Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, July 02, 2007

Those other Hamas cartoon characters

From Jon Sanders at Town Hall:

He was a children's television hit; a giant, black and white mouse wearing white gloves and singing about world unification in a high-pitched, squeaky voice. Then a Jew killed him on the air.
He was "Hamas Mickey," also known as "Farfour," the mouse that preached Islamic dominance on Palestinian children's television. "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," he would tell his tyke viewers, singing "Rafah sings 'Oh, oh,' its answer is the AK-47," "Oh Jerusalem, it is the time of death," and other bomb-strapped kids' classics. Then Allah in his mercy saw fit to martyr the mouse.

On Friday, June 29, Hamas Mickey was martyred on the air by an Israeli who came to steal his land. He is now in the celestial palaces of Allah, engaged in the carnal delights of six dozen virginal vermin. Down here, the struggle continues.
Vowing vengeance for his friend, Don al-Duck intends to pursue Israelis across Palestinian children's networks, along with his nephews Huey, Dewey and Kablooey. They can be seen daily on Drakes and Jihad.
But O viewers, Drakes and Jihad is not the only show in Gaza laying the toddler foundation for a world led by Islamists. Allah forbid we should overlook the glorious Mahmoud bar-Ney and Friends! This week, for example, bar-Ney and his child army use songs, chants and special moments to teach Baby Blowup how to fake rage in the streets when Western camera crews draw nigh. Then the tune to "This Old Man" begins, and everyone joins together to sing bar-Ney's theme, "I Hate Jews."
A similar show features four brothers bringing songs, make-believe and dance in an Islamist world-domination context. And this week on The Wig Outs, Mullah Featherscimitar calls a halt to all soccer games, and the brothers work to convert soccer stadiums for executions. The letters T-N-T are highlighted, and the Wig Outs sing a rousing rendition of "Here Comes the Big Red Car Laced with Explosives."
Another blessed show fills little ones with the know-how of simplified suicide belt-making, roadside bombs, and other IEDs. Inspired by Baba the Bomber, the kids of Gaza confidently proclaim, "Can we bomb it? Yes, we can!"
For older children, Flight 29 Downed follows teenagers stranded in the land of the Great Satan. The teens form their own cell of jihadist operations whose goal is to stage a successful attack against a jet loaded with fat Western infidels bloated with oil and contempt for Allah. The teens must combat teenage angst, personality clashes, and their own budding desires in addition to waging war against their unsuspecting neighbors.
Beloved by children of all ages, the "mystery gang" in Scoo ibn Du, Where Are You? drives across Palestine in a beat-up Red Cross van unmasking the Zionist plots behind seemingly obvious Islamist attacks. The show contains numerous running gags, including Wafiyyah losing her hijab, Sharif's appetite, and talking dog Scoo's irrational fear of "rary Rews!" The gang's van is always filmed by idiot American journalists as proof of Israeli rocket attacks, and the show always closes with the Zionist conspirators cursing "the meddling kids" before being beheaded.
Oh, and may a thousand camels walk across me if I forget the classic animation in The Bugged Looney/Road Bomber Hour. Behold the hapless coyote and his IEDs that never quite work, yet that tireless son of Allah never gives up! Equally inspiring are the explosive rages of Yosem Sami, jihadist in the infidel's Western hinterlands. And who among us could ever forget the lines "Allahu akbar, doc?" "Jew season! Yankee season!" and "I tawt I taw a Dionist pig!"
Let it not be said, then, that the message of jihad and Islamist world domination is being neglected by Palestinian children's TV! O brothers, don't let it be said, or else there will be more riots in the streets and fellow believers trampled.

He forgot to mention the Magic Bullet-ridden School Bus, Jihad Squarepants, al-Dura the Exploder, Mighty 'Splodin' Allah Rangers, and al-Bahb the Bomb Builder.

Did I leave any out?

Freedom of the press, PalArab style

From Ma'an:

A Palestinian reporter for the Lebanese Al Akhbar newspaper in the West Bank has confirmed that he has been receiving threats via his Palestinian 'Jawwal' mobile phone.

In a phone call to Ma'an, the journalist, Sami Said, confirmed that he has received threats, ordering him to stop writing and to keep silent. He said that the threats came after he published news reports on internal Palestinian issues in Al Akhbar newspaper. He refused to name his intimidators.

Sami Said, a journalist from the West Bank city of Ramallah, is married with one child. He has worked as a reporter for many international agencies.

Once again, Palestinian Arab thug tactics have worked to silence criticism. (If they hadn't worked, Mr. Said would have named who he was threatened by.)

One would think that journalists would notice that the people whose cause they champion unabashedly are the same people who continuously threaten their lives. As much as the PalArabs try to paint Alan Johnston as a singular case, the fact is that many journalists in the territories have been threatened, kidnapped and killed over the years.

Yet another indication of what a Palestinian Arab state would look like.

US Defense Dept. analysis of the Muslim world, 1946

This report, part of an Intelligence Review done by the Military Intelligence Division of the U.S. War Department in 1946, is really fascinating:

ISLAM: A THREAT TO WORLD STABILITY
With few exceptions, the states which it includes are marked by poverty, ignorance, and stagnation. It is full of discontent and frustration, yet alive with consciousness of its inferiority and with determination to achieve some kind of general betterment.

Two basic urges meet head-on in this area, and conflict is inherent in this collision of interests. These urges reveal themselves in daily news accounts of killings and terrorism, of pressure groups in opposition, and of raw nationalism and naked expansionism masquerading as diplomatic maneuvers. The urges tie together the tangled threads of power politics which—snarled in the lap of the United Nations Assembly—lead back to the centers of Islamic pressure and to the capitals of the world’s biggest nations.

