Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Another day, another PalArab death you won't hear about

For the third time since the PA announced their new internal security plan over the weekend, a man was murdered (‘Abed Mohammed al-Wahesh.) This one was in Bethlehem, not Gaza, and it appears to be another "family dispute."

This brings the number of PalArabs violently killed by PalArabs this year, by my count, to 176.

UPDATE: A 55-year old man, Izzat Rashid Hassan, was found dead from gunshots near Jenin. I think he is the father of the the con man who scammed millions from gullible PalArabs a couple of weeks ago.

UPDATE 2: A 25-year old man killed in another clan clash near Gaza City.

Robert Novak's self-delusions

Robert Novak's latest column is another prime example of what can happen when one's personal opinions and wishes interfere with the truth.

I don't think that Novak is stupid, but the self-delusion in this column is emblematic of all that is wrong with well-meaning people who are starving for "peace" - no matter how illusory. (I would tend to believe that it is related to egomania as well - to my mind, the credibility of a commentator is inversely proportional to how much he injects himself in the story. Much like Thomas Friedman and Bill O'Reilly.)

In this column, Novak tells of his difficulties in finding someone from Hamas to interview. Then he somewhat dishonestly mentions:

I arrived in Jerusalem again April 3, two weeks after Hamas brought the more moderate opposition Fatah party into a new National Unity government. The Los Angeles Times had just run a remarkable op-ed column by political independent Salam Fayyad, finance minister in the new government who lived in Washington for 20 years, served as a World Bank official and is well respected in the West. He wrote that the Palestine Liberation Organization's 1993 acceptance of Israel and disavowal of violence is "a crystal-clear and binding agreement" that "no Palestinian government has the authority to revoke." He added that the unity government's platform "explicitly" pledges to honor all PLO commitments.

Over dinner in a Ramallah restaurant April 4, Fayyad told me he offered his column simultaneously to several major American newspapers to get this story out quickly. But do his Hamas colleagues accept his reasoning? Fayyad made clear he was not flying solo.

Note that Fayyad is not a Hamas member. He doesn't mention any specifics about who in Hamas might agree to a peaceful solution. Novak does mention that he is an "independent" but a cursory reading of this episode, right next to his description of how hard it was to find someone from Hamas, implies that Fayyad is representing Hamas in some way.

Just before my trip ended, the Palestinian Authority at long last put me in touch with an official who was no low-level bureaucrat. Nasser al-Shaer was deputy prime minister in the all-Hamas regime last Aug. 19 when he was seized in an Israeli raid on his home in Ramallah and held for a month without charges or evidence.

In his ministry office April 7, he looked nothing like the shirt-sleeved, tie-less Shaer photographed when he was released last Sept. 27. Holder of a doctorate from England's University of Manchester, he was dressed in a stylish suit. More telling than his appearance was what he said.

When I asked whether Hamas agreed with Fayyad's formulation, Shaer said it did not matter: "We are talking about the government, not groups." He said Hamas was no more relevant to Palestinian policy than the views of extremist anti-Palestinian Israeli Cabinet member Avigdor Lieberman are to Israeli policy. Unexpectedly, Shaer expressed dismay that "previous attempts at peace were ruined by suicide bombers. Now, we look forward to a sustained peace."

While avoiding Israel-bashing, Shaer conjectured: "I don't think the Israeli government wants a two-state solution. Without pressure from the president of the United States, nothing is going to happen."

Novak exhibits a complete and utter lack of cynicism for Shaer's semi-peaceful words. He finally found his Hamas spokesman and any facts that disagree with this man's assertions do not even rate a mention.

Comparing Hamas, the ruling partner in the coalition, with Lieberman is intellectually dishonest.
Not mentioning Hamas' charter, its repeated description of its purpose as the destruction of Israel, it clear support for terror attacks is equally dishonest.

