Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Abbas pretty much declared martial law. The West still loves him.

Sometimes, when the terrorists accuse the West of hypocrisy, they have a good point.

Everyone's favorite Holocaust denier has been completely circumventing existing Palestinian Arab laws in order to keep himself in power. Now, the quality of freedom and democracy in the PA was never very good to begin with, and there has been no judicial system to speak of for years. Even so, Abbas has now extended to the military a lot of judicial powers and he's done many other questionable actions. As PCHR mentions:

PCHR expresses its utmost concern over the latest presidential decree concerning the military judiciary under the state of emergency, which implies an extortion of the authorities of the Palestinian civil judiciary to be granted to the military judiciary. PCHR believes that this latest decree, which has been the most breakneck in a series of presidential decrees issued in the context of the state of emergency, is a prescription for the destruction of the judicial authority and the civil life towards the militarization of the Palestinian society, the derangement of the constitution, the confiscation of public liberties and the enforcement of a military dictatorship.

Some of PCHR's specific problems with Abbas' decress are:

1) PCHR believes that this decree opens the doors wide for militarizing the Palestinian society, enforcing a military dictatorship and destroying the civil life and judiciary under the pretext of the existing state of emergency, through:

- The extortion of the authorities of the civil judiciary to be given to the military judiciary;

- The extortion of the authorities of the Attorney-General to be given to the military judiciary; and

- The extortion of the authorities of judicial warranty officials to be granted to all members of security services.

2) PCHR is very astonished that the decree relied in its preamble on the PLO Revolutionary Law of the Regulation of Trials Revolutionary Penal Law of 1979, which are unconstitutional because they have not been ratified by the PNA. PCHR also denounces recalling Military Order #555 of 1959, which was issued during the Egyptian control of the Gaza Strip pertaining to the Egyptian Penal Law that is no longer effective in Egypt.

It has always been a mistake to pretend that Abbas was a real partner for peace, but to prop up someone who breaks his own laws will never work.

Seeing Condi Rice and President Bush and Ehud Olmert and the EU fall all over themselves to support this ineffective and impotent joker is not the way to win over Arab hearts and minds. The hole that was dug by allowing Hamas to run in the elections as a legitimate democratic party is getting deeper by the week, and I don't have a good short-term solution.

Today's example of MSM blindness

An AP dispatch from Ramallah shows the amazing ability for people to see facts for themselves and draw exactly the wrong conclusions:

Ramalah an island of Palestinian peace

RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) — Mohammed Kilani, a computer technician, hits the gym every other day to swim laps and lift weights. Umm Hussein, whose husband sells BMWs, takes her kids to the mall to shop, eat in the food court and play video games.

Despite the crippling poverty and frequent violence in the Palestinian territories, the city of Ramallah, the unofficial capital of the West Bank, holds out as an island of middle class existence.

The Islamic militant Hamas is largely absent from this city of 57,000, meaning that Ramallah could provide the best glimpse of what a Palestinian state could look like without Israeli occupation, with its trade and travel bans — if moderate President Mahmoud Abbas' secular agenda prevails.

While armed militias rule the streets of Nablus, and Gazans largely survive on U.N. food handouts, residents of Ramallah take yoga and Salsa dance classes or sip cappuccinos and beer in mixed groups — behavior that could get them killed 10 miles away.
...
In the weight room at Tri Fitness, the city's swankiest health club, Kilani, 25, took a break from lifting weights to compare Ramallah to his hometown, Jenin, which is next to one of the West Bank's most militant refugee camps.

In Jenin, coffee shops are only for men, unlike in Ramallah, he said over the crooning of Arab pop singers from the TV sets on the walls. Fewer women in Ramallah wear veils than elsewhere in the West Bank, he added.
Ramallah's rise has coincided with the decline of other West Bank cities like Nablus, the West Bank's second largest, where armed militias roam the streets.
Hakim Sabbah, 30, said Nablus had three movie theaters when he was a child. Sabbah, who works for a local aid group, Project Hope, said he once acted in a theater group that performed in the streets of Nablus' old city. "That's something we don't do any more," he said.

