Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Fatah refuses to talk with Hamas. Hmmmm.

Ma'an Arabic reports today that Fatah has rejected any dialogue with Hamas, after Hamas' Haniyeh said that Hamas is ready for immediate talks.

When Israeli right-wingers decide not to talk to terrorists, they are routinely described as "intransigent" and "hardline" and "hawkish." In contrast, the Fatah terrorist leaders that want to keep talking to Israel (to gain more concessions for free) are invariably described as "moderate" and "pragmatic."

Somehow, I don't think we will see these descriptions in this case. When the press is solidly behind one faction, it takes a great deal to dislodge their biases - and the decades of Fatah corruption and terror has barely dented the media's love of that "moderate" group, nor its conviction that Fatah and the PLO are the best leaders of an inevitable future Palestinian Arab state.

Hamas delusions

On the Al-Qassam (Hamas terror wing) Arabic website there is a readers' poll asking if the firing of Qassam rockets towards Israel contributes to safety and security in Gaza.

At the moment, the vote is 84% yes, 14% no.

And they have 6000 votes.

I imagine that the BBC would spin it as "84% of Hamas supporters desire peace."

Everything in moderation

The BBC manages to use the words "Hamas" and "moderate" in the same sentence:

Osama Bin Laden's number two has called on the Islamist group Hamas to unite with al-Qaeda after its victory in Gaza over Fatah, in a web-posted audiotape.

Ayman al-Zawahiri also warned against any attempt by Arab countries to wrest control of the Gaza Strip from Hamas.

Al-Qaeda has in the past criticised Hamas for taking part in the political process in the Palestinian territories.

Hamas leaders, who espouse a more moderate brand of Islamist politics, have always shunned al-Qaeda advances.

The Beeb needs to make Hamas sound moderate, because otherwise one needs to conclude that Palestinian Arabs voluntarily elected a terrorist government, which is just way beyond what the intelligentsia who trust the BBC for news can possibly comprehend in their giant sophisticated brains.

Now, what exactly makes Hamas more "moderate" than Al Qaeda? The BBC doesn't deign to tell us, although it implies that the fact that Hamas participated in an election gives it the "moderate" bona-fides. Of course, the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the spiritual father of both Hamas and al-Qaeda, is part of the political process in Egypt now as well. I suppose if al-Qaeda holds a Syrian-style election it can be called "moderate" as well.

In fact, Hamas and al-Qaeda hold virtually identical worldviews - the establishment of a world Islamic caliphate, and Hamas considers Palestine just the first step in its role. Hamas' slogan is "Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes." Is there any real difference between that and al-Qaeda's philosophy?

In reality, the reason that the BBC considers Hamas "moderate" is because its immediate target is only Israel, not the entire West. Since Israel is disposable from the Beeb's point of view, then by definition anyone who explicitly only wants Israel destroyed is a "moderate."
(h/t Daled Amos)

Juan Cole defending genocidal maniac, again

From the "Atlantic Free Press", by Juan Cole:

Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul continue to show themselves among the few in Congress with any integrity and backbone. They declined to go along with a resolution charging Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad with incitement to genocide, given his alleged call for Israel to be 'wiped off the face of the map.'

As most of my readers know, Ahmadinejad did not use that phrase in Persian. He quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for 'this occupation regime over Jerusalem" to "vanish from the page of time.' Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Ahmadinejad has not to my knowledge called for anyone to be killed.

I was talking to two otherwise well-informed Israeli historians a couple of weeks ago, and they expressed the conviction that Ahmadinejad had threatened to nuke Israel. I was taken aback. First of all, Iran doesn't have a nuke. Second, there is no proof that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program. Third, Ahmadinejad has denied wanting a bomb. Fourth, Ahmadinejad has never threatened any sort of direct Iranian military action against Israel. In other words, that is a pretty dramatic fear for educated persons to feel, on the basis of . . . nothing.

I renew my call to readers to write protest letters to newspapers and other media every time they hear it alleged that Ahmadinejad (or "Iran"!) has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." There is no such idiom in Persian and it is not what he said, and the mistranslation gives entirely the wrong impression. Wars can start over bad translations.

It was apparently some Western wire service that mistranslated the phrase as 'wipe Israel off the map', which sounds rather more violent than calling for regime change. Since then, Iranian media working in English have themselves depended on that translation. One of the tricks of Right-Zionist propagandists is to substitute these English texts for Ahmadinejad's own Persian text. (Ethan Bronner at the New York Times tried to pull this, and more recently Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute.) But good scholarship requires that you go to the original Persian text in search of the meaning of a phrase. Bronner and Rubin are guilty disregarding philological scholarship in favor of mere propagandizing.

