Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Sunday, December 03, 2006

HH XCVI

Soccer Dad hits another one out of the park.....um, scores another goal...in the latest Haveil Havalim, the 96th weekly compilation of the best of the Jewish Blogosphere.

Check it out!

Another peaceful PalArab weekend - UPDATED

No deaths that I could find reported, but enough to show yet again how great it would be to have an independent Palestinian Arab state...

A group calling itself "Just Swords" announced a new modesty campaign for Gaza. So far they take credit for bombing an Internet cafe, throwing acid in the face of a young woman who was not dressed in a hijab, and destroying a car that was playing it radio too loudly for them.

More details from Al-Ayyam: they bombed 12 stores that sell music not to their liking, video shops and Internet cafes, with RPGs. They said that these stores were in the service of the "Jewish Zionists" and their "crusader masters."

Hamas responded by saying they did not support these attacks, and if people wanted to outlaw Internet and force women to cover every inch of their bodies they should use the normal political process for this goal.
The Arab Bank in Gaza was firebombed. It's main gate and customer lobby was destroyed. The bank will go on strike in response.
Two bombs destroyed a car .
A clan clash involving two families and some bystanders with explosives and other fun weapons. It looks like the families have started a two-month truce, though.
An armed clash between "security forces" and a family in Gaza City, 11 injured.
A man, Sulaiman Khamis Muammar (40 years old), was murdered in Khan Younis with two shots to the heart. The famous "unknown gunmen" killed him.
Hebron "police" issued a statement about a dramatic increase in crime over the past month, including 2 murders and one "accident". No details are given but I do not recall any Hebron murders in my death count, so the number of PalArabs killed violently by each other since late June now stands at 168.
UPDATE: 4 more dead since last week besides Muammar mentioned above:

Earlier on the same day, at approximately 07:00, the Palestinian police found the corpse of Hammad ‘Awad al-‘Arouqi, 40, from Nusairat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip, on a tract of land belonging to the Abu Meddain family in the east of al-Boreij refugee camp. According to medical crews, al-‘Arouqi was found handcuffed with his face to the ground. He was hit by 3 live bullets to the chest. The corpse was transferred to the forensic medicine department at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

At approximately 13:00 on Friday, 1 December 2006, the corpse of ‘Alaa’ ‘Abdul Karim Matar, 21, was found inside a flat in Block 4 in Jabalya refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. He was hit by a live bullet to the head. The corpse was transferred to the forensic medicine department at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, and the police initiated an investigation into Matar’s death.

At approximately 17:10 on Thursday, 30 November 2006, Salim Ashraf Salim al-Masri, 20, from Kahn Yunis, was killed by several live bullets throughout the body. He was shot for family revenge.

At approximately 13:30 on Wednesday, 29 November 2006, Mohammed ‘Araef Rashwan, 31, was killed by a live bullet to the chest, and his colleague, Ahmed Hamdan Abu Sha’ar, 24, was wounded by a live bullet to the thighs, when they were inside their security site in the east of Rafha. Live bullets were unleashed by mistake from the rifle of a security man guarding the site and hit Rashwan and Abu Sha’ar.

So now our count has hit 172.

UPDATE 2: PalArabs claimed the IDF killed a 15-year old boy in Nablus; the IDF denied it. Which means that he was killed by some other PalArab. We are now at 173.

(Monday morning update: it seems ambiguous enough for me to not count the last one. Still 172.)

Arabs caught cutting down their own olive trees

Hat tip Joe Settler:

Are the settlers hurting the Palestinians or are the Palestinians hurting themselves?
Frequently Palestinians farmers complain that settlers cut their trees and hurt them and their livelihoods. At times even IDF soldiers and police had to protect the Palestinians farmers in the territories during the olive harvest season. But the police suspect now that in some cases the Palestinians themselves are those cutting the trees and then blamed the settlers and demanded compensation from the Civil Authority.
Foresters of the JNF patrolling the Shaar Efraim area today noticed to their surprise a number of Palestinians cutting olive trees in violation of the law as they were damaging scores of olive trees. The foresters hurried to call the police who arrived and held four of them for questioning.
The four were transferred to the police station in Kedumim and in their interrogation they said that the owner of the property invited them to cut the trees for firewood. A police spokesman for the Judea-Samaria District, Superintendent Pintzi Mor, told Maariv NRG that the owner of the area would be called in for questioning.
Sources in the police said that over the years the police have experienced a phenomenon of the filing of complaints to the Civil Authority regarding the destruction of olive trees, along with a claim for financial compensation. In the last year alone the Palestinians in the area of Judea and Samaria filed claims for 350 thousand shekels for the destruction of olive trees.
The police now intend to check the complaints in detail. A senior source in the police told Maariv NRG that "most of the complaints for damage to olive trees were filed in recent years at the end of the harvest season or towards the end, something that increase the suspicion that this is a cooked deal."

