Two completely different stories from Hebron - of the same event

Yesterday, a group of Jews in Hebron moved into a house that they say was paid for legally. An Arab man disputes that, saying he owns the house.

Reading these two accounts - from YNet and from Arutz 7 - show not just differing details, but completely different stories. First YNet's account of the Arab viewpoint:

The strife over the disputed house in Hebron continues to pick up steam and Fais Rajabi – who claims ownership of the structure – fails to understand how the situation deteriorated so far.

Rajabi claimed he purchased the house some 15 years ago and planned to begin inhabiting it next week with his three wives and 22 children. Rajabi said he bought the house from four brothers who inherited it and he has been renovating it since he made the purchase. It's his life's work, he says.

Rajabi estimates he has invested over $1 million in the project. "I bought this house with my hard-earned money, no one ever made any claims in the past, but apparently the settlers saw that all I had left to do was finish tiling and they decided that this is the right moment for them to steal the house," he said.

When asked how he felt about loosing his investment Rajabi said: "May Allah help me. Something that you nurture for years, invest enormous funds in, invest so much work and energy into, a dream that was the center of your life – that's robbed from you with empty claims and lies."

Rajabi vehemently rejects the settler's claim that they purchased the house and own the deed to it. There is no chance he was deceived by the original owner, he said, no chance it was also sold to the settlers.

"I cannot believe there is a man who can sell-out his faith like that, his conscious and his religion. The house is mine and mine alone. The documents I showed the police prove my ownership. The documents the settlers have, fake or not, purchased for money or not – that's not of interest to me. I am the sole owner of the house, and I sold nothing to anyone."

Rajabi claims that the settlers have recently begun observing the house. "I never imagined that it was towards stealing it. I will take this to the Israeli High Court – and if justice is not found there then I will go to the highest court in the world. This will not go on in silence. The house is mine, all of it is mine and only mine, and I will never give it up. This house is my entire life," he said.

The IDF, the Civil Administration and the police said they were looking into documents provided by Rajabi and the settlers, who both claim to be the rightful owners of the house.

And now Arutz-7:

Over 200 Jews, mostly yeshiva students from the Hevron area, entered a four-story building in the City of the Patriarchs Monday night, and have named it "Shalom House." MK Chaim Oron (Meretz) says the government must throw them out.

The house, which is only partially built and stood empty, was purchased by the Jews from its previous Arab owner two years ago. It is strategically located, in a spot overlooking "Worshippers Route" leading from Kiryat Arba to the Cave of Patriarchs. According to one report, the decision to enter the building now was reached after the Jews of Hevron received information that Arabs intended to enter the building in the near future.

"Shalom House" has a floor space of over 3,500 square meters (over 37,000 square feet - EoZ). It was reportedly purchased by a Jewish American businessman through a Jordanian real estate agency for about $700,000. Officials are looking at the documentation to ascertain its validity, and at present no evacuation of the Jews is foreseen.

The house's top floor had been used by the IDF for a lookout point. Twelve IDF troops and local Jewish residents were ambushed and killed by Arab terrorists on the Worshippers' Route in November 2002.

Upon entering the building in the evening hours, the new residents began singing and dancing. One of the youths told a reporter that he and others had reached the building by running through an Arab village. The Hevron Jewish Community's spokesperson, Noam Arnon, said the entry into the house was not meant for provocation but for peaceful residence by Jews. "We already have a long waiting list of potential residents," he added.

"This is a house that has been under construction for several years. No one lives in it yet, so no one was evacuated from it," said Arnon. "Right now there are young people living there, but in the future, after we renovate it, families will live there, like in other areas of Jewish settlement in Hevron."

Hevron has long had a lengthy waiting list for families who wish to move into the Jewish neighborhood, and well over 40 small families can easily fit into the building.

MKs Gideon Saar (Likud) and Otniel Shneller (Kadima) visited the youths and the new building this afternoon, and both expressed their support. Shneller said that forming a contiguous Jewish presence between Kiryat Arba and Hevron is in keeping with Kadima Party policy: "It is a very important contiguity; exceptional. The government should have done it itself... Kiryat Arba and Hevron are a Jewish bloc that will remain Jewish in any future settlement; this is how I understand Kadima's position."

The Yesha Council – the umbrella group for Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria – congratulated the house's new occupants. "The people of the Jewish Community are continuing in the path of the Patriarch Abraham, who paid full price for the Cave of Machpela," the council noted.

The Yesha Rabbis Council praised the new residents for "meriting to restore Hevron homes to Jewish hands and fulfilling in a practical manner the commandment of settling the Land."