Cole is engaging in the usual dishonesty so endemic among the terror-supporting Left where he attempts to use semantics to stupidly argue a point. (Those who claim that the term "anti-semite" means "hating Arabs, who are Semites" do this all the time.)

(His argument that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, based entirely on Iranian denials, is so absurd as to seem almost a parody of intellectualism.)

Let's look at exactly what Michael Rubin wrote, as he was demolishing Cole (and note that Cole does not address his point here:)

Revisionism is in full swing in Washington as some academics and policymakers bend over backwards to convince themselves and others that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not mean what he says.
Today, the National Iranian American Council—a lobby group advocating the normalization of ties between the United States and the Islamic Republic—published this analysis, which ends:

The proper translation of Ahmadinejad’s quotes has been the subject of some debate. Kucinich argued that the translations used in the bill were either misquoted or out of context, offering alternative translations from the New York Times to convey his point.
It's a line which originated with Juan Cole, a University of Michigan professor, has peddled. Indeed, Cole wrote:

I have a suggestion for my readers. Every time you see a newspaper article that alleges that Ahmadinejad said that Israel should be wiped off the face of the map, please write the editor. Say that this idiom does not exist in Persian, and that what Ahmadinejad actually said was, "This occupation regime over Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time." And you can cite me.
Perhaps one can quibble over how to render a translation. Here, the Islamic Republic provides its own clarification. In its official translations, it headlined Ahmadinejad's call to "wipe Israel off the map."
There is a tendency among academics to feel they have to advocate for those countries they study. They should not. Nor should they advocate for the U.S. government. They should analyze dispassionately. But, ignoring or burying evidence that reflects badly on a regime is more likely to advance misunderstanding than advance rapprochement. It is time academics and policymakers both deal with reality as it is, rather than a sanitized version they would wish it to be.

Note Cole's dishonesty as he pretends that the official Iranian translation was just copying from American mistranslations.

The best proof that Cole knows his argument is weak is that he freely links to Kucinich's comments, but not to Michael Rubin's - because he knows that he is not saying anything that disproves Rubin's point. Rubin, on the other hand, has no such problem linking to Cole.

Hamas captures Fatah's collection of blackmail sex tapes

Ma'an reports on a Ma'ariv story, not otherwise translated into English yet:

The Israeli newspaper, Maariv, reported on Wednesday that Hamas discovered videotapes during the seizure of power in the Gaza Strip that reveal the corruption of the security forces and the sexual deviancy of several Fatah leaders.

Maariv reported that Hamas members discovered dozens of recorded sexual encounters of leading figures, which were being used by the security forces as blackmail. According to Maariv, Fatah ordered the videotapes to be destroyed so they did not fall into the hands of Hamas.

Hamas said the videotapes involve several Fatah ministers and prominent leaders. Maariv added that many of the tapes remain in the hands of Hamas.

Maariv said that the videotapes show several Fatah leaders committing infidelity.

The videotapes were recorded in several locations including offices, hotels, hospitals and houses. The purpose of the recordings was to recruit agents and collaborators and blackmail Fatah officials.

The paper added that some of the videotapes were recordings of Hamas leaders, one of whom was forced to collaborate with Fatah against Hamas. The tape showed him cheating on his wife.

Maariv added that some of the women who appeared in the tapes were imported prostitutes. Maariv’s reporter said that he had seen one of the tapes which was recorded in a hospital and involved a doctor with a girl. The reporter said that this type of blackmail is very common.

Maariv’s reporter concluded that Hamas are very satisfied by their discovery, which they intend to use to blackmail the Fatah figures recorded on the tapes.

And here I thought that Hamas members were so dead set against corruption and immorality.

While the world toasts Fatah...

While Olmert meets with Abbas in Sharm el-Sheikh, ready to give him lots of concessions in exchange for not screaming for Jewish blood right this moment, the "moderate" Fatah faction was busy as well:

The Fatah-affiliated Al Buraq Army announced that they launched a rocket-propelled grenade at the Israeli military position at Karni Crossing, between Israel and the Gaza Strip, on Tuesday.

“We are retaliating for Israeli aggression and assassinations and will stick to the choice of resistance,” said the brigades in a statement.

