Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Thursday, July 26, 2007

UK inching towards Hamas acceptance

In the Guardian today, Ismail Haniyeh states that Britain has increased diplomatic ties with Hamas:

The British government has expanded its links with Hamas in recent weeks, according to the militant organisation's leader, Ismail Haniyeh.
Mr Haniyeh, who was the Palestinian prime minister until last month, claims that contacts between Hamas and Britain have increased since they worked together to free Alan Johnston, the BBC Gaza correspondent, who was held captive in Gaza for almost four months.
"I cannot deny that there are now other contacts, other channels of communication with the UK and these involve people of high rank, although I am not personally involved," he claimed in an interview with the Guardian.
"The main aim of the contacts is to improve our democracy and governance. This is just part of the many contacts that are going on with other governments around the world."
He added that Britain wanted to keep the contacts secret.
Officials at the Foreign Office and the British consulate in Jerusalem denied that there had been political links with Hamas and insisted that any contacts had been purely "humanitarian and consular". They said it was possible that Mr Haniyeh had misunderstood the work of British non-governmental organisations such as Forward Thinking and Conflicts Forum, which have established contacts with Hamas. Both groups work with former government advisers and civil servants and members of the House of Lords.

Actually, Conflicts Forum includes a member of the House of Lords.

Conflicts Forum is interesting from another perspective. It recognizes that Islam is political Islam, and wants to talk with both "non-violent" Islamists and terrorists. Reading a little further into the website it is apparent that it does not only want to engage in dialogue - it is meant to be a cheerleading section for terrorists. Its last newsletter said: "Western leaders can neither match nor relate to Haniyah's stature as a politician and a human being."

Forward Thinking, on the other hand, "aims to promote a more inclusive peace process by engaging the religiously motivated Palestinian and Israeli political parties who have been previously excluded from ... dialogue." Yet from its website I could not find a single reference to them speaking with any religiously motivated Israeli parties, nor any pictures of them speaking to any Jews in yarmulkas. It also appears to be a front for advocating Islamist interests under the guise of peaceful resolution.

But let's look further into what the Guardian has to say:

The British government has sanctioned unofficial visits to the UK for senior Hamas officials in Gaza over the past 18 months. In one of the first Ghazi Hamed, the former editor of Al Risala, the Hamas newspaper, visited the BBC and the Guardian. Ahmed Yusef, an adviser to Mr Haniyeh, has also visited the UK.

The Johnston kidnapping forced Britain to change its policy of not publicly meeting Hamas officials. Richard Makepeace, Britain's consul general in Jerusalem, twice travelled to Gaza City to request Mr Haniyeh's help in freeing Johnston. Mr Haniyeh assured Mr Makepeace that he would do everything in his power to free Johnston and Mr Hamed was asked to head the negotiations with the kidnappers.

In May Mr Hamed was again invited to the UK and attended a Hay festival event that was also attended by Gordon Brown, then chancellor. The two did not speak.

Johnston was freed on July 4 after Hamas surrounded the compound of the Dogmush family, the kidnappers.

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, thanked Hamas for its help in freeing the BBC correspondent. Mr Haniyeh said he was pleased with the respect and gratitude shown by the British government and organisations for Hamas's assistance.

"The deputy consul came to thank me personally and the consul general and the foreign minister thanked us in press conferences that were broadcast all over the world. In addition we have received thanks from the Johnston family, British NGOs and the British media. They have shown us a lot of respect," he said. "In addition, 20 members of the British parliament signed a motion to renew contacts with Hamas."

And he's not lying about the 20 MPs who want to talk to Hamas, either.

All in all, it appears that Haniyeh is telling the truth and the British denials are ringing hollow.

And what does Britain get out of this relationship? Haniyeh again:

Mr Haniyeh said that Hamas intended to enforce law and order in Gaza but admitted that the kidnappers of Johnston, who also kidnapped two journalists from Fox TV in Gaza last year, remained free. "But they are being watched closely and are subject to other controls which I can't tell you," he said.

Ah, they are under double secret detention!