MK Uri Ariel (NU/NRP) said, "Any act of strengthening the hold of Jewish roots in the City of Patriarchs is a blessing for the people and the land." He added that because the purchase was carried out legally, "this is a moment of trial for the government: shall it make the law subject to its political whims, or will it prove that the government too is subject to the law, and allow the Jews to remain in their house?"

MK Chaim Oron (Meretz) said today that the issue is not whether or not the property was legally bought, but the separation of populations. He called upon the government "to throw them out of there fast."

An Arab claiming to be the house's owner denies the house was ever sold to Jews. "The house is all mine," claimed Baez Rajabi, "and I have all of the documents proving it." However, another Arab man, Mohammed Al-Baradei, is also quoted in some media outlets as saying the house is his: "I handed all of the documents over to police after making copies," said Baradei.

So which is more reasonable?

The fact that two Arabs claim to own the house already makes their claims suspect, although it seems very possible to me that some Arab did sell the house multiple times. This is a huge structure and it strains credibility to think that an individual Arab there has a million dollars to sink into this project and to wait so many years to move in - even with 22 kids and three wives, the house is much larger than he needs.

It is also interesting that YNet didn't report the competing Arab claims, and so is Meretz' reason for wanting the Jews out of Hebron. Kadima's support of Hebron Jews was also a bit surprising. And YNet was remiss in not mentioning that for an Arab to admit thathe sold a house to a Jew is a literal death sentence.

A question to the Israel haters: should Jews be allowed to legally purchase land in Hebron? And do you support the PalArab death penalty for any Arabs that sell land to Jews?

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Guess what? There was a truce since November!

A number of newspapers are reporting some astonishing news this morning:

A Hamas sniper in the Gaza Strip shot and wounded an electric company worker on the Israeli side of the border Monday in the Islamic movement's first acknowledged breach of a 4-month-old truce with Israel.

And Reuters' version:

Gaza -- The armed wing of Hamas said it carried out its first attacks yesterday against Israel since a shaky November truce in the Gaza Strip, shooting a utility worker near the border and firing two mortar bombs at soldiers.

Wow, in the wake of the hundred of Kassams fired at Israel since November, as well as other attacks, was it really true that Hamas has not taken credit for any of these?

Well, according to the Al-Qassam Hamas website - not quite:

• January 11, 2007: Al-Qassam Brigades Bring down A Zionist drone
• December 29, 2006: Husam Al-Zumile &Muhammad Al-Masri were martyred during a resistance mission
• Novemebr 26, 2006 (the first day of the truce):Three Qassam rockets were fired at the Zionist " rocket launches" and " Ra'eem settlement"
  

Not to mention that the Hamas-led PA promised to stop Islamic Jihad rocket fire during the truce as well.

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EU Gaza border monitors threatened

Remember when Israel agreed, under US pressure, to let the EU monitor the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt?

From JPost:

Fearing for their lives, European Union monitors stationed at the Rafah Crossing that connects the Gaza Strip and Egypt have asked the defense establishment for help in drawing up escape routes from Gaza in the event of an attack on the border terminal, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The monitors, led by Italian Maj.-Gen. Pietro Pistolese, have raised concerns in recent weeks for their safety following a series of threats to their lives. An Israeli defense official told the Post that several weeks ago a large bomb was discovered on a route used by the monitors to drive through Gaza.

Later this week, the head of the Defense Ministry's Military-Diplomatic Bureau, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, is scheduled to sign an agreement that will extend the monitoring team's mandate by another year. It was initially signed following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005.

The increasing threats against the monitors have raised concerns in Israel that the EU would refuse to extend the monitors' mandate, leaving the Gaza-Egyptian border completely open. Diplomatic officials in Jerusalem rejected this possibility and said the agreement would be signed in the coming days as planned.

A military source close to Ashkenazi confirmed, however, that this scenario was raised during the meeting last week between the two chiefs of staff. The spokeswoman for the monitors, Maria Telleria, said Monday night that she had heard rumors of a plan to pull the team out of Rafah, but that there was nothing concrete.

There are a large number of analogies between computer security and physical security. And a couple of security rules here have been broken by Israel.

First of all, you never outsource your security to a third party that cares less about your security, or does a poorer job enforcing security, than you do yourself. Everyone knew from the outset that the EU monitors were not going to really do anything effective, that they would remain as passive monitors rather than security enforcers. In fact, they do not have a mandate to even detain people with suspicious packages (they can just request that a PA officer checks the packages.)

