity (whether it was internal or from outside pressure, I don't know) to integrate Palestinian Arabs into Lebanese society and eliminate their pain of refugee status - and this was considered by the self-appointed Palestinian Arab leaders to be a disastrous plan, because happy Palestinian Arabs destroy the unity of their "people!" They might move away from their miserable camps and actually build lives like normal human beings - and this is not acceptable!

The corollary, of course, is that the fictional "Palestinian" peoplehood is a farce - that the only thing that unifies the PalArabs is their hatred of Israel and their desire to see it destroyed. On an individual basis, PalArabs have proven time and time again that they just want to be treated like human beings and to be able to raise their families in dignity, and they never cared whether this was in Palestine or Jordan or Syria, or Canada for that matter. Their "leaders," symbolized here by this writer, do not want to see individual Palestinian Arabs happy, because their main card in pressuring Israel is a huge amount of miserable "refugees." The author is saying how the Western powers, in trying to help Palestinian Arabs live respectable and honorable lives, are really trying to destroy them as a people.

Which is in a sense true - a people that would assimilate into the surrounding countries would indeed disappear, unless there was a compelling religious or nationalistic force keeping them together. Since the concept of Palestinian Arab culture and nationalism is a relatively recent phenomenon, and mostly artificially created by the hell their "brethren" put them through in not accepting them as part of the larger Arab nation, they would fade away pretty quickly. Their "leaders" have a vested interest in keeping this from happening - or else they would be left without people to lead.

This is why they are freaking out over only 46 of their people moving to Canada. If other PalArabs see that some of their people have escaped the concentration camps that their leaders insist they stay in, they will start getting ideas as well.

And who wrote this article?

Imad Saladin
- Writer and researcher in the legal and political affairs
Solidarity International Foundation for Human Rights

Here the circle of hypocrisy is complete. A person supposedly devoted to human rights is openly advocating the absence of any human rights for Palestinian Arabs. (This may be the ISM.)

An interesting exercise may be to ask an advocate of Palestinian Arab rights whether they support Canada's humanitarian gesture in taking in a few dozen PalArabs from a camp where they had no human rights and letting them move to Canada. This one issue can show exactly how corrupt and hateful the ostensibly pro-Palestinian Arab movements are - towards "Palestinians!"

God Himself talks to Ahmadinejad! And guess who the devil talks to?

It looks like we have ourselves a real live prophet!

While the West is preparing to impose sanctions on Iran, due to the country's failure to suspend its nuclear activities, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is still optimistic. "We shall win," he was quoted in the Iranian media as saying Monday, and added: "One day I will be asked whether I have been in touch with someone who told me we would win, and I will respond: 'Yes, I have been in touch with God'."

And in an Egyptian newspaper article, he went even further (autotranslated):

Ahmadinejad said before a crowd of supporters that he is to receive revelation from God, and that God shows miracles to those who truly believe in him.

The transfer of information from the Iranian Ahmadinejad as saying that Bush "also receives inspiration, but from the devil."

Glad he cleared that up. I wasn't sure whose side to take.

Today's peaceful PalArab news that you won't find anywhere else

Besides the terrorists vying for proper credit when they launch rockets towards Israeli civilians...

A 20-year old, Mohammad Al Breem, was killed in another of those "mysterious explosions" that only seem to happen in the enlightened Palestinian Arab territories. Our deathcount is now at 114. Another "activist" was seriously wounded, his legs amputated.
Masked "gunmen" shot and wounded a Hamas man while he was carrying his two-year old baby.
Gunmen burst into a local government building in Bethlehem. (autotranslated)
A Palestinian Arab woman managed to start two grocery stores, because of loans given years ago by those infidel Zionist Americans who work at USAID. (autotranslated)
Hamas is very upset that Canada is planning to accept 46 Palestinian Arab refugees who were stuck in Iraq. They hate the idea that Palestinian Arabs might settle any place that their lives would be better, because that lowers the pressure-cooker environment that Hamas is fostering to aim PalArab anger against Israel.

Apparently, Abbas is equally upset at a nation actually wanting to help individual Palestinian Arabs who were suffering in Iraq. He thinks it is better to keep them in camps in Jordan or Lebanon where they would have no real rights.
Fatah condemned a Hamas attack against a Fatah media spokesman (autotranslated.)
If I'm reading this article correctly, there were also armed clashes between Hamas and Fatah in Jabaliyah, somewhere else in Gaza a 19 year old was shot and wounded, and a Fatah leader who was shot and kidnapped was returned.

Just another peaceful day in the territories, where the source of all evil is Israel - when a PalArab talks to the Western press.

UPDATE: A 43-year old man, Abdel-Salam Tawfik Younis, was killed by those famous "unknown persons," riddling his body with bullets shot from a car. We are now at 115 violent PalArab deaths since late June.

GAZA, Oct 16 (Reuters) - An intense rivalry among militant groups in the Gaza Strip has taken an odd twist with some fighters now labeling rockets they fire at Israel with Hebrew to make sure they are credited for the attacks.