Time magazine implies Israel is the obstacle to peace

In an article about the pseudo-Arab League meeting in Israel, Time magazine says:

The problem with Olmert's approach is that the Arab world has run out of patience. It is well aware that the Oslo process floundered, at the end, not over customs arrangements and the Palestinian economy, but over borders, Jerusalem and refugees, and those issues are the ones that must be resolved if the process is to be about anything more than marking time.

Time is not saying that this is the Arab world's perception - it is saying that it is a fact that the Arab world is "well aware" of.

In other words, Palestinian Arab terror attacks, daily rocket attacks, infighting, constant incitement, Hamas' election and takeover of Gaza have no bearing whatsoever on whether there should be a continuing "peace process." No, Time believes that the real issues are "borders, Jerusalem and refugees": the Arab demands and Israel's refusal to acquiesce to them unilaterally are the only issues stopping progress towards peace!

Similarly, look at this paragraph about Syria implying again that Israel is the obstacle to peace with Syria:

Likewise, time may have run out for peace between Israel and Syria. Since the end of last year, Syria has been repeatedly calling for a resumption of the peace talks of the late 1990s premised on Israel returning the Syrian Golan Heights, captured in 1967. But while Olmert has largely evaded the overtures — questioning their sincerity, quibbling about who if anyone should mediate — Syria may have given up. Last week, the Israeli press was filled with rumors that Iran gave Syria $1 billion to purchase weapons in return for abandoning peace overtures towards Israel.

Syria's providing arms to Hezbollah, its deals with Iran, its threats about its own ballisitic missile capability - all ignored by Time. Only Israeli intransigence is at fault.

The entire article does not mention the word "terror" even once.

More on PalArab survey

More from the Pew research survey:

62% of Palestinian Arabs have a favorable opinion of Hamas (more than any country but Bangladesh)

76% have a favorable opinion of Hezbollah (far more than any other country, Lebanon was at 35%)

56% percent say that the influence of religious leaders in the territories are good.

79% have confidence in Hassan Nasrallah as a leader in world affairs, far more than any other country

Once again, the polls show that ordinary Palestinian Arabs are far more extremist than they are portrayed in the Western media.

Let's reward them with a state!

Palestinian Arabs overwhelmingly support terror and Bin Laden

A new survey done by the Pew Global Attitudes Project shows that, almost alone among all Arabs, Palestinian Arabs solidly support terror:

Among the most striking trends in predominantly Muslim nations is the continuing decline in the number saying that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians are justifiable in the defense of Islam. In Lebanon, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Indonesia, the proportion of Muslims who view suicide bombing and other attacks against civilians as being often or sometimes justified has declined by half or more over the past five years.

Wide majorities say such attacks are, at most, rarely acceptable. However, this is decidedly not the case in the Palestinian territories. Fully 70% of Palestinians believe that suicide bombings against civilians can be often or sometimes justified, a position starkly at odds with Muslims in other Middle Eastern, Asian, and African nations.

The decreasing acceptance of extremism among Muslims also is reflected in declining support for Osama bin Laden. Since 2003, Muslim confidence in bin Laden to do the right thing in world affairs has fallen; in Jordan, just 20% express a lot or some confidence in bin Laden, down from 56% four years ago. Yet confidence in bin Laden in the Palestinian territories, while lower than it was in 2003, remains relatively high (57%).

Opinion about Hezbollah and Hamas varies among Muslim publics. Views of both groups are favorable among most predominantly Muslim countries in the Middle East and Asia. And Palestinians have strongly positive opinions of both militant groups. But majorities in Turkey have negative impressions of both Hezbollah and Hamas.
...
Palestinians See Suicide Bombings as Justified

But support for suicide bombing is widespread among Palestinians: 41% say such attacks are often justified while another 29% say it can sometimes be justified (no comparative data from 2002 are available). Only 6% of all Palestinians say it is never justified, by far the smallest proportion in any Muslim public surveyed.

Acceptance of extreme terrorist tactics in the Palestinian territories is remarkably uniform across major demographic groups, including roughly equal proportions of men (44%) and women (38%), Palestinians under the age of 30 (41%) and those 50 years old or older (47%), as well as among those who are the most committed to Islam (38%) and Palestinians who are less religious (45%).

This is remarkable. The rest of the Muslim world is recognizing that supporting terror is a dead end, but PalArabs overwhelmingly support it - across demographic lines! Young and old, religious and secular, men and women - they have managed to create a culture that is not only at odds with all of civilized society, but also at odds with the rest of the Arab world.