And secondly, security enforcement points must "fail closed." In computer terms, if a firewall should fail for any reason it should not allow traffic through. Otherwise, people will attack the firewall itself.

So far, Rafah has held to this model - in the numerous times that the EU monitors needed to flee for their safety (the first time was only a month after they started), the crossing was closed, much to the consternation of "human rights" organizations who have no problem with smuggling weapons into Gaza. But now it looks like it is possible that the EU will abandon Rafah and leave it open.

Now that this is a possibility, all the terrorists in Gaza have a great incentive to directly attack the EU monitors - a much easier and cheaper alternative than digging more tunnels or opening their own holes in the border. The monitors have now become the weakest link in Israel's security.

And this was entirely predictable.

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Latest insane Temple Mount excavation conspiracy theories

From PNN:

The popular resistance against the ongoing Israeli aggressions at Al Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem's Old City have slowed down for the time being, while Israeli forces have accelerated the excavations. A new tunnel beneath the walls of the Muslim holy site is near completion, threatening the mosque with collapse.

Director of Al Aqsa Mosque, Sheikh Farid Yahya, says that Israeli forces worked day and night at an unprecedented pace to dig a tunnel concealed from view. They managed to do so, the Sheikh said Saturday, by going in through a small shop that they bought on Al Wad Street near Ras Al Amud for 60,000 dollars.

Yahya said they began digging a tunnel from the inside, working clandestinely and quickly, after closing the shop doors. The work is ongoing in several directions around Al Wad Street leading to the gates of Al Aqsa Mosque.

The Israeli administration had been able to appease the international community by installing a camera in one area of the excavations and showing other investigative groups particular spots of work, with the only claim in one area to be that they were building a Jewish synagogue, said Yahya. “This is going on in broad daylight, but they were able to portray what is happening in the media as fairly innocuous. This is not an individual incident. Follow-up shows that many excavations that lead to full takeovers have been carried out in this way.”

And from Al-Hayat al-Jadeedah (autotranslated):

The director of charts at the Orient House, Khalil Tufakji said that the Israeli authorities continue excavation work and confidential under the walls of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and facilities, the aim being to weaken the foundations of the mosque in order to create the conditions leading to the fall of the mosque in a shorter period.

Tufakji and confirmed in a statement to the press yesterday, that there were tunnels under the Israeli walls of the al-Aqsa Mosque to speed up installations in the collapse of the mosque, which is a serious attack on the inviolability and sanctity of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.

The same source also says that the crazy Sheikh Raed Salah met with UNESCO where he rejected their claims that Israel was not harming anything - and then he added that Israel is using acid to dissolve the foundations of the mosque.

Personally, I want to know how I can buy a shop right next to the Temple Mount for only $60,000, and where I can get a hold of this acid that can destroy huge stones that weigh hundreds of tons. It would sure save a lot in expensive excavation equipment.

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Islamic Jihad "work accident" in Gaza City

Another work accident:

Gaza - Ma'an - One Palestinian activist from the Al-Quds brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, was killed and five others wounded in an explosion in a house in Ash-Shati refugee camp in Gaza City in the Gaza Strip on Monday.

The explosion took place at noon on Monday and destroyed the house of the Hessi family.

Palestinian medical sources said that Ala'a Hessi, 26, was killed in the explosion and five others were injured. The Islamic Jihad movement is in mourning for Hessi and confirmed that he was one of its members.

Oops!

Remember last summer when the entire world castigated Israel for "targeting" populated areas of Gaza and Lebanon? Western nations who are no stranger to creating far worse collateral damage during wartime didn't hesitate to condemn Israeli actions as Hezbollah hid among Lebanese civilians.

Now, who exactly is condemning Islamic Jihad for building weapons and explosive factories in people's houses?

(And who knew that Islamic Jihad had anything other than a military wing?)

The late Mr. Hessi hated Jews so much that he didn't hesitate to build a bomb in his own family's house. As a known member of PIJ, one can assume that his family approved of his sacred work - because the intended victims of his explosives are Jewish families, not his own. And he ended up not only destroying his own life and house, but he also damaged neighboring houses as well.

Obviously this is a "dog bites man" story and there is nothing spectacular about it in the context of general PalArab depravity. I've reported dozens of similar "work accidents." But the reason it is worth emphasizing is precisely because it is not a noteworthy news story - the very frequency that these things happen ensure that Palestinian Arabs get a free pass from the world when they support and allow actions that would be considered grave war crimes by any real nation on the planet. Since it doesn't get reported, and since Israeli actions that are far less severe get reported constantly, the world gets a heavily skewed idea of what is going on in the Middle East.