The first of these urges originates within the Moslems’ own sphere. The Moslems remember the power with which once they not only ruled their own domains but also overpowered half of Europe, yet they are painfully aware of their present economic, cultural, and military impoverishment. Thus a terrific internal pressure is building up in their collective thinking. The Moslems intend, by any means possible, to regain political independence and to reap the profits of their own resources, which in recent times and up to the present have been surrendered to the exploitation of foreigners who could provide capital investments. The area, in short, has an inferiority complex, and its activities are thus as unpredictable as those of any individual so motivated.

The other fundamental urge originates externally. The world’s great and near-great powers cover the economic riches of the Moslem area and are also mindful of the strategic locations of some of the domains. Their actions are also difficult to predict, because each of these powers sees itself in the position of the customer who wants to do his shopping in a hurry because he happens to know the store is going to be robbed.

In an atmosphere so sated with the inflammable gases of distrust and ambition, the slightest spark could lead to an explosion which might implicate every country committed to the maintenance of world peace through the United Nations Organization. An understanding of the Moslem world and of the stresses and forces operative within it is thus an essential part of the basic intelligence framework......
...If the Moslem states were strong and stable, their behavior would be more predictable. They are, however, weak and torn by internal stresses; furthermore, their peoples are insufficiently educated to appraise propaganda or to understand the motives of those who promise a new Heaven and a new Earth.

Because of the strategic position of the Moslem world and the relentlessness of its peoples, the Moslem states constitute a potential threat to world peace. There cannot be permanent world stability, when one-seventh of the earth’s population exists under the economic and political conditions that are imposed upon the Moslems.

The original full PDF is here; the full transcribed text is here.

H/T: The Gathering Storm.

Using religion to promote sexism

Imagine a nation where there is institutionalized racism. Imagine that in the workplace, blacks and whites must sit separately with partitions in between; where black workers can only deal with other blacks and white workers can only have white customers. Imagine that black people had to wear different clothing from whites and had to cover their faces.

Now try to imagine how the West would act towards that nation.

If you substitute sexism for racism, you don't have to imagine very much. As today's Saudi-based Arab News reports, it is happening now:

JEDDAH, 2 July 2007 — There will be stricter measures enforced to segregate men and women from each other at banks’ headquarters, but there is no official written circular yet regarding that.
According to various reports by news agencies that have spoken to bank managers and women bankers, Saudi authorities have ordered banks to separate female and male workers at their headquarters where they used to work together.
...Men and women bank customers have always been separated with their own branches. A manager at the National Commercial Bank said that female and male employees are completely separated even during training courses and at meetings. A partition has been placed at every floor where there are women employees, which was not the situation at the bank’s headquarters in Jeddah until a few months ago.
Another bank also confirmed that there are strict measures now for separating the male and female employees, but neither bank received any circular from SAMA, according to the managers.
The report by Reuters claims that officials from SAMA and the Labor Ministry held a meeting earlier this month with bank managers to inform of the new system and they had until the end of the summer holidays to implement these rules.
The banks are expected to provide separate floors, elevators, entrance and cafeterias for the men and women. The women bankers feel that this will hurt their careers because it will deprive them of the opportunity to exchange experiences, meet clients and compete for positions on equal basis with men.
An official in SAMA denied that there are new rules or directives but admitted that banks are expected to segregate.
“There has been many complaints and written requests from different government agencies to strictly enforce the segregation because some banks continue to have mixed administrations at their headquarters,” he told Arab News.
Some of these government agencies included the Riyadh municipality and the Commission for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue in addition to some civilians voicing their objections to the mixing.
A manager at a bank in Jeddah said that the Ministry of Labor also requires that there is strict separation and that there are inspection teams that visit the branches and headquarters, just as they do with other business and shops, to observe implementation of this rule.

Now, is this a Koranic rule? Does Islamic law state that men and women may not see each other at work? Were the banks that didn't segregate last year violate Shari'a?

Or is it more likely that the perverted men who run the "Commission for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue" are flexing their political muscles?

Now, it would be very easy for the US to put a dent in this institutionalized sexism. But because of the fear of offending the Muslim street, we turn a blind eye to discrimination that is far worse than anything that apartheid South Africa ever contemplated.

I am not saying that Islamic law needs to be violated. I am saying that this clearly has nothing to do with Islamic law, and imposing a bizarre and arbitrary set of sexist standards on a society at large is something that should be fought with the same tenacity that other discrimination is fought.

Left wing paranoia is really, really funny

I've mentioned before the "People's Voice" website, its anti-semitic articles and the fact that it is indexed at Google News. Apparently, for a couple of days in June, Google News stopped indexing them, and then reinstated them. I have no idea whether this has anything to do with complaints or whether it was a glitch in Google's software, but they are crowing about their ability to be indexed again and about the extremists - namely, me - who tried to shut them down:

In November of 2006, a person behind a blog called Elder of Ziyon launched an attack against the site. They couldn't silence us for telling the truth within the confines of our constitutional rights, so they started digging through the over 800 articles on our site searching for any piece of dirt they could use against us. If one were to search through the archive of any newspaper or magazine, one could reasonably expect to find something that offends somebody, particularly when taken out of context.

They found an article entitled 'Judaism is Nobody's Friend' by Mark Glenn written on November 7, 2006. The article is a factual critical examination of the negative aspects of Judaism, the belief system, not the people. At no point does Mark Glenn use insult or racial slur. It is not an attack against the Jewish people (as such), and can't be called racist or prejudice. The Elder of Ziyon web site wrote a very slanted piece about thepeoplesvoice.org branding us with the anti-Semitism label. They added a link back to Google News for people to complain and hopefully get us removed. After a few weeks of hate mail bombardment from the Ziyon site, Google relented, giving in to a lone provocateur with an e-mail link.