The cinemas closed during the first Palestinian uprising in the late 1980s, and continuous street violence has prompted many businesses to relocate to Ramallah or neighboring Jordan, leading to greater unemployment.
...
Such worries feel distant from Ramallah's handful of Western-style coffee shops and bars, where English slang peppers Arabic conversations, men and women chat openly, beer is served despite an Islamic prohibition on alcohol and foreign passports abound. In neighboring villages, such behavior risks a violent reaction from conservative Muslims. In Hamas-controlled Gaza, it would be out of the question.

"I love Ramallah because you have these kinds of places that break gender stereotypes," said Saleh Hijazi, 24, sharing a table at the Pronto Resto Cafe with four other Palestinian twenty-somethings, all U.S.-educated.

"But I also feel that the place is very elitist," he added. "You can say that about Ramallah in general."

Hijazi sipped his beer and lit another Gauloise Blonde cigarette while the girl next to him discussed film theory with a guy in dreadlocks.

"You feel like you're living in a bubble inside of the West Bank," Hijazi continued, adding that he recently read a news report about 13 deaths in Gaza.

"I care about what's happening there," he said, "but physically and psychologically, it feels very far away."

The lead of the story indicates that all the PA territories could be just like Ramallah if it wasn't for those pesky militants. Then, as you read on, you see that Ramallah is the exception - that the entire West Bank is not much different than Hamas' Gaza in outlook.

Yet the author highlights how progressive Ramallah is, and how it can be a model for peace, rather than the real story - how the majority of Palestinian Arabs view Ramallah's residents as elitist sell-outs to the hated West.

All the facts are in the story, but the emphasis is clearly on the optimistic side.

The reason, once again, is that the MSM has a narrative about the Palestinian Arab/Israeli conflict:

Israel is an aggressive occupier of Palestinian lands.
Palestinian Arabs are mostly peaceful, secular people who are under merciless attack by Israel.
Hamas and the other "militants" are aberrations.
Islamic fundamentalism in the territories are aberrations.
Jewish fundamentalism, however, is the norm among fanatic intolerant settlers.

This narrative is so embedded in the collective MSM mindset that even when the truth is staring at them in the face, they choose to ignore and downplay it in favor of the higher truths that these reporters know in their hearts.

Israel accused of helping Hamas!

The pro-Fatah, anti-Hamas Palestine Press Agency (Arabic) "reports" (autotranslated):

An informed Palestinian source revealed that Israel is working hard to support Hamas in the Gaza Strip from behind the curtain against President Mahmoud Abbas symbol of the Palestinian legitimacy, and the recruitment of its policy of separating the West Bank from the Gaza Strip to destroy any chance of an independent Palestinian state, , which represents the continuation of the coup Hamas in Gaza greater service to it.

Quoting the "statement" issued today by the UAE source as saying that "the statements of Israeli leaders to close crossings to international aid for the Gaza Strip has become big lie because there is no siege on the Gaza Strip, Welfare and fuel up regularly."

This is another example of Arab projection: since Arabs would never consider allowing their enemies' civilians to get humanitarian aid, the fact that Israel does this is "proof" that Israel supports Hamas' takeover of Gaza.

Hamas repeats history: hurting PalArabs in a vain attempt to hurt Israel

People who have been reading my History of PalArabs series will find this story familiar:

Hamas's Finance Ministry on Monday barred Israeli fruits and vegetables from entering the Gaza Strip on Monday, according to the spokesman for the Fruit Growers Association.
The move is likely to cost Israeli fruit growers NIS 3-5 million a day, according to the association.
The Hamas decision will also make it harder for Palestinians to keep fruits and vegetables in their diet, particularly those items not grown in Gaza, according to Shlomo Dror, spokesman for the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories.
Upon hearing that Palestinian private contractors on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing planned to adhere to the prohibition, Israeli businessmen did not send out the scheduled 60 trucks of produce, Dror told The Jerusalem Post. The fruit and vegetable ban is the latest in a set of anti-Israel moves by Hamas, including continued mortar fire on the crossing, to keep Kerem Shalom closed.
On Saturday, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said, "We are against opening the Zionist-controlled crossing of Kerem Shalom." He added that its use was part of a conspiracy by Israel and the pro-American Fatah leadership in Ramallah against the Palestinians in Gaza.
But according to the United Nations, the use of Kerem Shalom and Sufa as alternative crossings has been a lifeline that has allowed the UN to provide food staples to 1.1 million of the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza.
David Baker, a spokesman for the Prime Minister's Office, lashed out at Hamas's decision. "Israel endeavors to allow the entry of as much produce into the Gaza Strip as possible to alleviate the Palestinian situation. However, Hamas wants to exacerbate the plight at the expense of their own people by fomenting resentment against Israel."
...Dror added that the Hamas ban, along with the mortars it fires against the crossing, did not, however, prevent other goods' passage into Gaza through Kerem Shalom.
Israel and the United Nations have continued to help facilitate humanitarian aid, such as basic food supplies and animal feed, into Gaza via both through Kerem Shalom and Sufa. The Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has also assisted operations at Kerem Shalom, which was the main commercial thoroughfare until Hamas seized power in Gaza last month.
According to Dror, an average of 150 trucks a day enter through Kerem Shalom and Sufa as alternatives to the Karni crossing, which has been closed - except to wheat shipments - since June 12th for technical and security reasons.
Israel and the UN have begun to rely on Kerem Shalom and Sufa, which are easier to secure because they are slightly set back from the border. Even then, said Dror, there have been almost daily mortar attacks on Kerem Shalom, while according to Eshel, Sufa is not suitable for transporting most produce as the high levels of dust in that area could easily damage delicate fruits and vegetables.
On average, approximately 500 tons of fruit, including bananas, apricots, plums and avocados, are moved into the Gaza Strip every summer.

So Hamas is shelling the crossing from which it gets most of its food, while the hated Jews and UN do everything possible to keep the flow of supplied into Gaza open.

In 1946-47, the Arab League announced a boycott against all Jewish goods, a farce that didn't end up hurting the Jews at all and resulted in Arab infighting. (The Jews found new markets for their goods and the Arabs bombed stores that ignored the boycott.)

At the very least, it should help Israeli charitable organizations to donate even more produce to Israel's own poor people, who actually appreciate getting help feeding their children.

Lions and squirrels and UFOs, oh my!

Hamas has tried to milk their theater of freeing Alan Johnston into political points but the momentum has slowed as they continue to shoot and intimidate their rivals in Gaza.

So they had to find another hostage to free:

On Monday, Hamas operatives raiding the hideout of a notorious drug ring stumbled upon a lion stolen at riflepoint two years ago from the Gaza Zoo, said a force commander, Abu Hamam al-Deeb. But she was malnourished, missing four teeth, claws and part of her tail, a veterinarian said.
The operatives found the 2-year-old lion - as well as drugs and a weapons cache that were the target of the raid - after exchanging fire with the gunmen, al-Deeb said.
Sabrina was brought back to the Gaza Zoo and reunited with her brother, Sakher, who had avoided capture by resisting the gunmen. The two playfully swatted each other in the face and chased each other. When a zoo guard tried to pet Sabrina, Sakher crouched as if ready to pounce on him.
"We will start a long, arduous treatment to ensure she can survive," said the zoo veterinarian, Soud al-Shawaa. "She will only eat minced meat from now on so we feel sorry for her. ... They should punish the criminals who did this to her."

Sabrina had last been seen during a recent Muslim holiday at a Gaza photography studio where her captors charged about a dollar (€.74) for a picture with the lion.

Those Hamas guys are all heart!

Then again, the lion might be a spy, like the Zionist squirrels of Iran:

According to IRNA, the official Islamic Republic news agency, the national Police chief has implicitly verified the news about the confiscation of a number of squirrels, equipped with eavesdropping devices, on the Iranian borders. He has declined to give any more details, but, reportedly, when asked about the confiscation of 14 spy squirrels, he stated, “I have heard about it, but I do not have precise information”. IRNA adds, “These squirrels were equipped by foreign intelligence services, but were captured two weeks ago by the Police”.

Go here to learn about not only the squirrels, but the fact that the 12th Imam may show up in a UFO:

2- The Iranian blogger Gameeron reports that he has heard on a state-run radio station that a cleric has been talking about the twelfth Imam, who is supposed to rise and make earth all Godly. He has reportedly mentioned, “It is not like Imam will use his sword to defeat the enemies. Have you not heard about the occasional news about the UFOs which are spotted in the sky? We know nothing about the passengers of those objects. Maybe, Imam will use UFOs to attack his enemies. Because, when the time comes, he will call you guys and will tell you, ‘You! Go and become the governor of London, You! Go and become the governor of Chicago. You! Go and become the governor of Berlin. You have to be ready for the time, when he calls on you to become the governor of Paris’”.

