Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Before the Six Day War

There are a lot of revisionist historians out there today making absurd claims about how Israel was the aggressor in 1967. History books rarely capture the atmosphere of the time, and understanding the fear and concern in the days before the war is critical to understanding it.

From a single small newspaper, the Columbia Missourian from May 28, 1967, here are all of the stories about the Middle East situation for just that one day, on pages 1-3 of the paper:

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PalArab student stressed during finals. So he started shooting.

From Ma'an:

Employees in the Nablus education directorate office were shocked to hear shooting on Tuesday coming from inside the office of the director, Lutfi Yassin. When they rushed to the office, they found an armed member of the public; there were no casualties or injuries.

Yassin, 50, told Ma'an, "An armed man broke into the office and shot inside it when we refused to give him approval to sit the 'Tawjihi' [end of school] exams because he did not meet the conditions for such exams."

Eyewitnesses said that the angry man repeated shooting in front of the department when he was forced to leave by other employees.

Why are people surprised that PalArabs who grow up learning that violence solves all problems start using violence to solve all their problems?

Keep in mind that this is not even in Gaza.

Stoning the hand that feeds you

It doesn't get better than this:

Some 300 activists from the left-wing group Peace Now gathered in Hebron on Tuesday for a demonstration marking 40 years since Israel annexed the West Bank in the Six Day War...

However, local Palestinians threw stones at the Peace Now bus and a police vehicle after the demonstration. No one was hurt in the incident.

How perfect is that - Jews demonstrating against the "occupation" and PalArabs throwing stones at them. Makes one think that perhaps the real object of their enmity is not "occupation," but "Jews."

The Jerusalem Post, editing this article from AP, inexplicably lets this sentence get through:

The group was protesting, among other things, the occupation of a Palestinian house by local settlers in April.

I guess AP thinks that this is more accurate than saying "the legal purchase of a house by Jews in March." Because when truth and the MSM myths intersect, the myth always wins.

(H/T Shrinkwrapped)

Easy way to plant trees in Israel

HAS, which uses innovative methods to raise money for Israeli charities, now has a browser toolbar available. If you download the toolbar, JNF will plant a tree in Northern Israel, and for every 180 Google searches done through the toolbar, another tree will be planted. They have a goal for 10,000 trees.

They have a neat Flash showing the names of the people who are responsible for the trees.

The toolbar can be found here.

Nasser's lies and Arab honor

Today is the 40th anniversary of the start of the Six Day War.

One of the most interesting aspects of that war was the role of lies. Nasser lied about Egypt's readiness for war, he lied to his citizens about early victories, he lied to Jordan's King Hussein about how he was shooting down hundreds of Israeli planes, he lied to the Russians and others saying that America had joined Israel in the fighting.

Almost all of these lies were a direct result of the Arab sense of "honor." This has been a pattern of Arab leadership throughout the past century.

By any measure, Nasser was a popular leader. He was charismatic and macho, swaggering with his inciteful rhetoric. Lying is an integral part of Arab politics because the desire for honor, and the desire to avoid dishonor, is ingrained in the Arab psyche. Admitting problems is perceived as a sign of weakness and the Arab masses emphatically do not want technocratic, practical leaders - they want Saladin, someone to sweep the Arab nation into pre-eminence again.

It has been noted that Moshe Dayan's 1967 Sinai campaign was virtually identical to the 1956 Sinai campaign. The reason that the Egyptians didn't anticipate this was because they managed to get Israel out of the Sinai in 1956 politically, so to Nasser's mind it was a victory and no lessons needed to be learned.

There is a symbiotic relationship between the Arab masses who thirst for a powerful leader and the leaders who thirst for power. Exaggerations and lies are eagerly consumed by the people and their adulation is lapped up by the leaders. Inevitably, fantasy replaces reality as the idea of admitting mistakes becomes more remote. The leader becomes imprisoned by his lies and his public image.

A proud Arab warrior cuts off the heads of hundreds of infidels on his way to glory - he doesn't appoint Commissions of Inquiry into mistakes he's made.

The Arab leaders surround themselves with people who won't dare point out the truth, and get rid of those who might sent the entire edifice of false honor crashing down. Lying becomes habitual until the leader himself cannot distinguish between truth and lies anymore. We've seen this with Nasser, with Arafat, with Saddam Hussein, with Hafez al-Assad - almost every Arab leader who did not inherit his position relies on his lies for popular support and tries to convince the rest of the world to believe his lies as well.