So am I a "lone provocateur" or do I have enough readers to bombard Google with hate mail for weeks? Isn't it strange that I looked through some "800 articles" in November and happened to find one also published in November? Did I try to take their website down? Their attempts to reproduce what happened are laughable and borderline paranoid. But I have to thank them for giving this blog publicity, because the only time I've ever been mentioned in Google News is from their site! (Although they wouldn't, of course, link to me - evidently they are afraid that the fragile minds of their readers might explode if they read something outside of their own echo chamber.)

Later on in their paranoid screed they accuse the Daily Kos far-left website of being in on this conspiracy to close them down. Way too funny:

The slander and repression that we had seen at the Daily Kos caused us to reassess our beliefs about the free and open internet. At first, because of the extremist character of the individuals that were attacking Eileen and thepeoplesvoice.org, it seemed as though a group with a Zionist agenda had infiltrated the Daily Kos. But after considering the content of a "My Left Wing" posting, we realized that there might be another twist to this story. The posting alleges that Marcos Moulitsas, the founder of Daily Kos, is the closest thing to a CIA agent that you'll ever find, short of a real one: one vetted and found worthy but unwilling (?) to seal the lifelong pact with this nefarious organization. For all intents and purposes, we probably would be erring on the safe side if we were to consider him a "real" agent. The fact that the spooks are onboard at Google is old news. It would appear that a possible connection between Kos and Google is likely, and with CIA associations it's not difficult to see why and how Daily Kos and Google are aligned with New World Order philosophy. The two were certainly in agreement when it came to simultaneously censoring thepeoplesvoice.org and Eileen Fleming.

Since the People's voice pretends to be so committed to "free speech," a simple thought experiment will suffice: Would they ever publish an article about Islam similar to the ones they have published about Judaism? And would Google News keep indexing them after such an article is published?

Prostitution in Islam's holiest city

From Arab News:

...On her way out the woman said, “There is another type of marriage, which is much cheaper… But you will only be able to meet your wife for an hour each day. You’ll have to fix the time with her. You’re not allowed to ask her where she lives or where she goes.”

Intrigued, I continued listening. “This type of marriage will cost you only SR5,000 and SR1,000 each month for her expenses,” she added. I agreed to the offer and agreed to meet her the next day. The next day the woman arrived, accompanied by the bride — called Reem — and a man, who claimed to be a ma’zun. The woman asked me to come to her home but I suggested doing the marriage in a public place. They agreed and the marriage contract was written.

Surprisingly, the ma’zun did not even ask for my ID. He simply registered my name (Khalid) and wrote out a marriage contract. He asked us if we agreed to the marriage and congratulated us.

The man then asked if I have any conditions. “Faithfulness is the most important thing to me,” I replied innocently. They smiled at each other, and at my naivete.

He then asked the woman if she had any conditions. “I live with my family and I cannot spend the night outside. So we can meet at my friend’s apartment and do what we want to do there, without informing my family,” she said. I agreed.

The ma’zun then asked me for the dowry. I told him I did not have the money with me at the time and that I would bring the money next week. I then drove the group to the Al-Mansour District. I promised to meet them the next day, but I didn’t bother turning up, I had seen enough.

A few days later, I decided to marry another overstayer from the same district. With the help of some overstayers I made contact with a matchmaker, who asked for only SR2,000 and some time to find me a bride.

A few days later the matchmaker — an African woman — took me to the Sharea Ghourab District of Makkah. When we arrived in the area, she asked me to park my car and proceed on foot. Walking through narrow alleyways I saw a part of Makkah that I had never imagined existed.

Having climbed a steep mountain, we entered an old house. In the main lounge was seated a Nigerian man. The matchmaker spoke to the man in a foreign language at which the man nodded and left the room to return a short while later with three women. He then told me to choose whichever one I wanted. The first woman was a Yemeni national called Abeer, the second was an Ethiopian woman called Safiya and the third was a Nigerian woman called Safi. All three were aged in their 30s. “Abeer is divorced, Safiya is married to a man from Ethiopia and Safi is married on Mesyar to five men here, who visit her according to a fixed time schedule,” said the matchmaker.

“The dowry for anyone of them is only SR2,000. On the day you visit, the woman will be ready. So you choose the one you want,” she added. “I wouldn’t mind marrying all of them for that much,” I said, adding that I needed to go to an ATM machine to get some money for the dowry. The woman led me out and when I got to my car I drove off leaving her standing.

It does seem that such marriages involving overstayers are only a cover for prostitution. Even sincere marriages with overstayers only end in tragedy with the children paying the price for their parents’ mistakes.

By Saudi and Islamic law, only Muslims are allowed to step foot in Mecca.

The rest of the article is about the problems of foreign women in Saudi Arabia who cannot legally marry Saudi men by law and, when they break up, end up having to abandon their children because they can't get health care. Apparently, Saudi government hospitals will not take "unregistered" children.

A Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs, part 8

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7

On November 29, 1947, the UN voted to partition Palestine into separate Arab and Jewish states. This was immediately followed by the Arab Higher Executive calling for a three-day strike and Arabs throughout the land began a series of deadly riots, with all Jews as targets.

The Arab League worked against the establishment of a Jewish state in any part of Palestine, and dark warnings were given about how the Arab street would end up targeting Jews in Arab lands if the state would be born. They started organizing volunteers from neighboring Arab countries to fight the Jews.