Syria invades Lebanon - and no one cares

From Michael Totten: (h/t LGF)

A few days ago Lebanese daily newspaper Al Mustaqbal quietly reported a limited Syrian invasion of Lebanon. (Via Naharnet.)
Syrian troops on Thursday reportedly have penetrated three kilometers into Lebanese territories, taking up positions in the mountains near Yanta in east Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
The daily Al Mustaqbal, citing sources who confirmed the cross-border penetration, did not say when the procedure in the Fahs Hill overlooking Deir al-Ashaer in the Rashaya province took place.
The sources said Syrian troops, backed by bulldozers, were fortifying positions "in more than one area" along the Lebanese border, erecting earth mounds and digging "hundreds" of trenches and individual bunkers.
This happened immediately before I left town for two days. When I returned I was surprised to find no mention of this whatsoever anywhere else in the media. I assumed the story had to be false. How could Syria invade three kilometers into any region of Lebanon without triggering a diplomatic and media storm?
So I emailed Michael Young, opinion page editor at Beirut’s Daily Star, and asked him if the story was nonsense. “It is true,” he said, “but the problem is that the 3 kilometers are in isolated areas, so that it isn't making headlines. However, the UN will be discussing border issues this week, I think, and that will be brought up. The Syrians are ratcheting up the pressure, but with the attack against UN troops in the south, they are, as one UN official put it, playing with fire.”

If Israel sent the IDF three kilometers into Lebanon and started digging trenches and building bunkers it would make news all over the world. But Syria does it and everyone shrugs. Hardly anyone even knows it happened at all.

Syria can, apparently, get away with just about anything. I could hardly blame Assad at this point if he believes, after such an astonishing non-response, that he can reconquer Beirut. So far he can kill and terrorize and invade and destroy with impunity, at least up to a point. What is that point? Has anyone in the U.S., Israel, the Arab League, the European Union, or the United Nations even considered the question?

Meanwhile, the Syrian government is evacuating its citizens from Lebanon in advance of…something they expect to happen after July 15, 2007.

Ahmadinejad in his own words

There are a number of people who are disputing whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ever really said the literal words that he wants to wipe Israel off the map (here's only one example.)

UPI has nicely decided to put together statements that Ahmadinejad has been reported to say from a number of sources. It sheds a bit of light on the possible motives of the madman's defenders:

Whether Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wants to wipe Israel off the map is still contested, even by anti-mullah Iranian Americans. But that he wants to wipe out the Jewish state, there can be no doubt. As he completes his visits to every Iranian town, the collection of his pronunciamentos is edifying reading.
Culled from a wide variety of sources, ranging from the London Daily Telegraph, to the Suddeutsche Zeitung Online, to France's Le Monde and Liberation, Ahmadinejad spells out the target and the strategy:
-- This regime (Israel) will one day disappear.
-- The Zionist regime is a rotten tree that will be blown away by one storm.
-- The countdown for the destruction of Israel has begun.
-- Zionists are the personification of Satan.
-- In the case of any unwise move by the fake regime of Israel, Iran's response will be so destructive and quick that the regime will regret its move forever.
-- The West invented the myth of the massacre of the Jews (in World War II) and placed it above Allah, religions and prophets.
Ahmadinejad's strategic recipe:
-- We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world.
-- The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach the entire world.
-- Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance pf the 12th Imam, the Mahdi (a 5-year-old boy who vanished 1,100 years ago and who will lead the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but not before the planet is convulsed by death and destruction).
-- Soon Islam will become the dominating force in the world, occupying first place in the number of followers among all other religions.
-- Is there a craft more beautiful, more sublime, more divine, than the craft of giving yourself to martyrdom and becoming holy? Do not doubt Allah will prevail, and Islam will conquer mountaintops of the entire world.
-- Iran can recruit hundreds of suicide bombers a day. Suicide is an invincible weapon. Suicide bombers in this land showed us the way, and they enlighten our future.
-- The will to commit suicide is one of the best ways of life.
-- By the grace of Allah we will be a nuclear power and Iran does not give a damn about (IAEA) demands (to freeze enrichment of nuclear fuel).
-- Iran does not give a damn about resolutions.
-- The Islamic Republic of Iran has the capacity to quickly become a world superpower.
-- Iran's enemies know your courage, faith and commitment to Islam and ... Iran has created a powerful army that can powerfully defend the political borders and the integrity of the Iranian nation and cut off the hand of any aggressor and place the sign of disgrace on their forehead.
-- In parallel to the official political war there is a hidden war going on and the Islamic states should benefit from their economic potential to cut off the hands of the enemies.
-- Addressing a conference devoted to "The World Without Zionism," Ahmadinejad said, "To those who doubt, to those who ask is it possible, or those who do not believe, I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible."