Joe Settler has been all over these stories for months, but there is no shortage of Israel-bashers that believe anything bad said about "settlers." We've touched on the PalArab historic love of olive groves here . UPDATE: Soccer Dad has been skeptical for much, much longer.

Abbas leads prayers in Ramallah

Liberals who are aghast at the thought of any Christian influence in American society seem to have no similar problems with the Muslim influence in Arab society.

The concept of "separation of mosque and state" is not only foreign to Arab leaders, it is laughable. And for those who consider Abbas a moderate because he does not quite pepper his talks in English with references to the Koran as much as Hamas leaders do (although he does do it in Arabic!), here is a small story from today's Arabic WAFA:

Mr. President Mahmoud Abbas, today, led Friday prayers in the presidential headquarters in the town of Ramallah in the West Bank.

Preacher Sheikh Syeda Abida Hussain on Friday condemned Israeli attempts to Judaize the complicated Aqsa Mosque compound, and preventing worshipers from praying in Al Aqsa Mosque.

The President's prayers [were] accompanied by a number of civilian and military officials.

This would be practically a capital crime if President Bush regularly led a public Christian prayer session in the White House for some people. Why does no one blink when it happens elsewhere?

Quote of the day

"It seems the harder Israel and the rest of the world try to give the Palestinians their own country, the harder they try to prove that they don't deserve one." - Editorial, National Post, Canada

It is a breath of fresh air to see a mainstream newspaper even mention the possibility that the Palestinian Arabs don't deserve a state.

Cyber-jihad?

Today's newspapers are talking about a threat by Islamic hackers to attack US financial institutions, the stock market and so on, during December ("until the infidel New Year.")

I saw the original notice from the US Computer Emergency Readiness Team (interestingly, usually the R in CERT stands for "Response") and it seemed somewhat nebulous then. Last night I went to the website where the threat originated (again, thanks to Google auto-translate) and it was a normal pseudo-hacking site where Muslim kids trade serial number cracking software and other utilties, much like many of the similar English-language sites I've seen.

With the exception of the occasional spontaneous "Allahu akbar" thread.

The specific thread that contained the threat was not credible - one person said that he would like to see everyone attack the US financial markets during this month, a couple of others responded "yep, we should" and then the conversation died. Something like a real attack, especially against multiple targets, would require a lot more coordination and focus (he was talking about using viruses as well as denial-of-service attacks.)

Nevertheless, the idea of cyber-jihad is an important one. The jihadist site, while not breaking any new hacking ground, was not a backwards site where they were learning the basics either. It shows that the expertise in hacking among Islamists is growing, and given that the Internet is a complicated machine, there are untold numbers of vulnerabilities out there waiting to be discovered that can cause problems.

More troubling than that specific site is this Jihadist hacking magazine that was just published:

The first issue of what is indicated to be a periodic magazine, “Technical Mujahid” [Al-Mujahid al-Teqany], published by al-Fajr Information Center, was electronically distributed to password-protected jihadist forums today, Tuesday, November 28, 2006. This edition, 64-pages in length, contains articles that primarily deal with computer and Internet security, in addition to other pieces explaining Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites and video types, editing, and encoding into different formats. The editors of the publication state that it was written to heed the directives of the Emir of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, and his call for technical support. Material such as this, regarding anonymity on the Internet, concealing of personal files locally on a computer, and utilizing all schemes of encryption, is to serve as electronic jihad, and a virtual means of supporting the Mujahideen.