The reason is that decades of the worst kinds of incitement in Palestinian Arab media glorifying terror have paid off. Palestinian Arabs have managed to create their own unique identity in the Arab world - and that identity is based on support for violence. Now, they are truly a people.

This explicit support for terror would be the ideological basis for a Palestinian Arab state.

Relativistic terror

Another magazine has noticed the new chumminess between the UN and Hezbollah:

The UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) was increased from 2,000 to 13,300 peacekeepers after the month-long war last summer between Israel and Hizbullah. The UN peacekeepers are led by elite European troops and are charged with helping the Lebanese Army ensure that the tense border remained calm.
But a year on, UNIFIL still finds itself under threat, not from the Shiite Hizbullah, but from suspected radical Sunni militants possibly inspired by Al Qaeda. And in a bizarre twist, some UNIFIL contingents are now seeking the cooperation of the powerful Hizbullah, which also views militant Sunnis as a threat, to help provide tacit security for the peacekeepers, Hizbullah and UNIFIL sources say.

Last month, six Spanish and Colombian soldiers serving with UNIFIL's Spanish battalion were killed when a car bomb exploded beside their armored vehicle, the deadliest attack in UNIFIL's 29-year history.

Last week, a UNIFIL jeep was damaged when a small bomb exploded nearby, confirming fears that last month's bombing was not a random act. In both attacks, radical Sunnis are the prime suspects.
The growing threat of attack by Sunni radicals apparently spurred the leading European troop-contributing states to seek the Shiite Hizbullah's cooperation. According to UNIFIL sources, intelligence agents from Italy, France, and Spain met with Hizbullah representatives in the southern city of Sidon in April. As a result, some Spanish peacekeepers subsequently were "escorted" on some of their patrols by Hizbullah members in civilian vehicles, the UNIFIL sources say.
A day after the six peacekeepers were killed last month, Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos spoke with Manucher Mottaki, the foreign minister of Iran, Hizbullah's main patron. According to a Hizbullah official in south Lebanon, there has been at least one meeting between the Shiite party and Spanish UNIFIL officers since the bombing.

So while Hezbollah may not have changed its pro-terror positions one iota, since a supposedly worse terror group has emerged, they are now considered pretty good by comparison.

A similar phenomenon is happening in Gaza. Both Fatah and Hamas are claiming that the other side is hosting Al Qaeda in Gaza, and the existence of that group there - or any other group that can be claimed to be more extreme than Hamas - ends up bolstering those who want to ease up on Hamas terrorists, like these parliamentarians in the UK.

In a report to be published on Tuesday, a subcommittee of the House of Lords' European Union Committee said that the EU should avoid an "undesirably rigid" approach to dealing with Hamas that would risk undermining progress in building viable and democratic Palestinian institutions, a prerequisite, they say, for any peace settlement.

Still, in the report, entitled "The EU and the Middle East Peace Process," the committee asserts the EU is "right" to require Hamas to renounce violence, recognize Israel and accept existing agreements.

A spokesman for the Foreign Affairs subcommittee, one of seven subcommittees of the European Union Committee, said that Hamas must be "clear on renouncing violence" and that while pressure should be put on the group to recognize Israel and accept previous agreements, "progress should not be scuppered because of this."

This should not be surprising. Fatah is an extremist terror organization by any objective yardstick, but compared to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, it is "moderate." Say the word "moderate Fatah" enough times and people start to believe it.

But if you imagine Jews who hold symmetric positions as Fatah - that only Jews should live in the territories, that the Arabs should move, that 100% of the territories are Jewish, that no compromise is possible, that those who kill Arabs are heroes - they would be considered extremist, militant, terroristic and racist to boot. So would saying the same things about Israel.

This lack of objective standards is one of the major problems in the Middle East. Behavior that any civilized nation would consider beyond the pale is welcomed when done by Arabs - because many of their compatriots would act even worse. Rather than expecting and enforcing a single standard for human behavior, the West is willing to give Arabs much more slack, with the unspoken bigoted assumption that Arabs just don't have the ability to act the way enlightened human beings do.