Because of this skewed coverage, the average person would have no idea that Palestinian Arabs have killed roughly four times of their own people this year than Israels has. One would think that this is an important statistic for a true understanding of the situation, but the news is not trying to give the big picture - and this is a large reason why Israel ends up getting the lion's share of bad press.

The number of Palestinian Arabs violently killed this year by their own actions is now 142 by our count.

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March 18, 1948: Arabs threaten Hadassah Hospital

59 years ago, in an astonishing feat of Arab projection, the Arab commander in Jerusalem threatened Hadassah Hospital, claiming that Jews there were attacking Arabs. This claim would have been dismissed as absurd if it wasn't for the fact that Hadassah itself was truly already under attack, and the British were not interested in defending her so close to their withdrawal from Palestine.

Husseini's threats proved to be true, for in April, a convoy of doctors, patients and nurses trying to reach the hospital came under attack and suffered a seven-hour massacre, ultimately killing 77 Jews including the hospital's director.

An eyewitness account of the massacre fills in some details (from the April 21, 1948 Palestine Post; in this case I OCR'd the article):

About 9.45 a.m. the ambulance In which I was travelling hit a mine, fell into a road trap, and the engine was damaged. The ambulance was a few metres behind the escort car and a few metres in front of two buses which were also damaged. The vehicles were peppered with bullets arid at 10.15 am. the first bullets penetrated the ambulance. Dr. Yassky was the first person to be wounded, some pieces of shrapnel hitting his leg. Many hundreds of shots were fired at the vehicles, some from heavy weapons, and explosions occurred nearby.

Those in the ambulance were the drivers, Dr. arid Mrs. Yassky, one wounded patient on a stretcher, the assistant matron of the hospital, and six other physicians.

Dr. Yassky sat next to the driver throughout, and opened the peephole of the ambulance from time to time to see what was going on and to report on events. His movements were quickly observed by the Arabs and it became clear that he had become a special target, because the largest concentration of bullets was directed at his part of the vehicle. He wis to move further back Into the ambulance, but refused, wishing to stay at his observation post and to encourage the driver.

At 11.15 am. the second casualty occurred In the ambulance, when Dr. Matoth, children’s physician, was also hit by shrapnel. At 12 noon Dr. Yassky reported that Arabs were approaching much nearer, and that large numbers were massing for what appeared to he the kill. At 1 p.m. Dr. Yassky said. “This looks like the end. We must say goodbye.”

A little later, a convoy of British Army cars was seen by Dr. Yassky to turn into the Ramallah Road. He shouted to them for help and waved a white handkerchief which he reported must have been clearly seen by the soldiers.

At 2 p.m. a second army convoy took the same road and again they were signalled. There was no help forthcoming.

At 2.45 p.m. more bullets penetrated the car near Dr. Yassky. and he was slightly wounded in the face. A little later he reported that one ol the buses was burning, and that Its occupants must be dead. Soon afterwards he had to report that the second bus was burning. He then said farewell to the occupants ol the ambulance and to his wife and the other passengers also began to say farewell.
Just after 3 pm., a bullet penetrated the lower part of the ambulance, apparently passing through the engine, and hit Dr. Yassky In the region of the liver. He began to bleed profusely. He asked for an Injection of morphium, which he was given. He said a final word to his wife and his staff, and to the patient on the stretcher.

The passage of time In the ambulance became blurred. One or two people actually dozed of at Intervals, and all were resigned to their death. Many made neat packages of their watches and personal belongings, which they stowed away in the ambulance, and sat awaiting their bullet. Indeed, several were impatient for this bullet to come, because on several occasions waves of Arabs had approached to within a few metres of the car. out to slaughter.

Around noon the driver of the vehicle, Zecharia. thought It was better to run for It than to sit and await butchery In the ambulance. He was killed a few moments later. Rather later, one of the physicians also thought that the slim chance of a run for safety was better than the certainty of being killed In a trap. Though wounded he got out of the car, and his run for safety was a crawl on all fours to Antonius House, which he reached to be saved by the small British unit in occupation of the building, about 20 yards from the ambulance.

At 3 p.m. two army ambulances passed by the stranded cars, help was asked for, and again was not given.

Some time during the afternoon, a number of Molotov bottles hit the ambulance, but failed to set it on fire. One of the wounded bus drivers crawled to our ambulance and was able to get into the driver’s seat. He became impatient, decided the occupants at the ambulance had no chance, crawled out again, and was killed.