The Jewish community in Palestine found itself being attacked from literally all directions. Jews were slaughtered in Haifa, in Jerusalem, and in the Negev. Jews were also targeted in Arab countries, with synagogues burned in Aleppo and scores murdered in Yemen. Jews were attacked wantonly, and virtually the entire Palestinian Arab community wholeheartedly backed the violence against the Jews. Many Jewish communities were cut off from supplies as Arab bands ambushed Jewish convoys and suppy trucks on the roads.

The massacres continued into the new year, with dozens of unarmed Jewish orange growers murdered in January. Also in January, the Arab League started to send its new army into battle to capture Jewish settlements. By February, the British admitted that some 1400 Arab fighters had infiltrated from Syria and Jordan into Samaria, and were being hidden by the local Arab population.

There is no evidence of any Palestinian Arab calls for peace during this time period. While the Chief Rabbi of Israel appealed for calm, while the Haganah and the Jewish Agency emphasized that they wanted to live in peace with the Arabs, no reciprocal calls were made from the Arab side. It appears that the Palestinian Arab community was unified in its desire to do everything necessary to stop Jews from controlling any part of Palestine.

This is not to mean that the Arabs were unified in other areas. Arabs who ignored the strike in December were killed, and the Arab Legion could not agree on strategy. Power struggles broke out between the Arab League-backed Husayni militant faction and the Nejada faction, which ended up fleeing the country. Jordan's King Abdullah, long a friend of the Nashabishis, backed a more representative Palestinian Arab leadership while the rest of the Arab League-backed Amin Husayni.

The Haganah, for the most part, stayed on the defensive and only shot back at the attackers during the first few months after the partition vote. The IZL and the Stern gang were not so circumspect and they would attack both the British and the Arabs without regard to civilian casualties. They were roundly criticized by the mainstream Jewish Agency but their reprisals got bloodier.

Even as these events were happening, the first wave of Arabs started leaving Palestine. Upper- and middle-class Arabs started leaving Jewish-majority areas as early as the first week of December, 1947, and by the end of March over 100,000 Arabs had left their homes, either to other Arab towns that were slated to be in the Arab Palestinian nation or to other Arab countries altogether. For the most part, these moves were voluntary. Almost certainly, this first wave of Arabs fleeing Palestine included many of the same people who left during the 1936-39 riots and then returned - people who had the means and the opportunity to escape what was sure to turn into a war zone.

By the beginning of April, 1948, the Haganah had to re-evaluate its defense policy. Almost every major road between Jewish towns and settlements was dominated by Arab villages and virtually all Arab villages were hostile towards the Jews, strangling the Jewish supply routes. The war against local Arab terror and foreign Arab irregulars needed to be won before the anticipated May 15 withdrawal of all British forces and the expected invasion from the surrounding Arab armies. Politically, things looked bad as well, as the US State Department started making noises that it was not supporting the May partition. The Haganah needed to act to gain the upper hand as soon as the Zionist state was to come into being.

This meant that the Arab villages that were responsible for the convoy attacks, especially within the Jewish partition, would need to be neutralized as a threat. The status quo could not be allowed to go on.

The name of the new Haganah offensive plan was Tochnit Dalet, Plan D. This plan allowed for the military disarmament and, if necessary, destruction of any Arab villages that were considered strategically critical for a contiguous Jewish hold on its areas. While the plan itself could have been theoretically used for "ethnic cleansing" of the Arabs, in reality most of the village populations evacuated ahead of the Zionist offensive in April and May, 1948. There is no indication of a deliberate, planned Jewish policy of "transfer" of Arabs out of the Jewish state. (The entire concept of "transfer" was not considered as distasteful then as it is now; it was almost a given that there would be a transfer of Jews from the Arab state to the Jewish state after partition.)

On the contrary, in Haifa after the Haganah had already won the battle for the city in late April, the Jewish leadership assured the Arab citizens' safety - and the Arabs decided to flee anyway, even though the fighting was over. It appears that they were threatened, explicitly or implicitly, by the Arab Higher Executive not to stay under Jewish protection.

Another instructive episode happened in Tiberias. The Jews and Arabs of Tiberias enjoyed pretty good relations, but outside Arab fighters came to Tiberias and forced the evacuation of the local population in order to be able to fight the Jews there.

The Jews were not entirely blameless in the flight of the Arabs. There were some massacres, including Deir Yassin by the Irgun, but the number of Arabs that fled massacres directly were relatively small. Many, and probably most, of the Arab refugees fled because of wildly inflated rumors of Jewish massacres in neighboring areas. Later in the war the Arabs of Ramle and Lydda were encouraged to leave by the Jews after their towns were captured in July, but those areas had been war zones: the Arab Legion had declared an offensive based out of Lydda towards Tel Aviv after a four-week truce expired, with many Arab soldiers were surrounded and captured during the offensive. Significantly, when the mayor of Lydda offered to surrender, he was shot dead - by the Arabs.

The standard Zionist histories of the war usually say that Arabs were urged to flee by their leaders. While there is little contemporaneous evidence of this happening, reports about such urgings surfaced from a variety of sources, many of which were Arab or pro-Arab. It seems clear that this did in fact happen on a number of occasions, including times where women and children were told to abandon villages (temporarily) so that the men can fight more effectively. It would not exaplin the great majority of Arab flight, however.

In the end, there were many cumulative factors that caused the bulk of Palestinian Arabs to decide to flee: fear of rumored massacres, the loss of their most prominent citizens in the initial flight in 1947, the desire not to live under Jewish sovereignty, the mob mentality that (mostly illiterate) Arabs had where a trickle can quickly turn into a torrent, the sudden loss of jobs in Jewish enterprises, and inter-Arab fighting. Historians have listed these factors in explaining the mass exodus of some 600,000 people. Above all, the major factor that all agree on can be broadly categorized as "fear."