Here's a short guide on how to make terrorists look moderate without forcing them to actually change their positions, or even to lie:

Have them wear ties and jackets.
Put someone even more bloodthirsty next to them.
Have them elected to any office.
Teach them to use ambiguous language (like "Of course we recognize that Israel exists.")
Have Jimmy Carter, or any of the "Elders," praise them.

Voila! Instant moderation!

Syria occupying 4% of Lebanon - today

A scary followup in the Wall Street Journal to an earlier report from Michael Totten of Syrian occupation of Lebanon:

As of this minute, Syria occupies at least 177 square miles of Lebanese soil. That you are now reading about it for the first time is as much a scandal as the occupation itself.
The news comes by way of a fact-finding survey of the Lebanese-Syrian border just produced by the International Lebanese Committee for U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, an American NGO that has consultative status with the U.N. Because of the sensitivity of the subject, the authors have requested anonymity and have circulated the report only among select government officials and journalists. But its findings cannot be ignored.
In meticulous detail--supplemented by photographs, satellite images, archival material and Lebanese military maps predating Syria's 1976 invasion (used as a basis of comparison with Syria's current positions)--the authors describe precisely where and how Lebanon has been infiltrated. In the area of the village of Maarboun, for instance, the authors observed Syrian military checkpoints a mile inside Lebanon. In the Birak al-Rassass Valley, they photographed Syrian anti-aircraft batteries. On the outskirts of the village of Kossaya they found a heavily fortified camp belonging to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, in violation of U.N. resolutions and Lebanese demands.

...Last September, Mr. Annan paid a visit to Syrian dictator Bashar Assad after the latter had declared he would treat any attempt by the U.N. to deploy peacekeepers along the Lebanese-Syrian border as a "hostile act." To defuse the impasse, Mr. Annan simply accepted Mr. Assad's assurances that Syria would police its border and prevent arms smuggling. "I think it can happen," said the diplomat at a press conference. "It may not be 100%, but it will make quite a lot of difference if the government puts in place the measures the government has discussed with me."

What happened, predictably, was the opposite. In May, Fatah al-Islam, a terrorist group whose leadership was imported from Damascus, attacked Lebanese army outposts outside the Palestinian refugee camps of Nahr El-Bared and Biddawi, causing a bloody standoff that continues till this day. In June, current Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon issued a report citing numerous instances of arms smuggling from Syria to Hezbollah and the PFLP. Yesterday, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah boasted that he once again has missiles that can reach Tel Aviv--missiles he could only have obtained via Syria. Israel confirms his claims.
Mr. Ban's report is notable for its clarity and seriousness. Taken together with the border report, it paints an alarming picture. Though the land grabs are small affairs individually, they collectively add up to an area amounting to about 4% of Lebanese soil--in U.S. terms, the proportional equivalent of Arizona. Of particular note is that the area of Syrian conquest dwarves that of the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms. The farms, which Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and which amount to an area of about 12 square miles, are claimed by Hezbollah as belonging to Lebanon--a useful pretext for it to continue its "resistance" against an Israeli occupation that ended seven years ago.

Needless to say, Hezbollah--which purports to fight for Lebanese sovereignty--makes no similar claims against Syria. For his part, Mr. Assad refuses to agree to a demarcation of his border with Lebanon, just as he refuses to open an embassy in Beirut. The ambiguity serves him well: He can seize Lebanese territory without anyone appearing to take notice, supply terrorist camps without quite harboring the terrorists, and funnel arms to Hezbollah at will--all without abandoning the fantasy of "Greater Syria" encompassing Lebanon, the Golan Heights and Israel itself.

It would, of course, be nice to see the Arab world protest this case of illegal occupation, given its passions about the subject. It would also be nice to see the media report this story as sedulously as it has the controversy of the Shebaa Farms. Don't hold your breath on either score. In the meantime, the only countries in a position to help Lebanon are France and the U.S. They could strike a useful blow by closing their embassies in Damascus until such time as Damascus opens an embassy--with all that it implies--in Beirut.

The author makes a great point - Hezbollah will arm itself with tens of thousands of Katyushas under the pretext of Lebanese sovereignty from an expansionist aggressive Israel, but when Syria grabs land that is unquestionably Lebanese this concern holds no water.