Like individual postings made by jihadist forum members concerning Internet security and protection of incriminating files, or manuals that were provided by the Global Islamic Media Front for the same, the “Technical Mujahid” demonstrates the technical acumen of the jihadists. Articles like, “The Technique of Concealing Files from View” and “How to Protect Your Files, Even if Your Device was Penetrated,” were written for the intermediate to advanced user, and describe a variety of methods and software that provide security. Links to download referenced software, such as the VMware virtual machine, and key generators to unlock features are also given by the editors. Another writer discusses PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software and determines that its encryption is not adequate for the needs of the Mujahideen.

Another article, The Last Card: We Need it in their Homeland, written by a member of the information office of the Islamic Army in Iraq, like the editorial contained in the magazine and an introductory message, emphasizes the great purpose of jihad in the information sector. This front is determined by the author to be “a main pillar in the battle of Islam against the Crusaders and the polytheist belief”. To this end, advertisements for the most recent Juba sniper video from the Islamic Army in Iraq and a news caption about its release on DVDs in Iraq, is used as an example.

For future issues, the editors urge members of the jihadist Internet community to submit articles in the field of technology for publishing. They write: “My kind, technical Mujahid brother, the magnitude of responsibility which is placed upon you is equal to what you know in the regard of information. Do not underestimate anything that you know; perhaps a small article that you write and publish can benefit one Mujahid in the Cause of Allah or can protect a brother of yours in Allah. This way you will gain the great reward with the permission of Allah”.

Based on its format and content, this looks like a Jihadist version of the famous hacking e-zine, Phrack. The technical expertise doesn't approach the Phrack authors' but the desire is plainly there.

Whoever leaked this US-CERT doc to the media behaved somewhat irresponsibly, because the jihadists can just put up threats with impunity knowing that they will be taken seriously and they are getting their jollies from seeing how a teenage Mujahid can get worldwide headlines with a single message in an obscure bulletin board. Nevertheless, it is likely that we will be seeing real cyber-attacks that parallel real world terror attacks, as well as those that may be coordinated with major attacks (to interfere with police or medical response.)

Blast from the past

Thanks to a nice article by Mindy Jacobs in the Edmonton Sun, I found this wildly optimistic dispatch from AP during the Gaza pullout about PalArab hopes and plans for their new statelet:

By STEVEN GUTKIN, Associated Press Writer
Friday, September 2, 2005 02 15 PM

Palestinians are preparing to take over abandoned Jewish settlements in Gaza — drawing up plans for high-rise apartments and debating whether to name evacuated towns after deceased leaders or historical events.

...The Palestinians are fast at work figuring out what do with the land they call "liberated," and dreams of a better future abound.

In the evacuated areas, the Palestinians envision parks, industrial zones, a new seaport, a nature reserve, tourism facilities and new housing to ease overcrowding in the fenced-in coastal strip that is home to 1.4 million mostly impoverished Palestinians.

Palestinian security forces will enter the settlement areas as soon as Israeli troops leave, most likely on Sept. 15, to "clear the area of any possible explosive objects or land mines," said Interior Ministry spokesman Tawfek Abu Khoussa. In the meantime, officials have been handing out fliers declaring "The Future is Ours" and admonishing Gazans to stay out of the settlements.

Palestinians already have begun discussing what to name the evacuated areas. Top suggestions include "Yasser Arafat" and "Sheikh Ahmed Yassin," the slain founder of Hamas.

Palestinians also are racing to take over Israeli greenhouses in time to plant a winter crop.

"We will do our homework and we will do it top notch," said Basil Jaber, a Palestinian businessman leading the greenhouse takeover. "We would like to show Israel and the international community that we're capable."

Both Israel and the Palestinians have an interest in making Gaza less isolated and destitute: Israel because it hopes a brighter future will prevent terror and the Palestinians because they hope a successful pullout could lead to more withdrawals.

Anytime someone paints a rosy picture of how PalArabs will take advantage of Israeli withdrawals....

Anytime someone says that Israel is the source of all the PalArabs' troubles....

Anytime anyone blames Israel for PalArab poverty and unemployment...

Show them this article. And if they are a bit more obtuse, show them the links.

An Arab Muslim to respect - Israeli consul in SF

A great article, originally printed in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Israel's new consul in San Francisco is a Bedouin named Ishmael Khaldi. This article does not paper over the very real problems that Israeli Arabs suffer but it shows how a mature person can handle such problems.