The death of Palestinian Arab journalism

I've touched on this topic before, but it is more clear than ever that there are no more real outlets for independent Palestinian Arab journalism ever since Hamas won Gaza.

While even before the civil war there would be daily murders in Gaza from clan clashes and work accidents, since Hamas took over they have all mysteriously disappeared. Even "human rights" organizations like PCHR have stopped trying to keep track of Arab violence - according to them, no one has died in nearly two weeks. Even Hamas has admitted to fighters dying from injuries since then.

Ma'an News, which was very flawed but was the closest thing to real journalism that the PalArabs had, has given up. It spins any articles that might be negative towards Hamas as much as possible, and it is refusing to directly report abuses in Gaza. I just found this article from last week where, in the last sentence, they admit to being threatened:

Gaza – Ma'an report – Local Palestinian radio stations in the Gaza Strip were launched in quick succession over recent years. As many as eleven radio stations were counted operating in Gaza Strip in a short space of time. Many of the stations had been closed and looted during the recent conflict in the strip.

Ash Sha'b station, affiliated to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was looted, whilst Al Hurriya and Ash Shabab, affiliated to Fatah, chose to cease transmission.

Palestine satellite TV station was deserted by its employees and another station transmitted continuous news, even though it was previously an entertainment station.

The spokesperson of the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, Abu Ubayda, vehemently denied that the brigades had threatened any of the local stations.

Abu Ubayda told Ma'an that the radio stations halted transmission willingly because they were working within a certain framework and their coverage of events in Gaza was partial, rather than objective.

He added that the employees and owners of the radio stations closed them out of fear, rather than any direct threats from the Qassam Brigades.

Abu Ubayda also said that some of the radio stations were affiliated to well-known Fatah figures, or directly owned by Fatah.

He renewed the denial that the Qassam Brigades or Executive Force took control of the laborers radio station, which belongs to the laborers union, in northern Gaza. "We have not threatened any station, all stopped voluntarily because they were biased," said Abu Ubayda.

Palestine satellite and terrestrial TV stopped transmission last Friday in Gaza City and began transmitting from Ramallah, in the central West Bank. The director of the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, Basim Abu Sumayya, ascribed the stoppage to Hamas' seizure of the Gaza Strip, which prevented employees from accessing the company's buildings in order to work.

Abu Sumayya accused Hamas of taking control of every property that belongs to the PBC, in addition to the live transmission vehicle and the satellite frequency, which the PBC changed immediately.

Abu Sumayya said that 720 employees work at the PBC. They are now at home until the situation is settled politically.

For his part, the spokesperson of Hamas, Sami Abu Zuhri, denied that the lives of journalists are in jeopardy in the Gaza Strip....

As for the radio stations, which stopped their transmission, Abu Zuhri said they did so voluntarily because they were involved in inciting and they committed criminal acts when they were fuelling disputes in the Palestinian arena. He asserted that the Al-Qassam Brigades and Executive Force never attacked or robbed any radio station.

The Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa satellite TV station, which many accuse of lacking professionalism and fuelling dispute, was the sole TV station that continued broadcasting during the conflict in the Gaza Strip. They transmitted special photos of the Al-Qassam Brigades and the Executive Force, while they were storming the security HQs. They also conducted exclusive interviews with Hamas leaders. The most criticism-provoking act of Al-Aqsa TV was the transmission of the execution of Samih Al-Madhoun.

The chief editor of Ma'an News Agency threatened to close the agency's Gaza office as a result of the pressure exerted on him and the agency's correspondents and photojournalists. The Al-Qassam Brigades visited the office, but did not harm any employee or property. Meanwhile, Hamas and their Fatah allies criticised Ma'an's reports and some issued threats.

There is certainly criticism of Hamas in the PalArab media - from "news" outlets that shill for Fatah, like WAFA. And there are pro-Hamas "news" outlets like Palestine Today. Each will report rumors as fact, opinions as news, and news that they don't like gets ignored.

But there is no longer any real news.

"Humanitarian demands" to release terrorists

Ma'an reports:

The formal spokesperson of the Popular Resistance Committees, Abu Mujahid, affirmed on Monday that the captured Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit is alive and well.

Abu Mujahid told Ma'an in an exclusive talk marking the one year anniversary of Shalit's capture that the factions holding him are determined to stick to their humanitarian demands from Israel regarding his release: the release of female Palestinian detainees, children, sick and leaders of the Palestinian factions, in addition to long-term prisoners. They reaffirmed that the Israeli government must accept these demands for Shalit to be released.