All these macabre happenings took place against background of bullets, bombs. mortars, Molotov bottles and hordes of Arabs crazed with an orgy of shooting.

The ordeal lasted seven hours and then — at 4.30 p.m.. British help arrived. Once this help was extended, all occupants of the ambulance have been unanimous in declaring how helpful and considerate its manner was.

This sickening attack came about a week after the Deir Yassin incident. By almost any measure this was far, far worse - a deliberate attack on medical personnel and patients, deliberately done with no possible excuse, no warning and no provocation. Yet how many people are familiar with this massacre?

This was not the end for Hadassah Hospital in East Jerusalem yet. Arabs continued to attack the hospital itself, shelling its wards in constant bombardments. Finally, it made no more sense to keep it open.

This article is interesting in how it is an early example of how international law cannot protect people when one side disregards it. The hospital could have chosen to be protected by the Red Cross but the Geneva Conventions say that hospitals cannot be protected by armed personnel and still be protected by Geneva. Hadassah knew that Arabs would ignore the Red Cross protection and attack anyway. This resulted in armed guards who never entered the hospital itself and who did not answer Arab fire so as not to escalate the danger to the hospital.

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HH CX

Soccer Dad hosts the 110th edition of Haveil Havalim.

Read it, and let this be a lesson to you.

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Another peaceful PalArab weekend - 8-year old girl shot in chest

From Ma'an:

On the first day after the formation of the Palestinian unity government, Palestinians witnessed a wave of disorder in the Gaza Strip in which a young Palestinian girl was killed and many others injured.

Palestinian medical sources said that 8 year old Shaza Abu Muhsin was killed and three others were injured in family clashes in the Rafah area in the southern Gaza Strip.

The sources confirmed that the girl arrived at An Najjar hospital dead, after being shot in the chest. Three others were wounded, two of them were women and the third was a young man from the same family.

Medical sources said that two Palestinians were injured in crossfire between the Abu Aha and Almasri families in Khan Younis, both men were transported to hospital.

Security sources said that several armed men kidnapped Mohammad Abu Shamala aged 40, from Rafah. Abu Shamala is an officer with Force 17, the Palestinian presidential security guards; it is believed that the kidnapping was based on a family feud.

On Friday, two Palarabs were injured in a "work accident."

The number of Palestinian Arabs violently killed this year by each other now stands at 140 by our count.

UPDATE: A PalArab security officer died of wounds sustained Saturday night when he was shot while chasing some robbers (as far as I can tell from the autotranslation.) 141.

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Palestinian Arabs sure hated by other Arabs

Libya's leader has threatened to expel thousands of PalArabs - and this wouldn't be the first time:

Libya's leader Muammar Gaddafi has decided to boycott the Arab League's summit, set to be held in Riyadh at the end of March, in response to what he considers as the Arab leaders' plan to "sacrifice" the refugee issue in order to please Israel.

Gaddafi is worried that in the framework of the Saudi peace initiative, Arab leaders would concede the refugees' right of return, and agree to have them naturalized in their countries of residence, in a bid to encourage Israel's cooperation with the peace plan.

Libyan newspaper al-Jamahiriya reported this week that Libya may begin deporting Palestinian refugees soon, in protest of the Arab plan.

In September, 1995, Libya deported thousands of Palestinians in protest of the signing of the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.

Hundreds of those refugees remained stranded in a refugee camp on the Libyan-Egyptian border, while hundreds others spent weeks aboard ships in the Mediterranean Sea, after both Syria and Lebanon refused to give them shelter.

Meanwhile, PalArabs continue to be killed - in Iraq:

Geneva, 16 March (AKI) - The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Friday that it found deeply disturbing a raid conducted by Iraqi security forces in a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in Baghdad on Wednesday that left at least one Palestinian dead and nine others reportedly still in detention. The agency says it has repeatedly expressed concern over the fate of Palestinian refugees in Iraq since Saddam Hussein's demise.

"The violence reportedly broke out when the Palestinians tried to resist the raid," UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond told a news briefing in Geneva. "They said they were frightened following months of being targeted by various groups. Several have been kidnapped, arrested and killed. They have often expressed concern about the lack of protection by the Iraqi security forces."

Over the past year UNHCR said it has repeatedly called on the Iraqi authorities and the United States-led multinational forces to protect the Palestinians, who fled to Iraq after the creation of Israel in 1948. Some received preferential treatment under Saddam Hussein and have become targets for attack since his overthrow in 2003. Nearly 20,000 of them have already fled but an estimated 15,000 still remain in the country, mostly in Baghdad, according to UNHCR.