Tisha B'Av, 1948

(I am keeping this post on top until the end of Tisha B'av on Tuesday night.)
Tonight and tomorrow, Jews worldwide will commemorate Tisha B'Av, the anniversary of the destruction of both Temples in Jerusalem as well as other calamities throughout Jewish history.

Jews in Jerusalem have commemorated Tisha B'Av for centuries by visiting the Western Wall in Jerusalem and crying over the Temple's destruction and the daily desecration of this holiest of Jewish sites by the Muslims who built their mosques on its site as a symbol of Muslim supremacy.

But in 1948, for the first time in recorded history, Jews could not visit the Wall. While for the previous two years the British disallowed visits to the Wall during the fast day, there were always at least a few who managed to get through.

In 1948, for the first time in the history of the city, no Jews were allowed to live in the Old City of Jerusalem and no Jews were allowed to visit.

Old Jerusalem was Judenrein. Dozens of synagogues had been destroyed by the Jordanians within days of their occupying Jerusalem, including the famous Hurva synagogue.

The Jordanian commander reported to his headquarters, "For the first time in 1,000 years not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews' return here impossible."

Even after the synagogues were destroyed, the BBC on June 5 "reported" that the Jewish holy places were safe:

This was how Tisha B'Av was for Israel's Jews in 1948.

These actions of the pro-Western, pro-British Transjordanians in 1948 are irrefutable proof that Arab animosity towards Jews had little to do with Zionism and everything to do with Jew-hatred. This is besides the facts that other synagogues in Arab countries were being destroyed at the same time, that Transjordan defiled hundreds of Jewish graves, that Jews were being killed and expelled in Arab countries and all the other anti-semitic crimes by Arabs that occurred in the years surrounding Israel's independence.

Is there any doubt in even the most clueless leftist's mind that, given the opportunity, the Palestinian Arabs would do exactly the same to the synagogues of Jerusalem that their Jordanian forefathers did in 1948?

Today, the Hurva synagogue is being rebuilt yet again:

May it be for the last time.

Academic freedom, PalArab style

An-Najah university is back in the news.

This august institution of higher learning has made the headlines before. It was, after all, where they put up an "art exhibition" celebrating the Sbarro's pizza bombing, complete with body parts:

It has been recognized as a hotbed of terror, boasting many suicide bombers from its alumni.

More recently, it was "twinned" with Manchester University and added cultural ties with universities in France and Germany as well.

With such stellar credentials, who would be surprised when it decides to suspend classes because the students started shooting each other?

Dozens of Palestinian students were wounded, some seriously, in clashes that erupted on Tuesday at An-Najah University in Nablus between Hamas and Fatah supporters.
Eyewitnesses told The Jerusalem Post that some of the students fired from pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles during the melee, which was described as one of the worst incidents of its kind on a Palestinian campus in the West Bank.
"The students turned the campus into a real battlefield," said one eyewitness. "They fought each other with chairs, knives, swords and everything they could get their hands on."
Following the clashes, the university administration decided to suspend studies until further notice and advised all students to stay away from the campus.
Rami Hamdallah, president of An-Najah University, accused Hamas-affiliated students of instigating the clashes.
"The Islamic list on campus has been planning these clashes for a long time," he said. "They are trying to disrupt the educational process on West Bank campuses as they did two weeks ago in Bir Zeit University.
Bir Zeit University was also closed down earlier this month following severe clashes between Hamas and Fatah supporters. Tensions have been running high on all West Bank campuses ever since Hamas's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last month.

We're still waiting for the condemnations from people who support free speech and academic freedom.

Any minute now!

Haniyeh and Zahhar just got their paychecks - from Israel

Israel gave $120 million to Mahmoud Abbas' fake government in early July.

Today, some of that money is going to pay Hamas members of the "Palestinian Legislative Council."

The Palestinian caretaker government has resumed payment of members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), including Hamas members such as deposed Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and former Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahhar. The caretaker government, headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad is also meeting today in Ramallah to discuss the plight of more than 6,000 Palestinians stranded in Egypt at the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip.

Official sources in the PLC said that all members have received a portion of their salaries, which were not disbursed at all in the last period.