It is especially ironic that he approvingly quotes Shaer's "I don't think the Israeli government wants a two-state solution" and doesn't deign to mention that Hamas explicitlydoesnt' want a two-state solution. One would expect a reporter to ask at least a couple of basic questions: how can Shaer be a Hamas member and then disavow himself from Hamas' very raison d'etre? Is this not similar to the PLO's historic two-faced positions where they say one thing to gullible Western journalists and diplomats and the complete opposite to their own people? Is Shaer not afraid to saythese things publicly when Hamas has a habit of making dissenter's lives a bit uncomfortable?

Novak does none of this. His personal agenda and narrative has been confirmed by a single member of Hamas in English and that's all the evidence he needs to push it as fact, and blame the Bush administration for not talking to these reasonable sounding people.

Israeli professor, Holocaust survivor, a victim and a hero at Virginia Tech

From YNet:

WASHINGTON – Prof Liviu Librescu, a senior researcher and lecturer at Virginia Tech, is among the 32 people who were killed during a shooting rampage at the university Monday.

One of Prof Librescu's students, Alec Calhoun, who was with him at the classroom when the shooting started, told AP that at about 9:05 am, he and classmates heard "a thunderous sound from the classroom next door, what sounded like an enormous hammer."

When students realized the sounds were gunshots, Calhoun said, they started flipping over desks for hiding places. Others dashed to the windows of the second-floor classroom, kicking out the screens and jumping from the ledge of the room.

Calhoun said that just before he climbed out the window, he turned to look at the professor (Librescu), who had stayed behind to block the door.
Prof Librescu and his wife are both Holocaust survivors who immigrated to Israel from Romania in 1978.

Librescu was an accomplished scientist in Romania, and the Communist regime had tried to prevent him from making aliyah to Israel. He was allowed to leave the country only after the Israeli prime minister at the time Menachem Begin appealed the matter to President Nicolae Ceausescu.

Several years later, Librescu left for a sabbatical in the United States and has remained there since. His first son, Arieh, lives in Israel, while his other son, Joe, resides in the US.

Librescu's colleagues described his as a "true gentleman."

Many more humiliating checkpoints coming to territories

Over the weekend, the PA Interior Minister presented his plan to reduce the chaos and murders in the Palestinian Arab territories.

Yesterday, the first details of the plan emerged:

In a press conference held in Gaza City on Sunday evening, Al-Qawasmi explained that the plan would be gradually implemented through the massive deployment of domestic security forces in the central and northern Gaza Strip. Pedestrian and vehicular patrols would be deployed in addition to checkpoints in order to impose law and order and minimize the spread of arms in the streets.

This will be accompanied by a campaign to impose law in general through organizing the traffic and the marketplaces. That will be the duty of the Palestinian internal security forces in cooperation with the national security forces and the municipalities, explained the Palestinian interior minister.

Oppressive checkpoints? I wonder if the UN and NGOs will be obsessively tracking them - the UN counted 237 Israeli checkpoints last week.

Finally updated to new Blogger template

I finally bit the bullet and upgraded my template to the new Blogger. Please let me know if anything is not working. I am seeing some glitches but hopefully the problems that some people were having viewing the blog in IE will go away.

I tried to reproduce the old format as much as possible, although there are some font and color changes.

For some reason, Feedburner (which should add a Digg and Reddit and email link at the end of each post) is still not working, and I seem to have lost my nifty tab icon graphic that looked like this:

If anyone knows how to make these work in the new Blogger, please let me know.

UPDATE: Got the icon working. The Feedburner stuff is driving me nuts.

1.6 million Palestinian Arabs alive because of Israel

In 1967, after the Six Day War, Israel introduced modern health care to the territories, as well as an electrical grid and sources for safe drinking water. As a result, the Palestinian Arab mortality rate plummeted and their life expectancy soared.

I am no demographer, but I thought it would be interesting to see roughly how many fewer Palestinian Arabs would be alive today if they had remained under Egyptian/Jordanian rule after 1967.

I based my numbers on the West Bank and Gaza populations as of 1970 (Palestine Remembered) and 2004 (CIA Factbook) to calculate growth rates, and the natural growth rates of Jordan and Egypt today (2.5% and 1.75%, respectively.) The CIA Factbook growth rates for Palestinian Arabs today (3.06% in West Bank, 3.71% in Gaza) are much smaller than what the real population growth during these dates were, so I used the Factbook current population numbers, ignoring the problems that some Israeli demographers have found with these numbers.