But there is another critical part of the analysis that has not been spoken about, to my knowledge.

In 1948, the Arabs who lived in Palestine still did not consider themselves "Palestinians." They were, above all, Arabs. The nationalism that was pushed by Husayni and their other self-proclaimed "leaders" never really took hold on them, and a large percentage of them were either born in neighboring Arab countries themselves or their parents were. The reason that many of them were in Palestine to begin with was not because of a deep attachment to the land or even because their ancestors lived there - they were there for purely practical reasons, for jobs and money and a good place to raise their families.

The hostilities that started in 1947 changed the calculus in their minds of where they should live. Itinerancy was in their blood, and the idea of moving to another Arab country was not so forbidding - the borders between Arab nations were a fairly arbitrary Western invention and the typical Arab did not recognize them. Arabs had moved freely within the Middle East for centuries and they would continue to do so for centuries more as necessary, and Arabs are famously generous to their guests.

In other words, Arabs were not only calculating the costs/benefits of leaving Palestine, but they were also calculating the costs and benefits of moving elsewhere, where they can start life anew yet again, in honor and dignity.

To understand better why the Arabs left Palestine, it is instructive to ask another question: why didn't the Jews leave Palestine? They were being massacred, they were facing war, they had an uncertain future at best They had no less fear than the Arabs who were abandoning their homes by the hundreds of thousands.

But there were two major differences between the Palestinian Jews and the Palestinian Arabs.

While the Arabs moved to Palestine for mostly practical, economic reasons, the Jews moved there for ideological and religious reasons. Simply put, the Jews had a deep love of the land, and the Palestinian Arabs at the time had very little.

Even more important, though, is the differences in the incentives to leave. The Arabs didn't think that there was much of a downside to leaving - they would either live with their neighbors for a short time while the Arabs destroy the Jewish state and then they would return, or at worst they would be able to start over in another Arab area. The Jews, on the other hand, simply had no other place to go.

It wasn't until the end of 1948 that the Arabs of Palestine started realizing that their calculus was terribly wrong. Instead of being welcomed by their Arab brethren, they were dumped into refugee camps; instead of this being a temporary situation where they would be able to move to their homes in Palestine, the Jews had no interest in welcoming back people who effectively supported their annihilation.

This was only the beginning of their problems. It is truly ironic that the beginning of real Palestinian Arab peoplehood came as a result of them losing their chance at nationhood.

"But it was an accident!"

Since Hamas' takeover of Gaza, news of violent deaths have all but stopped as the few PalArab reporters still there cower in fear. But every once in a while something makes it through the new Iron Curtain:

Palestinian medical sources stated on Saturday that a Palestinian woman, Samah Al-Hor, 24, was killed in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip as a result of the "misuse of arms." She mistakenly received a gunshot to the head.

A 24-year old woman being killed in Gaza is more likely to be a victim of an "honor crime" than an accidental gunshot. Either way, our count of PalArabs violently killed by each other in 2007 is now at 475.

UPDATE: 17 year old shot dead in Qalqiya in"mysterious circumstances." 476.

UPDATE 2: "Unidentified gunmen shot dead on Tuesday evening a Palestinian teenager in the south of the Gaza Strip. He has been named as Nasser Al-Kilani, 19." 477.

UPDATE 3: Man killed in crossfire between Hamas and "Army of Islam" in Gaza. 478.

UPDATE 4: On Saturday, at the same time that the woman above was killed, "At approximately 19:00 also on Saturday, the body of Ahmed al-Sayed Khalil Dughmosh, 28, from Gaza City, was brought to Shifa Hospital. His body was found in Juhor al-Dik village, south of Gaza City. According to medical sources, he was hit by several gunshots throughout the body. Dughmosh had been kidnapped by unknown militants at approximately 17:00 near his house in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood in the southwest of Gaza City." 479.

UPDATE 5: Palpress.com reports:

Two citizens were killed yesterday in Gaza Strip , one was identified as Mazen Al kasas and was killed by un identified gunmen in Sabra neighborhood in Gaza.
Also Ibrahim Al Kilani 23 years old was killed Tuesday at night after being shot during a family dispute in Khan Yunis southern of Gaza.

481.

UPDATE 6:

Gaza - Ma'an - Capt. Abd Al Majid Abu Lihia, 39, has succumbed to wounds which he sustained in June during clashes surrounding the house of senior Fatah activist, Jamal Abu Al-Jidyan, in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian medical sources reported on Thursday.

Al-Jidyan, by the way, is the famous Abu Billygoats. 482.

Farfour the terror mouse gets "martyred"

Hamas has such a good way with children:

Hamas TV on Friday broadcast what it said was the last episode of a weekly children's show featuring "Farfour," a Mickey Mouse look-alike who had made worldwide headlines for preaching Islamic domination and armed struggle to youngsters.

In the final skit, Farfour was beaten to death by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour's land. At one point, Farfour called the Israeli a "terrorist."

"Farfour was martyred while defending his land," said Sara, the teen presenter. He was killed "by the killers of children," she added.

The weekly show, featuring a giant black-and-white rodent with a high-pitched voice, had attracted worldwide attention because the character urged Palestinian children to fight Israel. It was broadcast on Hamas-affiliated Al-Aksa TV.

Do they have virgin female rats in Muslim paradise?

Morning links

A video from MEMRI is getting some publicity from LGF and IRIS - a man on the street asking Saudis if they would shake hands with a Jew.