Because casual lying is so much a part of Arab culture, the people are willing to forgive the lies after they become obvious, or go along with them in the name of pan-Arab honor. Faced with irrefutable proof of their lies, the leaders will exchange them for more palatable lies - "Israel didn't defeat Egypt, they had help from the US. " They will do anything to minimize the disgrace that comes from admitting mistakes. To the Arab mind, lying is not nearly as disgraceful as defeat.

Of course, the inability to admit mistakes means that these Arabs will never learn from those mistakes. Even on today's anniversary, the Arabic newspapers are filled with articles that justify their defeat in 1967 by making up fantasies about Israel and the US, and very few look upon it as a learning opportunity.

There can be no solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict without the ability for Arabs to admit the truth to themselves. As long as they can fantasize about being able to destroy Israel they will not accept Israel. As long as Palestinian Arabs keep fooling themselves that their problems are more from Israel than from their Arab "brethren" they will never be able to improve their lives. The exoskeleton of lies that holds up the Arab world is a jail cell that keeps them from progressing and becoming productive members of the world community.

Arab culture needs to start seeing deceit as being more disgraceful than defeat.

A Palestinian man smokes a water pipe as he sits in Khan Younis beach in the southern Gaza strip June 4, 2007. Residents of the Khan Younis refugee camp said their venture to the beach was a way to respite from the Israeli military actions that had killed over 50 Palestinians, mostly militants, in the last month. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

A Palestinian boy plays in the waters of the Khan Younis beach in the southern Gaza strip June 4, 2007. Residents of the Khan Younis refugee camp said their venture to the beach was a way to respite from the Israeli military actions that had killed over 50 Palestinians, mostly militants, in the last month. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa (GAZA)

You see, it is congenitally impossible for Reuters to publish a picture of Palestinian Arabs having fun without finding some bizarre reason to slam Israel. If they look sad, it is because of Israeli actions; if they are happy, it is despite Israeli actions.

The fact that nearly 300 Palestinian Arabs have been killed this year by each other is no reason for a "respite" at the beach; no, Gazans don't get too bothered by that, in Reuterville. All their stress comes from Israel, of course.

And once again we need to wonder: why is there a "refugee camp" in Khan Younis? It's not like it is Syria or Lebanon - there is nothing at all stopping Palestinian Arabs from building new towns and villages for "refugees." Clearly the residents can come and go as they please, as this picture shows.

There is nothing stopping Arab nations from funding houses and community centers and town halls in Gaza.

Except for the fact that it would mean less money for RPGs, Katyushas, dynamite and Qassams.

Perhaps one day Reuters will ask these same questions, rather than parrot provable Palestinian Arab lies. But I won't bet on it.

UPDATE: Soccer Dad finds the exact fact I couldn't find a link to in the above article. In 1977, Israel actually tried to move Palestinian Arabs out of the "camps" and into real houses, and the UN condemned them for it, in UN General Assembly Resolution 32/90:

1. Calls once more upon Israel:

(a) To take effective steps immediately for the return of the refugees concerned to the camps from which they were removed in the Gaza Strip and to provide adequate shelters for their accommodation;

(b) To desist from further removal of refugees and destruction of their shelters;

To the UN, improving the lives of Palestinians is not desirable.

UN resolutions that Palestinian Arabs ignore

Much is made among the loony anti-Israel crowd about the many absurd resolutions that the UN has passed against Israel, as if that is meaningful. However, not too many of them call upon Palestinian Arabs to fulfill the items that UN resolutions have required of them. Of course, most of these include much harsher language and requirements on Israel, but we're talking about the UN here:
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1322 (outset of intifada)
Calls for the immediate cessation of violence, and for all necessary steps to be taken to ensure that violence ceases.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1397 (2002)
1. Demands immediate cessation of all acts of violence, including all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1402 (2002)
Calls upon both parties to move immediately to a meaningful cease-fire. Reiterates its demand in resolution 1397 (2002) of 12 March 2002 for an immediate cessation of all acts of violence, including all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1435 (2002)
Reiterates its demand for the complete cessation of all acts of violence, including all acts of terror, provocation, incitement and destruction;
Calls on the Palestinian Authority to meet its expressed commitment to ensure that those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice by it.