I did not account for emigration or immigration into the territories, making the oversimplistic assumption that the population growth is mostly the same as the natural growth. I also did not have accurate historical growth rate data for Egypt and Jordan so I assumed today's rates as being constant over the decades, another gross oversimplification.

Given this back-of-the-envelope calculation, and based again on current population numbers that Palestinian Arabs accept as accurate, I estimate that 1.6 million Palestinian Arabs exist today in Gaza and the West Bank that would not be alive had Israel not occupied the territories after 1967.

In other words, "occupation" was the best thing to ever happen to Palestinian Arabs in their short history.

(If you accept the criticisms about PalArab demographics, these numbers go down to only about 200,000 PalArabs alive because of Israel.)

For what it's worth....

Bargaining with semantics

Syria says that they want to revive the "peace process" with Israel....

"Syria wishes to revive the peace process with Israel with the help of US and Russian mediators," the Syrian Information Minister was quoted as saying by Israel Radio, Monday.

The minister immediately added a threat that "If Israel rejects the Arab peace initiatives, the only way to get the Golan Heights back would be the way of resistance."

In a crystal clear manner, Syria has defined for us its definition of "peace," and it has nothing to do with ending hostilities.

The "peace process" is just one way to get the Golan, and Syria otherwise exhibits not the slightest interest in what the word "peace" normally means. Peace is not a goal or even desirable to Syria - it is just a way to get what they really want, which is the high ground from which they can resume shooting at Israel and access Israel's main water source.

How peaceful was the Israeli/Syrian border before 1967, and how peaceful was it afterwards? If "peace" is the goal, then all should agree that Israel should hold onto the Golan.

Arabs are highly adept at the art of bargaining, as anyone who ever enters a souk can tell you. They know that Israel desperately wants a real peace so they use the word with impunity as a dangling carrot in order to get what they want - any land they can that Jews control in the area. Since most Westerners think of the word "peace" the way Israel does, no one thinks that when the Arabs say the word that they could possibly mean anything else.

But here we see here explicitly that "peace" is not a goal for the Arabs - it is a bargaining chip, that is infinitely valuable because it is worthless to the seller and highly prized by the buyer.

Another type of bargaining is evident from this story, showing an unusual unity among terror groups:

A number of Palestinian factions, including Hamas, have called for more Israeli soldiers to be captured in order to ensure Palestinian prisoners are released in exchange. They say that this action is necessary following the failure of the diplomatic efforts to release the Palestinian prisoners.

In a statement, Hamas said that their movement urges the armed brigades of Al-Qassam (Hamas), Al-Aqsa (Fatah), An-Nasser (Popular Resistance Committees), Al-Quds (Islamic Jihad), Abu Ali Mustafa (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and others, to work together to capture more Israeli soldiers in order to exchange them with Palestinian prisoners .

The statement confirmed that Hamas "intends to release all the prisoners, regardless of their faction or affiliation, by all means available and at any cost, especially after the failure of the diplomatic efforts, the weak agreements and the false promises."

Hamas also called on the Israeli leaders to "comply with the factions' demands, accelerate the exchange deal and avoid deception."

In this case as well, it all comes down to bargaining and peace is the furthest thing from the Arab minds.

Israel would be wise to take a chapter from the Arab playbook and start grabbing things that they value - land, specifically - so that Israel's bargaining position can be enhanced. Imagine how much more leverage Israel would have if it, for example, took a few square miles of Gaza, name it Kfar Gilad, and announce plans to build settlements there in two weeks unless Shalit is released.

Real peace is not in the playbook, so it is time Israel started playing the game the way that the Arabs want to play it themselves.

UPDATE: Joe Settler agrees.