Clear enough for you?

The futility of "goodwill gestures"

From Ma'an:

The families of Palestinian prisoners detained in Israeli jails have expressed their reservations about the Israeli prime minister's initiative to release 250 Fatah-affiliated prisoners. They said that accepting such an offer would only fracture the Palestinian national unity, and they called on President Abbas to make a deal that includes all Palestinian detainees without exceptions.

The prisoners' families depicted freeing any Palestinian detainee as an accomplishment; however, they expressed their fear that the 250 whom Israeli Prime Minister Olmert intends to free would include only prisoners who have almost completed their sentences, and who are scheduled for release shortly in any case.

Such conduct would help improve the Israeli image internationally, the families said, while failing to serve the Palestinian people, of whom almost 12, 000 are detained in Israeli jails in dire conditions. In addition, most of the detainees are denied visits by their families.

The prisoners' families held their weekly sit-in outside the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Monday. They asserted that they would prefer a comprehensive prisoners' swap that includes all affiliations and is conducted under Palestinian conditions.

Israel is stupidly offering, for free, to release 250 known or probable terrorists, and their families are supposedly saying that it is not a good idea.

Now it is entirely possible that this is a contrived PR move where the families of known terrorist murderers, who know that their relatives will never be released, are being set up to be quoted in a newspaper purely for pressuring Israel. Nevertheless, it shows the absolute futility of "goodwill gestures" - they create no goodwill at all, and on the contrary, they engender even more demands.

The only goodwill that ever come out of moves like this are a very temporary PR bump for Israel in the West. These reactions generally last a few weeks. Then, Israel is stuck with the consequences of unilateral gesture that cannot be undone - in this case, dealing with hundreds of new terrorists in the territories.

The day that Palestinian Arabs thank Israel for unilateral gestures is the day that they may have real value. As long as they are greeted with jeers and insults, their goodwill value seems to be below zero.

Mustafa Barghouti's lies: Why Rafah is closed

The PA has a new professional spokesliar, doing for Mahmoud Abbas what Saeb Erekat did for Yasir Arafat for many years. He is Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, and he has been issuing daily statements about Israel that are filled with lies and half-truths.

His latest lies concern the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt:

PLC member and secretary general of the Palestinian National Initiative, Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, said on Saturday that the Israel denying reentry to Gaza to 6,000 Palestinians trapped at Rafah Crossing is endangering their lives.

Barghouthi said in a press release that "28 Palestinians have died at the crossing since June 1st and the world has remained silent on Israeli actions, which transformed the strip into an open-air detention centre."

He added that a large number of Palestinians trapped at the crossing are in urgent need of medical treatment.

Barghouthi explained that even the deceased were not immune to Israeli punishment as they were denied entry to the strip and held in morgue in Egyptian hospitals.

Now, let's look at the truth:

Israel has offered to allow any stranded Gazans to enter through the Kerem Shalom crossing.
As soon as this offer was made, Hamas and Islamic Jihad shelled that same crossing and threatened the lives of any Palestinian Arabs who attempt to use it.
The next day, Egypt prevented thousands of stranded Palestinians from going to the Kerem Shalom crossing.
The EU is responsible for Rafah, and the agreement that opened Rafah to begin with specified that Fatah would be responsible for control there. The EU considers Hamas to be a terror organization and they cannot according to their own agreement allow Hamas to re-open the crossing.
The bodies of those who died at Rafah were transferred to Gaza through Kerem Shalom.