There may be others but these what I could find immediately.

Palestinian Arab blood gets cheaper

The financially-strapped PA has cut back on its martyr's death benefits, from $350 to $6.

According to Ma'an:

Ma'an learned that the compensation paid for the son's death through the bank and agreed upon by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), was NIS 24 (US $ 8 [sic - EoZ]), whereas previously it had been NIS 1.400 (~ $ 350 US).

Mohammad's brother confirmed that the new compensation is 24 NIS and that this is in accordance with the new law.Mohammad's brother confirmed that the new compensation is 24 NIS and that this is in accordance with the new law. "The issue is not the money, we have refused to receive the money," he said "but such rules are humiliating to the blood of martyrs, these rules do not appreciate the struggle of the fighters."

I'm sure that there is much more martyr money coming from Iran and elsewhere, but this is a good consequence of the minor reduction in aid that the PA receives.

Of course, it looks like that aid has started up again through the PLO bank account, and hundreds of millions have already gone into the coffers of the Fatah "militants," so we'll see how long this austerity towards terrorist families lasts.

Another Gaza kindergarten graduation video

Complete with little girls holding toy rifles in one hand and baby dolls in the other. Also scimitars, for that traditional look.

Notice the large crowd of doting parents, shepping nachas from their lovable tykes with suicide bomb belts.

(H/T Israel Insider.)

"Human rights" organizations show their true colors

In a press release today, the International Solidarity Movement which claims to support "using nonviolent, direct-action methods and principles" to destroy Israel shows how committed to peace it really is: Excerpts:

This resistance is integral part of the history of the Palestinian people - the 1935 – 1939 Great Strike, the crushing of the Palestinian Resistance in September 1970 in Jordan, later in Lebanon or the two Intifadas (1987-1992) and the Intifada Al-Aqsa in September 2000.

Palestinian resistance also acts against the liquidation plans of the freedom national project as the Oslo agreement, the Geneva Initiative or the Quartet Roadmap (UN, USA, Russia, and European Union). Since the creation of the illegitimate State of Israel in 1948, more than 40 peace plans were adopted, without results, because they were not based on the application of these basic humane principles : There can be no justice in the presence of occupation, and there can be no peace in the presence of a racist colonial-settler entity.

The September 2000 Intifada as well as the elections on January 2006 – Hamas victory -, are the expression of the refusal of the legitimacy of the Israel's colonial project over historic Palestine. It is the expression of the people living under occupation's right to resist, which remains the angular stone of its freedom national project in reconstruction.

The question of Israel's legitimacy remains at the core of the conflict and the Palestinians give an answer to it every day by their passive or active resistance in the territories occupied in 1948 or 1967.

We will support the Arab Palestinian struggle till the complete liberation of their historic land, the only solution which will guarantee the return for the refugees.

It would take a great deal of semantic gymnastics to try to explain this praise for Palestinian Arab acts that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of Jewish civilians (the "Great Strike" in the 1930s killed hundreds itself, including many Arabs as well) as being "non-violent."

But even more telling is the list of signatories to this communique, a "call to action" to destroy Israel, including many so-called "human rights" groups who show exactly how much they care about the rights of Jews to live in the Middle East. Here are some of them:

Al-Bahrain Center for Human Rights - Bahrain
Association of Bahreni Youth for Human Rights - Bahrain

Canadian Peace Alliance, Canada

Arab Program for Human Rights Activists - Egypt

Arab European League, Europe
Campo Antiimperialista - Europe

Collectif Paix Comme Palestine, Avignon, France
ISM-France (International Solidarity Movement - France)

Association of Victims of American Occupation Prisons, Iraq
Iraqi Communist Party - Leadership Committee, Iraq

Party of the Committees to Support Resistance – for Communism, Italy

Arab Organization for Human Rights in Jordan (AOHR-Jo), Jordan
Socialist Thought Forum - Jordan
Arab World Center for Democracy and Human Rights - Jordan

Communist Workers and Peasants Party (CMKP) - Pakistan

National Association Against Zionism, Syria
National Committee for the Boycott of US Commodities in Syria, Syria