Thomas Friedman's "Petropolitics"

The NYT's Thomas Friedman, who is a bit too egocentric for my tastes, mentions something interesting in the middle of a much longer article about the necessity of the US to be a leader in energy conservation and alternate energy (something I've been talking about for years):

No, I don’t want to bankrupt Saudi Arabia or trigger an Islamist revolt there. Its leadership is more moderate and pro-Western than its people. But the way the Saudi ruling family has bought off its religious establishment, in order to stay in power, is not healthy. Cutting the price of oil in half would help change that. In the 1990s, dwindling oil income sparked a Saudi debate about less Koran and more science in Saudi schools, even experimentation with local elections. But the recent oil windfall has stilled all talk of reform.

That is because of what I call the First Law of Petropolitics: The price of oil and the pace of freedom always move in opposite directions in states that are highly dependent on oil exports for their income and have weak institutions or outright authoritarian governments. And this is another reason that green has become geostrategic. Soaring oil prices are poisoning the international system by strengthening antidemocratic regimes around the globe.

Look what’s happened: We thought the fall of the Berlin Wall was going to unleash an unstoppable tide of free markets and free people, and for about a decade it did just that. But those years coincided with oil in the $10-to-$30-a-barrel range. As the price of oil surged into the $30-to-$70 range in the early 2000s, it triggered a countertide — a tide of petroauthoritarianism — manifested in Russia, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Egypt, Chad, Angola, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. The elected or self-appointed elites running these states have used their oil windfalls to ensconce themselves in power, buy off opponents and counter the fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall tide. If we continue to finance them with our oil purchases, they will reshape the world in their image, around Putin-like values.

You can illustrate the First Law of Petropolitics with a simple graph. On one line chart the price of oil from 1979 to the present; on another line chart the Freedom House or Fraser Institute freedom indexes for Russia, Nigeria, Iran and Venezuela for the same years. When you put these two lines on the same graph you see something striking: the price of oil and the pace of freedom are inversely correlated. As oil prices went down in the early 1990s, competition, transparency, political participation and accountability of those in office all tended to go up in these countries — as measured by free elections held, newspapers opened, reformers elected, economic reform projects started and companies privatized. That’s because their petroauthoritarian regimes had to open themselves to foreign investment and educate and empower their people more in order to earn income. But as oil prices went up around 2000, free speech, free press, fair elections and freedom to form political parties and NGOs all eroded in these countries.

The motto of the American Revolution was “no taxation without representation.” The motto of the petroauthoritarians is “no representation without taxation”: If I don’t have to tax you, because I can get all the money I need from oil wells, I don’t have to listen to you.

It is no accident that when oil prices were low in the 1990s, Iran elected a reformist Parliament and a president who called for a “dialogue of civilizations.” And when oil prices soared to $70 a barrel, Iran’s conservatives pushed out the reformers and ensconced a president who says the Holocaust is a myth. (I promise you, if oil prices drop to $25 a barrel, the Holocaust won’t be a myth anymore.) And it is no accident that the first Arab Gulf state to start running out of oil, Bahrain, is also the first Arab Gulf state to have held a free and fair election in which women could run and vote, the first Arab Gulf state to overhaul its labor laws to make more of its own people employable and the first Arab Gulf state to sign a free-trade agreement with America.

People change when they have to — not when we tell them to — and falling oil prices make them have to. That is why if we are looking for a Plan B for Iraq — a way of pressing for political reform in the Middle East without going to war again — there is no better tool than bringing down the price of oil. When it comes to fostering democracy among petroauthoritarians, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a neocon or a radical lib. If you’re not also a Geo-Green, you won’t succeed.

There is some truth here, but Friedman pointedly tries to avoid making this an Arab issue and tries to generalize it to any authoritarian regime heavily dependent on oil.

Obviously if dictatorships have the ability to act without worrying about the consequences, they will be emboldened to act in ways that will keep them in power.

But there is a flip-side to his observation that he doesn't want to mention: when enlightened societies become richer, their citizens and other nations benefit. The US is not only the richest nation but also the most generous, and this is a direct result of being built with ingrained ideals of freedom and democracy. Israel's economic might pays dividends to not only her citizens but also to the entire world in the areas of scientific research, help during disasters and anti-terror training.