I think that's enough to prove that Barghouti is a liar.

Saudi Arabia sentences tragic teen to beheading

From the Asian Human Rights Commission:

This case concerns Rizana Naffeek who is facing the death sentence in Saudi Arabia, allegedly for the strangulation of a four month old baby. Through close study of the case the Asian Human Rights Commission is satisfied that, in fact, what has taken place was the tragic death of a baby in the process of being fed by an inexperienced teenager.
Rizana Naffeek was born on February 4, 1988 and comes from a war-torn, impoverished village. Here, many families, including those of the Muslim community try to send their under aged children for employment outside the country, as their breadwinners. Some employment agencies exploit the situation of the impoverished families to recruit under aged girls for employment. For that purpose they engage in obtaining passports by altering the dates of birth of these children to make it appear that they are older than they really are. In the case of Rizana Naffeek, the altered date, which is to be found in her passport now, is February 2, 1982. It was on the basis of this altered date that the employment agency fixed her employment in Saudi Arabia and she went there in May, 2005.
She went to work at the house of Mr. Naif Jiziyan Khalaf Al Otaibi whose wife had a new-born baby boy. A short time after she started working for this family she was assigned to bottle feed the infant who was by then four months old. Rizana Naffeek had no experience of any sort in caring for such a young infant. She was left alone when bottle feeding the child. While she was feeding the child the boy started choking, as so often happens to babies and Rizana Naffeek panicked and while shouting for help tried to sooth the child by feeling the chest, neck and face, doing whatever she could to help him. At her shouting the mother arrived but by that time the baby was either unconscious or dead. Unfortunately, misunderstanding the situation the family members treated the teenager very harshly and handed her over to the police, accusing her of strangling the baby. At the police station also, she was very harshly handled and did not have the help of a translator or anyone else to whom she could explain what had happened. She was made to sign a confession and later charges were filed in court of murder by strangulation.
On her first appearance in court she was sternly warned by the police to repeat her confession, which she did. However, later she was able to talk to an interpreter who was sent by the Sri Lankan embassy and she explained in her own language the circumstances of what had happened as stated above. This version was also stated in court thereafter.

The Arab News delivers the punchline:

Upon hearing the case, the judge urged Otaibi, the child’s father, to use his prerogative to pardon the maid, which he refused to do. Therefore, the Shariah court sentenced her to death by beheading and gave her a period of one month to lodge an appeal, which has been left up to the Sri Lankan government to file.

However, Sri Lanka has not been given access to the documents needed to file the appeal, and time runs out on July 16.

So far, Human Rights Watch has not taken notice of this case, but Amnesty International (UK) has:

Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen said:

'The death penalty is always wrong but it is an absolute scandal that Saudi Arabia is preparing to behead a teenage girl who didn't even have a lawyer at her trial.
'The Saudi authorities are flouting an international prohibition on the execution of child offenders by even imposing a death sentence on a defendant who was reportedly 17 at the time of the alleged crime.
'Rizana's execution must be stopped and she must be allowed proper legal representation. Saudi Arabia should also freeze all further executions and stop what has become a torrent of judicial killing in recent months.'
Rizana has apparently informed the authorities that she was born in February 1988, but the Saudi authorities have reportedly ignored this on the basis that her passport indicated that she was born in 1982. According to information available to Amnesty International, no medical examination is believed to have been carried out to ascertain her age, nor was she given the opportunity to present her birth certificate, which reportedly shows that she was born in 1988.
In January 2006 Saudi Arabia assured the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child that no children had been executed in the country since the children's convention came into force in Saudi Arabia in 1997. This is a weaker commitment than is required by the convention, which demands that no one is executed for crimes committed when they were under 18, no matter how old they are now.
Amnesty International is raising urgent concern over the plight of Rizana Nafeek at a time when executions in Saudi Arabia have increased rapidly. In the first six months of this year nearly 100 people in the Kingdom have already been executed, including three women. Half of these have been foreign nationals, mostly from poor countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In 2006 Saudi Arabia was known to have executed 39 people (though the true figure may have been higher), the seventh highest number in the world. This year the execution 'rate' is approximately five times higher than last year's, and Saudi Arabia is now likely to have one of the highest execution tolls for 2007 of any country in the world.