The Front for Rights and Liberties, Turkey

New Jersey Solidarity - Activists for the Liberation of Palestine, USA
Al-Awda New York, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, USA

al-Afeef Cultural Association - Yemen
al-Shaqa'eq Arab Forum for Human Rights - Yemen
Democratic Social Forum - Yemen
Yemeni Youth Shoura Council - Yemen
National Assembly for the Defence of Rights and Liberties - Yemen
National Organization for the Development of Society - Yemen
The School of Democracy - Yemen
Yemeni Organization for the Defence of Rights and Liberties - Yemen
Yemeni Youth Development Center - Yemen

With all of these Arab and communist organizations supporting "peace" and "democracy" and "human rights" one need never worry about peace again! It is heartwarming to know that they've solved all their internal human rights issues and are now so gung-ho to sign petitions on behalf of the Palestinian Arabs who they refuse to grant citizenship to - for their own good, of course.

Cycle of Violence

So it seems now that fighting in Lebanon has spread a second "refugee" camp.

You'd think that the Lebanese would learn. Obviously the second front wouldn't have opened if they would have just ignored the murders from the first camp. Now we are in a cycle of violence that threatens to keep spreading until one side has the decency to just stop fighting.

I'm sure that there are plenty of op-eds being written right now to this effect.

Encyclopedia Britannica's 1911 edition is online. It's entry on "Palestine" is especially interesting:

Except in the west, where the country is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea, the limit of this territory cannot be laid down on the map as a definite line. The modern subdivisions under the jurisdiction of the Ottoman Empire are in no sense conterminous with those of antiquity, and hence do not afford a boundary by which Palestine can be separated exactly from the rest of Syria in the north, or from the Sinaitic and Arabian deserts in the south and east; nor are the records of ancient boundaries sufficiently full and definite to make possible the complete demarcation of the country. Even the convention above referred to is inexact: it includes the Philistine territory, claimed but never settled by the Hebrews, and excludes the outlying parts of the large area claimed in Num. xxxiv. as the Hebrew possession (from the " River of Egypt " to Hamath). However, the Hebrews themselves have preserved, in the proverbial expression " from Dan to Beersheba " (Judg. xx.i, &c.), an indication of the normal north-and-south limits of their land; and in defining the area of the country under discussion it is this indication which is generally followed.
Taking as a guide the natural features most nearly corresponding to these outlying points, we may describe Palestine as the strip of land extending along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea from the mouth of the Litany or Kasimiya River (33° 20' N.) southward to the mouth of the Wadi Ghuzza; the latter joins the sea in 31° 28' N., a short distance south of Gaza, and runs thence in a south-easterly direction so as to include on its northern side the site of Beersheba. Eastward there is no such definite border. The River Jordan, it is true, marks a line of delimitation between Western and Eastern Palestine; but it is practically impossible to say where the latter ends and the Arabian desert begins. Perhaps the line of the pilgrim road from Damascus to Mecca is the most convenient possible boundary. The total length of the region is about 140 m.; its breadth west of the Jordan ranges from about 23 m. in the north to about 80 m. in the south. According to the English engineers who surveyed the country on behalf of the Palestine Exploration Fund, the area of this part of the country is about 6040 sq. m. East of the Jordan, owing to the want of a proper survey, no figures so definite as these are available. The limits adopted are from the south border of Hermon to the mouth of the Mojib (Arnon), a distance of about 140 m.: the whole area has been calculated to be about 3800 sq. m. The territory of Palestine, Eastern and Western, is thus equal to rather more than one-sixth the size of England.

The West Bank is 2200 square miles, and Eastern Palestine was estimated in 1911 to have been 3800 square miles.

In other words, there is a large area of historic Palestine that is under Jordanian rule.

Why is no one upset over Jordanian occupation of ancient Palestinian lands? Why doesn't anyone want to see an independent Palestinian Arab state on the Eastern banks of the Jordan?

Every map of "Palestine" published by the PA - in their textbooks, in their logos - completely ignores a major part of historic Palestine. If there is a long and ancient tradition of Palestinian Arabs living in the eastern part, why are they being ignored? The arbitrary British boundaries separating Palestine from Transjordan are relatively recent and have no bearing on Arab history. The people who lived on the East Bank have historically been exactly as Palestinian as those who lived in the West.