Friedman is specifically applying this "rule" to oil-rich nations but it would apply to any nation with a fundamentally immoral outlook and access to any valuable resource.

Oil isn't the problem; it is the underlying mindset of the entire nation that encourages corruption.

Egypt and Jordan may indeed have been more amenable to signing a peace agreement with Israel because they do not have huge oil reserves, but the point is that acting in peaceful ways goes against their very nature and only economic incentives could push them into reluctantly abandoning their pan-Arab, anti-Israel "principles." While this is probably better than no peace at all, one must remember that it was not based on a natural longing for peaceful co-existence with their neighbor, but rather on external economic factors. This is starkly apparent in that Egypt is literally being paid off by the US to the tune of billions of dollars a year just to maintain the paper peace treaty with Israel.

So while I agree that economics, and specifically energy economics, is a hugely important vector in minimizing tyranny, it is fundamentally cosmetic and coerced. These societies, and specifically those that are based on Arab/Muslim honor/pride ideas, are inherently against transparency in leadership, freedom, equal rights and democratic principles and

Economic coercion is a tool but it will not fix the real problems they have.

Background information: Pope Pius XII and the Holocaust

There was a brief kerfuffle over the weekend when the Vatican threatened to boycott a Holocaust ceremony in Israel because they were upset that Yad Vashem captioned a picture of Pope Pius XII with the words "even when reports about the murder of Jews reached the Vatican, the pope did not protest." Yad Vashem stands by its research, and invited the Vatican to open its archives if it had evidence to the contrary.

A very good and fair article about Pius' role during the Holocaust can be seen at the Jewish Virtual Library. While there are some of accounts showing that the Pope did save a number of Jews and that the Vatican itself sheltered 477 Jews, the overwhelming evidence is that he refused to do anything to save the Jews that he clearly knew were being systematically murdered until it was obvious that the Allies were going to win the war. Even then his actions were half-hearted and seemed to be more motivated by politics than by any true concern over human beings being butchered. Read the whole thing.

Interestingly, a joint Catholic/Jewish commission appointed by the Vatican itself issued its own preliminary report on Pius' actions in 2000 showed clearly that the Pope was aware of Nazi atrocities as early as 1941. The report poses a series of questions that the Vatican apparently failed to answer and the Commission itself disbanded shortly thereafter. Two of the unanswered questions were:

14. On several occasions Konrad von Preysing, Bishop of Berlin, had vainly appealed to the Pope to protest specific Nazi actions, including those directed at the Jews. On 17 January 1941 he wrote to Pius XII, noting that "Your Holiness is certainly informed about the situation of the Jews in Germany and the neighboring countries. I wish to mention that I have been asked both from the Catholic and Protestant side if the Holy See could not do something on this subject, issue an appeal in favor of these unfortunates.²⁷" This was a direct appeal to the Pope, which bypassed the nuncio. What impression did von Preysing's words make on Pius XII; what discussions if any, took place about making such a public appeal as the German bishop requested, and was any further information about Nazi anti-Jewish policy sought?

10. At the end of August 1942, the Greek Catholic Metropolitan of Lviv (Lwow), Andrzeyj Szeptyckyj, wrote to the Pope and described with stark clarity the atrocities and mass murder being carried out against the Jews and the local population.²⁴ No other high-ranking Catholic Churchman, to the best of our knowledge, provided such direct eye-witness testimony and expressed concern for Jews qua Jews (and as primary targets of German bestiality) in the same way. Moreover, he indicated to the Pope that he had protested to Himmler himself. Finally, he publicly denounced the massacres of Jews in circumstances in which some Ukrainian Catholics themselves were collaborating with the Germans in these murders. Is there evidence of a discussion or a reply to Szeptyckyj's plea? (In a separate citation: "The Pope replied by quoting verses from Psalms and advising Septyckyj to 'bear adversity with serene patience.'⁽⁸⁾)

A separate chapter of Pius' attitude towards Jews opened after the war, as thousands of Jewish children who had hidden in convents throughout Europe had to be dealt with.