A Reuters photograph taken on Monday showed an Israeli policeman lifting the remains of a rocket fired from Gaza at southern Israel, with Hebrew lettering identifying it as an Al-Quds 3, a rocket made by Islamic Jihad militants.

Abu Abdullah, a spokesman for Islamic Jihad's armed wing, said the Hebrew language label was intended both to threaten Israelis and "distinguish its rockets from those of other factions" such as Hamas, whose rockets are more widely known.

Islamic Jihad is not the only Palestinian faction to sign off in Hebrew in a bid to compete with Hamas. The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed wing of President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction, has also begun doing so.

Israeli authorities nearly always refer to the makeshift rockets fired from Gaza as Qassams, the name of those made by Hamas, the ruling party and Fatah's chief rival.

Hamas, an Islamist group that is officially sworn to Israel's destruction, was the first to fire rockets into Israel and so its Qassam moniker has become the generic term.

As a result, other militant groups feel they are not getting enough credit among the Palestinian populace for the attacks they launch against Israel.

Abu Qusai, a spokesman for the al-Aqsa group, said Hebrew letters were being painted on their rockets "to distinguish them from those fired by other brothers" and illustrate their commitment to "resistance" against Israel.

Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the Hamas's armed wing, said the group had no plans to label their rockets in Hebrew.

He called it a boon for Hamas that the "factions are running an honest and positive competition in rocket firing".

"When everybody competes to strike the enemy, this is a victory to Hamas's agenda of Jihad (holy war) and resistance," Abu Ubaida said.

I seem to remember a brouhaha a few months ago when some Israeli kids signed their names on rockets that were aimed at master terrorist Nasrallah in Lebanon. Many people were very upset that Israelis could be so heartless.

Where are those people today?

(Amazingly, Reuters translates "jihad" as "holy war." Wonders never cease, although I wouldn't be the least surprised to see a political "correction" from the politically correct leader of the MSM.)

UPDATE: Jewlicious weighs in on the marketing possibilities.

The honor war

A nice article about how the West needs to understand the concept of "honor" as the Muslims, especially Arabs, view it. This is a theme we have explored before.