Not only that, but when Jordan annexed the West Bank there was no "liberation movement" to speak of even in that part of historic Palestine. The PLO was founded in 1964, before there were any "territories."

The only areas of Palestine that Arabs have ever wanted for an independent Palestinian Arab state happen to be whichever areas Jews control at any point in time.

What a coincidence!

Zionist pigs return

I mentioned in April about the latest conspiracy theory among Palestinian Arabs, that Israelis are releasing wild pigs to eat their produce.

Like all good stories, it becomes a recurring theme. In Arabic PalToday (autotranslated):

A correspondent in the northern West Bank that the settlers deployed hundreds of wild pigs and wolves in Salfit, especially near the colony "down", where animals are those in the Al Matwi, by the presence of sewage mentioned in the colony, which is fertile ground for breeding pigs and reproduction is surprising and without interruption.

Transfer correspondent for the San Ibrahim Hamad, director of Salfit emphasis on the cultivation of this matter, stressing that the ministry has spared no effort in combating pigs, despite the weakness of the possibilities available to them.

His Praise "it is difficult to combat the phenomenon of pigs for two reasons : the continuing Israeli occupation forces and settlers deployment, and secondly, the rapid reproduction considerably."

Our correspondent also noted that the farmers in the governorate of Qalqilya and found large numbers of wild pigs roamed the rebel lands and ruining crops.

The correspondent reported that Mohammed Abu Asida director cultivation Qalqilya, saying : "The phenomenon of the proliferation of wild pigs disturbing and dangerous and detrimental to Palestinian farms, explaining that the phenomenon began to spread after the completion of the racist wall, and the establishment of the gates on a large scale in confined areas behind the wall."

So far the "racist wall" is responsible for pig proliferation as well as flooding. Those sneaky Jews manage to even have their inanimate objects multitask.

HH CXIX plus

Haveil Havalim #119 is out at Soccer Dad. I am once again honored to have been included in this weekly roundup of the Best of the JBlogosphere, for articles about staged news photography in Gaza and for the third installment of my Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs.

Check it out!

This blog was also mentioned in the monthly History Carnival for my look back at Jerusalem, 1952.

Some fairly popular website, somewhere, has a link to the Google Images link to my link of a picture at Internet Haganah of the head of a female suicide bomber who was the hostess of a children's TV show from 2004. I am getting a steady number of hits for it and I'd love to know where they are coming from, since I only see the Google Images link.

Exploding cows and another child intrafada martyr

Ma'an (Arabic) autotranslation gives us this interesting puzzle to decipher:

boy died d spring Abed Rabbo (17 years old) who died from injuries suffered in the unfortunate events that took place today after a car hijacking Colonel retired intelligence Yasmin Abu Smahdanh in Jabaliya, north of Gaza.

The boy was injured after Scores of family members Abed Rabbo protesters on the driver kidnapped their son, while addressing them gunmen shot and seriously wounded in the abdomen, then transfer to a hospital Kamal aggression, he died of his wounds.

The kidnappers released the driver Magdi Ahmed Abed Rabbo (34 years old), a few hours after his abduction, where he was assaulted and molested transferred to the hospital to receive treatment.

So this young man was peacefully protesting the abduction of his father. And the kidnappers shot him dead.

This might hurt the Gaza tourism business.

Our PalArab self-death count is now at 278 for the year.

Meanwhile, Ma'an (English) offers this tantalizing Breaking News item (no link to the story yet):

Al Arabiya Satellite Channel: Fatah Al Islam using explosives strapped to cows in confrontations with the Lebanese army

The poor terrorists of Fatah al-Islam are forced to use such humiliating weapons against the far superior Lebanese Army because they have no choice. It would be a much fairer fight if we gave them their own tanks and airplanes so they can properly defend themselves. (I've seen people say that about poor Palestinian Arabs in the territories, so it makes just as much sense here...)

UPDATE: Clan Clash in Khan Younis. 18 year old killed, 16 year old seriously injured. 279.

UPDATE 2: Fatah terrorist Abu Obed, 20, killed by "unknown persons" in Jabalya. 280.

UPDATE 3: PalArab shot dead by PA "police" during a car chase. 281.