In 2005, the New York Times published a letter that originated in the Vatican instructing Catholic institutions on how to handle requests from Jewish families and institutions to take Jewish children back. A critique of that letter's translation and veracity was printed in Beliefnet.

Even if the critical article cited is 100% accurate, it still shows that there was a concerted effort on the part of Pius' church to stop orphaned children from being taken care of by Jews, and almost certainly from even letting them know that they were Jewish to begin with. Not to take away from the bravery of those who hid these Jewish children, but in the end these children were not to ever know their true heritage.

The Vatican is now going through the process of promoting Pius to sainthood. It is even possible that the Vatican wants to mollify Yad Vashem to help make its case for sainthood.

But by any yardstick, he had the ability to actively appeal for the lives of Jews before millions of them were murdered - and he refused.

This is not how a saint would act.

British reporters condemn Israel as BBC reporter reported executed

Ya gotta hand it to British leftist journalists - they have a great sense of timing.

The day after the National Union of Journalists called for a far from even-handed boycott of Israeli goods, and in another vote called Israeli actions "savage," a previously unknown terror group in Gaza claimed that they executed BBC reporter Alan Johnston and said a video will be released soon.

The NUJ had nothing to say about their fellow British journalist in their orgy of condemnations. After all, why pretend to be fair when your pre-defined agenda is so much more important? After all, isn't that the underlying premise of British journalism to begin with?

Christian bookstore bombed in Gaza

From YNet:

Three explosions rocked Gaza City early Sunday, damaging two Internet cafes and a Christian bookstore.

No one was hurt and no group claimed responsibility for the blasts, which took place around 3 a.m. local time, Palestinian security officials said.

Heavy external damage was visible at the three stores. At the bookstore, which is funded by American Protestants and known as the Bible Society, a number of books were also burned in the explosion.

This is not the first time that the Bible Society has been threatened or bombed. It is a proselytizing group.

The irony is, as documented by Michael Oren in his book about America's history in the Middle East, that the pro-Arab tilt of the State Department is a result of the early American Protestant missionary involvement there as their children gravitated towards jobs at State. Now the spiritual descendants of the original missionaries are reaping the results of the influence of their forefathers.

A somewhat more direct irony is that one of the activities of the Society has been:

Visiting Palestinian injured during the Intifada uprising, and helping them with moral and financial support.

One wonders if this organization distinguishes between innocent victims and terrorists themselves when supporting them financially. Could some of the "victims" paid by the PBS have been behind this bombing?

On another note, I wonder how long it will take for thousands of enraged Christians worldwide to violently protest the purposeful desecration of many Christian Bibles.

Iranian nuclear accident watch

Here's the earthquake activity in Iran for just the past few days:

Quake jolts southern Iran Thursday April 12, 2007
Shiraz, Fars prov, April 12, IRNA
Iran-Quakes-South
There are no reports of any casualty or damage to property caused by the quake.

Quake hits southeastern Iranian city Thursday April 12, 2007
Iran-Quake
The seismological base of the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University registered the quake at 16:29 hours local time (12:59 GMT).
The quake was epicentered in an area measuring 56.09 degrees in longitude and 32.17 degrees in latitude, the report added.

Quake jolts southeastern Iranian city Saturday, April 14, 2007
Iran-Quake
The seismological base of the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University registered the quake at 16:36 hours local time (1306 GMT).
The quake was epicentered in an area measuring 57.35 degrees in longitude and 30.73 degrees in latitude, the report added.

Quake hits southwestern city Sunday April 15, 2007
Iran-Qal'e Khajeh-Quake
The seismological base of the Geophysics Institute of Tehran University registered the quake at 07:26 hours local time (0356 GMT).
The quake was epicentered in an area measuring 49.44 degrees in longitude and 32.16 degrees in latitude, the report added.

More proof of UN worthlessness

On Saturday, Mahmoud Abbas met with the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy.

According to Wafa (Arabic only):

Ms. Coomaraswamy was pleased to hear about a deal to exchange prisoners, and that the deal would include the release of prisoners of children.