I knew it sounded familiar - I linked to it back in 2004.
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Mere Rhetoric links to a nice article showing Jimmy Carter's duplicity yet again, this time in purposefully misreading Palestinian Arab polls to make them sound peaceful when the poll indicates the exact opposite.
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The new Palestinian Arab PM is saying the right things. Too little, too late, but enough to get everyone all excited again that Peace Is At Hand.
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The Saudi King snubbed Abbas in a most embarrassing way. Whatever Arab pride Abbas ever had is now officially gone.
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Another meme - I've been tagged

I've been tagged in the "8 Facts About Yourself" meme by Fiery Spirited Zionist. As is my habit, I'll answer the questions out of politeness for the requester, but I will not forward the meme to eight others out of politeness to cyberspace - memes are effectively a combination of computer viruses and pyramid schemes.

1. I've been getting up at 5 AM to blog - not a good thing to do.
2. I never learned how to tie my shoes properly.
3. My first computer was a Commodore Vic-20. I wrote some pretty cool games for it at the time, considering I only had 3.5K of memory. Including a game to teach Hebrew using only the joystick. And my version of "Breakout."
4. I never learned how to blow bubbles from bubble gum.
5. I enjoy coming up with answers to memes like this that do not reveal anything about who I really am.
6. I once had an electronic correspondence with an American convert to Islam from Yahoo message boards. She was very serious about Islam and a very nice person. The last I heard from her she was considering moving to Egypt to learn more. I am very, very worried that she was indoctrinated there into Al-Azhar-style fanaticism.
7. I feel guilty for any day I can't find the time to blog.
8. At my college, my first computer course used punch cards, one of my last ones used the very first Macintosh.

An example of Arab Jew-hatred masked as intellectualism

Al-Ahram in Egypt printed an op-ed, by a professor of political science at Cairo University, where the author starts off saying what is wrong with Arab conspiracy theories, and then swallows one hook, line and sinker. It has to be seen to be believed:

Many, I believe, share my sense of alarm over current events in the Arab world. Many wonder what will become of a region home to the world's worst crises. In Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon, Somalia and Sudan millions are being killed and repressed, imprisoned and tortured, expelled and displaced, brutalised and starved. No sooner do explosions abate in one location that they would flare up in another. Places of worship, the traditional safe haven for those in need of protection, have not just been caught up in the cycle of murder, but have become a target for destruction and bombing. Amid the dust cloud rising from chaos, everyone seems to be grabbing each other's throats. Often, we don't know what the fighting is about.
The most disturbing thing is that the crises present in the aforementioned countries keep escalating, finding new twists, and spilling over elsewhere in a whirlwind of intersecting disasters. Like a deadly disease slowly working its way across the region, some of our countries are in utter turmoil while others appear quiet on the surface. We don't hear explosions in these countries, nor do we see rivers of blood flowing. But if we look beneath the surface, we soon discover that these countries are neither immune nor sturdy. An eruption can happen at any moment.
There is no denying that the crises gripping the Arab world, whether evident or latent, have various roots. The causes may differ from one country to another, but there is a common thread somewhere -- a common thread that makes all vulnerable to civil war, to the kind of turmoil that may redraw the map of the region along ethnic or sectarian lines. How did we get into this fix? Is it self-destruction? Or is it the handiwork of outside powers? If so, what are their plans and intents?

So far, so good - the esteemed professor identifies a large undercurrent of problems throughout the Arab world and is seeking a common thread.

The mere asking of such questions causes controversy in the circles of the Arab elite. Any attempt to answer such questions inevitably puts one in one of two camps: the camp of conspiracy theory and the camp of self- deprecation. The camp of conspiracy theory has a ready- made interpretation for every disaster. It blames all sorts of evil on outside powers that hate the Arabs and the Islamic world -- mainly the US and Israel. The camp of self- deprecation takes the opposite point of view. It argues that our troubles are due to pitfalls latent in the nature of Arab and Islamic political systems. Both camps are busy ridiculing each other's thinking. So you can only challenge one or both at your own risk.
The conspiracy theory people tend to overlook aspects of inertia in the structure of Arab and Islamic regimes, as if the latter have no influence on our dismal reality. The self- deprecating people hate to admit that certain powers are plotting against the Arab world, and are therefore responsible for many of our current tribulations. I believe that it is time to get over the polarisation between those two schools of thought. We should start assessing events on the Arab and Islamic scene from various angles and dimensions, both domestic and foreign. We need to look at the entire picture. No conspiracies, however elaborate, can succeed without the inbuilt drawbacks in our systems.

OK, perhaps a little biased, but on the whole an admirable attempt to realistically come to grips with reality. Right?

I would like now to discuss the way the Zionist mind works and how it hopes to establish a major and dominant Jewish state in the region.

Ah, an analysis of the Zionist mind! Things are getting interesting!

To shed light on that issue, consider an article entitled "A strategy for Israel in the 1980s". Oded Yinon, a former Israeli journalist and diplomat, wrote the article in Hebrew. It appeared in February 1982 in the newspaper Kivunim. The article drew the attention of the Association of Arab-American University Graduates, which asked Israel Shahak, the well-known Israeli human rights activist, to translate it into English and comment on it. The article was then republished under the title, "The Zionist plan for the Middle East."

Yes, out of the hundreds of articles written by Israelis and Zionists about foreign affairs in the past six decades, our good professor seems to have decided - based on commentary by one of the most outstanding Jewish anti-semites of recent history - that this one is emblematic of all of Zionist thought.

Some may wonder why I am interested in an article written by an obscure journalist, even if he was a former employee in the Israeli Foreign Minister. Why would I treat that article as if it were an official document released by the Zionist movement or Israel, instead of relying on the many documents released by official figures and organisations? To those, I would say that Professor Shahak, an authority in Zionist thinking, described the article as the most extensive on the subject and as faithfully mirroring the thinking of the Zionist mainstream on the matter of dividing the Arab world.