Here are some details on those female prisoners.

In this posting you can see that 15 year olds are obligated in Jihad, but to the West we are told that they are "children."

The sick get treated better in Israeli prisons than they would in PA territories.

And somehow he adds that the terror leaders and those who have blood on their hands should also be released on "humanitarian" grounds.

Tribute to Islamic Rage Boy

Snapped Shot has an impressive collection of wire-service photos of the exact same wild-eyed and wild-bearded Kashmiri protester, dubbed Islamic Rage Boy, who reliably shows up at every anti-Western protest and even more reliably gets photographed:

Christopher Hitchens picks up on the deeper meaning of the West trying to pander to people like this.

Meanwhile, Israel is saving the world

An Israeli company has developed a biodiesel fuel that can be used in normal diesel engines without modification, reducing dependence on Arab oil as well as reducing pollution.

Another Israeli company has moved closer to creating insulin that can be taken orally.

Israeli scientists have created a 1 mm robot that can swim through veins of a human body.

Another scientist came up with an innovative way to save lives after head trauma or strokes.

June Qassam calendar

As with the February, March , April and May calendars, the numbers for each date represent the number of Qassams fired on that day. The numbers in parentheses (second row after date) are those I saw reported by Palestinian Arab media, outside of parentheses (first row after date) are those reported in Israeli media. Italics represent mortars, not rockets, but I am not keeping track of that consistently. I am no longer maintaining the days Israel has fired back, as it has been pretty much every day since May 15th.

June

July 1 at least 1
July 2 3 (Arab media)
July 3 1
July 8 5

For those who need a scorecard

Here's the quick rundown of the current meeting between Abbas and Olmert in Sharm el-Sheikh:

What Fatah gets	What Israel gets
$1 billion or so annually from the rest of the world	A Gaza that will still get some of that money for building up an army
250 terrorists freed	More rockets
International legitimacy	A reputation as a "roadblock to peace" for not going further
$400 million from Israel	A figurehead PA government that has no legitimacy in Palestinian eyes
The ability to keep the Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigades as the terror arm of the peaceful Fatah	More terror attacks

Those Jews are really crafty negotiators.

Shalit audiotape

It is obvious that he was forced to read these words written by Hamas and that Shalit did not write them.

I think that there should be a prisoner swap. Israel should nab Haniyeh and Zahar, force them to read a statement on audiotape, and then maybe swap them for Shalit.

Miscalculating the PalArab breaking point (Omedia)

A good article from Shaul Rosenfeld that, in its own way, explores how the West misunderstands the psychology of the Palestinian Arabs, and how in a large part Israel's previous mistakes have made things much, much worse today. An excerpt:

When asked to explain what made him believe the Palestinians would keep to the agreements they signed in Oslo, Shimon Peres used to trot out his corny old mantra “they are fully aware that they have what to lose”. Peres’s mantra contained a great theoretical truth, though it also contains a large number of weaknesses. Like any warring or terrorist body, the Palestinian do have what to lose. Peres was right on that count. But he never came close to understanding what would be an intolerable cost to them, just as he never saw that presenting the weak purpose throughout his and Rabin’s government failed to make an indelible impression on Israel’s partners, and certainly would not have made them believe that Israel would retaliate harshly.
Now, as then, despite the fact that the Palestinians have what to lose and lots of it, they still carry on even though cost them serious and painful losses. This is an irrational and non-western way of behaving, like the scorpion that stung the frog that was doing him a favor, carrying him across the river, and caused them both to drown. Except that only Israel sees this as “scorpion behavior”. Israel and the Palestinian have fundamentally different gauges for measuring loss, breaking points, and what would be intolerable. What Israel and the west considers “unbearable loss” is very bearable to the Palestinians considering their agreements with Israel are a means of achieving their end goals. And in any case they do not think Israel will go crazy over violations.

There is an out-of-touch rationale which argues the Palestinians “have something to lose therefore they won’t break the treaties”, and it has played a key role in constructing the fictitious Middle East reality, which has flourished in our region since Oslo. In January 1996 the same make-believe reading of reality led Peres, who was then prime minister, to compare the Oslo Agreements to the creation of the universe, while declaring 2000 the year of Middle East peace and Israel’s membership of the Arab League our next goal. Needless to say it is not just the fact that the Palestinians have something to lose that will make them stick to agreements. Not every loss will prevent them from breaking their agreements—the only loss that will stop them is one that feels so terrible and so irreversible that it is not worth taking the risk.