All Arabs and Muslims can learn a lot from Khaldi. Of course, they would call him a traitor and consider him a target for terror.

Ishmael Khaldi lived in a Bedouin tent until he was eight years old, walked four miles round trip to school each day and still goes home on weekends to what he calls the "Middle Ages" to tend to flocks of sheep.

But next week, Khaldi will leave his tiny village of Khawalid - population 450 - in the northern Galilee region and fly to San Francisco to become Israel's first Bedouin diplomat and the nation's first Muslim to rise through the ranks of the Israeli foreign service.

Of the more than one million Israeli Arabs, only 170,000 are Bedouins, many of whom were once nomadic desert dwellers. In recent years, Arab radicals in the Israeli parliament and Islamic movements who deplore the existence of the Jewish state have dominated Israeli-Arab relations, and the six-year-long Palestinian intifada has stretched their allegiance to Israel to a breaking point.

But Khaldi, while conceding that the situation of Arabs in Israel "is not perfect," is an unrepentant Israeli who says he is not betraying his Arab "brothers" by becoming the new Israeli consul to San Francisco.

"Many of us are proud to describe ourselves as Israelis. Everyone who lives here is an Israeli," Khaldi said in an exclusive interview on the eve of his departure for San Francisco. "Israel is in a clash with the Arab world, with our fellow Muslim brothers, with the Palestinians. It's a big challenge. But I am sure that Israels enemies are not Arab culture, nor Arab heritage, nor the Muslim religion. It's a political situation."

Khaldi, 35, is no newcomer to the United States or the Bay Area. He arrived in the United States after the outbreak of the second intifada in 2000 and was soon in demand as a speaker at college campuses.

"I'm a Bedouin and we are nomads, so I felt at home traveling coast to coast on a Greyhound bus. Twice," he said.

During his stay in the United States, Khaldi said he was shocked to discover that American students were unaware of Israel's large Arab minority and the fact they have the right to vote, elect members to parliament, and become judges, professors and senior army officers.

Khaldi said his family's ties with its Jewish neighbors go back to the days of the early Zionist pioneers from Eastern Europe who settled in the Galilee region in the 1920s.

"From the late 1920s until 1948 when the state was established, the first pioneers came and lived mainly in the north, building kibbutzim," or collective farms, Khaldi said. "The people who came were very sophisticated. They were mainly Yiddish speakers... Local Bedouins established very close relations with them, even though they were two different cultures and two different worlds with almost nothing in common. It's something that not many people know.

"My grandmother, who passed away only last year, spoke Yiddish. She was a shepherdess, she never went to school, but she had human contact almost every day with the people from (the next-door kibbutz) Kfar Hamaccabi. She worked with them while they were planting orchards."

...
"Of course, there is a lot of frustration, and we are facing a lot of problems. But to make it into hatred and a grudge? We must go one step forward."

Khaldi said there is still a long way to go before the Bedouin minority achieves full equality in Israeli society, but he noted that more Bedouins are graduating from high school, entering universities and getting better jobs than ever before.

"You can look at the differences and say: The government treats us as second- or third-class citizens, or it can be a challenge. It's our challenge to use the differences and try to understand and combine the best of both worlds. The way is long. It's not easy," he said.

Khaldi first encountered anti-Zionist radicalism in high school, he said, and didn't like it. Once during a memorial day for Israels fallen soldiers, Khaldi and two classmates stood at attention to mark two minutes of silent tribute. The gesture provoked derision and insults from fellow Arab students.

"There was a clash with the rest of the Arab kids. They were not respectful," he said.

In following years, Khaldi was turned down twice for an Israeli Foreign Ministry training course before finally being accepted. Meanwhile, he acquired a bachelors degree in political science from Haifa University and a masters degree in international relations from Tel Aviv University. He has served as a border police officer in Jerusalem and as an official in the Israeli Defense Ministry.

Khaldi also has begun a project called "Hike and Learn with Bedouins in the Galilee" that has brought thousands of young Jews to Khawalid to learn about Bedouin culture and history. He said these encounters inspired him to become a diplomat.

But even after an intensive six-month Foreign Ministry diplomatic training course, he says he still looks to village traditions for guidance.