The Palestinian daily Al Hayat quoted caretaker Information Minister Riyad Najib Al-Maliki saying, "The Government transferred part of the employees' salaries in addition to the PLC members' without any exclusions." He also said : "No one can seize the salary of any PLC member because of his political views. The salary payment is part of the job of the Palestinian Authority."

Which means that Abbas still considers Hamas to be part of his government.

Hamas' killer bee

For those who haven't been keeping up with Hamas' children's TV:

After Farfur the terror rat was murdered by an Israeli soldier, his cousin, inexplicably a bee named Nahoul, has joined the cast of that same children's show named Pioneers of Tomorrow:

Hostess Saraa’: “Who are you? And where did you come from?”
Nahool: “I am Nahool [the bee], Farfur’s cousin.”
Saraa’: “And what do you want?”
Nahool: "I want to continue the path of Farfur, the path of “Islam is the solution”. The path of heroism, the path of martyrdom, the path of the Jihad warriors. Me and my friends shall continue the path of Farfur. And in his name we shall take revenge upon the enemies of Allah, the murderers of the prophets [i.e. the Jews], the murderers of innocent children, until Al-Aqsa will be liberated from their filth.”
Saraa’: “Welcome! Welcome Nahool.”

The following episode, aired last Friday, goes even further in its indoctrination of children into terrorism, anti-semitism and hatred:

Nahool: “You and we will liberate the sad Al-Aqsa that is waiting for us. Yes, we will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews, who killed my grandfather, and killed Farfur, and history will bear witness to that…”

A young caller, Sabah, is asked what she wants to be when she grows up.
Sabah: “Journalist.”
Saraa', girl in studio: “Wow, journalist! Nahool, we need journalists.”
Nahool: "Why? So that… so that they will photograph the Jews when they are killing Farfur and the little children?
Saraa’: “Yes, Nahool.”
Another young caller says: “We will go on [the path] of Jihad when we grow up.”
Nahool: “Yes, we are all Jihad warriors.
Saraa’: “Allah willing.”

Petro-Arabs gone wild - in Cairo

Here's an interesting follow-up to my posting on Saudi summer marriages - how oil-rich act during their Cairo vacations:

For Arab tourists, Cairo can be sin city

As the sun set on another day of "Arab Season," Amr Khouli leaned on the cushions of his boat as it moved to the gentle waves of the Nile.

This time of year, Mr. Khouli spends days on his faluka, one of the many motorboats that cart tourists up and down the wide river that cuts through this city, catering to a growing number of Arab tourists who have passed up violent Lebanon and opted for safer Egypt for summertime holidays.

In 2006, 13 percent more Arab tourists came to Egypt and stayed 12 percent longer than the year before. This season is shaping up to be another banner year because of the Lebanese instability, says Hala el-Khatib, spokeswoman for the Ministry of Tourism.

But while Khouli welcomes the influx of money that comes with the uptick in tourism, many Egyptians complain that Arabs coming from nearby countries, such as religiously strict Saudi Arabia and Libya, are using Cairo as their own city of sin.

To be sure, tourists of all stripes in Egypt drink more than their share of the locally brewed Stella beer, but the exceptional wealth of the Arab tourists coupled with what Egyptians see as violations of religious rules grates more than the bad behavior of Westerners.

"It's very [strict] in Saudi Arabia because of the religion, so we like to come here to see different countries and different religions – it's not so [strict] as in Saudi Arabia," says Hossam Mohamed al-Shariff, who works in the Saudi embassy here.
...
The expansive garden area in the Marriott Hotel in Cairo's Zamalek neighborhood is a popular hangout for visiting Arabs. It's also know to be a place where many come looking for prostitution.

On the night this reporter visited, two women wearing heavy makeup and enveloping black robes sat at a table. A man wearing the dishdasheh robe, typical in Gulf countries, and a baseball cap walked by and dropped a piece of paper on the women's table.

What it said only the women know. But it's a common tactic to write down a room number and a dollar amount and discreetly toss the slip in the vicinity of a subtly apparent prostitute.

Mr. Shariff says that because Egypt is just a short trip from Saudi Arabia, it's an easy spot for vacation. "I like to visit the tourist places and visit the cafes here, and it has an Arab flavor … we like to come and join these parties that have Arab singers," he says.