AHRC is organizing a letter-writing campaign to the bereaved father asking him to pardon the girl, which is enough to spare her under Shari'a law. So far it hasn't helped.

AHRC is calling on Muslim scholars to speak out. That hasn't happened. In fact, I have not yet seen any of the prominent Muslim "human rights" organizations say a word about this case.

A single phone call from the US government would probably have more effect to help the girl than anything else. There's only a week left.

A Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs, part 9

(This chapter is a bit different, as I became fascinated by the story of Abu Ghosh and saw it as a great example of how things could have been in 1948. Here is a classic example of the exception that proves the rule.)

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

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The village of Abu Ghosh was established in the 1500s on top of a Biblical site known as Kiryat Ye'arim. Within the town are some extremely important historical finds, including a Crusader church and evidence of the Roman Tenth Legion camping there during the siege of Jerusalem in the first century. It is named after the family that lived there, which for a while levied a toll on pilgrims coming on the road to Jerusalem. The original Abu Ghosh was regarded with some fear as a robber by the Christian visitors to Jerusalem in the 19th century.

Unlike most Arab villages in Palestine, Abu Ghosh enjoyed excellent relations with the Jews. They sold land willingly to Zionists in 1912, that was to become Kibbutz Kiryat Anavim. During the 1920 riots they assured their kibbutz neighbors that they would defend them, if necessary. There were no attacks on Jews from Abu Ghosh in 1921, nor 1929, nor the years of Arab terror from 1936-39. They emphatically did not support the al-Husayni family from Jerusalem, a mere ten miles away, and generally were more supportive of Husayni's rivals the Nashashibis. Husayni rewarded their impertinence with at least one attack on their leaders in 1946.

Of the 36 Arab villages in the hills around Jerusalem during the 1948 war, only Abu Ghosh (which was a crucial village in keeping the road to Jerusalem open) remained somewhat friendly to the Jews. (One of them, Yousef Abu-Ghosh, was even a member of the Jewish militant Stern Gang.) But after the first cease-fire in 1948, the residents of Abu Ghosh were told by the Arab Legion to get behind the Arab lines and abandon their village. They, along with hundreds of thousands of other Arabs, became refugees. Some of the Abu Ghosh refugees were treated with exceptional cruelty by the Transjordanians as being too friendly to the Jews.

Most of the abandoned Arab villages in crucial areas around Jerusalem were destroyed by Israel in 1948 and 1949, as the Jews feared being at the mercy of the Arabs in traveling the roads in their own state. One exception was Abu Ghosh, which was left untouched. The few families who managed to stay there remained as Israeli citizens.

Many of Abu Ghosh's former citizens infiltrated into Israel to move back to their old village in 1949 and 1950. In general, Israel treated them as they treated other Arabs who tried to sneak back into Israel - fearful of an Arab fifth column, and largely unaware of the previous friendship between Abu Ghosh's citizens and the Jews, they would deport them back to Transjordan.

Finally, after one such roundup of Abu Ghosh infiltrators in early 1950, the town publicly appealed directly to the Knesset to allow them to stay. Public pressure from Israeli Jews mounted immediately to the defense of Abu Ghosh's Arabs, and almost every single family came back to their homes.

Abu Ghosh shows how the events of 1948 could have turned out had the Arabs treated the Jews as equals. While some of what Israel did to the residents of the village may be regrettable, it also shows that Israel had no policy of ethnic cleansing Arab villages and that her wartime decisions were based on real life and death circumstances.

Abu Ghosh was not unique. There were other Arab villages that were, effectively, Zionist during the 1920s and 1930s. Unfortunately, these were the exceptions, and many Arabs whom the Jews considered friends ended up supporting the bigoted ideologies of the Mufti al-Husayni and Sheikh Qassam and cheered the death of every Zionist.

Today, Abu Ghosh remains a sterling example of Arab-Jewish cooperation. Prominent resident Jawdat Ibrahim, who won $20 million in an Illinois state lottery, invested some of his winnings in a scholarship program that benefits Jews as well as Arabs. A joint Arab-Jewish soccer team was created with the Arab members being from Abu Ghosh. A major music festival brings in Jewish as well as Arab fans.