Just as an example, Shahak wrote in his book Jewish History, Jewish Religion. The Weight of Three Thousand Years that orthodox Jews worship Satan during ritual hand-washing before meals and that Jewish children are taught a curse to say when they walk outside non-Jewish cemeteries. Yes, the professor has found his authority.

Does it make sense, you may ask, for the Zionist movement to publish a paper that would reveal its true intentions, even if it were written in Hebrew? Shahak provides the answer to this question. First, he points out that the aim of the document is to educate the new generations of the Israeli elite, especially in the military, of the thinking of the founding fathers, whose teachings were up to then relayed orally. Secondly, the Zionists doubt the ability of the Arab mind to react sensibly to any threats, however devastating those could be.

Now that we've solved that problem, time to see what this clearly seminal article from that obscure journal that is the blueprint of Zionist thinking actually says.

The Zionist strategy at stake involves two main aspects. One is its perception of the structure of the region surrounding it from the demographic, social and cultural perspectives. The other aspect is its perception of the security of the Jewish state and of the means to defend this security in an absolute manner, which is the ultimate aim of the Zionist movement.

Concerning the first aspect, the Zionist movement sees the Arab world not as an integral entity that is ethnically, socially, or religiously cohesive, but as a region of immense diversity, a mosaic of countries inside which tribes, sects and minorities are in continual conflict. Current entities, or Arab states, have been created through historic and political coincidences related to the ambitions of foreign powers (the imperial powers that inherited the Ottoman Empire) and the interplay of domestic interests (of tribes, clans and political and social movements). The Zionist movement believes that these units, or Arab states, cannot endure in their current form and can easily be dismantled, which would allow for the region to be reshaped on completely different foundations.

Concerning the second aspect, the Zionist movement believes that Israel's security cannot be achieved through military superiority alone, however important that military superiority may be. So no other major central state should be allowed to exist in the region. The Zionist movement is determined to break up any central state in the region and divide it into small entities created on ethnic or sectarian lines. Once this is done, Israel would become vindicated, for its ethnic foundations would be no different than that of other countries in the region; and Israel would become the biggest, strongest, and most advanced country in the Middle East. This would give it the clout it needs to lead the region and control its future course. In other words, Israel would be the region's mastermind, the country that calls the shots and tells others what to do.

I can imagine a serious article talking about how fractured the Arab world is, and even how it is in Israel's interests to encourage indigenous ethnic Arab subgroups to assert themselves. But it takes a special kind of paranoia to see this article as a blueprint for regional Zionist domination that echoes, in nationlistic terms, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. And now that this Egyptian professor feels that his arguments are air-tight, he is free to see the world since 1982 in terms of Jewish - um, Zionist - domination:

The above is a short synopsis of Yinon's article, and yet the article is worthy of further discussion. First, because the article was published for the first time years after Egypt signed a peace agreement with Israel, a few months after the assassination of President Anwar El-Sadat, and a few months before Israel pulled out of Sinai on 25 April 1982. When Israel invaded Lebanon, less than four months after the article was published, it was literally doing everything Yinon recommended. ...

Second, it has now become clear, beyond any doubt, that the Zionist movement, led by Israel, has played a pivotal role in prodding the current US administration to invade Iraq. The US administration acted like a tool in the hand of a Zionist movement that wanted Iraq partitioned at any cost, and that hopes to see other countries in the region follow suit.

Third, it is the right of future generations of Arab citizens to be aware of plots against their countries. We must encourage the young generations to keep an open mind about all ideas, including those attributed to conspiracy theories, before they wake up one day and discover that their future has been shattered or their land taken away.

I will dedicate three more articles to a detailed discussion of Yinon's essay. In the first article, I will discuss Zionist schemes against Egypt, focussing on Israel's hope to restore Sinai and divide Egypt into two states, a Coptic one in the south and a Sunni one in the north. In the second article, I will discuss Zionist designs on the eastern part of the Arab world; namely, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iraq. In the third, I will discuss Zionist schemes for the Gulf and North Africa. Again, I do not wish to promote conspiracy theories per se, but some risks of naïvety are too real to ignore.

There you have it. A secret Zionist plan, cleverly leaked out to the public where only the most far-seeing Arabs can see its huge importance, for regional dominance and the destruction of the Arab world.

This is how the elite academics and intellectuals of the Arab world - in a country that is supposedly at peace with Israel - think. (I would rather not fall into the trap this author does of generalizing one article - if someone can find me Egyptian political science articles that do not think that there is a Zionist plan to dominate the Arab world or the world at large, I will be happy to give it equal space. But I've never seen it.)

Olmert to Sderot: Drop Dead

In an astonishing public display of impotence, Ehud Olmert has essentially told the residents of Sderot to just suck it up and not kvetch so much about living in a human shooting gallery:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Thursday that he had no intention of providing maximal protection to all residents of Gaza periphery communities. "A country cannot protect itself ad infinitum, because there would be no end to it."

Olmert was addressing the Caesarea Conference.

The prime minister added that stepping up protection would be "just as [ineffective] as the demand to solve Sderot's Kassam problem by wiping Beit Hanun and other towns in Gaza off the face of the earth.

The prime minister appealed to the residents of the Gaza periphery: "In the short term we cannot supply you with all of the personal security that we would like to provide, because such protection would draw from expensive resources that are needed for other critical security needs."