"I come from a culture where negotiations are the best way to understanding," he said. "The tribes used to live and compete with each other and fight and kill each other, but at the end of the day they would have to make sulha (a peace pact). This is the way... At the end of the road, you need to find a common ground, you need to find a solution. Something that will satisfy both sides."

Khaldi is well aware that he will be treated with suspicion by Israeli critics but believes his story presents a true picture of modern Israel.

"I am always torn," he said. "I am torn between modernity and tradition. I am torn between two totally different worlds. I am Israeli above everything."

It is a brilliant idea to send this honest, patriotic man to San Francisco to counter the daily slanders of Israeli racism that the left coast offers.

Moroccan Imam recruited suicide bombers

From AP, but hardly published anywhere (only three mentions in Google News):

Moroccan police have arrested a Muslim prayer leader who is suspected of recruiting young men to be suicide bombers in the insurgency in Iraq, a newspaper reported.

The imam, identified by police simply as Abdelilah according to Aujourd'hui Le Maroc newspaper, was arrested Monday in Tetouan, a city in northern Morocco near the Strait of Gibraltar.

Abdelilah preached at a mosque in Mezouak, a vast slum on the city's outskirts, exhorting Moroccans to "fight the American-Zionist occupation in Iraq," the newspaper quoted police as saying.

Two young men who attended the mosque carried out suicide bombings in Baquba, Iraq, last month, and a further five Moroccans linked to the mosque are believed to have joined the Iraq insurgency, the daily said.

Last night on O'Reilly a representative from CAIR was disputing whether most terrorism comes from Muslims. It is instructive to see that a story where a religious leader is recruiting young men to blow up themselves and as many others as possible is completely buried. I suspect that it is not because of political correctness but simply because this is not newsworthy.

A priest who fondles boys, or a rabbi who embezzles money, deservedly get headlines exactly because they are behaving in a way that is utterly foreign and disgusting and hypocritical. This is what makes a story interesting and therefore newsworthy.

Objectively speaking, the fact that two suicide bombers in Iraq came from the same small mosque from thousands of miles away in Morocco, and three other members are suspected of being in Iraq right now, is noteworthy. But it is not considered unusual by the media, because we know there are many imams exhorting their flocks to jihad. It is the old dog-bites-man standard of news. (In fact, one of the three news outlets that mentions this story only prints it as an afterthought with a story about a German man jailed in Morocco for converting Muslims.)

While the media's stance is understandable - they are in the business of selling their product and they choose news stories based on that fact - it is still irresponsible. Treating Muslim clerics with a different standard than others plays right into the hands of those who try to sell the world on a wholesome Islam that doesn't support terror. Stories like these should not be shunted aside by newspaper editors.

An American love letter to Ahmadinejad

Sure enough, Ahmadinejad's letter to the wacky liberal moonbats has been embraced and amplified by his target audience. Here is a letter back by a nutty minister:

Dear President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,

This is an open letter in reply to your "open letter to the American People," as published in the USA by CNN on November 29, 2006.

May the One God, Who created all things, and Who gives whatever He wants to whomever He chooses, give His blessing to these words written for the benefit of all His people in this world -- believers and non-believer alike. As the Prophet wrote, "There is no compulsion in religion," (Qur'an 2.256 - Shakir translation), which teaches us that God desires people to come to Him by their own free choice, not by force or threats of violence.

The link to your letter at CNN is http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/11/29/ahmadinejad.letter/ with a backup copy located at http://www.patriot.net/users/bmcgin/ahmadinejadletter112906-text.txt

Although I have no authority to speak for anyone other than myself, I do believe that my comments here will represent the views of many other patriotic Americans who are also seeking truth and justice. And I believe that you can benefit by hearing some ideas here, which you may not have heard before from your normal sources of information.

First, you wrote: "O, Almighty God, bestow upon humanity the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers." As a Christian, I of course believe that God has already bestowed upon humanity that perfect human being He promised, namely Jesus. And I invite you to join with me as one of Jesus' followers. As Jesus said, "And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." (John 8:32 RSV)

Next, you wrote many excellent, admirable statements, such as: "We are all inclined towards the good, and towards extending a helping hand to one another, particularly to those in need;" and "We all deplore injustice, the trampling of peoples' rights and the intimidation and humiliation of human beings;" and "We all detest darkness, deceit, lies and distortion, and seek and admire salvation, enlightenment, sincerity and honesty." I agree completely with these ideas, and I hope we can all do a better job of putting them into action.