Redmond urgently appealed to countries in the region and outside to offer temporary shelter for Palestinians from Iraq, noting that at least 186 of them had been confirmed murdered in Baghdad between April 2004 and January 2007.

“UNHCR believes the number may be significantly higher. Their enclaves in Baghdad have been the target of many militia attacks. Hundreds of Palestinian families have been evicted from their homes with nowhere to go, prevented from seeking refuge in neighbouring countries,” he said.

“Recently, UNHCR has received reports that the families of several detained Palestinians have been forced to pay thousands of US dollars to some members of the Iraqi security forces, allegedly for protection from torture and mutilation of their family members while in detention. Higher sums have reportedly been demanded to ensure their release.”

In fact, the numbers of Palestinian Arabs killed or missing in Iraq (not just Baghdad) is over 500, and in the thousands over the past three years according to PalArab sources. And those who are fleeing cannot find refuge in Arab countries either.

Yet for some reason, you will find very few human rights organizations or Muslims publicizing these crimes by Arabs against Palestinian Arabs. No human shields, no protests, no calls for boycotts, no calling this "ethnic cleansing" nor "genocide." Very few people even know about Kuwait's expulsion of 400,000 PalArabs in only one week in 1991.

The hypocrisy of those who pretend to care about PalArabs is overwhelming.

The only use that the world has for Palestinian Arabs is to be used as pawns to help destroy Israel.

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Peaceful PalArabs attack UNRWA chief. Reuters downplays it.

From AP:

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Three masked Palestinian gunmen fired on a vehicle carrying the chief of the U.N. refugee mission in Gaza and tried to kidnap him, the U.N. official said.

No one was hurt in the kidnap attempt in northern Gaza, said John Ging, head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency in Gaza.

Earlier in the week, unidentified gunmen kidnapped a BBC reporter in Gaza City, Alan Johnston, who remains in captivity, his whereabouts unknown.

Ging said he, a driver and a security official were traveling in an armored vehicle when the gunmen jumped out of a white Subaru and opened fire. "They tried to force open the car, but our driver extracted himself from that situation," and sped away as the gunmen continued firing, he said. "This is a shocking development. We are still considering how to deal with this," Ging said.

The vehicle was clearly marked with the U.N. insignia and a U.N. flag, he said. Eleven bullets pierced the car, Ging added.

Reuters' coverage so far is only mentioned in passing in a different story, but includes this interesting blurb:

Palestinian attacks on UNRWA -- which supplies vital aid and employment for refugees in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and neighbouring Arab countries -- have been very rare.

Now, that's in interesting statement. In a few minutes of searching I found (from a 2002 UN report):

Many of the instances of threats against United Nations personnel occurred in the West Bank and Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) indicates that during the reporting period there was an increase in the number of violent incidents directed against United Nations and humanitarian personnel. In a number of instances UNRWA personnel were verbally abused, threatened, physically assaulted and shot at. What is of particular concern is that ambulances and medical personnel have not been exempt from attack. On a number of occasions, UNRWA ambulances were attacked, resulting in death and injury to personnel.

And, from 2006:

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) condemns the attack on a United Nations facility in Gaza on the morning of 1 January 2006 which included the beating of a UN guard by unknown assailants before they bombed the premises.

Now, why would Reuters characterize these as being "very rare"?

Because, of course, it goes against the Reuters template to characterize Palestinian Arabs as anything but victims or resistance fighters. To even imagine PalArabs attacking the very agency that pretends to help them the most goes against Reuters' editorial grain. So it is compelled to point out that specific attacks against UNRWA are "very rare" and completely ignore not only the numerous attacks that have occurred, but also the many attacks against other humanitarian organizations and NGOs that have made it enormously difficult for aid workers to do their jobs in Gaza and forced most of them to leave.

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Notable postings

The value of perspective at Treppenwitz
Analyzing the Mecca agreement at Yourish
Cappuccinos for Peace at Soccer Dad
Followup on Post-Academic Freedom at My Right Word

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An oldie but a goodie: The Gaza Arab "state" of 1948

Looking through the logs, I see that someone from France found my blog by Googling "gaza arab government 1948." They found this post from December 2005 which unfortunately had lost all its graphics. I just restored them, and the article shows yet again that there is nothing new under the sun.

In brief: in 1948, the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem set up his own government in Gaza, complete with a flag. It was recognized by Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen.