As Shariff spoke to this reporter in the Marriott garden, a waiter approached and said he and a foreign journalist could not conduct an interview there.

"Don't worry. I'm not telling them about the hashish and [a drug called] bangao and Leil [nightclub]," he laughs, and waves him away.

Leil is a particularly famous club on Cairo's Pyramids Street, an area well known among Arab tourists for the good times to be had.

The Arab tourists "increase every year because we are very loving to them and we give them very good service and high quality. So they prefer to come here," says club manager Sami Nasherti, crowing that Leil is the only club to have received five stars from Egypt's Tourism Ministry. Leil provides "everything they like," he adds. "They eat and drink and see the belly dancers."

Unlike the grittier clubs on the strip that cater to men, Leil serves "mainly families," Nasherti says.

But even with five stars and a dedicated second level for families, Leil still represents the two sides of the "Arab Season."

Two women in the bathroom, when asked, say vaguely that they are working. In the large mirror, they give a final once over to their sparkling lipstick, long strands of fake hair, and tight, midriff-baring clothing, then head out into the dark main room where the entertainment is under way and the seats are reserved for single men.

Where's Egypt's Rachel Corrie?

Last month, Congress voted to freeze $200 million in its annual aid to Egypt unless it started fighting the huge wave of illegal arms and explosives smuggling to Gaza. This was a long-overdue move, and one that Egypt of course bitterly opposed. The bill still needs to be approved by the Senate and the President.

Egypt is taking this seriously. Now, Egypt is planning to raze houses in Rafah near the border to find some of the smuggling tunnels. It has already expelled residents who live within 50 meters of the border and will expand this zone to 150 meters.

This proves three things.

Firstly, it shows that US aid to despotic governments are almost completely ineffective as a carrot to align their actions with US and Western interests.

Conversely, it shows that withholding that same money can be an extremely effective, at least in the short term, as a stick - and that Arab governments are more likely to respond to the stick than the carrot.

Finally, it proves yet again, as if it needed proving, that the "human rights" community is utterly divorced from any claim to evenhandedness and morality. When Israel demolished houses on the Rafah border for direct self-defense purposes, these organizations would routinely condemn Israeli actions. Arms smuggling for the express purpose of killing Israeli citizens was not a human rights issue to these hypocrites - only the defense against that smuggling.

But when Egypt plans to do the same thing, they are silent.

There are no Rachel Corries willing to stand in front of Egyptian bulldozers. There are no heart-wrenching articles about the Egyptians who are losing their houses. There are no calls for UN sanctions against Egyptian violation of human rights.

Now, why would that be?

Teaching the "Naqba" to Israeli Arabs - and Jews

YNet reports:

The Education Ministry has authorized Arab schools to use a history book featuring the establishing of the State of Israel as a disastrous to the Palestinians, Israel radio published Sunday.

The third-grade book, Living together in Israel, states that some Arab residents were driven out of their homes and became refugees and that Israel confiscated many of their lands.

The book's authors made it a point to state that it was the Arabs that refused the United Nations offer to divide the land between the Palestinian and the Jews (UN resolution 181), while the Jews accepted it.

"When the war ended, the Jews prevailed and Israel and its neighbors signed a truce… the Arabs call the war the 'Nakba', meaning the war of disaster and destruction. The Jews call it the War of Independence."
...
Tamir's decision sparked harsh criticism: National Religious Party Chairman MK Zevulun Orlev called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to fire Tamir immediately saying her decision was "anti-Zionist and goes against the very existence of Israel as a Jewish state."

Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman slammed Tamir's decision as well "Tamir is like Avraham Burg. She expresses not only the post-Zionist spirit but also political masochism. The political left is constantly looking for ways to justify the other side, when we have nothing to apologize for."

Both sides are wrong.

It is impossible to be completely objective when writing anything, and schoolbooks are no exception. The overriding concern when writing schoolbooks must be the truth, an important secondary concern must be that the children are being taught to be good citizens of the nation that they belong to.