...
You refer to the state of Israel and its supporters as "the Zionist regime," and "the Zionists." And you charge them with many crimes, particularly against the Palestinians. In particular, you write: "In broad day-light, in front of cameras and before the eyes of the world, they are bombarding innocent defenseless civilians, bulldozing houses, firing machine guns at students in the streets and alleys, and subjecting their families to endless grief." You criticize the United States for its "blind and blanket support to the Zionist regime," which has "emboldened it to continue its crimes, and has prevented the UN Security Council from condemning it." And you point out that these actions, and others, have helped to cause "global resentment and hatred of America," thereby spreading terrorism, not reducing it.

Without debating these charges, please let me point out two political realities within the United States which make it impossible for anyone to seriously oppose the best interests of the state of Israel, as determined by the "Israel Lobby." (The "Israel Lobby" can be defined as "the interconnected group of individuals and organizations who actively seek to promote the political interests of the state of Israel, and who react defensively and decisively to any criticism of Israel or its policies, justified or unjustified.") Source: http://israel-lobby.info

Reality #1: Supporters of Israel have an emotional love for Israel similar to a mother's emotional love for her child: they can see no fault in the child, no matter what the child may do. This love does not respond to reason or to objective facts. Her delinquent child may rob a bank, rape five women, and burn down the schoolhouse, but the mother sees no evil in him. So it is with the supporters of Israel. This is a fact of life in the United States. We all must accept it and live with it, because we cannot change it. This emotional love for Israel is reinforced by the Old-Testament Bible verse where God says, "I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves." The supporters of Israel believe that this verse applies to modern-day Israel. (Genesis 12:3 RSV)

Reality #2: Supporters of Israel have enormous influence -- far greater than their numbers would suggest -- in all of the instruments of power in the USA. In the media, in the culture, in banking, in corporate leadership, in both political parties, in all branches and agencies of government, in the Christian churches, in the universities and other schools: everywhere! This influence, coupled with their emotional love for Israel, guarantees that absolutely nothing ever happens in the USA which seriously criticizes or opposes the state of Israel. This, too, is a fact of life in the United States. We all must accept it and live with it, because we cannot change it.

These two realities mean that neither you nor anybody else can change U.S. policy toward Israel by criticizing Israel. It simply will not work, no matter how true or justified the criticism may be. If you speak in favor of the Palestinians, the supporters of Israel call you a terrorist. And if you speak against Israel in any way, they call you an anti-Semite. So if you want the United States to change its policies toward Israel, you must convince the supporters of Israel that it is in Israel's best interest for these policies to be changed. That is the only way.

Blessings to you and to all people. May God help us all.

Rev. Bill McGinnis, Director
http://LoveAllPeople.org
http://InternetChurchOfChrist.org

Ahmadinejad acknowledges the Elders - again

Once again, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has acknowledged my power.

In his rambling letter to the American people, he throws this in:

What has blind support for the Zionists by the US administration brought for the American people? It is regrettable that for the US administration, the interests of these occupiers supersedes the interests of the American people and of the other nations of the world .

What have the Zionists done for the American people that the US administration considers itself obliged to blindly support these infamous aggressors? Is it not because they have imposed themselves on a substantial portion of the banking, financial, cultural and media sectors?

All those "Zionists" controlling the banks, the newspapers and the government report to me. Today we're working hard now to take total control of Nintendo Wii games as well as an ISP in Uzbekistan (or, as we like to call it, "Jewsbekistan." Damn, we're funny, but you knew that, since all the good comedians are "Zionists.")

All our daily goals should met by 5:15 PM EST, when we will go out to enjoy a good kosher meal, paid for by the kosher "Zionist" tax on food items that the poor gentiles are paying without realizing it.

Culture of victimhood

Today is the annual UN-declared "International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People." In the UN calendar, it is the only day of the year dedicated to a single political group of people. They have a significant website dedicated to this day, which of course coincides with the date of the UN resolution to partition Palestine in 1947, a move that the Arab world strongly denounced and now pretends to embrace.