The Terror War Is An Honor War
By Jonathan Rauch, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Oct. 13, 2006
On August 29 in Tehran, a reporter rose during a press conference with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and asked to recite a poem. "Recite just two lines," said the president. "Don't make it too long. We don't have time. Just the best part."
"But it's all good," the reporter replied.
"So, read the middle." Whereupon the journalist declaimed as follows:
For the sake of defending our homeland, we will give up even our heads
We will attack any enemy like lions
We are known all over the world for our fearlessness and manliness
For the sake of God, we will turn our chests to shields
"Well done," Ahmadinejad said. "You were supposed to recite only two lines."
A U.S. president in Ahmadinejad's place would not say, "Well done, but too long." He would say something like, "You need medical help." By historical standards, however, it is the American reaction, not the Iranian one, that is odd.
The journalist-poet was speaking the language of traditional honor, a tongue that modern Westerners have largely forgotten -- to their peril, if James Bowman is right. In a recently published and bracingly original book called Honor: A History, Bowman -- a cultural critic and historian affiliated with the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington -- argues that honor remains a potent force in world affairs, perhaps more potent today than in many years, because it is central to the liberal West's confrontation with militant Islam. If he is right, the terror war is really an honor war, but only one side knows it.
Boiling Bowman's richly nuanced 327 pages down to four paragraphs does the book a cruel disservice, but this is journalism, so here goes. Honor, for Bowman's purposes, means "the good opinion of people who matter to us." The basic honor code requires men to maintain a reputation for bravery, women a reputation for chastity. If a man is insulted, injured, or disrespected, he must avenge the offense and prove that anyone who messes with him (or "his" women) will be sorry.
The West's history is rich with traditions of honor, and equally rich with examples of its dangers and follies, among them the duel that killed the most brilliant of America's Founders. Singularly, however, the West has backed away from honor. Under admonitions from Christianity to turn the other cheek and from the Enlightenment to favor reason over emotion, the West first channeled honor into the arcane rituals of chivalry, then folded it into a code of manly but magnanimous Victorian gentlemanliness -- and then, in the 20th century, drove it into disrepute. World War I and the Vietnam War were seen as needless butcheries brought on by archaic obsessions with national honor; feminism and the therapeutic culture taught that a higher manly strength acknowledges weakness.
"Yet we are, in global terms, the odd ones out," Bowman writes. Outside the West, traditional honor codes remain strong, and nowhere is that more true than in the Muslim world. In the modern Islamic world, few share the West's view of honor as outdated and unnecessary. "The honor culture of the Islamic world predates its conversion to Islam in the seventh century," writes Bowman.
Islam overlaid itself above honor and, unlike Christianity in the West, did not challenge it. Today's militant jihadism takes the ethic of honor to extremes, fixating on manly ferocity and glorious vengeance.
Thus, Bowman writes, "America and its allies are engaged in a battle against an Islamist enemy that is the product of one of the world's great unreconstructed and unreformed honor cultures." Jihadism wages not only a religious war but a cultural one, aiming to redeem, through deeds of bravery and defiance, the honor of an Islam whose glory has shamefully faded. It aims, further, to uphold a masculine honor code that the West's decadent, feminizing influence threatens to undermine.
Whether or not Bowman has the whole story right, the prism of honor brings puzzling elements of the current conflict into sharper focus. Americans are baffled that Western appeals to freedom and prosperity get so little traction in the Arab and Muslim worlds. America's example as the "shining city on a hill" inspired liberalizing movements from Eastern Europe to Tiananmen Square; why should the Middle East be different? One answer is that traditional honor cultures value vindication over freedom and wealth. Militant Islamism and Baathist-style national socialism offer narratives of restored greatness and heroic resistance. Ballot boxes and shopping malls offer neither. If freedom brings humiliation, what good is it?
Most wars are waged between combatants who share similar honor codes or at least comprehend each other's honor codes. This time, there is no communication across the battlefield. To Americans, it is patently clear that the attacks of September 11 were acts of unprovoked aggression; in a traditional honor culture, however, violence to protect one's honor is just as self-defensive as violence to protect one's person.
Westerners are both revolted and puzzled by jihadists' willingness to kill non-Muslim civilians. In the post-honor West, the first rule of honorable combat is not to target noncombatants. From biblical times on down, by contrast, many traditional honor cultures have made a practice of killing and enslaving civilians, whom they regarded as enemies and spoils. In a primitive honor culture, the combatant-civilian distinction is less important than the boundary between one's own honor circle -- one's self, clan, tribe, or religious co-believers -- and outsiders, whose fate is largely a matter of indifference. Modern jihadism appears to have embraced this atavistic ethic.
Traditional honor, Bowman emphasizes, is about the reputation for bravery, not necessarily bravery itself. Maintaining reputation implies saving face by never admitting weakness. When Mohammad Said al-Sahhaf, Iraq's information minister during the U.S. invasion in 2003, insisted ludicrously that Iraq was winning the war, "he was simply saying what it was incumbent on a man of honor to say if he was not to lose face by admitting a shameful defeat," according to Bowman.
More consequentially, Americans assumed, in 2002 and 2003, that Saddam Hussein would not pretend to hide weapons of mass destruction that he didn't actually possess. Why would he lie to bring about his own downfall? What seemed inexplicable to a post-honor culture would seem, in a traditional honor culture, too obvious to need explaining: Saddam was more concerned about saving face -- preserving his reputation for being fierce and formidable -- than about his office or even his life. Indeed, he could not feel otherwise and still count himself a man.
In the modern West, interest trumps honor (or subsumes it). We don't shoot ourselves in the foot to prove we're tough and fierce. Or, if we do, we expect to be ridiculed, not admired. If interest trumps honor, a country will swallow its pride in the face of a defeat or setback and make the best of its lot. For Germany after World War II (and for Japan, which was quick to adopt Western ways), getting rich was the best revenge.
In a traditional honor culture, that sort of pride-swallowing compromise may not be possible. Honor trumps interest (or subsumes it). The well-educated and talented Arabs of the Levant might today be enjoying the same prosperity and security as Spain or South Korea if years ago they had accepted Israel as a fact of life, made peace, and moved on. To Hamas and Hezbollah militants and their supporters, however, Israel's continued existence is a standing humiliation, and the debt to honor must be paid, never mind the cost.
Nor can militant Islamists settle with the West. When the post-honor West says, "Come, now, give up this foolishness, join our club, be free and rich," they hear something more like, "Be our poodle, sit at our feet, enjoy the fruits of capitulation." Admonitions that bellicosity accomplishes nothing miss the point, which is that the very act of fighting ("resistance") redeems honor and therefore accomplishes what matters most.
The West thus finds itself an unwilling, and in many respects unwitting, participant in an honor feud. Clashes of interest can end in compromise, but honor feuds proffer no logical end of destruction, as Shakespeare's Montagues and Capulets and Mark Twain's Grangerfords and Shepherdsons could attest. "There's no, to use a fashionable term, exit strategy," Bowman said in an interview.
Americans are naive if we assume that honor cultures yearn for freedom on our terms, and remiss if we underestimate their capacity for self-defeating belligerence. Although they are not strictly rational by modern Western lights, neither are they crazy. They are something else altogether: honor-bound.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

As the world headlines scream about Israel targeting terrorists in the territories, it is completely ignoring how the PalArabs are treating each other:

Fighting between Hamas and Fatah left 33 injured in Beit Lahiya and killed a 15-year old boy.
A local Gaza radio station was set on fire.
Hamas managed to find a quarter of a million dollars to pay the families of terrorists, even as they claim that Palestinian Arabs are "starving."
An Egyptian policeman was shot and killed and another wounded, possibly by smugglers and possibly from infighting.

But of course, all of the Palestinian Arab troubles come from the "occupation."

The count is now at 113.

UPDATE:
Also, an apparent faked honor crime where a girl was stabbed and left for dead; her life was saved in one of those barbaric Israeli hospitals. Hard to understand the autotranslate, though; it seems that the brother owed someone 700 shekels.

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?