Olmert also addressed the media, asking that they "not encourage, even mutely, demands of citizens that no normal government could accept." He added that "life in Israel entails a certain security risk, and anyone who chooses to live in the Jewish state is accepting this risk." And yet, "the risk in Israel is lower than the risk threatening Jews in other parts of the world."

Olmert makes Abbas look strong.

His straw man argument that since perfect security is impossible, the current level of security must be OK is not worthy of a high school debating team.

His apparent concern of the safety of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza sworn to destroy the Jewish state to be equivalent or superior to his concern about the residents of Israel itself is nothing short of obscene coming from any citizen, let alone the supposed leader of the country.

And his request that the media not take the side of citizens who, because of Olmert's failed policy of disengagement, are now in daily peril is more reminiscent of a Syria than an Israel.

Abbas controls no one (besides the Western media)

Yesterday:

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas took steps Tuesday against factional fighting by outlawing armed groups outside the official PA security forces, and ruling that the government will confiscate all arms from these groups.

"On the basis of the declaration of a state of emergency in the Palestinian territories, and by virtue of my authority, all armed militias, groups and brigades that do not belong in practice to the security services shall be treated as illegal organizations," stated the decree.

Today:

Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Brigades refuse to dissolve or to disarm and reject the truce in the West Bank

The Fatah-affiliated Al Aqsa Brigades have announced that they have rejected the presidential decree regarding the disbanding of militia in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The spokesman of the brigades, Abu Oday, told Ma'an that, following consultations with the brigades' leaders in the West Bank, they have issued the following declaration:

First: the rejection of the dissolution of the brigades, "because they are a resistance group, and are defending the country and the dignity of the people".

Second: the refusal to disarm the group, "because it is a legitimate arm of resistance, and is the only weapon to remain to defend the Intifada ["Uprising"]."

Third: the rejection of the description of the brigades as 'militias', "which defame the Palestinians, and it is nonsense to describe the only remaining armed wing as a militia." [EoZ - wonder what they think of "terrorists?"]

Fourth: the brigades support the presidents' decision to withdraw illegal arms used in the lawlessness, and announce that they stand with the security forces to stop the state of disorder.

Fifth: the brigades will "do their best" to aid the security forces, "and will be honored to stand beside the security forces to defend the country."

Sixth: the brigades will not be complacent before the crimes of the occupation, "and will retaliate for the crimes committed [by the occupying Israeli military], especially in the recent days in the [Gaza] Strip, Nablus and Jenin.

Seventh: the brigades reject the connection established between themselves and the current state of lawlessness, and confirm that they "were created to confront the occupation and its aggression against the Palestinian people".

Eighth: the brigades will not be committed to a truce with the Israelis, as long as the occupation continues the crimes and incursions against Palestinians and their cities.

Abbas' next move will be, as usual, forfeit.

Either Abbas controls the terrorists, in which case he is complicit in terrorism, or he has no ability to control his own factions, in which case he is weak to the point of irrelevance. Either way, he is not someone who should be "strengthened" and rewarded.

American and Palestinian Arab slums

Gaza and the West Bank are reminiscent of American inner cities in the 60s and 70s. No authority figures, no leadership, poverty, rampant crime, extraordinarily dangerous, ruled by gangs, and the complete absence of any sort of justice. In addition, the criminals are quick to blame the rest of the world for their actions while the innocent residents are stuck with nowhere else to go.

The differences between the two cases are perhaps more enlightening. . Slums were cleaned up by a combination of innovative economic programs, grass-roots volunteerism and outside investment. But in the end, the people who were vital to cleaning up drug-infested neighborhoods were the residents themselves. There were still a significant number of residents who got used to the welfare culture and who had little interest in doing work - they got their food and a little money for doing nothing, which seems like a great deal. Yet a significant number of American slum residents still managed to get to real jobs, to interact with the rest of society and to have hope for the future; they were the heroes who finally stood up to the gangs and put in the hard work necessary to fix up and beautify their neighborhoods.

In the end, those who feel the most entitled are the worst people to have around when a society needs fixing.

Since the Intifada, the Palestinian Arabs are now far more dependent on the world's largesse than any slum community ever was. They have been told for years by the world that a Palestinian Arab state is inevitable and will happen no matter what - sometimes, even within specified timetables. Their once proud Arab culture has been transformed into a series of giant ghettos with pockets of normalcy amongst the twin cultures of death and entitlement.

Before 2000, even though their leaders had little interest in truly building a state, they at least had hope - they had jobs, they had an economy, they had some measure of pride. But we are going on to seven years now of the Palestinian Arab welfare state - billions of dollars thrown into compensate for the economic catastrophe that the Intifada wrought.

The American ghettos still had a critical mass of people who were willing to stand up and take responsibility. The PA ghettos have raised an entire generation of people who not only feel that they are owed everything, but that the violence that caused their problems is laudable and heroic.

Up until 2006, one could still sympathize with the presumed majority of innocent Palestinian Arabs who just wanted to live their lives and raise their families. But it has become clear since then that the majority has shifted, that the culture of death (from the most respected religious figures) and entitlements (from the UN, the EU and the world) has become the major driving forces in the Palestinian Arab psyche. Hamas' victories in 2006 may have been a backlash against Fatah corruption but it is also an indication of the value that this society places on pure terror. It is not surprising that this twin culture has spawned deadly infighting.

If Tony Blair succeeds in building up the economy of the PA it would be a win-win for all the parties involved (besides the terrorists.) In the end, however, the major ingredient for fixing the PA will not come from without but from within, and right now it doesn't look like there are enough people left in the territories to stand up and do what is necessary. Until real eaders emerge, until personal responsibility becomes the norm again, all the money in the world will not only be wasted on the Palestinian Arabs but it will entrench the twin cultures of death and entitlement.