This is, of course, not the only UN event that deals exclusively with the Palestinian Arab people. We also have:

United Nations Asian Meeting in Support of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People
15 and 16 December 2006, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
United Nations Forum of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People
17 December 2006, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
United Nations International Conference of Civil Society in Support of the Palestinian People
United Nations Office at Geneva, 7 and 8 September 2006
United Nations International Meeting in Support of Israeli-Palestinian Peace
United Nations Office at Vienna, 27 and 28 June 2006
United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People
Cairo, 26 and 27 April 2006
United Nations Latin American and Caribbean Meeting on the Question of Palestine
13 and 14 December 2005, Caracas, Venezuela

And on and on.

The PalArabs also have other annual commemorations of their own - their "Independence Day," "Qods Day," "Naqba Day," Land Day," and probably some others.

Each of these days commemorates, celebrates and enshrines the victimhood of the Palestinian Arabs. To these people who pretend to have lived vibrant lives for centuries in the area, you would think that they would also have Palestinian Arab-specific celebrations, but from what I can see, outside of their now-annual festivities to commemorate the death of the mass-murderer Yasir Arafat, all of the PalArab "days" are designed to perpetuate their status as victims.

Is it in the Palestinian Arab self-interest to enshrine their status as victims? For their leaders, the answer is an emphatic "yes." PalArab victimhood helps keep their corrupt leaders in their positions of power.

For the people themselves, almost certainly not. They've had myriad opportunities to build their own state the way they want it, but their leadership sinks their resources into the tools of victimhood, which include weapons to be used against Israel - a state that would happily support their supposed thirst for nationhood if they'd only stop trying to destroy her.

So we once again have a day that does not commemorate any real heroes, or progress, or victories, but one that is designed to replace hope with hopelessness that can be translated into anger against Israel. And the world willingly "congratulates" the self-serving PalArab leaders on this "achievement."

Olmert's strength

For what is probably the 150th consecutive day, PalArabs fired rockets at Israel from Gaza.

But the good news is....the cease-fire is now in its fourth day!

And don't worry...Olmert has made a show of strength to stop the rockets once and for all:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Tuesday evening in a meeting with European Union ambassadors in the Finnish ambassador's house that Israel is 'a little disappointed by the continued Qassam firings in the south by the Palestinians.'

Olmert said he hoped that the Palestinians would 'honor their commitment and will stop the fire,' adding that he is certain the European Union 'will appreciate Israel's upholding of the ceasefire.'

Strong words indeed from a strong leader. The terrorists are quaking in the face of such language, and the Israeli public (especially those in Sderot) can feel much safer, knowing that Olmert is certain that Israel's strength in not responding to daily rocket attacks will translate into a smile from some European ambassador in Finland.

You go, girl.

Ethnic cleansing, real and imagined

The always reliable Ramzy Baroud writes a tedious essay in the Arab News/Al Jazeera saying that Israelis are engaging in "ethnic cleansing" of the Palestinian Arab population, and have been since 1947.

It is really wondrous that a population that has been ethnically cleansed for some 60 years has managed to multiply by 600% since then.

It is also interesting to compare the number of Jews in Arab-controlled areas in 1947 with the number today, if one was seriously concerned about "ethnic cleansing."

But what I'm wondering today is how come the words "ethnic cleansing" is never used to describe the situation of the Christians in Palestinian Arab areas, as well as the Arab world altogether?

This recent article from AP sheds some light on the matter:

BETHLEHEM, West Bank - The death threat came on simple white fliers blowing down the streets at dawn. A group calling itself "Friends of Muhammad" accused a local Palestinian Christian of selling mobile phones carrying offensive sketches of the Muslim prophet.

The message went on to curse all Arab Christians and Pope Benedict XVI, still struggling to calm Muslim outrage from his remarks on Islam.

While neighbors defended the merchant - saying the charges in the flier were bogus - the frightened phone dealer went into hiding, feeling less than satisfied with authorities' conclusion that the Oct. 19 note was probably a harmless rant.

Now the dealer is thinking of going abroad.