When Israel counterattacked Egypt in late 1948, half the cabinet resigned and all of them bravely fled to Cairo.

It was such a spectacular failure that no Palestinian Arab mentions this original and only "Palestinian state" today out of embarrassment.

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14 weeks in a row

For the fourteenth consecutive week, more Palestinian Arabs were killed by their own people than by Israel. This week's score is about 5-2 (following PCHR's Friday-to-Thursday counting, and reflecting an uncertainty of exactly when two women murdered their own infants over the past weekend.)

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Answering Joseph Massad

Joseph Massad, an associate professor at Columbia University, wrote an article for Al-Ahram Weekly and reprinted at Electronic Intifada about Israel's "racism." Since he is far brighter than the typical Neanderthal that writes for EI it is worthwhile to review his argument and show that not only is Israel not racist, but his claims amount to a form of anti-Semitism.

His thesis is laid out in the first two paragraphs:

Israel's struggle for peace is a sincere one. In fact, Israel desires to live at peace not only with its neighbours, but also and especially with its own Palestinian population, and with Palestinians whose lands its military occupies by force. Israel's desire for peace is not only rhetorical but also substantive and deeply psychological. With few exceptions, prominent Zionist leaders since the inception of colonial Zionism have desired to establish peace with the Palestinians and other Arabs whose lands they slated for colonisation and settlement. The only thing Israel has asked for, and continues to ask for in order to end the state of war with the Palestinians and its Arab neighbours, is that all recognise its right to be a racist state that discriminates by law against Palestinians and other Arabs and grants differential legal rights and privileges to its own Jewish citizens and to all other Jews anywhere. The resistance that the Palestinian people and other Arabs have launched against Israel's right to be a racist state is what continues to stand between Israel and the peace for which it has struggled and to which it has been committed for decades. Indeed, this resistance is nothing less than the "New anti- Semitism".

Israel is willing to do anything to convince Palestinians and other Arabs of why it needs and deserves to have the right to be racist. Even at the level of theory, and before it began to realise itself on the ground, the Zionist colonial project sought different means by which it could convince the people whose lands it wanted to steal and against whom it wanted to discriminate to accept as understandable its need to be racist. All it required was that the Palestinians "recognise its right to exist" as a racist state. Military methods were by no means the only persuasive tools available; there were others, including economic and cultural incentives. Zionism from the start offered some Palestinians financial benefits if they would accede to its demand that it should have the right to be racist. Indeed, the State of Israel still does. Many Palestinian officials in the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organisation have been offered and have accepted numerous financial incentives to recognise this crucial Israeli need. Those among the Palestinians who regrettably continue to resist are being penalised for their intransigence by economic choking and starvation, supplemented by regular bombardment and raids, as well as international isolation. These persuasive methods, Israel hopes, will finally convince a recalcitrant population to recognise the dire need of Israel to be a racist state. After all, Israeli racism only manifests in its flag, its national anthem, and a bunch of laws that are necessary to safeguard Jewish privilege, including the Law of Return (1950), the Law of Absentee Property (1950), the Law of the State's Property (1951), the Law of Citizenship (1952), the Status Law (1952), the Israel Lands Administration Law (1960), the Construction and Building Law (1965), and the 2002 temporary law banning marriage between Israelis and Palestinians of the occupied territories.

Notice how Massad states Israel's racism as a fact, and only later does he make his argument. The argument is fundamentally that since Israel is meant to be a Jewish state it is by definition racist against non-Jews, and he brings as proof various laws and national symbols that mean to maintain Israel as a Jewish state.

The rest of his long and articulate article boils down to some strawman arguments as to why Israelis believe that they have the right to be racist.

Nevertheless, he does make his argument, and the crux of the issue is that it is impossible to have a Jewish state that is not racist, by definition.

First of all, the professor's use of the word "racist" is faulty and he knows this quite well. Racism is discrimination based on race, and of course neither Jews nor Arabs form a race. A good portion of Jews in Israel are descended from Arab Jews. The word is nothing but an inflammatory rhetorical device and his use of it is as absurd as those who redefine anti-Semitism as "hating Semites."

His argument would be much stronger, more accurate and not nearly as inflammatory if he used the word "discriminatory." But since that word can apply to pretty much every nation and clearly defined ethnic, racial, religious or gender group on the planet, he purposefully chooses to use a word that forces a more visceral reaction from the reader. Notice how his entire argument loses its punch if you substitute "discriminatory" for "racist" - he is not arguing based on facts, he is inciting. This is more than dishonest.