The residents of Abu Ghosh are proud citizens of the State of Israel and the Jews are proud to have them as neighbors. The shortsightedness and bigotry of most of the Palestinian Arabs, however, keep them on the outside looking in. From there, they can see how the people they decry as "collaborators" are living with the hated Jews, and they can compare this to their own miserable existence at the hands of their so-called "brethren."

More scoops for the Elder. Where are the journalists?

I've been talking about it for weeks, and finally The Jerusalem Post and Newsweek are mentioning that Gaza is not the most hospitable place for reporters and journalists.

It is fun scooping the big boys, but it is very upsetting that organizations that have large staffs of full-time reporters are so consistently behind the curve.

In just the past week I reported about deal where the "Army of God"was possibly paid millions for Alan Johnston's release (beating MEMRI), prostitution in Mecca that wasn't reported anywhere else in the MSM, and Iran paying "martyr" families that was likely not reported anywhere else.

Why can I find things in a couple of hours a day on the Internet things that paid full-time professionals don't seem to notice?

I'm not trying to toot my own horn - I am just saying that the members of the media, even the Israeli media, are not doing their jobs.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

2 killed and 3 injured near Bethlehem in a "family dispute."

It was announced that 28 Palestinian Arabs have died while waiting for the Rafah crossing to open. Keep in mind that Israel offered to open the Kerem Shalom crossing to allow them back into the Gaza Strip and Hamas threatened to shoot the would-be crossers. Hamas is trying to use dead Palestinian Arabs to pressure Israel to open the crossing in violation of the agreement that opened it to begin with. At this time I am not going to count them in my PalArab self-death count, but I'm thinking about it.

The calm Hamas dudes threatened the Ma'an news agency, which has already moderated its coverage of Hamas, saying that Ma'an was not toeing the Hamas party line enough. And now Hamas is accusing Ma'an of lying. (Hamas had already threatened the Fatah -supporting Palestine Press Agency as well.)

Palpress is also reporting on Hamas breaking into homes and injuring people from the Fatah government, and YNet reports on Hamas arresting 30 members of a pro-Fatah clan.

In Nablus, hundreds of Al Aqsa/Fatah terrorists are upset that they cannot take their matriculation exams in private. In the past, they were protected by the "moderate" Fatah government, allowing them to take guns into secret classrooms to take exams (to get high-paying fake jobs for Fatah.) Now, Abbas told them they can't do that anymore so they stopped the exams altogether.

Our count of Palestinian Arabs killed violently by their own now stands at 484.

UPDATE: Another person has died from his injuries during the Fatah/Hamas fighting. 485.

UPDATE 2: "Collaborator" mysteriously dies in Hamastan prison. 486.

1948 flashback on PalArabs being told to leave their homes by the Arab League

As I continue to research my "Psychological History of Palestinian Arabs" series, I sometimes come across articles that are just too good not to share.

From the July 29, 1948 Palestine Post, Column One by David Courtney, a non-Jewish British writer:

This is one of the earlier sources that the Arab League encouraged the refugee problem in order to gain propaganda points. He is explicit that Abu Gosh residents were told to leave their homes by the Arab leaders.

Note also that Courtney believes that most Palestinian Arabs had no desire for this war, "except for a few hotheads." I think it was more than a few but to an large extent he is right. But they didn't fight very hard to keep their land either; they just wanted to move their families elsewhere so they could start again - and the Arab countries forced them to return to fight the Jews, because they didn't want to use their own people! My next chapter will elaborate on this and other topics from 1948-1950 (iy"H).

For another great Courtney column on the same topic a year later, see my posting here.

Palestinian Arabs set up illegal settlement - in Israel

From Ma'an Arabic, quoting Ma'ariv: (autotranslated)

Maariv newspaper reported that a group of Palestinian workers who have managed to infiltrate into Israel during the past few weeks in order to set up work camps inside them Mu near the town of Netivot in the Negev region.

The newspaper added that 13 Palestinians from the town of Dahariya south of Hebron erected tents inside Harsh them to decide where and elaborating them each morning to work in the Negev area only caught the Israeli police dismantled their tents and forced them to return to their town.

Will Peace Now issue a statement condemning this illegal activity?