Call it part of a modern exodus, the steady flight of the tiny Palestinian Christian minority that could lead, some predict, to the faith being virtually extinct in its birthplace within several generations - a trend mirrored in many dwindling pockets of Christianity across the Islamic world.

...Nearly everywhere in Muslim lands, Christian populations are in decline.

No place is this more striking than the Holy Land.

The Palestinian uprisings - and the separation barrier started by Israel in 2002 - accelerated the departures by turning once-bustling pilgrimage sites such as Bethlehem into relative ghost towns.

The growing strength of radical Islamic movements has added distinct new worries. During the protests after the pope's remarks in September, some of the worst violence was in Palestinian areas with churches firebombed and hit by gunfire.

"Most of the Christians here are either in the process of leaving, planning to leave or thinking of leaving," said Sami Awad, executive director of the Holy Land Trust, a Bethlehem-based peace group. "Insecurity is deep and getting worse."

The native Palestinian Christian population has dipped below 2 percent of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem, down from at least 15 percent in 1950 by some estimates. Meanwhile, the Muslim Palestinian birthrate is among the highest in the world.

Dire predictions abound. The Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land said Christians could become "extinct" in the region within 60 years.

"It certainly doesn't look good for us," said Mike Salman, a Palestinian Christian who has conducted studies on demographic trends.

So, the number of Jews in Arab lands has plummeted. The population of Christians in Arab lands has plummeted. The number of Arabs in Israel has increased almost tenfold, and the number of Arabs in the territories tripled since 1948.

What was that you were saying about "ethnic cleansing" again, Ramzy?

Hamas' take on the Torah

Yesterday I posted a history of Palestine according to Hamas, where the word "inaccurate" does not begin to cover the absurd lies, distortions and omissions that radical Islam is taught as history.

The same website has another equally absurd article on the history of Palestine pre-Islam. Debunking a history that is based on the fairy-tales of the Koran is too easy (even with their occasional mention of unnamed "historians" who can supposedly corroborate some of their claims) . But just for fun, here is what they have to say about Jews and the Torah:

The Holy Qur'an has sufficiently provided us with the ways to identify the Jewish manners and has warned us regarding their debauchery and immorality. But their prophets and their virtuous followers are something else. Prophets are the best examples of all human beings. They should not be abused and most certainly God Almighty should not be abused. We should not follow the deviated stories of the Children of Israel, which abuse both prophets and God.

The deviated Torah and the Talmud, for instance, say that God (the Most High, Exalted and Great) plays with whales and fish for three hours every day. They also say that He cried over the demolition of the temple till His size was diminished from seven heavens to four heavens, and that earthquakes and hurricanes occur as a result of God's tears, which supposedly fall into the sea in response to the demolished temple. The Holy Qur'an mention their allegations in the following verses: The Jews say: "God's hand is tied up (S.V:64)"; God hath heard the taunt of those who say: "Truly, God is indigent and we are rich! (S.III:181)".

The Jews attribute Prophet Jacob with the theft from his father an idol made of gold and with his having wrestled with God(!!) near the city of Nablus, thus he was named Israel. In addition, he has been attributed with offering bribes to his brother, cheating his father and keeping silent regarding the alleged adultery and polytheism of his two daughters. Such things are understandable considering what the Jews say about the rest of prophets.

The Jews have deviated from the Torah or the Old Testament, and they follow the path of the deviated Torah as seen in their manners, debauchery and immorality, under the pretence of what they had attributed falsely and untruly to their prophets. Historians, especially the Muslim ones, should not embark rashly in their search into Palestine's history accusing God's prophets and messengers, as the Jews did in their fabrications, in order to prove other prophets' rights in Palestine.

If the creed-and-faith tie is the ground upon which Moslems of all kinds and colours are united, then Muslims have the priority to hold the heritage of the prophets, including the heritage of the prophets of the Children of Israel. Muslims are still holding the banner already held up by the prophets and are still following their path. All of those prophets were Muslims and believers in the unity of God according to the Qur'anic understanding.

As far as I can tell, this is not really radical Islamist thinking, but mainstream Islam. Rather than actually read any of the millions of Bibles that can be found anywhere on the planet (besides Saudi Arabia), they take the Koran's description of what it includes as being accurate.

Any Muslims that are willing to disavow this ridiculous description are welcome to do so, however. I would love to be proven wrong.