Read the whole thing.

Although Rosenfeld doesn't spell out a specific potential breaking point beyond a theoretical mass expulsion of Arabs to Jordan, I have mentioned before what I think the best and most humane way to force Palestinian Arabs to stop their violations: annexing land every single time a terror attack occurs or another agreement is broken. The symbolic value of even worthless land is incalculable, the amount taken can be small while the effect would be large, no one gets displaced or hurt (at first) and it can be directly justified, especially in the case of Gaza to build a buffer zone against attacks.

The entire conflict has been described, not too inaccurately, as a "real-estate dispute." Israel needs to add to its bargaining chips in this conflict, and real estate is the most direct and most effective means to do that.

Hamas: "Thank You, America!"

Hamas co-founder Mahmoud Zahar had an interesting interview with Der Speigel. Some highlights:

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How would a Hamas-led Islamic state look?

Zahar: There would be no difference from how it looks today, because our customs and traditions in Gaza are already Islamic. Marriage, divorce, daily business -- everything is Islamic. As soon as we have a state, then everyone will have their freedom. Christians will remain Christians, parties could be secular or even Communist.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: If an Islamic state is the ideal, why are there not more of them?

Zahar: If there were free and fair elections throughout the Arab world, Islamic forms of government would win everywhere. Islam is against the corruption, weakening, and materialism which have destroyed societies in Europe and America. Families are broken (in the West); there are AIDS and drugs. We don't have such things here.
[EoZ: I've been seeing more and more articles lately in the PalArabic press about the spread of drugs in the PalArab territories.]
SPIEGEL ONLINE: At the moment there are no attacks on Israel by Hamas' military wing. Is this a new doctrine?
Zahar: Yes, at the moment we have to deal with two enemies at the same time. Also, the Israelis have halted their aggression. That's a direct result of our attacks on Sderot (in Israel) -- the Israelis have suffered too much. Thousands of citizens had to leave (Sderot), and the Israeli government had to pay for their hotels. Factories and offices in Sderot also had to close.
[EoZ: A baldfaced lie. Israel reduced its Gaza attacks when Hamas and Fatah were fighting, but never stopped. As my rocket calendars show, the number of rockets were reduced sharply as soon as the intrafada fighting flared up.]
SPIEGEL ONLINE: In the West there is a fear that the Gaza Strip may become a playground for international terrorism. Is this danger real?

Zahar: Our people can't distinguish between resistance and terrorism. We're fighting for the liberation of our land from an occupation. When people in Europe had to fight the Nazis, they were honored, later, as freedom fighters. No one would have called Charles de Gaulle a terrorist.
[EoZ: Guess what - no one can distinguish between what he calls "resistance" and terrorism. I don't know if he meant to say that or if Der Spiegel made a mistake.]
SPIEGEL ONLINE: There has been talk in Israel about turning off electricity, water, and gas in Gaza. Could the people in Gaza starve?

Zahar: In that case Israel would have to open its borders. People wouldn't starve to death before violently storming the borders. Israel also loses $2 million in business income for every day the border stays closed.
[EoZ: The Palestinian Arab habit of thinking that Jews can't handle Arab economic pressure is nothing short of delusional. See may latest history article.]
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The international community plans to release all the aid money it has withheld from Palestinians for over a year to the Fatah government in the West Bank. Will the West Bank become a kind of luxury-Palestine, while the Gaza Strip starves?

Zahar: Fatah in the West Bank will receive money, and they will have to pass it on to Gaza. If it doesn't, it will lose Gaza forever. We would also have to search for alternatives. We have a very good image among people throughout the Arab world. If we want, we can get $5 million per month in donations from Egypt. We have also received money from foreign countries in the past -- $82 million from Kuwait, $50 million from Libya. I personally once brought $20 million from Iran to the Gaza Strip in a suitcase. No, actually twice -- the second time it was $22 million.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What will improve for people in Gaza now that Hamas is in control?

Zahar: The good thing is that we can now collect information about our enemies and informants from foreign powers. We will look for Israel's spies.
SPIEGEL ONLINE: The militant wings of Fatah and Hamas have been fully armed over the last few months. Are these weapons still in circulation?

Zahar: There are naturally very many weapons around now. Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around €3.50 -- now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America!