She added, "I am also happy to hear from Mr. President and his commitment to promoting the culture of peace among children and the development of sports activities."

She said : "Peace is the most important thing at this moment, we in the United Nations support the Palestinian president in his efforts to bring peace to this region."

A small reminder of the great efforts that Mahmoud Abbas has undertaken to promoting a culture of peace among Palestinian Arab children: (all examples from Palestinian Media Watch):

Mohammed Al-Dura music video includes

Narrator: "How sweet is the fragrance of the shahids [people who have died for Allah]. How sweet is the fragrance of the earth. Tts thirst quenched by the gush of blood flowing from the youthful body. How sweet is the fragrance of the earth."

Vocalist: "The boy cried, 'O father, 'til we meet, O father, 'til we meet, 'til we meet, father, 'til we meet. I will go with no fear and without crying. How sweet is the fragrance of the shahids. I will go, father, to my place in heaven. How sweet is the fragrance of the shahids. O father, 'til we meet, O father, 'til we meet."
[PATV 2000-2003, and PATV June 28-29, 2006]
Interview with an 11-year old girl on PATV:
Interviewer: You described Shahada as something beautiful. Do you think it is beautiful?

Walla: Shahada is a very beautiful thing. Everyone yearns for Shahada. What could be better than going to paradise?

Interviewer: What is better, peace and full rights for the Palestinian people or Shahada?

Walla: Shahada. I will achieve my rights after becoming a shahid. We won't stay children forever.
PATV February 2006:
"Daddy brought me a present
A machine gun and a rifle
When I am big I will join the liberation army
The liberation army has taught us
How to liberate our homeland"
[PA TV, February 26, 2006]
Tarashibo, a talking chicken:

Girl: If a boy comes in front of your house, where a tree is planted, and cuts it down, what would you do?

Tarabisho: I have two trees in front of my house.

Girl: If a little boy cuts them down, what will you do to him?

Tarabisho: What will I do to him? I'll fight him and make a big riot! I'll call the whole world and make a riot! I'll bring AK-47s and the whole world. I'll commit a massacre in front of the house.
[PA TV, October 22, 2004]

This is all PA TV, made mostly under Fatah leadership (even after Hamas was voted into power, the PA TV remained pro-Fatah.)

The UN representative had a golden opportunity to pressure Abbas to do something about inciting children to war, and instead she praises him as teaching them about peace.

Once again, the UN is shown to be a worthless organization on every level.

Who are those masked men? Terror webpage banner gallery

See if you can see all the things these have in common.

Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades (Fatah) website:

Al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas):

Al-Quds Brigades (Islamic Jihad):

Yup - they all feature those scary ski masks!

Just like these members of the "special forces" that were training today in Gaza:

Notice the liberal use of jungle camouflage - on a beach. You can hardly see them.

But nothing beats these Fatah terrorists, who are so intent on covering their faces while they wear their faek suicide bomb belts that they don't even bother with holes for their eyes:

Nothing says "I'm proud of who I am and what I do" like covering your face in public.

Want some refreshing Zionist MelonAIDS?

Not dyslexic lemonade, but only the latest insane rumor going around Saudi Arabia:

"Beware of Israeli melons infected with AIDS arriving in Saudi Arabia!" is the latest rumor being spread throughout Saudi Arabia like a wildfire.

An SMS message being sent around the country this week said, "The Saudi Interior Ministry warns its citizens of a truck loaded with AIDS infected melons that Israel brought into the country via a 'ground corridor.'"

The Interior Minister's spokesman General Mansour al Turki responded to news of the message and made it clear to a-Sharq al-Awsat newspaper that the Ministry "did not issue any such announcement. This is just a rumor."

The rumor, despite being denied several times, has gained so much steam in the Arab world that it made it to the front page of one of the most important Arabic language newspapers.

But is it so unreasonable when Jews are "known" to gouge out Arab kids' eyes for transplants, fly poison balloons over Lebanon, and create a virus that only attacks Arabs?