As my continuing Palestinian Arab history series shows, 1948 was a catastrophe for most Arabs in Palestine. But the reason that it was so disastrous for them was not because the Jews managed to avoid being pushed into the sea as the combined Arab world so fervently desired. The reason it was a Naqba was because the Arabs of Palestine were treated like dirt by their own leaders and by the leaders of the Arab world. They were used as pawns by Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, for his own aggrandizement and anti-semitic aims; they were used as pawns by the Arab League, they were used as pawns by the Arab nations who committed them to refugee camps, and (as we will see as the series continues, iy"h) they were and are continuing to be used by the UNRWA for its own self-preservation. (From the pan-Arab perspective, 1948 was also a tragedy - because weak dhimmi Jews winning a war against the proud Arab nation was the ultimate disgrace. Histories must emphasize the honor/shame society of Arabs as well in explaining why this was a "naqba.")

No one should discount the fact that Israel did end up destroying many Arab villages after 1948 but at the same time no one should disregard that the reasons that most of the Arabs fled were more due to fear of fighting in general and the conviction that other Arab nations would take care of them rather than from any sort of Zionist policy of expulsion. Yes, most Arabs ended up leaving their homes - that should not be denied - but the context can and must be taught. Israel has little to be ashamed of in the 1948 war, as the infant Zionist state had to make decisions to ensure its survival first. The proven examples of how Zionists tried to stop Arabs from leaving Haifa , how outside Arab armies forced the Arab residents to leave Tiberias, how the residents of Abu Ghosh aimed at peaceful relations with the Jews, - all these need to be taught, just as Deir Yassin must be taught in the proper context for the right age groups.

Classic Zionist histories have ignored some events that muddy the waters in the Paul Newman/"Exodus"-style histories. "Post-Zionist" histories have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction, blaming the Jews for events that overtook them and for decisions that had to be made quickly in the context of their very survival (as well as looking at 1948 through the lens of 21st century multiculturalism.) The truth must be the main concern when writing textbooks, and both sides have not spent nearly enough effort describing what the Arabs of 1948 knew on their own - the major reason for Palestinian Arab suffering is their treatment by their Arab "brethren" and self-anointed "leaders," and to a large extent this remains true today.

There is no reason why the true story of 1948 cannot be taught, warts and all, to Israeli Arabs and to Israeli Jews. In the end, when one looks at the facts, Israel's War of Independence is nothing to be ashamed of.

Freedom of the press, Saudi-style

The Saudi-based Arab News notes:

A 49-year-old Makkah institution was bailed out of financial troubles with a SR10 million cash infusion from Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah’s personal account yesterday.

Al-Nadwa, which has chronicled the daily life of Islam’s holiest city in modern times, has been unable to meet payroll for the past three months, according to Hesham Kaaki, the 30-year-old editor in chief of the newspaper.

“King Abdullah ordered the payment of the amount to the Al-Nadwa newspaper from his personal account to help it overcome its current financial crisis,” said Culture and Information Minister Iyad Madani in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency.

The culture and information minister said that the kind gesture is proof of the king’s support for the Kingdom’s media. Madani added that he hopes the newspaper will regain its glory and competitiveness through the king’s donation.

And we are all sure that Al-Nadwa will continue its hard-hitting editorial policies with this cash infusion from the King.

Peaceful PalArab weekend

The bodies of three women were found, stabbed and strangled to death, in the Gaza Strip. There are reports that it is a mother and two daughters but the names nor the ages have been released yet (the news was in Ma'an Arabic and Palestine Press Agency - Arabic. As of this moment it has not hit any English news sites.)

Since I don't know the ages, I will count them all as women in the 2007 PalArab self-death count, now at 490.

UPDATE: Ma'an English adds more detail:

Gaza – Ma'an – A jeep disposed of three corpses in a deserted area of Deir al Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, and attempted to cover the bodies in soil, reported eyewitnesses and Palestinian security sources on Sunday.

The Hamas-affiliated Executive Force and medical staff discovered the bodies of three females. The cadavers were transported to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah.

According to Palestinian medical sources, there was evidence of knife wounds and suffocation on the corpses.

A Palestinian security source informed Ma'an that the corpses were identified as three sisters aged between 17 and 22. One of the women was married to a resident of Deir al Balah, the others lived in Gaza City.

UPDATE 2: A car was blown up in Gaza, and another person died from the Fatah/Hamas infighting last month. 491.