Back to his argument, framed correctly: is there discrimination in Israel against Arabs? Well, yes, there is. It is not news that there is a tension between the desire for a Jewish state and a desire for a state where all citizens are treated absolutely equally.

What Massad dismisses is the need for a Jewish state:

It is important to stress that this Zionist rationale is correct on all counts if one accepts the proposition of Jewish exceptionalism. Remember that Zionism and Israel are very careful not to generalise the principles that justify Israel's need to be racist but are rather vehement in upholding it as an exceptional principle. It is not that no other people has been oppressed historically, it is that Jews have been oppressed more. It is not that no other people's cultural and physical existence has been threatened; it is that the Jews' cultural and physical existence is threatened more. This quantitative equation is key to why the world, and especially Palestinians, should recognise that Israel needs and deserves to have the right to be a racist state. If the Palestinians, or anyone else, reject this, then they must be committed to the annihilation of the Jewish people physically and culturally, not to mention that they would be standing against the Judeo-Christian God.

Here is one of his straw man arguments. Do Jews deny the right for, say, Kurds or Armenians or any historically oppressed people to have their own state? His thesis of Jewish "exceptionalism" would imply that Jews want only an exclusive Jewish state and that no other people deserve one - a claim that is manifestly absurd.

To deny the right for Jews to have a state of their own, while (in this case, implicitly) allowing other peoples to have their own states, is simply a form of anti-semitism. One can argue that a Jewish state should not have been established in Palestine because of other issues - but this is not Massad's argument. He is the one who is suffering from exceptionalism, by denying only a single group of people the right to have a state where they suffer no discrimination.

If he argues just as strenuously against Saudi Arabia's discriminatory laws, or the fact that the Queen of England is also the Supreme Governor of the Church of England or against the fact that many European flags have crosses - then he might not be guilty of the "racism" that he accuses Israel of. But as far as I can tell, his writings on the topic exclusively speak about the Jewish state, not any other group of people.

His answer to this is not an answer - it is simply the use of the word "racism" as a club in the way that he accuses Jews of using the term "anti-semitism:"

As for those among us who insist that no resolution will ever be possible before Israel revokes all its racist laws and does away with all its racist symbols, thus opening the way for a non-racist future for Palestinians and Jews in a decolonised bi-national state, Israel and its apologists have a ready-made response that has redefined the meaning of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is no longer the hatred of and discrimination against Jews as a religious or ethnic group; in the age of Zionism, we are told, anti-Semitism has metamorphosed into something that is more insidious. Today, Israel and its Western defenders insist, genocidal anti-Semitism consists mainly of any attempt to take away and to refuse to uphold the absolute right of Israel to be a racist Jewish state.

His sleight of hand is in never defining "racism" in any meaningful way, and then affixing the reprehensible label exclusively on Jewish Zionists repeatedly. It is a classic example of Arab projection. Forgetting the fact that non-Jews in Israel have more rights than minorities in most nations do (and certainly in Israel's neighbors), ignoring the fact that Israeli Arabs have risen to unimaginable political heights - even without those arguments which he would probably dismiss as apologetics, the fundamental issue remains that Massad denies Jews the rights that he seems to allow all others.

And his repeated misuse of the word "racist" shows clearly that his argument is fundamentally an emotional one clothed in pseudo-rationalism, rather than based on any facts.

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Hamas: "Gov't Will Support Resistance"

From the webpage of the Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas "military wing"):

The Palestinian new government will continue to support "resistance," according to excerpts from the new government's platform.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh agreed Wednesday on the make-up of the new government, ending weeks of arguments over the candidate for the powerful interior ministry post.

Our Sources reported that the new platform states that, "The government confirms that the resistance is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people."

It goes onto say that, "halting resistance depends on ending the occupation and achieving freedom and the right of return and independence."

The new government also recognizes that "the key to security and stability in the region is in the ending of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land, recognition of the right to Palestinian self-determination."

Thus, the statement confirmed, "the government will work with the international community to end the occupation, and to return the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people."

The government "holds fast to the rights of Palestinian refugees, and the right of return of Palestinian refugees to their land and belongings."

So not only did Hamas completely win in its vision of how the PA should be run, they are bragging about how they can continue terror attacks according to this document.

Stupidly, the Deutche Press Agency backgrounder on this agreement says:

- Section I, clause 4, says the government 'holds on to the right of refugees to return to their land and property.'

The phrase leaves out whether that should be to all of British mandatory Palestine, including what is now Israel, or to a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza only.

As if that is even in doubt.

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